1. Social Psychology PSY450 Instructor: Briana (Seay) Harvey
Welcome!
Social Psychology
PSY450
Instructor: Briana (Seay) Harvey

2. The Self

3. What is the Self?
Self Knowledge
Self Awareness
Interpersonal Self
Public Self
Agent Self
Executive Function

5. True Self – Two Approaches
Self as impulse
Inner thoughts or feelings
Self as institution
Public behaviors, especially official roles

6. True Self??

7. Self-Concept Write down 10 answers to this question:
“Who or What are you?”
Count up how many relate to unique qualities about yourself
Independent self-construal (e.g., shy, creative, talented, fun)
Count up how many relate to your relationship to other people
Interdependent self-construal (e.g., a mother, a friend, a conservative, a Catholic)

8. Self-Concept Independent self-construal What makes the self different
Values uniqueness, individual accomplishment
Interdependent self-construal
What connects the self to the group
Values connectedness, conformity, group harmony

9. Cultural Differences of “The Self”

10. Cultural Differences of “The Self”

11. Purpose of the Self Gain social acceptance Learn place in society
Play social roles
Society creates and defines roles
How does your behavior differ when interacting with a professor, a coworker, a parent, or a friend?

12. Self-Awareness Private self-awareness Public self-awareness
Attention directed at the self
Private self-awareness
Emotions, thoughts, desires
Introspection
Public self-awareness
Appearance, reputation, dominance
Social comparison

13. Looking At Others Minimize comparisons Avoid upward comparisons
Social Comparison (Self evaluation)
In situations where the self-concept is threatened, we:
Minimize comparisons
Avoid upward comparisons
Try to self-enhance by making downward comparisons

14. Upward Social Comparison
Assessment of how we measure up against others who are more skilled or fortunate than ourselves.
Good: makes you strive to improve self
Bad: develop low self-esteem

15. Downward Social Comparison
In the face of a threat to self-concept people may prefer to compare themselves with others they perceive as ‘worse off’ than themselves.
Good: protect self-esteem and reduce anxiety
Bad: not try to improve self

16. Self Compared to Standards
Standards: Ideas of how things might possibly be
Ideals, norms, expectations, moral principles, laws, past experiences
Around age 2, begin use of standards
Beginning of self-awareness
Good, Bad, Nice, etc

17. Self Compared to Standards
Self-awareness and behavior
Improves behavior
Take test in front of mirror: decrease cheating
(Diener & Wallbom, 1976)
Enables people to be more socially desirable

18. When people are aware the are falling short of standards:
Figure 3.2 Self awareness theory, proposed by Duval and Wicklund (1972), suggests that some situations, such as looking in a mirror, lead to self-awareness. Self-aware people feel bad because they notice any discrepancies between who they are and standards. They can either “shape up” by matching the behavior to the standard, or “ship out” by trying to escape the self-aware state.

19. Self Compared to Standards
When self-awareness feels bad – seek to escape it
By drinking alcohol – removing inhibitions
Through suicide – extreme escape

20. Purpose of Self-Awareness
Self-regulation
Adopt the perspective of other people
Manage behavior in pursuit of goals

21. Looking Outside Looking-Glass Self
You imagine how you appear to others
You imagine how others will judge you
You develop an emotional response as a result of imagining how others will judge you

22. Evaluating Looking-Glass Self
People do respond to feedback from others
May not know how people regard them
People are reluctant to give negative comments
People may not be receptive to negative comments

23. Looking Inside Introspection Limitations of Introspection
Thinking about your own thoughts….
Limitations of Introspection
Not fully developed until after 11
We may know what we think and feel, but not why
Ex: Sexy girl on car advertisement

24. Self-Perception Self-Perception Theory
People observe their own behavior to infer what they are thinking and how they are feeling
Ex:
Overjustification Effect

25. Overjustification Effect
Intrinsic motivation
Wanting to perform an activity for its own sake
i.e., Painting for pleasure
Extrinsic motivation
Performing an activity for reward
i.e., Painting for money

28. Self-Esteem High Self-Esteem Strong self-concept Positive views
Low Self-Esteem
Weak self-concept
Absence of strong positive views

29. Low Self-Esteem Research on Low Self-Esteem NOT depression
Do not want to fail
Focus on self-protection
Avoidance of failure and rejection to avoid the loss of self-esteem
More prone to emotional highs and lows

30. Reality and Illusion Overestimate good qualities Underestimate faults
Positive Illusions
Overestimate good qualities
Underestimate faults
Overestimate control over events
Unrealistically optimistic
Bottom line: People want to believe good things about themselves

31. How People Fool Themselves: Self-deception
Self-serving Bias
Claim credit for success and deny blame for failure
More skeptical of bad feedback
Only pay attention to the good feedback
Comparisons with those slightly worse
i.e., downward comparisons

32. Why Do We Care About Self-Esteem?
Sociometer Theory
Self-esteem is a measure of social acceptability.
How desirable we are to other people.
Self-esteem feels good
Theory of terror management
Protect self in scary situation “It’s ok, I’m strong and smart – I can handle this robber!”

33. Is High Self-Esteem Always Good?
Narcissism
Excessive self-love and selfish orientation
Tend to be more aggressive and violent
Have difficulties maintaining romantic relationships
Initiative
Confidence you can do the right thing
More risky/adventurous in activities

34. Self-Presentation Behaviors that convey an image to others
i.e., interpersonal self , or, looking glass self
Behaviors may be different depending on who is present
Women in one study behaved less intelligently if they believed an attractive man preferred unintelligent women
Public Esteem
More important than private self-esteem
Public Behavior
Acting for the audience

35. Where does Self-Esteem come from?
Parent-child relationships:
Showing acceptance, affection, interest, and involvement in children's daily lives
Firmly and consistently enforcing clear limits on children's behavior
Allowing children freedom within these limits and respecting initiative
Favoring non-coercive forms of discipline
Denying privileges and discussing reasons, rather than physical punishment

36. Where does Self-Esteem come from?
Performance feedback
Everyday feedback about our performance quality impacts our self-esteem.
Social comparisons
To interpret whether performance represents a success or failure, we need to compare our results with goals and expectations of ourselves and others.
Downward or Upward

37. Good or bad?

38. Fluctuating Image(s) of Self
Phenomenal Self (Working Self-Concept)
Image of self that is currently active in person’s thoughts
Self-concept of the moment
Unusual aspects about you become prominent
Being lone member of some category (gender, race, handicap, etc.)
Heightens self-awareness
Can impair performance

39. Phenomenal Self = Working Self-Concept
Kevin lives in Canada and loves to play hockey.
His self-concept is strongly connected with:
“I am a hockey player”

40. Phenomenal Self = Working Self-Concept
Kevin’s family moves to Alabama.
Hockey is not as popular.
Kevin adjusts his self-concept to:
“I am an athlete. I used to play hockey.”

41. Why People Seek Self-Knowledge
Appraisal Motive
Looking for the truth about oneself
Want honesty in their abilities
Able to adjust self-effort if given truth

42. Why People Seek Self-Knowledge
Self-Enhancement Motive
Looking for flattering things about self
Not seeking the truth
Want to be reassured of good qualities only

43. Why People Seek Self-Knowledge
Consistency Motive (self verification)
Looking for confirmation about current belief about self
Want honesty in something you already believe
Want to be reassured of good and bad

44. Why People Seek Self-Knowledge
Why would someone post their photo on “HotorNot.com” ?
Appraisal Motive
Looking for the truth about oneself
Self-Enhancement Motive
Looking for flattering things about self
Consistency Motive
Looking for confirmation about current belief about self

45. When Motives Compete Seeking self-knowledge:
Most useful & accurate should win!!
Appraisal Motive
Weakest motive
Self-Enhancement Motive
Strongest motive (emotional appeal)
Consistency Motive
Second preference (cognitive appeal)

46. Self-Handicapping
Self-Handicapping: avoid effort in the hopes of keeping potential failure from hurting self-esteem
Failure can be blamed on obstacle

47. Self-Handicapping Behavioral handicapping
Make a task harder in fear of not successfully completing that task
If they do in fact fail, they can simply place the blame on the obstacles rather than placing the blame on themselves
EXAMPLES: alcohol consumption, selection of unattainable goals, refusal to practice

48. Self-Handicapping Claimed self-handicapping
Coming up with justifications for potential failures
If they do not succeed in the task, they can point to their excuses as the reasons for their failures
EXAMPLES: saying that you are experiencing various physical and psychological symptoms

49. Self and Information Processing

50. Self and Information Processing
Self-Reference Effect
Tendency for individuals to have better memory for information that relates to oneself in comparison to material that has less personal relevance

51. Self-Reference Effect Example
Researchers presented a list of words (e.g., friendly) and asked one of four questions about each word (Rogers, Kuiper, & Kirker, 1977):
• Is it a long word?
• Is it a rhythmic word?
• Is it a meaningful word?
• Does it describe you?
Participants were then asked to recall as many words as possible

53. Experiment.... Write down your favorite 5 letters of the alphabet.
How many are actually used in the spelling of your name?
All? Majority?