The Psychology of the Self, Slides of Psychology

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THE SELF

EARLY THEORISTS OF ‘THE SELF’

William James, Charles Cooley

SELF-CONCEPT & SELF-ESTEEM

Pelham & Swann (1989)

Gender differences?

Self-objectification theory

EARLY THEORISTS OF THE

‘SELF’

4

CHARLES COOLEY (1864-1929)

“Human Nature and the Social Order” The Social Self:

• (^) Self can’t be understood in isolation-- must be studied in interaction with others
• (^) Self is not an inherent property of human nature but rather a socially- constructed entity: our sense of self is built upon the life-long experience of seeing ourselves through the eyes of others (“looking-glass self”) James, Mead, Cooley --> SYMBOLIC

SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM (Social) reality is an illusion, nothing is inherently real, only the meanings and symbols we collectively construct and use to describe reality are real; these symbols can be deconstructed to reveal who develop them and how they are useful to particular groups.

How do people move from having specific knowledge about their attributes to global evaluations of their self-worth? Augusto Pinochet (1915-?) Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) Undeserved high self-esteem? Undeserved low self-esteem? PARADOX: Often there is no obvious relationship between people’s accomplishments and virtues and their global self-esteem

8 PELHAM & SWANN (1989) GLOBAL SELF-ESTEEM (GSE) General affective evaluation of own’s worth or importance. 2 components: (1) Affective component: COLOR

• (^) Basic sense of pride/shame about oneself.
• (^) Largely rooted in temperament (individual differences in basic tendency to feel positive and negative emotions) and early childhood experiences; stable, fuzzy, unconscious, hard to verbalize, spontaneous, irrational (“feeling is believing”)
• (^) Also known as trait self-esteem (2) Cognitive component: CONTENT
• (^) Known as self-concept (SC)
• (^) Hierarchically organized set of specific mental self-views about one’s characteristics (roles, abilities, etc.) and their evaluation
• (^) Dynamic, clear, verbalized, rational (“seeing is believing”) Framing factors: DYNAMICS

1. Attribute importance
2. Attribute certainty determine impact of SC on

POSITIVE & NEGATIVE AFFECT SELF- CONCEPT (COGNITIVE COMPONENT) TRAIT SELF- ESTEEM (AFFECTIVE COMPONENT) GLOBAL SELF-ESTEEM FRAMING FACTORS :

1. Attribute importance
2. Attribute certainty
3. Actual/Ideal/Ought discrepancy

11 Gender differences in global self-esteem?

• (^) Not reliable and/or sizable

differences have been found in

adults (Maccoby & Jacklin, 1974)

• (^) Sources of global self-esteem

associated to different things for

men and women

(Josephs, Markus, & Tafarodi, 1992)

PHYSICAL SELF IN YOUNG

WOMEN

SELF-OBJECTIFICATION

(Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997)

American culture socializes women

to adopt observers' perspectives on

their physical selves.

This self-objectification is

hypothesized to (a) produce body

shame  restrained eating, and (b)

consume attentional resources.

Question for the class:

Why is self-esteem in

(Caucasian) girls lower than for

the other ethnic groups?