PSY 306 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Social Comparison Theory, Comparator, In Private
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10 Aug 2019
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What is the self? (Part 2)
The Self
What does the ‘other’ do?
● Tell us about the world and what’s in it
● Treat us as though we have a self
● Tell us what kind of self we have
● Tells us what kind of self we ought to have
● Soothes our needs (regulate the self)
○ Food, clothes, shelter
○ Mom drags “me” out of bed
How the other shapes our ‘self’
● We internalize their perspective
● We treat ourselves like we have a self
● We learn what we are like
● We learn what we ought to be like
● We learn to sooth our own needs
○ Regulating the self
○ “I” drag “me” out of bed
Objective Self-
Awareness
Robert Wicklund (1972)
● Can either focus on outside world or on the self
○ Focus on self is a social object for others, thus “object” or
objective self-awareness
● We objectively self-aware use “generalized other” to evaluate and
guide behavior
○ Generalized other doesn’t always guide behavior
○ Only when made objectively self-aware
● Comparing self to these high standards and expectations is aversive
○ Upwards social comparison
● Options:
○ Change self-concept
○ Escape self-awareness (physically and psychologically)
● OSA and social“object”ness
○ Hypothesis” being made objectively self-aware should make
you evaluate yourself from the outside
○ Evaluate your self more like you would evaluate a stranger
Actor-Observer
Effect
● From your normal view, you think own behavior is due to the
situation and other’s behavior is due to personality
○ Blame others for awkwardness but not self (FAE/
Correspondence Bias)
● From the other video view, think of own behavior as due to
disposition
○ Treat self like “an other”
OSA is aversive
● Hypothesis: OSA makes us feel bad
○ Being made objectively self-aware reminds you of how you
should be
● This typically reminds us of how we are not doing well enough at
something
○ This makes us feel bad about ourselves
OSA and Escape
● Hypothesis: because objective self-awareness is aversive, people will
try to escape this state if possible
OSA and Behavior
● The other alternative besides “escape” is to conform behavior to the
generalized other or the relevant comparator or standard
○ Change behavior
Trick or Treat
● Why do only the older kids show bigger effect?
○ 13 year olds have started to experience the aversiveness of
being a social “object”
○ Halloween costumes may produce a bigger release for these
kids who spend a lot of their time suppressing their impulses
○ Deindividuation: loss of identity and sense of responsibility
What gets activated?