week 2 Flashcards
Darwin on self
He ran an experiment there he place glass Infront of orangutans and when they saw the reflexion they tried to kiss it
showing they didn’t have awareness that it was them
Gallup 1968 self
Placed a mark is placed on an animal’s forehead and then placed them in front of a mirror. If the animal touched there forehead for the mark
Then it showed self-awareness
animals like chimpanzees did this
However it is only a test of physical awareness not psychological sense
Self concept
the personal summary of who we are, including our positive and negative qualities, relationships to others, group membership and beliefs
Introspection
the process by which one observes and examines one’s internal states for behaving in a certain way
bad introspection
potential for inaccurate reflections because people are not conscious of all their reasons for doing things
So people can make things up without realising
Repress unwanted thoughts and experiences
Potential to overestimate
The dynamic self
The self that is expressed is highly variable and socially
You develop a sense of who you are through your interactions with other
We do not passively absorb social feedback we actively interpret
Self construal
a person’s views and knowledge about themself is shaped through an active construal process that plays out in interaction with the social environment
The self
The self goes beyond doing as an agent in control how we see ourselves
It also involve being that is describing and understanding our thoughts and feelings.
The self therefore has an elaborate knowledge and feeling structure which can both guide and constrain our behaviours
The self and social environment
Both the doing self and the being self are intertwined our behaviours is shaped by perceptions of both
Self perception theory
Self-perception theory suggests that people can infer states by observing their own behaviour
Attributions- explaining the process of behaviour we observe in others: Intrinsic motivation, Extrinsic motivation
Danger of justification effect
Social comparison
When people are uncertain of their abilities or opinions then they evaluate themselves through comparison with others
We often need to benchmark ourselves against others even when there is objective information available
Self-expansion model
people seek to expand their sense of self
Motivation principle: basic human motive to explore, self-improve broaden perspective. Inclusion-of-other-in -self-principle: expanding self through relationships, because the other’s resources, perspectives, identities are experienced as one’s own
Self expansion study
e.g., Aron et al., 1995 asked 1st and 2nd year UG students (n=329) five times over ten weeks to indicate if they have fallen in love.
At each testing point participants also had to make an open-ended list of self-descriptive terms (e.g. athletic, outgoing, studious)
Students who had recently fallen in love increased descriptors to include features of their new relationship partner in their own self-concepts.
Generalised Other
Mead:
interested in children play games. All involve position exchange taking role of other.
Children must form structure and organised idea of a generalised other and how to respond to the challenges it presents.
The generalised other is a guiding concept in knowing what to do yourself in such situations
Interpersonal perception method
Social relationships comprise a myriad of simultaneous perspectives. Direct perspectives- what self and other think about X
Meta perspectives- each party’s estimation of what other thinks about x
Findings: the study highlights that we only ever develop an approximate model of what we think others are thinking
This describes a phenomenon that has been called anchoring and adjustment
