Social psychology- Constructing of the self

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  • Created by: Amy
  • Created on: 22-12-21 11:59
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  • Constructing the self
    • Social construction
      • We build our own realities and our own view of the world (Wetherll & Maybis 1996)
      • happens via social interactions of norms, a performance of sorts eg social construction of gender
    • The self
      • William James (1842-1910)- a man's self is the sum of total of all that he can call his (the principles of Psychology 1890)- the material self, the social self, the spiritual self and the pure ego
    • Decolonising our view of the self
      • Western preoccupation with the self is not universal
      • Hamaguchi (1985)- in Japan (a highly collectivitst culture) the word for self (Jibun) means 'ones portion of the shared space'
      • WEIRD- western, educated, industrialised, rich, democratic
    • The self more recently
      • Indidvidual vs collective self
        • Social identity (Tajfel)- construction of the self is defined broadly as by shared self-definitions with group members
      • The looking glass self- how we see ourselves derives from how we think others see us
      • Symbolic interactionist self eg Blumer (1969)- how we present ourselves is seeped in symbolic meaning
      • The multiple self- Aspects framework (McConnel 2011)
        • The self- collection of multiple context dependent selves (each have attributes and traits)
        • Affect (how you view yourself) then reflects the evaluation of one's self-aspects
        • feedback about a self-aspect influences evaluations of other self aspects that are positive
    • The development of self-awareness
      • objective self-awareness (aware of yourself as an object)
      • Lewis & Brooks-Gunn (1979)- babies between 9 moths and 2 years, 18 months olds tried to touch their nose
    • Private vs public self-awareness
      • Private- you are aware of your own thoughts and feelings, 'I want my behaviour to allow me to think of myself as a good person and meet my standards'
        • positive correlation of naturally more privately self aware ps and negative mood (Scheier & Carver 1977)
          • Increased self awareness linked ti increased honesty, (Bender et al 2018) put children in front of a mirror and they were more honest
        • Attention directed inwardly
        • Consequences of private self-awareness
          • Gibbons et al (1975)- ps less susceptible to 'placebo' when in the presence of a mirror, ps told they were given a performance enhancing drug then they worked on a set of arithmetic problems
      • Public- you're aware of how others see you eg the looking glass self, 'I want others to think I'm a good person and match their standards'
        • William James (1980) 'a man has as many selves as there are individuals who recognise him'
      • Scheier & Carver (1980)- ps wrote counter attitudinal essays, more likely to change attitude in presence of camera (public), more likely to reinterpret behaviour in presence of of mirror (public)
    • Self-concept- sense of self
      • Self< >Ingroup< >Outgroup
    • Theories of self concept maintenance
      • Control theory of self regulation (Carver & Scheier 1981), we examine the self to assess whether we are meeting our personal goals
        • Social comparison-we learn how to define the self by comparing ourselves to others, we make two types of comparisons- upward comparisons and downward comparisons, we typically try to see ourselves in a good light
          • Brown & Tiggeman (2016)- social media promtes unattainable targets- detriment of social comparison
      • Regulatory focus theory (Higgins 1997)- two separate systems to construct a sense of self
        • promotion system- aspirations, hopes, seek out positive events
        • Prevention system- avoiding/ preventing negative events
      • Self evaluation maintenance model (Tesser 1988)
        • two components: reflective process and comparison process
        • When someone is more successful than us it can have a negative effect on our self-esteem
          • Self esteem
            • a person's subjective appraisal of themself as intrinsically positive or negative to some degree (Sedikides & Gregg 2003)
            • positive 'feedback loop' (Harris & Orth 2020)
            • Self esteem maintenance strategies (Tesser 1988)
              • exaggerate the ability of successful target, change the target of the comparison, distance the self from the successful atrget, devalue the dimension of comparison

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