Transcript File - Teaching psychology

Seminar 4: The self
Recap
• People want to understand others.
• They also want to understand themselves.
• Self-serving bias
• Spotlight effect
• How/What do we see (in) ourselves?
The philosopher’s question
How do you know you exist?
The psychologist’s answer
Theory of mind in elephants too!
There is no single theory of “the self”
There are many theories of “the self”
•William James
• The known—”Me”
• Repository of beliefs about self
• The active knower—”I”
• Active processor of information
•Freud
• Id, Ego, Superego
•E. Tory Higgins
• Ideal vs. Actual self
•Collectivistic self vs. Individualistic self
Our focus today
Cognition
Self
Behavior
Affect
Cognition: Self-knowledge
How we come to define our self
What are the sources we draw from to
determine who we are?
1. Introspection
2. Cultural
3. Our own behavior
4. Other people (social comparison)
Introspection
General claim
•People are remarkably poor at introspection
•We don’t always know the source, process, outcome.
•We rely on “causal theories”
Stimulus
Awareness?
“Cognitive
blackbox”
(mediator)
Awareness?
Response
Awareness?
Nisbett & Wilson. (1977). Telling more than we can know: Verbal reports on mental processes. Psy Rev.
Introspection and causal theories
Personal theories about what causes what
Buying this dress will make me happy
Using a cell phone won’t affect my reaction time while
driving a car
The gender of another person won’t affect my evaluation
of them (i.e. I am not sexist)
I love her/him because _______
The Nisbett and Wilson (1977) thesis
pre-existing causal theories
often easy to access
Queries about mental states
actual mental states
often difficult to access
Nisbett & Wilson. (1977). Telling more than we can know: Verbal reports on mental processes. Psyc Rev.
One implication: Affective forecasting
How would you feel—and how long would you feel
that way if you…
•found a ten dollar bill lying on the sidewalk? (note this is an American context)
•got an A+ on the social psychology exam?
•fell in love?
•won the Nobel prize?
•suddenly went blind?
•found out your significant other was dating someone else?
•got a divorce from someone you once loved?
•discovered you were genetically at risk for cancer?
•found out that you tested positive for HIV?
•were sent to a concentration camp?
General findings from this literature
People often think that their emotion reactions will be
more extreme, and last longer, than is really the case.
Why is affective forecasting inaccurate?
• Misconstrual
• Inaccurate theories
• Motivated distortions
• Underestimation of emotional defense
(survival) skills
• “Focalism”
Other mundane events
of everyday-life
+
-
+
-
Focal event (+)
+
-
+
Criticisms against Nisbett & Wilson
Cited over 9300 times
•It’s commonsense.
•It keeps psychologists employed.
•Is it falsifiable?
Cultural sources
Singelis (1994) self-construal scale (30 items)
To what extent do these statements describe you?
•I will sacrifice my self interest for the benefit of the group I am in.
•I enjoy being unique and different from others in many respects.
•I feel it is important for me to act as an independent person.
•Even when I strongly disagree with group members, I avoid an
argument.
•I should take into consideration my parents' advice when making
education/career plans.
•I do my own thing, regardless of what others think.
Singelis. (1994). The measurement of independent and interdependent self-construals. Pers Soc Psy Bull.
Cultural sources
General consensus among psychologists
Individualistic self vs. Collectivistic self
Has this polarization always been that way?
• Evidence suggests that individualism has increased over time
(USA)
• Any implications (consequences)?
Twenge et al. (2012). Changes in pronoun use in American books and the rise of individualism. J Cross-Cul Psy.
American names become more unique
N = 325 million US names
Twenge et al. (2010). Trends in american parents' choices for children's names. Soc Psy Pers Sci.
Of course there are within-culture
differences
• Northern China: More individualistic
• Southern China: More collectivistic
• Similar pattern found in India
Talhem et al. (2014). Large-scale psychological differences within china explained by rice versus wheat agriculture. Science.
Our own behavior
Self-perception theory (Bem, 1972)
I infer my attitudes from my behaviors.
“IF I eat ice cream, THEN it means I like ice creams.”
“IF I come to class, THEN it means I like the class.”
“IF I do this sh** job without pay, THEN it means I like my job.”
By comparing myself with others
Social comparison theory (Festinger, 1954)
You score 90/100 for PSY202.
You are here.
You are here.
You are here.
Social comparison
• When do you compare with others?
• Especially in high uncertainty, no objective standard
• With whom to you compare to?
• Depends on your motive/goal you have in mind
• Two motives
• To gain knowledge (skill-based needs)
• To feel better (evaluative-based needs)
Motives for social comparison
• The need for valuable knowledge• Generally speaking, upward comparison better here
• The need to feel good about yourself
• Often, downward comparison serves this need
• A different type of social comparsion
• Present vs. past
Do we always want to be better than
others?
Compared to the typical Ashoka student, how much _______ are
you?
Smarter
Moral
Agreeable
Americans
Ratings (1-5)
5
4
3
2
1
Character traits
Skill traits
Trait Type
Self
Others
Indians
Ratings (1-5)
5
4
3
2
1
Character traits
Skill traits
Trait Type
Self
Others
Ashokkumar, Lutsky, Chan, in-prep
A more nuanced perspective
Optimal distinctiveness theory
•People depend on others to survive.
•If you’re too different, ______________
•If you’re too similar, ______________
Assimilative ----------------------------------------------------Distinctive
•Selecting of which identity depends on how that identity satisfy
one’s psychological needs.
Brewer. (1991). The social self: On being the same and different at the same time. Pers Soc Psy Bull.
Affect: Self-esteem
Now that you know how you come to know yourself, what do you feel about
yourself?
What is self-esteem?
Evaluative part of the self-concept
We all want to feel good about our selves (I hope)
How can you do that?
The Self-Esteem Movement (in US)
Everyone born after 1970…
Researchers found that high self-esteem individuals
had higher academic success
Educators devised programs to increase students’ selfesteem
Ironically increasing self-esteemed lowered academic
success!
Branden. (1969). The psychology of self-esteem.
What happened?
Two types of messages sent to students for 6 weeks
“Keep your head up, feel good about yourself”
vs.
no-message control
65
Marks
60
Controls
55
Self-esteem
50
45
Mid-terms
Final
Forsyth et al (2007). Attempting to improve the academic performance of struggling college students by bolstering
their self-esteem: An intervention that backfired. J Soc Clin Psy.
Why?
Telling them to feel good about themselves made
students complacent
Relationships
Sports
Grades
Global self-esteem
Different components contribute to self-esteem
Raising “global” self-esteem without tying them to
“grades self-esteem” backfired.
Forsyth et al (2007). Attempting to improve the academic performance of struggling college students by bolstering
their self-esteem: An intervention that backfired. J Soc Clin Psy.
Self-esteem & narcissism
Narcissism
extremely high self-regard
+
lack of empathy towards others
It’s all about ME…
And no one else but
ME!
“I think my strongest
asset, maybe by far,
is my temperament.
Implicit self-esteem
Self-esteem = attitude towards self
Attitudes can be implicit (recall Week 3: Social
Cognition)
(We will cover more about attitudes next week)
Is there such a thing called implicit self-esteem?
Rosenberg (1960) self-esteem scale
I feel that I am a person of worth, at least on an equal plane with
others.
I feel that I have a number of good qualities..
All in all, I am inclined to feel that I am a failure.
I am able to do things as well as most other people.
I feel I do not have much to be proud of.
I take a positive attitude toward myself.
On the whole, I am satisfied with myself.
I wish I could have more respect for myself.
I certainly feel useless at times.
At times I think I am no good at all.
How else can you measure implicit self-esteem?
ABCDEFGHIJKLM
NOPQRSTUVWXYZ
How much do you like ___ ?
Name-letter effect
Kooler & Pelham. (2003). On the nature of implicit self-esteem. The Ontario Symposium.
Behavior: Self-control
The behavioral aspect of the self
Why do we need self-control?
The world is filled with temptation.
Self-control is desirable
Experimenter rolls dice
Participant rolls dice
Illusion of control predicted riskier bets in games of craps
Davis et al. (2000). Illusory personal control as a determinant of bet size and type in casino craps games. J Appl Soc Psy.
Want to increase self-control?
Suppression is useless
Leads to rebound effects
First task
Second task
Don’t think about white bear
Try not to laugh
during movie
Resource allocation perspective
• Research could explain:
• Relapses among former smokers when stressed
• Self-regulatory failures more likely in evening
• Cheating tends to occur in stressed marriages
Baumeister et al. (2007). The strength model of self-control. Cur Dir Psy Sci.
Learning points
• There are many other selfrelated theories, e.g.,
hypnosis, self-justification,
self-awareness, etc.
Cognition
• There are different sources of
how we construct ourselves.
• We want to feel good about
ourselves, but this is not
always beneficial.
• Self-control is desirable, but
not always achievable.
Self
Behavior
Affect