Defining Self The way people think and feel about

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Defining Self

• The way people think and feel about themselves
  (Brown, 1998).
• The human self is a self-organizing, interactive
  system of thoughts, feelings, and motives that
  characterizes an individual (Hoyle).

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Self vs. Personality

• According to Brown
• Self is what people think they are like.
• Personality is what people are actually like.

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History of the Self in Psychological Science

• William James (1842-1910)
• Discussed concepts such as self-concept and
  self-esteem
• Used introspection-observation of ones own
  consciousness.
• Behaviorists (e.g., Watson, Skinner)
• Dominated American psychology from 1915-1955.
• Psychology is the science of behavior, not of the
  mind.
• Self relegated to non-scientific psychology.
• Cognitive Revolution and Re-Emergence of the Self
• People are active organisms, capable of planning
  and initiating behaviors in order to achieve
  desired end-states.

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Self at the Center of Human Experience

• ENV ? SELF ? BEH

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William James View of Self

• 2 Main Components
• Me the self-concept (knowledge and thoughts
  related to who you think you are).
• I the perceiver (the part of self that allows
  you to be consciously aware of who you are).
• I sees Me

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Three Components of Self-Concept (James)

• Spiritual Self- your internal perception of who
  you are.
• Personality traits, abilities, interests,
  feelings, desires.
• Social Self- how you are perceived by others.
• Largely based on social roles and group
  memberships.
• Material Self- tangible objects, people, or
  places that carry the designation my or mine.
• Bodily self
• Extracorporeal self

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Cognitive Components of the Self

• The Self is a collection of knowledge.
• Network Models
• Self-schemas- cognitive generalizations about the
  self, derived from past experience, that organize
  and guide the processing of new self-related
  information (Markus, 1977).

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Markus' (1977) Self-Schema studies

• Step 1
•  
• Individuals are categorized as independent,
  dependent, or aschematic.
•  
• How would you describe yourself
•  
• Dependent 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
  8 9 10 Independent
•  
• Conformist 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
  8 9 10 Individualist
•  
• Follower 0 1 2 3 4 5 6
  7 8 9 10 Leader

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Markus' (1977) Self-Schema studies

• Step 2 (3-4 weeks later)
•  
• Judge whether 69 traits are self-descriptive or
  not (RT measured). Each item presented for 2s.
•  
• Example
•  
• Individualistic
•   Me Not Me

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Results (Markus, 1977)

• Self-schemas
• Allow consistent judgments of self
• Speed up processing of self-relevant info

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Extensions of Self-Schema Research

• Memory
• Acceptance of feedback
• Judgment of others

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Self-Reference Effect

• Rogers, Kuiper, Kirker (1977)
•  
• Step 1 
• Structural properties Is kind printed in
  lowercase letters?
• Phonemic properties Does kind rhyme with mind?
• Semantic properties Does kind mean the same as
  nice?
• Self-relevance Does kind describe you?
• Step 2 Surprise recall.

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Self-Reference Effect

• Information related to the self is more easily
  recalled.

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Working Self-Concept

• Working self-concept- the portion of the self
  that is accessible at the moment.
• Consists of
• core self-conceptions (stable across situations).
• tentative self-conceptions (change depending on
  the situation).

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Self-Complexity (Linville, 1987)

• self-complexity entails cognitively organizing
  self-knowledge in terms of a greater number of
  self-aspects and maintaining greater distinctions
  among self-aspects.
• A complex cognitive representation of the self
  serves to moderate the adverse physical and
  mental health effects of stressful events.

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Motivational Views of Self

• Self-evaluation motives
• Self-enhancement- people want to feel good about
  themselves.
• Accuracy- people want valid info about
  themselves.
• Self-verification- people want info that is
  consistent with how they view themselves.
• Self-improvement- people want to get better.

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Swann et al. (1987) Method

• Participants were high or low in social SE
• Task read a passage from a book while evaluator
  watches
• Evaluator gives favorable or unfavorable
  feedback.
• Participants rate the evaluator and their current
  mood.

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Swann et al. (1987) Results
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Swann et al. (1987) Results
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Compromises b/w Enhancement and Verification

• Morling Epstein (1997 Study 2)
• Participants were high or low in self-esteem.
• Ps read scenarios involving potential dating
  partners
• Self-verifying partner
• Slight or extremely enhancing partner
• Slight or extremely belittling partner
• Ps rated immediate gut reactions of liking for
  each partner
• And more considerate, deliberate reactions of
  liking.

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Compromises b/w Enhancement and
VerificationImmediate Condition
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Compromises b/w Enhancement and
VerificationDeliberate Condition
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Self-Discrepancy Theory (Higgins, 1987)

• Three components of self
• Actual self- the person you think you are.
• Ideal self- the person youd ideally like to be.
• Ought self- the person you think you should be.

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Self-Discrepancy Theory (Higgins, 1987)

• 1. We are motivated to reach a condition where
  actual self matches our personally relevant
  self-guides (ideal or ought selves).
• 2. Self discrepancies have affective
  consequences.
• Actual-ideal self discrepancy leads to
  dejection-related emotions.
• Actual-ought self discrepancy leads to
  agitation-related emotions.

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Experimental Evidence for Self-Discrepancy Theory
(Higgins et al., 1986)

• Participants were students who scored high on
  both actual-ideal and actual-ought discrepancy
  and those who scored low on both.
• Ideal prime condition describe the kind of
  person you and your parents would ideally like
  you to be
• Ought prime condition describe the kind of
  person you and your parents think you ought to
  be
• DV pre and post-test mood questionnaire.

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Results (Higgins et al., 1986)

• Ideal priming increased high-discrepancy
  participants dejection.
• Ought priming increased high-discrepancy
  participants agitation.

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Working Self-Concept

• Working self-concept- the portion of the self
  that is accessible at the moment.
• Consists of
• core self-conceptions (stable across situations).
• tentative self-conceptions (change depending on
  the situation).

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Stability and Malleability of the Self-Concept
(Markus Kunda, 1986)

• Manipulated similarity vs. uniqueness
• e.g., Which card do you prefer?

Uniqueness condition 2 confederates disagree
with you on 15/18 trials. Similarity condition 2
confederates agree with you on 15/18 trials.
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Results, Markus Kunda (1986)

• Me/not me judgments for similarity (average,
  normal, follower) and uniqueness (original,
  independent, unique) words
• No effect of condition on similarity and
  uniqueness words endorsed as self-descriptive.
• But, ps in the uniqueness condition hit me
  faster for similarity words.
• Ps in the similarity condition hit me faster
  for uniqueness words and not me faster for
  similarity words.

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Conclusions

• Self can be described in cognitive units such as
  nodes in a network or self-schemas.
• Different social situations activate different
  portions of the self and different self-motives.
• Motives affect our processing of self-related
  information and subsequent emotions.
• Several theories suggest that the self is
  resistant to change.