social psychology - self and identity

two importnat questions:

• is there a core self above concious exeriences
• is identity socailly  created

is there a core self

is identity more than just a bundle of concious experiences 

REID

• 18th century philoshipher 
• in + to concious experiences there is a essemntial self that is the agent
• the self experiences expereinces and then acts on them 

this percpective is known as ego theory 

idea that there is some essnce beyond our concious experiences - something more than   just a bundle of concious experiences - that something is the self

Against

• Hume
• there is nothing beyond concious exoerince
• each time  we contmeplate our thoughts, feelings ect. that is simply just another vconcious experience
• bundle theory - we are simply the result of our concious experinces 'bundle of mental experiences'

• but then why is thought continous across different experinces
• maybe cause we have a core self
• of maybe not......

• willima james (1890) 
• thought is 'senisbly concious' 
• we have a 'stream of thought - carrying us through conciousnss and subjective life

Dennett (1991)

• we think about oursleves as a s eperte me being inside us - we feell like we are more than this
• we construct or world - with some 'self' at the core
• we have stream of concious though - but a web of narratives or representations of self that that tie them togther
• it is our narrtiaves or represnetations that make us think  there is a 'self' inside us whenin relaity there isnt
• "our tales are spun, but for the most part wedont spin them, they spin us" (Dennett, 1991, p.418, cited in blackmomre 2010, p.8)
• basicallly there are core values (narratives of self) and our behviour should be consistent

idenity is socially constructed

symbolic interactionalism

a collection of approaches concerned with the ways in which sense of self is scoially based

• Cooley( 1902/22)
• idenitity is intrinsically linked to sociiety

• Mead (1934) developed this
• our sense of m is actually (At eleast party) dependant on how experince other peoples conceptions pof us when we engage in social interaction
• snese of self = malleable - ccan change as interactions change
• sense of self = social - depends on interactions

support and research

• shrauger and schoeneman (79)
• people dont se themselevs as others actually saw them
• but howthey think other poelpe saw them
• we percieve poeple as thinking u=of us in a certain way and this informs our 'self'

Kuhn and mcpartland (1954)

• 2878 undergraduates
• asked to write answers to the queastion 'whio am i?'
• people tended to write more direclty socially anchored statemnets
• consnual statemtents = e..groups or classes they belong too

but if idenitty is so mallebale why to we have a sense of contuinutity?```

Rossan (87)

• diffeniates betwene continousn "core" and peripherale "sub- indenties"

Evaluation

• bundle theory contradicts sense of self (a western sense)
• but this does not mean it is not true, just hilights how our common snese works

• Ego theory = more consistenant with common snese views
• but no clear specific specification fo…