Describe characteristics of the social self (4)
- not indépendant of environnement
- is constructed, maintained and negotiated in the social environment.
- it is malleable
- dynamic not static
What are the 3 primary components of the self?
- Invidiual: beliefs about our own unique personal traits, abilities, talents etc.
- collective: beliefs about identities as members of social groups
- relational: beliefs about identities in specific relationships.
Define a Schema
- a knowledge structure consisting of any organized body of stored knowledge
- generalized knowledge about the world and how to behave in a particular situation with different kinds of people.
Define a self schema
- a cognitive structure derived from past experience that represents a persons’ beliefs and feelings about or self in general, and in specific situations.
How does a self schema form?
- experiences: stored in memory as part of consceintiousness
Describe what is meant by self reference effect
- better memory for info related to ourselves
Describe what is meant by the looking glass self
- our beliefs about what others think of our social selves
- internalizing how we think others think of us, not nessasarily how others actually see us.
Define situationism
- there is a core, relatively stable pool of self knowledge, which then shifts with a given situation.
What is the difference between a trait and a state
Trait: the avg version of yourself that is relatively stable
State: how you are in different situation, changes based on context.
What is the working self concept?
A subset of self knowledge that is brought go mind in particular contexts, with experiences most relavant to the current situation.
What can influence the sense of self?
- Gender
- culture (interdependent vs indépendant)
In terms of gender, what can impact differences?
- differences may come from:
- socialisation (portrayal in media, treatment by parents, friendships)
- Evolutionary theory
Define what is meant by a self construal
- how individuals define themselves in relation to others
Define what is meant by social comparison
- when people compare themselves to others to evaluate their own opinions, abilities and internal states
What are 2 types of social comparison
- upward comparision: comparing with people who are better - eg how far can I go
- downward comparison: when you compare with people who are worse.
Define self esteem
- the overall positive or negative evaluation and individual has of themselves. Usually measured by self report.
What is the difference between trait self esteem and State self esteem
- Trait is an enduring level of regard for yourself and is relatively stable across time.
- the state self esteem is the level of regard for yourself currently and can change over a period of time.
Describe what is meant by contingencies of self worth
- the idea that self worth is based on success and failure in domains that are important to oneself.
Describe the sociometer hypothesis
- where self esteem is an internal subjective index or marker of the extent to which a person is included or looked on favorably by others.
Eg our self esteem helps us address how we are doing socially.
Describe the cultural differences in self esteem
- individualistic cultures care more about self esteem, where as collectivist cultures care more about self improvement.
Describe the results of the study by Heine et al
- pps given false feedback for a task
- Japanese pps who were given failure feedback worked longer on a second task
- Canadian pps only worked longer on a second task when they were told they performed well.
Define self enhancement
A person’s desire to maintain or increase or protect their self-view/esteem
Describe the aspects of the better-than-average effect
- the idea that most westerners think they are better than the average person on most personality traits.
When is the better than average effect likely to occur?
- with vague traits rather than concrete traits.
