Psychology of the Self

The Self

Self-recognition
Recognition of objectified self in
pictures, mirrors, videos.
Develops over 1st two years.
Accompanied by development of
emotions such as guilt and shame.

Self-awareness
Leads to comparisons with others and
affects our behaviourself-discrepancy
theory.

The Self

Self concept
All the learned beliefs, attitudes and
opinions that we hold to be true about
our personal existence.
The image we have of ourselves, good
or bad.
Directs what we pay attention to and
affects how we interact with others.

Self-Concept

Self-concept is built through all the

interactions and experiences we have.
We also recognize and make use of the
cultural patterns of our society.
This is how we "know who we are," that
is, each of us acquires a self-concept.
Our self-concept affects how we respond
and interact with others.

The Self

Self-schema

Our understanding of our self-concept.

Everything about yourself that is important to
you,

e.g., loving your parents, being loyal, being

honest, supporting your friends, being a good
student.

Affects our processing of information in relation

to ourselvesself-referential processing.
Determines our working self-concept, what we
consider makes us distinct (and important) at
any given point in time.

The Self

Self-complexity
We define ourselves in different ways, e.g.,
student, child, parent, athlete, teacher, boss,
employee, etc.
Emphasize different aspects of our self-concept
in each of these roles, and change our
behaviour with each person we interact with.

The Self

Self-esteem
The value we place on ourselves.
A judgement that we make about our
worth.
How much we like ourselves.
Level relates to the difference between
our ideal self and the real self, based
on our self-concept.

The Self

Self-esteem
Self-serving bias

An innate tendency to want to see ourselves

positively.
Tend to ignore negative feedbackjunk mail
metaphor.

Both high and low self-esteem

individuals hold positive illusions:

Overestimate own skills and abilities.

Overestimate level of control over events
Unrealistic predictions of future success .

Maintaining Self-Esteem

Maintaining Self-Esteem

Self-evaluative Maintenance
We act to support our self-esteem.

Social Comparisons
Compare our performance with others.
The standard then affects our self-esteem.

Use Self-serving Bias

Interpret success and failure in the context of
our self-esteem.

High self-esteem: Credit self for success and blame

failure on outside circumstances.
Low self-esteem: Credit outside circumstances for
success and blame failure on self.