SOCIAL SELF
At the Center of Our Worlds: Our
Sense of Self
I am……………
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Who am I?
SELF-
CONCEPT What we know and believe
about ourselves.
I am…….
Self-schemas: Beliefs about self
that organize and guide the
processing of relevant
information.
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Artistic
Self-Schemas
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SOCIAL COMPARISON
Evaluating one’s abilities and
opinions by comparing oneself with
others.
• May be based on incomplete
information.
“All of my friends are having a lot
Among students attending Utah Valley
more fun than I am”
University, those who spent more time on
Facebook were more likely to believe that other
people were happier and had better lives than
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they did.
Social Comparison has a bigger impact on
self-esteem.
o When we compare ourselves favorably with
others, we feel good about ourselves but
when we feel that others are better off than
we are, our self-esteem is likely to suffer.
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Other People’s Judgements
LOOKING-GLASS Charles H. Cooley
SELF
How we think others perceive us as
a mirror for perceiving ourselves
George Herbert Mead: What
matters for our self concepts is not
how others actually see us but the 7
way we imagine they see us.
Social Identity
“We” aspect of
our self-concept
The part of our
answer to who am I
that comes from our
group memberships.
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Social Identity Theory
Henri Tajfel and Turner
01 WE CATEGORIZE
shorthand way of saying some other
things about the person.
02 WE IDENTIFY
We associate ourselves with certain
groups (ingroups) and gain self
esteem
03 WE COMPARE
We contrast our groups with other
groups (outgroups) with a favorable
bias toward our own group
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SELF-PRESENTATION
Wanting to present a desired image
both to an external audience and to
an internal audience.
Self-presentation
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Act like social
chameleons
SELF- • Tendency to be both motivated and
MONITORING capable of regulating our behavior to
meet the demands of social
situations.
• High in Self-monitoring: “I tend to
be what people expect me to be”
• Low in Self-monitoring: More likely
to talk and act as they feel and
believe
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Conformity
Good or Bad???
CONFORMITY
A change in behavior or
belief as a result of real
or imagined group
pressure.
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Varieties of Conformity
Acceptance Compliance Obedience
Both acting and believing Publicly acting in accord Acting in accord
in accord with social with an implied/explicit with a direct
pressure request while privately order/command
disagreeing
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