Chapter 1 Notes | Self and Self-Esteem

• The self is comprised of two correlated aspects: the I and the ME
• I is implicated in virtually everything we do and is nearly always present in consciousness
• ME: Refers to the aspect of self that is an object of our attention, thought, or perception
• The ME is not always part of our experience; we often take other people and things as the object of our attention
• Self-concept: Refers to the way people characteristically think about themselves
• Self-esteem: Refers to the way people characteristically feel about themselves
• Self-psychology is concerned with subjective experience, with what people think they are like
• Personality psychology is more concerned with objective experience, with what people are actually like
• Phenomenology emphasizes that behavior is guided by the world "as it appears," rather than by the world "as it really is"
• Self-psychology is phenomenological, emphasizing that behavior is often guided by people's ideas about what they are like
• Anorexia provides a dramatic example of this phenomenon
• The behaviorist movement in American psychology was ruled by behaviorism for nearly 40 years (roughly 1915-1955)
• Behaviorism was guided by two central assumptions: positivism and mechanism
• Positivism: Holds that only concrete phenomena that can be objectively measured by neutral observers are suitable for scientific study
• Mechanism: Holds that thoughts play no role in guiding behavior
• This assumption also excluded the study of the self as it maintained that people's thoughts and feelings about themselves do not guide their behavior
• According to a purposive model, behaviors are undertaken for a purpose
• The mechanistic position of the behaviorist movement contrasts sharply with a purposive or goal-directed analysis of behavior
• This emphasis on goal-directed behavior is absent in mechanistic accounts of behavior
• Not all theorists ignored the self during the era of behaviorism
• Several experimental findings cast doubt on a strictly mechanistic analysis of behavior
• The I refers to our awareness that we are a distinct and unified entity, continuous over time, and capable of willful action
• The ME influences the processing of information and guides present and future behavior