psy 14

• Spotlight Effect


  The belief that others are paying more attention on one's appearance than they really are
• Self


  The way a person thinks about and views his or her traits, beliefs, and purpose within the world. Components: self-concept, social self, self-knowledge, self-esteem
• Self-concept


  The overall image of yourself that arises from self-knowledge gained through introspection and interactions with important people. Consists of name, how perceived by others, gender identity, likes/dislikes, strengths/weaknesses
• Self-schema


  The template by which you organize social information. Affects how you perceive, remember, and evaluate yourself and others
• Possible selves


  Visions of the self we want to be as well as the self we fear becoming. Serve to motivate us
• Origins of sense of self

  • Family and other socialization agents
  • Situationism & The Social Self
  • Culture & The Social Self
  • Gender & The Social Self
  • Social Comparison & The Social Self
• Looking-glass self


  How people serve as mirrors for perceiving ourselves. We imagine how others see us, judge us, and develop an emotional response
• Birth order influences self-concept (e.g. younger siblings more open to adventure)
• What family, friends, and others think of us affects our social selves
• When people think highly of us, we think well of ourselves. The opposite is also true.
• ith birth order sometimes it's not always your chronological place in the family but your perceived place in the family
• Ma'am Chelo: 'I always take it against people when they say that youngest children are the spoiled brats of the family. I.AM.NOT. 😒'
• Ma'am Ebu: 'Hahaha 😂'
• What family members, friends, and other people think of us also affect our social selves
• When people think highly of us - they compliment us, for example - we think well of ourselves. The opposite is also true, unfortunately. When people do not think highly of us, we come to doubt ourselves
• Looking-glass self


  Describes how people serve as mirrors for perceiving ourselves. It's like looking in the mirror - only for the mirror to be someone else. We imagine how others see us; we imagine how others will judge us; and we develop an emotional response
• The looking-glass self is derived from reflected self-appraisals, our beliefs about other people's reactions to us, how we appear to others
• One thing that you need to understand about reflected self-appraisals is that they are entirely subjective; they do not determine the entirety of who we are. We simply internalize how we think other people see us, not necessarily how others actually evaluate us
• The thing with the looking glass is: people do not always tell the truth, people are freer (more free) with praise instead of criticism, and we may possibly overestimate their appraisal thereby inflating our self-images. People are not always receptive to feedback (especially critical feedback) from others
• Situationism & the social self

  The social self is also shaped by the current situation in many ways, and different selves are evoked in different situations. You adapt certain parts of your self-concept according to who you are with, where you are, what time it is, what is happening around you, etc. This is the idea behind the working self-concept
• Ma'am Chelo


  • With family and relatives - very restrained, always smiling and nodding
  • With friends (especially best friends in the Psych department) - loud, cracking jokes, and sarcastic as hell
  • Alone - more reflective
• Ma'am Ebu


  • High school and college years - different sets of friends: the nice, goody two shoes barkada, and the "it's lunch break, let's go get drunk!" barkada
  • With "nice" group - more conscientious when it comes to schoolwork and chikka topics are mostly PG
  • With boozy friends - different behavior
• The shifting of the working self-concept conforms to a predictable, stable pattern. The working self-concept is malleable and stable; it shifts in a predictable fashion
• Culture & the social self

  Culture shapes the self. Culture is the enduring behaviors, attitudes, and traditions shared by a large number of people, and transmitted from one generation to another
• Individualistic cultures


  The concept of giving priority to one's own goals over group goals and defining one's identity in terms of personal attributes rather than group identifications
• Collectivist cultures


  Giving priority to the goals of one's group; often one's extended family or work group; and defining one's identity accordingly
• Independent self-construal


  Construing one's identity as an autonomous self, with emphasis on the "I", the "me". Acknowledges relationships with other people, but focuses on personal traits, goals, rights, and liberties
• Interdependent self-construal


  Self-concepts are defined by their relationships with other people, their position in the community, their status in relation to other groups of people. The "I" is also a "we"
• Labelling cultures as individualist or collectivist oversimplifies how culture influences the self. Within any culture, individualism and collectivism varies from person to person
• The more exposed you are to Western culture, and the more educated you are in a Western tradition, the more likely your self-concept will be partly defined by an independent self-construal. You yourselves behave communally in some occasions, but sometimes as highly independent persons
• Gender & the social self

  Women generally highlight their relationships and define themselves in an interdependent way. They tend to be more empathic towards others, and are better judges of people's personalities and emotions than men. Men tend to highlight their uniqueness and construe themselves in an independent way
• Parents tend to talk with their daughters about being sensitive to others more often than with their sons. Friendships among young girls emphasize cooperative play, while friendships among young boys emphasize competition. Even as adults, women tend to take on a more nurturing, relational role than men
• From an evolutionary psychology perspective, the gender differences may be traced back to the roles that our ancestors played. Back then, men were devoted to hunting for food and protecting their kin. Women were gatherers and nurturers whose primary role was to manage the home. These distinct roles dictated the natural selection of traits as men and women adapt to their specific functions
• Social comparison & the social self


  We rely on social comparisons to learn about our own abilities, attitudes, and personal traits. Social comparison involves evaluating one's abilities and opinions by evaluating oneself against other people
• Upward social comparison


  Comparing yourself to people better than yourself in some aspect. It is somewhat discouraging, but may also drive self-improvement and the mastery of skills
• Downward social comparison


  Comparing yourself to those who are at a disadvantage. It helps us define ourselves more favorably, boost our mood, and enhance our self-esteem
• Self-esteem


  An overall sense of self-worth that we use to evaluate our self-concept. It is a state of mind that encompasses the way you feel and think about your attitudes and qualities, your successes and failures, and your self in general
• People with high self-esteem hold very favorable views of themselves; they tend to see themselves as competent, likeable, fair, and attractive - among other things. People with low self-esteem do not necessarily think the opposite or despise themselves; there is simply an absence of strong positive views about the self
• Trait self-esteem


  The stable kind of self-esteem, an enduring sense of self-worth that is integral to one's identity
• State self-esteem


  The kind of self-esteem that shifts according to different contextual factors