1. The Self: Learning about the Self
Chapter 4
The Self:
Learning about the Self
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Taylor, Copyright 2006, Prentice Hall

2. What is the Self? The set of beliefs we hold about who
Taylor, copyright 2006, Prentice Hall
What is the Self?
The set of beliefs we hold about who
we are is called the self-concept;
While self-esteem is the evaluation we make of ourselves.
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3. Taylor, copyright 2006, Prentice Hall
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
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4. Conceptual Representations of the self
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Conceptual Representations of the self

5. What is the Self? Self-esteem is the evaluation we make of ourselves.
Taylor, copyright 2006, Prentice Hall
What is the Self?
Self-esteem is the evaluation we make of ourselves.
People who are high in self-concept clarity are more likely to be high in self-esteem.
We have an overall sense of self-esteem as well as self-esteem in more specific domains.
We also have implicit or less conscious self-esteem as well as explicit self-esteem.
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6. Sources of Self-Knowledge
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Sources of Self-Knowledge
Socialization
Reflected Appraisal
Feedback from Others
Self-Perception
Labeling Arousal States
Environmental Distinctiveness
Social Comparison
Social Identity
Ethnic Identity
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7. Sources of Self Knowledge
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Sources of Self Knowledge
Socialization: how a person acquires the rules, standards, and values of his or her family, group, and culture.
Reflection Appraisals: self-evaluation based on the perceptions and evaluations of others.

8. Sources of Self Knowledge
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Sources of Self Knowledge
Self-Perception Theory: posits that people sometimes infer their attitudes from their overt behavior, rather than from their internal state.
Social Identity: the part of an individual’s self-concept that derives from his or her membership in a social group.

9. Sources of Self Knowledge
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Sources of Self Knowledge
Ethnic Identity is an important part of self-knowledge that comes from membership in a particular ethnic group and participation in the group’s valued activities.
Bicultural Competence: working knowledge and appreciation of two cultures.

10. Sources of Self-Knowledge
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Sources of Self-Knowledge
Western
Eastern/Latin
Independent
Interdependent
Emphasizes
uniqueness
Emphasizes shared
attributes
Separate from
others
Emphasizes social
relationships
Stable across
situations
Changing across
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11. Sources of Self-Knowledge
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Sources of Self-Knowledge
Independent Self: the sense of oneself as bounded, unitary, and separate from social context.
Interdependent Self: the sense of self as flexible, variable, and connected to the social context.

12. Aspects of Self-Knowledge
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Aspects of Self-Knowledge
Self-schemas describe how people think about their personal qualities in a particular domain. They:
Guide behavior in relevant situations.
Aid memory for relevant information
Influence inferences, decisions, and judgments
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13. Aspects of Self-Knowledge
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Aspects of Self-Knowledge
Possible selves: schemas that people hold concerning what they may or could become in the future.
represent hopes and fears for the future
help people focus and organize plans for pursuing goals.
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14. Aspects of Self-Knowledge
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Aspects of Self-Knowledge
Self-Discrepancies: discrepancies between how we perceive ourselves and how we would ideally like to be or believe others think we could be.
Ideal Self: the personal attributes one would like to have.
Ought Self: the personal attributes one believes one should possess.
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15. Taylor, copyright 2006, Prentice Hall
Self-Regulation
Self-regulations refers to the way in which people control and direct their own actions.
Working Self-Concept refers to those aspects of the self-concept that are salient in a particular situation.
an athlete and her performance
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16. Taylor, copyright 2006, Prentice Hall
Self-Regulation
Self-Complexity: refers to the number of dimensions that people use to think about themselves.
People with only one or two predominant ways
of viewing themselves are more vulnerable
to failures
Those with a variety of qualities to focus on can
buffer against the effects of failure when their
self-conceptions are positive.
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Self-Regulation
Self-efficacy beliefs are the expectations we have about our ability to accomplish certain tasks.
They are highly specific perceptions of
control and competence.
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18. Taylor, copyright 2006, Prentice Hall
Self-Regulation
Self-awareness refers to experiencing oneself as an object of one’s own attention.
Public Self-Consciousness refers to a tendency to be concerned with how one appears to others.
Private Self-Consciousness refers to a tendency to focus on the internal self.
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19. Taylor, copyright 2006, Prentice Hall
Self-Regulation
Cybernetic Theory of Self-Regulation: Self-awareness leads people to evaluate their behavior against a standard and to adjust their behavior until it either meets the standard or they give up.
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20. Motivation and the Self
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Motivation and the Self
People generally seek an accurate, stable, and positive self-concept.
People have a need for a consistent self-concept.
People are motivated toward self-improvement.
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21. Motivation and the Self
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Motivation and the Self
Self-Verification refers to seeking out and interpreting situations that confirm one’s self-concept.
Self-Enhancement refers to the need to hold a positive view of oneself.
Positive Illusions refer to mild, falsely positive self-enhancing perceptions of one’s personal qualities.
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22. Motivation and the Self
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Motivation and the Self
When are people likely to be more realistic than self-enhancing?
When they are about to receive feedback from others
When making decisions about goals
When they are depressed or have low self-esteem
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23. Motivation and the Self
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Motivation and the Self
Taylor and Brown (1988) argue that
positive illusions are adaptive and
promote a sense of well-being, positive
social relationships, and the ability to
engage in creative, productive work.
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24. Motivation and the Self
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Motivation and the Self
People from Western cultures are more likely to self-enhance,
Whereas, those from collectivist and interdependent cultures are often more likely to engage in self-criticism.
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25. Motivation and the Self
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Motivation and the Self
Self-Affirmation Theory predicts that people will cope with threats to self-worth by affirming unrelated aspects of themselves.
People high in self-esteem may be more likely to use self-affirmation.
Self-affirming may help people be less defensive and more accepting of criticism.
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26. Motivation and the Self
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Motivation and the Self
Terror Management Theory purports that people are fearful of their own mortality and seek to minimize their anxiety by
holding a cultural world-view that makes
sense of an otherwise threatening world
having personal self-esteem that leads to
the sense that one is an object of value in a
meaningful universe.
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27. Motivation and the Self
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Motivation and the Self
Tesser’s Self-Evaluation Maintenance Model states that other people’s performance reflects on our feelings about ourselves.
Our feelings are a function of
our own relative performance,
our closeness to the other,
the personal relevance of the domain.
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28. Motivation and the Self
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Motivation and the Self
When people we are close to out perform us in a domain that is personally relevant, we compare ourselves to them and feel envious. However, if the domain is not personally relevant, we will “bask in the reflected glory” of the other.
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29. Motivation and the Self
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Motivation and the Self
Culture and Self-Enhancement
The phenomenon of self-enhancement may represent an insight about the self that is culturally bound.
The same is true for the concept of self-serving bias.
Self-enhancement biases appear stronger in cultures with an independent self-concept than in those with an interdependent self-concept.
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30. Social Comparison Theory
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Social Comparison Theory
Social Comparison Theory, developed by Leon Festinger (1954) contends that:
people have a drive to evaluate their opinions and abilities accurately;
in the absence of objective standards, people evaluate themselves by comparison with others;
in general, people prefer comparisons with similar others.
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31. Social Comparison Theory
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Social Comparison Theory
The Goals of Social Comparison
Accurate Self-Evaluation
Self-Enhancement
leads to downward social comparisons
Self-Improvement
leads to upward social comparisons
Sense of Communion
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32. Social Comparison Theory
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Social Comparison Theory
The Comparison Process
Social comparison affects self-evaluations, moods, and responses to others.
For example, Morse and Gergen (1970) placed an ad for a research assistant. Prospective candidates found themselves waiting in a room with either “Mr. Clean” or “Mr. Dirty.”
Those who found themselves in a room with Mr. Clean experienced a drop in self-esteem, while those who found themselves with Mr. Dirty experienced an increase.
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33. Social Comparison Theory
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Social Comparison Theory
Related-Attributes Similarity refers to:
Comparing ourselves with others based on a similarity of backgrounds and preparation.
When a dimension is completely unfamiliar, people compare themselves to both the best and the worst attributes
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34. Social Comparison Theory
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Social Comparison Theory
Social comparison can lead us to see ourselves as
similar to others (assimilation)
or different from them (contrast).
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35. Taylor, copyright 2006, Prentice Hall
Self-Presentation
Self-presentation involves attempting to control the impressions we convey to others to obtain desired outcomes.
Public self-presentations can affect our private self-concepts.
To be successful in self-presentation, we need to be able to “take the role of the other.”
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36. Taylor, copyright 2006, Prentice Hall
Self-Presentation
People generally intend to make a good impression. They do this by
conforming to the norms of the situation
self-promotion
Ingratiation: flattering or doing favors
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37. Taylor, copyright 2006, Prentice Hall
Self-Presentation
Self-promotion can be tricky because it is easy to appear egotistical.
Modesty is also a tricky self-presentation strategy and is most effective when the person has a success that is well-known to others.
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38. Taylor, copyright 2006, Prentice Hall
Self-Presentation
People with independent self-concepts are more likely to engage in self-promotion
since their goal is to reduce actual-ideal discrepancies
People with interdependent self-conceptions are more likely to engage in preventative self-presentations
since their goal is to reduce actual-ought discrepancies
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39. Self-Presentation Ineffective Self-Presentation
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Self-Presentation
Ineffective Self-Presentation
Embarrassment occurs when there are disruptions, lapses, or flaws in self-presentation.
In the face of an ineffective presentation, one can make excuses.
Excuses that attribute blame to external, uncontrollable causes are more effective than internal and controllable ones.
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40. Taylor, copyright 2006, Prentice Hall
Self-Presentation
Self-handicapping refers to engaging in actions that provide obstacles to success, so that failure can later be attributed to those obstacles.
By arranging an excuse for failure beforehand, people preserve their self-esteem in case of a later failure.
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41. Taylor, copyright 2006, Prentice Hall
Self-Presentation
Self-handicapping can be done through either behaviors or verbal claims.
Men are much more likely than women to use behavioral self-handicaps,
while both sexes use verbal ones.
Self-handicapping may work in the short term but has negative long-term consequences for performance and adjustment.
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42. Self-Handicapping Subjects chose distracting music as an excuse for
Taylor, Copyright 2006, Prentice Hall
Self-Handicapping
Subjects
chose
distracting
music as an
excuse for
failure.

43. Culture and the Self: A Note
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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.
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