Self-Control and Social Comparison

• Lecture 3 looks at the self, including self-knowledge, self-control and self-esteem.
• The learning objectives include outlining the self and self-control functions, explaining self-knowledge gain, discussing the Self-Esteem Movement and differences between narcissism and high self-esteem, as well as understanding self-evaluation and preferred feedback.

Self Knowledge

• Self-awareness is demonstrated by humans, from 18-24 months, apes, dolphins, Asian elephants, and magpies.
• Self-schemas are organized knowledge structures about the self, including attitudes, likes/dislikes, and personality traits and they influence what is noticed, thought about, and remembered.
• High concept clarity is held with certainty when our self-schemas are consistent and table.
• Low concept clarity (self-concept confusion) has low self-esteem, a proneness to depression, more neuroticism, less awareness of internal states, and chronic self-analysis and rumination.
• Self-concept clarity can be influenced by situational factors, like a romantic breakup.
• Those in individualist cultures like Canada have more independent views of the self; The definition stems from one's own thoughts, feelings, and behaviours, plus independence and uniqueness are valued.
• Those in collectivist cultures like Japan have interdependent views of the self, where ones relationships to others define them and are often determined by others' thoughts, feelings and behaviors.
• Interdependence is valued, plus have less consistency or stability and lower clarity but a weaker link to self-esteem.

Knowing Ourselves

• Self-knowledge is gained from introspection, observing our own behavior, social interaction, and comparing ourselves with others.

Introspection

• It involves looking inward to examine 'inside information' about oneself.
• People have a trigger, like mirror reflections or video recordings.
• Introspection has limited utility, people aren't always aware of feelings and behaviors.
• Self-awareness theory evaluates yourself by comparing your behavior to personal standards.
• Behavior conflicting standards makes us feel uncomfortable, resulting in distractions and self-destructive behaviors.
• Pleasant introspection can highlight accomplishments, and follows moral codes.
• Collectivist cultures are more "self-aware" by default.
• It can be easy to identify feelings right now; difficult to remember how felt retrospectively; and knowing why (causal theories)
• People rely on causal theories or schemas based on beliefs about why they behave or feel a certain way.
• Causal theories are not accurate and are learned and vary by culture.

Observing Our Own Behavior

• Self-perception theory is when attitudes are uncertain/ambiguous, inner feelings are inferred by observing behavior and the situation. This happens when not sure how feel.
• Behavior is viewed as a reflection of true feelings.
• Intrinsic motivation means people believe they do something for extrinsic rewards and persistence lessens in that behavior, and ultimately achieve less.

Social Interaction

• People have different "selves" which develop in response to different social situations.
• Self-monitoring is a personality trait that modifies one's behavior in response to situational pressures, opportunities, and norms.
• High self-monitoring individuals regulate their expressive behavior and self-presentation for situational expectations.
• The looking glass self is where one sees themselves through other people's eyes and incorporate these views into their self-concepts. Implications are connected to who think we are determines in part the people around us.
• Feedback from others shapes the self-concept through the Michelangelo phenomenon.
• Three shaping methods are affirming, failing to affirm and disaffirming.

Michelangelo Phenomenon

• Affirming feedback is helpful, positive, and encouraging (yet realistic).
• Failing to affirm is neither particularly helpful nor harmful, and can have irrelevant feedback.
• Disaffirming is harmful and/or negative/counter ideal feedback.

Comparing Ourselves With Others

• Social-comparison theory means our abilities and attitudes are learned by comparison.
• We socially compare when there is no objective standard to measure against, like intelligence, academic achievement, sexual frequency and number of partners.
• It is informative to compare ourselves with others who are similar to us on the attribute or dimension in question.

Self Control

• Self-control allows us to self-regulate, to act in accordance with goals and direct behavior, choices, plans for the future, etc.
• Self-control is the capacity to self-regulate, helping override impulses and modify behavior.
• Dispositional (trait) self-control has a relatively stable amount of self-control.
• State self-control is variable.
• Self-regulatory resource model argues self-control is a finite resource susceptible to depletion (ego depletion).
• Low self-control yields negative outcomes like less academic success, impaired control of aggression/anger, unhealthy relationships, and be less helpful, plus tend to inappropriate use of pornography in the workplace.
• Low self-control can sometimes be adaptive and yield prosocial outcomes if our gut reaction is appropriate or impairs those feelings. They bypass our "filters" and tendency to overanalyze.
• In white-black interactions with a confederate about diversity, "depleted" white participants enjoyed interactions more, exhibited less inhibited behaviour, and appeared to be less prejudiced.
• Bolstering self-control involves implementation intentions, or plans to obtain goals and avoid distractions. Remove distractions from the environment.
• Ego depletion argues like muscles, strengthens self-control, using the non-dominant hand or regulating habitual speech, avoiding sentences that begin with word "I."
• Problems with ego depletion can be counteracted through positive emotions like humor, laughter, cash incentives, and sugar-sweetened lemonade.

Self Evaluation

• Self-esteem is the feeling of worth.
• Cognitive parts of self-esteem are beliefs about self-worth.
• Affective components of self-esteem are the feelings toward the self.
• High self-esteem is generally thought to be adaptive and healthy, but correlation ≠ causation. "Self-Esteem Movement" in education had potential consequences.
• High self-esteem has positive, secure self-views and is not overly sensitive and esteem threats are unlikely to trigger aggression, unlike narcissism that has grandiose but fragile self-views, sensitive rejection and is high likely aggression.
• Self-esteem can be measured both implicitly and expicitly.
• Explicit self-esteem is influenced by self-representations and measured by Rosenberg self-esteem scale
• Arguably, implicit self-esteem is more resistant to to self-presentation concerns/better unconscious feelings, and is measured by implicit tests like name-letter or the IAT.
• High explicit self-esteem manifest manifests as secure self-esteem (High explicit + high implicit), and defensive ( High explicit + low implicit) self-esteem
• Secure self-esteem is stable and resistant to threat, whereas defensive self-esteem is fragile and vulnerable. Defensive is and aspect of narcissism that involves entitlement, lack of empathy.
• Downward social comparison compares you to someone worse.
• Self-protective, self-enhancing which feels good making and is only if we don't feel vulnerable to the worse-off person's negative outcomes
• Upward social comparisons, if we feel worse, are comparisons by someone who is better, and is only motivating if we're focused on the actual/vs best self
• Social comparison theory influences how porn and social media destroy relationships
• Effects of DSCs and USCs are reversed when the person we're comparing ourselves to is our romantic partner
• Close others are included during self comparison, promoting intimacy and shared fate.
• Sociometer Theory is where self-esteem monitors the extent of our social acceptance or rejection.
• Low individuals seek more social interactions, links self fulfilling prophecies.
• Self-enhancement is believing skills and attributes are above average.
• It is a motivational for people holding unrealistically views of themselves where European canadian have high levels on average
• It is individualistic, collectivist more self effacement
• Failure to feedback leads to more self-effacement in collectivist cultures.
• People seek verification and confirmation for identity regardless of self views.
• Desire to maintain consistent views.
• If self verification happens people do not confirm views.
• People don't understand
• Awkward interaction; conflicting verification with enhancement.
• We want to get others to agree with our positive light
• Those with enhancement
• Expertise on a similar level and verification otherwise
• The self is knowledge control evaluation
• Pople gain self-knowledge four means
• Evaluate themselves
• Evaluation can evaluate the person
• Good but with low implicit
• Can conflict when low

Explore the intricacies of self-control, social comparison theory, and self-perception. Understand when we compare ourselves to others, the role of self-control as an executive function, and how it affects outcomes. Differentiate between dispositional and state self-control.