Lecture 4 - The social self and self-regulation Flashcards
(24 cards)
Overview
The self-concept
- self schemas
How does our self-concept develop?
- sources of the “self”
Self-esteem
- protective mechanisms
- role of self-regulation
Self-concept
A person’s knowledge about themself, including one’s own traits, social identities and experiences
Early conceptualisations:
- William James (1890): the ‘me’
- Sigmund Freud: the ‘ego’
Influences on self-concept
Culture and socialisation shape
- identities
- roles
- traits
Examples:
- media
- socia nomas
Effects of groups:
- group membership shapes our self-concept
- we adopt similar traits as those in our social group
Social identity theory:
- people define and value themselves largely in terms of the social groups with which they identify (Tajfel & Turner, 1979)
Gender differences
- men and women are more similar than different
- differences are exaggerated and imagined
- differences assumed to be biological but are culturally biased
- under behaviour is learning what is ‘appropriate’
- impact of social norms and stereotypes
Social role theory
gender differences in self-concept related to:
- long history of role distribution between genders
- assumption those roles are part of men and women’s natures
Inferences
- women do more socially orientated and caregiving behaviours because that is what they are intrinsically good at
- men assumed positions of leadership and power because that is what they are intrinsically good at
However, ultimately these ideas are false
Mapping our self-concept
Self-schema:
- an integrated set of memories, beliefs, and generalisations about an attribute that is part of one’s self-concept
- assumed to e mostly stable and easily accessible
- some aspects can be made more accessible based on situation or motivation
Sources of the self
We learn about our ‘self’ via everyday social I interactions
- appraisals from others
- social comparisons
- self-perceptions
Influence from others
Symbolic interactionism
- importance of an individual in our life as the primary basis for self
- unimportant individuals (e.g. strangers) play less of a role
Looking-glass self
- significant people in our lives reflect back to us who we are by how they behave toward us
- we make appraisals (assumptions) about what they think about us
Looking-glass self
Reflected appraisals:
- what we think other people think of us
- assumptions
Inaccuracies of reflected appraisals may be due to distortions in feedback from others
- people often “soften” their feedback to you
- assume snapshots of behaviour will lead to generalisations
Social comparison theory
People come to know their self-concept by comparing themselves with similar others
Downward comparison
- comparing oneself with those who are worse off
Upward comparison
- comparing oneself with those who are better off
Errors in social comparison theory
- overestimating your own attribution
- underestimating the attributed of others
Better-than-average effect: - on many abilities and traits, most people they they are better than average (a statistical impossibility)
Self-perception theory
People form impressions of themselves by observing their own behaviour and the situation in which it occurs
- things that seem to occur frequently enter self-schema
- unless situational factors can account for the behaviour
People form impressions of themselves by observing their own behaviour and the situation in which it occurs
- things that seem to occur frequently enter self-schema
- unless situational factors can account of the behaviour
Facial feedback hypothesis:
- the sea that changes in facial expressions elicit emotions associated with those expressions
What if you observe a behaviour that goes agasint your already established attitudes or beliefs?
Cognitive dissonance
- uncomfortable state produced by awareness of inconsistencies between attitudes and behaviour
- produced motivation to process to resolve the inconsistencies
- sometimes result is change in attitude to match behaviour
Cognitive dissonance
- individual perceives action as inconsistent with attitude
- especially when attitude is important, self-defining - individual perceives the action as freely chosen
- not attributed to external causes - individual experiences uncomfortable state of arousal
- anxiety, unease - individual attributes arousal to the inconsistency
- not the medication, uncomfortable room, etc
- Flow chart with examples -
- attitude-discrepant behaviour -> I’m entering a slogan-writing contest for a new brand of cola drink that I dislike
- Realisation of negative consequences -> my slogan might cause people to buy this awful stuff
- Attribution of personal responsibility-> I freely chose to enter the contest
- Experience of physiological arousal -> I feel tense and upset
- Attribution of arousal to inconsistency -> I must feel this way because I’m telling people to buy something I hate
- Dissonance reduced through attitude change -> well, the clot isn’t that bad, in fact, it’s pretty tasty
Understanding our feelings
Self-perception often used to determine emotional states
Two-factor theory of emotions:
- emotions are an interaction of both their arousal level and how they interpret that arousal based on contextual cues
- emotion = arousal x cognitive appraisal
Misattribution of arousal:
- mislabelling the source of arousal
- tanner arousal from one even to another
Importance of psychology
- James-Lange theory
- interacts with psychological appraisal
- often attributed to anxiety, even if physiology helpful
Impacts of self-awareness
Intensified emotional response
Adherence to personal standards
- act in accordance with self-schema
Self-awareness as personality
- high vs low self-monitoring
- private vs public awareness
Self-awareness highlights the gap between what one is doing and what one should/could be doing
- may lead to discrepancies and negative affect
- often engage self-control to alleviate discrepancies
Self-discrepancy theory:
- we feel negative when falling short of our expectations
- conflict between actual, ideal and sought selves
Impact of these discrepancies
- negative affect
- reduced self-esteem
Hope do we improve discrepancies?
- engage self-control
- protect self-esteem via other mechanisms
Self-esteem
The evalutative component of the self-concept
- subjective appraisals of self as positive or negative
- self-esteem varies depending on context
Sources of self-esteem
- self-awareness and goal discrepancies
- developmental influences (authoritative vs permissive parents)
Consequences of low self-esteem
Mood regulation
- people with low self esteem deflect positive feelings -> more likely to externalise success rather than internalise
- following failure, less likely to make polkas to improve their mood -> more likely to internalise failures rather than externalise
Fundamental attribution error
Consequences of high self-esteem
Narcissism
- unstable/fragile mood
- repaint on validation from others
Positive characteristics:
- extroverted
- unlikely to suffer from depression
- perform well in public
Negative characteristics:
- crave attention
- overconfident
- lack empathy
Narcissism
Bushman and Baumesiter (1998)
- ppts wrote essay which was marked by confederate
- praise vs threat conditions
- then completed a competitive task, in which the loser (i.e. confederate) received a blast of noise
- positive relationship between narcissism and aggression (measured by the intensity of the noise delivered to the confederate)
Maintaining self esteem
Social comparison theory
- downward comparisons can make us feel better off than others
- when someone is more successful it can have a negative impact
- Strategy -> Example -
- exaggerate the ability of successful target -> “they’re just a genius so how can you compare them to normal people?”
- change the target of comparison -> “yeah, always, forget about her, I did better than y other friends”
- distance the self from the success target -> “she’s a bit weird - we’ve got nothing in common at all. I think I’m going to avoid sitting near her in class”
- devalue the dimension of comparison -> “she may get better grades than me, but I have a much better social life - and being popular is much more important”
Basking in reflected glory
- Use the successes of our social group to improve self-esteem
- students wear apparel displaying university name when football team had won then when they had lots
Self-discrepancy theory
- we examine self to assess whether we meet our personal goals
- when we do not meet expectations of self-schema:
~ experience anxiety
~ reductions in self-esteem
To alleviate discrepancy, we can change behaviour to match expectations and goals of our self-schema
- this requires effortful control
- cognitive/controlled processes
Self-regulation
A set of processes for guiding one’s thoughts, feeling, and behaviours to reach desired goal
Self-regulation is based on 3 key capacities of the human mind that emerges with the evolution of the human cortex
- self-awareness
- goal-setting
- mental time travel
Willpower
- capacity to overcome temptations, challenges, and obstacles that could impede pursuit of one’s long-term goals
Hot processes = driven by strong emotions
Cold-processes = level-headed reasoning
- activated through mindful attention
- activated in attempt to reduce impulsivity /temptation
Hot vs cold processes
Delay of gratification task
- performance at age 4 predicts self-regulation 30 Years later
- we may naturally vary in strength of these processes
Limitation of self-regulation
Ego depletion:
- mental fatigue from extended use of self-control
- behaviour regulation/suppression is more difficult
- risky or impulsive behaviour more likely
- lack of willpower
Biological mechanism underlie self-control?
- depletion of glucose used to support cogitve systems
- has bot been replicated
Baumeister et al. 1998
Hungry ppts were split into groups
- eat only radishes
- eat only chocolate chip cookies
- no-food control
Ppts who ate radishes performed worse at problem solving, followed by chocolate chip cookies, and then no-food control
Suggested we have resources to ‘self-regulate’
Self-regulation and self-esteem
If goals are not being met
- engage self-control
- align behaviour with self-schema
If self-control is limited (ego-depletion)
- ability to align behaviour is removed
- self-esteem continues to be diminished
