KLA210 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Gender Identity, Terror Management Theory, Motivation
Social psychology week 5: Self identity
Who a I:
- Need idea of reflexivity
oYou are separate from others
oNew idea relatively
- Previously determined by the family you were born into to
- Secularization and industrialization allow development of a contained self-
determining entity
oNeed to be able to say Gods will might be something other than what
my parents did
oIndustrialization: born into village doesn’t mean staying there now
Removed self from fixed social structures
oMain differences between cultures
oThe role that the community and those within it, differs between
cultures
oNot fixed in individualist cultures
- Behaviouralism: all about behaviour, don’t need an idea of self
oIf you reward etc. increases behaviour
oEveryone subject to principles of everyone else
oIf you are successful this behaviour is increased : horse shoe game
Doesn’t explain why people chose to challenge themselves
once they achieve something
Lewin, Dembo, Festinger, Sears:
Motivational system that drives you to try new things
and seek new rewards
Behaviorism predicts that participants would repeat
successful behaviour
- Psychodynamic:
oSelf is determined by ID: pleasure principle
oSuperego: aware of some but not all
oEgo: tries to suppress
Reality principle
oParts that we are not aware of, a bit aware of, aware of
oWhat society wants and what we appose on ourselves
oSelf is shaped by early experiences
oSubconscious: need to undergo techniques to retrieve these
Analyse dreams
Hypnosis
Psychoanalysis
oComprehensive self-knowledge is possible only via these methods
oThe id (unsocialised and selfish impulses) is the driving force behind
self, but is kept in check by the superego (internalized social norms)
oWidespread impact in social psychology
Dominant early on
Authoritarian personality: socialized in this manner
Explains things such as the Holocaust
Adorno theory
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Cannot test any of these theories
Personality shaped by child rearing factors:
Explanation for success of Fascism
oSelf we are not even aware of entirely
Need hypnosis etc.
Personal and private: self
Many of the ways we identify ourselves in collective:
Comparing to others
I am tall eg.
Doesn’t explain private self
What aspects relate to other people
oCollective self:
LeBon: appalled by cultivated people’s behaviour in a crowd
Individual behaviour is suppressed in a group
Group mind (McDougall)
Grows out of interactions
Qualitatively different from individuals minds
Interaction leads to new rules and ideas that govern
behaviour
And new thinking emerges
Crucial paradigm for thinking of ourselves as an entity
First attempt to isolate the self
- The looking glass self: Mead
oSelf is derived from how others see us
oWe don’t know who we are
oResults from the interactions with other people
oInformation gained from interactions
oComparisons: only know we are tall, funny etc. because others tell us,
laugh etc.
oSymbolic interactionist self:
Self results from interaction
I = stream of consciousness
Me = object of perception
We are aware of me: integrates object of perception
Information shared by symbolic interactions
Words
Gestures
Abstract these symbolic gestures: only have a meaning
because we ascribe something to it
Get information
Our self-conception arises from, and is continually
modified by interaction with others
Prediction: strong correlation between how we rate
ourselves and how others rate us
Might perceive ourselves different depending on who
we are interacting with at the time
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oIn order to get an idea of how others think: also need a theory of mind
of the other person
An idea of how they think
Be aware that others might see us as representative of a specific
group
Collective us: represent others in that group
These aspects seen to be most important
See ourselves as a social object as well as understand others
minds
oWe actually are immune to what others think of us
oWe see ourselves in the way we think others think of us
Different to what someone tells you, and what you think they
think of you
oThis means that:
We don’t actually take the role of the other in constructing the
self
Communication in social contexts is too noisy and inaccurate to
be sure what others think
oPeople are generally unaware of what others think of them
Don’t realize bad things
oMultiple selves:
Act in many different roles in our lives
Different behaviour in different situations
Self complexity: number and diversity of selves or self aspects
A way of measuring this
People differ in this
Diverging role and different aspects of self = more
complex self
oSelf-coherence:
Idea that being able to fulfill more roles and drawing aspects
from many places, might be a good thing
Positive aspects might buffer negative impacts on another
domain
When one aspect is challenged
Higher self-complexity = higher levels of psychological and
physical health
Buffering
Fragmentation leads to inefficient functioning
But how do we maintain a sense of coherence as a single
individual?
Ways to achieve coherent self:
Restrict life to a limited set of contexts, or just focus on
present situation/self
Reduces demands of self-complexity
Fazio, Efferein, and Falender 1981:
Students primed to self-report as introverted or
extraverted then placed in room with strangers
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Document Summary
Need idea of reflexivity: you are separate from others, new idea relatively. Previously determined by the family you were born into to. Secularization and industrialization allow development of a contained self- determining entity: need to be able to say gods will might be something other than what my parents did, industrialization: born into village doesn"t mean staying there now. Removed self from fixed social structures: main differences between cultures, the role that the community and those within it, differs between cultures, not fixed in individualist cultures. Behaviouralism: all about behaviour, don"t need an idea of self: if you reward etc. increases behaviour, everyone subject to principles of everyone else, if you are successful this behaviour is increased : horse shoe game. Doesn"t explain why people chose to challenge themselves once they achieve something. Motivational system that drives you to try new things and seek new rewards. Behaviorism predicts that participants would repeat successful behaviour.
