The Self and Identity Flashcards
What is self-concept?
- The self-concept encompasses both our internal characteristics and our social roles. It includes roles in society, personality, qualities you use to describe yourself, things you are good at or bad at, social identity vs private identity, how we compare ourselves to others, values and beliefs. In addition to our thoughts about who we are right now, the self-concept also includes thoughts about our past self—our experiences, accomplishments, and failures—and about our future self—our hopes, plans, goals, and possibilities.
What are the determinants of self?
- social identities in groups
- social comparisons we make when we compare ourselves to others (looking glass self)
- roles we play in everyday life
What are the 2 world cultural views?
cultures that emphasize individuality and the others that emphasize sociality (Separated vs relational selves)
What are the three central metaphors according to McAdams concept of self?
the self may be seen as social actor, motivated self and autobiographical self.
Define “Social actor”?
“The sense of the self as an embodied actor whose social performances may be construed in terms of self-ascribed traits and social roles”
Define “ Motivated Self”?
“The sense of the self as an intentional force that strives to achieve goals, plans, values, projects, programs and gives behavior its direction and purpose
Define “Autobiographical self”?
“The sense of the self as a storyteller who reconstructs the past and imagines the future in order to articulate an integrative narrative that provides life with some measure of temporal continuity and purpose”
Why the self is inherently reflexive?
Because it reflects back on itself.
How psychologist William James (1892/1963) define the self?
The self is what happens when “I” reflects back upon “Me.”
“The self is both the I and the Me”. What that means ?
it is the knower, and it is what the knower knows when the knower reflects upon itself.
How the philosopher Charles Taylor (1989) describes the self ?
Taylor describes the self as a reflexive project. He agues, we often try to manage, discipline, refine, improve, or develop the self. We work on ourselves, as we might work on any other interesting project.
What happens when children turns 2 year?
Most toddlers recognize themselves in mirrors and begin to express social emotions such as embarrassment, shame, guilt, and pride. These emotions tell the social actor how well he or she is performing in the group.
What Freud says about the development of the self?
• the emergence of an autonomous ego happens on the second year. Freud used the term “ego” to refer to an executive self in the personality.
What Erikson says about the development of the self?
• Erikson (1963) argued that experiences of trust and interpersonal attachment in the first year of life help to consolidate the autonomy of the ego in the second.
What Mead says about the development of the self?
Mead (1934) suggested that the I comes to know the Me through reflection, which may begin quite literally with mirrors but later involves the reflected appraisals (judgments) of others.
What happens in the development of the self as a social actor?
• In the development of the self as a social actor, other people function like mirrors—they reflect who I am back to me.
Which kind of attributions young children is able to make about themselves ?
they start with simple behavioral traits such as “nice,” or “helpful,” or “good”.
Which kind of attributions children by the age of 10 is able to make about themselves ?
By the age 10, they see themselves in more complex ways attributing traits to the self such as “honest,” “moody,” “outgoing,” “shy,” “hard-working,” “smart,”
What happens by late childhood and early adolescence in terms of self-conception?
- Besides self-conceptions will likely include important social roles, by late childhood and early adolescence, the personality traits that people attribute to themselves, as well as those attributed to them by others, tend to correlate with each other.
What are the Big Five?
The Big five are the personality traits that people attribute to themselves, associated with those traits attributed to them by others. They are:
(1) extraversion,
(2) neuroticism,
(3) agreeableness,
(4) conscientiousness, and
(5) openness to experience.
What are the main features of social reputation?
Personality traits and social roles make up the main features of social reputation. Trait terms convey what I reflexively perceive to be my overall acting style, based in part on how I think others see me as an actor in many different social situations and roles capture the quality, as I perceive it, of important structured relationships in my life.
How to become a more effective social actor?
By taking aim at the important roles you play in life and doing concrete things that enrich your performances in important social roles.
Is it possible to know the social actor values and desires just by seeing them acting? Why?
No. We cannot know for sure what they want or what they value, unless they tell us straightaway.
As a social actor, a person may come across as friendly and compassionate, or cynical and mean-spirited, but in neither case can we infer their motivations from their traits or their roles.
Human beings are agents even as infants. What happens by age 1 year?
By age 1 year, infants show a strong preference for observing and imitating the goal-directed, intentional behavior of others, rather than random behaviors. it is quite another for the I to know itself (the Me) as an intentional and purposeful force who moves forward in life in pursuit of self-chosen goals, values, and other desired end states.
