PSYC 2740 Study Guide - Final Guide: Work Ethic, Standard Deviation, Lexical Hypothesis
78 views35 pages
9 Oct 2012
School
Department
Course
Professor

PERSONALITY EXAM REVIEW 12/12/2011 9:29:00 AM
CHAPTER 14- APPROACHES TO THE SELF
Self-concept (understanding of yourself)
Development of the self concept
o Infancy distinguish self as distinct from world around us
Awareness of one‟s body
18 months: self recognition (required for „pretend play‟)
ex. Recognition in mirrors
o 2-3 identify with own age/sex, then with own family
identify self in photo‟s
recognize people have expectations for them (ex. Rules)
develop sense of self relative to standards
o 3-12 based on talents & skills (someone who can do this/can‟t do this)
5-6 social comparison & awareness of private self
evaluate self in comparison with others
realize private self (can lie, keep secrets- hidden self)
o adolescence
perspective taking: ability to take others perspectives, to step
outside oneself and imagine who one appears to others.
objective awareness: seeing oneself as an object of others
attention (shyness).
Shyness: chronic objective awareness
o Evaluation apprehension:
Shyness Want interaction but held back by insecurity
Social anxiety Discomfort during interactions or anticipation of
them.
o Social anxiety disorder:
Significant fear in 1+ social/performance situations
The fear is of social humiliation/embarrassment
Exposure to this situation leads to high anxiety
Person views fear as excessivm e/unreasonable
The anxiety causes impairment in 1+ areas of life
o Treating social anxiety disorder:
Cognitive-behaviour therapy:
Challenge thought distortions
Exposure to fearful situations (gradual)

Self-Schemata:
o Self schemata Cognitive representation of the self-concept, based on
past experience, guide the processing of information about self. (key in
social interaction)
o Possible selves Schema for future selves, ideas about what they might
become/hope to become/fear of becoming.
inspiration for future behaviour
allow us to stay on schedule, work towards self-improvement.
o self guides standards one uses to organize info and motivate appropriate
behaviour.
1) ideal self what a person wants to be
built on one‟s own desires/goals
promotion focus leads you to focus on achievement/goal
accomplishment (pleasure).
2) ought self understanding of what others want them to be.
Built on responsibilities & commitments to others
Prevention focus leads you to focus on avoiding harm &
seeking safety (relief).
Conflict between 2 selves can cause depression, disappointment,
guilt, anxiousness.
Self-esteem (how you feel about who you are from evaluation of ones self)
Self esteem:
o On a good-bad or like-dislike dimension
o Varies temporally, but has average
o Varies by area of life or aspect of self
Development of self esteem:
o Childhood re: expectations
o Later childhood re: social comparison
o Internal standards re: self concept
Reactions to Criticisms & failure feedback:
o Following failure feedback:
Low self-esteem poorer performance & give up
High self-esteem try as hard & less likely to give up
o Following failure in 1 area:
Low self-esteem generalize failure to other areas

High self-esteem focus on successes in other areas
Self-complexity have many roles/aspects of our self-concept
o High self-complexity failure in one aspect is buffered by all the other
events that remain unaffected
o Low self-complexity failure in one aspect is much more devastating
since it is much more defining to themselves.
Protecting vs enhancing self:
o High self-esteem enhance self concept through risk taking & striving for
success
o Low self-esteem protect self concept by avoiding failure
Strategies:
Defense pessimism when a person faces a challenge they
expect to do poorly
impact of failure is lessoned if expected in advance
Use worry to motivate themselves to work on what
they‟re pessimistic about.
Self-handicapping person deliberately does things to
increase the probability that they will fail.
Can provide an excuse for failing.
Variability:
o Self esteem variability magnitude of short-term fluctuations in self-
esteem, due to one‟s self-worth of daily life events.
o Note:
Researchers make a distinction between level & variability of self
esteem (unrelated).
Variability is related to the extent which one‟s self-evaluation is
changeable. (some peoples self-esteem is changed by life events
more than others).
o High variability related too..
Enhanced sensitivity to social evaluation events
Increased concern about self view
Over rely on sources of evaluation
React to evaluation with anger/hostility.
Body dysmorphic disorder: Kayla