Gilovich • Keltner • Nisbett
Social
Psychology
SECOND EDITION
Chapter 3
The Social Self
©2011 W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
Personality Development
• Biological dispositions
– Five-factor Model of Personality
• Five traits that are basic building blocks of
personality
• Openness to experience,
conscientiousness, extraversion,
agreeableness, and neuroticism
• Traits are highly heritable and are linked to
specific biological processes
Personality Development
• Family influence and Sibling dynamics
– Diversification
• Siblings may take on different roles in the
family to minimize conflicts
– Birth order may influence personality traits
• Older siblings often more responsible and
supportive of the status quo, younger
siblings often more rebellious and open to
new experiences
Culture and the Self
• Independent view of self
– Self seen as a distinct, autonomous entity,
separate from others and defined by
individual traits and preferences
• Interdependent view of self
– Self seen as connected to others, defined by
social duties and shared traits and
preferences
Culture and the Self
• Independent views of self more prominent
in North American and Western European
cultures
• Interdependent views of self more
prominent in many East Asian, South
Asia, Mediterranean, Latin American, and
African cultures
Gender and the Self
• Across cultures, men have more independent
views of self and women have more
interdependent views of self
– Women more likely to refer to relationship
when describing self
– Women are more attuned to external social
cues whereas as men are more attuned to
their internal responses
Gender and the Self
• Differences may be due to socialization
– Cultural stereotypes, parental feedback,
educational treatment
• Evolution may contribute to gender differences
– Independent views of self may advantage
males in acts like physical competition and
hunting
– Interdependent views of self may advantage
females in acts related to maintaining social
bonds and caregiving
Situationism and the Self
• Aspects of self may change depending on the
situation
• Social context
– Sense of self may shift dramatically
depending on who we are interacting with
• For instance, may feel different about self
when interacting with authority figures than
when interacting with subordinates
Situationism and the Self
• Distinctiveness
– May highlight aspects of self that make us
feel most unique in a given context
• For instance, age may seem more
important to self definition if you are
surrounded by much older people
Self Construals
• Social Comparison Theory
– The hypothesis that we evaluate ourselves
through comparisons to others
– Downward social comparisons may boosts
self-esteem by making us feel better about self
– Upward social comparisons may motivate selfimprovement
Self Construals
• Self as a narrative
– Construct a story about self to make sense of
who we are and how we’ve changed over time
– Individualists may recall life events from own
perspective
– Collectivists may recall life events from others
perspective
Self Construals
• Better-than-Average effect
– Most Westerners tend to have positive view of
self.
– Tend to rate self as better than average on
most traits
– Weight abilities we excel at as more valuable
Self Knowledge
• Knowledge about self helps organize how we
behave in different situations and with different
people
• Social self-beliefs
–Beliefs about the roles and duties we
assume in different groups
Self Knowledge
• Relational self-beliefs
– Beliefs about our identities in specific
relationship
• For instance, who you are as a son/daughter
feels different than who you are as a
boyfirend/girlfriend
• Collective self-beliefs
– Beliefs about our identity as members of
important social categories
• Examples could be identity based on
citizenship, ethnicity, gender, profession, etc.
Self-Knowledge Organizes
Information
• Self-reference effect
– Better remember information related to self
• For instance, better remember list of
adjectives if considering whether the
adjectives apply to self
• Self-Schema
– Knowledge about self
– Conclusions about our behaviors and
preferences and about how we are viewed by
others
Self-Knowledge Organizes
Information
• Self-Image bias
– Tendency to weight our evaluations of other
people by how we view our self
– Traits that are valued in oneself are valued in
others
• For instance, If you view yourself as
intelligent you may judge others heavily by
how intelligent you perceive them to be
Self-Knowledge Motivates
Behavior
• Self-Discrepancy Theory
– Behavior is motivated by cultural and
personal moral standards
– Individuals want to resolve discrepancies of
who they are with who they want to be or
ought to be
– Types of Self
• Actual self -- The person we believe
ourselves to be
• Ideal self --The person we wish we could
be
• Ought self -- The person we feel should be
Self-Knowledge Motivates
Behavior
– Promotion Focus
• Focus on positive outcomes and moving
towards becoming ideal self
– Prevention focus
• Focus on negative outcomes and attempt
to avoid not living up to our ought self
Ego Depletion
• Regulating behavior requires mental energy, but
mental resources are limited
• Ego Depletion
– State where previous acts of self-control
drains ability to control future behavior
• For instance, participants who controlled
behavior by eating healthy radishes instead
of delicious cookies, gave up faster when
they had to solve a puzzle later
Illusions about Self
• Positive Illusions and Mental Health
– Most assume that proper mental health is
marked by realistic views of the world
– Research suggests that most well-adjusted
people may have slightly unrealistic views
about themselves
• Benefits of positive illusions
– Elevate positive mood and reduce negative
mood
– Foster social bonds by making people more
outgoing
– Promote pursuit and persistence at goals
Illusions about Self
• Costs of positive illusions
– Positive illusions may be detrimental if
overestimation of abilities leads to poor
performance
Common Positive Illusions
• Unrealistically positive views of self
– Believe positive traits are more true of self
than negative traits
– Believe positive traits are unique but negative
traits are common
• Exaggerated perceptions of control
– Believe have more control over events than
we do
• Personally would rather throw dice to win a
game. Feel as if we can somehow throw it
just right
Common Positive Illusions
• Unrealistic optimism
– Believe positive events more likely to happen
to self than to other people
Cultural and Positive Illusions
• Positive Illusions about self more common
in individualistic cultures
– Members of collectivistic cultures less likely to
report enhanced feelings of control, less likely
to rate themselves as better than average, or
be unrealistically optimistic
Cultural and Positive Illusions
• Individualistic cultures place greater value
on positive views of self than collectivistic
cultures
– Positive illusions promote a feelings that the
self is unique, independent, and good
Self Evaluation
• Self-esteem
– Overall positive or negative evaluation we
have of ourselves
– Trait self-esteem
• Enduring level of regard we have for
ourselves
• Fairly stable across time
– State self-esteem
• Dynamic and changeable feelings about
self felt at different moments in time
Self Evaluation
• Contingencies of Self-Worth
– Domains that are important to an individual
evaluation of self
• For instance, someone who values
academic competence would show a boost
in state self-esteem after getting a good
grade
• Self-Complexity may protect self-esteem
– People who have man contingencies of selfworth may have smaller decreases in selfesteem after failures in any one domain
Motives for Self-Evaluation
• Self-evaluation maintenance model
– Motivated to maintain positive self-esteem
– Positive self-evaluations maintained through
reflection and strategic social comparisons
• Reflection – associating ourselves with the
accomplishments of others
• Social comparisons – choose to compare
self to others in ways that favor ourselves
Motives for Self-Evaluation
• Motivations for friendships
– Prefer friends who don’t outshine us in
domains contingent to our self-worth
– Having friends who excel in other domains
can boost self-esteem by allowing us to bask
in their reflected glory
Motives for Self-Evaluation
• Self-verification theory
– Motivated to have views of self that are
accurate, consistent, and coherent
– Desire accurate views of abilities to ensure
more success and less failure in social
interactions
Motives for Self-Evaluation
• Verifying information
– May maintain consistent view of self by
selectively paying attention to information
consistent with self-view
– May associate with people who provide
preferred feedback about self
– Use identity cues to display our self-view to
others
Culture and Self-Esteem
• Members of individualistic cultures tend to report
higher levels of self-esteem than collectivistic
cultures
– Feeling good about the self as an individual is
more valued in Western cultures
– For instance, many Asian language have no
equivalent word for the idea of self-esteem
Culture and Self-Esteem
• Members of collectivistic cultures place more
value on self-improvement
– Less emphasis on feeling good about the self
and more emphasis on feeling good about
one’s contribution to collective goals
• Contact with other cultures can influence views
of self
– For instance, Asians in more contact with
Western cultures report higher levels of selfesteem than those without Western contact
Dangers of High Self-Esteem
• People with high self-esteem may be
more sensitive to threats, insults, and
challenges
– If high self-esteem is unwarranted it may feel
insecure. May react more aggressively when
self-esteem is threatened
Dangers of High Self-Esteem
• Inflated self-esteem can be
counterproductive
– Many psychopaths, murderers, rapists, and
violent gang member have very high selfesteems
– High self-esteem may allow individuals to be
satisfied with self despite poor life outcomes
Self-Presentation
• Impression management
– Attempts to control how other people will view
us
• For instance, by managing how you dress,
behave in public, who you associate with,
what you reveal about yourself to others
– When interacting with others present a public
face that we want others to believe
• Public self-consciousness
– Awareness of what others think of us
Self-Presentation
• Private self-consciousness
– Awareness of our own internal feelings,
thoughts, and preferences
• Self-monitoring
– The tendency to monitor and scrutinize one’s
behaviors when in a public situation
– High self-monitors try to fit their behavior to the
situation whereas a low self-monitor is more
likely to behave follow internal preferences
Self-Handicapping
• Self-handicapping
– Tendency to engage in self-defeating
behavior to prevent others from assuming a
poor performance was due to a lack of ability
• Self-handicapping may be a strategy for
protecting the public self
Self-Handicapping
– Self-handicapping provides an excuse for
poor performance and emphasizes good
performance
• For instance, partying all night before an
important exam.
• If you do poorly, you can blame it on the
party the night before and not on a lack of
ability.
• If you do well, then you and others may
conclude that you have tremendous ability
Self-Presentation and
Language
• May strategically communicate in ways to
preserve the public face or ourselves and
others
• On-record communication
– Direct honest language meant to be taken
literally
• “Did you like the movie” “Actually, I didn’t
think it was very good”
Self-Presentation and
Language
• Off-record communication
– Indirect and ambiguous language that hints
at ideas and meaning but not explicitly
stated
• “Did you like the movie” “Umm.. It was
very interesting”
• Behaviors like flirting and teasing are examples
of off-record communications
– Want the other person to infer meanings
from what we say without us saying it directly