The Social Self

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The Social Self
Tom Farsides 25/09/03
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Lecture contents

• Introspection
• How useful are self-reports?
• Self-perception
• Can others behaviours change who we are?
• Self-esteem Self-enhancement
• How is depression possible?

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The self-concept

• The self-concept is the sum total of a persons
  beliefs (i.e., cognitions) about their own
  personal attributes.
• These beliefs can be about affect, behaviour,
  (other) cognitions, motives, etc.
• Sometimes evaluations of these beliefs (i.e.,
  self-esteem) is considered part of the
  self-concept.

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The development of self-awareness and identity

• Subjective self-awareness
• Objective self awareness
• Symbolic self-awareness

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Self-assessment The perils of introspection

• Nisbett Wilson (1977)
• People often cannot explain the causes and
  correlates of their own behaviour.
• Wilson (1985)
• Analysing the reasons for our preferences and
  actions (e.g., choosing a painting) may make us
  reach decisions we later come to regret.
• Wilson Schooler (1991)
• Analysing the reasons for our preferences and
  actions (e.g., ranking jams) may make us reach
  objectively bad decisions.
• Wilson Kraft (1993)
• Analysing the reasons why we are in romantic
  relationships can reduce our satisfaction with
  them.

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Benefits of introspection

• Millar Tesser (1989)
• Need to match introspection type (i.e., of
  feelings, of thoughts) with behaviour type (i.e.,
  relationships, decision-making).
• There may be other benefits to be derived from
  introspection, even if is not always accompanied
  by genuine self-knowledge, e.g., in health
  (Pennebaker, 1997).

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Trafimow et al. (1997) Students who took the
test in English focused more on personal traits,
while those who took the test in Chinese were
more focused on group affiliations (Brehm et
al., 2002, p. 67)
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Bems (1972) self-perception theory

• To the extent that
• (i) peoples internal states are weak or
  difficult to interpret, and
• (ii) they believe their behaviour to be
  unconstrained (e.g., by promise of reward or
  threat of punishment),
• then people will infer their attitudes (beliefs
  and feelings) from their behaviour.

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Self-perception research

• Rhodewalt Agustsdottir (1986)
• People subtly induced to describe themselves in
  positive terms scored higher on a subsequent
  self-esteem test than people who were not so
  induced.
• Swann Ely (1984)
• People subtly induced (by leading questions) to
  describe themselves as either introverted or
  extroverted subsequently defined themselves as
  such, but only when not previously certain about
  their level of dispositional introversion/extraver
  sion.

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Self-perception of motivation

• The over-justification effect
• Providing extrinsic reasons (rewards,
  punishments) for behaviour formally engaged in
  for intrinsic reasons (enjoyment, duty) results
  in reduction of intrinsic motivation to engage in
  those behaviours (and thus in spontaneous
  expression of such behaviours).
• This is the paradoxical effect of reward on
  motivation.

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Lepper et al. (1973) Making play into work
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Self-perception and performance quality

• Eisenberger Cameron (1996)
• Post-performance rewards for quality of
  performance can enhance intrinsic motivation as
  long as such rewards were not guaranteed in
  advance for completion of the performance.
• Amabile (1996)
• Overjustification decreases performance quality
  as well as intrinsic motivation.

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Self-esteem Self-perception of self-value

• Self-esteem is the result of the selfs
  evaluations of the self-concept.
• Self can be evaluated in part (specific) or
  whole (summary).
• Evaluations can be positive, negative, neutral,
  ambiguous, and ambivalent.
• State and trait self-esteem.

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How self-esteem affects us

• High self-esteem has all sorts of benefits.
• Conversely, low self-esteem predicts an
  altogether poorer life experience.

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Self-enhancement

• Four mechanisms to improve self-esteem
• Self-serving cognitions
• Self-handicapping
• Basking in reflected glory
• Downward social comparison

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Self-serving cognitions

• Schlenker et al. (1990)
• People tend to take credit for their own
  successes and distance themselves from failure.
• Weinstein (1980)
• Unrealistic optimism.
• Often explained by reference to the persons
  particular characteristics (Kunda, 1987).

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Self-handicapping

• If we (i) are unsure of our success on a task we
  value and (ii) feel we should do well, we may
  claim or create a handicap to our own
  performance.
• We do this in order to (i) build an advance
  excuse for possible future failure that might
  otherwise damage our self-esteem and/or (ii) be
  able to claim additional credit should we
  nevertheless succeed.

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BIRGing

• Basking in reflected glory
• Enhancing self-esteem by identifying or claiming
  affiliation with a successful group.
• Cialdini et al. (1976)
• BIRGing and CORFing
• Used most after threats to individual
  self-esteem
• Hirt et al. (1992)
• Sometimes, we cannot CORF
• This affects out individual functioning

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Downward social comparisons

• Social comparison theory (Festinger, 1954).
• In the absence of objective criteria, people may
  evaluate themselves relative to similar others.
• People can use this phenomenon proactively
  (Wills, 1981).
• Low or threatened self-esteem ? motivated
  downward social comparison ? relatively positive
  evaluation of self ? improved or secured
  self-esteem
• This works by demonstrating that
• I am better (off) than someone else.
• I am better (off) than I could be.

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A sequence of self-biases
Self-relevant information
Automatic emotional assessment
Reflective cognitive assessment
Verify overrides enhance, if necessary