David Myers

11e
The Self in a Social World

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Spotlights and Illusions

Spotlights
Spotlight effect (Lawson, ‘2010)
 Belief that others are paying more attention to one’s
appearance and behavior than they really are
Illusions
Illusion of transparency (Stavitsky & Gilovich, 2003)
 Illusion that our concealed emotions leak out and can be
easily read by others

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Research Close-Up: On Being
Nervous about Looking Nervous
Examples of interplay between our sense of self and our
social world
Social surroundings affect our self-awareness
Self-interest colors our social judgment
 Self-serving bias
 weattribute favorable outcomes to internal causes (self)
 We attribute unfavorable outcomes to external causes

Self-concern motivates our social behavior

 We monitor our own and others’ behavior (Snyder)
Social relationships help define our self
 Could mindful meditation help?
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Self-Concept: Who Am I?

A person’s answers to the question, “Who am I?”

Take time to answer this question…
 Are your answers more relational (collectivist) or about self
(individualist)?
Which brain hemisphere helps you to recognize
yourself? (Decety & Sommerville, 2003)
Right?
 Left?

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At the Center of Our Worlds: Our
Sense of Self
Schema
Mental templates by which we organize our worlds)
 We bolster our self-schema by remembering things better
that are consistent with it. (Kilstrom & Cantor, ’84)
Self-schema
Beliefs about self that organize and guide the
processing of self-relevant information

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Possible Selves

Images of what we
dream of or dread
becoming in the future
Spend more time in the
present!

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Development of the Social Self

What Determines Our Self-Concept?

Roles we play
Social identities we form
Comparisons we make with others
How other people judge us
Surrounding culture

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Development of the Social Self

The Roles We Play

New roles begin as playacting then become reality
 As we play them we begin to believe them (self perception
theory, (D. Bem)
Social Comparisons
We compare ourselves with others and consider how we
differ …Via Social Comparison theory (Festinger, ‘54)
 We tend to compare upward
 Who is your referent group?

 Can diminish satisfaction

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Development of the Social Self

Success and Failure

Our daily experiences cause us to have empowerment
or low self-esteem
 Remember Self-esteem <-> Competence?
Other People’s Judgments
Looking-glass self (Cooley, 1902 –sociologist)
 How we think others perceive us is a mirror for perceiving
ourselves

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Self and Culture

Individualism
Concept of giving priority to one’s own goals over
group goals and defining one’s identity in terms of
personal attributes rather than group identifications
 Independent self
 Western cultures – tend towards self-inflation (cf to

Japanese)
 - Is Pride a deadly sin?

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Self and Culture

Collectivism
Giving priority to the goals of one’s group and defining
one’s identity accordingly
 Interdependent self
 Asian, African, and Central and South American cultures

 Thought ? Can you think of groupings other than just national

cultures?

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Self and Culture

Culture and Cognition

Richard Nisbett’s The Geography of Thought (2003)
 Contends that collectivism results in different ways of
thinking
 Asians tend to think more in relationships than Americans

 Americans see choices as expressions of themselves.

 Which focus more on the focal object/background?

 Japanese / Americans?

 What does this tell us?

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Self and Culture

Culture and Self-Esteem

In collectivist cultures
 Self-concept is context-specific rather than stable
 Conflict takes place between groups

 Persist more when failing

In individualistic cultures

 Self-esteem is more personal and less relational
 Persist more when winning

 Conflict takes place between individuals

 Crime

 Divorce

In your opinion, which culture is ‘better’?

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Self-Knowledge

Explaining Our Behavior

Do we know what affects our mood?
Predicting Our Behavior
 Can your roommate predict the longevity of your romantic relationship
better than you? (McDonald & Ross, ‘97)
Planning fallacy
 Tendency to underestimate how long it will take to complete
a task
 What are the implications for goal setting
 In job or in school?

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Self-Knowledge

Predicting Our Feelings (Gilbert & Wilson)

 Studies of “affective forecasting” reveal people have the greatest
difficulty predicting the intensity and the duration of their future
emotions
 We underestimate the effects of situational cues

 Impact bias
 We overestimate the enduring impact of emotion-causing events

 How much time would you like on a island holiday?

 How long would it take to get over a job loss?

 Immune neglect
 Tendency to neglect the speed and strength of the “psychological immune
system” which enables emotional recovery and resilience after bad things
happen

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Self-Knowledge

The Wisdom and Illusions of Self-Analysis

 We often aren’t aware of how thinking brought an “aha” experience.
 Dual attitude (T. Wilson, “85)
 Mental processes that control or behavior are distinct from
those we use to explain our behavior
 Automatic implicit attitudes regarding someone or something

often differ from our consciously controlled, explicit attitudes

 What’s the difference in the two?
 How are we strangers to ourselves?

 Implicit ones change more slowly

 Self-reports are untrustworthy – no guarantee of their validity

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Self-Esteem (motivation power?)
Our overall self-evaluation or sense of self-worth
What are your “domains” of SE? (Crocker & Wolfe)
 Attractive/smart/athletic/rich/loved? +++
Or is it “bottom up”? (Brown & Dutton?)
 What is the baby example?
 Feedback is best when it is true and specific
 Leads to high “self-efficacy”
 General praise…”you can do anything you want”
 -Can lead to unrealistic optimism What were you told in

school? Competence feedback -> High Self-efficacy

 Which do better? Those failing were told “feel great about

yourself-hold your head high” or “taking control will help”

 (Forsyth et al., 2007)

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Self-Esteem Motivation

Self-esteem maintenance
What level is best to have? Hi/med/lo?
Self-esteem threats occur among friends whose
successes can be more threatening than that of
strangers (remember social comparison theory?)
Referent others
Terror Management Theory states humans must find
ways to manage their fear of death.

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The “Dark Side” of Self-Esteem

Narcissism
Delroy and Williams (2002)
 “The Dark Triad” of negative traits
 Narcissism

 Machiavellianism (manipulativeness)

 Over time: college students’ (Twenge, ‘06)

 Narcissism

 Empathy

 Hi Narcissims > more “hooking up”, gambling, cheating

 Me generation

 Need for autonomy/ competence/relationships (E. Deci)

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Perceived Self-Control

Effortful self-control depletes our limited willpower

reserves… controlling emotions during upsetting film
resulted in
 Showing more aggression and fighting with their partner
 Became less restrained in sexual thoughts and behaviors
 DeWall et al., ‘07 Finkel & Campbell, ‘01)

Our brain’s “central executive” consumes available

blood sugar when engaged in self-control

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Self-Efficacy (Albert Bandura)
What’s the difference between self-esteem and self-
efficacy?
How competent we feel on a task
Leads us to set challenging goals and to persist
Competency + persistence = accomplishment / self
confidence
 …if you have control over the outcome!

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Locus of Control (Julien rotter)

Who would you rather dance with?

Extent to which people perceive outcomes as
internally controllable by their own efforts and
actions or as externally controlled by chance or
outside forces

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Learned Helplessness versus Self-
Determination
Learned Helplessness
Hopelessness and resignation learned when a human or
animal perceives no control over repeated bad events
 Martin Seligman

Self-Determination
Development of self-discipline in one area of your life
may cause self-control in other areas as well
 Edward Deci

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The Costs of Excess Choice

Excess Freedom
Too many choices can lead to dissatisfaction with our
final choice
People tend to be generally happier with decisions
when they can’t undo them
 So does love cause marriage or does marriage cause love?

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Self-Serving Bias

Tendency to perceive oneself favorably

Explaining positive and negative events
 Self-serving attributions
 Tendency to attribute positive outcomes to oneself and

negative outcomes to other factors

 Contribute to marital discord, worker dissatisfaction, and

bargaining impasses How so?

 I got an “A” in social ψ

 Dr. Mitchell gave me a “C” in social ψ

 “only others fall prey to the self-serving bias!”

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Self-Serving Bias

Can We All Be Better than Average?

Lake Wobegon effect
 “all the children are above average”
Most people see themselves as better than the average
person on the following dimensions
 Subjective, (e.g. “disciplined”) vs. Observable (“punctual)
 Socially desirable,

 Common dimensions

Are we more self-serving on subjective or observable?

Why?

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Self-Serving Bias
Areas in which we believe we are above average
…but sometimes you’re right….but how will you know when?
Ethics Parental support
Professional competence Health
Virtues Attractiveness
Intelligence Driving

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Self-Serving Bias

Unrealistic Optimism
Is on the rise
Illusory optimism increases our vulnerability
 Remember the tendency to underestimate the strength of
situational cues on our ability to self-control?
How does this explain the 2008 housing bubble?
Defensive Pessimism (Julie Norem, ‘2000)

Adaptive value of anticipating problems and harnessing

one’s anxiety to motivate effective action

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Self-Serving Bias

False Consensus Effect

Tendency to overestimate the commonality of one’s
opinions and one’s undesirable or unsuccessful
behaviors
 Why do you think integrity tests for employment work?
False Uniqueness Effect
Tendency to underestimate the commonality of one’s
abilities and one’s desirable or successful behaviors

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Self-Serving Bias

Explaining Self-Serving Bias

Self-serving bias is a by-product of how we process and
remember information about ourselves
Self-Serving Bias may be
Adaptive
 Protects people from depression
 Depressed people may be more in tune with reality!

Maladaptive
 Why didn’t I get the big merit raise?
 Group-serving bias

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Self-Presentation (Barry Schlenker)
Wanting to present a desired image both to an external
audience (other people) and to an internal audience
(ourselves)
It’s a good thing in employment interviews!
Self-Handicapping (fear of failure)
 Protecting one’s self-image with behaviors that create a handy
excuse for later failure
Self-Monitoring
 Tendency to act like social chameleons
Twin truths: self-efficacy and self-serving bias
Find the middle ground through careful self-reflection!

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