- The tendency for people to believe that personality descriptions are tailored

LECTURE 7: THE SELF

Sense of self emerges about 18-24 months
- Look at mirror = know that the reflection is theirs
Most animals don’t have a recognisable sense of self … but some exceptions
- Primitive: orangutan = recognise that the laser on its face when look at mirror &
touch its face
- Macaque monkey = taking selfie – but they fail the mirror test “no sense of self”
IS THERE SUCH A THING AS PERSONALITY?
Yes, probably…
- Measures of personality can be quite predictive of behaviour
- Dimensions of personality appear to have a significant genetic component
(genetics explains about 40-60% of the variance in personality)
- Stable across time = dominant personality, but can change = there’s degree of
stability
BUT…
The notion of personality implies cross-situational consistency … that people act more or
less the same across different situations.
specifically to them, when in fact they are vague & general enough to apply to a
wide range of people
STRANGERS TO OURSELVES
- Studies show that our peers and acquaintances are often better at predicting
our future behaviour than we are
- People have a good grasp of human nature…
o We understand how social behaviour is shaped by various constraints
– environmental & situational pressure
o But, we exempt ourselves from this understanding, thinking instead
that our own actions are more a product of our intentions and free
will
- Other people see patterns of our behaviour
WHERE DOES OUR SELF-CONCEPT COME FROM?
LOOKING-GLASS SELF
- One theory is that our self-concept comes from seeing others as others see us
- Research testing this theory suggests that people do NOT see themselves as
others see them, but rather see themselves as they think others see them
SELF-PERCEPTION THEORY

- But one of the messages of social psychology is that this is frequently not the - People gain self-insight by observing their own behaviour (“I am what I do”;
case, particularly in “strong” situations – thus, behave differently Bem, 1972)
o Attitude  behaviour  attitude
Another implication of personality is that it is a cohesive thing … that the higher you are - E. M. Forster
on one dimension (e.g., extraversion) the lower you are on its opposite (introversion). o “how can I tell what I think till I see what I say”

- But increasingly, it is recognised that people can have complex & contradictory SOCIAL COMPARISON THEORY
aspects of their “personality”, and that the impression of consistency &
uniqueness is often about the narrative we apply to ourselves (self-schemas) - We tend to compare ourselves to others to assess our own traits and abilities
(Festinger, 1954)
BARNUM EFFECT o To the extend, we do this obsessively
 - Social comparisons offer us information … it’s only through comparison that we
gauge the extend to which we’re funny, smart, tall and so forth
In one study, participants were asked to make judgements of artwork:
- They were given absolute sores of their ability (60% vs 40%)
- But they were also told that this score was 20% higher vs 20% lower than
average
- Who do you think rated their abilities higher?
o People who scored 60% and were told that this was higher than
average, OR people who scored 40% and were told it was lower than
average?
Social comparisons also have emotional implications:
- Upward comparisons make us feel bad, but can also be inspirational
- So, it works for us on things that we can change… and bad for us when its on
things we can’t change
- No point of looking at people who richer than you are = depressing
- “comparison is the thief of joy” – often the case
Not unique to humans:
- Capuchins monkey - in test chamber
- If give both monkeys cucumber = its fine for them & do the task
- If give one of them grapes & the other one cucumber = inaccuracy between
them – the cucumber one not accepts the reward
ILLUSION OF TRANSPARENCY
Downward comparisons can make us feel better
- Patient with only a lump removed wonders… “how awful it must be for women
who have had a full mastectomy”
- Older patient says… “the people I really feel sorry for are these young gals. To
lose a breast when you’re so young must be awful”
- Young patients who had a mastectomy says… “if I hadn’t been married, this
thing would have really gotten to me”
- See someone who worse = comfort
SPOTLIGHT EFFECT
- Refers to the tendency for people to believe they are being noticed more than
they really are
o Make us feel better
- We are very important to ourselves, and our personal experience “engulfs the
field” in terms of perception. Hard to imagine that others don’t notice us all that
much … but because other people are also self-focused, this is exactly what
happens
- This can be quite reassuring … the illusion of being noticed is particularly
obvious when we’ve done something embarrassing
o They think they have done more contribution in the group
- Only a few people really notice the embarrassing t-shirt
- Refers to the tendency for people to believe that others understand our mental
states more than they really do
o Overestimate that people understand what we meant or think
- Can be negative
o We think people “get” us more than they really do
o Also, may be implicated in bystander non-intervention (we don’t read
other people’s signals of concern as well as they presume we do)
- But like the spotlight effect, it can also be reassuring
 o A common feature of public speaking is for people to over-estimate
how much an audience “sees” that they are nervous
- Learning about the illusion of transparency has been shown to improve
performance among anxious public speakers
o Stop having visual cycle
HOW DO WE MEASURE SELF-ESTEEM?
- As an explicit unidimensional scale (e.g., Rosenberg self-esteem scale)
o How much the statement related to you
- As an explicit 2-dimensional scale (e.g., self-liking/ self-competency scale)
o Tell yourself that you’re is a good person
- Implicitly, through implicit association tasks, name-letter effects, signature
effects etc
o You don’t know that you’re doing self-esteem questionnaire
o Bypass conscious control
o Implicit association task
 Congruent = “word = adjective” (yellow) relates to bad
(yellow) + me (green = distractor) – faster in respond “yes”
or “no”
 Incongruent = “excellent” (yellow) relates to me (green) –
slower response
o Name letter effect:
 My name is Perry, so I will like word that starts with “P”
EXPLICIT VS IMPLICIT SELF-ESTEEM
- There are often very weak correlations between explicit & implicit measures of
self-esteem
o If you’re high on one you could easily be high on the other one
- If high on both = “secure self-esteem”
- If you’re high in explicit but low on implicit self-esteem = “fragile” or
“defensive” self-esteem
o People with this pattern are more likely to show verbal defensiveness,
more likely to display in-group bias, & less likely to offer forgiveness to
others
- But… a review of 7 measures of implicit self-esteem showed very weak
correlations among each other = big problem
WHY? – measure isn’t measure the self-esteem (not valid)
DOES HIGH SELF-ESTEEM HELP US?
HAPPINESS: yes, high self-esteem people are happier; low self-esteem people are more
prone to depression & easting disorder
SPEAKING UP: yes, high self-esteem people are more likely to speak up and to criticise the
group’s approach … indirectly linked with leadership potential
BUFFERING AGAINST STRESS: some evidence that high self-esteem helps buffer people
against stress, making them more resilient in terms of well-being. But the research is
mixed on this, but some are true
BUFFERING AGAINST EXISTENTIAL THREAT: high self-esteem is theorised to offer people
a ready-made sense of meaning & purpose.
- Accordingly, high self-esteem people should be less reactive to existential
threats (e.g., mortality salience). This evidence for this is quite consistent – we
know that we going to die = less anxiety in high self-esteem = less reactive to
high self-esteem in sense of meaning
SCHOOLWORK: high self-esteem people tend to do better at school … but there is little
evidence that promoting self-esteem among students successfully improves performance
WORKPLACE SUCCESS: also, limited evidence that high self-esteem causes good
performance at work … with the exception that high self-esteem does seem to help
people persist in the face of failure
RELATIONSHIP: people high in self-esteem FEEL more liked & feel as though they’re more
attractive to others. But objective measures seem to disconfirm this
- Self-esteem doesn’t predict the quality or duration of relationship
RISKY ADOLESCENT BEHAVIOUR: common perception that low self-esteem causes kids to
engage less in smoking, drinking, drug-taking, early sex etc. but no consistent evidence for
this… and some evidence for the opposite (high self-esteem people more likely to
experiment)
WHERE DOES LOW SELF-ESTEEM COME FROM?
- Having a large discrepancy between actual and ideal self
- Receiving persistent negative feedback from the universe
- Being uncertain about your qualities (whether good or bad) – paranoid
- Feeling like you’re not accepted by others (sociometer theory)
Sociometer theory
- According to sociometer theory, self-esteem is a measure of whether you feel
accepted OR rejected by others = evolutional invented
- Like the physical pain signals that you need to attend to a physical wound, low
self-esteem is designed to flag that you need to work harder to build
acceptance with others
NARCISSISM
- Narcissism originally used as a clinical construct (about 1% of people have
“narcissistic personality disorder”) – looking at themselves & in love with the
reflection of themselves
- In social psychology more often used as a personality variable, the scale for
which incorporates qualities considered “normal” and “positive”
- They think they are better than other people, exaggerate their positive qualities
– competence, low levels of guilt & social anxiety, see themselves as unique &
special, behave more selfishly & feel more entitlement (can be negative), highly
oriented toward success & have a relative lack of interest in warm and caring
interpersonal relationships
NARCISSISM … GOOD OR BAD?
- Narcissism – as measured by the Narcissism Personality Inventory – is often
associated with high functioning = successful in workplace
- Narcissists often comes across a charismatic and likeable in short doses, but
become less likeable over time
- Narcissist have a tendency to use their relationships in the service of the self
(want partners who make them look and feel good)
- Prone to attention-seeking, hogging conversation, stealing credit, speaking
loudly, showing off, bragging
- Can respond to negative feedback aggressively – when someone correct them
IS NARCISSISM ON THE RISE?
- Those high in narcissism are more likely to post selfies on social media sites (but
only among men)
- Does that mean that the “selfie-obsessed” millennial generation are more
narcissistic?
o Self-esteem is increase
- Some evidence for this, but the data are very weak and patchy. Seems to be
stereotype of every new generation since the 1970s
- Culture: Western > Asian in self-esteem
EGO THREATS AND LASHING OUT
- In one study, participants were given false feedback that they’d done poorly on
a task.
- They were then told that the task was a measure of achievement potential (ego
threat condition) or “an experiment task” (control condition)
- Later, in a supposedly unrelated part of the experiment, participants engaged in
a “getting to know you” exercise with another student.
- How well liked were the participants?
 - Decreased liking of high self-esteem participants after ego threat was due to
them being perceived as antagonistic
- When without ego threat, people like more or less the same regardless of self-
esteem level = effect not bad
- When ego threat, high self-esteem people are less likeable = turning into jerk to
prove themselves
FEIN & SPENCER (1997) – “IQ TEST”
- American college students take the test & receive positive OR negative feedback
- They then had to rate the job application of a candidate who was described as
either Jewish (Julie Goldberg) or Christian (Maria D’Agostino)
- When high IQ = like Christian same as Jewish
- When low IQ = like Christian > Jewish – more prejudice toward Jewish
- People with negative feedback & more prejudice toward Jewish = felt better as
the result
SELF-AFFIRMATION
- Protect ourselves from threat
- According to self-affirmation theory, if people have the opportunity to reflect on
values that are important to them, they are less likely to react defensively
when confronted with threatening information
- Can be used as an escape or a buffer
SELF AFFIRMATION: HOW DO WE KNOW IT WORKS
- In research on this topic, participants self-affirm by writing an essay about a
personally relevant variable, or they respond to a scale in which they choose
values that are important to them
- Compared to a control condition, participants who have the chance to affirm
have lower cortisol levels after a social stress task – low anxiety
- Physiological effects can also be seen outside the lab:
o Students who self-affirmed during a heavy assessment period
produced less catecholamine levels in their urine
- College students were asked to shoot free-throws in front of an audience of
beautiful female uni students …
 o Mostly negative = pressure
o Self-affirm = do better when under pressure
- Participants who self-affirm are more objective & less likely to sink into denial
when interpreting threatening health information
o coffee drinkers were given “articles” about coffee leads to breast
cancer = dispute data, but less likely to dispute when self-affirmed
- Women concerned about losing weight were recruited into a self-affirmation
study
o Those who self-affirmed had lower body mass index at the end of the
study than those who did not self-affirm
- African American and Latino American students who completed a values essay
7-8 times over a 2-year period received higher grade point averages (this did
not occur for White students)