 How do we define the self?

 Elements:

◦ The body

◦ Social identity: A cluster of meaningful definitions

that become attached to the body (name, social
relationships, etc.)

◦ Active Agent: Involved in decision making

 Possible Selves: Thoughts about what the self
could be (good or bad)

 Self-Guides: How we would like to be

◦ Ought-Self: What you should be (met with guilt
anxiety, and anger)
◦ Ideal-Self: What you could ideally be (met with
sadness, depression, and disappointment)
 Interpersonal Tool:
◦ Allows us to function in society, establish and
maintain relationships, etc
 How do we label or treat people who seem to lack a
sense of self?

 Decision Making Aid: Values, preferences,

and priorities shape small and large
decisions
 How does the self process so much
information?
◦ Self Regulation: helps in deciding between two
impulses
 Self-Reference Effect: The tendency to
process efficiently and remember information
related to oneself

 Implicit Egotism: The tendency to make

favorable self-associations
◦ We prefer occupations, locations, etc. that start
with letters in our names
 Self-Concept: A person’s answers to the
question who am I?
◦ Loosely organized collection of self-schemas

 Self Schema: Beliefs about the self that

organize and guide the processing of self-
relevant information
 Self-knowledge

 Why is self-knowledge helpful?

◦ Explaining our behavior

◦ Predicting our behavior (e.g., in relationships)

 Self-knowledge
◦ Predicting our feelings:
 “Affective forecasting:” Predicting intensity and
duration of future emotions

 Are we effective affective forecasters?

 Impact Bias: Overestimating the enduring impact of
emotion-causing events
 Immune Neglect: Tendency to underestimate speed and
strength of “psychological immune system”
 We have lots of info about the self, but are we
the most accurate?
◦ Why does self deception occur?
 Subtle biases allow us to avoid potentially damaging
information
 Positive Illusions
◦ People overestimate their good qualities, successes
◦ People overestimate control
◦ People are more optimistic than they should be

What are the implications of these illusions?

- Having a positive view of the world is adaptive

What happens when we overindulge our positive

illusions?
 Social identity: You in the social context (e.g., race,
ethnicity)

 How is social identity formed?

 1. The roles we play: Acting turns to sense of self
 Looking to previous behavior to guide future behavior

 2. Social comparisons: Evaluating one’s abilities and opinions by

comparing oneself with others
 Upward vs. downward comparisons

 3. Other people’s judgments

 Looking-glass self (Cooley): how we think others perceive us as
a mirror for perceiving ourselves.
 It isn’t how others see us but how we think they see us
 Mechanisms of Change

◦ Internalization: People internalize the implications of their

behavior. Acting in a certain way can lead to thinking about
oneself in that way

◦ Biased Scanning: We scan memory and self-concept in a

biased fashion, looking for support for certain view of self

◦ Interpersonal Factors: We are more likely to internalize

information about the self when it is shared in a public (and
not anonymous) forum
 Tice (1981) asked participants to answer loaded questions
in either public, interpersonal setting or private,
anonymous setting
 Individualism
◦ 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: Construing one’s identity as
independent from others
 Collectivism:
Giving priority to the goals of one’s group (often
family or work group) and defining one’s identity
accordingly
 Interdependent Self: Construing one’s identity in
relation to others
 Motivation for favorability:

◦ The need to succeed at something

◦ We compensate when our self is threatened (e.g.,

Steele 1975 bad driver study)
 Need for at least some self-affirming information
 Motivation for favorability
◦ Tesser’s (1988) model for maintaining a favorable
self-concept:
 1. Self-Reflection: Gaining self-esteem from the
accomplishments of those close to us
 2. Comparison: Gaining self-esteem by doing better than
someone else

These processes are governed by the following variables:

 1. Performance: How well the other person does
 2. Closeness: Linkage between you and the other
 3. Relevance: Importance of other’s performance to your
own self-concept
 What are the implications of Tesser’s Model?
◦ We prefer to see strangers succeed rather than
friends when a dimension is relevant to self-concept
(Tesser & Smith, 1980)

◦ We distance ourselves from others who perform too

well on relevant dimensions (Pleban & Tesser, 1981)

◦ We downplay the relevance of a dimension on which

someone close to us does well (Tesser & Paulhus,
1983)
 Motivation for Consistency
◦ Why is there a strong motivation for consistency?

◦ People with negative self-concepts react negatively

to positive feedback

◦ Does this mean the desire for consistency is

stronger than the desire for favorability?

 Consistency desired on cognitive measures (e.g.,

beliefs) and favorability desired on affective measures
(e.g., attraction)
 Self-esteem: Overall self-evaluation of self-
worth

◦ Attributes can influence evaluations of self-esteem

◦ Overall self-esteem can also impact attributes

 Why do we Need Self Esteem?
◦ Solomon, Greenberg, and Pyszczynski (1991)
suggest that self-esteem provides a buffer against
existential anxiety
 Bolstering self-esteem is a terror management strategy

◦ More commonly, self-esteem is linked to concerns

about belonging and social attachment (i.e., not
being alone)
 The “Dark Side” of Self-Esteem
◦ Low self-esteem predicts depression, drug abuse
and other negative outcomes
 People with low self-esteem typically have confused
self-concepts and are motivated to self-protect

◦ High self-esteem predicts initiative, resilience, and

pleasant feelings

◦ But…high self-esteem can have negative outcomes

as well
 Self-Serving Bias: The tendency to perceive
oneself favorably

 Explaining positive and negative events

◦ Self-Serving Attributions: A form of self-serving
bias; the tendency to attribute positive
outcomes to oneself and negative outcomes to
other factors
◦ Even occurs with former vs. present self
 Can we all be better than average?
◦ People estimate that they are better than average
(e.g., more ethical, more virtuous)

 False consensus and uniqueness

◦ False Consensus Effect: Tendency to overestimate

the commonality of one’s opinions and one’s
undesirable or unsuccessful behaviors

◦ False Uniqueness Effect: Tendency to

underestimate the commonality of one’s abilities
and one’s desirable or successful behaviors
 Reflections on self-serving bias
◦ The self-serving bias as adaptive
 Protects against depression; buffers stress
◦ The self-serving bias as maladaptive
 Disharmony, hubris (pride)
◦ The group-serving bias
 Explaining outgroup members’ positive behaviors as
situational and attributing negative behaviors to
dispositions
 Self-efficacy:
A sense that one is competent and
effective
◦ It is different from self-esteem which refers to
self-worth
 Locus of control

Extent to which people perceive outcomes as

internally controllable by their own efforts
and actions or as externally controlled by
chance or outside forces

◦ Leads to differential educational and financial

outcomes
 The act of expressing oneself and behaving in
ways designed to create a favorable
impression or an impression that
corresponds to one’s ideals

 Impression Management: People constantly

manage the way they present themselves in
social situations
 Two Patterns of Self-Presentation
◦ Portraying oneself in a way that is desired by a
particular audience

◦ Portraying oneself based on values and identity

 Maintaining identity regardless of the context
 Self-Monitoring: Being attuned to the way
one presents oneself in social situations and
adjusting one’s performance to create the
desired impression.

 How do high and low self-monitors present

themselves?
◦ High self-monitors: Less likely to act according to
attitudes
◦ Low self-monitors: Internally guided