The Self in the Social World

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The Self in the Social World

• Dr. Kline
• FSU-PC

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A. What is our self-concept?

• Who am I???
• We use our self-concept to define ourselves.
• E.g., parents, college graduates

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What is a schema???
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B. Schemas--mental templates by which we
organize our worlds.

• Self-schemas-- our beliefs about the self that
  organize guide the processing of self-relevant
  information.
• These influence how we perceive, remember, and
  evaluate both other people and ourselves.

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Question

• If you think of yourself as intelligent, how will
  this effect how you relate to others?

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You will

• notice others intelligence
• respond well to questions that tap your knowledge
  base.
• welcome info consistent with your self schema.
  

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1. What is the self-reference effect?

• Our tendency to process efficiently and remember
  well information related to oneself.

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How does this influence our thinking?

• We are better at remembering things that are
  relevant to us!!!!
• (E.g., cocktail party phenomenon)

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So our focus is on Ourselves.

• We see ourselves as the principal actor/actress
  in a play showcasing our lives.

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We overestimate others views of us.

• We assume others are evaluating us!!
• However, most people either dont notice or
  quickly forget our social blunders.
• (We often make mountains out of molehills.)

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Gilcovich study (2000)

• Some Cornell studentswere asked to wear Barry
  Manilow T-shirts before entering a room of
  students.
• T-shirt wearers assumed that nearly 50 of the
  students would notice.
• Only 23 of students noticed.

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Take home message

• People are rarely aware of our emotions, social
  blunders, and public mental slips.
• What we agonize over, others forget.

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2. What is Self-esteem (SE)?

• What do you think???

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SE- our sense of self worth.

• The sum of all our self-schemas.
• Do we see ourselves as fun interesting?
• OR
• Dull boring?

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C. Factors influencing development- self-concept.

• Our roles
• social identity
• social comparisons
• our successes/failures
• others view

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Roles

• We each have several roles we play (e.g., mother,
  professor,).
• New roles may feel aliento us, but with time
  the new roles become part of our self-concept.
  (e.g., becoming a parent)

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Social Identity

• The we aspect of our self-concepts.
• Refers to definition of who you areyour race,
  religion, gender, academic major, etc.
• E.g., Asian female practicing Buddism.

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Does our awareness of our social identity change
when we belong to a minority group?

• What do you think???

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Yes!!!!

• A solo female among a large group of males (or
  vice versa) is often well aware of their social
  identity.
• Why?? They are conscious of their uniqueness
  within the majority group.

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Social Comparisons (How do I compare with thee?)

• We evaluate our abilities and opinions by
  comparing ourselves with others.
• (e.g., How do I compare with others on
  attractiveness, wealth, education, status?)

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Its easier being a Big Fish in a Small Pond

• Students have higher academic self-concept if
  they attend a school with few star students.
• Upon entering big research universities, academic
  self-esteem may be threatened.

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What if I am doing worse compared with others?

• We set ourselves up for disappointment by making
  unfair comparisons.
• To protect our shaky self-esteemwe often
  rationalize that the competitor is advantaged
  (more resources, money, support).

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Success

• When we engage in challenging tasks succeed our
  self-concept improves.

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D. Predicting our behavior

• Do we accurately predict our behavior?
• No!!!
• The best predictor of our future behavior is our
  past behavior!!!

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Do we accurately predict the longevity of our
relationships?????

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No!!

• We view the longevity of our relationship
  through rose-colored glasses.
• McDonald Ross (1997) found that dating
  couples had overly optimistic predictions about
  their relationships.
• Their parents roommates tended to be more
  accurate.

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E. Self-Efficacy

• Is our sense of competency and effectiveness at
  what we do.
• Differs from self-esteem!!
• You can have high self-efficacy and low SE.

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What improves self-efficacy?

• 1. Hard-achieved accomplishments!!
• We feel good about our abilities when we set and
  meet challenging goals.
• 2. Subtle manipulations work too (Levy-elderly
  study).

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Levy study (1996)

• 90 older adults were presented with either
  positive (sage, wise,) or negative (senile,
  decline) words subliminally.
• Words were flashed on screen with .066 sec
  durationoutside of awareness.
• Ss exposed to positive words had higher memory
  self-efficacy.

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Self-efficacy

• If we believe we can do something, can we do
  it????
• Depends do we feel control over the outcomes?

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F. Locus of Control perceived control

• Are outcomes of events due to our efforts or
  controlled by outside influences (luck)?
• Internal we control the events in our lives.
• External events are controlled by outside
  sources.

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Who does better-those with an internal locus or
an external locus??

• What do you think???

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Internal Locus of control!!!

• Folks with an internal locus of controldo better
  in school, make more money, and deal with marital
  problems directly.
• Caution- Just World hypothesis

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How do we develop either an internal or external
locus of control?

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Its based on our explanations of our setbacks.

• Attributing negative outcomes to others works
  against us.
• Seeing our failings as the result of our
  actions, encourages us to work harder to improve.
  

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G. Self-Serving Bias

• We tend to perceive ourselves favorably.
• we attribute our failures to external sources
  (bad luck), but overwhelmingly accept credit for
  our successes!!!

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Do students exhibit the self-serving bias?

• Yes!!! Students who do well on an exam are more
  likely to say the exam was valid.
• Students who do poorly often report the test
  was misleading/too hard.

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Do teachers do this?

• Yes!!!

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H. Unrealistic Optimism

• Many of us have unrealistically positive views of
  things that will happen.
• Baker Emery (1993) surveyed 137 marriage
  license applicants who knew divorce rate, but
  assessed their own risk at 0.

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I. False Consensus uniqueness

• The tendency to overestimate the commonality of
  ones opinions and ones undersirable or
  unsuccessful behaviors.
• (We lie and then say well everyone
  lies.)
• False uniqueness occurs when we underestimate the
  commonality of our abilities.
• (we see our talents/abilities as unusual
  special).

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The Dark Side of Self-Esteem (SE)

• Low SE predicts-higher risk of depression, drug
  abuse, delinquency.
• Yet, many juvenile delinquents, gang leaders,
  terrorists have high SE!
• Here, high SE may be related to psychopathology
  (psychopaths) and/or may contribute to violence.

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Do people with big egos commit bad acts to
conceal inner insecurity and low SE?

• What do you think???

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The evidence does not support this!!!

• Do narcissistic people actually have fragile egos
  hidden behind a self-enhancing veneer?
• Studies of bullies, gang members, and genocidal
  dictators, have not produced evidence of low SE.

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J. Self-presentation Putting your best face
forward!

• We try to portray ourselves in the best possible
  light to others.
• How do we do this?

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False modesty

• We often make self-derogatory remarks, to elicit
  sympathy from others.
• (e.g., Im such a fool.)
• This elicits reassurances from others that were
  ok and makes us appear modest.
• (e.g., forced good sportsmanship)

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Self-handicapping

• Fragile SE is protected, by overtly sabotaging
  chances of success.
• Person is off-the-hook. They would have
  succeeded had it not been for that obstacle.
• (E.g., chronic procrastination on important
  projects leading to failure, cheating on a mate
  to end a happy relationship)

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Impression Management

• We continually manage the impressions we create.
  
• Whether we wish to impress, intimidate, seem
  helpless, we play to our audience.
• We try to give others positive images of us.