Persoonlijkheidsleer- en klinische psy.

(290109) Friederike Lollies

14 Approaches to the self concept

14 Approaches to the self concept

Instruction
Self concept:
The understanding of yourself
Self-esteem:
How you feel about who you are
Social identity:
The presentation of yourself to other persons
The development of the sense of our self is a life-long process of constructing, evaluating and presenting to
others our sense of who we are
Only events which are important to our sense of self will have any strong impact either way was very good or
very bad
The self-concept determines how we relate and evaluate the events in the world

14.1 Descriptive component of the self: Self-Concept

Develops over years
Basis over self-understanding
Answer of the question Who I am?

14.1.1Development of the Self-Concept

Infant: It discovers boundaries between what is me and what is not me->Sense of self awareness of the
body
Self recognition in a mirror occurs in normal children at a age of 18 month
Pretending behavior (feeding a doll with imagery food) require that a child is able to distinguish between that is
what I pretend to do and that is what I am actually doing
No use from personal pronouns (I, me, mine..) until they gain self-recognition abilities in the mirror test
2 Year old:
Recognition of the own person on a picture
Idea that other persons have expectations for them
2-3 Years:
Exploration of the own sex
Expanding of the self-concept towards family constellation
3-12 Years:
Developing of talents and skills
Self-concept is mainly defined in terms of sex, age, family or origin and what the child believes he or she can or
cannot
5-6 Years:
Social comparison: Comparison from skills and abilities with those of others
Learning of the possibility of lying or keeping secrets
Private self-concept: realization that there is a hidden side of the self
Later children develop the full realization that only they have access to their own thoughts, feelings and desires
Possible selves: schemata of future selves, ideas about who people might become
Possible selves could be compared with bridges between our present and our future, that are our working
models of ourselves in the future
Ideal self: That is what the person want to be, own desires
Ought self: That is what a person believe what the others want them to be, responsibilities and social
commitment
HIGGENS: The ought and the ideal selves are self-guides, standards that one uses to organize information and
motive appropriate behavior
14.1 Development of the self-concept

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14 Approaches to the self concept

Self guides gets their consistency from emotions, Higgens: two types of possible selves are at the rood of
different emotions: When the real self does not fit with the ideal self, there will be sadness or disappointment.
And when the real self does not fit with the ought self then one feel guilty, distressed or anxious
Ideal self -> own achievement and goal accomplishment, Higgens: Promotion focus
Ought self -> avoiding harm and seeking safety, Higgens: Prevetion focus
The self-concept is like a library of self schemata which are cognitive knowledge structures about the self

14.2 Evaluative Component of the Self

14.2.1 Evaluation of Oneself
Self-esteem is the sum of your positive and negative aspects to all the aspects of your self concepts
The development of the concepts: in childhood it is very based on concrete characteristics as physical
appearance, age, sex, address in adolescence it is more abstract personality and social characteristic. And
later in adolescence (circa 18 years) it is a very complex schema with interpersonal characteristics, typical mood
state ideological and belief references.
Perspective taking: The ability to see the own behavior from the perspective from other persons
Objective self awareness: When a person sees itself as an object of others attention

14.2.2 Self-Schemata: Possible Selves, Ought Selves, and Undesired Selves

the Self-Concept is a piece of continuicy and a network to understand the past and the present and to plan the
future behavior
People could process information which is consistent with their own self-concepts easilier
Self schema: That is a specific knowledge structure of the self-concept.
Self schemas are cognitive structures that are built on past experiences and that guide the processing of
information about the self particulary in social interaction
Example: Schema for masculine: assertiveness, strength, independence
(P.172 Items of the Global Self Esteem Questionaire)
The global self esteem is may be an composite of several individual areas of self-evaluation. There is an
questionnaire scale for measuring three aspects of self-esteem: performance self-esteem, appearance selfesteem and social self-esteem. So it could be that one person is very confident in one situation and in other
situation he/she is it not

14.2.3 Research on Self-Esteem

On the playground there is evaluation and competition. And evaluation and competition are also present in adulthood.
Self-esteem is linked to evaluation..How people react to criticism or negative feedback?

14.2.3.1 Reactions to Criticism and Failure Feedback

Task: Intelligence Test-> Motivated working-> Finish-> Failure Feedback-> REACTION
Low self-esteemer: perform poorly, give up earlier in subsequent tasks
High self-esteemer: failure feedback seems to spur them into action, less likely to give up
Low self-esteemer accept their feedback because it is consistent with their self concepts and they believe that
they will fail on the second task too. So they do not try hard to have success. For high self-esteemer this
negative feedback is not consistent with their exiting self-concept so they try to become better in the second
task.
Roy Baumeister: High self-esteem persons are concerned with projecting a successful self-image whereas low
self-esteem persons are concerned with avoiding failure

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14.2.3.2 Self-esteem and coping with Negative Events

High self-esteem persons appear to maintain their positive evaluation through the ups and downs of every day life
Brown and Smart: High self-esteem persons will focus on other areas of life in which things are going well
Larsen: To cope with failures and negative events people should make a list of all the things in their lives that
are going well and that they keep this list in their wallets. And if a failure occurs you have to look an this list
and the motivation come back.
Self complexity: there are many roles and aspects for our self-concepts
High Self-Complexity: There are many self-schemas so it is not so bad if anything goes wrong because it is just
in one little part of the concept.
Low Self-Complexity: There are only a few large self-schemas like I am nothing without her! so it is very bad
if this relation broke up because a great part of the concept will be missed

14.2.3.3 Protecting versus Enhancing the Self

In a situation you have to decide for fight or flight. You know that you are good in something but you know that
there is the possibility to fail.
Low self-esteem: not failing is much more important than they are motivated to enhance it with success
Protect the self-concept: there was made an intelligence test and the participants get a manipulated feed back.
Now they get the possibility to see the results from the other participants. When a low-esteem person know that
his results are above the average he want to see more results and vice versa
Defensive pessimism: defensive pessimists are motivated by their fear of failure, but they take this gloomy
outlook because the impact of failure can be lessened if it is expected in advance
Positive side on D.p.: the worry and pessimism is used in a constructive way to motivate themselves to work on
the thing they are pessimistic about
Self handicapping: a process in which a person deliberately does the things that increase the probability that
the person fails -> failing is bad but failing without an excuse is worse!

14.2.3.4 Self-Esteem Variability

Self-esteem Variability: the individual difference characteristic. Fluctuations of the self-esteem from day to day or
perhaps from hour to hour.
Self evaluation is changeable: some peoples self-esteem is created by the life events much more than other
persons self-esteem
Michael Kernis: Self-esteem variability is high because:
Enhanced sensitivity for social evaluation
Increased concern about the self-view
Overtly on social sources of evaluation
React to evaluation with anger and hostility
Research of self- esteem level: The relation between depression and self-esteem level is much stronger for persons
with high self-esteem variability.
-> depression is thought to be a result of vulnerability of the self-deprecating events of everyday life

14.3 Shyness: When Objective Self-Awareness Becomes Chronic

Shy persons:
Want to become invisible in social interaction
Anxious by the interaction
Not good promoters of themselves
Desire friendships and social interactions but they are blocked by their fears
Not necessarily introverts (introverts love the quietness and to be alone)
Handicap, deny themselves the opportunities to learn and practice the very social skills they need for social
openness

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Jerome Kagan: longitudinal survey

20% of 4 month old babies exhibit signs of shyness
As young children they exhibit signs of shyness, too
A few more years roughly the half of the shy children were transformed and were no longer shy in later
childhood
That is the result of parental treatment: they push their children away to join groups, talk to other
childrenThat is Socialisation.
Social anxiety: Discomfort related to interactions, or even to the anticipation of social interactions
Social anxiety persons:
Overly concerned about others will think about them
Become evaluated as unfriendly rather than shy
Do not ask for help because they are frightened about a embarrassing situation
Thought that other persons liked them less and others thought they were less competent
Reasons:
Genetics? Learned?
Evaluation apprehension: the idea that shy persons are apprehensive about being evaluated by others
Types of shyness:
Schmidt and Fox: people are high in sociability and distinguished in by anxious and fearful
People who are low in sociability and avoid others of their excessive self-consciousness
Amygdala: Part of the limbic system that is most responsible for fear
Results :
Persons who where shy as children showed a greater fMRI response within the amygdala to novel versus
familiar faces
Cortisol (stress hormone): School start experiment: shy children showed an elevated and extended cortisol
response even on the fifth day of school whereas normal children have their average cortisol level back.
Shy persons were more likely to use the Internet for reaction
Stocker: Helping shy persons..
Show up: Confrontation with uncomfortable situations
Give yourself credit: Stop being your own worst critic
Take baby steps: Big goals in small goals with small successes
Give unto others: Attention to others, ask questions
Exude Warmth: create more unverbal positive impressions (paralinguistic)
Anticipate failure: Overcoming shyness is a learning process. Little mistakes must be done.
Join the crowd: Nobody is perfect all time.
(P.476 Henderson/Zimbardo Shyness Questionaire)

14.4 The Sixth Myths of Self-Esteem

1. High self-esteem is correlated with all manner of positive characteristics

Those with high self-esteem may be gorgeous in their own eyes, but they are not necessarily gorgeous in the
eyes of the others
Those people may have an inflated or unrealistic view of their positive characteristics
2. High self-esteem promotes success in school
But there is a little empirical science: self-esteem in the 10.grade only weakly predicted academic achievement
in the 12. Grade. Academic achievement in the 10.grade is higher correlated with the self-esteem on the
12.grade.
3. High self-esteem promotes success on the job
The correlation drop down to zero
4. High self-esteem makes a person likeable
Peer-ranking had shown that there is no real correlation between self-esteem and peer-ranking results

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But the subjects ability to initiate new social contacts and friendships correlate well.
5. Low self-esteem puts a person at risk for drug and alcohol abuse and premature sexual activity
It could be that people with low self-esteem are more willing to disregard risks.
There is evidence that unpleasant sexual experiences and unwanted pregnancies appear to lower self-esteem
There was no correlation found between self-esteem at age 13 and drinking or drug abuse at age 15
6. Only low self-esteem people are aggressive
People with highly inflated view of their own superiority, with narcissistic tendencies, may be prone to violent
reactions
Bullies are often very confident and less socially anxious than average
When peoples self-esteem come under pressure, persons who are narcissistic are more likely to aggress against
the source of the pressure
Conclusions:
Self-esteem improves persistence in negative feedback situations
High self-esteem-> better group performance, happiness, social confidence
Low self-esteem-> depression

14.5 Social Component of the Self: Social Identity

The Social Identity is different to the self-esteem because it is observable, an outward appearance.
The gender and ethnicity are parts of this identity.
Continue an Constant

14.5.1 The Nature of Identity

Continuity: I will be the same person tomorrow as I am today
Aspects of social identity:
(Stable)
Gender surname
Language
Ethnicity
Socioeconomic status
(unstable)
Education
Occupation
Marital status
(public)
Being an athlete or delinquent
Contrast: My social identity is different from others, I am unique. My social identity is a individual combination of
characteristics.

14.5.2 Identity Development

There is a latitude to choose what I want to be known for. I am in a swimming team thereby I choosing the
identity of an athlete.
There is an individual level of the strength of the identity
Erik Erikson: Identity is the result from the efforts to separate oneself from ones parents, try to be independent
Some adolescent persons are experimenting with different identities others attain an identity by accepting and
adopting a social role from their parents.(make over the family business..)
These instant identity adoption making the person closed for new ideas or lifestyles, inflexible
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(P. 484 Application)

14.5.3 Identity Crisis

Erikson:
Identity crisis: Crises in life when you try to create or recreate an individual identity.
Important phase in life
Baumeister: there are two types of identity crisis identity crisis and identity deficit

14.5.3.1 Identity Deficit

Identity deficit: When there is not an adequate and complete formed identity then a person has trouble in making
major decisions because of no inner foundation
Normal people turn inward to make decisions, they know their own preferences and values
Identity crises occur when a person try to interpret a new situation with old values
Then a person have to search for new beliefs, new goals and new values
This creation is a turn from confusing toward euphoric feelings because of new possibilities
In identity crises people are more vulnerable for the influence from others

14.5.3.2 Identity conflict

Identity conflict: There is a cleft between two or more aspects of identity that creates discomfort
People want to work and also want to have a family so there are two controversy goals
There could be intensive feelings of guilt over perceived unfaithfulness to an important aspect of the persons
identity

14.5.3.3 Resolution of Identity Crisis

Identity crisis occur during adolescents
Baumeister:
Two steps of to find a resolution
1.They decide which values are most important to them and 2. They transform this abstract values into desires
and actual behaviors
Example:
A person who want to have family preparing a career with which to support a family. Then this person starts to work
for this goals, he or she assumes a secure identity and is unlikely to experience an identity crisis
Middle age crisis:
Dissatisfaction
If only I had done..!
Doubt of choices in life
People who undergo midlife crisis often act as adolescents again: experiments with alternative lifestyles

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14 Approaches to the self concept

Appendix:
Source and disclaimer:
This is a summary of the book: Randy J. Larsen & David M. Buss (2002). Personality Psychology (International
Edition). McGraw-Hill..
The contents of this summary are not guaranteed to be accurate or without any content errors.

Explanation Colors:

Chapter Headline
Content Headline
Technical Term: explanation technical term
IMPORTANT LINK
Additional Information

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