Self-identity

• Social psychology

  • Psychological social psychology = the study of how people are affected by the psychological presence of other people
• The self is made up of 3 main aspects-

  • Self knowledge(self concept)
  • Interpersonal self(public self)
  • Agent self(executive function)
• Agent self = the part of the self that is for doing things and making choices
• Self knowledge = you are what you know

  • The schema(internal representation) of you, the part of you(experimental and phenomenological) that is you and no one else. You know the difference between you and someone else. We can assign self and other status to things out of instinct.
• The self reflects upon itself and its store of knowledge and recruits the information it has in identity.
• How do you know who you are?

  • Through biographical details about yourself
  • You are aware of your body and your physical presence
  • We are aware of ourselves in comparison to others
• There are 4 theories of where the self knowledge comes from-

  • Introspection
  • Self perception theory
  • The looking glass self
  • Social comparison
• Introspection:

  • Privileged access to your mind=you and only you can directly access your mind
  • But children have a tendency to believe information about themselves given to them by a trusted other over their own self(rosenberg 1979). People can also be very bad at introspection and make up answers that make no sense(nisbett and wilson 1977).
• Self perception theory: Bem 1965

  • We learn who we are in the same way that everyone else learns who we are, we observe what we do.
• deci(1971)

  • Get participants into a lab and ask them to carry out a boring task across 3 time points, then record how long they do this task for.
  • Control group=just do the task
  • Experimental group=introduce a reward(pay people to do the task at each of the intervals but take away payment at time 3)
  • Taking away payment at time 3 for the experimental group shows that paying people to do something can make them believe that they are only doing it for the money, leading to a drop in intrinsic motivation
• The looking glass self: cooley(1902)

  • The self is reflected back to us through other people. The more information that people give about the self, the more that the self concept is going to be altered by that perception of others on the self
  • However, can you trust what people tell you. And if no one ever tells you anything about yourself then will you have a self concept.
• Social comparison:festinger(1954)
• You are a social animal, who you are and what you do/think/feel are most important in the context of other people and who they are and what they do/think/feel.
• Social comparison involves making upward comparisons against people who are perceived to be better than us, which can motivate or discourage behavior.
• Downward comparisons against people who are worse than us tend to make us feel better about ourselves.
• Social comparison is not useful as an absolute measure but is only useful in relation to others.
• Who you are as a person depends on other people as some knowledge comes from feedback from others and some knowledge comes from comparison with others.

  • However, the self concept is not the ‘true’ self. Self knowledge is not the true self as the true self does not exist, the self knowledge does not lead to any other type of self, they interact and overlap and are co dependant.
  • What you know about yourself may lead to actions, but those actions tell you something about yourself, similarly, what you know about yourself may affect social ties, but social ties also tell you about yourself.
• The interpersonal self:

  • The interpersonal self=you are who you know, not what you know.
  • The interpersonal self is the part of the self that is for connecting to other people and existing within the social world. It is usually closely related to the self concept, but it is not the self concept. The public self is not a lie, but it is not the full self, we represent ourselves in the world therefore we do not always present the full self.
• Who you are depends on other people because part of understanding the self is understanding that you are a social entity.

  • But why is it that people have different levels of that presentation (why do some people have no filter), possibly because they aim to produce an authentic self, or that they seek to test others around themselves.
  • Because the self is not for being but for doing, it is a tool that allows us to understand the social world
• What does the self do?

  • The self allows us to function in the social world and lets us make and maintain social connections, it also allows us to situate us within that social world.
• The self vs identity:

  • The self is the thing that is you, it is an internal phenomenon that requires privileged access.
  • Identity is split into personal and public-
  • Personal identity =the expression and manifestation of the self
  • Public identity =the way your self and identity are perceived by others
  • Therefore identity is who you present and who you are perceived as.
• Interpersonal self is not identity, the self still requires the privileged access while identity is about perception.
• • The first things are the basic needs
  • things you need to survive(food/water/shelter)
  • The second level of needs
  • psychological needs (these are relationships, feeling happy, esteem and belonging)
  • The final level is self fulfilment needs
  • means self-actualisation

  
• • Social identity theory (tajfel and Turner 1979)
  • stated that our group membership gives us a sense of belonging and maintains self-esteem.
  • means we use social identity to regulate how we feel about ourselves, and we change ourselves in the process (via group norms).
  • social groups determine the self we are part of, to find out how well we are doing we can look at others and their groups.
  • we want to increase our self-esteem and we can do this through our social groups by seeing that our group is doing well and being proud, or by finding ways to put other groups down.
• • How to we achieve the second level of needs-
  • social identity theory
  • optimal distinctiveness (phenomenal self)
• • Optimal distinctiveness:(phenomenal self)
  • redefine the self with relation to the social context. In the search for information about the self, we need to distinguish ourselves from others. We still want to be part of the group so we try to be not too different but not too similar (optimally distinctive).
  • You need a functioning self in which you take an appropriate degree of pride, in order to be healthy. To a large degree your self is determined by your social environment.
• • The changing self and identity:
  • By definition, the self and identity are fairly stable and change slowly over time. However they do change, whether for better or for worse, in response to the positive and negative changes in the social environment.
  • However there are other very important factors associated with large changes to the self(including traumatic events, neurological changes, spiritual/religious experiences ect).
• • One way you can change your self is by revising self knowledge.
  • You can change your thinking.
  • Jones et al(1981)
  • Ps asked to attend an interview and asked to portray themselves either positively or negatively.
  • Those asked to portray themselves positively reported higher self esteem
  • those asked to portray themselves negatively reported lower self esteem.
  • shows that changing how you think about yourself can affect self esteem
• • changing behaviour.
  • causes cognitive dissonance(when our attitudes and behaviours don't line up, this causes an uncomfortable feeling when brought to their attention) this then causes motivation to resolve the conflict between our beliefs and our behaviours.
• • changing the social environment in which you reside.
  • As the self concept is linked to the social environment(the group) it can be assumed that if the social environment stays the same then the self concept will stay the same. Therefore if you want to change the self, change the social environment/the group.
• self-esteem = the degree to which one favourably evaluates oneself for oneself
• • self-esteem
  • internal measure of social acceptability
  • we are social animals so need to be connected (Maslow 1943)
  • self-esteem tells us whether we are likely to be a socially desirable individual
  • self-esteem increases following acceptance and decreases following rejection (Leary et al 1995)
• • people with high self-esteem
  • think they have good traits
  • want others to think they have good traits
  • believe they will succeed so take chances and opportunities
  • rank themselves higher- better than average effect
• • people with low self-esteem
  • rate themselves as average
  • have the same goals and aspirations but less confidence that they will achieve them (McFarlin and Blascovish 1981)
  • are less certain in their self-concept and more contradictory
  • more prone to emotional outbursts

  
• • trap 1
  • We’ve talked about LSEs and HSEs. Both groups should be considered to be psychologically healthy, functioning, and typically developed.
  • LSEs are not depressed, though individuals with depression may have a tendency towards low self-esteem.
  • HSEs are not narcissists, though individuals with narcissism may have a tendency towards high self-esteem.
  • These atypical psychological phenomena are covered in more detail in the textbook, but for now, just don’t confuse them with LSEs and HSEs.
• LSEs = Low Self-Esteem people

  HSEs = High Self-Esteem people
• • trap 2
  • It would be dangerously over-simplistic to conclude that
  • “higher self-esteem is good and low self-esteem is bad”
  • OR
  • “it’s better to have higher self-esteem”
  • HSEs (as a group) have a number of tendencies that are socially damaging:
  • Negatively evaluated (e.g., ‘conceited’, ‘obnoxious’)
  • Find it difficult to walk away from tasks
  • May be more aggressive
  • May be more prejudiced
• • self- deception
  • positive illusions
  • Healthy individuals with HSE…

  1. Overestimate their qualities (“above-average effect”)
  2. Overestimate their control over events
  3. Are unrealistically optimistic

  • Interestingly, we tend to drop these illusions when we need to make a decision… and then pick them right back up again!
• • self deserving bias
  • we have a habit of being more sceptical of bad feedback than good feedback
  • wyer and frey 1983
• • Selective focus
  • memory and attention are better for things that relate to, and reflect favourably on, the self
  • carry 1966