Download Slides 2 - People Server at UNCW

The Self Concept
Who we are from our own
perspective
Our Many Selves
• Self consciousness, self schema, and
individuation
• The self as actor
• The personal self and the social self
• The positive and negative possible self:
Ideal self versus real self
Self Focus and The Self
Reference Effect
• People shift from external focus to self
focus and there are individual differences
in how much one focuses on the self.
• Adolescents have more self focus and
experience the imaginary audience as a
result of adolescent egocentricity in
cognitive development.
• The self reference effect deals with better
memory for things related to the self
Personal-Social Identity
Continuum
• At any given moment we vary in how
much we identify with the personal self
(intragroup comparisons) and how much
we identify our self with identity groups
(intergroup comparisons)
• Situational factors such as whether we are
in a minority in a group help determine
how important group identity is to us.
Terror Management Theory
• When threats such as salience of our own
mortality exists we tend to increase self
identification with the group.
• Existential terror causes more allignment
and identity. People see themselves as
similar to the group. An exception is when
a negative aspect of the group is salient.
Then people distance themselves.
Self Monitoring
• High self monitors: Regulation of behavior
on the basis of external factors especially
the evaluation of others.
• Low self monitors: Regulation of behavior
based on internal factors especially values
and sense of self.
Core Social Motives
• Belonging: Group membership and identity
• Understanding: Sharing meaning and
prediction
• Controlling: Perceived congruency
between behavior and outcome
• Self Enhancement: Seeing self as worthy
or basically improvable.
• Trusting: Others seen as basically benign
Self Esteem
• Self esteem: Sense of self worth. High
self esteem represents a close relationship
between the ideal self and the real self.
• Self esteem can be measured as a global
sense or in terms of self esteem in specific
areas.
• Some aspects of self esteem may be
temperamental as a trait. Others are
related to experiences and are situational.
Self Esteem Gone Wrong
• Non-contingent or unrealistic measures to
increase self esteem can backfire.
• The narcissistic person may have an
unrealistically high self esteem.
• Narcissism: Excessive self esteem causes
antisocial behavior.
• Paradoxical self esteem: Too much or too
little relative to reality.
Secure Versus Defensive Self
Esteem
• People with defensive self esteem are
obnoxious, talk a lot, and talk at people
rather than listen.
• Especially when criticized, they are prone
to bullying, aggression, and sexual
coercion.
• Low self esteem effects are not as great
as many claim.
Narcissistic Personality Disorder
• Grandiose sense of self importance
• Preoccupied with fantasies of success,
power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
• Believes that he or she is special and can
only be understood by special people
• Requires excessive admiration and has a
sense of entitlement
• Interpersonally exploitative and lacks
empathy
• Envious of others and believes others are
envious to them
• Show arrogant or haughty behaviors or
attitudes
• These traits often result in paradoxically
high self esteem and can lead to violent,
exploitative, uncaring behavior by
someone who deserves what they wish no
matter whom it hurts.
Adolescent Self Esteem
• Children in early adolescence, especially
girls, show a drop in self esteem.
• For most this drop is only temporary and is
not debilitating. However it is an ongoing
problem for some.
• Body image and transition to junior high
may be factors. Sexual harassment and
bullying have been implicated.
Gilligan and Critical Periods in
Girls Self Esteem
• According to Carol Gilligan, girls reach a
critical juncture in gender role
development in early adolescence. They
face different rhythms and emotions in
relationships.
• In early adolescence, there is a greater
decline in self esteem for girls than for
boys.
• Gilligan believe girls must balance
independence and relationships. They
wish neither to be selfish or overcommitted
to others needs and not take care of the
self.
• Gilligan’s critics object to different
developmental models for girls and boys.
• Curriculums emphasizing cooperation
rather than competition have been
introduced in some schools.
Downward and Upward
Comparisons
• With a stranger: Downward has positive
effect; upward has no effect.
• With a member of the in group: Downward
has positive effect; upward has negative
effect.
• With someone close downward has
negative effect; upward has positive effect.
Self Efficacy
• In order for people to be motivated to act
they must believe the outcome is valuable
and that they will be effective in reaching
the outcome.
• Increasing efficacy can occur through
performance accomplishment, modeling,
exhortation, and arousal reduction.
• Performance accomplishment is best
Three Types of Self Efficacy
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Self regulatory self efficacy
Social self efficacy
Academic self efficacy
High regulatory and academic self efficacy
is related to lower problem behaviors and
moral transgressions.
• High social self efficacy leads to more
prosocial behavior and lower sense of
grievance.
Sex and Gender
• Sex: Maleness or femaleness as
determined by genetic factors at
conception that result in anatomical and
physiological differences.
• Gender: That attributes, behaviors,
personalities, and expectancies
associated with a person’s biological sex
in a given culture.
Gender Differences
• Gender differences can result from
biology, learning, or a combination of both.
• Gender differences when observed may
be small and there is a great deal of
overlap in the distributions.
• Whether an individual is in the gender
majority or minority may determine the
importance of gender.
Gender Similarities Hypothesis
• Meta analysis shows that most gender
difference effect sizes are small.
• Exceptions include: some areas of
sexualtiy, motor performance in throwing
distance and velocity, moderate
differences in physical and relational
aggression but not in overall aggression,
and mental rotation tasks.
Gender Role Schema
• Masculine
• Feminine
• Androgynous: The positive characteristics
of both genders. (High on both
instrumentality and nurturance. Tends to
be flexible.
• Undifferentiated
Prejudice, Discrimination and
Stereotyping
• Prejudice represents negative attitudes
towards members of a social group
because of membership in that group.
• Discrimination represents negative
behaviors towards members of a social
group that result from prejudice against
members of that group.
• Stereotypes are beliefs about social
groups in terms of the traits or
characteristics that they are deemed to
share.
• They are cognitve frameworks (schemas)
that shape perceptions, but the difference
from other schemas is that they inevitably
tie the trait to the person because of group
membership.
Origins of Prejudice
• Social Categoriazation: The ultimate
attributional error
• Threat to group and group identity
• Social Norms: Allowances for groups to
“appropriately” have prejudice and
discrimination.
• Intergroup Conflict: Realistic conflict theory
Minimal Group Effect and Social
Identity Theory
• Minimal group effect studies indicate that
people will identify with one another even
over minor characteristics.
• Group identity involves a sense of shared
fate and tends to increase the members’
self esteem. Often conflict arises when
that identity is threatened.
Social Categorization
• People categorize others as part to the “in
group” or “out group.”
• There is a tendency to view members of
the out group as all the same (out group
homogeneity.)
• Members of in groups are viewed as
having more differences (in group
heterogeneity.) In group members are
seen as good.
Threats to Group and Individual
Identity
• When individual identity is threatened as in
existential terror we identify with group
when positive aspects of identity are there.
• When groups are threatened prejudice
and discrimination increase.
• When identity is threatened both ingroup
and outgroup homogeniety increase, and
a sense of ingroup superiority is higher.
Stereotyping
• Stereotyping involves a type of schema
that represents a unitary view of those
who are in a particular group.
• Stereotypes represent the belief that all
members of a social group share certain
characteristics and behaviors in common.
• There is a fine line between stereotypes
and the schemas people use to process
information about others.
Stereotypes and Processing
Information
• People notice and remember behavior that
is consistent with stereotypes and ignore
that which is not consistent.
• People see stereotype consistent behavior
as going with and being caused by group
membership.
• People interpret the same behavior in
different terms because of stereotypes.
Self Stereotyping and Stereotype
Threat
• Self stereotyping involves the acceptance
by target group members of the
stereotypes held by others.
• Stereotype threat represents the response
to negative aspects of self stereotyping.
This effect has particularly been seen with
psychological testing for academic abilities
in minorities and memory among seniors.
Stereotype Threat and
Working Memory
• Stereotype threat places a burden on
working memory and uses some of its
limited capacity.
• Women who were primed that a working
memory task was a math test did worse on
working memory than men or women in a
control condition.
• This may be the mechanism behind
stererotype threat effects on tests.
Implicit Attitudes and
Stereotypes
• Techniques for measuring the implicit
attitudes associated with stereotypes such
as the Implicit Association Test and the
Evaluative Priming Technique (bona fide
pipeline) indicate implicit stereotypes even
among those who claim low prejudice on
self report questionnaires.
• Many people have such implicit
stereotypes.
Emotions, Prejudice and
Discrimination
• Emotional labeling of groups predicts
behavior better than stereotype content.
• Labeling goes along two dimensions:
Warmth (trustworthy, friendly, sincere) and
competence (skillful, capable)
• These labels are related to emotional
responses.
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High on warmth and competence=pride
Low on both=disgust
High on warmth, Low on competence=pity
Low warmth, high competence=envy
Envy often begets genocide
U. S. and European cultures higher on in
group pride while Asian cultures are lower
on ingrup pride but have the sam
responses to other emotions.
Reducing Prejudice through
Contacts
• The Robbers Cave experiment indicated
the power of super ordinate goals.
• Equal status contact with opportunities for
informal contact and norms of cooperation
and prejudice reduction.
• The jigsaw classroom allows for minority
groups to have access to valued
information.
Mindfulness and
Recategorization
• Increasing peoples’ “mindfulness” helps
those with implicit attitudes and
stereotypes recognize their prejudice.
This is especially true for low prejudiced
people.
• Recatagorizing out group members as
having similar goals helps reduce
prejudice.
Extended Contact Hypothesis
and Training Parents
• Merely knowing that members of the in
group have friendships with out group
members reduces prejudice These in
group/out group friendships are important
in reducing prejudice (the extended
contact hypothesis.)
• Teaching parents to model low prejudiced
behavior can aid in prejudice reduction.
Guilt and Emotional Techniques
• Guilt can be used with people who believe
they are egalitarian, but there are limits to
using guilt in any situation.
• Collective guilt may reduce racism.
• People can be trained to just say no.
• The influence of opinion leaders can bring
both normative and emotional changes.
Tokenism
• Knowledge that one has been given a
resource as a “token” of increasing
diversity is highly stressful and reduces
the individual’s self esteem.
Gender Stereotypes
• Gender stereotypes associate various
characteristics with gender as if they are
inevitably tied to men or women. Also
there is a tendency to see the other
gender In terms of out-group homogeneity.
• Gender role stereotypes tend to
exaggerate differences between the
genders.
Sexism
• Gender discrimination continues in a
number of areas of society.
• Benevolent sexism emphasizes that
women deserve protection, are superior to
men in such traits as purity and taste, and
are necessary for the happiness and
fulfillment of men.
• Studies show both women and men give
more respect to men.
Attraction to Close Relationships
• Of the multitude of people with whom we
come in contact we are attracted to only a
few and repulsed by a few more. Usually
through the self fulfilling prophecy and the
chance to relate to people we further
refine our interactions to build up close
relationships.
• Attraction is not random
Need for Affiliation
• At a biological level in order to survive we
must affiliate with others.
• We particularly need to affiliate with those
who share our genetic material most
closely.
• Affiliation provides social support and
social comparison especially in terms of
our emotional responses.
Need for Privacy
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Autonomy
Emotional Release
Self Evaluation
Maintenance of intimacy
Indicators of social status
Maintenance of identity and sense of
individuality
States of Privacy
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Solitude
Intimacy
Anonymity
Reserve
Gestures and non verbal communication
Signs and symbols of privacy
Dialectic of Privacy
• There is a constant balance to be
maintained between desire to be alone
and desire to be with others.
• Too much or too little privacy is stressful.
• There is a constant shifting of desired level
of privacy.
• Control of privacy is an important social
skill
Variables in Attraction
• Physical contact, propinquity, and the
mere exposure effect.
• Observable characteristics: Physical
appearance and observable similarity
• Similarity of attitudes, personality, and
background
• Complementarity of needs
• Mutual liking and reciprocity in evaluation
The Mere Exposure Effect
• Repeated exposure increases liking for
objects for which we are positive, neutral
or slightly negative.
• The familiar stranger effect occurs when
we repeatedly encounter people with
whom we do not interact. We like and
trust these people more than unfamiliar
strangers.
Physical Appearance
• Physical appearance is associated with
positive attributes on the part of the target
• People respond to appearance in children
and others in whom they do not have a
romantic interest.
• Other children also respond positively to
attractive children.
• People make more external attributions for
bad behavior in pretty children.
Similarity
• People are more attracted to and more
positively evaluate those who are similar in
attitudes, personality, and background.
• People engage in social comparison with
those who are similar.
• Dissimilar attitudes have a greater impact
than similar attitudes. We like people we
meet until we find them dissimilar.
Personality Similarity and Voters
• Modern campaigns emphasize emotions
an and image of politicians.
• Voters have trouble differentiating on
issues and use heuristic judgment in
evaluating candidates.
• Voters seek similarity in personality and
from that congruence of values.
Affect Centered Model of Attraction
• Attraction is determined by the direct and
associated sources of affect often
mediated by cognitive processes
schemas, attitudes, beliefs, and
expectancies.
• This attraction or repulsion results in
behavioral and evaluative responses to
others often leading to feedback loops.
Balance Between Independence
and Mutuality
• A well adjusted person is able to balance
independence and mutuality or shared fate
in a close relationship.
• This is a source of negotiation throughout
the lifespan. Adolescents must negotiate
with their parents to maintain this new
balance. Spouses must have a similar
negotiation.
Social Penetration Theory
• People explore relationships by tentatively
increasing the depth and breadth of their
self disclosures. The relationship reaches
a certain point and there is often an
unspoken agreement to keep it there.
• The pacing of self disclosure is crucial.
Too fast or too slow self disclosure causes
an imbalance and mistrust.
Adult Attachment Styles
• Original terms: Secure, Insecure-avoidant,
Insecure-ambivalent.
• In the Working Model of Attachment Styles
– Preoccupied: High on self esteem, low on
interpersonal trust.
– Fearful Avoidant: Low on self esteem and
interpersonal trust.
– Secure high on both
– Dismissive: high on trust, low on self esteem
Dispositional Lonliness
• Most loneliness does not involve lack of
access to friends, but it is the result of the
response of the person to others.
• Lonely people know about social skills in
theory, but they lack the ability to trust
others. They make negative attributions
about the friendly intent of other people.
• Depression, fear of intimacy,
unappreciated, interpersonal anxiety
• Pessimsism, self blame, attributions of
rejection on the part of others, perceived
lack of reciprocity from others. Often
relationships become self fulfilling
prophecies.
• Shyness, ambivalence in relationships,
dependent-dissatisfied relationship adding
to stress, interpersonal aggression and
teasing.
Investment in a Relationship
• People examine their perception of the fair
exchange in a relationship and the
alternatives.
• People in a committed relationship
devalue the alternatives, make positive
attributions about the relationship, and
forgive their partners. A sense of
investment leads to commitment.
Responses to Dissatisfaction
• Voice: active problem solving. More
common among women.
• Loyalty: Stay in a relationship because
problems minor or alternatives poor.
• Neglect: Neglect of relationship. Let it
wither on the vine.
• Exit: Examines both relationship and
alternatives.
Gender and Mate Choice
• Our anscestors survived because of male
choice of furtile females and female choice
of males with resources.
• Women tend to be much more concerned
with long term, commited realationships
and seek romance in first sexual
encounters. However there is not as
much gender difference in views on fidelity
in marriage.
Styles of Love
Eros: Passionate love
Storge: Companionate (friendship) love
Ludus: Game-playing love
Mania: Possessive love
Pragma: Logical love
Agape: Selfless love
Sternberg’s Theory of Love
(page 318)
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Infatuation: Passionate love alone
Empty Love: Commitment alone
Liking: Intimacy alone
Consummate Love: Intimacy, passion,
commitment
• Fatuous Love: Passion and commitment
but without time for intimacy
• Romantic Love: Intimacy plus passion
• Companionate Love: Intimacy plus
commitment Often in marriages where
passion has faded.
• Over time the relative importance of
passion, intimacy, and commitment
changes in a relationship. The problem
occurs when partners change at a different
rate.
Similarity and Marriage
• Happy couples show more actual
similarity.
• Assumed similarity is higher than actual
similarity for happy couples.
• Initial attraction because of dissimilarity
often ends up with dissatisfaction because
that which was attractive becomes
annoying.
Attributions and Marriage
• In happy marriages positive behaviors are
seen as resulting from internal, stable,
global traits and negative behaviors are
seen as resulting from external, unstable,
specific, factors.
• Distancing attributions represent the
opposite. External attributions for positive
events and internal for negative events.
Marriage and Subjective Well
Being (SWB)
• Longitudinal study in Germany
• Average person returns to baseline of
SWB after change in marital status. It
takes a little longer for baseline for
widowhood. But there is great individual
variation.
• Happy people less positively changed by
marriage but more hurt by divorce.
Some Tips on Mariatal Success
• Understanding partner’s point of view.
• Not threatening partner’s self esteem.
• Compromising: Would you rather be right
or rather by happy? How’s that working
for you?
• Decreasing costs and increasing benefits.
• Being agreeable, increasing positive
affect, managing negative affect. Checking
the validity of attributions.