Chapter 6- The Self Self-Concept Self-concept is an organized collection of beliefs about the self Shape social perception, are developed from past experience, and are concerned with one s personality traits, abilities, physical features, values, goals, and social roles Current thinking is that only a portion of the total self-concept operates at any one timeworking self-concept Possible selves are one s conceptions about the kind of person one might become in the future Possible selves are developed from past experiences, current behaviour, and future expectations Possible selves are useful when encouraging constructive change during psychotherapy Sometimes, however, possible selves are negative and fear what you might becomealcoholic, alone People desire possible selves that enhance their self-esteem, self-perceived effectiveness, and sense of meaning or purpose, among other motives Once the self-concept is established, the individual has a tendency to preserve and defend it Self-concepts seem to be most susceptible to change when people shift from an important and familiar social setting to an unfamiliar one, such as college Individuals have several organized self perceptions: an actual self (qualities you believe you actually possess), an ideal self (characteristics you would like to have), and an ought self (traits you believe you should possess) Self-discrepancy consists of a mismatch between the self-perceptions that make up the actual, ideal, and ought self When people live up to their personal standards (ideal or ought selves), they experience high self-esteem; when they don t meet their own expectations, self-esteem suffers One type of self-discrepancy occurs when the actual self is at odds with the ideal self. Such instances trigger dejection-related emotions (sadness, disappointment) When self-discrepancies act as a form of negative self-evaluation, these perceptions can heighten a person s risk for engaging in suicidal thinking Actual/ought self discrepancies produce agitation-related emotions (irritability, anxiety, guilt) Can result in anxiety-related psychological disorders
Three factors seem to be important: the amount of discrepancy you experience, your awareness of this discrepancy, and whether the discrepancy is actually important to you Coping with discrepancies: o People can change their behaviour to bring it more in line with their ideal or ought selves o Bring your ideal self a bit more in line with your actual self o Blunt your self-awareness, or how much you focus on what you like or dislike about yourself (less positive approach) Some people use alcohol to blunt self-awareness When a person s self-concept is threatened (a job interview doesn t go well), the individual can recover by affirming competence in an unrelated domain People can also affirm their self-identities by focusing on the important values they believe in Social comparison theory proposes that individuals compare themselves with others in order to assess their abilities and opinions Social comparisons can be ego enhancing Engaging in social comparison can improve skills and maintain self-image A reference group is a set of people who are used as a gauge in making social comparisons Upward social comparison can motivate you and direct your future efforts Downward social comparison can enable you to feel better about yourself Most people tend to evaluate themselves in a more positive light than they really merit N-Effect: when the number of recognized or known competitors increases, it appears to reduce the motivation to compete, a result of making particular social comparisons Studies find a link between parents views of a child and the child s self-concept Even stronger evidence for a relationships between children s perceptions of their parents attitudes toward them and their own self-views Michelangelo phenomenon reflects the partner s role in sculpting into reality the ideal self of a loved one People filter feedback from others through their existing self-perceptions Social context effects how people think and feel about others, as well, including the impressions they may knowingly convey to others in different situations When individuals meet cultural expectations, they feel good about themselves and experience increases in self-esteem Individualism involves putting personal goals ahead of group goals and defining one`s identity in terms of personal attributes rather than group memberships
Collectivism involves putting group goals ahead of personal goals and defining one`s identity in terms of the groups one belongs to It is more accurate to say that certain cultures are more or less individualistic (or collectivist) than others rather than seeing them as either one or the other Individualistic cultures promote freedom and choice, and people who live in these cultures do not like to have either threatened Individuals reared in individualistic cultures usually have an independent view of the self, perceiving themselves as unique, self-contained, and distinct from others Individuals reared in collectivist cultures typically have an interdependent view of the self. They see themselves as inextricably connected to others and believe that harmonious relationships with others are of utmost importance Experiment: collectivist groups can recall more objects because they thought about the individual objects and how they related to one another culture-as-situated-cognition Women usually have more interdependent self-views than men Women are usually involved in close relationships involving intimate friends and family members (relational interdependence), while men tend to interact in social groups such as clubs and sports teams (collective interdependence Self-Esteem Self-esteem refers to one s overall assessment of one s worth as a person self-concept confusion means that individuals with low self-esteem simply don t know themselves well enough to strongly endorse many personal attributes on self-esteem tests, which results in lower self-esteem sores Low self-esteem is found to be a consistent risk factors for depressive symptoms Trait self-esteem refers to the ongoing sense of confidence people possess regarding their abilities (athletic, assertive) and characteristics (friendliness, helpfulness) State self-esteem is dynamic and changeable, referring to how individuals feel about themselves in the moment Those whose self-esteem fluctuates in response to daily experiences are highly sensitive to interactions and events that have potential relevance to their self-worth There is a third way to construe self-esteem: as domain specific When self-esteem is linked to a particular area of one s life, it is best described as composed of one s self-evaluations Obtaining accurate measures of self-esteem is difficult (self-report could be bias) Often quite difficult to separate cause from effect Self-esteem is strongly and consistently related to happiness
High self-esteem has not been shown to be a reliable cause of good academic performance Regarding job performance, the results are mixed Sociometer theory suggests that self-esteem is actually a subjective measure of one s interpersonal popularity and success Individuals with high self-esteem persist longer in the face of failure Individuals with low self-esteem often have negative expectations about their performance Self-esteem can affect not only the present, but also the future Narcissist s aggression must be provoked; without provocation, they are no more likely to aggress than non-narcissists Narcissists who experience ego threats have an elevated propensity to engage in aggression Little empirical evidence that low self-esteem leads to either direct or indirect aggression Authoritative parenting uses high emotional support and firm, but reasonable limits (high acceptance, high control) Authoritarian parenting entails low emotional support with rigid limits (low acceptance, high control) Permissive parenting uses high emotional support with few limits (high acceptance, low control) Neglectful parenting involves low emotional support and few limits (low acceptance, low control) Authoritative parenting is associated with the highest self-esteem scores Once source of bias in affective forecasting is the impact bias, which occurs when people misjudge the eventual intensity and duration of their emotional response to some future event Focalism- the tendency to overemphasize how much one will think about an event in the future while also understanding how other events will compete for one`s thoughts and feelings Ethnicity and gender interact in complex ways in self-esteem High individualism is associated with high self-esteem The ethnic differences in self-esteem are likely rooted in how the different groups view themselves, based on cultural messages Males scored higher on self-esteem than females
White girls have lower self-esteem than minority girls do Basic Principles of Self-Perception The default mode of handling information: automatic processing Controlled processing- spending precious cognitive resources o Mindfulness promotes cognitive flexibility, which in turn can lead to selfacceptance and well-being. o In contrast, mindlessness leads to rigid thinking where details and important distinctions are lost Selective attention- when high priority is given to information pertaining to the self o The cocktail party effect - thinking you hear you name in a crowd Self-attributions are inferences that people draw about the causes of their own behaviour Internal or External o Internal attributions ascribe the causes of behaviour to personal dispositions, traits, abilities, and feelings o External attributions ascribe the causes of behaviour to situational demands and environmental constraints o People who attribute their setbacks to internal, personal causes while discounting external, situational explanations may be more prone to depression than people who display opposite tendencies Stable or Unstable o A stable cause is one that is more or less permanent and unlikely to change over time o A sense of humour and intelligence are stable internal causes of behaviour o Stable external causes of behaviour include such things as laws and rules o Unstable causes of behaviour are variable and subject to change o Unstable internal causes of behaviour include such things as mood and motivation o Unstable external causes could be the weather and the presence or absence of other people Controllable or Uncontrollable o Sometimes events are under one s control and sometimes they are not These three dimensions appear to be the central ones in the attribution process
Self-attributions play a key role in one s feelings, motivational state, and behaviour Explanatory style refers to the tendency to use similar causal attributions for a wide variety of events in one s life Optimistic explanatory style usually attributes setbacks to external, unstable, and specific factors Styles can be psychologically protective Optimistic students have more confidence and perform better than pessimistic students after a sports failure Pessimistic explanatory styles tend to attribute their setbacks to internal, stable, and global (or pervasive) factors, which make them feel bad about themselves and doubtful about their ability to handle challenges in the future o Vulnerable to learned helplessness and depression Motives Guiding Self-Understanding: o The self-assessment motive is reflected in people s desire for truthful information about themselves o The self-verification motive drives people toward information that matches what they already believe about themselves, whether it is positive or negative Another way people maintain self-consistency is by seeking out feedback and situations that confirm their existing self-perceptions and avoiding potentially disconfirming situations or feedback Self-verification theory- people prefer to receive feedback from others that is consistent with their own self-views o Self-improvement motive is when individuals typically look to successful others for inspiration o Self-enhancement is the tendency to maintain positive feelings about oneself Self-enhancement can appear in at least four ways: as an observed response or behaviour, a process, a personality trait, or an underlying motive The tendency to hold flattering views of one s personal qualities is termed the better-than-average effect Illusions of control is when people overestimate their degree of control over outcomes A third form of self-enhancement is the tendency to have unrealistic optimism about future events
Downward social comparison is a defensive tendency to compare oneself with someone whose troubles are more serious than one s own Associated with increases in both mood and self-esteem The self-serving bias is the tendency to attribute one s successes to personal factors and one s failures to situational factors o Friendship places limits on the self-serving bias (share responsibility) o Particularly prevalent in individualistic, Western societies, where the emphasis on competition and high self-esteem motivates people to try to impress others, as well as themselves Japanese subjects exhibit a self-effacing bias in explaining successes, as they tend to attribute their successes to the help they receive from others to the ease of the task, while downplaying the importance of their ability Basking in reflected glory is the tendency to enhance one s image by publicly announcing one s association with those who are successful Cutting off reflecting failure: because self-esteem is partly tied to an individual s associations with others, people often protect their self-esteem by distancing themselves from those who are unsuccessful Self-handicapping is the tendency to sabotage one s performance to provide an excuse for possible failure o Lack of effort is often indicative of self-handicapping o People use a variety of other tactics for handicapping their performance: alcohol, drugs, procrastination, a bad mood, a distracting stimulus, anxiety, depression, and being overcommitted Defensive pessimism is a trait causing some people to mentally identify the worst possible outcome and to then subsequently work hard to make sure it never occurs Defensive pessimists are motivated to avoid bad outcomes, whereas self-handicappers undermine their own efforts By giving yourself an attributional out in case of failure, your self-defeating behaviour will likely result in poor performance Men self-handicap more than women Self-handicapping is likely to occur when self-esteem is threatened Self-Regulation Self-regulation is the process of directing and controlling one s behaviour It s possible that people have a limited amount of self-control resources. If you tax these resources resisting temptation in a given situation, you may have a hard time
resisting the next temptation or persisting at a new task ego depletion model of selfregulation Being asked to make too many choices or decisions can also reduce people s selfcontrol Self-regulation seems to develop early and remain relatively stable Self-efficacy is concerned not with the skills you have, but with your beliefs about what you can do with these skills Self-efficacy affects individuals commitments to goals, their performance on tasks, and their persistence toward goals in the face of obstacles Self-efficacy is learned and can be changed Four sources of self-efficacy: o Mastery experiences- mastering new skills o Vicarious experiences- watching others perform a skill you want to learn o Persuasion and encouragement o Interpretation of emotional arousal- the physiological response that accompany feelings and one s interpretations of these responses Self-defeating behaviours are seemingly intentional actions that thwart a person s self-interest o Deliberate self-destruction-harm is foreseen and desired o Tradeoffs- harm is foreseen but not desired (overeating, smoking, drinking) People engage in tradeoffs because they bring immediate, positive, and reliable outcomes, not because they want to hurt themselves in the long run o Counterproductive strategies- harm is not foreseen or desired (pursuing an unreachable career goal or an unrequited love) People persist in these behaviours because they erroneously believe they ll be successful, not because they are intent on self-defeat Self-Presentation A public-self is an image presented to others in social interactions Individuals have a number of public selves that are tied to certain situations and certain people People differ in the degree of overlap and congruence amount their various public selves
People who see themselves as being similar across different social roles (with friends, at work, at school) are better adjusted than those who perceive less integration in their self-views across these roles People think others notice and evaluate them more than is the actual case (the spotlight effect) The guilty by association effect is when people erroneously assume their social standing suffers due to embarrassing actions or blunders perpetrated by those they associate with Impression management refers to usually conscious efforts by people to influence how others think of them Reasons to engage in impression management: o Claim a particular identity o Gain liking and approval from others Common self-presentation strategies: o Ingratiation is behaving in ways to make oneself likable to others Most fundamental and frequently used Giving compliments, doing favors for others o Self-promotion- playing up your strong points so you will be perceived as competent Earning respect o Exemplification (occupations filled with danger) Behave consistently according to high ethical standards o Negative Acknowledgement- candidly admitting to possessing some negative quality o Intimidation- usually generates dislike, but can work o Supplication- individuals try to present themselves as weak and dependent to get favors from others People who presented themselves using a mix of self-promoting and self-deprecating comments were viewed as more genuine and likeable than those who relied exclusively on either type of descriptions Self-monitoring refers to the degree to which people attend to and control the impressions they make on others High self-monitors want to make a favorable impression Low self-monitors are more likely to express their true beliefs Low self-monitors see themselves as having strong principles and behaving in line with them, whereas high self-monitors perceive themselves as flexible and pragmatic
Building Self-Esteem Seven Guidelines for Boosting Self-Esteem: 1. Recognize that you control your self-image 2. Learn more about yourself 3. Don t let others set your goals 4. Recognize unrealistic goals 5. Modify negative self-talk 6. Emphasize your strengths 7. Approach others with a positive outlook