Part 1
As we start wrapping up this semester, I would like you to reflect on what you have learned in this class and how you plan on applying what you have learned to your life. Please take a moment to review the topics we covered this semester, and write a reflection statement answering the following questions.
Which topic/chapter did you find most interesting and why? What have you learned about this topic. Please be very specific and avoid making comments that are too general or vague.
Which topic/chapter did you find most challenging? What are some of the resources or tools you utilized to better understand this topic? If you found an outside resource, such as an online article, website, or a video that helped you better understand this topic/chapter, please include the links for these resources to share them with the rest fo the class.
How do you plan on applying what you have learned to your life, relationships, or work? Please describe this in detail.
3
The Self
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Learning Objectives
• Explain the importance of a complex self
in a cultural animal
• Summarize the different sources and
motives of self-knowledge
• Describe how the how the sources of selfknowledge lead to self-concept
• Analyze the benefits and drawbacks of
high self-esteem and positive illusions
• Evaluate the different functions of selfpresentation
Copyright © 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.
Introduction
• People have strong concern with how they
are perceived by others
– Serves survival and reproduction goals
• Concern with making a good impression
after death
– More and more people are requesting plastic
surgery after death, to help them look their
best for their funeral
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What is the Self?
• Difficult to define
– Some say it is an illusion
– Specific spot in the brain that seems to
correspond to the self has not been found
• The self’s main jobs
– Self-knowledge
– Interpersonal self
– Agent self
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Three Parts of the Self
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Who Makes the Self: The Individual or
Society?
• The self: interface between inner biological
processes and a sociocultural network
– A true or real self?
• Public actions and inner feelings
– Culture and interdependence
• Selves differ across cultures
– Social roles
• Social systems create and define roles
• Individuals seek and adopt them
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Self-Construals
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Self-Awareness
• What is self-awareness?
– Attention directed at the self
• Private self-awareness
– Looking inward at private aspects of the self
• Public self-awareness
– Looking outward at public aspects of the self
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Self Awareness Theory
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Self-Awareness (cont’d.)
• Self-awareness and behavior
– Can make people behave better
• Compare themselves to moral standards or ideals
• Escaping self-awareness
– People seek to escape from self-awareness
when it feels bad
• Why do we have self-awareness?
– Self-regulation, social acceptance,
perspective taking, and goal reaching
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Food for Thought
• Dieters are high in public selfconsciousness, but low in private selfawareness
– Eating provides a low-level distraction from
thoughts about self
– Dieters may lose an awareness of “fullness”
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Looking Outside: The Looking-Glass Self
• The looking-glass self
– Imagine how you appear to others
– Imagine how others will judge you
– Develop an emotional response as a result of
imagining how others will judge you
• The generalized other
– Combination of others’ views informs us
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Looking Outside: The Looking-Glass Self
(cont’d.)
• People respond to feedback from others
– Discrepancies exist between the view of self
and others’ views
• People are very selective in how they process
incoming information about themselves
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Looking Inside: Introspection
• Introspection: examining your thoughts
and feelings
– Privileged access to our inner processes
• Limitations of introspection
– Development and children’s views of
themselves
– People often don’t realize how their minds
work
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Looking at Others: Social Comparison
• Theory of social comparison: examining
the difference between oneself and
another person
– Learning what the facts mean in the context of
what other people are like
– Most useful comparisons involve people in the
same general category
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Self-Perception
• Self-perception theory
– People observe their own behavior to infer
what they are thinking and how they are
feeling
• The overjustification effect
– Tendency for intrinsic motivation to diminish
for activities that have become associated
with rewards
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Fluctuating Image(s) of Self
• Phenomenal self (working self-concept)
– Image of self that are currently active
• Different situations call up different parts of
self-knowledge into the phenomenal self
– Heightened awareness of aspects of yourself
are associated with differences in the group
around you
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Why People Seek Self-Knowledge
• Thirst for self-knowledge
– Evolutionary origins
• Appraisal motive
– Looking for the truth about oneself
• Self-enhancement motive
– Looking for flattering aspects of oneself
• Consistency motive
– Looking for confirmation about current beliefs
about oneself
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When Motives Compete
• Appraisal motive
– Weakest motive
• Self-enhancement motive
– Strongest motive
• Consistency motive
– Second preference
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Tradeoffs: Self-Handicapping
• Self-handicapping: drinking or doing some
other activity that will inhibit performance
– Failure can be blamed on the obstacle
• Example: drunk people do not perform as well as
sober ones
– Success assumes higher competence
• Extra credit for success
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Self-Handicapping
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Self-Knowledge and the Duplex Mind
• Automatic egotism: response by automatic
system
– Everything good is me; everything bad is not
me
• Modesty: conscious override of automatic
egotism
– Overcome impulse to offer a more humble
account
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Self and Information Processing
• Anything that touches the self…
– More important than things that do not touch it
• Self-reference effect
– Information relating to self is processed more
deeply and remembered better
• Endowment effect
– Items gain in value to person who owns them
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The Self-Reference Effect
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Can the Self-Concept Change?
• Identity slowly changes over time
– Children add new knowledge and skills
– Adults take up new hobbies or break bad
habits
– Our body changes throughout our life
• Revising self-knowledge
– Change how you think of yourself or change
your behavior and a change in self-concept
will follow
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Can the Self-Concept Change? (cont’d.)
• Changing the looking glass
– What goes on inside the person is mainly
there to serve interpersonal processes
• Promoting change
– Best to enlist support
• New self, new story
– People tend to revise their stories once the
self-concept has changed
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Self-Esteem
• How favorably someone evaluates himself
or herself
– High self-esteem: competent, likable,
attractive, and morally good
– Low self-esteem: incompetent, ugly, unlikable,
and morally wicked
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Reality and Illusion
• “Positive illusions” of normal people
– Overestimating good qualities
– Overestimating one’s control over events
– Being unrealistically optimistic
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How People Fool Themselves
• People use self-deception strategies to
maintain a positive outlook
– Using self-serving bias
– Being more skeptical of bad feedback
– Remembering good things more
– Making comparisons with those slightly worse
– Skewing impressions of others to highlight
own good traits as unusual
– Choosing definitions wisely
Copyright © 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.
Benefits of Self-Esteem
• High self-esteem often amounts to nothing
more than a false belief that one is
superior
– Students with high self-esteem do have
slightly higher grades, but high self-esteem
does not lead to good grades
• Two main benefits of high self-esteem
– Having initiative and feeling good
Copyright © 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.
Why Do We Care About Self-Esteem?
• Sociometer theory
– View of self-esteem as linked to social
acceptance
• Sociometer: measure of how desirable one would
be to other people
• Terror management theory
– Having high self-esteem helps shield people
from fear of death
• People seek out self-esteem as a way of avoiding
a recognition that they are going to die
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Is High Self-Esteem Always Good?
• Negative aspects of high self-esteem
– Narcissism: excessive self-love and a selfish
orientation
• Not the same as high self-esteem, but related
– Higher prejudice
– Poorer relationship partners
– Antisocial actions
– Persistence in the face of failure
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Pursuing Self-Esteem
• Harmful consequences of pursuing selfesteem
– Taking the easy road to ensure success
– Impairing autonomy
– Needing to meet expectations of others
– Weakening individual intrinsic motivation
– Impairing learning
– Damaging relationships
– Potentially harmful to health
Copyright © 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.
Self-Presentation
• Behaviors that convey an image to others
• Include a wide range of actions
– Explicit statements about the self (e.g., “I
forgive but I don’t forget”)
– How you dress or what car you drive
– Making excuses or threats
– Trying to hide your fear or anger so others
think you are cool
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Who’s Looking?
• Focus on self-esteem
– Behavior remains the same when someone
else is watching
• Focus on what others think
– Behavior changes when someone else is
watching
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Making an Impression
• Claiming identity
– People aspire to many identities
• Claims require social validation
– People use self-presentation to advance their
claims to identity
– People will change their behavior to claim an
identity
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Making an Impression (cont’d.)
• Tradeoff: favorability versus plausibility
– People present themselves in the best
possible light
• Within plausible range
• What about modesty?
– More natural and common among friends
• Helps people get along better
– May be the default or automatic response
• Friends are familiar with faults and failures
Copyright © 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.
Self-Presentation and Risky Behavior
• Self-presentation is very important
– Sometimes people risk illness, injury, or even
death in order to make a good impression
• Gaining social acceptance is felt as an even
stronger and more urgent motive than the
motivation to stay alive and healthy
– Self-presentation can be stronger than selfpreservation
• Another sign that the human psyche is designed to
gain and keep a place in a social group
Copyright © 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.
Summary
• Humans have self-concept that
distinguishes them from others
– Humans also crave social acceptance
• Self-esteem and self-presentation play an
important role in establishing and
preserving the self
– High self-esteem is not always good
Copyright © 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.
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