The Self Flashcards
(29 cards)
How did Baumeister (1999) define the term ‘Self- Concept’?
= The individual belief about one’s self, including personal attributes and who/what the self is.
= Guides social behaviour.
What departments does The Self include?
= The roles you play
= The comparisons you make
= Social identities you form
= The culture you are surrounded by
= How other people judge you
= Your success and your failures
What is a ‘Self-Schema’?
= The ingredients within the Self-Concept
What did Markus and Wurf (1987) state about Self-Schemas?
= Constructs that help us store and retrieve information about ourselves.
What did Cantor et al., (1984) state about Self-Schemas?
= They strongly affect how you perceive, evaluate, and remember other people and yourself.
Give an example of how social Self-Schemas work?
= Knowing how to act in a restaurant
(knowing how to behave in a specific environment)
How do Self-Schemas work?
= CONTAIN knowledge about the self.
= GENERATE knowledge through past generations.
= STORE knowledge through cognitive generalisations.
= PURPOSE is to help organise self-related information.
What is congruent information (Clarence., 2014)
= When an individuals sense of self is consistent with actions they take and the situations they encounter.
= Information is therefore processed quicker.
What is incongruent information? (Hoyland., 2015)
= Creates cognitive dissonance, with the uncomfortable feeling of holding conflicting beliefs or attitudes.
= Information is therefore likely to be rejected.
(Self-Schemas as motivators and self-regulators)
What did Markus and Nurius (1986) state about ‘possible selves’?
= POSITIVE possible self is the belief that you can make it, reinforcing positive behaviours
= NEGATIVE possible self is having no faith in your ability, reinforcing negative behaviours.
What did Chi-Hung Ng (2005) state about behavioural implications of Self-Schemas?
= POSITIVE Self-Schema for maths (more engaged, determined, better outcomes).
= NEGATIVE Self-Schema for maths (less engaged, fearful for tasks, anxious, embarrassed, low achievement)
What is the Self-Reference effect (T.B Rogers and Colleagues (1977))
= The tendency to process information related to oneself efficiently and quickly.
> the self affects memory > information relevant to the self gets stored faster and is remembered well.
How did Swallow and Kuiper., (1987) criticise the Self-Reference effect?
= People with depression focus on self-referent negative attributes more than people.
What did Dunning and Hayes (1987) state?
= When judging others behaviour or performance, we instantly compare it to ourselves.
What did Savitsky (2001) state?
= Tend to see ourselves as key players in tasks we had a small role in.
= Overestimate how much others notice behaviour, appearance etc.
(The Cocktail Party Effect) What did Cherry (1959) state?
= Even when in deep conversation, we immediately shift attention elsewhere at the mere mention of our name.
How did Higgins (1987) split the Self-Discrepancy theory?
- THE ACTUAL SELF (attributes you possess e.g., physical characteristics)
- THE OUGHT SELF (attributes you should possess e.g., social norms and values)
- THE IDEAL SELF (attributes you ideally would want to possess e.g., achievements and accomplishments).
What is the Social Comparison Theory (Festinger., 1954)?
= The evaluation of abilities and opinions through comparison with others
= We tend to compare very quickly.
According to Mussweiler et al., (2004), who do we tend to compare with?
= Anyone who is around at the time.
= Initial comparison is quick and automatic.
= We then consider the appropriateness of the comparison and how informative/useful it is.
(Practical application) How are individualism and collectivism involved with the concept of The-Self?
= Through independence (individual traits and goals) or interdependence (social, connections with others)
e.g., personal traits = individualism
e.g., social identity traits = collectivism
(Culture study)
What did Kim and Markus., (1999) study?
= Individualist and collectivist cultures, measuring levels of independence and interdependence.
= Survey included questions about characteristics, goals, and relationships.
= Individuals from the United States had a higher level of independent self-construal,
= Individuals from Japan had a higher level of interdependent self-construal.
(Gender)
What did Gabriel and Gardner., (1999) study?
= Relational Interdependence
= When asked to recall a positive/negative emotional event, most women described their engagement day or the death of a relative, whereas men described their initiation to a sports team, or the day they won a trophy.
= Women have higher individual interdependence than men.
= Men have more collective interdependence.
What is ‘Self-Esteem’?
= Overall positive or negative self-evaluation or sense of worth.
= Self-esteem fluctuates, with each individual being able to build it up again.
What do Crocker and Wolfe (2001) state is the ‘Bottom-up’ process?
= A person who has a sense of self-esteem which is dependent on doing well in school and looking attractive will feel high self-esteem when made to feel clever or beautiful.
