The Self

- The self is peoples experience of themselves.

- It is their perceptions and feelings about themselves.
Self-concept
Reflexivity – Awareness of thoughts and feelings.
Self-concept – Our representation of ourselves – made up of the existential self
and the categorical self.
Self-knowledge What we know or believe about ourselves.
Carl rogers
- Self-image
- Self-esteem
- Ideal self

Self- esteem
How positively we think of ourselves.
People with high sense of self-esteem are happier, however some people have
inflated self-esteem, this is called Narcissism.
Research on the self
Attentional processes – The ability to demonstrate self- awareness.
Cognitive processes – The ability to develop self-concept and self-identity.
Executive processes – self regulation through planning, decision-making and
action.
Self-discrepancy theory – Higgins (1987)
Distinguishes between:
- Our actual self
- Our ideal self what we hope to become – the attributes you would
ideally possess.
- Our Ought self
Social comparison theory (Festinger, 1954)
To understand ourselves we make comparisons with others.
Other people set the standard by which we define ourselves.
Self-categorization theory, Turner, 1987
Tendency to group objects and events into categories, we assign ourselves and
others into categories
Social identity theory, Tajfel and Turner, 1979
Based on the idea that our identity is based on group memberships
Social categorisation of self gives us a social identity.

The Self - Development of the self

Covers:
- Infancy
- Childhood
- Adolescence
- Adulthood
Infancy
Thomas and chess (1986,1999)
Children have different temperaments
Easy (40%)
Difficult (10%)
Slow and warm (15%)
Rouge test
A test of self-awareness
A child is places in front of a mirror and their face is marked before standing in
front of the mirror, at around 18 months of age they are able to regognise
themselves and the mark in the mirror, prior to that they are not.
Childhood
Preschool age:
Develop 2 aspects of self-esteem, Competence and personal/social adequacy
Self-worth is developed
- Academic ability
- Social acceptance
- Behavioural conduct
- Athletic ability
- Physical appearance
Adolescent development
Self-concept begins to develop further. They are more self-aware and their
values begin to become more abstract

The self - Personality Traits

Identity formation theory (Marcia, 1966)
Is based on a table of low or high commitment and exploration.
Cattell’s 16 Factor model
Cattel progressively reduced the set coming out with 16 factors.
The big five personality traits McCrae and Costa (2003)
To remember the big five personality traits, you can use the acronym
O.C.E.A.N
Openness
Conscientiousness
Extraversion
Agreeableness
Neuroticism
Hans Eysenck – 3 factor model
Based on the three factors of Extraversion, Neuroticism, and Psychoticism

Social Thinking - Attributions

Attributions are judgments of our own behaviour that we relate to a specific
cause.
Sometimes we attribute others another person’s behaviour to a cause
These judgments are called casual attributions.
Theories and models of attribution
Heider and Simmel (1944)
People are shown an animation in terms of human behaviour. Shows that
individuals have a basic need to attribute causality (Heider, 1958)
Internal vs external attribution (Kelly, 1960, 1967)
Internal – Meaning personal
External - Meaning situational
Correspondent Inference Model (Jones and Davis, 1965)
We are more likely to make internal attribution when behaviour is
1. Freely chosen.
2. Unusual
3. Socially deviant
4. Serves the interest of the person.
5. Has a high impact on the person doing the behaviour.
Covariation model (Kelly, 1973)
People make decisions based on conditions that are present at the time the
behaviour takes place

- Consistency – Is the individuals behaviour consistent over time

- Distinctiveness – Is the individual’s behaviour the same in similar
situations.
- Consensus - Do all people behave the same.
How attributions are made
High consistency + Low distinctiveness +low consensus = personal attribution
High consistency + high distinctiveness + High consensus = Situational
attribution
Attribution Bias
People make known to systematic mistakes in the way they make attributions
This is known as attribution bias or attribution error.
Examples of research into this are:
- Fundamental attribution error – Jones & Harris, 1967 – Also called
correspondence bias. Occurs where a lack of information is present.

- Actor/observer error – We are more likely to make Situational

attributions about ourselves and personal attributions about others

- Self-serving bias – People tend to attribute their own positive behaviour

or success to personal factors, but failures to situational attributions. I.e.
I won the race because I’m good at running, but I failed my maths test
because the grade boundaries were wrong.

- Ultimate attribution error – Pettigrew, 1979 – Group level attribution

error of how we attribute for out-group and in-group. Out-group failures
or In-group successes are attributed to personal factors. Out-group
successes (or in-group failures) attributed to external situational factors.
I.e. “The other group lost because they’re all bad at sports, and we won
because were all good.” Or, “they only passed the test because they had
a good teacher, but I only failed because I couldn’t get to sleep due to
loud music the night before.”

- Halo effect