PSYC20009 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Social Cognition, Self-Reference, Semantic Equivalence

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14 Jun 2018
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Lecture 8 - Monday 11 September 2017
PSYC20009 - PERSONALITY & SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
LECTURE 8
THE SELF
THE SELF
We are interested in people, including ourselves.
Sources of self-knowledge: psychology, astrology, religion
How can we conceptualize the self?
WILLIAM JAMES
In The consciousness of self chapter of The Principles of Psychology, James (1890) discusses the
constituents of the self:
the feelings and emotions that constituents arouse – self-feelings
the “actions to which they prompt” – self- seeking and self-preservation
CONSTITUENTS OF THE SELF
James distinguished between the Empirical Self or Me and the pure Ego.
The Ego - aspect of self that actively experiences the world.
The stream of consciousness that gives us our sense of personal identity.
“It is the sense of a sameness perceived by thought and predicated of things thought-about.”
The Me - aspect of self that is the object of attention.
THE ME - THE EMPIRICAL SELF
James came up with 3 categories of the empirical self.
The “empirical self” - all the ways people think about themselves.
James argued that there is no clear line between what is me and mine. We feel and act at times
about our things as we feel and act about ourselves.
Three categories of the empirical self:
The material self - all tangible objects, people, or places that carry the designation my or
mine.
The social self - how we are regarded and recognized by others. We have as many social
selves as people who recognize us.
The spiritual self - all things that are not tangible that carry the designation my or mine -
attributes or abilities, pleasure and pain. To think about ourselves as thinkers.
SELF FEELINGS
Two opposite kinds of self-feelings (affections for the self) which are elementary endowments of
human nature:
Self-complacency or self-satisfaction.
Self-dissatisfaction.
Not just expectations of pleasure and pain (cf. hedonic principal).
Result from one’s actual successes and failures.
These are “primitive” emotions, just like rage and pain.
ACTIONS OF THE SELF
According to James, we have fundamental impulses that are designed to either improve the self
(i.e., provide for the future) or maintain it (i.e., sustain the present). These are self-seeking and
self- preservation actions.
These actions are prompted by emotions (i.e., self-feelings).
Material and social self-seeking involve things, such as proving for our needs, and social things,
such as being friendly, curious, and emulating others.
Spiritual self-seeking involves “every impulse towards psychic progress”, including intellectual,
moral, and spiritual pursuits in the narrow sense.
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Lecture 8 - Monday 11 September 2017
PSYC20009 - PERSONALITY & SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
These actions determine whether we engage in self seeking (for future) or self preservation (for
present) behaviours.
CONFLICT BETWEEN SELF STRIVINGS
We have many ideas about what we would like to become (in modern social psychology these are
known as possible selves – Markus & Nurius).
It is not possible to become all the things we would like to be (e.g., a ‘party animal’ and a
philanthropist) because they are incompatible.
We must pick one on which to stake our salvation and relinquish all others.
Our self-feelings are based on what we “back ourselves to be”.
Self-esteem = Success/Pretensions. One way to improve self-esteem is to relinquish pretensions.
SELF SCHEMA
Markus (1977)
According to Markus self schema:
Are cognitive generalizations about the self. Are derived from past experience.
Organize and guide the processing of self-related information that are part of the individual’s
social experience.
SELF SCHEMA PROPERTIES
Self schemas are cognitive representations derived from specific events and situations involving the
individual as well as more general representations.
Self schemas represent the way the self has been differentiated and articulated in memory.
Self schemas reflect the invariances people have discovered in their own social behaviour –
patterns that have been observed repeatedly.
SCHEMA FUNCTIONS
Determine whether information is attended to, how it is structured, how much importance is
attached to it, and what happens to it subsequently.
Allow inferences to be made from scant information or to quickly streamline and interpret
complex sequences of events: is it relevant to me? Is it not relevant? Does it tell me something
about myself?
Allow us to go beyond the currently available information.
Only when a self-description derives from a well-articulated generalization about the self can it
be expected to converge and form a cognitive pattern with the individual’s other judgments,
decisions, and actions.
So, we must consider the schematicity of self descriptions.
CASE STUDY 1: IMPACT OF SELF SCHEMA ON INFORMATION SELECTION &
PROCESSING
Behavioural evidence should be easily retrievable.
Individual differences in the form of self-schemata should be evident: some people will have 1
schema, some will have another.
Information relevant to self-schemata should be processed with relative ease.
Confident predictions made about future events. Counter-schematic information should be
resisted.
EXPERIMENTAL GROUP CONSTRUCTION
Participants rated descriptiveness and importance of personality traits in terms of themself (11-
point scales).
Consistent pattern found on independence-dependence.
Independents – rated descriptiveness and importance of independent traits high (8-11 on 2/3 of
scales).
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Lecture 8 - Monday 11 September 2017
PSYC20009 - PERSONALITY & SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
Dependents - rated descriptiveness and importance of dependent traits high (8-11 on 2/3 of
scales).
Aschematics - rated descriptiveness and importance of independent and dependent low (1-4 on
2/3 of scales).
SELF-DESCRIPTIVE CONTENT AND LATENCY
3-4 weeks later participants completed a second task.
69 trait adjectives – 30 schema-related (15 independence, 15 dependence), 30 non-schema
related. Remaining 9 – 3 practice, 3 all rated self-descriptive, 3 not self-descriptive.
Required to indicate “me” or “not me” as fast as possible. Provided reasons why 16 words were
self-descriptive, including
past behaviour.!
Rated the likelihood of engaging in
relevant behaviours.
LATENCY OF JUDGEMENTS
Independents responded fastest.
People who see themselves as
independent should respond fastest
when saying an independent word
is self-descriptive and vice versa.
When a word is not self
descriptive it takes longer for the
independents to reject it if it is not
independent?
SUBJECTIVE LIKELIHOOD OF
BEHAVIOURS
Subjective likelihood of engaging
in behaviours that are dependent
or independent behaviours.
CONCLUSIONS
Systematic differences among the
3 groups in the selection &
processing of information about
the self.
“Independents” endorsed more independent traits as self-descriptive, required shorter processing
times for “me” judgments, and were more likely to engage in independent behaviours.
Similar pattern of results for “Dependents”
“Aschematics” showed inconsistencies.
Basically, schemas are important for information processing about ourselves.
SELF-REFERENCE EFFECTS IN ENCODING
Rogers, Kuiper & Kirker (1977)
Self reference effect: Information that refers to ourself has an effect on how the information is
encoded.
The self is an extremely active and powerful agent in the organization of the world.
Does self-reference serve a meaningful function in the processing of information?
Specifically does self-reference lead to deeper processing of information and, thus, improved
recall of information?
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Document Summary

William james: in the consciousness of self chapter of the principles of psychology, james (1890) discusses the constituents of the self, the feelings and emotions that constituents arouse self-feelings, the actions to which they prompt self- seeking and self-preservation. The me - the empirical self: james came up with 3 categories of the empirical self, the empirical self - all the ways people think about themselves, james argued that there is no clear line between what is me and mine. We have as many social selves as people who recognize us: the spiritual self - all things that are not tangible that carry the designation my or mine - attributes or abilities, pleasure and pain. Actions of the self: according to james, we have fundamental impulses that are designed to either improve the self (i. e. , provide for the future) or maintain it (i. e. , sustain the present).

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