Chapter 5: The Social Self

1. Chapter 5: The Social Self

2. Is Self-Awareness Uniquely Human? • Mirror Self-Recognition (video clips) • The “rouge test”: mark on brow + mirror • Toddlers as young as 2 y-o • Chimps, orangutans, dolphins, elephants • Gorillas and monkeys

3. Outline • Origins of the self • Environmental influences • Heredity • Self-evaluation and self-esteem • Self-enhancement • Self-acceptance

4. The origins of the self • Environmental: • Culture—individualism vs. collectivism • Family—birth order • Genetic heritability

5. The Twenty Statement Test • I am ____________ • I am ____________ • I am ____________ • I am ____________ • I am ____________

6. Self-Construal across Cultures • Independent self: • Interdependent self: • Both selves co-exist in all individuals but differentially accessible

7. Individualism-Collectivism • Individualism: • Collectivism:

9. Fitting in vs. individual capacity? Suppose you, as a manager, are hiring a new employee to work in your department. Which of the two following considerations are more important to you? • She must fit into the group in which he/she is to work • She must have the skills, the knowledge, and a previous success record Percent choosing individual capacity: USA CAN AUS NL GER UK BEL IT FRA SWE JAP SIN

10. Morality justice- or obligation-based? You run a division of a large company. One of your subordinates, whom you know has trouble at home, is frequently coming in late. What right has this colleague to be protected by you from others in the department? Percent choosing “no right” USA GER SWE UK NL AUS CAN SIN BEL JAP IT FR

12. Birth Order and Personality • Effect of birth order on personality first noted by Alfred Adler, student of Freud • First borns: receive attention & resources, later “dethroned” by later borns • Later borns: receive less attention & resources, jealous of privileges of first borns

13. Birth Order and Personality • First borns: preservers of the order • Art: Freud, Sylvia Plath, Nabokov, Shirley MacLane, • Politics: Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Winston Churchill, Jimmy Carter, Saddam Hussein, Joseph Stalin, Mussolini,Brezhnev • Later borns: destroyers of the order • Art: Camus, Dostoyevski, Tolstoy, Mark Twain, Voltaire, Oscar Wilde • Politics: Fidel Castro, Simon Bolivar, Napoleon, Cromwell, Ben Franklin, Gandhi, Ho Chi Minh, Khomeini, Lenin, Trotski

14. Birth Order and Personality • First borns: • Dominant/assertive, conformist, conscientious • Supporters of status quo • overrepresented among Prime Ministers, US Prez, US Senate, prominent scientists • Later borns: • rebellious, creative, manipulative, open to new ideas • Supporters of revolutionary movements • overrepresented among creative artists, scientists with novel views, political revolutionaries

15. Birth Order and Personality • Pro vs anti-establishment achievements for first vs. later borns • Sulloway’s historical analysis of reaction of 3000 scientists to new theories • First borns • Later borns • Darwin’s evolutionary theory:

16. Birth Order and Personality • Similar pattern with daughters • Statistical pattern, with many exceptions –not destiny (one of many factors) • Criticism: Unclear exactly how b-o has its effect • Frank Sulloway’s book, Born to Rebel

17. Two kinds of evidence for heritability of personality • Adoption studies • Compare one’s personality to adopted parents (low) vs. biological parents (high) • Twin studies • Compare personality of identical twins (100%) vs. fraternal twins (50%)

18. Heritability of Personality Traits

19. Critique of heritability studies • Robust evidence of some heritability, but: • Between-family environmental diffs. may not be that different (adoption studies) • Family environment not same for siblings • Identical twins may be treated differently than fraternal twins (twin studies) • h coefficient for IQ much lower in low SES than high SES groups – possibly for personality too

20. How Does Personality Affect Behaviour? • Little evidence of cross-situational stability of behaviour • But good evidence of reliable situation-specific personality in IF-THEN form (Mischel & Shoda, 1995) • Mary: In situation x more shy, in situation y less shy, etc. • Rajiv: In situation x less agreeable, in situation y more agreeable, etc.

21. Person-Situation Interactions, Mischel & Shoda, 1995 Mary Rajiv Izumi Shyness Roberto When rejected With new people When praised

22. The Multiple Origins of Self and Personality • “Nature proposes, culture disposes” • Heritable biases to act in certain ways • Family, peers, larger culture shape, elaborate, change these biases • No one factor is deterministic—orchestra metaphor

23. Self-Evaluation Varieties of Self-Esteem self-esteem – trait self-esteem – state self-esteem – *implicit self-esteem –

25. Implicit Self-esteem • The name-letter and birthday number effects • Self-esteem IAT

26. Self-esteem • Self-esteem as self-enhancement: seeing oneself in a positive light; exaggerating one’s favorable attributes, minimizing unfavorable ones

27. Self-enhancement Strategies • Strategic social comparison • Unrealistic optimism • Exaggerated sense of control • Better than average effect

28. Consequences of high self-enhancement and self-esteem • High self-esteem predicts • Very low self-esteem is • Risk factor for

29. Consequences of high self-enhancement and self-esteem But very high self-esteem (esp. manifested as self-enhancement): • More difficulty • Overconfidence • When ego is threatened, • Narcissism and inflated egos

30. When big egos are threatened (Heatherton & Vohs, 2000 Failure feedback on an aptitude test Response to failure Only people with high self-esteem responded with aggressiveness

32. Self-esteem • Self-esteem as self-enhancement: seeing oneself in a positive light; exaggerating one’s favorable attributes, minimizing unfavorable ones • Self-esteem as self-acceptance, valuing oneself (including one’s shortcomings) without conditions attached

33. Fragile vs secure high self-esteem • Fragile high self-esteem: • Contingent self-esteemis self-worth based on conditions that we or others place upon us (achievement, physical appearance, social approval) • Inconsistent self-esteem is consciously held inflated views of the self that masks underlying insecurities that one is unaware of

34. When self-esteems collide (Jordan et al, 2003) Only inconsistent self-esteem leads to narcissism and defensiveness High explicit self-esteem + low implicit self esteem = narcissism (NPI)

35. Fragile vs secure high self-esteem • Secure high self-esteem: is unconditional acceptance of an individual by another person or oneself • Unconditional positive regard (Rogers, Maslow) • Self-acceptance--the healthiest form of self esteem • Encouraged in many wisdom traditions

36. Self-acceptance • Self-acceptance: not complacency, opposite of self-denial • Self-compassion: not narcissism, opposite of self-hate • Accepting responsibility for one’s life: not self-blame • Acceptance of the world as is: not defeatism or complacency, opposite of reactivity

37. Summary • The self is shaped by • Culture (individualism-collectivism) • Family (birth order) • Heritability • Personality as person x situation interaction • Self-esteem • Self-acceptance vs self-enhancement • Strategies of self-enhancement • Fragile vs. secure high self-esteem