madiha anas department of psychology beaconhouse national university meeting the self
TRANSCRIPT
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
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
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.