THE SELF : WHO AM I?

LECTURE # 2 SOCIAL
PSYCHOLOGY

Prepared By Arlene Baker Rowe , PhD.

 OBJECTIVES
1.Explain the four self presentation tactics
2. State how we acquire self knowledge
3. Explain personal social identity continuum and its implications for groups
4. Define the term possible selves
5. Describe perceptions of self control and ego depletion
6. Define self esteem
7. Identify the difference between low vs high self esteem
8. 8. explain research related to gender differences in self esteem
9. Explain social comparison theory
10. 10. Define terms -self serving bias, above average effect., stereotype threat

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 THE SELF : WHO AM I
The self-concept seems like a very private phenomenon. After
all, people’s thoughts about themselves are hidden and are
often highly personal.

Yet the self-concept is also very much a social phenomenon.

It has social roots (e.g., reflected appraisals, social comparison),

it includes social identities and roles, and it guides our
perception of others and our behavior in social settings.

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WHO AM I ?

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THE SOCIAL SIDE OF THE SELF IN THE CONTEXT OF
SELF-PRESENTATIONAL BEHAVIOR

• Self-presentational behavior is any behavior intended

to create, modify, or maintain an impression of
ourselves in the minds of others.

• According to this definition, whenever we are

attempting to lead people to think of us in a particular
way, we are engaging in self-presentation.

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 SELF PRESENTATION

Self-presentation serves three important functions:

(1)it helps facilitate social interaction

(2)it enables individuals to attain material and social rewards

(3)it helps people privately construct desired identities.

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 SELF PRESENTATION
• We even engage in self-presentation when we are alone; for
example, we rehearse what we are going to say or do in public,
molding our behavior to an imaginary or anticipated audience.

• Sometimes this rehearsal is deliberate and noticeable as when

we prepare for a job interview or a public speaking engagement

• Other times it is automatic and almost imperceptible as when

we mindlessly check our hair in the mirror before stepping out
the front door.

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 SELF PRESENTATION

• The number of impressions people try to create of

themselves in the minds of others is almost limitless.

• At the same time, these impressions tend to fall into

a smaller number of classes. These are
distinguished in five common self-presentational
strategies (see Table).

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 FIVE COMMON SELF-PRESENTATIONAL STRATEGIES

Self Presentational Impression Sought Prototypic Self Presentational

Strategy Behaviours Risks

Ingratiation Likable Compliments, favors Insincere, deceitful

Self-Promotion Competent Boasting, showing off Conceited, fraudulent

Self Verification Virtuous and moral Self-denial, Hypocritical,

martyrdom sanctimonious

Self depreciating Helpless critical , scornful Manipulative and

demanding
Intimidation Powerful, ruthless Threats Reviled, ineffectual
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 INGRATIATION
• Ingratiation is probably the most familiar impression
management strategy. The goal of ingratiation is to get the other
person to like you.

• Since we tend to like people who agree with us, say nice things
about us, do favors for us, and possess positive interpersonal
qualities (e.g., warmth and kindness)

• It should come as no surprise that ingratiation can be

accomplished through imitation, flattery, doing favors for
someone, and displaying positive personal characteristics

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 INGRATIATION
• Ingratiation may backfire if it is too blatant. If your audience knows you are
trying to manipulate them, they may come to distrust or dislike you.
• This problem is rarely acute. People want to believe they are likable and are
liked by others.

• Consequently, they are disinclined to believe that a show of admiration or

affection from another person is inauthentic or derives from an ulterior motive,
even when such a motive is obvious to an impartial observer (Jones & Wortman,
1973).

• For this reason, ingratiation (if it is at least somewhat subtle) is often a highly
successful self-presentational ploy.

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 SELF PROMOTION
• Self-promotion is another common self-presentational strategy.

• Here we seek to convince people of our competence.

• This is not the same as ingratiation. With ingratiation, we are

trying to get people to like us.

• With self-promotion, we are trying to get people to think we are

capable, intelligent, or talented.

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 SELF PROMOTION
• In many situations, it is beneficial to be seen as both likable and
competent.

• In academia, for example, job offers are extended to applicants who are
perceived as highly competent and pleasant to be around.

• Blowing one’s own horn may convince people that you are competent,
but it rarely leads to strong feelings of liking.

• For this reason, people are often forced to blend or balance these two
self-presentational strategies. Many braggarts do not seem to
understand this point, or else they are willing to sacrifice being liked
for being considered competent.

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 SELF VERIFICATION
• It’s a process by which we lead others to agree with our
own self views.

• We negotiate with others to ensure they agree with our

claims.

• So according to self verification view even if it means

potentially receiving information that is negative about
ourselves we may still wish to have others particularly
those close to us see us as we see ourselves.

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 SELF DEPRECIATING

• Implying that we are not as good as someone

else in order to communicate admiration or
to lower other people expectations of our
abilities.

• It is therefore putting ourselves down.

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SELF KNOWLEDGE: DETERMINING WHO WE
ARE
• In determining who we are we use various methods:

• Introspection which is to privately think about the factors that

made us who we are.

• Many people believe that the more we self -analyze ourselves,

the more we examine the reasons for why we act the way we do
the greater the self understanding we will achieve.

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 SELF KNOWLEDGE
The self from other’s standpoint
• Sometimes other people are more accurate in predicting our
behaviour than we are.

• So one way that we can attempt to learn about ourselves is

by taking an observer perspective of our own past.

• It is said that actors and observers differ in their focus of

attention therefore observers are less likely to be swayed by
knowing our intentions.

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 SELF KNOWLEDGE
• Observers could potentially have greater insight into when we will
behave as we have done in the past.
Gaining accurate self knowledge
• When we learn about the self from others we are more likely to see
ourselves as observers do- in terms of consistent behavioural
tendencies.

• Therefore one way to gain self insight is to try to see ourselves as

others do.

• Also to consider the possibility that they are more right than we are.

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 WHO AM I? PERSONAL VS SOCIAL IDENTITY

• Social identity theory states that we can perceive ourselves

differently at any given moment in time depending on where we
are on the personal vs. social identity continuum.

• At the personal end of this continuum we think of ourselves

primarily as individuals.

• At the social end we think of ourselves as members of specific

social groups.

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 PERSONAL VS SOCIAL IDENTITY

• We do not experience all aspects of ourselves at the

same time, where we place ourselves on this
continuum at any given moment will influence how
we think about ourselves.

• This temporary salience is the part of our identity

that is the focus of our attention which can affect
how we perceive ourselves and respond to others.

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 PERSONAL VS SOCIAL IDENTITY
• When our personal identity is salient and we think of
ourselves as unique individuals this results in self
descriptions.

• This highlights how we differ from other individuals.

• These self descriptions are described as an

intragroup comparison which is involves
comparisons with other individuals who share our
group membership.

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 PERSONAL VS SOCIAL IDENTITY
• At the social identity end of the continuum perceiving
ourselves as members of a group means we
emphasize what we share with other group members.

• That is we describe ourselves in terms of the

attributes that differentiate our group from another
comparison group.

• Descriptions of the self at the social identity level are

intergroup comparisons in nature that is they involve
contrast between groups.

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 WHO AM I DEPENDS ON THE SOCIAL
CONTEXT
•The social context in which we serve to determine our social identities
emphasizes the personal self and individualism.

•The differences in self descriptions comes about when a particular group

identity is activated.

•Such context shifts in self definition can influence how we categorize ourselves
in relation to other people and this in turn can affect how we respond to others.

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 WHO AM I DEPENDS ON THE SOCIAL CONTEXT
• Gender is also an important social category that is likely to be activated a great
deal of the time, this means it is likely to influence perceptions of the self and our
responses to others with some frequency.

• Not only must gender be salient for gender differences in self construal or how
we categorize ourselves to emerge.

• Research shows that how we perceive ourselves depends on which gender group
serves as the comparison.

• How we see ourselves in terms of what traits we have depends on the comparison
we use when assessing ourselves

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WHY ARE SOME ASPECTS OF SELF MORE
SALIENT?
1. One aspect of self might be more relevant to a particular context

2. Features of the context can make one aspect of self highly

distinctive with that aspect of identity forming the basis of self
perception.

3. Some people may be more ready to categorize themselves in

terms of a particular personal trait (intelligence) or social
identity ( gender) because of its important to self.

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 WHY ARE SOME ASPECTS OF SELF MORE
SALIENT?
• 4. Other people can use language to cue us to think of ourselves
in personal vs. social identity terms.

• Aspects of the self concept that are referred to as nouns e.g.,

woman, student are likely to activate social identities.

• In contrast aspect of self that are referred to with either

adjectives or verbs e.g., taller athletic are likely to elicit self
perceptions at the personal identity level.

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 WHO AM I DEPENDS ON OTHERS’ TREATMENT

• How others treat us and how we believe they will treat us have
important implications for how we think about ourselves.

• If we expect that others will reject us because of some aspect of

ourselves we will change that aspect of ourselves and avoid being
rejected.

• We could also choose to only change that particular feature when

we anticipate being in the presence of others who will reject us.

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THE SELF ACROSS TIME: PAST AND FUTURE
SELVES
• Sometimes people think about the ways they develop and
change across time. Studies of autobiographical memory-
memories about events in our lives have revealed that :

• by comparing our present selves with our past selves we feel

good about ourselves. To the extent that we perceive
improvement over time.

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THE SELF ACROSS TIME: PAST AND FUTURE SELVES

• When we feel close in time to some self- failure the self is seen
less positively than when that same failure is seen as far in the
past.

• Possible selves(image of how we might be in the future)-

thinking about a positively valued possible self can inspire
people to forego current activities that are enjoyable to achieve
the goal of becoming our desired possible self

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 SELF CONTROL: WHY IT CAN BE DIFFICULT TO
DO
• Self control- refraining from actions we like, but performing actions
we prefer not to do as a means of achieving a long term goal.

• Researchers have stated that controlling ourselves sometimes can be

difficult to do in the first place but after doing so successfully, it can
impair our ability to do so again.

• Ego depletion is the lessened capacity to exert subsequent self

control after previously doing so . This may require self regulation.

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 SELF CONTROL

• Self control can be increased by thinking and

reminding ourselves of our goals and plans.

• Also by staying focused and doing more of

what we want to do with practice.

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 SELF ESTEEM
• Self esteem is the degree to which we perceive ourselves positively or
negatively, our overall attitude toward ourselves.

• The most common method used to measure self esteem is the 10 item
Rosenberg scale.

• In this evaluation people are asked to provide their own explicit attitude
toward themselves.

• Researchers have found that self esteem scores based on explicit

measures such as the Rosenberg scale could be biased by self
presentation .

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 SELF ESTEEM
• Responses may be guided by norms for example
people may report high levels of self esteem because
they think it is normal.

• In order to take out these concerns researchers have

developed ways to assessing self esteem implicitly by
examining the automatic associations between the self
and positive or negative concepts.

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 SELF ESTEEM
• Implicit self esteem measures- assesses self feelings of
which we are not consciously aware.

• Responses on these two types of measures of self

esteem are often not connected.

• This is consistent with the assumption that these two

types of measures are capturing different processes.

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 IS SELF ESTEEM ALWAYS BENEFICIAL?
• Many social scientists have suggested that the lack of high self
esteem is the root of many social ills including drug use, poor
school performance, depression etc.

• Many researchers have also stated that low self esteem might be
an important cause of aggression and negativity towards others.

• In contrast strong evidence has been accumulated in favour of

the opposite conclusion that high self esteem is associated with
bullying, self aggrandizing, and interpersonal aggression.

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 IS SELF ESTEEM ALWAYS BENEFICIAL?
• The idea is that to the extent that high self esteem implies
superiority to others that view of the self may need to be
defended whenever the individuals’ pride is threatened.

• It might even be that high self esteem when it is coupled with

instability results in hostility and defensiveness.

• When unstable high self esteem people experience failure their

underlying self doubt is reflected in physiological responses
indicative of threat.

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 HOW WE EVALUATE OURSELVES
• Social psychologists believe that all human
judgement is relative to some comparison.

• Downward social comparison- a comparison of the

self to another who does less well than or is inferior to
us.

• Upward social comparison- a comparison of the self

to another who does better than or is superior to us.

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 HOW WE EVALUATE OURSELVES
• Social comparison theory- which suggest that people
compare themselves to others because for many
domains and attributes there is no objective yardstick
to evaluate ourselves against, and other people are
therefore highly informative.

• Feeling uncertain about ourselves is one of the

central conditions that leads people to engage in
social comparison and otherwise assess the extent to
which we are meeting cultural norms.

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 HOW WE EVALUATE OURSELVES

There are two perspective on the self

1. The self evaluation maintenance model

2. Social identity theory both built on

Festinger’s (1954) original social comparison
theory to describe the consequences of social
comparison in different contexts.

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 HOW WE EVALUATE OURSELVES
• Self evaluation maintenance model suggests that to
maintain a positive view of ourselves we distance
ourselves from others who perform better than we do
on valued dimensions and move closer to others who
perform worse than us.

• This view suggests that doing so will protect our self

esteem.

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 HOW WE EVALUATE OURSELVES
• Social identity theory- applies when we categorize
ourselves at the group level. The comparison is
categorized as sharing the same category as
ourselves.

• When the context encourages comparison at the

group level the same other person will be responded
to differently than when the context suggests a
comparison between individuals.

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 HOW WE EVALUATE OURSELVES

• Many of us want to feel positive about ourselves and

there are various strategies that can be used to ensure
we see ourselves favourably most of the time.

• Above average effect- we think we are better than the

average person on almost every dimension
imaginable

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 SELF AS TARGET OF PREJUDICE
• Perceived prejudice not only affect psychological
well-being; it can also interfere with our ability to
acquire new skills.

• Several studies have found that when people fear that

others will discover their devalued group
membership, as might be the case for concealable
stigmas (think of gays and lesbians in the military),
such fear can negatively affect people’s ability to
learn and can affect performance.

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 SELF AS TARGET OF PREJUDICE
• How might these performance deficits in those with a
stigmatized self be prevented?
• Research suggests that a critical issue is the extent to which
people can affirm themselves in other ways.

• Thus, it is the extent to which a negative stereotype may define a

person’s entire worth that leads to underperformance, and
reaffirming the individual’s worth can provide protection

• Another important way that underperformance effects may be

overcome is by making salient the stereotype-defying
accomplishments of an important role model who shares one’s
stigmatized group membership.

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 SELF AS TARGET OF PREJUDICE
• Stereotype threat, which is a particular kind of social identity
threat, occurs when people believe they might be judged in light
of a negative stereotype about their social identity or that they
may inadvertently act in some way to confirm a negative
stereotype of their group.

• When people value their ability in a certain domain

(e.g., math), but it is one in which their group is stereotyped as
performing poorly (e.g., women), stereotype threat can occur.

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 SELF AS TARGET OF PREJUDICE
• When people experience stereotype threat, they can
distance themselves from the negative part of the stereotype
about one’s group.

• Anxiety appears to be one mechanism by which stereotype

threat effects occur.

• However, self-report measures of anxiety often fail to reveal its

importance, although nonverbal indicators of anxiety do predict
performance disruption.

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 QUIZ- WHAT IS YOUR RESPONSE LECTURE # 2 ?

1) The self can be thought of in------ distinct ways.

2) A common self esteem inventory that is used to measure self esteem is ---------.
3) Ingratiation is making people ------ you by ----- them.
4) Some believe that the route to ------ lies in introspection.
5) Self esteem is ------ of ourselves along a ---- - negative continuum.
6) Downward social comparison involves comparing ourselves to someone who is in a------ state
than us, thereby raising our ------ ------.
7. Salience is what is ------- and the focus of our ---------.
8. Autobiographical memories are about --------- in your own ---------.
9. Ego depletion refers to the ------- capacity to exert subsequent -------- following earlier efforts
to ------- self control.
10. ----------- is a negative behaviour directed toward an individual because that individual is
believed to be a member of a particular group.

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 REFERENCES

Class Notes # 2- Who am I

Bryan, A., Branscombe, N. Social Psychology text pdf.

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