Professional Documents
Culture Documents
• Self Knowledge
– Self Awareness
• Interpersonal Self
– Public Self
• Agent Self
– Executive Function
True Self – Two Approaches
• Self as impulse
– Inner thoughts or feelings
• Self as institution
– Public behaviors, especially official roles
Cultural Differences of Selfhood
• Independent self-construal
– What makes the self different
• Interdependent self-construal
– What connects the self to the group
Purpose of the Self
• Self-awareness
– improves behavior
– enables people to be more socially
desirable
• When self-awareness feels bad – seek to
escape it
– By drinking alcohol – removing inhibitions
– Through suicide – extreme escape
Purpose of Self-Awareness
• Self-regulation
• Adopt the perspective of other people
• Manage behavior in pursuit of goals
Food for Thought - Eating Binges
and Escaping the Self
• Importance of self-awareness
– Eating allows escape from negative
thoughts about self
– Eating can serve as a distraction from
negative thoughts about self
Food for Thought - Eating Binges
and Escaping the Self
• Dieters are high in public self-consciousness
– Low in private self-awareness
• Includes ignoring hunger
• Losing awareness of “fullness”
Where Self Knowledge Comes From
Looking Outside
• Looking-Glass Self (Cooley, 1902)
– You imagine how you appear to others
– You imagine how others will judge you
– You develop an emotional response as a
result of imagining how others will judge
you
• Generalized Other (Mead, 1934)
– Feedback from others tell us who and what
we are
Evaluating Looking-Glass Self
• Introspection
– Privileged Access
• Limitations of Introspection
– Development – Children under 11
– Nisbett and Wilson attack on privileged
access (1977)
– We may know what we think and feel, but
not why
Looking At Others
• Social Comparison
– Upward social comparisons
– Downward social comparisons
Self-Perception and Overjustification Effect
• Appraisal Motive
– Looking for the truth about oneself
• Self-Enhancement Motive
– Looking for flattering things about self
• Consistency Motive
– Looking for confirmation about current
belief about self
When Motives Compete
• Appraisal Motive
– Weakest motive
• Self-Enhancement Motive
– Strongest motive (emotional appeal)
• Consistency Motive
– Second preference (cognitive appeal)
Tradeoffs - Self-Handicapping
• Self-Handicapping
– Failure can be blamed on obstacle
– Success assumes higher competence
• Berglas & Jones (1978) experiment
– Noncontingent choose obstacle to
maximum performance on second IQ test
Self-Knowledge and the Duplex Mind
• Automatic Egotism
– Automatic, self-enhancing
• Modesty
– Conscious, deliberate control
Self and Information Processing
Self and Information Processing
• Self-Reference Effect
– Information bearing on self is processed
more deeply and remembered better
• Endowment Effect
– Items gain in value to person who owns
them
Can Self-Concept Change?
• High Self-Esteem
– Positive views
• Low Self-Esteem
– Absence of strong positive views
Is Bad Stronger Than Good?
Basking and Blasting
• Group membership may enhance positive
feelings about self (Cialdini et.al, 1976)
– Basking - Linking oneself to winners
– Blasting - Criticizing a rival group
• People show a stronger tendency to blast
(negative) than bask (positive)
Is Bad Stronger Than Good?
Basking and Blasting
• Loyal fans experience changes in their own
confidence level based on the success or
failure of their team
– Losing had a stronger effect than winning
Low Self-Esteem
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Distorted Perceptions of Nondepressed
• Positive Illusions
– Overestimate good qualities
– Underestimate faults
– Overestimate control over events
– Unrealistically optimistic
Self-Deception Strategies
• Initiative
– Confidence you can do the right thing
– More adventurous in activities
• Feels Good
– Helps one to overcome bad feelings
– If they fail, more likely to try again
Why Do We Care About Self-Esteem?
• Sociometer Theory
– Self-esteem is a measure of social
acceptability
• Self-esteem feels good
– Theory of terror management
Negative Aspects of High Self-Esteem
• Narcissism
– Subset of high self-esteem
– Tend to be more aggressive and violent
• Higher Prejudice
– Tend to think their group is better
Pursuit of Self-Esteem
• Social Acceptance
– Increase chance of acceptance and
maintain place within the group
• Claiming Identity
– Social validation of claims to identity
Good Self-Presentation