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Self and Identity (Y1) - Coggle Diagram
Self and Identity (Y1)
Historical context
Identity has only existed as an idea since 1987 (Baumeister), but has been developing since secularisation, industrialisation, enlightenment and psychoanalysis
- Psychoanalysis - attributes behaviour to hidden and complex dynamics
- Identity is related to political, cultural and social change
- Psychodynamic self - only know the true self when we understand repressed thoughts; authoritarian personality is a product of this approach
- Collective self - grounded in group life, based on the group mind (McDougall, 1920) - social identity has a role in group processes and intergroup behaviour
Symbolic interactionism - Mead; the role of the 'me' in James (1890) aspects of the self
- Society influences individuals through the way individuals think about themselves - we communicate in shared symbols and we use symbols to name our identity
- We are a social object and a social subject
- The 'me' aspect is more collective
- Self-enhancing triad - Sedikides and Gregg (2007) - overestimate good points, overestimate control over events and are unrealistically optimistic
Definition of self
Twenty statements test - Kuhn and McPartland, 1954; describe yourself in 20 'I am' statements
- A mode characteristics - physical characteristics, descriptive
- B mode responses - roles or statuses or socially defined relationships one may have
- C mode responses - personal traits or preferences or behaviour styles
- D mode responses - general statements
- Lacks in theory and explanatory power
Aspects of the self - William James (1890) - described the self as having two aspects
- I - being reflexively aware of myself, self as subject, aspect of self that is doing the thinking, feeling and knowing
- Me - knowledge, thoughts, feelings and behaviours about myself - self as object; types of information within the 'me'
-> Affect - feelings towards the self, and self-esteem
-> Behaviour - presenting ourselves to others, self-presentation
-> Cognition - self-schemas - representations of who we are - I does the thinking, me is what it is thinking about
Levels of the self - concentric circle model (Brewer and Gardner, 1996); activated by contexts
- Collective self - group memberships that differentiate the us and the them
- Relational self - connections and relationships with significant others
- Individual self - personal traits that differentiate self from others
Multiple selves - Markus and Nurius (1986) - part of the cognitive self concept 'me'
- Represent the self in different roles - when asked to describe the self in different roles, our descriptors differ - different selves in different contexts
- Some are are more individual, relational or collective
- Can include people's ideas of what they might become, what they would like to become and what they are afraid of becoming (feared selves)
- Working self concept is activated by situation
We differ in self-complexity - social identity theory - two broad classes of identity that define the types of self
- Social identity - defines self in terms of group memberships
- Personal identity - defines self in terms of idiosyncratic traits and close personal relationships
4 types of identity - expansion on individual, relational and collective selves of the 'we'
- Person-based social identities - internalisation of group properties by individual group members as part of their self-concept
- Relational social identities - defining the self in relation to specific other people we interact with in group contexts (could be a type of collective self)
a. Cultural - east Asians and women are considered to be more collectivist, and so would place more emphasis on their relational social identities
- Group-based social identities - social identity
- Collective identities - process in which group members not only share self defining attributes, but also engage in social action to forge an image of what the group stands for and how it is represented and viewed by others
Contextual sensitivity of the self and identity -
- being categorised makes people discriminate against an outgroup, conform to ingroup norms, express attitudes and feelings that favour the ingroup and indicate a sense of belonging and loyalty to the ingroup
- These effects of minimal group categorisation are generally very fast and automatic and are associated with activity in the amygdala, which is involved in automatic response to specific stimuli
- Contextual factors bring different selves into play - social constructionists suggest that the self is entirely situation-dependent
Self-coherence - those who have a fragmented identity find it dificult to function e.g. those with schizophrenia, amnesia or Alzheimer's
Social identity salience - based on social categorisation, people's motivations to achieve certainty about themselves and to feel positive about themselves
- We use limited perception cues to categorise other people - information is stored as a prototype, which describes and prescribes the attributes of the category in the form of a fuzzy set of some related attributes
- Category prototypes accentuate group similarities, but also difference - meta-contrast principle; group prototype identify ideals, not averages
- Content of group prototype also depends on context
- Creation of situation-specific prototypes
- Structural fits - accounts for similarities and differences satisfactorily
- Normative fit - makes good sense of why people are behaving in particular ways
If this is achieved, categorisation becomes psychologically salient as the basis of categorising the self and others
Consequences of social identity salience -
- People's perception of themselves and others becomes depersonalised and relates fully to the category given
- In its extremes, this leads to a fusion of the personal and social identities, and this can cause extreme behaviour
- People also begin to behave according to the prototype rather than the identity - gang mentalities, stereotypes, terorist groups
- Leads to social stigma, as group status then becomes instrumental - our defined social identity and thus self concept
- If a group recognises that their low status is illegitimate, they will compete directly with another to gain more status - terrorism and war
- Can also break up groups that are similar if they are seen unfavourably
Self esteem - affective evaluation of the self ('me') - varies in valence from higher to lower (more self-doubt or uncertainty)
- Also varies in stability over time and in response to events
- Measurement - questionnaires e.g. Rosenberg self-esteem sale and implicit measures such as the Name Letter Test
-> On avergae, people like the letters in their names more than other letters, and this is more so the case in those that have higher self esteem
Summary -
- self is multifaceted and malleable
- self is shaped individually and socially
- people do not want to just know themselves, they want to feel good about themselves,
- groups, society and culture impact the self
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Culture and the self
Identity and the self are a product of the culture and society that we live in
- Different cultures put emphasis on different aspects of the self
- Most initial research on self and identity is conducted in Western cultures, but increasing attention to East Asian cultures - more needed in Africa and other cultures
- Main focus in cultural literature is on independent v interdependent self-construal's (Markus and Kitayama, 1991 and 2010)
- Independent v interdependent self schemas -
-> Independent - Western / individualistic - independent self is bounded, stable and autonomous, personal attributes guide action, achievement-oriented and responsible for own behaviour
--> Less of an ingroup and out group barrier
-> interdependent self - East Asia, Africa and Latin America (collectivist) - connected, fluid, flexible, social relationships guide action, oriented to collective and meet obligations / conform to norms
--> in group is more established and emphasised, more separation between close and distant others
Self is the 'me' at the centre of experience - continually developing sense of awareness and agency that guides actions and takes shape as the individual, both brain and body becomes used to various experiments
- Selves incorporate the patterning of their various environments and thus confer particular and culture specific form and function to the psychological processes they organise
-> selves then engage in socio-cultural contexts, and reinforce or change ideas, practices and institutions of these environments
Self knowledge
Self-schemas / self concept - store the information about the self as separate context; specific nodes which are activated in different contexts and different aspects of the self therefore emerge
- Sense of self emerges from widely distributed brain activity across the medial prefrontal and medial precuneous cortex of the brain
- The self concept is complex and multifaceted and has a large number of discrete self schemas - we are schematic on some concepts but aschematic on others
-> We know more about ourselves on the dimensions we care about - we are extreme and think the opposite cannot occur
- This variety acts as a buffer from the negative impact of life events by making sure that there are always self-schemas from which they can derive a sense of satisfaction
- Compartmentalised and rigid self schemas have disadvantages - if they are strictly positive or negative, this can lead to extreme mood swings when primed - integrated schemas are preferable
- Self-schematic information is more readily noticed, overrepresented in cognition and associated with a longer processing time
Independent self schemas are those that form without any consultation from groups, and govern our self knowledge about ourselves - they are schemas about the self
Interdependent self schemas are those that form through group influence and the influence of others identities, and govern how we interact with other identities and thus how this impacts our own self schemas
Regulatory focus theory
Two systems of self-regulation, promotion and prevention -
- Promotion - concerned with getting one's hopes and aspirations or ideals; generates sensitivity to positive events and people in this focus adopt approach strategic means to attain their goals
- Prevention - fulfilment of duties and obligations - the oughts - sensitivity to negative events, focus on avoidance strategic means to attain goals
- You are habitually focused on one over the other based on childhood experiences - promotion from being desired by parents, prevention when they are anxious
- Promotion regulation leads to more accessible recall of siccess, motivation and persistence in gain framed tasks
- Prevention focus leads to more negative emotion-related bias and behavioural tendencies against the outgroup
- Promotion focus leads to more positive emotion-related bias and behavioural tendencies towards the ingroup
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