Self and Identity

Question 1

Self-Awareness Theory

Answer 1

 Two types of self we can be aware of
 Private self: thoughts, feelings, attitudes
o Private self-awareness leads to try match behaviour to internal standards
 Public self: how others see you (public image)
o Public self-awareness is oriented to present yourself to others in a positive light

Question 2

Deindividuation

Answer 2

 Reduced self-awareness (on purpose by drinking/suicide)
 Lose sense of socialised individual identity and engage in antisocial behaviour
 Low sense of responsibility, high degree of arousal

Question 3

Self-Schema

Answer 3

= Stored information about self in more complex and varied way
o Separate context-specific nodes so different contexts activate different nodes thus different aspects of the self

Question 4

Self-concept

Answer 4

large number of discrete self-schemas
o Everything a person believes to be true about him/herself
o Variety buffers from negative impact
o fluid

Question 5

Self-Discrepancy Theory

Answer 5

 3 types of self-schema
o Actual self – who we currently are
o Ideal self – who we want to be
o Ought self – who we think we should be
 Ideal and ought are “self-guides”
 Discrepancy with ideal: feel dejected (sad/disappointed/…)
 Discrepancy with ought to be: fell agitated (nervous/guilty/…)
o Motivates us to reduction: engage in self-regulation

Question 6

Regulatory Focus Theory

Answer 6

= People have 2 self-regulatory systems: the way in which we construct and regulate our sense of self is influenced by the extent to which we are prevention or promotion focused.
 Promotion System
o Concerned with ideals
o Sensitivity to presence/absence of positive events
o When in promotion focus: approach strategic means to attain goal, more motivation in tasks where there is gain or no-gain
 Prevention System
o Concerned with oughts
o Sensitivity to presence/absence of negative events
o When in prevention focus: avoid strategic means to attain goals in order to avoid failure, motivated in tasks that are framed in terms of losses vs no-losses
 habitually either one or the other – childhood influence
o child either hugged after positive event or shouted at after negative event
 influenced by immediate context

Question 7

Self-perception theory

Answer 7

when internal cues weak we make inferences about ourselves from our behaviour
 gain knowledge about ourselves only by making self-attributions like we interpret others actions
 Infer own attitudes from own behaviour (i.e. I prefer curry – not everyone does – internal attribution: I like curry)
 self-perception can also be based on imagining our behaviour in particular way
o imagery affects self-conception and that produces performance that is consistent with that conception (i.e. runner that imagined first did better)

Question 8

Overjustification effect

Answer 8

o in absence of obvious external determinants of behaviour, we assume we freely choose behaviour because we enjoy it: motivation increases

Question 9

Self-esteem biases

Answer 9

 Self-enhancing triad: overestimate our good points and control over events, unrealistically optimistic (above average effect)
o Needs to be balanced by a degree of self-conceptual accuracy
 Self-serving bias: self-serving attributions
 Unrealistic optimism bias: illusory optimism increases vulnerability
 Defensive pessimism: anticipating problems
 False-consensus effect: overestimate commonality of own opinions
 False-uniqueness effect: underestimate commonality

Question 10

Self-enhancement

Answer 10

= Motivation to develop and promote favourable image of self
 Seek new favourable information
 Self-protection only occasionally while enhancement routinely
 Self-affirmation theory
o Reduce impact of threat to self-concept by focusing on and affirming competence in some other area
 Greater self-reflection on positive traits

Question 11

Strategic self presentation

Answer 11

= Manipulating others’ perception of you
 High self-monitoring people: carefully control how they present themselves
 Five strategic motives. Try to….
o Self-promotion –persuade others that you’re competent
o Ingratiation – get others to like you
o Intimidation – get others to think you’re dangerous
o Exemplification – get others to regard you as a morally respectable individual
o Supplication – get others to take pity on you as helpless and needy