Week 4: The Self Flashcards
What is self concept? What is I vs me?
Our self concepts the overall understanding and perceptions a person has about themselves. It includes your beliefs, feelings, and ideas about their own identity, abilities, and characteristics. It is shaped by experiences, social interactions, and reflections on personal qualities and values.
Key components of self-concept include:
Self-identity: Understanding of who you are, your roles, and your values.
Self-esteem: How you value or judge yourself.
Self-efficacy: Belief in your ability to achieve goals.
Social identity: How you define yourself in relation to others and social groups.
William James
I🕵️♀️= The part that is aware of all our thoughts and experiences . It is constant unchanged and provides a sense of continuity ofer time
Me 🧍= The object of experience, everything we identity as part of ourself and what the ‘I’ reflects on.
Cultural influence on self concept
Culture defines identities, roles and traits which help people form a self concept of themselves.
Cultures differ in the way they promote an individual to identify themselves as independent or interdependent. (Individualistic vs collectivist cultures)
Social Identity Theory (Tajfel & Turner): suggests that people define themselves largly in terms of the social group they identify most with.
Gender influence on self concept
Social role theory: idea that gender differences in behavior, personality and self definition arise because of a long history of role distribution (learned from same-sex parent) between the sexes and error prone assumptions that those roles are essential to the nature (what they are innately good at) of men and women.
Sex role socialization: process by which individuals learn the behaviors, attitudes and expectations that society considers appropriate for their gender.
The influence of social context on self concept
Sometimes there self-concept isn’t affected by the context
Context doesn’t influence one’s:
- Self-schema: organization/storage one’s self-defining attributes. There attributes include memories, beliefs, and generalizations that support these attributes (the evidence)
Context influences the
-Working self-concept: the portion of a self-schema that is activated and that influences an individual’s behavior. Information, visual cues, solo status (a sense that one is unique from those in the environment) highlights/primes it.
The social self and the embdeddedness in the enviornment
Idea that an individual-s identity is deeply intertwined with their social cultural and physical surroundings.
How do reflected appraisals help individuals perceive and evaluate themselves. What are some mistakes that can arise?
Reflected Appraisals: Forming a self concept based on how you think the generalized other/collective eye (a mental image of people in society) perceive you 🦹♀️ - a person close to you will cause most change.
Symbiotic interactionism (Cooley, 1902): idea that people use their understanding of how others view them as the primary basis of knowing themselves.
Looking glass self:🪞 idea that others reflect back to the individual who she is by how they behave towards her.
1) you observe how others view you (appraisals) 2) you incorporate these appraisals into your self concept
Potential mistakes:
External characteristics (being charming or flirtatious) are better observed by others, so relying on what they think is 👍
Reflected appraisals are different from actual appraisals because they are based on what WE think THEY think. There is a gap between reflected and actual because 1) people soften feedback 2)people falsely assume how judgy others are
How do social comparisons help individuals perceive and evaluate themselves. What are some errors that can arise?
Social Comparison Theory (Festinger, 1954): Idea that people evaluate their abilities, opinions and situations by comparing themselves with others. This can happen in 1 of 2 ways
1) Upward comparison:⬆️ comparing oneself to others who are perceived to be better/more accomplished - this can lead to ✅self improvement or 🤬 inadequacy or jelousy
2) Downward comparison ⬇️: comparing yourself with those that are worse. leads to ✅ boost in self esteem and provide self comfort
Problems associated: problems with over or underestimating your and others attributes. “The skills needed to produce correct responses are virtually identical to those needed to evaluate the accuracy of one’s responses.” - ignoring ignorance
Better-than-average effect: is people’s tendency to rank themselves higher than others on positive attributes
How does self perception guide individuals to use their own behavior to understand. What are some limitations to this?
We are most likely to learn about ourselves though self perceptions when encountering a new or unusual stimuli.
Facial feedback hypothesis: Idea that our facial expressions not only reflect emotions but can help to influence and amplify them.
Limitations of self perception: We often can’t understand how we think/feel. We over-underestimate how much things affects us. This causes to have incomplete and incorrect understanding of our state.
Two-factor theory of emotions: People’s level of arousal determines the intensity of emotion, but the meaning of the emotion is attributed to the cause that you give it. This can give rise to the misattribution of arousal: when we believe that arousal is caused by one source whereas it is from another, making us feel experience emotions that wouldn’t normally occur (a bit like the placebo effect)
Excitation transfer theory: argues that the misattribution happens when the individual encounters the two stimuli across a short time frame. The leftover excitation/arousal from first stimulus is passed onto the second intensifies the emotions of the second. The consequences can be both good or bad.
What are the emotional consequences when an individual falls short of their ‘ought’ vs ‘ideal’ self?
Ought self- who you think you should be based on external pressures
Actual self-who you currently are
Ideal self-Who you would like to be based on you aspirations
Self discrepancy theory: When ought self and actual self
❌ (large discrepancy) anxious and guilty and
✅ (small discrepancy) calmly secure.
When ideal self
❌ sad and
✅satisfied.
What is self regulation?
How people decide what goals to persue and how they attempt to guide their thoughts, feeling and behavior to reach those goals. In order to be able to self regulate one must be
- Self awareness (able to asses thoughts, feeling and behavior in relation the world around them)
- Able to immagine abstract goals and hypothetical outcomes and future situations
- Mental flexibility
- Willpower: the ability to overcome temptations, challenges and obstacles that would impede one’s long term goals.
How does being self aware (self-awareness) influence self regulation?
Self awareness theory (Duavl & Wicklund, 1972): The idea that one’s attitudes, values and goals are most likely to influence one’s behavior when attention is focused on the self. 🕳️
Once we become self aware we are more likely to clearly see the difference between what we are doing and what we should be doing. The superego 🧑⚖️⚖️ (the internal judge that sees these two standard) makes us feel bad and are motivated to make a difference if the difference has a high likelihood of being reduced. If not people are more likely to escape self-awareness.
How do goals motivate actions?
People can consciously or unconsciously set themselves goals. Conscious goals = i need to run 5 km. Unconscious goal = I am reading the textbook to get a degree in psych.
Auto-motive theory (Chartrand & Bargh, 2002): in our environment (people, object and context) there is many subtle goal-related stimuli which can subconsciously motivate behavior
Goals have a stronger influence in the brain compared to other knowledge, this is because they continuously request attention until goal is met or abbandoned
What is the action identification theory how does it relate to describing actions on a concrete and abstract level?
The action identification theory: The theory explains how people perceive and interpret actions they themselves or others perform in a way that ranges from very concrete to very abstract. A concrete identification will focus on the specific, immediate and physical aspect of the action (placing a brick)🧱 . The abstract one focuses on a broader meaning or goal behind the action and help see the bigger picture (building a cathedral). ⛪️
How does the proximity of the decision influence whether abstract or concrete details are used?
Construal level theory: When people imagine events in the future they are more likely to focus on the abstract meaning of these events (eg personal growth) rather than the concrete ones. Whereas, when the decisions are in a near future you are more likely to make the decision on concrete details because you can base the decision on concrete info.
Why are humans bad at predicting how they will feel in the future?
Affective forecasting: idea that people are ofter bad at predicting their reaction to potential future events. 🌤️
This happens because we overestimate the impact of a salient factor and forget about factors such as relationships and health which will be the most influential. Affecting forecasting can influence how we act in the present too. Examples: not going out for the fear of things not working out, cheating at the last opportunity because it is the last one
What is ego depletion, what is some evidence that supports this/goes against it?
Ego depletion: 😩😓 a psychological theory that suggest that willpower and self-control are limited resources that can get used up, resulting in difficulty in regulating behavior. 🔋🪫
Evidence against: Giving people monetary 💸 rewards or reminding them of their personal values 💕 can counteract the effect of ego depletion.
Different cultures have different of what willpower is (finte/energizing/a fixed trait/ a potential area for improvement-growth mindset-)
Evidence to support: Once people have been putting in a lot of effort in a task (having high self control) they are less motivated to do any further work
What role do the hot and cold systems have in the role of self-regulation?
Hot system 🔥: Driven by strong emotions. Provides energy and direction to seek out goals. Impulsive.
Cool system 🧊: Relies on level-headed decisions. Essential to keep us on track. needed for delayed gratification.
