Psyc 161: Psychology of the Self

• 1) What we really are influences the way we think about ourselves
• 2) What we really are influences the way we feel about ourselves.
• 3) Self is only one aspect of personality (feelings and thoughts)
• 4) Self Report is often used to measure personality

Refers to the way people feel about themselves

• - Self Esteem
• -Self presentation
• -Self regulation
• -Goals and Motivation

• -Social Determinants of self
• -Relationships and groups
• -Social comparison
• -Self Evaluative motives

• 1) Reflexive consciousness
• 2) Interpersonal being
• 3) Executive Function

• Thorndike placed a cat or chick in a box and waited for them to make a desired response and when they did he would let them out and let them get food. Each time they did the response faster and towards the end they were doing immediately after being placed in the box. Is is a Stimulus(box)-response(action) bond.
• Called law of effect because behavior is ruled by the past and the reinforcement it was met with in the past . It is not ruled with the expectancy of the future or the rewards it may bring.

• Reality compared to the way the world appears to the individual
• -What we perceive is not necessarily the same as what exists in the external world.
• -Our behavior depends more on how we perceive the world than on how the world really is.

• -Killed study of self for a long time (1915-1955)
• Believed in Stimulus-Response links
• Though that emotions and feelings (epiphenomenal) are not contributing to the behavior.

Believed that the self arises from the social experience and that the self is essentially a social structure.

• Focused on connection btwn society and individual
• "Looking Glass self"
• -We imagine how we must appear to others
• - we imagine the judgement of that appearance
• -We develop our self through the judgement of others

• The thinker
• It is actively perceiving, thinking and seeing

• 1) Material Self- Individuals body and possessions. Things that we have that agree with who I am
• 2) Social self- image of self portrayed to others
• 3) Spiritual Self- When we think of ourselves as thinkers; elicits (pride) and goals

• Shaped the study of the self
• Distinguished between the "Me" and the "I"

Believed we had a tabula rasa, which is an empty mind, and we are shaped by our experiences, sensations and reflections and by the people around us.

• Portrayed self in the terms of sensory experience.
• Believed in basic pursuit of self interest so he thought that we had to give up certain freedoms in order to live longer and accomplish more of what we wanted.

Also believed that the body and soul were two distinct entities.

• Defined the soul as the core essence of a being, but argued against its having a separate existence.
• He viewed as body and soul as inseperable.

• Soul=essence of person
• Thought that when the body dies the soul was born in another body
• Thought as soul in 3 components
• 1) Logos-Reason
• 2) Thymos- Emotion
• 3) Eros- Desires
• Viewed body and soul as two distinct objects

• -Plato
• -Aristotle
• -Rene Descartes
• -Thomas Hobbes
• -John Locke
• -William James
• -Charles H. Cooley
• -George Herbert Mead

• -Nature and definition of self
• -Self schemas and the activation of self knowledge
• Self Structure
• -Self-perception
• -To look at ones self and reflect who you are

• The awareness that objects continue to exist even when they are no longer visible
• Typically achieved btwn 8-9 months

• Symbolic self plays a crucial role in human thinking, feeling, and behaving.
• -We are more sensitive when we hear our own name or some self-relevant information
• -Avoid places that won't leave behind positive feelings about the self
• Allows for goal setting and goal consistent behavior.

• We see ourselves as objects.
• The attributes and cognitive ability presented by every organism

• Individuals adopt the perspectives of others and imagine how they appear from others' point of view and act accordingly.
• Ex: Child throws food at first but as they mature the ability to take the perspective of the parents and how they don't like that shapes them and their behavior into what the parents would like to see.

• Ability to distinguish ones self from other people
• Babies realize that they see different things than other people.
• Typically happens by the end of the first year.

As early as 3-5 months infants are aware of the movement in their legs.

• Homo erectus
• -humans began to exhibit signs of complex social organization
• -brain exhibited substantial increases in compacity and complexity

• Primed
• -Independence (control)

• -Interdependence (interdependence)

• Other serve as comparison standards
• Allows us to evaluate our performance
• Compare ourselves to similar others
• 3 Factors that affect the outcome of comparison:
• 1) Closeness to other
• 2) Importance of Domain (Ex:test)
• 3) Relative performance of other

Finding: Tend to feel worse about self when a close relationship out performs us, unless they are very close to us. In that case we even take a little credit from their victory and are happy for them.

• In this study some participants were told to write about a good friend and other participants were told to write about Regis.
• The prediction is that thinking about your friend will increase self confidence for people with high RISC (Relational interdependant self-construal). For people with low RISC, thinking of their friend will decrease their self confidence.
• 

• They did a study in which you described two friends of yours and then you are to meet a person who is like one of your friends. When you meet this person you treat them the same way you would treat your friend because they remind you of them.
• 
• Overlap = Overlap between self-description in second session
• and self-with-other description at pretest

• When the unconscious redirects the feelings from one person to another.
• Ex: transfer feelings fro partner to parents.

• Closeness in relationship leads to merging of other in self.
• In close relationships the individual acts as if some or all aspects of the partner are partially the individuals own.
• 

• Low avoidance, low anxiety: Secure
• High avoidance, low anxiety: Dismissive
• Low avoidance, high anxiety: Preoccupied
• High Avoidance, high anxiety: fearful
• 

• Yes.
• In the Collective/Rational dilemma study done by Gabriel and Gardner people were given two scenarios and they had to pick the one they were most likely to do. In the collective dilemma they had to chose btwn the good of self vs the good of the group. In the relational dilemma they had to choose btwn good of self or good of a close friend. In the collective self both men and women chose self more often but in the relational one, woman were more likely to help the friend out first before taking care of self.
• 

• Conceiving of one's self in terms of one's close relationships
• People with high RISC scores are:
• More likely to consider how their actions will affect other people
• Take into account the options and needs of other people close ton them
• More likely to be more open and nurturing in their relationships.

• Built over time
• Schema for the self and significant other in the relationship, linked by interpersonal script (learn how the behaviors affect the other person).

• Positive and negative self evaluations
• Goals and motives
• Self-regulatory strategies (the way you get yourself to do certain things like eat healthy)
• Behavioral tendencies (The way you behave differently in different situations)

• Actual individual whom one knows and one feels a degree of closeness towards them and usually shares a relationship.
• The label can be normatively (label presented by society) or idiosyncratically (a label that you apply yourself without taking anyone else into consideration)

• The self in relation to significant other.
• It gets activated when you think if yourself in a relationship.

• A neuron that fire in your brain when you observe your friend doing an action and you want to do the same thing.
• Ex: If your friend is tapping her foot, your neurons fire and you start to tap your foot.

• Consciousness allows us to intervene in certain situations.
• Ex: We always breath unconsciously so if we want to hold our breathe the conscious has to step in and take over.

• A lot can be accomplished outside of conscious awareness
• Consciousness is like an iceberg, most happens underneath and without us even noticing ~ 95%

• It may lead to a false positive
• Some animals don't like to make contact but that does not mean they are not conscious
• Some humans may notice it but fail to show any outwardly function but it doesn't mean they lack conscious

Humans, Apes, Dolphins, Elephants and penguins are all put a red dot on top of their heads and placed in front of a mirror. If they notice it and start playing around with it, then it means they have self-consciousness bc they are aware of oneself.

• To be able to distinguish btwn self and others.
• Ex: "The armpit effect" in which the hamsters distinguished btwn their own blood kin and unrelated hamsters and only mated with the unrelated hamsters.

• Self-referencing (low level)
• Self-awareness
• Self-consciousness (high level)

• Helpful kids are linked to:
• Parental warmth
• Secure emotional attachment
• Emotional coaching which helps children regulate their own negative emotions

• The self is a mixture of both cognitive and social construction
• Cognitive: We construct a theory of self and this construction is limited by our cognitive abilities (language, speech ect.)
• Social: It is important to consider socialization experiences because the self is also a social construction.

• Close relations
• Usually mother or father

• An Abstract representation that embodies the border society and culture into which we were born.
• Culture gives people different feedback and shapes who you become.