PSY 380

Thursday, February 10, 2000

Guest Lecturer: Greg Feldkamp

Slide 1

Introduction and Paper 1 Reminder

Self-esteem Definition

Positive Outcomes

Questions of the day

How do we come to know ourselves?

Culture and Gender: Independence v. Interdependence

New Directions of Research on Self-Justification:

Self-Discrepancy Theory

Self-Completion Theory

Self-Evaluation Maintenance Theory

Self-Affirmation Theory

Self-Verification Theory

Learn from mistakes

Results from study in section

Video: Adolescent girls' self-esteem

Slide 2

Self-esteem: An individual's positive or negative evaluation of himself or herself

Positive Outcomes:

Straumean, Lemieux & Coe, 1993

High self-esteem helps ward off infections and illness

Wright, 1995

Increased serotonin levels, decreased likelihood of impulsivity and aggression

Culture:

	Independent	Interdependent
Identity is	Personal, defined by individual traits	Social, defined by connections w/others
What matters	Me; personal achievement	We; group goals, social responsibilities
Disapproves of	Conformity	Egotism
Illustrative motto	"To thine own self be true"	"No one is an island"
Cultures that support	Individualistic Western	Collectivistic Asian

Self-Discrepancy Theory (Higgins)

Actual-Ideal discrepancies: Depression-related emotions (sadness, dissatisfaction)

Actual-Ought discrepancies: Anxiety-related emotions (fear, worry, tension)

* Discrepancies may motivate us to reduce them:

Self-serving biases

Reassess the situation

Slide 3

Self-Completion Theory (Wicklund and Gollwitzer)

Any threat to a valued identity will motivate seeking social recognition of the identity through "self-symbolizing activities." Social recognition restores the self-concept and reduces dissonance.

We will look for ways to signal to others that we do have a credible, legitimate claim to a particular identity that has been challenged.

Gollwitzer (1986)

Dancers wrote a paragraph about a good and bad part of their training. Those who wrote about the bad part, wanted to perform nearly two weeks earlier than those who wrote about the good part.

People want to jump right back on the horse.

Slide 4

Self-Affirmation Theory (Steele)

We reduce the threat to our self-concept by focusing on an area of competence unrelated to the threat.

Example: "Yes, I might be mean and hurt people, but damn, I'm a good cook."

Steele et al (1986)

"Consumer choice" experiment: students asked to rank order 10 albums as part of a marketing survey. Then told that they could keep either their fifth or sixth choice as a reward. Ten minutes later, after making their choice, they were asked to rank order the albums again.

2 IV:

1. Science majors or not

2. Participants wore white lab coat or not

Hypothesis:

The participants distort their earlier perceptions to make themselves feel better about their choice.

Results:

All of the participants did rank their selected album higher EXCEPT for science majors who wore the white coats.

Discussion:

The lab coats may have reminded science majors that they were promising scientists, and therefore, they did not need to make themselves feel good about making the "smart" decision in this particular choice.

Slide 5

Self-Verification (Swann)

People have a need to seek confirmation of their self-concept, whether the self-concept is positive or negative.

Self-verification trumps self-justification when:

1. People are highly certain of those self-concepts

2. The consequences of being improperly evaluated are great

3. People believe their negative self-attributes are changeable