The Self in Social Psychology PDF

THE SELF IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY DISCUSSANT: MARLINA T. DAYRIT, M.A.T. Reference: Rajiv Jhangiani and Hammond Tarry. Principles of Social Psychology. Victoria B.C.: Pressbooks, 2022, pp. 3, 135-185.  SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY Social psychology is the scientific study of...

THE SELF IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY DISCUSSANT: MARLINA T. DAYRIT, M.A.T. Reference: Rajiv Jhangiani and Hammond Tarry. Principles of Social Psychology. Victoria B.C.: Pressbooks, 2022, pp. 3, 135-185.  SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY Social psychology is the scientific study of how we feel about, think about, and behave toward the people around us and how our feelings, thoughts, and behaviors are influenced by those people.  SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY It is the study of the dynamic relationship between individuals and the people around them. Our behavior is also profoundly influenced by the social situation—the people with whom we interact every day. These people include our friends and family, our classmates, our religious groups, the people we see on TV or read about or interact with online, as well as people we think about, remember, or even imagine.  SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY Social psychologists believe that human behavior is determined by both a person’s characteristics and the social situation. They also believe that the social situation is frequently a stronger influence on behavior than are a person’s characteristics. Our social situations create social influence—the process through which other people change our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors and through which we change theirs.  SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY Kurt Lewin formalized the joint influence of person variables and situational variables, which is known as the person-situation interaction, in an important equation: Behavior = f (person, social situation). Lewin’s equation indicates that the behavior of a given person at any given time is a function of (depends on) both the characteristics of the person and the influence of the social situation.  SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY There are two fundamental motivations that guide us and help us lead productive and effective lives. One of these motivations relates to the self—the motivation to protect and enhance the self and the people who are psychologically close to us; the other relates to the social situation—the motivation to affiliate with, accept, and be accepted by others. We will refer to these two motivations as self-concern and other-concern, respectively. THE SELF-CONCERN The most basic tendency of all living organisms, and the focus of the first human motivation, is the desire to protect and enhance our own life and the lives of the people who are close to us. Humans are motivated to find food and water, to obtain adequate shelter, and to protect themselves from danger. Doing so is necessary because we can survive only if we are able to meet these fundamental goals. THE SELF-CONCERN The desire to maintain and enhance the self also leads us to do the same for our relatives—those people who are genetically related to us. Human beings, like other animals, exhibit kin selection—strategies that favor the reproductive success of one’s relatives, sometimes even at a cost to the individual’s own survival. In addition to our kin, we desire to protect, improve, and enhance the well-being of our ingroup— those we view as being similar and important to us and with whom we share close social connections, even if those people do not actually share our genes. THE OTHER-CONCERN We also desire to connect with and be accepted by other people more generally—the goal of other-concern. Our connections with others also provide us with opportunities that we would not have on our own. We also affiliate because we enjoy being with others, being part of social groups, and contributing to social discourse (Leary & Cox, 2008). What the other-concern motive means is that we do not always put ourselves first. Being human also involves caring about, helping, and cooperating with other people.  THE SELF IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY The Cognitive Self:The Self-Concept The Feeling Self: Self-Esteem The Social Self:The Role of the Social Situation THE COGNITIVE SELF: SELF-CONCEPT THE COGNITIVE SELF: SELF-CONCEPT The self-concept is a knowledge representation that contains knowledge about us, including our beliefs about our personality traits, physical characteristics, abilities, values, goals, and roles, as well as the knowledge that we exist as individuals. Throughout childhood and adolescence, the self-concept becomes more abstract and complex and is organized into a variety of different cognitive aspects of the self, known as self-schemas. THE COGNITIVE SELF: SELF-CONCEPT The following are the three main components of the self-concept: ❖physical characteristics - they are mentioned by many people when they describe themselves. ❖personality traits—the specific and stable personality characteristics that describe an individual (“I am friendly,” “I am shy,” “I am persistent”). These individual differences are important determinants of behavior. ❖social identity—the sense of our self that involves our memberships in social groups. THE COGNITIVE SELF: SELF-CONCEPT The following are the two structural aspects of the self-concept: ❖self-complexity - the extent to which individuals have many different and relatively independent ways of thinking about themselves (Linville, 1987; Roccas & Brewer, 2002). ❖self-concept clarity - the extent to which one’s self-concept is clearly and consistently defined (Campbell, 1990). SELF-COMPLEXITY Having a complex self means that we have a lot of different ways of thinking about ourselves. For example, imagine a woman whose self-concept contains the social identities of student, girlfriend, daughter, psychology student, and tennis player and who has encountered a wide variety of life experiences. Social psychologists would say that she has high self-complexity. On the other hand, a man who perceives himself primarily as either a student or as a member of the soccer team and who has had a relatively narrow range of life experiences would be said to have low self- complexity. SELF-COMPLEXITY Research has found that compared with people low in self-complexity, those higher in self-complexity tend to experience more positive outcomes, including higher levels of self-esteem (Rafaeli-Mor & Steinberg, 2002), lower levels of stress and illness (Kalthoff & Neimeyer, 1993), and a greater tolerance for frustration (Gramzow, Sedikides, Panter, & Insko, 2000). SELF-CLARITY As has been found with self-complexity, higher self-concept clarity is positively related to self-esteem (Campbell et al., 1996). People with higher self-esteem tend to have a more well-defined and stable view of their positive qualities, whereas those with lower self- esteem show more inconsistency and instability in their self-concept, which is then more vulnerable to being negatively affected by challenging situations. Consistent with this assertion, self-concept clarity appears to mediate the relationship between stress and well-being (Ritchie et al., 2011). THE COGNITIVE SELF: SELF-CONCEPT The self-concept varies in its current cognitive accessibility: ❖self-awareness - refers to the extent to which we are currently fixing our attention on our own self-concept. The self-concept becomes highly accessible because of our concerns about being observed and potentially judged by others. And the publicly induced self-awareness is self-consciousness (Duval & Wicklund, 1972; Rochat, 2009). THE COGNITIVE SELF: SELF-CONCEPT The two aspects of individual differences in self-awareness: ❖private self-consciousness - refers to the tendency to introspect about our inner thoughts and feelings. People who are high on private self- consciousness are likely to base their behavior on their own inner beliefs and values—they let their inner thoughts and feelings guide their actions—and they may be particularly likely to strive to succeed on dimensions that allow them to demonstrate their own personal accomplishments (Lalwani et al., 2009) THE COGNITIVE SELF: SELF-CONCEPT The two aspects of individual differences in self-awareness: ❖public self-consciousness - refers to the tendency to focus on our outer public image and to be particularly aware of the extent to which we are meeting the standards set by others. These are the people who check their hair in a mirror they pass and spend a lot of time getting ready in the morning; they are more likely to let the opinions of others (rather than their own opinions) guide their behaviors and are particularly concerned with making good impressions on others. THE COGNITIVE SELF: SELF-CONCEPT People become more likely to violate acceptable, mainstream social norms when, for example, they put on a Halloween mask or engage in other behaviors that hide their identities. For example, when people are in large crowds, such as in a mass demonstration or a riot, they may become so much a part of the group that they experience deindividuation—the loss of individual self- awareness and individual accountability in groups (Festinger, Pepitone, & Newcomb, 1952; Zimbardo, 1969) and become more attuned to themselves as group members and to the specific social norms of the particular situation (Reicher & Stott, 2011). THE FEELING SELF: SELF-ESTEEM THE FEELING SELF: SELF-ESTEEM Self-esteem refers to the positive (high self-esteem) or negative (low self- esteem) feelings that we have about ourselves. We experience the positive feelings of high self-esteem when we believe that we are good and worthy and that others view us positively. We experience the negative feelings of low self-esteem when we believe that we are inadequate and less worthy than others. Our self-esteem is determined by many factors, including how well we view our own performance and appearance, and how satisfied we are with our relationships with other people (Tafarodi & Swann, 1995). MAINTAINING AND ENHANCING SELF-ESTEEM Be successful at what we do. When we get a good grade on a test, perform well in a sports match, or get a date with someone we really like, our self-esteem naturally rises. One reason that many of us have positive self-esteem is because we are generally successful at creating positive lives. When we fail in one domain, we tend to move on until we find something that we are good at. We don’t always expect to get the best grade on every test or to be the best player on the team. Therefore, we are often not surprised or hurt when those things don’t happen. In short, we feel good about ourselves because we do a pretty good job at creating decent lives. As has been found with self-complexity, higher self-concept clarity is positively related to self-esteem (Campbell et al., 1996). MAINTAINING AND ENHANCING SELF-ESTEEM Building connections with others. Forming and maintaining satisfying relationships helps us to feel good about ourselves. A common way of doing this for many people around the world is through social networking sites. There are a growing number of studies exploring how we do this online and the effects that it has on our self-worth. One common way on Facebook is to share status updates, which we hope that our friends will then “like” or comment on. MAINTAINING AND ENHANCING SELF-ESTEEM Building connections with others. When our friends do not respond to our updates, this can negatively impact how we feel about ourselves. One study found that when regular Facebook users were assigned to an experimental condition where they were banned from sharing information on Facebook for 48 hours, they reported significantly lower levels of belonging and meaningful existence. In a second experiment, participants were allowed to post material to Facebook, but half of the participants’ profiles were set up by the researchers not to receive any responses, whether “likes” or comments, to their status updates. In line with predictions, that group reported lower self-esteem, level of belonging, level of control, and meaningful existence than the control group who did receive feedback (Tobin,Vanman,Verreynne, & Saeri, 2014). Whether online or offline, then, feeling ignored by our friends can dent our self- worth. NARCISSISM AND THE LIMITS OF SELF-ENHANCEMENT There can be negative aspects to having too much self-esteem, however, particularly if that esteem is unrealistic and undeserved. Narcissism is a personality trait characterized by overly high self-esteem, self- admiration, and self-centeredness. Narcissists can be perceived as charming at first, but often alienate others in the long run (Baumeister, Campbell, Krueger, & Vohs, 2003). They can also make bad romantic partners as they often behave selfishly and are always ready to look for someone else who they think will be a better mate, and they are more likely to be unfaithful than non-narcissists (Campbell & Foster, 2002; Campbell, Rudich, & Sedikides, 2002). NARCISSISM AND THE LIMITS OF SELF-ENHANCEMENT Narcissists are also more likely to bully others, and they may respond very negatively to criticism (Baumeister et al., 2003). People who have narcissistic tendencies more often pursue self-serving behaviors, to the detriment of the people and communities surrounding them (Campbell, Bush, Brunell, & Shelton, 2005). Perhaps surprisingly, narcissists seem to understand these things about themselves, although they engage in the behaviors anyway (Carlson, Vazire, & Oltmanns, 2011). THE SOCIAL SELF: THE ROLE OF THE SOCIAL SITUATION THE LOOKING GLASS SELF: OUR SENSE OF SELF IS INFLUENCED BY OTHERS’ VIEWS OF US The concept of the looking-glass self states that part of how we see ourselves comes from our perception of how others see us (Cooley, 1902). We might feel that we have a great sense of humor, for example, because others have told us, and often laugh (apparently sincerely) at our jokes. Many studies have supported a basic prediction derived from the notion of the looking-glass self, namely that our self-concepts are often quite similar to the views that others have of us (Beer, Watson, & McDadeMontez, 2013). THE LOOKING GLASS SELF: OUR SENSE OF SELF IS INFLUENCED BY OTHERS’ VIEWS OF US Sometimes, the influence of other people’s appraisals of ourselves on our self-concept may be so strong that we end up internalizing them. For example, we are often labeled in particular ways by others, perhaps informally in terms of our ethnic background, or more formally in terms of a physical or psychological diagnosis. The labeling bias occurs when we are labeled, and others’ views and expectations of us are affected by that labeling (Fox & Stinnett, 1996). If we are repeatedly labeled and evaluated by others, then self-labeling may occur, which happens when we adopt others’ labels explicitly into our self- concept. THE LOOKING GLASS SELF: OUR SENSE OF SELF IS INFLUENCED BY OTHERS’ VIEWS OF US The effects of this self-labeling on our self-esteem appear to depend very much on the nature of the labels. Labels used in relation to diagnosis of psychological disorders can be detrimental to people who then internalize them. In this situation, those who self-label may come to experience internalized prejudice, which occurs when individuals turn prejudice directed toward them by others onto themselves. Internalized prejudice has been found to predict more negative self- concept and poorer psychological adjustment in members of various groups, including sexual minorities (Carter, 2012) and racial minorities (Szymanski & Obiri, 2011). SOCIAL COMPARISON THEORY: OUR SENSE OF SELF IS INFLUENCED BY COMPARISONS WITH OTHERS Social comparison occurs primarily on dimensions on which there are no correct answers or objective benchmarks and thus on which we can rely only on the beliefs of others for information. Answers to questions such as “What should I wear to the interview?” or “What kind of music should I have at my wedding?” are frequently determined at least in part by using the behavior of others as a basis of comparison. We also use social comparison to help us determine our skills or abilities— how good we are at performing a task or doing a job, for example. When students ask their teacher for the class average on an exam, they are also seeking to use social comparison to evaluate their performance. SOCIAL COMPARISON THEORY: OUR SENSE OF SELF IS INFLUENCED BY COMPARISONS WITH OTHERS Although we use social comparison in part to develop our self-concept— that is, to form accurate conclusions about our attitudes, abilities, and opinions—social comparison has perhaps an even bigger impact on our self- esteem. When we are able to compare ourselves favorably with others, we feel good about ourselves, but when the outcome of comparison suggests that others are better or better off than we are, then our self-esteem is likely to suffer. This is one reason why good students who attend high schools in which the other students are only average may suddenly find their self-esteem threatened when they move on to colleges and universities in which they are no longer better than the other students (Marsh, Kong, & Hau, 2000). SOCIAL COMPARISON THEORY: OUR SENSE OF SELF IS INFLUENCED BY COMPARISONS WITH OTHERS Perhaps you’ve had the experience yourself of the changes in self-esteem that occur when you have moved into a new year in school, got a new job, or changed your circle of friends. In these cases, you may have felt much better about yourself or much worse, depending on the nature of the change. You can see that in these cases the actual characteristics of the individual person have not changed at all; only the social situation and the comparison with others have changed. SOCIAL COMPARISON THEORY: OUR SENSE OF SELF IS INFLUENCED BY COMPARISONS WITH OTHERS Because many people naturally want to have positive self-esteem, they frequently attempt to compare themselves positively with others. Downward social comparison occurs when we attempt to create a positive image of ourselves through favorable comparisons with others who are worse off than we are. SOCIAL COMPARISON THEORY: OUR SENSE OF SELF IS INFLUENCED BY COMPARISONS WITH OTHERS Research has also found that people who are suffering from serious diseases prefer to compare their condition with other individuals whose current condition and likely prognosis is worse than their own (Buunk, Gibbons, & Visser, 2002). These comparisons make them feel more hopeful about their own possible outcomes. SOCIAL COMPARISON THEORY: OUR SENSE OF SELF IS INFLUENCED BY COMPARISONS WITH OTHERS More frequent use of downward than upward social comparison with similar others has been shown to be a commonly used coping strategy for preserving self-esteem in the face of a wide variety of challenging life situations, including experiences of physical decline, rheumatoid arthritis, AIDS, occupational burnout, eating disorders, unemployment, educational difficulties, and intellectual disabilities (Buunk, Gibbons, & Buunk, 1997). SOCIAL COMPARISON THEORY: OUR SENSE OF SELF IS INFLUENCED BY COMPARISONS WITH OTHERS Although downward comparison provides us with positive feelings, upward social comparison, which occurs when we compare ourselves with others who are better off than we are, is also common (Blanton, Buunk, Gibbons, & Kuyper, 1999;Vrugt & Koenis, 2002). Upward comparison may lower our self-esteem by reminding us that we are not as well off as others. SOCIAL COMPARISON THEORY: OUR SENSE OF SELF IS INFLUENCED BY COMPARISONS WITH OTHERS Despite negative effects of upward comparisons, they can sometimes be useful because they provide information that can help us do better, help us imagine ourselves as part of the group of successful people that we want to be like (Collins, 2000), and give us hope (Snyder, Cheavens, & Sympson, 1997). The power of upward social comparison can also be harnessed for social good. When people are made aware that others are already engaging in particular prosocial behaviors, they often follow suit, partly because an upward social comparison is triggered. This has been shown in relation to sustainable environmental practices, for example. SOCIAL IDENTITY THEORY: OUR SENSE OF SELF IS INFLUENCED BY THE GROUPS WE BELONG TO Social identity theory asserts that we draw part of our sense of identity and self-esteem from the social groups that we belong to (Hogg, 2003; Oakes, Haslam, & Turner, 1994;Tajfel, 1981). Normally, group memberships result in positive feelings, which occur because we perceive our own groups and thus ourselves in a positive light. Your membership in the group becomes part of what you are, and the membership often makes you feel good about yourself. SOCIAL IDENTITY THEORY: OUR SENSE OF SELF IS INFLUENCED BY THE GROUPS WE BELONG TO For instance, seeing our national flag outside a government office may remind of us our national identity. Identity can also be heightened when it is threatened by conflict with another group—such as during an important sports game with a rival team. We each have multiple social identities, and which of our identities we draw our self-esteem from at a given time will depend on the situation we are in, as well as the social goals we have. SELF PRESENTATION: OUR SENSE OF SELF IS INFLUENCED BY THE AUDIENCES WE HAVE Positive self-esteem occurs not only when we do well in our own eyes but also when we feel that we are positively perceived by the other people we care about. Because it is so important to be seen as competent and productive members of society, people naturally attempt to present themselves to others in a positive light. SELF PRESENTATION: OUR SENSE OF SELF IS INFLUENCED BY THE AUDIENCES WE HAVE We attempt to convince others that we are good and worthy people by appearing attractive, strong, intelligent, and likable and by saying positive things to others (Jones & Pittman, 1982; Schlenker, 2003). The tendency to present a positive self-image to others, with the goal of increasing our social status, is known as self-presentation, and it is a basic and natural part of everyday life. Different self-presentation strategies may be used to create different emotions in other people, and the use of these strategies may be evolutionarily selected because they are successful (Toma, Hancock, & Ellison, 2008). SELF PRESENTATION: OUR SENSE OF SELF IS INFLUENCED BY THE AUDIENCES WE HAVE Edward Jones and Thane Pittman (1982) described five self-presentation strategies, each of which is expected to create a resulting emotion in the other person: 1. The goal of ingratiation is to create liking by using flattery or charm. 2. The goal of intimidation is to create fear by showing that you can be aggressive. 3. The goal of exemplification is to create guilt by showing that you are a better person than the other. 4. The goal of supplication is to create pity by indicating to others that you are helpless and needy. 5. The goal of self-promotion is to create respect by persuading others that you are competent. SELF PRESENTATION: OUR SENSE OF SELF IS INFLUENCED BY THE AUDIENCES WE HAVE We may want to self-promote with the goal of getting others to like us, but we must also be careful to consider the point of view of the other person. Being aware of these strategies is not only useful for better understanding how to use them responsibly ourselves, but it can also help us to understand that other people’s behaviors may often reflect their self-presentational concerns.