WEEK 2: THE SELF Flashcards
What is William James (1890) perspective on the self?
contains two aspects:
“me”- knowledge i have of myself
“i”- reflexibility aware of myself (the observer of “me”)
what is Cooley (1902) perspective of the self?
“the looking glass self” where our self concept is shaped by other people- specifically how we imagine ourselves in their eyes and how they treat us.
what is social comparison theory?
where things cannot be measured objectively, people look to others for cues about how things should be judged.
judgements are made relative to available comparison standard.
whether smth is good or bad b=depends on whether it is better or worse.
how do we compare? specifically, when and who to?
when? when standard are ambiguous
who? people similar to us. (“if they are good at x, i should be too”)
comparing to those slightly better is motivating, and those worse is an ego boost- it depends what we want out of it.
explain what the enhancement vs verification argument is about
a lot of social psychological theories of the self assume that people are motivated by wanting to maintain a self image which is positive (self-enhancement motive)
others argue that people are more motivated by the desire for people to see them accurately (self-verification motive)
use an example of a study to example whether the enhancement or verification argument is stronger
Swann et al. found that people were more likely to want to chat again with people who described them in a way that was verifying and not enhancing (noticing their bad features which the person also recognised) than enhancing but not verifying (complimenting them in a way the person thought was untrue of themselves).
Therefore people prefer to be understood than just to be complimented.
explain a life-real example of the the enhancement / verification argument.
explain why people stay in abusive relationships. some people have low self esteem and so these harmful situations are consistent with their negative self esteem.
these same people may disengage with positive relationships.
