Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
The self (Effects of the self: Self-Regulation (The Self in action:…
The self
Effects of the self: Self-Regulation
The self and thoughts about ourselves and others
Once the self-concept is firmly established, people are less likely to make inferences from their behaviors to decide wo they are.
Influences the way we think about ourselves and the way we perceive and remember social information in general. It also effects memory.
The self and emotions
Forces us to pay attention to significant events and direct behavior toward a goal.
How do emotions arise?
William James (1884): Sensations from the skin and muscles are chief causes for experiation of emotions.
Schachter, Singer (1962): Emotion is a product of physiological arousal plus a belief concerning its cause.
Today's view: Emotions are caused by appraisals of a self-relevant object or event.
Appraisal
: An individual's interpretation of a self-relevant event or situation that directs emotional response and behavior.
Based on: event is positive or negative for the self, caused by the self, caused by another person, caused by circumastance, seen as controllable or uncontrollable.
Appraisals, emotions, bodily responses: All together know
Facial expression and psysiological systems come on line.
Affect thinking, focus on the content of our appraisals.
Components are frequently activated together. Bodily signs of emotion often intensify emotional feelings.
The Self in action: Regulating Behavior
Self-expression and Self-presentation
Self-expression
: A motive for choosing behaviors that are intended to reflect and express the self-concept
Self-presentation
: A motive for choosing behaviors intended to create in observers a desired impression of the self
Personality differences in preference for self-expression and self-presentation: Self-monitoring
Self-monitoring
: A personality characteristic defined as the degree to which people are sensitive to the demands of social situations and shape their behaviors accordingly
Regulating behavior to achieve a desired self
Our self-knowledge includes not only conceptions of what we are currently like, but also significant personal standards toward which we strive.
Higgins (1987): These personal standards are called self-guides
Ideal self:
A person's sense of what he or she would ideally like to be
Ought self
:A person's sense of what he or she is obligated to be, or should be
Regulatory focus theory: A theory that people have either a promotion (ideal self) or prevention (ought self) focus, shaping the ways they self-regulate to attain positive outcomes versus avoiding negative outcomes.
From self to behavior and back again
Choose your self-presentations carefully, for what starts out as a mask may become your face
Temptations that may derail self-regulation
Several strategies can weaken the effects of temptations and allow us to better accomplish our long-term goals.
Self-administer penalties or rewards
We can try to think of the acts that contribute to our long-term goals in especially positive ways, linking them to our central values (turning things we ought to do in things we want to do)
We can view temptations in more abstract ways, which should highlight the temptation's incompability with our central goals.
Self-affirmation
: Any action or event that enhances or highlights one's own sense of personal integrity, such as affirming one's most important values.
Negative effects of not reaching goals
Self-awareness
: A state of heightened awareness of the self, inclding our internal standards and whether we measure up to them
Defending the self: Coping with stresses, inconsistencies, and failures.
Threats to the well-being of the self
Emotional and physical effects of threat
People with high self esteem are in part protected from negative effect of threathening events.
Immune system and blood pressure
Threat and appraisals of control
By far the most threatening events are those we judge to be out of our control
Defending against threat: Emotion-focused coping
Emotion-focused coping
: Dealing with the negative emotions aroused by threats or stressors, often by suppressing emotions or distraction.
Escaping from threat
Tv, drinks, drugs and risky behavior.
Downplaying threat by focusing on the more positive aspects of the self.
Working through threat by writing about it
"Tend and befriend"
Attacking threat head-on: Problem-focused coping
Problem-focused coping
: Dealing with threats or stressors directly, often by reappraising the situation or by directly removing the threat.
Making excuses: It's not my fault.
Self-handicapping
: seeking to avoid blame for an expected poor performance, either by claiming an excuse in advance or by actively sabotaging one's own performance.
Taking control of the problem
How to cope?
(which coping strategie works best)
Self-esteem as a resource for coping
To the person high in self-esteem the world is an oyster bed of opportunities to enhance themselves, but to the person low in self-esteem, it is a minefield that humiliate and depress.
Controllability and coping