The Self

10 Key excerpts on "The Self"

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  Social Psychology

  • Saba Safdar, Catherine A. Sanderson(Authors)
  • 2021(Publication Date)
  • Wiley

    (Publisher)

  This is a useful quote to consider, as it draws our attention to some of the assumptions that Western cultures, and therefore the psychology that developed in those cultures, hold about what a person, or self, is. For example, The Self has boundaries or edges and is distinct from its environ- ment. Each self is also assumed to be unique. It is like a little universe of thoughts, motivations, awareness, emotions, decision-making, and behaviour. It is also a whole thing, not part of another thing. It is separate from other similar whole selves. Geertz also draws our attention to other ways to understand The Self, namely, that outside the Western individualistic countries and the field of social science, the Western notion of self is (to use his phrase) a “rather peculiar idea.” The Western quest to understand The Self can be traced back to (at least) 2,500 years ago (around 500 BCE), when the Greek philosopher Socrates wrote, “Know thyself,” which is certainly more easily said than done. Our view of ourselves is often distorted in a variety of ways, and even knowing what “self ” is can be problematic. Since the late 19th century, however, social psychologists have examined the meanings of the nature of self, and the scientific approach has now generated a large amount of information about The Self, as you will also see throughout this chapter. WHAT ARE THE SELF-CONCEPT AND SELF-AWARENESS? This section examines the distinction between self-concept and self-awareness. We will also review three functions of self: interpersonal tool, decision maker, and regulatory system. If someone were to ask you what you’re like, what would you say? You might say “smart,”“funny,”“friendly,” or “athletic.” All of these would describe your self-concept, that is, your overall beliefs about your own attributes. According to William James, a pioneering American psychologist, self-concept is one aspect of The Self and can be referred to as the Known or the Me ( James, 1890).

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  Social Beings

  Core Motives in Social Psychology

  • Susan T. Fiske(Author)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Wiley

    (Publisher)

  The Self can serve various social-psychological functions; having a self is not only knowing where your skin ends but also how to get along in a group. Summary of Definitions and Motives The Self is not a fixed entity but depends on the situation. A conceptual definition of The Self includes the body, the inner self, the interpersonal self, and the collective self. Operationally, social psychologists have examined The Self-concept (e.g., the who-am-I statements), self-esteem (e.g., the Rosenberg scale), and self-presentation (e.g., how behavior differs in public and private). Self-understanding, self-enhancing, and self-belonging all facilitate survival within the group. Self-Concepts: Understanding The Self Before going further, do a little experiment. (a) Read the following words, thinking about how much each one, in turn, describes you. (To play fair, you should take about three seconds per word.) Ready? OK, to what extent are you: Friendly. Smart. Silly. Creative. Athletic. Gloomy. Self-Concepts: Understanding The Self 151 Dedicated. (b) Now, without looking back at the words, think of the whole first verse of the “Star Spangled Banner.” Look away from the book until you are finished. (c) Now, without looking back at the personality trait words, write down as many of them as possible. Give yourself enough time. How many did you get? When I teach social psychology, half the class is assigned to do what you did, apply the words to themselves in part (a), and the other half of the class is assigned to consider the words just by counting the vowels in them. The vowel-counters remember only two or three words, if that; they can rapidly identify vowels without reading the words. The Self-description people typically get five or more. When they read each word, considering how it relates to themselves, they are accessing a whole storehouse of knowledge about self.

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  Handbook of Self and Identity, Second Edition

  • Mark R. Leary, June Price Tangney, Mark R. Leary, June Price Tangney(Authors)
  • 2011(Publication Date)
  • The Guilford Press

    (Publisher)

  21 The concept of “self” has been central in psychology from William James at the start of the last century, to Carl Rogers in its mid- dle years, to the current explosion of work on this topic, as the chapters in this volume reflect. During the same hundred years, this highly popular construct also has been con- demned as a fiction that merely renamed the dreaded homunculus that sits inside the person and is made its causal agent. That specter could be avoided easily if The Self is treated as just a set of concepts that people hold about themselves—individual, relation- al, and collective—as it was in its resurgence in psychology in the 1970s, concurrent with the cognitive revolution and after its long ne- glect during decades of behaviorism. How- ever, in a rapidly accelerating trajectory, self research and theory has grown greatly beyond those beginnings in new directions. It is bursting with important findings and offering exciting new prospects, but at the same time creating fresh challenges and still struggling with classic problems. We have two goals in this chapter. First, we provide a perspective on the current state of the science of The Self. This state is ro- bust and vibrant, but it also is complex and diffuse. Relevant work is scattered across diverse subfields and disciplines that often operate in isolation, impervious to develop- ments just across the boundaries. As a result, integration and the growth of a cumulative science of self are exceedingly difficult, mak- ing it essential to cross those boundaries to obtain a comprehensive understanding of The Self. At present, the disparate self-relevant strands include work in areas beyond social cognition and social psychology that include personality, clinical psychology and psychia- try, developmental psychology, cognitive and neurological science, sociology, cultural psy- chology, philosophy—and more.

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  Psychology Applied to Modern Life

  Adjustment in the 21st Century

  • Wayne Weiten, Dana Dunn, Elizabeth Hammer(Authors)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Cengage Learning EMEA

    (Publisher)

  These distinc- tive qualities fit into their self-definitions. As we will see, The Self is both a cognitive and a social construct (Bau- meister, 2012), one that emerges in early childhood and unfolds through adolescence (Harter, 2012). How did you develop beliefs about yourself? Have your self-views changed over time? Read on. The Nature of The Self-Concept Although The Self-concept is usually talked about as a single entity, it is actually a multifaceted structure (Oyserman, El- more, & Smith, 2012). That is, The Self-concept is an orga- nized collection of beliefs about The Self. The Self-concept entails your beliefs about your personality (Markus & Cross, 1990), those things than come to mind when you think about yourself (Stets & Burke, 2003), and what you believe to be true about yourself (Forgas & Williams, 2002). These beliefs, also called self-schemas, shape social percep- tion (Showers & Zeigler-Hill, 2012), are developed from past experience, and are concerned with your personality A t last you are in college and on your own, away from home. You are a little nervous but excited about your new life and its challenges. Today is your first official day of college and psychology is your first class. You arrive early. You take a seat near the front of the lecture hall and immediately feel conspicuous. You don’t know anyone in the class; in fact, you suddenly realize you don’t know anyone at the university except your roommate, who is still a stranger. Many students seem to know one another. They are laughing, talking, and catching up while you just sit there, quiet and alone. They seem friendly, so why won’t they talk to you? Should you speak to them first? Are you dressed okay—what about your hair? You begin to question yourself: Will you ever make any friends in this class or at the university? Oh, here comes the professor. She seems nice enough, but you wonder what she expects.

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  Psychology and the Challenges of Life

  Adjustment and Growth

  • Spencer A. Rathus, Jeffrey S. Nevid(Authors)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Wiley

    (Publisher)

  4. You perceive your personal self by direct awareness. 5. Our may be defined in terms of the importance we place on objects and things. Think About It Consider your values and your relationships with various family mem- bers and other people you know. To what degree does sharing values relate to your closeness and intimacy with other people? Self-Perception: Self-Concept, Self-Esteem, and Self-Identity 191 Self-Esteem Increases Throughout Much of Adulthood Research shows that people in middle adulthood tend to have higher self-esteem than younger adults. Why do you suppose that is the case? Hongqi Zhang/Alamy Stock Photo Self-Perception: Self- Concept, Self-Esteem, and Self-Identity Other aspects of self-perception include our self-concept, self-esteem, and self-identity. With The Self-concept, we again look inward to parts of ourselves that can be per- ceived directly by us alone. We may try to communicate what is within us, but we alone can perceive it. The Self-Concept Your self-concept is your impression or understanding of yourself. It reflects the traits or qualities you attribute to yourself, such as fairness, competence, and sociability— or not. Your self-concept has a major impact on your basic judgment of yourself—your self- esteem. Self-esteem depends on many factors, including social approval, competence, and the discrepancy between the way you see yourself and what you think you ought to be—your self- ideal, or ideal self. (See photo.) The nearby Self-Assessment provides an opportunity for you to evaluate your self-concept on a number of dimensions and to size up how closely your self-concept matches your concept of an ideal self. If your self-concept lags behind your ideal self, don’t throw in the towel. Self-Esteem Our self-esteem may depend on the degree to which our impressions of ourselves fit with our ideal selves (or self-ideals)—the selves we feel we ought to be.

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  Social Psychology and Human Values

  • M. Brewster Smith, Anselm L. Strauss(Authors)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  identifying self-reports with constructs is sure to lead to confusion.

  Within the sphere of The Self concept, a further minimal distinction will probably turn out to be necessary, though I will not put it to use here. One can probably distinguish a core of identity beliefs that have persisting trans-situational relevance for a person’s view of himself (these varying in centrality or importance and saliency—thus sex vs. eye color) from the set of subidentities that correspond to William James’ notion (1890, pp. 293-296) of the person’s multiple social selves, systems of beliefs that are bound to the major distinguishable contexts of role relations in which the person participates. One may expect pronounced individual and societal variation in the extent to which such subidentities are differentiated from one another and from core identity.1

  The psychoanalytic tradition suggests the relevance of additional distinctions, which are introduced here not because I intend to use them directly, but to suggest the absurdity of treating the self concept as a concrete entity. We may infer that a person entertains views of himself that he fears or disavows, “negative identities” that may not be accessible to self-report; he also has conceptions of himself as he would like to be (research has picked up the latter theme for emphasis). In the sphere of percepts, he may reject self-regarding experiences as ’ego’-alien, as not pertaining to the acknowledged self.

  With this sketchy foundation, we can return to the task at hand. In order to consider what The Self has to do with trends toward consistency, we can begin by noting, with Lecky (1945), the importance of such trends in the very constitution of The Self. As consistency theories become more mature, we can expect that one important direction in which social psychology may seek integration with personality theory is in further specifying the role of consistency-directed processes in the formation and development of The Self. Pending such an elaboration and application of formal theory, several things can be said.

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  The Self

  • Jonathon Brown(Author)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Psychology Press

    (Publisher)

  special For example, it is easily noticed and well remembered. In the third part of this chapter, we will consider why this is so and examine how motivational forces and cognitive processes combine to influence the processing of personal information.

  THE REPRESENTATION OF SELF-KNOWLEDGE

  Cognitive psychologists assume our knowledge of the world is organized into cognitive structures. Although there is disagreement about the precise form these structures take, one possibility is that knowledge is organized in a hierarchical fashion. A general concept sits at the top of the hierarchy, and more specific knowledge occupies a subordinate status.

  The top half of Figure 5.1 presents a greatly simplified example of this type of model for the general concept of “animal/’ Various kinds of animals are associated with this general heading (e.g., birds, fish, and mammals). Examples of each type of animal reside at a subordinate level, and linked to each of these specific animals are characteristic behaviors and attributes.

  People’s ideas about themselves may be represented in a similar manner (Kihlstrom & Cantor, 1984). The bottom half of Figure 5.1 shows such a model (again, very simplified). At the top of the hierarchy is The Self. Underlying this concept are three more specific headings: physical attributes, self- esteem, and social identities. Under each of the social identities are various characteristics and traits.

  Although not all psychologists endorse the particular model shown in Figure 5.1 , most agree that people’s ideas about themselves form a complex and highly organized knowledge structure, and that this structure becomes increasingly differentiated with age as people acquire additional knowledge of themselves. There is also agreement on the general implications of the model (Greenwald & Pratkanis, 1984; Linville & Carlston, 1994; Markus & Wurf, . For example, note the contextual basis of self-knowledge. How we think of ourselves depends on the social context (James, 1890; Rosenberg & Gara,. A person might think of himself as intelligent at school, irreverent when he’s with his friends, and responsible when he’s at work. Another thing to notice is that people have knowledge of themselves that is somewhat contradictory. For example, we might think of ourselves as serious at school, carefree with our friends, and diligent when we are working. Finally, people have views of themselves that are common to more than one role, relationship, or situation. “Honest” is such a trait in the example shown in Figure 5.1

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  Social Psychology and Human Nature

  • Roy F. Baumeister; Brad J. Bushman, Roy F. Baumeister, Brad Bushman(Authors)
  • 2016(Publication Date)
  • Cengage Learning EMEA

    (Publisher)

  FOOD FOR Thought Eating Binges and Escaping The Self Reprinted by permission of Atlantic Feature Syndicate/Mark Parisi. QUIZ YOURSELF What Is The Self? 1. Self-knowledge is also known as . 2. According to self-awareness theory, a self-aware state is . 3. Alcohol has been shown to self-awareness. 4. The presence of a mirror has been shown to self-awareness. self-awareness self-concept self-regulation self-presentation pleasant unpleasant pleasant initially, then unpleasant later neutral decrease increase not affect reverse decrease increase not affect reverse a b c d a b c d a b c d a b c d answers: see pg 111 Copyright 2017 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. 78 | CHAPTER 3 The Self public self-consciousness thinking about how others perceive you looking-glass self the idea that people learn about themselves by imagining how they appear to others generalized other a combination of other people’s views that tells you who and what you are “Tell me something about yourself.” Such openings are common, and people will gen-erally oblige by disclosing some information. But where do they get it? How do people amass so much knowledge about themselves? Do people know themselves accurately, or are they mistaken (or do they simply lie a lot)? 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.

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  The Big Questions

  A Short Introduction to Philosophy

  • Robert Solomon, Kathleen Higgins(Authors)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Cengage Learning EMEA

    (Publisher)

  This argument against the mind-body problem is also a powerful argument against many of our favorite ideas about The Self. To think of The Self as an iso-lated individual consciousness, aware primarily of itself, is, according to similar arguments, a serious misunderstanding of selfhood. The Self must be conceived of in terms of the whole person . (The position is sometimes called holism, accord-ingly.) In ancient times, Aristotle argued for such a view of The Self as nothing less than the complete person; today, too, many philosophers argue that nothing less can give us an adequate understanding of The Self. The Self is not just con-sciousness aware of itself but the flesh-and-blood person who is part of a family and a community and a soldier or a shoemaker or a politician. One is a self not just for oneself, but with and for other people as well. We will proceed to con-sider various theories of The Self that address broader notions of what it is to be a whole person. Other Theories of The Self The Self as a Choice What they [ existentialists ] have in common is that they believe that existence comes before essence . . . . man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world—and defines himself afterwards. . . . to begin with, he is nothing. 14 —Jean-Paul Sartre If self-identity is defined by our answer to the question “Who am I?” one pos-sible answer is “Nothing yet, still in progress.” If one sees The Self not as an inner soul that is in us from birth (or perhaps from conception), but rather as a product of our actions and thoughts, then self-identity is something to be earned, not an already existing fact to be discovered. Thus, the existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980) would say that all those theories that take The Self to be found in consciousness are misconceived. The Self is not simply thinking, Copyright 2018 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. WCN 02-300

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  Social Psychology

  • Catherine A. Sanderson, Saba Safdar(Authors)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Wiley

    (Publisher)

  This means that The Self is more connected to its social context and acts primarily as a response to others within the social context. An interdependent self-construal conceives The Self as connected to others, with behaviour contingent on the values, thoughts, and preferences of others. Accordingly, The Self is more meaningful in a relationship and is connected to the whole. The construal of The Self as interdependent is more common in South American, Asian, and African societies. A conceptual presentation of self, as suggested by Markus and Kitayama (1991), is illus- trated in Figure 3.5. The large circle is self and the smaller circles are others in relationships. The distances between the large and the small circles indicate the closeness of The Self and others. The number of Xs in circles indicates various aspects of The Self that are shared with others. As shown in Figure 3.5a, in independent self-construal there is a solid line separating The Self from others (i.e., The Self as autonomous), but in interdependent self-construal the large circle is separated from small circles by a dashed line (Figure 3.5b). This indicates that the interdependent self-construal is defined in relationships with specific others and that these relationships with others guide an individual’s behaviour. independent self-construal – a conception of The Self as autonomous and independent from others, and behaving primarily to express its own internal attributes interdependent self-construal – a conception of The Self as connected to others, with its behaviour contingent on the values, thoughts, and prefer- ences of others 95 How Does Culture Influence Self? FACTORS INFLUENCING The Self-CONCEPT As described in Chapter 1, people in different cultures see themselves in very different ways.

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