The Self

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The Self
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What is the Self?

• The Self
• Includes the body
• Self-Concept (Who am I)
• Social Identity (we of self-concept)
• Active agent involved in decision making

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Self-Concept

• Who am I ?
• Aspect you consider critical
• Write out your own.

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Self-Schema

• Self-Schema - The specific beliefs that define
  who you are (Mental Templates).
• Diagram (Schematic versus Aschematic)
• Influence how we perceive, remember, and evaluate
  both ourselves and other people.

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The Self

• Self-Reference Effect - Information relevant to
  our self-concepts is processed faster and
  remembered better than information that is
  irrelevant to our self-concepts. (Describe us
  versus other)

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Multiple Self-Schemas

• Self-Discrepancy Theory (Higgins, 1987)
• 3 Possible selves
• THE ACTUAL SELF
• THE IDEAL SELF
• THE OUGHT SELF
• From both a personal standpoint and a significant
  other
• 10 attributes of person you think you are
• 10 attributes of person your sig. other () thinks
  you ought to be...

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Possible Selves

• Discrepancies among these 3 possibilities
  influence our self-image.
• According to the theory self-esteem depends on 2
  factors
• 1) the amount of the discrepancy
• 2) the extent to which we focus on the
  discrepancies.

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Self-Discrepancy Theory

• Predicts
• Actual/Ought Discrepancy Fear, threat, anxiety
• Actual/Ideal Discrepancy Disappointment,
  dissatisfaction, sadness

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Social Identity

• The self also includes a social identity
• Social Identity - Refers to the social identity
  of who you.
• Most salient when part of a small group
  surrounded by larger group (Japan)
• Write your own

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Where does our self-knowledge come from?

• Roles we play
• Success and failure experiences
• Others judgments
• Social comparison

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Social Comparison

• Social Comparison - Evaluating ones abilities
  and opinions by comparing oneself to others.
• Has strong influence on self-concept
• How do we know we are...

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Social Comparison Theory (Festinger, 1954)

• A) People have a need to evaluate themselves.
• This evaluation can take place through 2 sources
• 1) Objective Comparisons - (i.e., thermostat)
• 2) Social Comparison
• Similar others

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Theories of Social Comparison

• Self-Evaluation Maintenance Model (SEM)
• Tesser (1988)
• People evaluate themselves and need to feel good
  about those evaluations in order to maintain a
  favorable self-concept.

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Self-Evaluation Maintenance Model

• 2 Processes
• 1) Self-reflection - Benefit from the
  achievements and good qualities of other people
  you are associated with
• Basking in the glory of others success
• Boosts your self-esteem.

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Self-Evaluation Maintenance Model

• 2) Comparison Process - Compare your performance
  with others.
• When you do better than peers it increases your
  self-esteem.

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3 Variables

• 1) Performance - How well you do compared to
  others.
• 2) Closeness - How close is your relationship
  with the person
• 3) Relevance - Importance of task or domain to
  your self-concept.

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Self-Evaluation Maintenance Model

• When are you going to reflect, when are you going
  to compare?
• Reflection - Low relevance...esteem increases as
  relevance increases
• Comparison - High relevanceAs performance
  increases, esteem increases.

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Volunteers

• 2 people who are friends/know each other well.
• 1 person who does not know either person

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Self-Evaluation Maintenance Model

• Participate in an experiment
• Participate in a task which measures
  intelligence.
• You dont do particularly well.
• Opportunity to give clue to next participant
• Task is relevant...what if task irrelevant
• Next participant is friend vs. stranger
• Task not relevant

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SEM Tesser, (1980)

• Participate in a difficult password game
• I.V. - Relevance (high vs. low)
• D.V. - Can give the next person hard or easy
  clues for the game

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Results

• High relevance group gave harder clues than Low
  relevance group
• Target Friend Task relevant clue hard
• Target Friend Task not relevant clue easier

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Consequences of SEM

• 1) Close person performs well - Distort relevance
• 2) Relevance high, others performance very good -
  closeness may be altered (Williams sisters)
• 3) If relevance and closeness high - Attempt to
  improve performance
• 4) Higher relevance, closer relationship - Worse
  you feel when outperformed
• 5) Low relevance, other performs well - Can bask
  in glory (greater pride closer you are to person)

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Self-Evaluation Maintenance Model

• Predicts changes in performance, affect and
  relationship closeness.

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What happens when we are unambiguously
outperformed?

• It is difficult to distort the facts
  (racquetball, football)
• 3 volunteers

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Social Comparison A special case

• Confronted with a comparison (e.g., being
  outperformed) which will hurt our self-image
• 1) Avoid the comparison
• 2) Distort the meaning of the comparison
• 3) Derogate the target of comparison (Lives in
  library)
• 4) What else might we do?

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The Genius Effect Mark Alicke (1997)

• Imagine this situation(Alicke, 1997)
• Enter the lab with one other student to
  participate in a test of perceptual intelligence
• RAVENS MATRICES
• Difficult problems (3 OUT OF 10)
• CONFEDERATE (7 OUT OF 10)
• Do you derogate them/distort the facts?
• Avoiding the comparison is impossible...

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The Genius Effect

• Unambiguously outperformed...put person in
  different category...comparison irrelevant
  (Remember, Festinger, 1954)
• Therefore, easier to say person who outperformed
  me is a genius!
• Steelers All-pros

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Results
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The Genius Effect

• What happens if the actor unambiguously
  outperforms the actor?
• Why?

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Results
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The Genius Effect

• Thus the person who outperforms me is a genius,
  while the person I outperform is no slouch.
• Why does the Genius Effect Occur?

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Review

• What does social comparison have to do with the
  self-concept?

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Social Comparison and Emotion

• Do we also look to others to determine how we
  feel?
• What do you think?

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• Three different volunteers
• 2 confederates

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Two Factor Theory of Emotion

• Proposed Theory
• Two factors necessary to feel an emotion
• 1) Physiological Arousal - racing heart,
  perspiration, rapid breathing, etc.
• 2) Interpretation that explains source of arousal

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Schacter and Singer (1962)

• Injected Males with epinephrine (vitamin
  supplement)
• Introduced to male confederate
• 1/2 told side effects...1/2 told false
• 1/2 Sessions (euphoric - shooting papers into
  wastebasket, paper airplanes, doodling)
• 1/2 Sessions (Angry - Ridiculed the
  questionnaire, tearing it up trashing)

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Results

• Euphoric partner behave euphoric.
• Angry partner behave angry.
• Why?

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Schacter and Singer (1962)

• Drug informed group - Experience
  emotion...interpretation drug
• Drug Uninformed Group - Experience
  emotion...Cant be drug...Interpret how they feel
  based on confederate.

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• Please rate yourself on a five point such that
• 1-considerably below average
• 2-well below average
• 3-below average
• 4-slightly below average
• 5-average
• 6-slightly above average
• 7-above average
• 8-well above average
• 9-considerably well above average

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Please rate yourself on the following

• athletic ability
• ability to get along with others
• helpfulness
• patience
• intelligence
• trustworthiness
• sincerity
• thoughtfulness

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Other Aspects of the Self - The Self Serving Bias

• Self-Serving Bias - The tendency to see ourselves
  favorably.
• Athletics
• Victory Skill, preparation
• Loss Bad luck, refs, situational explanations

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The Better than Average Effect

• Mark Alicke (1985) - Often see ourselves as
  better than the average person for most
  attributes or skills.
• 90 business managers rate themselves above
  average
• Most drivers perceive themselves as better than
  average.
• Subjective versus Objective measures
• The Muhammad Ali Effect

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Self-serving biases

• Unrealistic Optimism
• False consensus effect
• False uniqueness effect

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Impression Management

• Not only perceive ourselves in desirable ways,
  but we also present ourselves in desirable ways.

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Self-Monitoring

• The tendency to regulate ones own behavior to
  meet the demands of social situations.
• Self-Monitoring Scale differentiates between
  people who are high in self-monitoring and people
  who are low.

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• Scoring the Self-Monitoring Scale Give yourself
  1 point if (T for 4,5,6,8,10,12,17,18 or F for
  1,2,3,7,9,11,13,14,15,16) North America -
  Average score 10/11

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Self-Monitoring

• High - Sensitive to strategic self-presentation
  concerns, they are poised, ready, and able to
  modify their behavior from one situation to
  another.
• Low - Less concerned about how they appear to
  others. Express themselves in a consistent
  manner from one situation to another, exhibiting
  what they regard as their true and honest self.

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Self-Monitoring

• Predicts important behaviors
• Conformity
• Advertising

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Self-Esteem

• Global self-esteem (Rosenberg, 1965)
• Affection for oneself
• Self-evaluations
• abilities and attributes
• Self-worth
• Momentary emotional states...particularly from
  positive negative outcomes.
• Note- Book, product of all selves

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Self-esteem and self-serving biases

• High self-esteem
• More likely to use self-serving strategies
• self-handicapping
• attributions of success and failure
• After failure on IQ test...ratings of social
  skills, self-worth, general intelligence
• Direction of causation?