Ats1262 Lecture

8/7/2013

How we see ourselves and others: the social self & social perception
Week 2
Dr Ana-Maria Bliuc

In today’s lecture….
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The social self – how can we know who we are ? focus on the cognitive perspective self-schemas, sources of self-knowledge, self-esteem & self presentation

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Social perception – how can we tell what people are like? elements of social perception

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Who we are: defining the self-concept
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The self-concept  the sum of the beliefs that people have about themselves In a social context we refer to our social self. Our self-beliefs are heavily influenced by our social interactions and our social interactions are shaped by the way we see ourselves.

Social self as a social psychological mediator
Interaction in the social world Social self Interaction in the social world

The social self can be seen as both a DV (variable to be explained) and IV (variable that explains another variable, process or phenomena) in relation to the social context.

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How do we get to know ourselves?
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The self-concept: is a cognitive representation of oneself gives coherence and meaning to experiences and relationships with others organises past experiences helps us recognise and interpret social situations.

Self-schemas:
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key components of our self concept central beliefs about ourselves determine how we process information which is relevant to us.

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Self-schemas:
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are defined by Hazel Markus (1977) as cognitive generalizations about self, derived from past experience that organizes and guides the processing of self-related information contained in the individual social experiences. (p.64) affect how we process information about us:
e.g., research by Markus et al. (1987)  people with weight issues who place greater importance on weight (‘schematics’) process relevant information differently than ‘aschematics (biased self-perception)

Where our self-beliefs come from?
 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Five main sources: Introspection Self-perception Other people Autobiographical memory Our culture

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Source 1: Introspection
Self-knowledge often comes through introspection (as meditation, dream analysis, psychotherapy, etc.).  Does introspection always work?
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Overthinking can create confusion (Wilson, 2002). People tend to overestimate positives (most people think they are better than average). Affective forecasting (prediction how one would feel in the future) is often not accurate.

Source 2: Self-perception
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Self-perception theory (Bem, 1972) – when internal cues are hard to interpret people rely on observing their own behaviour. Goldstein & Cialdini (2007) – vicarious selfperception / the spyglass self happens when people infer self-knowledge from other people they strongly identify with. e.g., Study where subjects observe behaviours performed by actors; they are led to feel a sense of ‘merged identity with these actors

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Model of vicarious self-perception processes

Source 3: Other people
Social comparison theory (Festinger, 1954) – when people are uncertain of their abilities and opinion they evaluate themselves through comparisons with similar others. • People tend to describe themselves in terms of their unique qualities in relation to others  our selves are relative social constructs that can vary depending on context.

The theory of self as a looking glass (Cooley, 1902).  other people help us define ourselves.

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Source 4: Autobiographical memory
  1. 2.

Self-continuity cannot exist without memory Distinguishing between 2 types of memory: Procedural - motor, perceptual & cognitive skills Declarative – facts & beliefs  further divided into semantic (general knowledge) and episodic (experienced events)

*The episodic memory is closely linked to a sense of selfcontinuity as it enables recollection of personal past experiences.

Source 5: Our culture
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Individualism (values independence, autonomy and self-reliance) versus collectivism (values interdependence, cooperation and social harmony).

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Our culture
According to a study on IBM employees (Hoftstede, 1980) the most individualistic countries are US, Australia, Great Britain, Canada & the Netherlands  The most collectivist countries are Venezuela, Colombia, Pakistan, Peru, Taiwan & China. *To test your independence/interdependence go to http://www.prenhall.com/divisions/hss/app/social/ch ap5_1.html
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How individualism/collectivism affect selfconcept
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Research by Trafimow et al. (1997)  Participants from Hong Kong with English as a second language  Half were given the “Who am I” test in English and half given it in Chinese  Results - English: Personal traits (private self-cognitions) - Chinese: Group affiliation (collective selfcognitions)  using a collectivist language increases the cognitive accessibility of the collective self

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Self-esteem: how we feel about ourselves
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High self-esteem  Happier  Fewer interpersonal problems  Fostered by experience of unconditional positive regard Low self-esteem  Prone to psychological and physiological ailments  Problems with social relationships and underachievement

Low self-esteem is associated to…
Taking a more pessimistic approach in order to protect the self.  Worrying more about failure, rejection, and humiliation.  Not the same as fear of success - people with low self-esteem still want to succeed  However, they will look for ways to avoid failures, rejections, and setbacks.
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High self-esteem is associated with…
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Less worry about failure, rejection, humiliation Having a clearer, more confident understanding of their identity (who am I?) Being less likely to change opinions and attitudes in the face of persuasion Positive affect Positivity bias - rate others more positively

When our self-esteem is in jeopardy
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Do we make downward social comparisons?  Checking on how friends in worse situations than us are doing.  Finding justifications (e.g., he just lost his job and his girlfriend just dumped him; he probably needs some cheering up) Or maybe we bask in the glory of others?  By showing off our connections with successful others (Cialdini et al., 1976) – after football winning games more college students wore school sweatshirts on campus the next day.

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Self-presentation
It represents the behavioural expression of our social self.  The process through which we try to control the impressions people form of us (also referred to as impression management).
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The egocentric bias in self-judgment
The spotlight effect (Gilovich, Medvec, & Savitsky, 1996, 2000) – people tend to believe that the social spotlight shines more brightly on them than it really does. •The famous un-cool T-shirt experiments: students had to wear a Barry Manilow t-shirt into their classes. •They estimated how many people would remember the picture on their t-shirt.

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The Social Spotlight Effect
50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Predicted Actual

The students who wore the t-shirt predicted that nearly half of the others would recall who was on the shirt.

The Social Spotlight Effect
50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Predicted Actual

In reality, less than a quarter of their classmates recalled who was on the shirt.

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The study shows that….
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We focus on our own behavior in a social situation, so we may think it is equally the focus of others This egocentric bias can lead to the spotlight effect , the tendency to believe that we stand out in the eyes of others (both negatively and positively). In reality, people just don’t notice us as much as we think they do.

How we see others: social perception
A general term for the processes by which people come to understand one another.

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The Elements of Social Perception
True or False?
The impressions we form of others are influenced by superficial aspects of their appearance.

The elements of social perceptions are: 1.Persons 2.Situations 3.Behaviours

1. The person
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First impressions are often subtly influenced by different aspects of a person s appearance. We prejudge people based on facial features
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We read traits from faces, as well as read traits into faces, based on prior information  attractive children and adults are judged more positively (Dion et al., 1972). We judge “baby-faced” adults differently than “mature-faced” adults

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Are attractive people treated better?
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Research by Braun et al. (2001) - faces were associated with different traits

Attractive and unattractive faces used in the study

The less attractive faces were associated to more negative traits.
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Baby-faced adults are judged differently
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Three possible explanations:
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Humans are genetically programmed to respond gently to infantile features We learn to associate infantile features with helplessness and then generalise this expectation to baby-faced adults There is an actual link between physical appearance and behavior  ‘Beauty is not just skin deep’ (Feingold, 1992; Jackson et al., 1995).

2. The situation
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We often have scripts or preset notions about certain types of situations
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Enables us to anticipate the goals, behaviors, and outcomes likely to occur in a particular setting

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These scripts help us understand other people s verbal and nonverbal behavior

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Scripts and social perception
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We sometimes see what we expect to see in a particular situation People use what they know about social situations to explain the causes of human behavior

3. Behaviours
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Non-verbal behaviour – used not only to identify physical actions but also emotions. Primary emotions (such as happiness, anger, fear and surprise) are easier to identify even in people from other cultures. Familiarity with other cultures makes this emotions easier to identify.

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For next week in tutorials….
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Research design tutorial, so try to think of potential research questions as topics for your proposal.

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