PSY 239 401 Chapter 17 SLIDES

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The Personality PuzzleSixth Edition

by David C. Funder

Chapter 17: What You Know About You:

The Self

Slides created byTera D. LetzringIdaho State University 1

Objectives

• Discuss how the self is conceptualized across cultures

• Discuss two types of self-knowledge: declarative and procedural

• Discuss how self-knowledge can be acquired and changed

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The I and the Me

• William James• The me: an object that can be observed and

described• The I: does the observing and describing• Recent research focuses on the me

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The Self Across Cultures

• Two approaches• Individualistic cultures: the self has an

independent and separate existence• Collectivist cultures: the self is embedded in a

larger social context of obligations and relationships

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The Self Across Cultures: Is the Self a Cultural Artifact?

• Some evidence that people from different cultures think of the self in fundamentally different ways– Differences in how Americans and Indians

describe others– Differences in number of trait terms in languages– Other interpretations are possible

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The Self Across Cultures: Individualist and Collectivist Selves

• Western self: relatively separate entity• Eastern self: more integrated into the social

and cultural context• Self-regard

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The Self Across Cultures: Individualist and Collectivist Selves

• Consistency– Expectations for consistency depend on the

perceived cause of behavior– Differences in emotional consistency are absolute,

not relative

• Personality matters

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The Contents and Purposes of the Self

• Psychological self– Influences behavior– Organizes memories– Influences impressions and judgments of others– Organizes knowledge

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The Contents and Purposes of the Self

• Self-regulation• Information processing filter• Help us understand others• Identity

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The Contents and Purposes of the Self

• Declarative knowledge• Procedural knowledge

– Relational self – Implicit self

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The Declarative Self: Self-Esteem

• Definition: all of your conscious knowledge or opinions about your own personality traits

• Self-Esteem– Low self-esteem– Attempts to increase self-esteem may be

detrimental– Self-esteem can be too high– How to legitimately increase self-esteem

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The Declarative Self: The Self-Schema

• Definition• Where the declarative self resides• Can be assessed with S data or B data• May have important consequences for how

one processes information• Not based only on memories of specific events

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The Declarative Self: Self-Reference and Memory

• Self-reference effect– Increases accessibility– Explains why your most meaningful memories stay

with you the longest

• Depends on culture

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The Declarative Self: Self-Efficacy

• Definition• Sets the limits for what we attempt to do• May form the foundations of personality

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The Declarative Self: Possible Selves

• Definition: the images we have, or can construct, of the other possible ways we might be

• Possible future selves may affect goals• Evidence that it affects mate preferences• Want future selves that fulfill the needs for

self-esteem, competence, and meaning• Want similar future selves

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The Declarative Self: Self-Discrepancy Theory

• The interactions between possible selves and the actual self determine feelings about life.

• Ideal self– Discrepancy leads to depression

• Ought self– Discrepancy leads to anxiety

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The Declarative Self: Accurate Self-Knowledge

• A hallmark of mental health• Process for gaining accurate self-knowledge

– Realistic Accuracy Model: relevance, availability, detection, utilization

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The Declarative Self: Accurate Self-Knowledge

• Self-knowledge vs. knowledge of others– Important differences in perceiving ourselves vs.

others– We know our emotional experience better than do

others– Others know our behaviors better than we do

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The Declarative Self: Accurate Self-Knowledge

• Improving self-knowledge– Introspection– Seek feedback– Observe own behavior

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The Procedural Self

• Definition• Not conscious and not possible to explain to

others• Learned by doing and watching others• Relational selves

– Relational self-schema– Deeply ingrained and difficult to change

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The Procedural Self: Implicit Selves

• Definition• Includes the relational self• Measure with the Implicit Association Test

(IAT)

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The Procedural Self: Implicit Selves

• Self-esteem– People with high implicit self-esteem respond

more quickly when “me” and “good” are paired than when “me” and “bad” are paired

– Predicts responses to success and failure– Only weakly related to declarative self-esteem

• Shyness– Implicit and declarative self-esteem predict

behavior differently

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The Procedural Self: Conscious and Unconscious Self-Consciousness

• Conscious self-consciousness– Negative implications

• Unconscious self-consciousness– Goal-directed behavior– Information processing

• Acquiring and changing procedural knowledge– Practice and feedback are necessary– Have experiences that are different from the

current procedural knowledge23

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How Many Selves?

• Some theorists think each person has many declarative and procedural selves– The active self– Working self-concept

• Problems with this theory– A unitary and consistent sense of self is associated

with mental health– Deciding which self to be– Where does one stop fractionating the self?

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Think About It

• How well do you think most people know themselves? What aspects of oneself are the hardest to know?

• Can the self be changed? Has your view of yourself ever changed? How did that come about?

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The concept of the selfa)is the same in all cultures.b)exists in only some cultures.c)is likely to have different implications in different cultures.d)is equally consistent across situations in all cultures.

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Clicker Question #1

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Clicker Question #2

When you describe yourself as hard-working and friendly, you are describing thea) declarative self.b) procedural self.c) implicit self.d) most important self.

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The procedural selfa)is easy to change.b)predicts behavior differently from what is predicted by the declarative self.c)is measured with self-report data.d)can be used to increase memory for new information because of the self-reference effect.

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Clicker Question #3

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