Madiha AnasDepartment of Psychology

Beaconhouse National University

Meeting the Self

Self in History

Aristotle, Plato, Homer Self = Soul

Descartes: “I think; therefore, I am.” Self = Consciousness

Locke, Hume Self = Sensory experience

Kant, Schopenhauer Self as Knower Self as Known

What is the Self?

Infancy: one recognizes that one is a separate individual

Childhood: one labels personal qualities and abilities

Adolescence: the self becomes critically important as a basis for making

life decisions Middle & Late Adulthood:

the self continues to change, though generally not as extensively

Areas of Self

Self-concept Self-esteem Self-serving bias Self-presentation Self and the culture

SELF-CONCEPT

The set of beliefs we hold about who we are.

The self-concept

The self-concept is the sum total of a person’s beliefs (i.e., cognitions) about their own personal attributes.

These beliefs can be about affect, behaviour, cognitions, motives, etc.

Class Exercise

• On a sheet of paper, write out and complete the following sentence stem 5 times

I am ______________________

Sources of Self-Concept

Conceptions of the self vary greatly depending on the culture one lives in.

Western Eastern

Independent Interdependent

Emphasizes uniqueness Emphasizes shared attributes

Separate from others Emphasizes social relationships

Emotions and Self-Concept

Those with an independent self frequently experience ego-focused emotions such as pride or frustration

Those with an interdependent self experience other-focused emotions such as amae Japanese emotion Amae: "to depend and presume upon another's love or bask in

another's indulgence", a sweet feeling of dependency Can you think of one such emotion from our culture?

Aspects of Self-Concept

Self-schemas describe the dimensions along which you think about yourself.

Self-schemas: Guide behavior in relevant situations. Aid memory for relevant information Influence inferences, decisions, & judgments

Aspects of Self-Concept

Possible selves are conceptions of potential future selves. represent hopes and fears for the future help people focus and organize plans for pursuing

goals.

Aspects of Self-Concept

Self-Discrepancies Discrepancies between one’s actual self-concept

and one’s hoped for ideal selves produce dejection-related emotions.

Discrepancies between the actual self and our ought selves produce rejection-related emotions.

Actual Self

Ideal Selves

Ought selves

Dejection-type emotions

Rejection-type emotions

Self-discrepancy

Self-Esteem

The result of the self’s evaluations of the self-concept.

Self-esteem

Self-esteem is the evaluation we make of ourselves. We have an overall sense of self-esteem as well as

self-esteem in more specific domains. Evaluations can be positive, negative, neutral,

ambiguous. We also have

implicit self-esteem or less conscious self-esteem

explicit self-esteem More conscious self-esteem

Self-Esteem How we feel about ourselves

High self-esteem Happier Fewer interpersonal problems

Low self-esteem Prone to psychological and physiological ailments Problems with social relationships and

underachievement

How self-esteem affects us

High self-esteem has all sorts of benefits. Can you think of examples?

Conversely, low self-esteem predicts an altogether poorer life experience. Think of examples.

High Self-Esteem

High self-esteem denotes thinking well of oneself Can be formed in three levels:

1. Healthy self-confidence 2. Exaggerated sense of self 3. Conceited, egotistical, arrogant sense of self

What is associated with high self-esteem? Don’t worry about failure, rejection,

humiliation as much Have a clearer, more confident

understanding of their identity (who am I?) Less likely to change opinions and attitudes

in the face of persuasion Positive affect

Low Self-Esteem

Negative, unflattering view of the self In practice very few people have “low” self-

esteem Some people indicate that they “sometimes”

feel they have low self-esteem

What is associated with low self-esteem? Take a more pessimistic approach in order to

protect the self… Worry more about failure, rejection, and

humiliation Not the same as fear of success—they still

want to succeed But will look for ways to avoid failures,

rejections, and setbacks

Self-esteem:Questions to think about Does someone else’s self-esteem have an

effect on you? If yes, how? Is self-esteem something constant in all

cases or does it fluctuate?

Self-serving Bias

Tendency to attribute one’s success to internal causes, but attribute failures to external causes

Self-serving bias

Kingdon (1967) interviewed successful & unsuccessful American politicians about major factors in successes & failures.

Tended to attribute wins to internal factors (hard work, reputation) but failures to external (lack of money, national trends)

Actually involves 2 two biases  –     1.)   Self-enhancing bias

(taking credit for success)

     2.)  Self-protecting bias (denying responsibility for failure)

Self-Presentation

Self-presentation involves attempting to control the impressions we convey to others to obtain desired outcomes.

Self-Presentation

Public self-presentations can affect our private self-concepts.

To be successful in self-presentation, we need to be able to step into other people’s shoes.

Self-Presentation

People generally intend to make a good impression. They do this by conforming to the norms of the situation self-promotion ingratiation or flattery

Self-Presentation

Self-promotion can be tricky, as one tries to avoid appearing egotistical.

Modesty is another tricky self-presentation strategy it is most effective when the person has a success

that is well-known to others.

Culture and the Self: A Note

The coverage of the self in this chapter has disproportionately emphasized the independent self.

Many of the processes discussed may take a different form or be nonexistent in cultures with an interdependent self.