U N I T: 2 T H E S E L F A N D S O C I A L P E R C E P T I O N

William James (1890) defined a basic duality of the self: it is both the known, “me,” and the knower, “I.” in modern terminology, the “me” is the self-concept, or content of the self—our knowledge about who we are, and the “I” is self-awareness, or the

act of thinking about ourselves.

Gallup's studies examined whether animals have a sense of self by looking at their reactions when placed in front of a mirror. he found that the great apes seem to have

a sense of self—they recognize that their image has changed when anesthetized and a red dye is placed on part of their face. dolphins showed a similar response. a similar test used with human infants suggested that self-recognition develops at about two

years of age.

• other developmental studies show that the concept of self evolves from being concrete and focused on observable characteristics to being more abstract and focused on psychological characteristics during the course of childhood and

adolescence.

Types of Self

Lewis (1990) suggests that development of a concept of self has two aspects: -

(1) The Existential Self This is the most basic part of the self-scheme or self-

concept; the sense of being separate and distinct from others and the awareness of the constancy of the self” (Bee, 1992).

The child realizes that they exist as a separate entity from others and that they continue to exist over time and space. According to Lewis awareness of the existential self begins as young as two to three months old and arises in part due to the relation the child has with the world. For example, the child smiles and someone smiles back, or the child touches a mobile and sees it move.

2) The Categorical Self

Having realized that he or she exists as a separate experiencing being, the child next becomes aware that he or she is also an object in the world.

Just as other objects including people have properties that can be experienced (big, small, red, smooth and so on) so the child is becoming aware of him or her self as an object which can be experienced and which has properties.

The self too can be put into categories such as age, gender, size or skill. Two of the first categories to be applied are age (“I am 3”) and gender (“I am a girl”).

In early childhood. the categories children apply to themselves are very concrete (e.g. hair color, height and favorite things).

Later, self-description also begins to include reference to internal psychological traits, comparative evaluations and to how others see them

Functions of the Self

Researchers have found that the self serves both an organizational function and an executive function.

1. Organizational Function of the Self We use self-schemas, mental structures that help us to organize our

knowledge about ourselves, to organize our knowledge about ourselves. Markus (1977) and others have found that we are more likely to

remember information better if we relate it to ourselves. This is referred to as the self-reference effect. Integrating information with our self-schemas helps us organize it better and connect it to other information about ourselves, which makes us more likely to remember it later.

2. Self-Regulation: The Executive Function The self also serves an executive function, regulating people’s behavior,

choices, and plans for the future. According to the self-regulatory resource model, self-control is a limited resource and people have a limited amount of energy to devote to self-control and that spending it on one task limits the amount that can be spent on another task.

Component of self concept

Carl Rogers (1959) believes that the self concept has three different components:

The view you have of yourself (Self image)How much value you place on yourself (Self

esteem or self-worth)What you wish you were really like (Ideal

self)

Influence on others on self

How do we use others to define ourselves? One way is to measure our own abilities and

attitudes by seeing how we stack up against other people.

If you donate $50 to charity and find out your friend Sue donates $10, you can feel generous.

If you find out Sue donated $100, you might not feel like you’ve been generous.

Social Comparison TheoryThe idea that we learn about our own

abilities and attitudes by comparing ourselves to other people.

The theory revolves around two important questions:

1. When do you engage in social comparison? When there is no objective standard to measure themselves against

and when they experience some uncertainty about themselves in a particular area.Example: If your office donation program is new and you are not sure what amount would be generous, you are especially likely to compare yourself to others.

2. With whom do you choose to compare yourself? People’s initial impulse is to compare themselves with anyone who is

around. This initial comparison occurs quickly and automatically.

Influences of situation on Self

Our self-concepts are affected by others’ appraisals, as demonstrated by concepts including the looking-glass self and self-labeling.

The self-concept and self-esteem are also often strongly influenced by social comparison. For example, we use social comparison to determine the accuracy and appropriateness of our thoughts, feelings, and behavior.

When we are able to compare ourselves favorably with others through downward social comparison, we feel good about ourselves. Upward social comparison with others who are better off than we are leads to negative emotions.

Social identity refers to the positive emotions that we experience as a member of an important social group.

Normally, our group memberships result in positive feelings, which occur because we perceive our own groups, and thus ourselves, in a positive light.

Which of our many category identities is most accessible for us will vary from day to day as a function of the particular situation we are in.

Influences of situation on Self

In the face of others’ behaviors, we may enhance our self-esteem by “basking in the reflected glory” of our in groups or of other people we know.

If other people’s actions threaten our sense of self according to self-evaluation maintenance theory, we may engage in a variety of strategies aimed at redefining our self-concept and rebuilding our self-esteem.

The tendency to present a positive self-image to others, with the goal of increasing our social status, is known as self-presentation, and it is a basic and natural part of everyday life. Different self-presentation strategies may be used to create different emotions in other people.

We often use self-presentation in the longer term, seeking to build and sustain particular reputations with specific social audiences.

The individual-difference variable of self-monitoring relates to the ability and desire to self-present.

Upward/Downward comparison

If we want to know the top level to which we can aspire, we engage in upward social comparison: comparing ourselves to people who are better than we are on a particular ability.

You’ll feel better about yourself if you engage in downward social comparison:comparing yourself to people who are worse than you on a particular trait or ability.

Self Thought

IntrospectionThe process whereby people look inward and

examine their own thoughts, feelings, and motives.

(1) People do not rely on this source of information as often as you might think.

(2) Even when people do introspect, the reasons for their feelings and behavior can be hidden from conscious awareness.

Self-Awareness Theory

The idea that when people focus their attention on themselves, they evaluate and compare their behavior to their internal standards and values.

Sometimes people go far in their attempt to escape the self.

Such diverse activities as alcohol abuse, binge eating, and sexual masochism have one thing in common: All are ways of turning off the internal spotlight on oneself.

Getting drunk, for example, is one way of avoiding negative thoughts about oneself (at least temporarily).

The fact that people regularly engage in such dangerous behaviors, despite their risks, is an indication of how aversive self-focus can be.

Self-Esteem

In sociology and psychology, self-esteem reflects a person's overall subjective emotional evaluation of his or her own worth.

It is a judgment of oneself as well as an attitude toward the self.

All kids have self-esteem, and having healthy or positive self-esteem is really important. It can help you hold your head high and feel proud of yourself and what you can do, even when things don't seem to be going so well. 

Self-esteem gives you the courage to try new things and the power to believe in yourself.

Social Perception

Social perception is the study of how people form impressions of and make inferences about other people.

We learn about others' feelings and emotions by picking up on information we gather from their physical appearance, and verbal and nonverbal communication.

Facial expressions, tone of voice, hand gestures, and body position are just a few examples of ways people communicate without words.

A real world example of social perception would be understanding that someone disagrees with what you said when you see them roll their eyes.

Closely related to and affected by this is the idea of self-concept, a collection of one’s perceptions and beliefs about oneself.

Nonverbal communication

Social perception is defined as the study of how we form impressions of and make inferences about other people.

To learn about other people, we rely on information from their physical appearance, and verbal and nonverbal communication.

Nonverbal communication is defined as the way in which people communicate, intentionally or unintentionally, without words—including through facial expressions, tone of voice, gestures, body position and movement, touch, and gaze.

Nonverbal behavior is used to express emotion, convey attitudes, communicate personality traits, and facilitate or modify verbal communication.

Nonverbal behavior may be facilitated by a special kind of brain cell called a mirror neuron.

Types of Non-Verbal Communication

Facial Expressions of Emotion facial expressions- reveals current moods/feelings eye contact- reveals friendliness, shyness, aggression body language (position, posture, movement)-

reveals emotional states, status, cultural emblems touching- reveals affection, interest, dominance,

caring, threat, aggression Culture and the Channels of Nonverbal

CommunicationMultichannel Nonverbal CommunicationGender and Nonverbal Communication

Types of Non-Verbal Communication

Person Perception

In social psychology, the term person perception refers to the different mental processes that we use to form impressions of other people. This includes not just how we form these impressions, but the different conclusions we make about other people based upon our impressions.

Consider how often you make these kind of judgments everyday. When you meet with a new co-worker, you immediately begin to develop an initial impression of this person.

When you visit the grocery store after work, you might draw conclusions about the cashier who checks you out, even though you know very little about this person.

Perception

The process of perception begins with an object in the real world, termed the distal stimulus or distal object.

By means of light, sound or another physical process, the object stimulates the body's sensory organs.

These sensory organs transform the input energy into neural activity—a process called transduction.

Perceptual Process

Social Cognition

In the area of social psychology, social cognition refers to a specific approach in which these processes are studied according to the methods of cognitive psychology and information processing theory.

Social cognition is a sub-topic of social psychology that focuses on how people process, store, and apply information about other people and social situations. It focuses on the role that cognitive processes play in our social interactions. The way we think about others plays a major role in how we think, feel, and interact with the world around us.

Social Cognition

"Thus the study of the processes involved in perceiving each other and coming to "know what we know" about the people in our world is essentially a question not only of what behavior we have seen, but of our cognition as individual perceivers-our social cognition. 

Social cognition, therefore, is the study of the mental processes involved in perceiving, attending to, remembering, thinking about, and making sense of the people in our social world.“

(Gordon B. Moskowitz, Social Cognition: Understanding Self and Others)

Social cognition

The field seeks to provide answers to questions such as:

How do we form impressions of ourselves and others?

How do these impressions influence our relationships with others?

How do we determine the causes of our own behavior and that of others?

How do our goals, feelings and desires influence our memory of social events?

How do we mentally represent our social knowledge?

Social Cognition

For example, imagine that you are getting ready to go on a blind date. Not only do you worry about the impression and signals that you are sending to the other person, you are also concerned with interpreting the signals given by the other individual. How do you form an impression of this person? What meaning do you read into the other person's behavior?

schema

A schema is a mental concept that informs a person about what to expect from a variety of experiences and situations. Schemas are developed based on information provided by life experiences and are then stored in memory. Our brains create and use schemas as a short cut to make future encounters with similar situations easier to navigate. We will look at a couple of examples that will help illustrate the definition.

Schema and its Types

Schemas are mental categories that, like computer files, contain knowledge about people, events, & concepts.

 Four Kinds of schemas: Person schemas include our judgments about the traits that we &

others possess.          

Role schemas based on the jobs people perform or the social positions they hold. 

Event schemas, also called scripts, contain behaviors that we associate with familiar activities, events, or procedures. 

Self-schemas contain personal information about ourselves, & this information.  Influences, modifies, & distorts what we perceive & remember & how we believe.

Schema and its Types

 Schemas - disadvantagesSchemas may restrict, bias, or distort what we attend to &

remember & thus  cause us to overlook important information.   Schemas are highly resistant to change because we generally

select & attend  to information that supports our schemas and deny any information that is  inconsistent with them.

Schemas - advantages contain information about how people think & behave.  help people analyze & respond appropriately in a particular

social situation. provide guidelines for how to behave in various social events (event schemas).  & help us explain the social behavior of others (role schemas).

Heuristic

A heuristic is a mental shortcut that helps us make decisions and judgments quickly without having to spend a lot of time researching and analyzing information.

Most of the time, heuristics are extremely helpful, but they can lead to errors in judgment. There are several different categories or types of heuristics. Let's discuss three that, although useful in many situations, can lead even the most intelligent people to make dumb decisions: availability, representativeness, and base-rate heuristics.

Heuristic

A heuristic is a mental shortcut that allows people to solve problems and make judgments quickly and efficiently. These rule-of-thumb strategies shorten decision-making time and allow people to function without constantly stopping to think about their next course of action. Heuristics are helpful in many situations, but they can also lead to biases.

Heuristics play important roles in both problem-solving and decision-making.

Types of heuristic

the availability heuristic is a mental shortcut that helps us make a decision based on how easy it is to bring something to mind. In other words, we often rely on how easy it is to think of examples when making a decision or judgment.

a representativeness heuristic, a mental shortcut that helps us make a decision by comparing information to our mental prototypes. For example, if someone was to describe an older woman as warm and caring with a great love of children, most of us would assume that the older woman is a grandmother. She fits our mental representation of a grandmother, so we automatically classify her into that category.

Base rate: mental shortcut that helps us to make decision based on probability. E.g.. Lion roars on city at night, people thinks that it might be dog or any other animals.

Social cognition and Behavior

The behavioral model of abnormal psychology says that psychological issues are a result of learning negative behaviors. Just like Jane has learned that eating disorders will get her attention, behavioral theorists believe that people learn maladaptive behaviors, which lead to issues.

Social cognitive theory says that people learn behaviors through their interactions and observations of others, as well as their direct experience.

Remember that Jane learned from watching Cathy how much attention an eating disorder could get a person. This is social cognition.

Jane is learning from her interactions with and observations of her friend.

WHY STUDY SOCIAL COGNITION?

Construal impact how people process and remember social information differently.

Our judgments are rarely (if ever!) flawless. Social cognition gives us useful information

about the strategies & rules that people follow to make judgments.

Mistakes often reveal a lot about how we think by showing what our limitations are.

What mistakes do we make? Why do we make them?

Attitude

An attitude is "a relatively enduring organization of beliefs, feelings, and behavioral tendencies towards socially significant objects, groups, events or symbols" (Hogg, & Vaughan 2005, p. 150)

"..A psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favor or disfavor" (Eagly, & Chaiken, 1993, p. 1)

Components of attitude

Attitudes structure can be described in terms of three components.

Affective component: this involves a person’s feelings / emotions about the attitude object. For example: “I am scared of spiders”.

Behavioral (or conative) component: the way the attitude we have influences how we act or behave. For example: “I will avoid spiders and scream if I see one”.

Cognitive component: this involves a person’s belief / knowledge about an attitude object. For example: “I believe spiders are dangerous”.

Formation of Attitude

FriendsMediaPast experiencesCoaches teachers religion/cultureFamilyFeedback can reinforce attitudeAttitude can create false perceptions known

as prejudice 

Types of Attitudes

Attitude is something that lies between emotions and thought processing. Attitude may be positive or negative. If someone has good feelings about something e.g. towards his/her work, or people, then it is positive attitude otherwise it would be negative.

Positive attitude

The predisposition that results in desirable outcomes for individuals and organizations can be described as positive attitude. Positive attitudes are rewarded. It means the individual is encouraged to do the same thing in future.

Negative attitude

The tendency of a person that results in an undesirable outcome for individuals and

organizations can be described as negative attitude. Negative attitudes are punished in order to discourage the same action in future.

Attitude and Behavior

Attitude Attitude influences the behaviour of the individuals. Attitude is

a usual way of doing things. Successes and failures in life depend upon the attitude of the individuals. If attitudes are positive, then human relations will be positive. And positive human relations are necessary for a successful life.

a. Attitude is a disposition to approach an idea, event, person, or an object.

b. It is a tendency to act in one way or the other toward an `attitude object' or something (i.e. idea, event, person, object, food, colour, and furniture, virtually everything).

Behaviour Behaviour may be defined as a. The manner in which one behaves. b. The actions or reactions of a person or animal in response to external

or internal stimuli. c. The manner in which something functions or operates.

Attitude and Behavior Relationship

Theory of reasoned actionThe theory of reasoned action (TRA), is a model for the

prediction of behavioral intention, spanning predictions of attitude and predictions of behavior. The subsequent separation of behavioral intention from behavior allows for explanation of limiting factors on attitudinal influence (Ajzen, 1980). The Theory of Reasoned Action was developed by Martin Fishbein and Icek Ajzen (1975, 1980), derived from previous research that started out as the theory of attitude, which led to the study of attitude and behavior. The theory was "born largely out of frustration with traditional attitude–behavior research, much of which found weak correlations between attitude measures and performance of volitional behaviors" (Hale, Householder & Greene, 2003, p. 259).

Attitude and Behavior Relationship

Theory of planned behavior The theory of planned behavior was proposed by Icek Ajzen in 1985

through his article "From intentions to actions: A theory of planned behavior." The theory was developed from the theory of reasoned action, which was proposed by Martin Fishbein together with Icek Ajzen in 1975. The theory of reasoned action was in turn grounded in various theories of attitude such as learning theories, expectancy-value theories, consistency theories,[2] and attribution theory.[3] According to the theory of reasoned action, if people evaluate the suggested behavior as positive (attitude), and if they think their significant others want them to perform the behavior (subjective norm), this results in a higher intention (motivation) and they are more likely to do so. A high correlation of attitudes and subjective norms to behavioral intention, and subsequently to behavior, has been confirmed in many studies.[4] The theory of planned behavior contains the same component as the theory of reasoned action, but adds the component of perceived behavioral control to account for barriers outside one's own control.