THE SELF

EARLY THEORISTS OF ‘THE SELF’

William James, Charles Cooley

SELF-CONCEPT & SELF-ESTEEM

Pelham & Swann (1989)
Gender differences?
Self-objectification theory

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EARLY THEORISTS OF THE ‘SELF’

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WILLIAM JAMES (1842--1910)
“Principles of Psychology”

Duality of Self:

• Self as object than can be observed

I have property X
“me”

• Self as agent doing the observing

Self as the perceiver
“I”
Related to consciousness: the “I” does the perceiving, feeling,
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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 4

INTERACTIONISM
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.

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SELF-CONCEPT & SELF-ESTEEM

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PARADOX: Often there is no obvious relationship between people’s accomplishments and
virtues and their global self-esteem

Augusto Pinochet (1915-?) Sylvia Plath (1932-1963)

Undeserved high self-esteem ? Undeserved low self-esteem ?

How do people move from having specific knowledge about

their attributes to global evaluations of their self-worth?
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 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
3. Actual/Ideal/Ought Self discrepancy GSE 8
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 FRAMING FACTORS:
1. Attribute importance
2. Attribute certainty
3. Actual/Ideal/Ought discrepancy

POSITIVE & TRAIT SELF-

NEGATIVE SELF-ESTEEM CONCEPT
AFFECT (AFFECTIVE (COGNITIVE
COMPONENT) COMPONENT)

GLOBAL SELF-ESTEEM

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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)
Differences in agency and communion

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GIRLS SELF-ESTEEM
(Gilligan, 1990)

• Girl’s self-confidence fairly high until

age 11 or 12
– Assertive about feelings
• At adolescence
– Many girls accept stereotyped notions of
how they should be (behavior and looks)
• Repress true feelings
• Adopt a “nice” and woman-like self-
presentation
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PHYSICAL SELF IN YOUNG
WOMEN

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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.
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Highly recommended reading !!

Fredrickson, Roberts, Noll, Quinn, & Twenge (1998).

That swimsuit becomes you: Sex differences in self-
objectification, restrained eating, and math
performance. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology.

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 Question for the class:
Why is self-esteem in (Caucasian) girls
lower than for the other ethnic groups?

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