WEEK 1 – Socio-Cognition and the self

Question 1

Psychology is less than 150 years old

Answer 1

• Early psychologists such as Wundt highlighted the importance of cognitive processes in psychology using introspection – subjective experience of the person
o But … no observable data and impossible to replicate their experiments
• Behaviourism shift – strong emphasis on behaviour on person or animal – producing replicable findings.

Question 2

1930s – where psychological process a result of the war?

Answer 2

• Effects of the war where not the same for Americans, British or French although they do have the same cognitive processes.
• Behaviour was limited because there wasn’t a reason for these processes and behaviours.
• Attitudes, stereotypes, prejudice, ‘scapegoat’ group – processes that social disciplines such as psychology needs to explain.

Question 3

Socio Cognition - How do people make sense of themselves and others?

Answer 3

Fiske and Taylor 2008, social cognition involves: mentalism, cognitive processes in social settings, cross fertilization, real world social issues
• The way people select, interpret, remember, and use social information to make judgements and decisions. - SIRJD
• We don’t generally accept information as facts, we process and change information depending on our social background and experience
• Social cognition concerns the interaction of cognition with the social world.

Question 4

Features in SC

Answer 4

• Mentalism: SC involves cognition and cognitive processes. Memory, learning, perception, encoding…
• Social settings: The context in which we process information has an effect on the result (and the process itself)
• Cross fertilization: SC recognises that cognitive processes affect the understanding of the social context AND that the social context changes individual processes
• Real-world social issues: Psychology is more relevant for other sciences and society as a whole

Question 5

Levels of explanation – slice psychological processes into layers Doise 1980

Answer 5

• Intrapersonal – phenomena ‘inside’ the individual e.g. aggression from the point of view of internal processes
• Interpersonal – phenomena between individuals at given situations (between 2 individuals) - social influence
• Intragroup/ positional – interaction between individuals talking into consideration the situation – e.g. within a group
• Intergroup/ ideological – interaction between individuals (or groups) taking into consideration the role of social beliefs, norms, culture and relationships between groups.

Question 6

SC takes advantage of these levels, allowing researchers to investigate phenomena across levels

Answer 6

• Processes at one level influence other levels
• The explanations proposed are more complete
• SC is into a theory, it is a point of view from which we analyse individuals’ phenomena, social phenomena and their interactions

Question 7

In psychology what are the 3 components of the self?

Answer 7

• Physical self (the person you are) – even this is complex because who you are may not depend on you
• Social self (the social roles you have). Mainly dictated by the expectations of others
• Active agent (The decisions you make and the behaviours you have). Interaction between what you want and what is expected by others

Question 8

Self concept

Answer 8

The self-concept is the sum total of a person’s beliefs (i.e., cognitions) about their own personal attributes.
- These beliefs can be about affect, behaviour, cognitions, and motive.

Question 9

Schema

Answer 9

What you believe about me is a schema…
• Schema: Cognitive structure that represents knowledge about a concept or type of stimulus

• Self-schema: A set of well-elaborated knowledge about the self that guides the process of self-relevant information

We organise information based on what we are (the self-concept) and create a self-schema
We all have a complex self-formed by a number of elaborated schemas

Question 10

There are 3 types of self-awareness (Sedikides & Skowronski, 2000)

Answer 10

• Subjective self-awareness. A differentiation between the physical world and the self. Most animals have subjective self-awareness.6
• Objective self-awareness. This is the ability of perceive the self as an object, or to have the self as the object of attention.
• Symbolic self-awareness. Ability to form abstract representations of the self

Question 11

Self awareness

Answer 11

o	Self-awareness develops around 18 months of age 
o	Brooks (1978) suggests that babies of 9 and 12 months do not recognise themselves in front of a mirror, while 18-month-old babies do 
o	Some people claim that social interaction is key for this development 

Gallup (1977) studied primates to investigate self-awareness. The rough test is still used today – orangutang noticed mark on his head, more aware than expected. – can only recognise themselves if raised in groups.

Question 12

Theory of mind

Answer 12

can understand that my thoughts /sense of self is different from everyone else. - Self recognition can demonstrate this.

Question 13

Consequences of self awareness

Answer 13

• According to self-awareness theory (Duval & Wicklund, 1972) when we focus on ourselves, we compare our current behaviour against standards and values
• At the same time, we all try to maintain a positive, stable self-concept; as well as a positive evaluation about ourselves.
• Comparing the self can be an unpleasant process.
• Baumeister (1991) proposed that destructive behaviours are a way to ‘escape the self’

Question 14

Self-concept maintenance – we compare ourselves against one of three things

Answer 14

Self-concept maintenance – we compare ourselves against one of three things
• The self as it should be…
o Theory of self-regulation (Carver & Scheier, 1981, 1998).
o Self-discrepancy theory (Higgins, 1987)
• Another individuals
o Social comparison theory (Festinger, 1954)
o Self-evaluation maintenance model (Tesser, 1988)
• Another group
o Social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1979)

Question 15

Theory of self-regulation

Answer 15

Carver and Scheier proposed that using self-awareness we evaluate if we are meeting our goals.
• We compare the self against public standards (in the case of public self-aware people; e.g., family or significant others), or private standards (in the case of private self-aware people; e.g., values).
• If we do not meet our goals, it produces unpleasant self- awareness…
• We change our behaviour to match the standards we are comparing against… the main aim is to reduce unpleasant self-awareness.

Question 16

Higgins – proposed 3 types of self schema - Self-discrepancy theory

Answer 16

• Actual self – how we currently are, Ideal self – how we we would like to be based on personal preferences, ought self – how we think we should be

• Large discrepancies between actual self and ought/ideal self-motivate change.
• Failure to reduce discrepancy can lead to negative emotions – which motivate people to change
• Failure to meet standards is not usually associated with positive changes in behaviour – sometimes the opposite.

Question 17

Social comparison theory – Festinger

Answer 17

• In most situations there is no accurate way to estimate how we perform so we use others to assess our performance
• Compare performances against someone who is better (upward comparison)/ someone who is worse (downward comparison). – compare to those similar
• Compare ‘upwards’ if we feel we have similarities with the target – can achieve its position
• Most often we compare downwards – protects our self-concept.

Question 18

2 more aspects added to Festinger’s theory

Answer 18

• Assimilation: if we compare to someone better – obtain the same status – by being physically close to target, having similar attributes, by the salience of the connection with the target
• Contrast: depending on how extreme differences with the target are – we reduce the personal relevance of the attributes we share with the target, focus on the salience of the individual self.

Question 19

Self-evaluation maintenance model - Tesser

Answer 19

What do we do if we have no one to compare but someone who is better than us?
• Tesser proposes that we can protect our self-concept using self-reflection.
o Self-reflection. Is when we derived our positive self-evaluation by the accomplishments of those who are close to us.
o The comparison domain must NOT be relevant to the self The person must be sure of his/her capabilities
o But what happens if the domain IS relevant AND the person is not sure about his/her capabilities?
• Four strategies to boost self-concept: exaggerate the ability of the target, change the target, distance from the target, devaluate the dimension of comparison.

Question 20

Social identity theory

Answer 20

• The self of the person can be linked to the self of the groups he or she belongs to, creating a social identity
• Self-schemas are complex and only those who are important and relevant (salient) in a particular situation will be active.
• The salience of the self depends on the context
•

Question 21

Self-categorisation theory

Answer 21

proposes that when a social identity of an individual becomes salient, the self is defined based on the norms of the group.
• We can maintain a positive self-concept based on the membership to different groups.
• If the self of the group is close to the self of the individual, then a positive performance of the group can lead to a positive view of the individual self.

Question 22

Self-regulation applications

Answer 22

• Eating behaviours – the way and number of times we eat is regulated by social rules
o The amount and times we eat are regulated by us and social rules
• Body image – the ideal body standards is regulated by us and societies
o Aspects of attractiveness and social requirements are regulated separately by gender
o Think about who is the regulator: people in the gym, personal standards of fitting into certain clothes
• Organisational behaviour – roles we perform are heavily regulated by organisations, values and social interactions
o Acceptance of leadership is based on expectations
o The same norm do not apply to everyone
o The norms change – what was once great now is not.