The Self In A Social World PDF

THE SELF IN A SOCIAL WORLD CHAPTER 2 There are three things extremely hard, Steel, a Diamond, and to know one’s self -Benjamin Franklin  Outline I. Spotlights & Illusions II. Self-concept: Who am I? III. Self-esteem IV. Perceived self-control V. Self-serving bias...

THE SELF IN A SOCIAL WORLD CHAPTER 2 There are three things extremely hard, Steel, a Diamond, and to know one’s self -Benjamin Franklin  Outline I. Spotlights & Illusions II. Self-concept: Who am I? III. Self-esteem IV. Perceived self-control V. Self-serving bias VI. Self-presentation How would you feel walking around the campus with that look? I. Spotlights & Illusions Spotlight effect --The belief that others are paying more attention to one’s appearance and behavior than they really are. Illusion of transparency --The illusion that our concealed emotion are “leak out” and can be easily read by others. II. Self-Concept: Who am I?  A. Our sense of Self Self-concept– A person’s answers to the question “Who am I?”.  Your idea of yourself.  Multidimensional and multifaceted  Active and changing  Depends on what we are thinking at the moment and on the social context. Schemas-- Are mental templates by which we organize our worlds. Self-schema– Specific beliefs by which you define yourself.  A. Our sense of Self Possible selves– Images of what we dream of or dread becoming in the future. What contributes to our self-concept?  B. Dev. of the Social Self 1. THE ROLES WE PLAY Whether we are a college student, parent, or salesperson our sense of role affects the way we see our self. leader, officer, kapatid, bestfriend 2. SOCIAL COMPARISONS Social Comparison– Evaluating one’s abilities and opinions by comparing oneself with others. Smart or dull?, rich or poor?, Good looking or kind?   B. Dev. of the Social Self 3. SUCCESS & FAILURE Our daily experiences of success and failure gives us a sense of social self. What would you feel if you get a high score in math? 4. OTHER PEOPLE’S JUDGMENTS What people think well of us, it helps us think well of ourselves. Looking-glass self= tendency to use others as a mirror for perceiving our selves.  B. Dev. of the Social Self 5. THE CULTURE In Cultural psych, self and culture are seen as mutually constitutive. Culture and self construct each other! Culture transforms us and then we transform the culture! Activity: Write (as much as you can) self-concepts that you know of about yourself Discuss what these self-concepts reveal about the Filipino self-concept.  C. Self & Culture Individualism– The concept of giving priority to one’s own goals over group goals & defining one’s identity in terms of attributes rather than group identifications. -Can result to independent self (identity as unique individual). Collectivism– Giving priority to the goals of one’s group and defining one’s identity accordingly. -Can result to interdependent self (identity in relation to others).  C. Self & Culture Twenty Statements Tests (Cousins, 1989) Repeatedly asks the questions “Who am I?” Americans used more trait descriptions while Japanese used more role-specific and situational answers. In Bali, individuals are not known by their names but rather in terms of whose children they are (Geertz, 1975) In the PH, the self and the other are integrated into kapwa (Enriquez, 1997)  C. Self & Culture GROWING INDIVIDUALISM “The Me Generation”.  Even parents are now concerned with the uniqueness of their children’s name. CULTURE & COGNITION Asian thinking (more collectivist) vs. Western thinking (more individualist). What goes together? Bulatao (1964, 1965, 1992, 1998)  The Filipino Youth Peña-Alampay (2003) Filipino youth scored higher in the interdependent self compared to independent self. Five major categories of self-aspects: Relational social roles (e.g. anak) Social roles (e.g. estudyante) Situations (e.g. sa bahay) Superordinate categories (e.g. ang gusto kong baguhin) No contextual reference (e.g. ako)  C. Self & Culture CULTURE & SELF-ESTEEM Self-esteem– overall self-evaluation or sense of self- worth. Americans tend to have high self-esteem with disengaged emotions– feeling effective, superior and proud. (Kitayama & Markus, 2000) Asians tend to have high self-esteem with positive social engagement– feeling close, friendly, & respectful. (Kitayama & Markus, 2000) How well do you know your self? “We want. We get. We are happy.”  Why did you choose Psych? Why do you love that special someone?  D. Self-knowledge EXPLAINING OUR BEHAVIOR When it comes to explanation of our behavior sometimes we know sometimes we don’t. We tend to dismiss the subtle factors or predictors of some of our behaviors. Mondays are not really a contributing factor to the participants’ moods (Stone et al., 1985) Thus, sometimes we don’t really know ourselves!  D. Self-knowledge PREDICTING OUR BEHAVIOR Your roommate better predicts whether your romance would survive or not ( Lutsky & others, 1993) Planning Fallacy– The tendency to underestimate the time of completion of task. On average, students finished three weeks later than their “most realistic” estimate (Buehler & others, 2002) How can you improve your self-predictions? The best way is to be more realistic about how long tasks took in the past. However, we tend to misremember those previous tasks (Roy & others, 2005).  D. Self-knowledge PREDICTING OUR FEELINGS How would you feel if during interview you were asked sexually harassing questions? Most women said they would feel angry if asked sexually harassing questions. However, they felt more fear (Woodzicka & LaFrance, 2001). Impact bias- overestimating the enduring impact of emotion-causing events. Immune Neglect-- Tendency to underestimate the speed & strength of the “Psychological Immune System”.  Emotional Recovery or Resilience  D. Self-knowledge THE WISDOM & ILLUSIONS OF SELF-ANALYSIS Implicit attitudes= automatic attitudes. Explicit attitudes= controlled and conscious attitudes. Dual attitudes= having a differing implicit and explicit attitude.  Explicit can change with education and persuasion.  Implicit can change through practice, w/c forms new habits. Part 2  Outline I. Spotlights & Illusions II. Self-concept: Who am I? III. Self-esteem IV. Perceived self-control V. Self-serving bias VI. Self-presentation III. Self-Esteem  A. Self-Esteem Self-Esteem-- A person’s overall self- evaluation or sense of self- worth. Self-Esteem is contingent (bound by circumstance). You feel good when you feel smart & good looking vs. you feel good when you meet some moral standards. Self-perceptions can have an influence. (E.g. if you think you’re good in Math you tend to do well in Math). In an exam in Psychology, the students whose self- esteem was boosted did by far the worst on the final—in fact, they flunked it (Forsyth & others, 2007). B. Self-Esteem Motivation Self-esteem feelings are radars for social rejection. Sibling rivalries & married couples with identical career goals. We want to avoid social rejection, consequently, it motivates us to act with greater sensitivity to others’ expectations. Social acceptance= Self-Esteem ;Social rejection= Self-Esteem. Self-Esteem is bound by the standards of the society. In times of failures, self-esteem people sustain their self-worth by perceiving other people as failing, too, and by exaggerating their superiority over others. C. The “Dark side” of Self- Esteem People with low self-esteem often have problems in life– they make less money, more likely to abuse drugs and be depressed (Nurmi et al., 2007) People with high self-esteem become teen gang leaders, terrorists, and men in prison for committing heinous crimes (Bushman & Baumeister, 2002) C. The “Dark side” of Self- Esteem Narcissism: Self-Esteem’s conceited sister Bushman & Baumeister (1998), undergraduate volunteers wrote essays and received rigged feedback that said, “This is one of the worst essays I’ve read!” Self-Esteem + Narcissism= aggression. Bushman & Baumeister (1998) IV. Perceived Self-Control Self-Efficacy Self-Efficacy– A sense that one is competent & effective. How competent we feel on the task. Given challenging tasks, people who imagine themselves as hardworking and successful outperform those who imagine themselves as failures (Ruvolo & Markus, 1992). High self-efficacy means high self-esteem?  A or B? a. In the long run, b. Unfortunately, people’s people get the respect worth passes unrecognized no matter how hard they they deserve in this try. world. b. Sometimes I feel that I a. What happens to me don’t have enough control is my own doing. over the direction my life is taking. a. The average person can have an influence b. This world is run by the few people in power, and in government there is not much the little decisions. guy can do about it.  A. Locus of Control Locus of control-- The extent to which people perceive outcomes as internally controllable by their own efforts or as externally controlled by chance or outside forces. “Swerte lang”, “Na-malas ako!” “The Law of Attraction” “Kasi magaling ako” “Because I practiced well”  A. Locus of Control External locus of Internal locus of control control You probably believe You probably feel you control your chance or outside own destiny. forces determine your fate. “I failed because I didn't’t study.” “I failed because my teacher didn’t like ‘They can because me by chance.” they think they can.” “Wala ng pag-asa”  B. Learned Helplessness Learned helplessness– The sense of hopelessness and resignation learned when a human or animal perceives no control over repeated bad events. E.g. Depressed or oppressed people become passive because they believe their efforts have no effect.  C. Self-Determination People benefit by training their self-control “muscles.” (Oaten &Cheng, 2006). Prisoners given some control over their environments— by being able to move chairs, control TV sets, and operate the lights—experience less stress, exhibit fewer health problems, and commit less vandalism (Ruback & others, 1986; Wener & others, 1987). In all countries studied, people who perceive themselves as having free choice experience greater satisfaction with their lives. And countries where people experience more freedom have more satisfied citizens (Inglehart & others, 2008). Where would you want to have our fieldtrip?  Self-Determination The Costs of Excess Choice Too many choices can lead to paralysis! Students who chose which classes they would take during the upcoming semester tend to most likely procrastinate and fail exams (Vohs & others, 2008 ). More satisfaction in marriages decades ago when it was more irrevocable Vs. Today that we have greater freedom to escape (annulment, divorce). Part 3  Outline I. Spotlights & Illusions II. Self-concept: Who am I? III. Self-esteem IV. Perceived self-control V. Self-serving bias VI. Self-presentation V. Self-Serving Bias  Self-Serving Bias Self-serving bias-- The tendency to perceive oneself favorably. Group-serving bias- The tendency to perceive one’s group favorably Most of us have a good reputation with ourselves. A. Positive & Negative events Self-serving Attributions-- A form of self-serving bias; the tendency to attribute positive outcomes to oneself and negative outcomes to other factors. Salient in games, exams, & job applications. People attribute their success to their ability and effort, but they attribute failure to external factors such as bad luck or the problem’s inherent “impossibility” (Campbell & Sedikides, 1999). Ironically, we are even biased against seeing our own bias. People claim they avoid self-serving bias themselves, but readily acknowledge that others commit this bias (Pronin & others, 2002).  B. Better than average? Compared with people in general, most people see themselves as more ethical, more competent at their job, friendlier, more intelligent, better looking, less prejudiced, healthier, and even more insightful and less biased in their self-assessments. Young married Canadians usually believed they took more responsibility for such activities as cleaning the house and caring for the children than their spouses credited them for (Rios & Sicoly, 1979).  C. Unrealistic Optimism A predisposition of a positive approach in life. Myself= Unrealistic optimism about my future ; Others= Pessimism to others’ fate Illusory optimism increases our vulnerability. Believing ourselves immune to misfortune, we do not take sensible precautions. Sexually active undergraduate women who don’t consistently use contraceptives perceive themselves, compared with other women at their university, as much less vulnerable to unwanted pregnancy (Burger & Burns, 1988).  D. False Consensus and Uniqueness False Consensus effect-- The tendency to overestimate the commonality of one’s opinions and one’s undesirable or unsuccessful behaviors. We think that others think and act like we do. We generalize from a limited sample, which prominently includes ourselves. “Everyone cheats anyway!” False Uniqueness effect--The tendency to underestimate the commonality of one’s abilities and one’s desirable or successful behaviors. “I’m the one who studies in this class anyway!” D. False Consensus and Uniqueness In Summary… VI. Self-Presentation  A. Self-Handicapping Self-handicapping-- Protecting one’s self-image with behaviors that create a handy excuse for later failure. Handicaps protect both self-esteem and public image by allowing us to attribute failures to something temporary or external. We always have a DISCLAIMER!! Because we are always concerned with our SELF- IMAGE! TAE ka ba? Kasi mahal kiTA Eh. B. Impression Management Self-presentation-- The act of expressing oneself and behaving in ways designed to create a favorable impression or an impression that corresponds to one’s ideals. We want to present a desired image both to an external audience (other people) and to an internal audience (ourselves). That’s why we apologize if necessary. We also must make sure not to brag too much and risk the disapproval of others (Anderson & others, 2006). B. Impression Management Self-monitoring-- Being attuned to the way one presents oneself in social situations and adjusting one’s performance to create the desired impression. We are Social “Chameleons” Social Desirability is salient among Filipinos whenever we answer surveys or questionnaires.