THE SELF EARLY THEORISTS OF THE SELF William

THE SELF EARLY THEORISTS OF ‘THE SELF’ William James, Charles Cooley SELF-CONCEPT & SELF-ESTEEM Pelham & Swann (1989) Gender differences? Self-objectification theory 1

EARLY THEORISTS OF THE ‘SELF’ 2

WILLIAM JAMES (1842 --1910) “Principles of Psychology” Duality of Self: • Self as object than can be observed I have property X “me” • Self as agent doing the observing Self as the perceiver “I” Related to consciousness: the “I” does the perceiving, feeling, 3

CHARLES COOLEY (1864 -1929) “Human Nature and the Social Order” The Social Self: • Self can’t be understood in isolation--must be studied in interaction with others • Self is not an inherent property of human nature but rather a socially-constructed entity: our sense of self is built upon the life-long experience of seeing ourselves through the eyes of others (“looking-glass self”) James, Mead, Cooley --> SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM 4

SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM (Social) reality is an illusion, nothing is inherently real, only the meanings and symbols we collectively construct and use to describe reality are real; these symbols can be deconstructed to reveal who develop them and how they are useful to particular groups. 5

SELF-CONCEPT & SELF-ESTEEM 6

PARADOX: Often there is no obvious relationship between people’s accomplishments and virtues and their global self-esteem Augusto Pinochet (1915 -? ) Undeserved high self-esteem ? Sylvia Plath (1932 -1963) Undeserved low self-esteem ? How do people move from having specific knowledge about their attributes to global evaluations of their self-worth? 7

PELHAM & SWANN (1989) GLOBAL SELF-ESTEEM (GSE) General affective evaluation of own’s worth or importance. 2 components: (1) Affective component: COLOR • Basic sense of pride/shame about oneself. • Largely rooted in temperament (individual differences in basic tendency to feel positive and negative emotions) and early childhood experiences; stable, fuzzy, unconscious, hard to verbalize, spontaneous, irrational (“feeling is believing”) • Also known as trait self-esteem (2) Cognitive component: CONTENT • Known as self-concept (SC) • Hierarchically organized set of specific mental self-views about one’s characteristics (roles, abilities, etc. ) and their evaluation • Dynamic, clear, verbalized, rational (“seeing is believing”) Framing factors: 1. Attribute importance 2. Attribute certainty impact of SC on 3. Actual/Ideal/Ought Self discrepancy DYNAMICS determine GSE 8

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FRAMING FACTORS: 1. Attribute importance 2. Attribute certainty 3. Actual/Ideal/Ought discrepancy POSITIVE & NEGATIVE AFFECT TRAIT SELF-ESTEEM (AFFECTIVE COMPONENT) SELFCONCEPT (COGNITIVE COMPONENT) GLOBAL SELF-ESTEEM 10

Gender differences in global self-esteem ? • Not reliable and/or sizable differences have been found in adults (Maccoby & Jacklin, 1974) • Sources of global self-esteem associated to different things for men and women (Josephs, Markus, & Tafarodi, 1992) Differences in agency and communion 11

GIRLS SELF-ESTEEM (Gilligan, 1990) • Girl’s self-confidence fairly high until age 11 or 12 – Assertive about feelings • At adolescence – Many girls accept stereotyped notions of how they should be (behavior and looks) • Repress true feelings • Adopt a “nice” and woman-like selfpresentation 12

PHYSICAL SELF IN YOUNG WOMEN 13

SELF-OBJECTIFICATION (Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997) American culture socializes women to adopt observers' perspectives on their physical selves. This self-objectification is hypothesized to (a) produce body shame restrained eating, and (b) consume attentional resources. 14

Highly recommended reading !! Fredrickson, Roberts, Noll, Quinn, & Twenge (1998). That swimsuit becomes you: Sex differences in selfobjectification, restrained eating, and math performance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 15

Question for the class: Why is self-esteem in (Caucasian) girls lower than for the other ethnic groups? 16