SELF
What is the self?
To develop a more scientific understanding of the self we begin by considering,
1)what its different main parts or aspects are,
2)what its functions are,
3)where it comes from.
The self has three main parts, which correspond to several main things that the self does.
Self-knowledge (self-concept) a set of beliefs about oneself
Interpersonal self (public self) the image of the self that is conveyed to others
Agent self (executive function) the part of the self involved in control, including both control over other people and selfcontrol
Who Makes the Self: the individual or Society?
The self comes into being at the interface between the inner biological processes of the human body and the sociocultural network to which the person belongs (that is, the other people in the society, plus its “general store” of common beliefs and practices.
A True or Real Self?
A classic article by sociologist Ralph Turner noted that different cultures (and different groups or historical eras within a culture) may differ in their ideas about the true self by placing emphasis on either of two main approaches.
The inner feelings as the true self.
E.g. Marriage is seen as a psychological union of two persons, and what matters is how they feel about each other. If they lose their love for each other, or become attracted to someone else, they may feel justified in abandoning their spouse because to do so is to be true to themselves. A marriage is thus only as good as the current emotional state of the partners.
The way the person acts in public, especially in official roles.
E.g. A couple may have a good marriage even if they cease to love each other, so long as they remain true to their vows and act the way spouses are supposed to act. The wedding that the real self changes to become married in the eyes of society.
Culture and Interdependence
Selves are somewhat different across different cultures.
The idea that cultural styles of selfhood differ along the dimension of independence was introduced by Hazel Markus (American) and Shinobu Kitayama (Japanese).
They introduced the term self-construal, which means a way of thinking about the self.
independent self-construal a selfconcept that emphasizes what makes the self different and sets it apart from others
interdependent self-construal a selfconcept that emphasizes what connects the self to other people and groups
Social Roles (What are selves for?)
One answer, certainly, is that the self has to gain social acceptance.
People need other people to accept them in order to have a job, to have friends and lovers, to have a family. The self is one tool people use to accomplish these goals.
By learning how to act properly and how to conform to social rules and norms, people can improve their chances of social acceptance.
They change and adapt themselves so as to appeal to others.
A culture is a large system with many different roles, and everyone has to find a place in it (or several places). You cannot be a senator, or a nurse, or a parent, or a girlfriend, or a police officer unless you can reliably act in appropriate ways.
To succeed in traveling the long road to social acceptance, the person must have a self capable of all those jobs.
Many roles, such as spouse or engineer, can only be adopted after you have taken a series of steps.
E.g. Having a wedding, or getting a college degree with a certain major.
After you have the role, you must perform the duties that define it.
The human self is that it is flexible enough to take on new roles and to change roles.
E.g. A single human being, for example, might over the course of a lifetime work at mowing lawns, writing for the school newspaper, managing the swim team,and so forth.
Also, a person may perform similar jobs with several different organizations.
E.g. a professor who moves from one university to another but teaches similar courses each time
Self-awareness attention directed at the self
public self-awareness looking outward on the public aspects of the self that others can see and evaluate
private self-awareness looking inward on the private aspects of the self, including emotions, thoughts, desires, and traits
What are standars?
Self-awareness usually involves evaluating the self, rather than just merely being aware of it. A person looks in the mirror and compares him- or herself against various standards. It is not just “Oh, there I am in the mirror. Is that what I look like? It doesn’t matter.” Rather, it’s “Oh, my hair is a mess. This shirt looks good on me. I should lose a little weight.”
standards ideas (concepts) of how things might possibly be
Escape is to avoidor reduce self-awareness when it feels bad.
Change is try to improve oneself by matching yur behaviour to the standard. Sometimes changing the standard is easier than changing the self.
Self-regulation the process people use to control and change their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors
Where Self-knowledge comes From?
Humans clearly have a self-concept, or at least a stock of self-knowledge, some of which is true and some of which is distorted. Social psychologists have labored for decades to develop and test theories about how people store this information about themselves.
Looking inside: introspection the process by which a person examines the contents of his or her mind and mental states
Looking Outside: the Looking-glass Self the idea that people learn about themselves by imagining how they appear to others.
(a) You imagine how you appear to others.
(b) You imagine how others will judge you.
(c) You develop an emotional response (such as pride or shame) as a result of imagining how others will judge you.
generalized other (a combination of other people’s views). Essentially, other people tell us who and what we are.
The power of introspection; that is, I have “privileged access” to my own feelings, which I can know directly but you (or anyone else) can only infer. You only know what I am feeling if I tell you, or if you are lucky enough or sharp enough to infer my feelings from observing me.
Introspection is one source of self-knowledge. It has limits, though.
Developmental Limits
Many children think that their knowledge of their own inner states is no match for parental knowledge.
Duplex mind
Has two parts: one engages in automatic, nonconscious processing of information,
whereas the other involves deliberate processes of which we are consciously aware.
Introspection is a conscious process. The automatic system does a great deal of work that the deliberate system does not know about or understand.
Is introspection valid? People can correctly know what they think and feel. On the other hand, they may not know why they are thinking or feeling something.
Looking at Others: Social Comparison examining the difference between oneself and another person
upward social comparison comparing yourself to people better than you
downward social comparison comparing yourself to people worse off than you
Self-perception theory the theory that people observe their own behavior to infer what they are thinking and how they are feeling