Self- identity

The self is made up of 3 main aspects

Self knowledge

Interpersonal

Agent self

the part of the self that is for doing things and making choices

you are what you know

the schema (internal represtntation) of you, the part of you that is you and no one else. You know the difference between you and someone else so we can assign self and other status to things out of instinct

It reflects upon itself and its store of knowledge and recruits the information it has in identity

But how do you know who you are?

trhough biographical details aboutyourself

you are aware of your bosy and your physical presence and yourself in comparison to others

there are 4 theories of where the self knowledge comes from

introspection

self-perception theory

the looking glass self

social comparison

privilaged access to your mind, only you can directly access

but children have a tendecy to belive information about themselves give to them by a trusted other over their own self (rosenberg 1979)

people can also be bad at introspection and make up answers that make no sense (nisbett et al 1977

Bem 1965

we learn who we are in the same way that everyone else learns who we are, observing what we do

Deci 1971

ps in a lab and carry out a boring task across 3 time points and record how long they do this task for

introduce a reward fro the experimental group (pay people to do that task at teach of the intervals)

Cooley 1902

taking away payment at time 3 for the experimental group shows that paying people to do something can make them believe that they are only doing it for the money,leading to a drop in intrinsic motivation

self is reflected back to us through other people,

you can trust what people tell you, but if no-one tell you anything about yourself you have a self-concept

the more information that people give about the self, the more that the self concept is going to be altered by that perception of others on the self

Festinger

You are a social animal, who you are and what you do/think/feel are most important in the context of other people and who they are and what they do/think/feel.

This means that we make upward comparisons against people where we look at other people that are perceived to be better than us, leading to either motivation or discouraging behaviour.

We can also make downward comparisons against people who are worse than we are, this tends to make us feel better about ourselves.

However these comparisons are not useful as an absolute measure but are only useful in relation to others.

Who you are as a person depends on other people as some knowledge comes from feedback from others and some knowledge comes from comparison with others.

However, the self concept is not the ‘true’ self. Self knowledge is not the true self as the true self does not exist, the self knowledge does not lead to any other type of self, they interact and overlap and are co dependant.

What you know about yourself may lead to actions, but those actions tell you something about yourself, similarly, what you know about yourself may affect social ties, but social ties also tell you about yourself.

The interpersonal self

.
The interpersonal self is the part of the self that is for connecting to other people and existing within the social world. It is usually closely related to the self concept, but it is not the self concept. The public self is not a lie, but it is not the full self, we represent ourselves in the world therefore we do not always present the full self.

The interpersonal self = you are who you know, not what you know

Who you are depends on other people because part of understanding the self is understanding that you are a social entity.

But why is it that people have different levels of that presentation(why do some people have no filter/not self censor), possibly because they aim to produce an authentic self, or that they seek to test others around themselves.


Because the self is not for being but for doing, it is a tool that allows us to understand the social world

What does the self do

The self allows us to function in the social world and lets us make and maintain social connections, it also allows us to situate us within that social world.

the self vs identity

The self is the thing that is you, it is an internal phenomenon that requires privileged access.

Identity is split into personal and public-

Personal identity = the expression and manifestation of the self

Public identity = the way your self and identity are perceived by others

Therefore identity is who you present and who you are perceived as.


Interpersonal self is not identity, the self still requires the privileged access while identity is about perception.

Maslow's hierarchy of needs

basic needs

psychological needs

self fufillment needs

Physiological needs

safty needs

Belongingneess and love needs

esteem needs

self actualisation

How to acheive the 2nd level

  • Social identity theory
  • (tajfel and turner 1979)
  • stated that our group membership gives us a sense of belonging and maintains our self esteem.
  • means that we use social identity to regulate how we feel about ourselves, and we change our self in the process(via group norms).
  • As the self is determined by the social groups that we are part of, in order to find out how well we are doing we can look at others and their groups.
  • Maslow said that we want to increase our self esteem and we can do this through the use of our social groups by seeing that our group is doing well and being proud of that, or by finding ways to put other groups down and talk other groups down.
  • Optimal distinctiveness:(phenomenal self)
  • Another way of using social identity to manage our self esteem is to redefine the self with relation to the social context. In the search for the information about the self, we need to distinguish ourselves from others.
  • You need a functioning self in which you take an appropriate degree of pride, in order to be healthy. To a large degree your self is determined by your social environment.

We still want to be part of the group so we try and be not too different but not too similar(optimally distinctive).

  • The changing self and identity:
  • By definition, the self and identity are fairly stable and change slowly over time. However they do change, whether for better or for worse, in response to the positive and negative changes in the social environment.
  • However there are other very important factors associated with large changes to the self(including traumatic events, neurological changes, spiritual/religious experiences ect).
  • Changing self:
  • One way you can change your self is by revising self knowledge.
  • You can change your thinking.
  • jones et al(1981)
  • participants were asked to attend an interview and were asked to portray themselves either positively or negatively.
  • Those asked to portray themselves positively reported higher self esteem, those asked to portray themselves negatively reported lower self esteem.
  • This shows that changing how you think about yourself can affect self esteem.
  • changing behaviour.
  • causes cognitive dissonance(when our attitudes and behaviours don't line up, this causes an uncomfortable feeling when brought to their attention) this then causes motivation to resolve the conflict between our beliefs and our behaviours.
  • changing the social environment in which you reside.
  • As the self concept is linked to the social environment(the group) it can be assumed that if the social environment stays the same then the self concept will stay the same. Therefore if you want to change the self, change the social environment/the group.