PSYC 473 Lecture Notes - Social Cognition, Depth Psychology
Document Summary
Lecture 21 social construction of the self [27/03/2013] All our thinking is for how to survive in the world and deal with other people. In addition to the social world around us we also think about social construction in relation to the self. Observing ourselves is not as easy as it looks. Even chimpanzees awareness of existence seems to have something to do with social feedback/interaction. Moreover, social interactions we take the vision of others and generalized others in the idea of who we are. This altogether constructs an idea about our self. Culture also plays a role in this construction. American students vs. japanese students: american: personal (e. g. , traits, values, hair colour) 59% vs. 19% Japanese: social (e. g. , roles, collective, where they fit in with other people) 9% vs. Thus, the defining sense of who we are is what you think about yourself in your head and this is different for different cultures.