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THE SELF

EARLY THEORISTS OF ‘THE SELF’William James, Charles Cooley

SELF-CONCEPT & SELF-ESTEEMPelham & Swann (1989)Gender differences? Self-objectification theory

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EARLY THEORISTS OF THE ‘SELF’

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WILLIAM JAMES (1842--1910) “Principles of Psychology”

Duality of Self:

• Self as object than can be observed I have property X “me”

• Self as agent doing the observing Self as the perceiver “I” Related to consciousness: the “I” does the perceiving, feeling,

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CHARLES COOLEY (1864-1929) “Human Nature and the Social Order”

The Social Self:

• Self can’t be understood in isolation--must be studied in interaction with others

• Self is not an inherent property of human nature but rather a socially-constructed entity: our sense of self is built upon the life-long experience of seeing ourselves through the eyes of others (“looking-glass self”)

James, Mead, Cooley --> SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM

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SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM

(Social) reality is an illusion, nothing is inherently real, only the meanings and symbols we collectively construct and use to describe reality are real; these symbols can be deconstructed to reveal who develop them and how they are useful to particular groups.

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SELF-CONCEPT & SELF-ESTEEM

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How do people move from having specific knowledge about their attributes to global evaluations of their self-worth?

Augusto Pinochet (1915-?) Sylvia Plath (1932-1963)

Undeserved high self-esteem ? Undeserved low self-esteem ?

PARADOX: Often there is no obvious relationship between people’s accomplishments and virtues and their global self-esteem

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PELHAM & SWANN (1989)

GLOBAL SELF-ESTEEM (GSE)General affective evaluation of own’s worth or importance. 2 components:

(1) Affective component: COLOR• Basic sense of pride/shame about oneself.• Largely rooted in temperament (individual differences in basic tendency to feel positive and negative emotions) and early childhood experiences; stable, fuzzy, unconscious, hard to verbalize, spontaneous, irrational (“feeling is believing”) • Also known as trait self-esteem

(2) Cognitive component: CONTENT• Known as self-concept (SC)• Hierarchically organized set of specific mental self-views about one’s characteristics (roles, abilities, etc.) and their evaluation• Dynamic, clear, verbalized, rational (“seeing is believing”)

Framing factors: DYNAMICS1. Attribute importance 2. Attribute certainty determine impact of SC on 3. Actual/Ideal/Ought Self discrepancy GSE

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POSITIVE & NEGATIVE AFFECT

SELF-CONCEPT(COGNITIVE

COMPONENT)

TRAITSELF-

ESTEEM(AFFECTIVE

COMPONENT)

GLOBAL SELF-ESTEEM

FRAMING FACTORS:1. Attribute importance 2. Attribute certainty 3. Actual/Ideal/Ought discrepancy

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Gender differences in global self-esteem ?

• Not reliable and/or sizable differences have been found in adults (Maccoby & Jacklin, 1974)

• Sources of global self-esteem associated to different things for men and women(Josephs, Markus, & Tafarodi, 1992)

Differences in agency and communion

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• Girl’s self-confidence fairly high until age 11 or 12– Assertive about feelings

• At adolescence– Many girls accept stereotyped

notions of how they should be (behavior and looks)•Repress true feelings•Adopt a “nice” and woman-like

self-presentation

GIRLS SELF-ESTEEM (Gilligan, 1990)

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PHYSICAL SELF IN YOUNG WOMEN

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SELF-OBJECTIFICATION(Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997)

American culture socializes women to adopt observers' perspectives on their physical selves.

This self-objectification is hypothesized to (a) produce body shame restrained eating, and (b) consume attentional resources.

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Highly recommended reading !!

Fredrickson, Roberts, Noll, Quinn, & Twenge (1998). That swimsuit becomes you: Sex differences in self-objectification, restrained eating, and math performance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

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Question for the class:

Why is self-esteem in (Caucasian) girls lower than for

the other ethnic groups?