The Classics: What is the Self? Psych 3770 PDF

1/18/2024 The Classics: What is the Self? Psych 3770 Psych of Identity Today The Classics James Cooley Mead Revisit Exercise from Monday 1 1/18/2024 William James Father of self and identity research 1980: Principles of Psychology Trained as a physician, but never practiced medicine Philosopher and...

1/18/2024 The Classics: What is the Self? Psych 3770 Psych of Identity Today The Classics James Cooley Mead Revisit Exercise from Monday 1 1/18/2024 William James Father of self and identity research 1980: Principles of Psychology Trained as a physician, but never practiced medicine Philosopher and psychologist William James “The total self of me, being as it were duplex, partly known and partly knower” “I” as knower Pure ego Thinker “Me” as known Empirical ego The sum total of what a person CAN call theirs 2 1/18/2024 Jamesian Self-Aspects Material Self Body Clothes Family (Loved ones) Home Our acquired property, including our work “construction of [our] hands or brains” Jamesian Self-Aspects Social Self Positive recognition from others “we have an innate propensity to get ourselves noticed, and noticed favorably, by our kind” If the goal is positive recognition from others, what’s the worst case for this type of self-aspect? 3 1/18/2024 Jamesian Self-Aspects Social Self Positive recognition from others “we have an innate propensity to get ourselves noticed, and noticed favorably, by our kind” Ostracism as the worst case Multiple social selves “a man has as many social selves as there are individuals who recognize him” Self-Presentation in multiple groups “…as many different social selves as there are distinct groups of persons about whose opinion he cares. He [sic] generally shows a different side of himself to each of these groups” (more audiences than what we think of a groups) Foreshadows identity integration and social pressure-- ‘discordant splitting’ versus ‘harmonious division’ Jamesian Self-Aspects Social Self The opinions of those closest to us are particularly important “the most peculiar social self which one is apt to have is in the mind of the person one is in love with” “Honor” and “Fame” defined by important social roles “a layman may abandon a city infected with cholera; but a priest or doctor would think such an act incompatible with his honor” 4 1/18/2024 Jamesian Self-Aspects Spiritual Self Inner subjective being Includes temperament/ personality “psychic dispositions are the most enduring part of the self– that which we most seem to be” Internal states and emotions Jamesian Self-Aspects So what is it that is tying the self together? How does James say we draw a distinction between what is “self” and “not self?” 5 1/18/2024 Jamesian Self-Aspects Affect is key to reflection and consolidation “They would call it the active element in all consciousness. […] It is what welcomes or rejects. It presides over the perception of sensations, and by giving or withholding its assent it influences the movements they tend to arouse” The “I” perceives the self-tag of “warmth and intimacy” to recognize and tie together the “Me” The self is NOT only cognitive, memories, etc. Stability vs. Change “Me” objectively different as you progress throughout your life Yet always unified under the “mine” umbrella Jamesian Self-Aspects How does this compare to previous thinking about the self? Most early theorizing involved something (a soul) binding the self together Locke – Identity bounded by memory of personal experiences Hypothesis? Test: Amnesiacs should have no sense of self or identity Conclusion: Not true (Klein et al.; Rathbone et al.) Hume – Identity was a fiction, constructed moment to moment by external perceptions and sensations that give rise to the notion of unity Hypothesis? Not really testable– Though isolation chambers were used to try, and people maintained their sense of self James- Identity bounded by affective somatic marker; feeling of ‘own’ 6 1/18/2024 Jamesian Self-Aspects Data weighs in… Capgras Delusion People with this condition believe that they or someone close to them has been replaced by an identical imposter These delusions can extend to animals and objects They still have intact sensory perception and are not hallucinating (often capgras is unimodal, most often sight) Attributed to a disconnect between sensory identification areas of the brain (e.g., higher-level identification areas in the visual cortex) and areas of the brain involved in emotions (e.g., amygdala, limbic system) Depersonalization Disassociation from self– Feel self is “unreal” Also likely due to corticolimbic disconnections important for affective sensation Jamesian Feelings and Pursuits Material self Seeking to build and acquire things Feel pride in accomplishments and possessions Social self Seeking approval and admiration of others Can pursue indirectly through material self means Feel social, family, group-based pride Spiritual self “every impulse towards psychic progress” Pursuits of this kind are often material or social pursuits in disguise (e.g., judge worth based on wanting to get into Heaven) 7 1/18/2024 Jamesian Feelings: Modern Versions “Self-Seeking” as a motivation Modern version: Self-Expansion Theory (Art Aron) …more on this later on! Multiple selves and Self Esteem James defines the self as LARGE Notes that not all selves are equally important Modern version: Centrality Modern version: Contingencies of Self-Worth Leaves room for personal and cultural variation in what aspects of self are most important for well-being Contingencies of Self-Worth Domains in which self-esteem is invested are contingencies of self-worth (Crocker and Wolfe, 2001) Only contingent domains raise or lower state self-esteem People invest more time in areas they have contingencies in Seven domains in which college students commonly invest their self-esteem: Appearance Others’ approval Competition/ outperforming others Academics Family support Virtue Religious faith or God’s love Week 3: Some evidence that pursuing self-esteem in these domains may be costly to well-being in the long term (Crocker & Park, 2004) 8 1/18/2024 Today The Classics  James Cooley Mead Cooley “my” Emphasized personal pronouns and their ubiquity in language “I” Universality of the notion of a self Empirical self as facts which can be known “’I’ is merely a fact like any other” (**This is not the same as James’ I) Does not engage with the pure ego James wrote about Agrees with James about the importance of self-feeling But emphasizes accomplishment, thoughts, efforts Learn “my” as a label for this feeling Disagrees with James about material aspects being part of the self 9 1/18/2024 Cooley Self is socially defined “There is no sense of ‘I,’ as in pride or shame, without its correlative sense of you, or he, or they.” Self is distinctive “the self idea is always a consciousness of the peculiar or differentiated aspect of one’s life […] at variance with those of others with whom one is in mental contact” Self is learned through behavior Beginning with a baby’s attempts to manipulate objects Then to influence others in social interactions Self and love Boundaries  Love  Expansion Cooley The Self and Development Language learning: “my” label and assertiveness Observational learning (interesting given the ‘your’/’my’ discrepancy) As children learn more abstract thought (see Piaget), they show changes in how they think of themselves “The first definite thoughts that a child associates with self-feeling are probably those of his earliest endeavors to control visible objects– his limb, his playthings, his bottle, and the like. Then he attempts to control the actions of the persons about him, and so his circle of power and of selffeeling widens without interruption to the most complex objects of mature ambition” Adolescence (see Erikson) “Nearly every one, however, whose turn of mind is at all imaginative goes through a season of passionate self-feeling during adolescence” 10 1/18/2024 Cooley Looking Glass Self (1) Imagine our appearance to others (2) Imagine their judgment (3) Self-feeling The self is identified within others’ imagined appraisals This requires not only self-recognition, but imaging the perspective of others Even in private We can change how we feel about our selves based on the audience we imagine This also allows us to change ourselves– even to go against current social norms– by imagining a different audience (ex- future society) Cooley 11 1/18/2024 Today The Classics  James  Cooley Mead Mead Self is not material “We can distinguish very definitely between the body and the self” Self separate from all physiology Self is developed only through social communication “The self, as that which can be an object to itself, is essentially a social structure, and it arises in social experience. After a self has arisen, it in a certain sense provides for itself its social experiences, and we can conceive of an absolutely solitary self. But it is impossible to conceive of a self arising outside of social experience” Not imagined impressions, like Cooley, but actual interactions with others As our cognitive abilities develop, this feedback can be from a “generalized other” The self is cognitive, not emotional “The essence of the self, as we have said, is cognitive” 12 1/18/2024 Mead Distinguishes between “I” and “Me” “Me” is the object– combination of habits that allow for collective living “I” is the distinctiveness/ assertion against these habits Exists only after we have behaved in a way that is not in line with norms Foreshadows Self-Perception Theory (Bem) Mead: Modern Update Self-Perception Theory (Bem) Sometimes we reflect on our past behavior to make inferences about ourselves and our attitudes Ex- Do you prefer Starbucks or Peet’s? This really only happens when an attitude isn’t already part of our core self 13 1/18/2024 Mead Societies make selves, not vice versa Series of gestures as symbols Behavior  Response loop of social interactions We take on the qualities and habits of others in our surroundings Not the same as self-presentation to create a certain impression with an audience, but rather an automatic mimicry that facilitates social function Thinking as preparation for selecting appropriate gesture Self-evaluation through social comparison “It must be recognized by others to have the very values which we want to have belong to it. It realizes itself in some sense through its superiority to others, as it recognizes its inferiority in comparison with others” Today The Classics  James  Cooley  Mead 14 1/18/2024 Reviewing our definitions. Which of these three approaches does the way you sorted your slips from last week best match up with? Compare and contrast your intuitive definitions with those of James, Cooley, and Mead. Your job Your clothes Your parents Your friends Your dog Your IQ Your favorite books Your taste in music Your major Clubs you belong to Your attitudes Your sexual orientation Your race Your gender Your school (hey, UConn!) What your friends think of you What strangers think of you Your hairstyle Your religion Your role as secretary in a campus organization Being a student Taking care of someone Morality Pride Joy Where you live Your favorite color Your nationality/ citizenship Your boyfriend/ girlfriend/ partner The big 3 on fundamental questions… What is the essence of the self? James: at it’s essence, it’s feelings (experientially based) and those things/ others associated with one’s feelings Cooley: feelings, yes but also a strong focus on the self-with-others and experience of self reflected in others’ appraisals Mead: Self is a construction of society; “me” is habits/ norms and “I” is reaction against those 15 1/18/2024 The big 3 on fundamental questions… How stable is the self-concept? James: fluctuating, changes with every relationship and group; some stability in basic dispositions of spiritual self Cooley: fluctuates with each looking glass “In character, as in every phase of life, health requires a just union of stability with plasticity” Mead: can fluctuate, but also has stability because “me” is stable and constrained by society The big 3 on fundamental questions… What is the source of self-esteem? James: others’ standards (recognition/reputation) as well as own standards (success/pretensions) Cooley: others’ standards via reflected appraisals; can be from actual or private audiences Mead: social comparisons and superiority over others 16 1/18/2024 The big 3 on fundamental questions… How do you know what is uniquely yours? James: affective tag Cooley: distinction from others Mead: reactions to situations that are non-normative for your society Recap: Definitions of Self James – I the knower and me the known Me –material, social, spiritual Cooley – looking glass self, grows in part out of individual coming to perceive himself as others perceive him Mead – Self fully social construct 17 1/18/2024 Next Time Next week: Self-development and Organization Readings are on HuskyCT (3 pdfs) Course Content  Week 2 Please post to the Week 2 discussion question forum by Sunday night Discussion Board  Week 2 Discussion Questions forum Complete your measure packets before class next Thursday Come see me if you were not here on Tuesday! 18