The SelfConcept

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The Self-Concept
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The Self and the Social Self Outline

• Defining the Self
• Beginnings of the Self-Concept
• The Self as a Process
• Social Comparison Theory
• Self-Concept as a Knowledge Structure
• Self-Esteem
• Self-Motives

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Defining the Self

• Self A symbol using social being who can
  reflect on his or her own behavior
• The self develops within a social context and
  uses cognitive processes of symbol usage and
  self-awareness to engage in planned, coordinated
  actions (e.g., goals).

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Beginnings of the Self-Concept

• Evolutionary Perspective
• -Self-awareness evolved because it promotes our
  survival by empowering us to be knowledgeable
  about our own behavior.
• -This knowledge is used to anticipate how to
  behave with others in the future (e.g., deciding
  on war, or strategies for social bargaining).
• -The Symbolic Self evolved to allow societies to
  better coordinate group activities by discussing
  things that are not physically present (e.g., a
  herd of buffalo).
• -The self-concept develops in humans between the
  ages of 18-24 months and this is considered the
  1st step of the development of the self-concept.
  The 2nd step is a lifelong process involving
  complex social factors.

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Self-Concept

• The Nature of the self-concept.
• Self-concept is an organized collection of
  beliefs about the self.
• These beliefs are also called self-schemas and
  include personality traits, abilities, physical
  features, values, goals, social roles

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Self-Conception How the Self-Concept Develops

• Symbolic Interactionists (Meade Cooley)
• William James (1890)

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Symbolic Interactionist Perspective (Cooley
Meade)

• The self is not born, but rather emerges as a
  result of social interaction and role taking.
• Through symbol usage we learn to role take by
  imaginatively assuming the point of view of
  others and observing (the me) from others
  perspectives.
• In role taking in a play stage (e.g., a girl
  taking the perspective of her mommy reprimanding
  her for being disobedient) children develop
  beliefs about how others evaluate them, termed
  reflected appraisals.
• Increasingly complex play stages that
  simultaneously reflect the appraisals of numerous
  roles (e.g., a peer, sibling, parent, etc.) helps
  us to develop a fully formed self when we
  internalize the reflected appraisals of society
  as a whole, referred to as the Generalized Other.

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The Self as a Process The legacy of Meade and
James

• Both Symbolic Interactionism and James view of
  the self is that the self is a process. That is,
  it is ever-changing depending on changes in
  reflected appraisals, or emotional
  identifications.
• Mead emphasized cognitive factors (e.g., the
  beliefs about ones self that is represented
  through reflected appraisals).
• James argued that things become part of the self
  through emotional identification with them (i.e.,
  finding them valuable or important to you) and
  can take the form of social relationships or
  material possessions- clothes, cds, etc. (i.e.,
  anything that affirms you).
• -Also proposed that what we emotionally
  identify with will serve as the basis for judging
  our own self-worth, expressed through the
  following ratio.
• SE successes (i.e., achievements)
  pretensions (i.e., concerns).

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Deconstructing the Self An Information
Processing View of the Self

• The Self-Concept
• The Me the sum total of a persons thoughts
  and feelings about himself or herself.
• Understanding the role of the self-concept in
  psychological functioning requires considering
  both its contents (e.g., schemas) and its
  structure (e.g., its organization).
• The Self as a Knowledge Structure
• The contents of the self-concept are composed of
  knowledge structures or self-schemas that are
  organized systems of beliefs about ones self
  that are built from experience and which guide
  the processing of new information (e.g., the
  Hostile Media Bias).

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The Self as a Knowledge Structure (continued)

• The working or spontaneous self-concept is
  the aspect of the self-concept that becomes
  salient and is activated in a particular setting
  (e.g., your being a woman may become salient when
  you are walking past a group of rowdy males).
• Distinguishing Schematic vs. Aschematic Traits
• People are described as schematic for traits or
  self attributes that are personally important to
  them, or for which they think of themselves as
  being extreme (e.g., Angelina Jolie may be
  schematic for the trait of sexy).
• People are aschematic if they are not invested or
  concerned with a particular trait (e.g., the Pope
  is probably aschematic for the trait of sexy).
• Markus (1977) demonstrated people vary in their
  processing of self-relevant information for
  schemas depending on whether they are schematic
  or aschematic for traits (e.g.,dependence).

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The Self as a Motivated Social Construction

• Social Comparison Theory (Festinger, 1954)
• Proposes that people have a drive to reduce
  uncertainty about their opinions and abilities so
  they can adequately evaluate themselves.
• When we experience uncertainty about social
  reality what is true, appropriate
• or unverifiable (e.g., moral or religious
  beliefs, ones social position, values, customs,
  etc.) we generally look toward similar others to
  acquire information about their interpretation of
  reality.
• Social comparison processes and the information
  generated by it may have basic evolutionary
  benefits.
• -Leary Downs (1995) suggest individuals have
  internal systems that function as a sociometer
  that gages the social environment for cues which
  indicate disapproval, rejection, or exclusion
  from the social groups we depend upon.

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Findings for Social Comparison Theory

• Schachter (1959) A landmark study that led
  people to believe they would be receiving a
  series of either painful electric shocks
  (high-anxiety condition) or painless (low-anxiety
  condition).
• While ostensibly waiting 10 minutes for the
  equipment to be set up, people were given the
  opportunity to wait alone or with others
  participants in the same experiment.
• High-Anxiety condition People preferred to be in
  the presence of others whose social validations
  presumably transformed their uncertainties into
  more concrete expectancies.
• A follow-up study manipulated peoples
  expectancies as to why other people were also
  waiting (Same-State Electric Shock
  Different-State Waiting for Academic Advising)
• -All the participants in the different-state
  condition chose to wait alone, in contrast to a
  majority of the participants in the same state
  condition who preferred the company of others who
  were to experience the same event.

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Contemporary Perspectives on the Self-Concept

• The self is a theory that is continuously
  constructed
• (i.e., a working model about oneself)
• Content vs. Structure
• -Specific knowledge of self beliefs
  -Organization of self-knowledge
• (e.g., attributes, social roles) contents
  (e.g., clarity)
• -Specific evaluations of contents -Cognitive
  arrangement of category
• (e.g., self-esteem) structures (e.g.,
  integration)

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Who Are You?

• Write 20 answers to the question Who am I?

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Figure 5.1
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Highly Influential Self-Schemas or
Self-Representations

• Actual, Ideal, and Ought Selves form the basis of
  Self-Discrepancy Theory (Higgins, 1989) which
  posits that perceived discrepancies from ones
  actual self and either ought or ideal
  self-representations have specific emotional
  consequences.
• Individualism vs. Collectivism
• Gender (Male vs. Female)
• Sex Roles (Masculine vs. Feminine)
• Possible Selves
• Each of these self-representations has important
  implications for how we make sense of social
  experience (e.g., evaluating ourselves and
  others) and for how we self-regulate (e.g.,
  organizing and initiating specific actions like
  preparing for a calculus exam).

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One Self or Many Selves Who are We?

• Unitary Self-Organization
• Self-Concept Clarity (SCC) refers to the degree
  that ones self-concept is
• (1) clearly defined, (2) temporally stable (e.g.,
  does not vary over time), and internally
  consistent (e.g., not being extraverted if one is
  also introverted).
• -Campbell et al., (1996) found that higher SCC
  related to higher self-esteem, and lower
  neuroticism, anxiety, and depression, suggesting
  schematic coherence among self-schemas is
  important for psychological adjustment.
• Plurality in Self-Organization
• Self-Complexity refers to the degree to which
  people have differentiation or independence among
  their self-aspects (e.g., social roles). Higher
  Self-Complexity reflects having a more
  compartmentalized (pluralistic) personality
  structure whereas lower self-complexity reflects
  a more integrated (unitary) personality
  structure.
• Linville (1987) found that when negative events
  are experienced, peoples well-being (e.g.,
  depression, physical symptomatology) is less
  compromised when they are higher as opposed to
  lower in self-complexity. This finding suggests
  there are potential benefits to having plurality
  in ones self-concept structure.

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Decomposing Self-Concept Content Unidemensional
vs. Multidimensional Models of Self-Esteem

• Unidemensional
• Global self esteem (James) an average tone of
  self-feelings
• Multidimensional
• Domain specific self appraisals (stupid,
  unfriendly, sexy)
• Is Global SE Simply the Sum of the Parts of
  Domain Specific SE?

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Global Self Worth ? sum of specific self
appraisals
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Longitudinal Changes in Self-Evaluations
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Domain Specific SE Differences Revisiting
Symbolic Interactionism James Perspective of SE