Self-concept

Question 1

What is the history of cognition/self?

Answer 1

• In medieval society social relation were fixed/stable (social status, birth order etc.)
• Over the past 400 years:
  1. Secularisation: fulfillment in the current life- moving away from religious notions of sacrifice in order for an after life
  2. Industrialisation: movement of people for work, greater opportunities for change ‘portable personal identity’
  3. Enlightenment: people felt they could overthrow regimes in order to create better lives for themselves
  4. Psychoanalysis: Freud’s theory crystallised the idea of an unconscious self beneath the surface

Question 2

What is the inner vs outer self?

Answer 2

• Public outer self: heavily influenced by social factors

- Private inner self: lens through which we view our reality and give meaning to our lives and gives our lives coherence

Question 3

How does self relate to coherence?

Answer 3

• You need a stable sense of self to have coherence

Question 4

What is the self?

Answer 4

• In common language: a sense that there is ‘something about me’
• The self is dependent on our capacity of self-reflection
• There is a specific part of the brain dedicated to our understanding of self
• We first begin to recognise ourself aged 18-24 months- as seen in the Rouge test

Question 5

What is Self-awareness?

Answer 5

• Self-awareness: consists of attention directed at yourself; you are self-conscious and aware of yourself
• A crucial part of self-regulation
• Private self-awareness: Looking inward on the private aspects of the self, including emotions, thoughts, desires, and traits. We match our evaluations of ourselves to internalised standards.
• Public self-awareness: Looking outward on the public aspects of the self that others can see

Question 6

What is self-concept?

Answer 6

• A cognitive representation of oneself
• Gives coherence and meaning to experiences and relationships with others
• Organises past experiences
• Helps us recognise and interpret social situations, to make sense of the world
• Closely related but narrower construct is identity, which refers to those characteristics that individuals think define them and make up their most important qualities

Question 7

What are self-schemas?

Answer 7

• Key components of our self concept
• Central beliefs we hold about ourselves
• Determine how we process information which is relevant to us
• Can be defined as: “cognitive generalisations about self, derived from past experience that organised and guides the processing of self-related information contained in individual social experiences

Question 8

What are Higgin’s 3 types of Self-schemas?

Answer 8

1. Actual self: how we actually are
2. Ideal self: how we would like to be e.g. travel the world and not settle into a steady job
3. Ought self: how we think we should be e.g. go to university

Question 9

What is self-discrepancy theory?

Answer 9

Theory about the consequence of making actual-ideal and actual-ought self comparisons

• Actual-ideal self discrepancy leads to unhappiness and dissatisfaction
• Actual-ought self discrepancy leads to fear, anxiety and shame

Question 10

What it regulatory focus theory?

Answer 10

• Makes a distinction between promotion focus for constructing a sense of self and prevention focus sense of self
• Promotion focus: approach-oriented, you look for challenges to overcome. Tends to be the focus when you are constructing your ideal self.
• Prevention focus: more cautious and avoident, you are looking for negative events to avoid, Tends to be the focus when you are constructing your ought self.

Question 11

What are the sources of self-knowledge?

Answer 11

1. Introspection:
   - Process by which a person examines the contents of his or her own mind
   - People often correctly identify how they feel but not why
   - People have difficulty determining how they would feel in response to future emotional events affective forecasting)
2. Perceptions of our own behaviour:
   - People observe their own behaviour and then infer what they are thinking/feeling
   e. g. not being hungry, buying a sandwich and then eating it quickly and then inferring that you must have indeed been hungry
   - Includes over-justification effect: if we are not given an obvious external reason to do something (reward/punishment) we infer that we must enjoy the activity and our motivation will increase.
3. The influences of other people:
4. 1. Vicarious self-perception/spyglass self: people infer self-knowledge from other people they identify strongly with
5. 2. Looking-glass self: the self-knowledge derived from seeing ourselves as others must see us/the judgement of others
6. 3. Social comparisons: evaluating your own abilities by comparing yourself to others
7. Autobiographical Memories
8. The cultures in which we live:
   - Individualism (values independence, autonomy and self-reliance) vs collectivism (values interdependence, cooperation and social harmony)
   - The country we live in (makes a difference of individualism vs collectivism)

Question 12

What are the different kinds of social comparisons?

Answer 12

• Downwards social comparison: comparisons with people who perform worse than you; tool used to increase self-esteem
• Upward social comparison: comparing yourself to people who perform better than you; can help work as a motivator or be a source of unhappiness and self-esteem damage

Question 13

What is the independent vs interdependent view of self?

Answer 13

Independent view of self:
- The self is an entity that is distinct, autonomous, self-contained and endowed with unique dispositions

Interdependent view of self:
- The self is part of a larger social network that includes one’s family, co-workers, and others with whom one is socially connected

Question 14

What is the difference between social identity and personal identity?

Answer 14

• Social Identity: which defines self in terms of group memberships
• Personal Identity: which defines self in terms of idiosyncratic personal relationships and traits

Question 15

What are Brewer and Gardner 3 forms of self?

Answer 15

• The Individual self: defined by personal traits that differentiate the self from all others
• The Relational self: defined by dyadic relationships that assimilate the self to significant other person
• The Collective self: defined by group membership that differentiates ‘us’ from ‘them’

Question 16

Is there a single self or multiple selves?

Answer 16

• Multiple selves, the self is not a single undifferentiated entity
• Depends on context
• There must however be some degree of coherence between our self-identities

Question 17

What are the 3 motives we have for seeking self-knowledge?

Answer 17

1. Appraisal motive: the simple desire to learn the truth about oneself, whatever it is (3rd most desirable)
2. Self-enhancement motive: the desire to learn favourable or flattering things about ones self (ranked 1st most desirable)
3. Consistency motive: a desire to get feedback that confirms what you already believe (ranked 2nd most desirable)

Question 18

What is the egocentric bias in self judgement?

Answer 18

• We focus on our own behaviour in social situations so we assume it to be equally the focus of others
• Leads to the “spotlight effect”- the tendency to believe we standout in the eyes of others (both positively and negatively)

Question 19

What is self-enhancement bias?

Answer 19

• Refers to the greater self-reflection on positive aspects than on negative aspects of ones self
• Involves:
  1. Taking credit for successes but denying blame for their failures
  2. Forget failure feedback more readily than success or praise
  3. Recieving praise uncritically but receiving criticism skeptically
  4. Trying to dismiss personal criticism as being motivated by prejudice
  5. Performing a biased search of self-knowledge that support a favourable self-image
  6. Persuading yourself that their flaws are widely shared human attributes but their qualities are rare and distinctive