PSY 380Tuesday February 8, 2000

Today's Topic:

The Self: Who we are and how we feel

Announcements

Exam 1 results posted today on your GSI's office door

Papers due in two weeks (turn in during section Feb 21-25)

Guest Lecturer on Thursday: Greg Feldkamp

Who am I?

What kinds of things come to mind when you think about this question?

The Age of the Self

Some working definitions

personality:

soul:

self:

Early perspectives on the self

William James

Allport

The self-concept

"I am ___________________."

Who or what is I? How do I define myself?

Our answer to these questions form our self-concept

Developing a self-concept

(1) Must see yourself as a distinct entity

(2) Must think about ourselves in relation to others

Cooley's Looking Glass Self (1902)

Mead (1934)

Sullivan (1953)

Common themes

Possible Selves (Higgins, 1987)

actual self

ideal self

ought self

How do we come to know ourselves and how we feel?

Introspection

meditation, psychoanalysis, self-analyzing

self-perception theory

What happens when attention is focus on ourselves?

objective self-awareness (Wicklund, 1975)

How often do we engage in introspection?

Csikszentmihalyi & Figurski (1982)

Influences of other people

social comparison theory

Social Comparison: two questions

When do we compare ourselves to other people?

To whom do we compare ourselves?

When our self-image is threatened...

downward social comparison

When we need motivation or strive for excellence...

upward social comparison

Culture

Where we come from, and the society we live in can shape our self-concepts

2 main distinctions

independent self

interdependent self

Culture