YADE BEEFTINK
QUAD 3 | EUC 2019
MAN & SOCIETY
Problem 1 | The Self
Introduction: the self-image – how do we see ourselves – has two components; affective component
(self-esteem) and cognitive component (self-concept).
The Self-Concept
The sum total of beliefs that people have about themselves.
Working self-concept: sense of self at a given moment, not a unitary structure, can change.
Self-awareness and self-image make up the self.
Self-schemas – cognitive self
Beliefs about oneself that guide the processing of self-relevant information.
Everything you believe about yourself that makes up your self-concept.
An integrated set of memories beliefs & generalizations about one’s behaviour in a given
domain.
E.g. body weight, for whom body image is a conspicuous aspect of the self-concept, are
considered schematic with respect to weight.
→ Self-knowledge: accessible to oneself and others built from past experiences.
→ Schematic people: identify with many different traits.
→ A-schematic people: do not label them selves.
A self-concept by socialization (Mead)
Socialization
The processes by which people learn the norms, rules, and information of a culture or group.
We learn a tremendous amount of information (often unconscious) by absorbing what we see
around us in our culture, groups, and families.
These lessons include what various stereotypes are, how values or devalued various groups are,
and which prejudices are acceptable to have.
Looking-glass self: other people serve as a mirror in which we see ourselves.
We often come to know ourselves by imagining what significant others think of us and then
incorporating these perceptions into our self-concepts.
We draw our sense of who we are from our past and current relationships with the significant
others in our lives.
Capacity for “meta-insight”: people can distinguish between how they perceive themselves – e.g.
how smart, funny or outgoing – and how others see them.
1
, YADE BEEFTINK
QUAD 3 | EUC 2019
MAN & SOCIETY
Self-discrepancy Theory
People compare themselves to internalized standards called "self-guides".
These different representations of the self can be contradictory and result in emotional
discomfort.
Self-discrepancy is the gap between two of these self-representations.
1. Ideal-self: who you aspire to be
2. Actual-self: who you really are
3. Ought-self: who feel you have to be according to your surroundings.
The theory states that people are motivated to reduce the gap in order to remove disparity in
self-guides.
The match or mismatch between how we see ourselves and how we want to see ourselves. The
larger the gap, the lower the self-esteem.
Factors that influence the Self-Concept
Self-perception Theory
When internal cues are difficult to interpret, people gain self-insight by observing their own and
others behaviour
We develop our attitudes by observing our own behaviour and then concluding what kind of
attitude must have caused it.
We attempt to interpret our own overt behaviours rationally as we would try to explain other’s
behaviour.
The theory is counterintuitive in nature, we induce attitudes without accessing internal cognition
of mood states.
Vicarious self-perception: inferring something about yourself by observing the behaviour/life
events of someone you identify with.
We know ourselves better on internal trait aspects, equal on external traits and worse on touchy
traits that impact our self-esteem.
Introspection: looking inward intro one’s thoughts and feelings.
According to introspection nobody can know you better than you know yourself.
Though the person’s own observation is not always accurate:
1. People are mentally busy processing information, therefore we often fail to understand our
own thought, feelings, and behaviours.
2. People overestimate the positives, most of the people think they are better than average,
even though it is statistically impossible for this to happen.
Affective forecasting: a process of projecting forward and predicting how they would feel in
response to future emotional events.
Labelling bias: leads to self-labelling, the self-identity and behaviour of individuals may be
determined or influenced by the terms used to describe or classify them.
2
, YADE BEEFTINK
QUAD 3 | EUC 2019
MAN & SOCIETY
Self-categorization Theory
Three levels of self-categorization:
1. Human identity: superordinate level of personal self-categorizations
2. Social identity: intermediate level of the self as a member of a social ingroup as defined against
other groups of humans.
3. Personal identity: subordinate level of personal self-categorizations based on interpersonal
comparisons.
Social Identity Approach (Tajfel & Turner)
Human interaction ranges on a spectrum from being purely interpersonal on the one hand to
purely intergroup on the other.
→ Interpersonal end of the spectrum: people’s self-concept will mostly comprise the attitudes,
memories, behaviours, and emotions that define them as individuals, distinct form other
individuals.
→ Intergroup end of the spectrum: self-concept will mostly comprise one’s ‘social identity’,
defined as those aspects of an individual’s self-image that derive from the social categories
to which he/she belongs, as well as the emotional and evaluative consequence of this group
membership.
Ingroup vs outgroup
→ People evaluate the ingroup with reference to relevant outgroups.
→ They become psychologically real only when defined in comparison to other groups.
→ Making clear distinctions between categories, people perceptually enhance similarities
within groups.
Limitations: outgroup identification and complex intersection of personal and collective
identities etc. make the SCT over-simplified. Ingroup members do tolerate heterogeneity and
dissent within groups to some extent.
Self-awareness/ self-consciousness
The self-awareness theory: self-focused attention leads people to notice self-discrepancies, thereby
motivating either an escape from self-awareness or a change in behaviour.
You are not always self-focused, but certain situations predictably force us to turn inward and
become the objects of our own attention.
We turn into a state of heightened self-awareness that leads us naturally to compare our
behaviour to some high standard.
This comparison often results in a negative discrepancy and a temporary reduction of self-esteem
as we discover we fall short. Self-consciousness
The ability to see yourself as a distinct entity in the world may be a necessary first step in the
evolution and development of a self-concept.
3
, YADE BEEFTINK
QUAD 3 | EUC 2019
MAN & SOCIETY
2 types of self awareness/consciousness
1. Private self-consciousness: a personality characteristic of individual who are introspective, often
attending to their own inner states.
2. Public self-consciousness: a personality characteristic of individuals who focus on themselves as
social objects as seen by others, our outer public image.
Two-factor theory of emotion
Your experience of emotion is based on physiological arousal and a cognitive interpretation of that
arousal.
1. Physiological arousal: racing heart, perspiration, rapid breathing etc.
2. Cognitive interpretation: explains the source of the arousal, reactions of people around us help
us interpret our own arousal.
Self-evaluation maintenance model: a superior’s behaviour has an impact on you. If someone is
creative, and you think you are too, you will feel threatened if they are better than you. If you’re
not creative, you won’t feel threatened.
Social identity
Our understanding of who we are and of who other people are, and reciprocally, other people’s
understanding of themselves and of others.
Identity is about belonging, about what you have in common with some people and what
differentiates you from others.
At its most basic it gives you a sense of personal location, the stable core to your individuality.
It is also about your social relationships, your complex involvements with others.
Autobiographical memories
Memory of one’s life events is critical to the self-concept.
Our autobiographies are interconnected with our sense of who we are, that as our self-concepts
changes, so does our visual perspective on the past.
Memory theory: if you don’t remember something, it does not shape you today.
Distorted memories
It appears that people sometimes revise their own past to suits their current self-image. (self-
enhancement)
Flashbulb memories
Humans are biologically equipped for survival purposes to “print” dramatic events in our memory.
These flashbulb are not necessarily accurate or even consistent over time.
Still, these recollections of memories “feel” special and serve as prominent landmarks in the
biographies that we tell about ourselves.
4
QUAD 3 | EUC 2019
MAN & SOCIETY
Problem 1 | The Self
Introduction: the self-image – how do we see ourselves – has two components; affective component
(self-esteem) and cognitive component (self-concept).
The Self-Concept
The sum total of beliefs that people have about themselves.
Working self-concept: sense of self at a given moment, not a unitary structure, can change.
Self-awareness and self-image make up the self.
Self-schemas – cognitive self
Beliefs about oneself that guide the processing of self-relevant information.
Everything you believe about yourself that makes up your self-concept.
An integrated set of memories beliefs & generalizations about one’s behaviour in a given
domain.
E.g. body weight, for whom body image is a conspicuous aspect of the self-concept, are
considered schematic with respect to weight.
→ Self-knowledge: accessible to oneself and others built from past experiences.
→ Schematic people: identify with many different traits.
→ A-schematic people: do not label them selves.
A self-concept by socialization (Mead)
Socialization
The processes by which people learn the norms, rules, and information of a culture or group.
We learn a tremendous amount of information (often unconscious) by absorbing what we see
around us in our culture, groups, and families.
These lessons include what various stereotypes are, how values or devalued various groups are,
and which prejudices are acceptable to have.
Looking-glass self: other people serve as a mirror in which we see ourselves.
We often come to know ourselves by imagining what significant others think of us and then
incorporating these perceptions into our self-concepts.
We draw our sense of who we are from our past and current relationships with the significant
others in our lives.
Capacity for “meta-insight”: people can distinguish between how they perceive themselves – e.g.
how smart, funny or outgoing – and how others see them.
1
, YADE BEEFTINK
QUAD 3 | EUC 2019
MAN & SOCIETY
Self-discrepancy Theory
People compare themselves to internalized standards called "self-guides".
These different representations of the self can be contradictory and result in emotional
discomfort.
Self-discrepancy is the gap between two of these self-representations.
1. Ideal-self: who you aspire to be
2. Actual-self: who you really are
3. Ought-self: who feel you have to be according to your surroundings.
The theory states that people are motivated to reduce the gap in order to remove disparity in
self-guides.
The match or mismatch between how we see ourselves and how we want to see ourselves. The
larger the gap, the lower the self-esteem.
Factors that influence the Self-Concept
Self-perception Theory
When internal cues are difficult to interpret, people gain self-insight by observing their own and
others behaviour
We develop our attitudes by observing our own behaviour and then concluding what kind of
attitude must have caused it.
We attempt to interpret our own overt behaviours rationally as we would try to explain other’s
behaviour.
The theory is counterintuitive in nature, we induce attitudes without accessing internal cognition
of mood states.
Vicarious self-perception: inferring something about yourself by observing the behaviour/life
events of someone you identify with.
We know ourselves better on internal trait aspects, equal on external traits and worse on touchy
traits that impact our self-esteem.
Introspection: looking inward intro one’s thoughts and feelings.
According to introspection nobody can know you better than you know yourself.
Though the person’s own observation is not always accurate:
1. People are mentally busy processing information, therefore we often fail to understand our
own thought, feelings, and behaviours.
2. People overestimate the positives, most of the people think they are better than average,
even though it is statistically impossible for this to happen.
Affective forecasting: a process of projecting forward and predicting how they would feel in
response to future emotional events.
Labelling bias: leads to self-labelling, the self-identity and behaviour of individuals may be
determined or influenced by the terms used to describe or classify them.
2
, YADE BEEFTINK
QUAD 3 | EUC 2019
MAN & SOCIETY
Self-categorization Theory
Three levels of self-categorization:
1. Human identity: superordinate level of personal self-categorizations
2. Social identity: intermediate level of the self as a member of a social ingroup as defined against
other groups of humans.
3. Personal identity: subordinate level of personal self-categorizations based on interpersonal
comparisons.
Social Identity Approach (Tajfel & Turner)
Human interaction ranges on a spectrum from being purely interpersonal on the one hand to
purely intergroup on the other.
→ Interpersonal end of the spectrum: people’s self-concept will mostly comprise the attitudes,
memories, behaviours, and emotions that define them as individuals, distinct form other
individuals.
→ Intergroup end of the spectrum: self-concept will mostly comprise one’s ‘social identity’,
defined as those aspects of an individual’s self-image that derive from the social categories
to which he/she belongs, as well as the emotional and evaluative consequence of this group
membership.
Ingroup vs outgroup
→ People evaluate the ingroup with reference to relevant outgroups.
→ They become psychologically real only when defined in comparison to other groups.
→ Making clear distinctions between categories, people perceptually enhance similarities
within groups.
Limitations: outgroup identification and complex intersection of personal and collective
identities etc. make the SCT over-simplified. Ingroup members do tolerate heterogeneity and
dissent within groups to some extent.
Self-awareness/ self-consciousness
The self-awareness theory: self-focused attention leads people to notice self-discrepancies, thereby
motivating either an escape from self-awareness or a change in behaviour.
You are not always self-focused, but certain situations predictably force us to turn inward and
become the objects of our own attention.
We turn into a state of heightened self-awareness that leads us naturally to compare our
behaviour to some high standard.
This comparison often results in a negative discrepancy and a temporary reduction of self-esteem
as we discover we fall short. Self-consciousness
The ability to see yourself as a distinct entity in the world may be a necessary first step in the
evolution and development of a self-concept.
3
, YADE BEEFTINK
QUAD 3 | EUC 2019
MAN & SOCIETY
2 types of self awareness/consciousness
1. Private self-consciousness: a personality characteristic of individual who are introspective, often
attending to their own inner states.
2. Public self-consciousness: a personality characteristic of individuals who focus on themselves as
social objects as seen by others, our outer public image.
Two-factor theory of emotion
Your experience of emotion is based on physiological arousal and a cognitive interpretation of that
arousal.
1. Physiological arousal: racing heart, perspiration, rapid breathing etc.
2. Cognitive interpretation: explains the source of the arousal, reactions of people around us help
us interpret our own arousal.
Self-evaluation maintenance model: a superior’s behaviour has an impact on you. If someone is
creative, and you think you are too, you will feel threatened if they are better than you. If you’re
not creative, you won’t feel threatened.
Social identity
Our understanding of who we are and of who other people are, and reciprocally, other people’s
understanding of themselves and of others.
Identity is about belonging, about what you have in common with some people and what
differentiates you from others.
At its most basic it gives you a sense of personal location, the stable core to your individuality.
It is also about your social relationships, your complex involvements with others.
Autobiographical memories
Memory of one’s life events is critical to the self-concept.
Our autobiographies are interconnected with our sense of who we are, that as our self-concepts
changes, so does our visual perspective on the past.
Memory theory: if you don’t remember something, it does not shape you today.
Distorted memories
It appears that people sometimes revise their own past to suits their current self-image. (self-
enhancement)
Flashbulb memories
Humans are biologically equipped for survival purposes to “print” dramatic events in our memory.
These flashbulb are not necessarily accurate or even consistent over time.
Still, these recollections of memories “feel” special and serve as prominent landmarks in the
biographies that we tell about ourselves.
4
