Chapter 3 Lecture PDF

Chapter 3
The Social Self
Copyright © 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.

The Social Self
» This chapter will examine the three related aspects of

the social self
» Self-concept and how people come to understand
who they are
» Self-esteem and how people evaluate themselves
and defend against threats to their self-esteem
» Self-presentation: how people present themselves
to others)
» The ABC’s of the self
» Affect
» Behavior
» Cognition
Can You Imagine?
• The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat,  

by neurologist Oliver Sacks (1985)
• William Thompson, patient
– Organic brain disorder impaired his memory of recent
events
– He was unable to recall anything for more than few seconds
– Was disoriented and lacked a sense of continuity
– imagine trying to live a meaningful life with a constantly
vanishing identity!
– Highlights 2 major points:
– self-reflection is necessary to understand motives,
emotions, and behavior
– the self is heavily influenced by social factors
The Self-Concept

Sense of Self
• Capacity for self-reflection is necessary to feel an understanding of

own motives and emotions, and the causes of their behavior
• Self is heavily influenced by social factors
• The Cocktail Party Effect
• Have you ever been at a noisy party and heard someone at the
other side of the room say your name?
• This is the cocktail party effect - the tendency of people to
pick a personally relevant stimulus (like your name) out of a
complex and noisy environment
• Shows humans are selective in our attention
• also, shows that the SELF is a major object of our
attention!
• in other words, we pay attention to things relevant to
ourselves
The Self-Concept
• Self-concept
– The sum total of an individual’s beliefs about his or her own
personal attributes
– made up of many self-schemas
• Self-schemas
– A belief people hold about themselves that guides the
processing of self-relevant information
• People who identify with two cultures may have a different self-
schema for each culture

Rudiments of the Self-Concept
• The sense of self is a product of consciousness

• can be like a spotlight shining on one object at a
time but rapidly shifting from one object to another
• ex: mental focus on a memory, a bad smell, a song in
your head, your stomach growling
• Is the self so special that it is uniquely represented in
the neural circuitry of the brain?
• Is the self a uniquely human concept?

Is the Self Specially Represented in
the Brain?
• LeDoux (2002): said synaptic connections in the brain produce
memory, which creates the sense of continuity needed for normal
identity
• Hood (2012): stated the self is an illusion that emerges from
childhood social interactions
• Feinberg & Keenan (2005): said the self can be transformed or
destroyed by damage to the brain and nervous system
• Various self-based processes can be traced to activities in specific
areas of the brain
• social psychologists have started examining this using PET scans,
fMRI, and other imagine techniques
• certain areas of the brain become more active when we see a
picture of ourselves than a picture of another person
• research seems to suggest that self-based processes can be
traced to activities in certain brain areas.
Do Nonhuman Animals Show Self-
Recognition?
• Only great apes (chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans) seem capable

of self-recognition
– Will reach for their own brow when they see a red spot in the
mirror, demonstrating they perceive the image as their own
– though recent research suggests dolphins and elephants may
also recognize themselves
• Reflection in mirrors is used in test for self-recognition
– First clear expression of the concept of “me”
– most humans begin to recognize themselves in the mirror
between 18-24 months of age
– Cross-cultural research with humans challenges whether this is a
valid measure of self-concept

What Makes the Self a Social
Concept?
• Development of self concept

– Seeing ourselves as a distinct entity in the world might be the
first step in the development of a self-concept
– Second step is imagining what significant others think of us, and
incorporating those perceptions – self is relational
– We aren’t born thinking of ourselves as smart, lazy, reckless,
likable, shy, or outgoing
– where do these self-concepts come from?
– from the following sources:
– introspection
– perceptions of our own behavior
– other people
– autobiographical memories
– the cultures in which we live
Introspection
• How do you achieve insight into your own beliefs,

attitudes, emotions, desires, and motivations?
– Introspection is one way to do so
– a looking inward at one’s own thoughts and feelings
– no one can know you as well as you know yourself!
– However, introspection can also lead us astray!
– Most people overestimate the positives when  
self-assessing

Affective Forecasting
• Most people also have difficulty predicting how they will feel in
response to future emotional events
• People tend to overestimate the strength and duration of their
emotional reactions - impact bias
• Ex: voters predicted they would be happier a month after an
election if their candidate won. However, supporters of both the
winning and losing candidates did not differ in their happiness
levels one month after the election.
• Possible reasons
– Underestimating personal coping mechanisms
– Focusing on a single event and neglecting the effects of other
life experiences
• To be more accurate, think more broadly about life events

Ben’s (1972) Self-Perception Theory
• People learn about themselves by observing their own behavior

– Inferring their own thoughts and feelings
– ex: you devour a sandwich in record time, only then to conclude
that you must have been incredibly hungry
– make an inference about yourself by watching your own actions
– “How can I tell you what I think ‘til I see what I say?” (Forster)
• However, we don’t infer our internal states from behavior when it
occurs in the presence of situational pressure (reward/punishment)
• ex: you would not assume that you were hungry if you wolfed
down the sandwich because you were paid to do so.
• So, we only learn about ourselves through self-perception when the
situation alone seems insufficient to have caused the behavior.
• Vicarious self-perception

The Self-Other Knowledge
Asymmetry (SOKA) Theory
» We know ourselves better than others when it comes to traits that are
“internal” and hard to observe (how anxious or optimistic a person is).
» When it comes to traits that are “external” and easy to observe (like
how quiet, sociable, or messy someone is), there is no self-other
difference in how well observe the traits.
» When it comes to observable traits that can be touchy for self-
esteem, we can have blind spots and in these instances, others can
actually know us better than we know ourselves.
» Vazire (2010) asked college students to rate themselves and then had
their friends rate them on the following personality traits for which
they also took objective paper-and-pencil tests:
» highly observable traits (talkativeness, dominance, leadership)
» hard to observe, non-evaluative traits (self-esteem, anxiety)
» hard to observe, highly evaluative traits (intelligence, creativity)
The Self–Other Knowledge Asymmetry  
(SOKA) Model
Results provided strong support for the SOKA model

-self ratings were more accurate for internal/nonevaluative traits
-self and friend ratings were equally accurate for observable/
nonevaluative traits
-friend ratings were more accurate for internal/evaluative traits

Self-Perceptions of Emotion
• Facial feedback hypothesis (Laird 1974)

– Changes in facial expression can lead to corresponding changes
in emotion
– as suggested by self-perception theory, we sometimes infer how
we feel by observing our own behavior
– “I don’t sing because I’m happy. I am happy because I sing.”
– However, the face is not necessary to the subjective experience
of emotion
– those with facial paralysis can still feel various emotions
despite inability to outwardly show emotion
• Other expressive behaviors, such as body posture, can also
influence emotions
• those forced to sit in an upright position reported feeling more
pride after succeeding at a task than those placed in a slumped
position.
Self-Perceptions of Motivation
• Extrinsic motivation originates from external factors:

• Example: when engaged in an activity for a tangible benefit
like money or to avoid a penalty/punishment
• Intrinsic motivation originates internally
– people are intrinsically motivated when they engage in an
activity for the sake of their own interest
– Intrinsic motivation may actually diminish for activities that
have become associated with reward or other extrinsic factors
• That is, when someone is offered a reward for something they
already like to do, it can diminish intrinsic motivation and lose
interest in it over time - due to the Overjustification Effect
– the behavior becomes over rewarded
– Unexpected rewards seem to have less effect on intrinsic
motivation than expected rewards

Paradoxical Effects of  
Reward on Intrinsic Motivation
Preschool children were given the opportunity to play with colorful felt-
tipped markers.
-An expected reward undermined the children’s intrinsic motivation!
-Children who received an unexpected reward or no reward at all, on
the other hand, did not lose interest in the activity!
Accept money for a leisure activity, and before you know it, what used
to be “play” comes to feel more like “work.” This can have unintended
negative consequences on the quality of your performance.
Influences of Other People
• We often describe ourselves by comparing ourselves to others

– Social comparison theory (Festinger)
• We tend to compare ourselves to others when we are uncertain
about our abilities or opinions
• we also tend to compare ourselves to others when more
objective means of self-evaluation aren’t available
• When we compare ourselves to others, we choose those who are
similar to us in ways that are relevant to the comparison.

Facebook as a Venue for Social
Comparison
• Does looking at other people’s Facebook pages make you feel

better about yourself, worse, or does it depend on whose pages you
visit and how they present themselves?
• “Facebook depression”
– Correlational only! Doesn’t necessarily mean Facebook usage
causes Depression (recall: the 3rd variable problem from Ch. 2)
– Finding: the more time people spent on Facebook, the more
unhappy they were
• Reasons Facebook usage might undermine a person’s well-being:
– Upward social comparisons
– People tend to portray themselves in overly flattering ways

Two-Factor Theory of Emotion
• The theory that the experience of emotion is based on:

– The experience of symptoms of physiological arousal
– perspiration, rapid breathing, stomach tightening
– A cognitive interpretation that explains the source of the
arousal
– this is where the people around us come in: their reactions
sometimes help us interpret our own arousal if they were
present when the arousal began.

Autobiographical Memories
• Autobiographical memories shape our self-concept

• Influences on what we remember:
– Recency effect
– “Reminiscence bump” in older adults
– Transitional firsts
– Flashbulb memories: enduring, detailed, high-resolution
recollections that aren’t necessarily accurate or consistent over
time but “feel” special
• Complicating factor: people tend to distort the past in ways that
inflate personal sense of importance and achievement
• see the following slide

Distortions in Memory of High
School Grades
College students were asked to recall their

high school grades, which were checked
against their actual transcripts.
Results: most memory errors were grade

inflations.
Lower grades were recalled with the least

accuracy.

Culture and the Self-Concept
• Self-concept is also heavily influenced by

cultural factors
• Example:
– American parents try to raise their children to
be independent, self-reliant, and assertive
– “the squeaky wheel gets the grease”
– Japanese children are raised to fit into their
groups and community
– “the nail that stands out gets pounded
down”
Differences in Cultural Orientation
• Individualism
– Emphasizes independence, autonomy, and
self-reliance
– Personal goals are more important than group
allegiances
• Collectivism
– Emphasizes interdependence, cooperation,
and social harmony
– Group affiliation is the highest priority

The Culture Cycle

Cultural Influences on the Self
• North America and Europe

– Independent view of self
– View self as distinct, autonomous, self
contained, and endowed with unique
dispositions
– Describe themselves in terms of personal traits
– See themselves as less similar to others
– Strive for personal achievement
– Differentiate opposites as distinct and separate,
which makes it difficult to believe that
opposites can co-exist within the same person
Cultural Influences on the Self
(cont’d.)
• Asia, Africa, Latin America

– Interdependent view of self
– View self as part of larger network of social
connections
– Describe themselves in terms of group
affiliations
– See themselves as more similar to others
– Derive satisfaction from status of a valued
group
– More accepting that apparent opposites can
coexist within a single person (dialecticism)
What’s Your Preference:  
Similarity or Uniqueness?
Which subfigure within each set do you

prefer?
Kim & Markus (1999) found that Americans

tend to like subfigures that “stand out” as
unique, while Koreans tend to like
subfigures that “fit in” with the
surrounding group.

Generational Differences in  
American Cultural Orientation
Compared to “baby boomers” who grew up in the 1940s-1950s, later

generations were more focused on money, fame, and self-image and
less concerned with affiliation, community, and civic engagement.
-suggests American culture is more individualistic today than it was
half a century ago

Social Class as a Cultural Influence
• Social class is used to categorize people within a culture

who have in common a low-, working-, middle-, or
upper-class socioeconomic status
• Social class is another cultural factor that can influence
the self-concept
• In Western countries, higher income, education, and
status provides more opportunities to exhibit
individualism

Self-Esteem

Self-Esteem Defined
• It is an evaluative component of the self.

• It is made up of many self-schemas, some of which may
be viewed more or less favorably than others.
• It can also vary over the course of a lifetime:
• tends to decline from childhood to adolescence
• gradually increases during transition to adulthood
• continues to rise as adults get older
• decline in old age

Self-Esteem Over the Course of a
College Career
Average levels of self-esteem dropped sharply

during the very first semester, rebounded by the
end of the first year, and gradually increased from
that point on.

The Need for Self-Esteem
• Sociometer theory (Leary & Baumeister)

– People are inherently social animals
– The desire for self-esteem is driven by a primitive need to
connect with others and gain their approval
– Threat of social rejection lowers self-esteem
• Terror management theory (Greenberg, Solomon, & Pyszczynski)
– Provocative and influential theory
– States humans are biologically programmed for life and self-
preservation
– We are conscious of, and terrified by, the inevitability of our
own death
– To cope, we construct and accept views about how, why, and by
whom the Earth was created (i.e. religion, sense of history) to
provide meaning and purpose and buffer against anxiety.
The Need for Self-Esteem (cont'd.)
• Positive self-images tend to produce

happy, healthy, productive, and successful
people
• Negative self-images tend to lead to being
more depressed, pessimistic about the
future, and prone to failure

Are There Gender and Race
Differences?
• Gender differences are small; specific to different aspects of self-

esteem
– Men: higher self-esteem with regard to physical appearance and
athletic abilities
– Women: higher self-esteem in matters of ethics and personal
morality
• African Americans have higher self-esteem scores than white
counterparts
• Hispanic, Asian, and Native American minorities have lower self-
esteem scores

Self-Discrepancy Theory
• Actual self vs. ought self vs. ideal self

– Actual: self-concept; traits that describe who
you think you actually are
– Ought: traits that would enable you to meet
your sense of duty, obligation, and
responsibility
– Ideal: traits that describe the kind of person
you would like to be
• Self-esteem is lowered by the degree to
which the actual self falls short of the ought
and ideal selves
The Self-Awareness “Trap”
• Self-awareness theory
– Self-focused attention leads people to notice
self-discrepancies, thereby motivating either
an escape from self-awareness or a change in
behavior in ways that reduce the self-
discrepancy

The Causes and Effects  
of Self-Awareness
Self-awareness theory suggests two basic ways of

coping with discomfort of self-discrepancies:
-match behavior to personal or societal standards
-withdrawal from self-awareness

How Self-Conscious Are You?

Trait of Self-Consciousness
• Private self-consciousness
– A personality characteristic of individuals who
are introspective, often attending to their
own inner states
• Public self-consciousness
– A personality characteristic of individuals who
focus on themselves as social objects, as seen
by others
• Influences ways that self-discrepancies
are reduced
Revolving Images of Self
According to self-awareness
theory, people try to meet
either their ow standards or
standards held for them by
others
-depends on whether in a
state of private or public
self-consciousness

Self-Regulation and Its Limits
• Self-regulation: the process by which people

control their thoughts, feelings, or behavior
in order to achieve a personal or social goal
• Self-regulation fatigue: sees self-control as a
limited inner resource that can be
temporarily depleted by usage (Muraven &
Baumeister, 1998)
– Acts of self-control reduce blood glucose levels
• Psychological factors can counteract self-
regulation fatigue
Self-Control as a Limited Inner
Resource
Participants shown an upsetting film and

told to amplify or suppress their emotional
response.
A third group received no self-control

instruction.
Self-control was measured by persistence

at squeezing a handgrip exerciser.
The 2 groups that had to control their

emotions during the film later lost their
willpower on the handgrip.

Ironic Mental Processes
• “Choking”
– A paradoxical type of failure caused by trying
too hard and thinking too much
• Ironic processes
– The harder you try to inhibit a thought,
feeling, or behavior, the less likely you are to
succeed
• “Any attempt at mental control contains
the seeds of its own undoing” (Wegner)

Ironic Effects of Mental Control
Participants tried to hold a pendulum

motionless over a grid.
They were better at the task when

simply instructed to keep the
pendulum steady (A) than when told
to prevent horizontal movement (C).
Among participants who were

mentally distracted during the task,
this ironic effect was even greater (B
& D).

Mechanisms of Self-Enhancement
• Self-awareness can lower self-esteem by

focusing attention on self-discrepancies
– People often avoid focusing on themselves
• Efforts at self-regulation often fail and
sometimes backfire
• How, then, does the average person cope
with his or her faults, inadequacies, and
uncertain future?

Mechanisms of Self-Enhancement
(cont’d.)
• The better-than-average effect - people are more likely to see themselves
as better than average when it comes to personal traits that are important
• Implicit egotism - quicker to associate self words with positive traits than
negative traits
• Self-serving beliefs - there is bias
• ex: when students receive exam grades, those who do well take credit
for their success; those who do poorly complain about the instructor
or the test questions.
• Self-handicapping - when we might fail in an important situation, people
use illness, shyness, anxiety, pain, trauma, and other complaints as
excuses for the possibility of failure.
• why? To shield selves from what could be a shattering implication of a
lack of ability.
• Basking in reflected glory (BIRG)
• Downward social comparisons - comparison to others who are less
successful, less fortunate, or less happy
Are Positive Illusions Adaptive?
• People preserve their self esteem through

methods of self-enhancement
– Individuals who are depressed or low in self-
esteem have more realistic views of
themselves than do most others who are
better adjusted
• Positive illusions promote happiness, the
desire to care for others, and the ability to
engage in productive work, but may give
rise to chronic patterns of self-defeating
behavior
Self-Presentation

Self-Presentation
• Spotlight effect: a tendency to believe

that the social spotlight shines more
brightly on us than it really does
• Self-presentation - Strategies that people
use to shape what others think of them

Strategic Self-Presentation
• Efforts to shape others’ impressions in

specific ways in order to gain influence,
power, sympathy, or approval
• Ingratiation
• Self-promotion
• The need to project a favorable public
image can lure us into unsafe patterns of
behavior

Strategic Self-Presentation  
in the Employment Interview

Self-Verification
• The desire to have others perceive us as

we truly perceive ourselves
• People selectively elicit, recall, and
accept personality feedback that confirms
their self-conceptions, even if their self-
concept is negative
• Desire for self-verification appears in both
individualist and collectivist cultures

Self-Monitoring
• Regulating one’s behavior to meet the

demands of social situations
• High self-monitors: appear to have a
repertoire of selves from which to draw
– See themselves as pragmatic
• Low self-monitors: self-verifiers who are
less concerned about social acceptability
– See themselves as principled and forthright

Reflections: The Multifaceted Self

Reflections: The Multifaceted Self
• Recent research indicates self has many

different facets
• What are the facets of your self?

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Chapter 3

The Social Self

Copyright © 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.

» This chapter will examine the three related aspects of

• The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat,

Copyright © 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.

• Capacity for self-reflection is necessary to feel an understanding of

Copyright © 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.

• The sense of self is a product of consciousness

Copyright © 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.

• Only great apes (chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans) seem capable

Copyright © 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.

• Development of self concept

• How do you achieve insight into your own beliefs,

Copyright © 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.

Copyright © 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.

• People learn about themselves by observing their own behavior

Copyright © 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.

Results provided strong support for the SOKA model

Copyright © 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.

• Facial feedback hypothesis (Laird 1974)

• Extrinsic motivation originates from external factors:

Copyright © 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.

• We often describe ourselves by comparing ourselves to others

Copyright © 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.

• Does looking at other people’s Facebook pages make you feel

Copyright © 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.

• The theory that the experience of emotion is based on:

Copyright © 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.

• Autobiographical memories shape our self-concept

Copyright © 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.

College students were asked to recall their

Results: most memory errors were grade

Lower grades were recalled with the least

Copyright © 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.

• Self-concept is also heavily influenced by

Copyright © 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.

Copyright © 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.

• North America and Europe

• Asia, Africa, Latin America

Which subfigure within each set do you

Kim & Markus (1999) found that Americans

Copyright © 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.

Compared to “baby boomers” who grew up in the 1940s-1950s, later

Copyright © 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.

• Social class is used to categorize people within a culture

Copyright © 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.

Copyright © 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.

• It is an evaluative component of the self.

Copyright © 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.

Average levels of self-esteem dropped sharply

Copyright © 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.

• Sociometer theory (Leary & Baumeister)

• Positive self-images tend to produce

Copyright © 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.

• Gender differences are small; specific to different aspects of self-

Copyright © 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.

• Actual self vs. ought self vs. ideal self

Copyright © 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.

Self-awareness theory suggests two basic ways of

Copyright © 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.

Copyright © 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.

Copyright © 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.

• Self-regulation: the process by which people

• The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat,  