Psychology and Society: Week 1
The self-concept:
Distinction between ‘I’ and ‘Me’:
- ‘I’ part of self is the part that actively does things
- make decisions
- chooses how to act
- actively navigates self through social environment
- ‘Me’ part of self what we think about when we think about ourself
- Object for thoughts about ourselves
- ‘Me’ is what is labelled self-concept
- Thoughts and emotions towards self
- Our identity
- Our social roles
- Our dispositions
- Physical attributes
- Content analysis: categorisation of data and responses
- Shows multiple dimensions of the self
- Shelf-schemas- components of self-concept
- Schemes: certain belief about objects
- Schemas store and help guide processes about beliefs
- Schemas are cognitive structures that organizes thoughts and beliefs, store relationships
between them and help process relevant information about them
- Self-schemas develop from past experience
- Schematic: have high value schema for a dimension
- Aschematic: low personal value (schema) on a specific dimension
Markus, Hamill & Sentis (1987):
- Research question: Will overweight ppl who were schematic on weight be quicker to identify
words relevant to their schemas?
- Do people identify self-schematic info as more descriptive of them
- If so, are people more quick self-schematic info as more descriptive of them
- Schematic -found word “overweight” was descriptive of self or stated weight was important
to them
- Aschematic – found work “overweight” not descriptive of themselves or stated weight was
not important to them
- Groups:
- Schematic and obese
- Schematic and overweight
- Aschematic
- All participants given words to describe being overweight and then given a list describing
being underweight
- They has to push a button as quick as possible saying if words described them
- People who were obese and schematic- overweight words more relevant to them than thin
- Same thing for schematic and overweight
- Aschematic group showed more thin words as more descriptive -no significant difference
, Psychology and Society: Week 1
- People in schematic obese group identified words of overweight as self-descriptive much
more quickly than thin words (lover response latency)
- Same in schematic overweight group
- No difference in time take for aschematic group to identify words from overweight list and
underweight list
- Overweight people who are schematic on weight are more likely to see themselves as
overweight- demonstrates importance of schemas
- Self-schemas help orientate self in terms of incoming relevant information
- People are faster to identify information that’s relevant to us and consistent with our self-
schema
- Having a schema for particular dimension helps identify info that relevant to us and to
process that info much more quickly
Markus, Crane, Bernstein & Siladi (1982)
- Another function of self-schema is to help us remember info that relevant to us
- Research question: Will those schematic on gender better remember schema-relevant info?
- Ppt rated how a set of 20 masculine, 20 feminine and 20 gender neural words were more
descriptive themselves
- Groups: Masculine, feminine, high androgynous(both), low androgynous (neither)
- Recalls task: write down as many words from list of 60 words they have just seen
- Masculine groups identified greater number of masculine words
- Feminine group identified greater for feminine words
- Self-schemas prove means of storing schema relevant info so we better remember it for
future
- Self-concept is dynamic and responsive to change in environment
- Only certain schemas are active at one time
- Grand self-concept: total of all self-schemas
- Working self-concept: a collection of activated self-schemas for thinking about oneself at a
given moment
- Markus & Nuruis 1986
- Working self-concept can be manipulated
- People can prime to think about certain elements of themselves
- Priming exposure to a certain stimulus to responses are affected
- Markus & Wurf 1987
The self-concept:
Distinction between ‘I’ and ‘Me’:
- ‘I’ part of self is the part that actively does things
- make decisions
- chooses how to act
- actively navigates self through social environment
- ‘Me’ part of self what we think about when we think about ourself
- Object for thoughts about ourselves
- ‘Me’ is what is labelled self-concept
- Thoughts and emotions towards self
- Our identity
- Our social roles
- Our dispositions
- Physical attributes
- Content analysis: categorisation of data and responses
- Shows multiple dimensions of the self
- Shelf-schemas- components of self-concept
- Schemes: certain belief about objects
- Schemas store and help guide processes about beliefs
- Schemas are cognitive structures that organizes thoughts and beliefs, store relationships
between them and help process relevant information about them
- Self-schemas develop from past experience
- Schematic: have high value schema for a dimension
- Aschematic: low personal value (schema) on a specific dimension
Markus, Hamill & Sentis (1987):
- Research question: Will overweight ppl who were schematic on weight be quicker to identify
words relevant to their schemas?
- Do people identify self-schematic info as more descriptive of them
- If so, are people more quick self-schematic info as more descriptive of them
- Schematic -found word “overweight” was descriptive of self or stated weight was important
to them
- Aschematic – found work “overweight” not descriptive of themselves or stated weight was
not important to them
- Groups:
- Schematic and obese
- Schematic and overweight
- Aschematic
- All participants given words to describe being overweight and then given a list describing
being underweight
- They has to push a button as quick as possible saying if words described them
- People who were obese and schematic- overweight words more relevant to them than thin
- Same thing for schematic and overweight
- Aschematic group showed more thin words as more descriptive -no significant difference
, Psychology and Society: Week 1
- People in schematic obese group identified words of overweight as self-descriptive much
more quickly than thin words (lover response latency)
- Same in schematic overweight group
- No difference in time take for aschematic group to identify words from overweight list and
underweight list
- Overweight people who are schematic on weight are more likely to see themselves as
overweight- demonstrates importance of schemas
- Self-schemas help orientate self in terms of incoming relevant information
- People are faster to identify information that’s relevant to us and consistent with our self-
schema
- Having a schema for particular dimension helps identify info that relevant to us and to
process that info much more quickly
Markus, Crane, Bernstein & Siladi (1982)
- Another function of self-schema is to help us remember info that relevant to us
- Research question: Will those schematic on gender better remember schema-relevant info?
- Ppt rated how a set of 20 masculine, 20 feminine and 20 gender neural words were more
descriptive themselves
- Groups: Masculine, feminine, high androgynous(both), low androgynous (neither)
- Recalls task: write down as many words from list of 60 words they have just seen
- Masculine groups identified greater number of masculine words
- Feminine group identified greater for feminine words
- Self-schemas prove means of storing schema relevant info so we better remember it for
future
- Self-concept is dynamic and responsive to change in environment
- Only certain schemas are active at one time
- Grand self-concept: total of all self-schemas
- Working self-concept: a collection of activated self-schemas for thinking about oneself at a
given moment
- Markus & Nuruis 1986
- Working self-concept can be manipulated
- People can prime to think about certain elements of themselves
- Priming exposure to a certain stimulus to responses are affected
- Markus & Wurf 1987
