Lecture 10
Evaluation of oneself
● Self-esteem: how much do you like yourself?
● Variable: hourly and daily changes but always around average
● People can evaluate themselves differently in different areas of life or different
aspects of self
Self complexity: when you view self as being your roles, you are likely to eval yourself
differently and suffering in one aspect will balance itself out in terms of self esteem
Research on self-esteem: reactions to criticism and failure feedback
● High self-esteem: project successful, prosperous, thriving self-image
● Avoiding failure: avoiding failure
● Following failure in one area of life:
○ High self-esteem people focus on succeeded in other areas of life
○ Low self esteem people generalize failure
■ Task performance?:
● Low self-esteem: perform poorly and give up earlier on subsequent tasks
● High self-esteem: failure spurs them into action on subsequent tasks
Protecting vs. enhancing the self
● Defensive pessimism: can motivate successfully, but annoying
● Self-handicapping: ìDeliberately does things that increase the probability of failure
—when failure occurs, they have an excuse for failure (and hence failure is not
attributable to self)
● Why people engage in such strategies: to protect their self concept and egos
Social component of the self: social identity
Social identity: part of identity we display to others
1. The nature of identity
a. Identity: social definition of a person
● 2 key features:
○ Continuity: ìPeople can count on you to be the same person tomorrow
as you are today
○ Contrast: ìYour social identity differentiates you from others, makes
you unique in the eyes of others
b. Identity development
i. According to Erikson (1968) identity can be achieved in several ways
● Experimenting with different identities
● Adopting a ready-made social role
○ Ex: taking over the family business, arranged marriages in
India
c. Identity crises
i. Baumeister argues for 2 distinct types of identity crisis
● Identity deficit: no adequate identity
● Identity conflict: ìIncompatibility between two or more aspects of
identity
, Sex, gender and perosnality
ìSex differences: Average differences in personality or behavior between men and women
according to biological sex
ìGender: Social interpretations of what is means to be a man or a woman
ìGender Stereotypes: Beliefs that we hold about how men and women differ, which are not
necessarily based on reality.
Differences between men and women
● Many ways the genders differ
● There is controversy around the notion of actual sex differences
The science and politics of studying sex and gender
● Study of sex differences is also ocntroversial
1. Arguments against:
ìFindings might be used to support political agendas or status quo
ìFindings merely reflect gender stereotypes, not real differences
ìFindings reflect biases of scientists, not objective reality
2. Arguments for:
ìScientific psychology and social change will be impossible without coming to terms with real
sex differences that do exist
History of the study of sex differences
● Before 1973, little attention paid to sex differences
● 1974: maccoby and Jaklyn published a book that informally summarized current
research findings
○ Set off an avalanche of work on sex differences
Calculation of the effect size
● Meta-annalysis: Researchers developed more precise quantitative procedures for
examining conclusions across studies and thus for determining sex differences
● ìEffect size (d statistic): used to express the average difference in standard
deviation units
○ Effect size can be calculated for each study of sex differences, then averaged
across studies to give an objective assessment of the difference
ìEffect size (d):
ì(-).20 = small
ì(-).50 = medium
ì(-).80 = large
Evaluation of oneself
● Self-esteem: how much do you like yourself?
● Variable: hourly and daily changes but always around average
● People can evaluate themselves differently in different areas of life or different
aspects of self
Self complexity: when you view self as being your roles, you are likely to eval yourself
differently and suffering in one aspect will balance itself out in terms of self esteem
Research on self-esteem: reactions to criticism and failure feedback
● High self-esteem: project successful, prosperous, thriving self-image
● Avoiding failure: avoiding failure
● Following failure in one area of life:
○ High self-esteem people focus on succeeded in other areas of life
○ Low self esteem people generalize failure
■ Task performance?:
● Low self-esteem: perform poorly and give up earlier on subsequent tasks
● High self-esteem: failure spurs them into action on subsequent tasks
Protecting vs. enhancing the self
● Defensive pessimism: can motivate successfully, but annoying
● Self-handicapping: ìDeliberately does things that increase the probability of failure
—when failure occurs, they have an excuse for failure (and hence failure is not
attributable to self)
● Why people engage in such strategies: to protect their self concept and egos
Social component of the self: social identity
Social identity: part of identity we display to others
1. The nature of identity
a. Identity: social definition of a person
● 2 key features:
○ Continuity: ìPeople can count on you to be the same person tomorrow
as you are today
○ Contrast: ìYour social identity differentiates you from others, makes
you unique in the eyes of others
b. Identity development
i. According to Erikson (1968) identity can be achieved in several ways
● Experimenting with different identities
● Adopting a ready-made social role
○ Ex: taking over the family business, arranged marriages in
India
c. Identity crises
i. Baumeister argues for 2 distinct types of identity crisis
● Identity deficit: no adequate identity
● Identity conflict: ìIncompatibility between two or more aspects of
identity
, Sex, gender and perosnality
ìSex differences: Average differences in personality or behavior between men and women
according to biological sex
ìGender: Social interpretations of what is means to be a man or a woman
ìGender Stereotypes: Beliefs that we hold about how men and women differ, which are not
necessarily based on reality.
Differences between men and women
● Many ways the genders differ
● There is controversy around the notion of actual sex differences
The science and politics of studying sex and gender
● Study of sex differences is also ocntroversial
1. Arguments against:
ìFindings might be used to support political agendas or status quo
ìFindings merely reflect gender stereotypes, not real differences
ìFindings reflect biases of scientists, not objective reality
2. Arguments for:
ìScientific psychology and social change will be impossible without coming to terms with real
sex differences that do exist
History of the study of sex differences
● Before 1973, little attention paid to sex differences
● 1974: maccoby and Jaklyn published a book that informally summarized current
research findings
○ Set off an avalanche of work on sex differences
Calculation of the effect size
● Meta-annalysis: Researchers developed more precise quantitative procedures for
examining conclusions across studies and thus for determining sex differences
● ìEffect size (d statistic): used to express the average difference in standard
deviation units
○ Effect size can be calculated for each study of sex differences, then averaged
across studies to give an objective assessment of the difference
ìEffect size (d):
ì(-).20 = small
ì(-).50 = medium
ì(-).80 = large
