Republic of the Philippines

POLYTECHNIC COLLEGE OF BOTOLAN

(Formerly Botolan Community College)
Botolan, Zambales
E-mail: polytechniccollegeofbotolan@gmail.com
Website: pcbzambales.com
Contact number: 0949-155-3113

INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY PROGRAM

STUDENT LEARNING MODULE (SLM)

COURSE Val 1 – Understanding The Self

SEMESTER & YEAR 1st Sem 2021-2022
YEAR LEVEL 1
MODULE No. PR-WK-03
LESSON The Self as Cognitive Construct
MODULE MODEL 5E’s
NO. OF PAGES 22

INSTRUCTOR Julie Ann P. Arellano

ID 19-024
EMAIL julieannarellano@pcbzambales.com
DATE SUBMITTED

NOTE
Do not write anything on this module. There are answer sheets provided, use separate paper
if necessary.

1ST SEMESTERA.Y. 2020- 2021 VAL1 – UNDERSTANDING THE SELF

UNDERSTANDING THE SELF
Lesson 3: The Self as Cognitive Construct
I. Learning Outcomes
At the end of the session, the student will be able to:
1. Identify the different ideas in psychology about “self”.
2. Analyze the effects of various factors identified in psychology in the
formation of the “self”.
3. Create own definition of the “self” based on the definitions from psychology.

ENGAGE:

List ten to fifteen (10-15) qualities or things that you think define who you are
around the human figure representing you.

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 EXPLORE:

This self-report measure, known as the Twenty Statements Test (TST), can
reveal a lot about a person because it is designed to measure the most
accessible—and thus the most important—parts of a person’s self-concept. Try
it for yourself, at least five times:

 I am (please fill in the blank) __________________________________

 I am (please fill in the blank) __________________________________
 I am (please fill in the blank) __________________________________
 I am (please fill in the blank) __________________________________
 I am (please fill in the blank) __________________________________

EXPLAIN:

The self-concept is a schema that contains knowledge about us. It is

primarily made up of physical characteristics, group memberships, and traits.
Because the self-concept is so complex, it has extraordinary influence on our
thoughts, feelings, and behavior, and we can remember information that is
related to it well.

Some nonhuman animals, including chimpanzees, orangutans, and

perhaps dolphins, have at least a primitive sense of self (Boysen & Himes,
1999). We know this because of some interesting experiments that have been
done with animals. In one study (Gallup, 1970), researchers painted a red dot on
the forehead of anesthetized chimpanzees and then placed the animals in a cage
with a mirror. When the chimps woke up and looked in the mirror, they touched
the dot on their faces, not the dot on the faces in the mirror. This action suggests
that the chimps understood that they were looking at themselves and not at other
animals, and thus we can assume that they are able to realize that they exist as
individuals. Most other animals, including dogs, cats, and monkeys, never realize
that it is themselves they see in a mirror.

Infants who have similar red dots painted on their foreheads recognize
themselves in a mirror in the same way that chimps do, and they do this by about

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18 months of age (Asendorpf, Warkentin, & Baudonnière, 1996; Povinelli,
Landau, & Perilloux, 1996). The child’s knowledge about the self continues to
develop as the child grows. By two years of age, the infant becomes aware of his
or her gender as a boy or a girl. At age four, the child’s self-descriptions are likely
to be based on physical features, such as hair color, and by about age six, the
child is able to understand basic emotions and the concepts of traits, being able
to make statements such as “I am a nice person” (Harter, 1998).

By the time children are in grade school, they have learned that they are
unique individuals, and they can think about and analyze their own behavior.
They also begin to show awareness of the social situation—they understand that
other people are looking at and judging them the same way that they are looking
at and judging others (Doherty, 2009).

Development and Characteristics of the Self-Concept

Part of what is developing in children as they grow is the fundamental

cognitive part of the self, known as the self-concept. The self-concept is a
knowledge representation that contains knowledge about us, including our
beliefs about our personality traits, physical characteristics, abilities, values,
goals, and roles, as well as the knowledge that we exist as individuals.
Throughout childhood and adolescence, the self-concept becomes more abstract
and complex and is organized into a variety of different cognitive aspects of the
self, known as self-schemas. Children have self-schemas about their progress
in school, their appearance, their skills at sports and other activities, and many
other aspects. In turn, these self-schemas direct and inform their processing of
self-relevant information (Harter, 1999), much as we saw schemas in general
affecting our social cognition.

These self-schemas can be studied using the methods that we would use
to study any other schema. One approach is to use neuroimaging to directly study
the self in the brain., neuroimaging studies have shown that information about
the self is stored in the prefrontal cortex, the same place that other information
about people is stored

Another approach to studying the self is to investigate how we attend to

and remember things that relate to the self. Indeed, because the self-concept is
the most important of all our schemas, it has an extraordinary degree of influence
on our thoughts, feelings, and behavior. Have you ever been at a party where
there was a lot of noise and bustle, and yet you were surprised to discover that
you could easily hear your own name being mentioned in the background?
Because our own name is such an important part of our self-concept, and
because we value it highly, it is highly accessible. We are very alert for, and react
quickly to, the mention of our own name.

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 Other research has found that information related to the self-schema is
better remembered than information that is unrelated to it, and that information
related to the self can also be processed very quickly (Lieberman, Jarcho, &
Satpute, 2004). In one classic study that demonstrated the importance of the self-
schema, Rogers, Kuiper, and Kirker (1977) conducted an experiment to assess
how college students recalled information that they had learned under different
processing conditions. All the participants were presented with the same list of
40 adjectives to process, but through the use of random assignment, the
participants were given one of four different sets of instructions about how to
process the adjectives.

Participants assigned to the structural task condition were asked to judge

whether the word was printed in uppercase or lowercase letters. Participants in
the phonemic task condition were asked whether the word rhymed with another
given word. In the semantic task condition, the participants were asked if the
word was a synonym of another word. And in the self-reference task condition,
participants indicated whether the given adjective was or was not true of
themselves. After completing the specified task, each participant was asked to
recall as many adjectives as he or she could remember. Rogers and his
colleagues hypothesized that different types of processing would have different
effects on memory.

To the self is particularly well remembered, known as the self-reference

effect, is powerful evidence that the self-concept helps us organize and
remember information. The next time you are studying, you might try relating the
material to your own experiences—the self-reference effect suggests that doing
so will help you better remember the information.

The specific content of our self-concept powerfully affects the way that we
process information relating to ourselves. But how can we measure that specific
content? One way is by using self-report tests. One of these is a deceptively
simple fill-in-the-blank measure that has been widely used by many scientists to
get a picture of the self-concept (Rees & Nicholson, 1994). All of the 20 items in
the measure are exactly the same, but the person is asked to fill in a different
response for each statement.

Although each person has a unique self-concept, we can identify some

characteristics that are common across the responses given by different people
on the measure. Physical characteristics are an important component of the self-
concept, and they are mentioned by many people when they describe
themselves. If you’ve been concerned lately that you’ve been gaining weight, you
might write, “I am overweight.” If you think you’re particularly good looking (“I
am attractive”), or if you think you’re too short (“I am too short”), those things

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might have been reflected in your responses. Our physical characteristics are
important to our self-concept because we realize that other people use them to
judge us. People often list the physical characteristics that make them different
from others in either positive or negative ways (“I am blond,” “I am short”), in part
because they understand that these characteristics are salient and thus likely to
be used by others when judging them (McGuire, McGuire, Child, & Fujioka,
1978).

A second aspect of the self-concept relating to personal characteristics is

made up of personality traits—the specific and stable personality
characteristics that describe an individual (“I am friendly,” “I am shy,” “I
am persistent”). These individual differences are important determinants of
behavior, and this aspect of the self-concept varies among people.

The remainder of the self-concept reflects its more external, social

components; for example, memberships in the social groups that we belong to
and care about. Common responses for this component may include “I am an
artist,” “I am Jewish,” and “I am a mother, sister, daughter.” As we will see later
in this chapter, group memberships form an important part of the self-concept
because they provide us with our social identity—the sense of our self that
involves our memberships in social groups.

Although we all define ourselves in relation to these three broad categories

of characteristics—physical, personality, and social – some interesting cultural
differences in the relative importance of these categories have been shown in
people’s responses to the TST. For example, Ip and Bond (1995) found that the
responses from Asian participants included significantly more references to
themselves as occupants of social roles (e.g., “I am Joyce’s friend”) or social
groups (e.g., “I am a member of the Cheng family”) than those of American
participants. Similarly, Markus and Kitayama (1991) reported that Asian
participants were more than twice as likely to include references to other people
in their self-concept than did their Western counterparts. This greater emphasis
on either external and social aspects of the self-concept reflects the relative
importance that collectivistic and individualistic cultures place on an
interdependence versus independence (Nisbett, 2003).

Interestingly, bicultural individuals who report acculturation to both

collectivist and individualist cultures show shifts in their self-concept depending
on which culture they are primed to think about when completing the TST. For
example, Ross, Xun, & Wilson (2002) found that students born in China but living
in Canada reported more interdependent aspects of themselves on the TST
when asked to write their responses in Chinese, as opposed to English. These
culturally different responses to the TST are also related to a broader distinction
in self-concept, with people from individualistic cultures often describing
themselves using internal characteristics that emphasize their uniqueness,
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compared with those from collectivistic backgrounds who tend to stress shared
social group memberships and roles. In turn, this distinction can lead to important
differences in social behavior.
One simple yet powerful demonstration of cultural differences in self-
concept affecting social behavior is shown in a study that was conducted by Kim
and Markus (1999). In this study, participants were contacted in the waiting area
of the San Francisco airport and asked to fill out a short questionnaire for the
researcher. The participants were selected according to their cultural
background: about one-half of them indicated they were European Americans
whose parents were born in the United States, and the other half indicated they
were Asian Americans whose parents were born in China and who spoke
Chinese at home. After completing the questionnaires (which were not used in
the data analysis except to determine the cultural backgrounds), participants
were asked if they would like to take a pen with them as a token of appreciation.
The experimenter extended his or her hand, which contained five pens. The pens
offered to the participants were either three or four of one color and one or two of
another color (the ink in the pens was always black). As shown in Figure 3.5,
“Cultural Differences in Desire for Uniqueness,” and consistent with the
hypothesized preference for uniqueness in Western, but not Eastern, cultures,
the European Americans preferred to take a pen with the more unusual color,
whereas the Asian American participants preferred one with the more common
color.

In this study, participants from European American and East Asian cultures
were asked to choose a pen as a token of appreciation for completing a
questionnaire. There were either four pens of one color and one of another color,
or three pens of one color and two of another. European Americans were
significantly more likely to choose the more uncommon pen color in both cases.
Data are from Kim and Markus (1999, Experiment 3).

Cultural differences in self-concept have even been found in people’s self-

descriptions on social networking sites. DeAndrea, Shaw, and Levine (2010)
examined individuals’ free-text self-descriptions in the About Me section in their
Facebook profiles. Consistent with the researchers’ hypotheses, and with
previous research using the TST, African American participants had the most the
most independently (internally) described self-concepts, and Asian Americans
had the most interdependent (external) self-descriptions, with European
Americans in the middle.

As well as indications of cultural diversity in the content of the self-concept,

there is also evidence of parallel gender diversity between males and females
from various cultures, with females, on average, giving more external and social
responses to the TST than males (Kashima et al., 1995). Interestingly, these

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gender differences have been found to be more apparent in individualistic nations
than in collectivistic nations (Watkins et al., 1998).

Self-Complexity and Self-Concept Clarity

As we have seen, the self-concept is a rich and complex social

representation of who we are, encompassing both our internal characteristics
and our social roles. In addition to our thoughts about who we are right now, the
self-concept also includes thoughts about our past self—our experiences,
accomplishments, and failures—and about our future self—our hopes, plans,
goals, and possibilities (Oyserman, Bybee, Terry, & Hart-Johnson, 2004). The
multidimensional nature of our self-concept means that we need to consider not
just each component in isolation, but also their interactions with each other and
their overall structure. Two particularly important structural aspects of our self-
concept are complexity and clarity.

Although every human being has a complex self-concept, there are

nevertheless individual differences in self-complexity, the extent to which
individuals have many different and relatively independent ways of thinking about
themselves (Linville, 1987; Roccas & Brewer, 2002). Some selves are more
complex than others, and these individual differences can be important in
determining psychological outcomes. Having a complex self means that we have
a lot of different ways of thinking about ourselves. For example, imagine a woman
whose self-concept contains the social identities of student, girlfriend, daughter,
psychology student, and tennis player and who has encountered a wide variety
of life experiences. Social psychologists would say that she has high self-
complexity. On the other hand, a man who perceives himself primarily as either
a student or as a member of the soccer team and who has had a relatively narrow
range of life experiences would be said to have low self-complexity. For those
with high self-complexity, the various aspects of the self are separate, as the
positive and negative thoughts about a particular self-aspect do not spill over into
thoughts about other aspects.

Research has found that compared with people low in self-complexity,

those higher in self-complexity tend to experience more positive outcomes,
including higher levels of self-esteem (Rafaeli-Mor & Steinberg, 2002), lower
levels of stress and illness (Kalthoff & Neimeyer, 1993), and a greater tolerance
for frustration (Gramzow, Sedikides, Panter, & Insko, 2000).

The benefits of self-complexity occur because the various domains of the

self help to buffer us against negative events and enjoy the positive events that
we experience. For people low in self-complexity, negative outcomes in relation
to one aspect of the self tend to have a big impact on their self-esteem. For
example, if the only thing that Maria cares about is getting into medical school,

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she may be devastated if she fails to make it. On the other hand, Marty, who is
also passionate about medical school but who has a more complex self-concept,
may be better able to adjust to such a blow by turning to other interests.
Although having high self-complexity seems useful overall, it does not
seem to help everyone equally in their response to all events (Rafaeli-Mor &
Steinberg, 2002). People with high self-complexity seem to react more positively
to the good things that happen to them but not necessarily less negatively to the
bad things. And the positive effects of self-complexity are stronger for people who
have other positive aspects of the self as well. This buffering effect is stronger for
people with high self-esteem, whose self-complexity involves positive rather than
negative characteristics (Koch & Shepperd, 2004), and for people who feel that
they have control over their outcomes (McConnell et al., 2005).

Just as we may differ in the complexity of our self-concept, so we may also

differ in its clarity. Self-concept clarity is the extent to which one’s self-concept
is clearly and consistently defined (Campbell, 1990). Theoretically, the concepts
of complexity and clarity are independent of each other—a person could have
either a more or less complex self-concept that is either well defined and
consistent, or ill defined and inconsistent. However, in reality, they each have
similar relationships to many indices of well-being.

For example, as has been found with self-complexity, higher self-concept

clarity is positively related to self-esteem (Campbell et al., 1996). Why might this
be? Perhaps people with higher self-esteem tend to have a more well-defined
and stable view of their positive qualities, whereas those with lower self-esteem
show more inconsistency and instability in their self-concept, which is then more
vulnerable to being negatively affected by challenging situations. Consistent with
this assertion, self-concept clarity appears to mediate the relationship between
stress and well-being (Ritchie et al., 2011).

Also, having a clear and stable view of ourselves can help us in our
relationships. Lewandowski, Nardine, and Raines (2010) found a positive
correlation between clarity and relationship satisfaction, as well as a significant
increase in reported satisfaction following an experimental manipulation of
participants’ self-concept clarity. Greater clarity may promote relationship
satisfaction in a number of ways. As Lewandowski and colleagues (2010) argue,
when we have a clear self-concept, we may be better able to consistently
communicate who we are and what we want to our partner, which will promote
greater understanding and satisfaction. Also, perhaps when we feel clearer about
who we are, then we feel less of a threat to our self-concept and autonomy when
we find ourselves having to make compromises in our close relationships.

Thinking back to the cultural differences we discussed earlier in this section

in the context of people’s self-concepts, it could be that self-concept clarity is
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generally higher in individuals from individualistic cultures, as their self-concept
is based more on internal characteristics that are held to be stable across
situations, than on external social facets of the self that may be more changeable.
This is indeed what the research suggests. Not only do members of more
collectivistic cultures tend to have lower self-concept clarity, that clarity is also
less strongly related to their self-esteem compared with those from more
individualistic cultures (Campbell et al., 1996). As we shall see when our attention
turns to perceiving others in Chapter 5, our cultural background not only affects
the clarity and consistency of how we see ourselves, but also how consistently
we view other people and their behavior.

Self-Awareness

Like any other schema, the self-concept can vary in its current cognitive
accessibility. Self-awareness refers to the extent to which we are currently fixing
our attention on our own self-concept. When our self-concept becomes highly
accessible because of our concerns about being observed and potentially judged
by others, we experience the publicly induced self-awareness known as self-
consciousness (Duval & Wicklund, 1972; Rochat, 2009).

Perhaps you can remember times when your self-awareness was

increased and you became self-conscious—for instance, when you were giving
a presentation and you were perhaps painfully aware that everyone was looking
at you, or when you did something in public that embarrassed you. Emotions
such as anxiety and embarrassment occur in large part because the self-concept
becomes highly accessible, and they serve as a signal to monitor and perhaps
change our behavior.

Not all aspects of our self-concept are equally accessible at all times, and
these long-term differences in the accessibility of the different self-schemas help
create individual differences in terms of, for instance, our current concerns and
interests. You may know some people for whom the physical appearance
component of the self-concept is highly accessible. They check their hair every
time they see a mirror, worry whether their clothes are making them look good,
and do a lot of shopping—for themselves, of course. Other people are more
focused on their social group memberships—they tend to think about things in
terms of their role as Muslims or Christians, for example, or as members of the
local tennis or soccer team.

In addition to variation in long-term accessibility, the self and its various

components may also be made temporarily more accessible through priming. We
become more self-aware when we are in front of a mirror, when a TV camera is
focused on us, when we are speaking in front of an audience, or when we are
listening to our own tape-recorded voice (Kernis & Grannemann, 1988). When

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the knowledge contained in the self-schema becomes more accessible, it also
becomes more likely to be used in information processing and to influence our
behavior.
Beaman, Klentz, Diener, and Svanum (1979) conducted a field experiment
to see if self-awareness would influence children’s honesty. The researchers
expected that most children viewed stealing as wrong but that they would be
more likely to act on this belief when they were more self-aware. They conducted
this experiment on Halloween in homes within the city of Seattle, Washington. At
particular houses, children who were trick-or-treating were greeted by one of the
experimenters, shown a large bowl of candy, and were told to take only one piece
each. The researchers unobtrusively watched each child to see how many pieces
he or she actually took. In some of the houses there was a large mirror behind
the candy bowl; in other houses, there was no mirror. Out of the 363 children who
were observed in the study, 19% disobeyed instructions and took more than one
piece of candy. However, the children who were in front of a mirror were
significantly less likely to steal (14.4%) than were those who did not see a mirror
(28.5%).

These results suggest that the mirror activated the children’s self-
awareness, which reminded them of their belief about the importance of being
honest. Other research has shown that being self-aware has a powerful influence
on other behaviors as well. For instance, people are more likely to stay on a diet,
eat better food, and act more morally overall when they are self-aware
(Baumeister, Zell, & Tice, 2007; Heatherton, Polivy, Herman, & Baumeister,
1993). What this means is that when you are trying to stick to a diet, study harder,
or engage in other difficult behaviors, you should try to focus on yourself and the
importance of the goals you have set.

Social psychologists are interested in studying self-awareness because it

has such an important influence on behavior. People become more likely to
violate acceptable, mainstream social norms when, for example, they put on a
Halloween mask or engage in other behaviors that hide their identities. For
example, the members of the militant White supremacist organization the Ku Klux
Klan wear white robes and hats when they meet and when they engage in their
racist behavior. And when people are in large crowds, such as in a mass
demonstration or a riot, they may become so much a part of the group that they
experience deindividuation—the loss of individual self-awareness and
individual accountability in groups (Festinger, Pepitone, & Newcomb, 1952;
Zimbardo, 1969) and become more attuned to themselves as group members
and to the specific social norms of the particular situation (Reicher & Stott, 2011).

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Deindividuation and Rioting

Rioting occurs when civilians engage in violent public disturbances. The

targets of these disturbances can be people in authority, other civilians, or
property. The triggers for riots are varied, including everything from the aftermath
of sporting events, to the killing of a civilian by law enforcement officers, to
commodity shortages, to political oppression. Both civilians and law enforcement
personnel are frequently seriously injured or killed during riots, and the damage
to public property can be considerable.

Social psychologists, like many other academics, have long been

interested in the forces that shape rioting behavior. One of the earliest and most
influential perspectives on rioting was offered by French sociologist, Gustav Le
Bon (1841–1931). In his book The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind, Le Bon
(1895) described the transformation of the individual in the crowd. According to
Le Bon, the forces of anonymity, suggestibility, and contagion combine to change
a collection of individuals into a “psychological crowd.” Under this view, the
individuals then become submerged in the crowd, lose self-control, and engage
in antisocial behaviors.

Some of the early social psychological accounts of rioting focused in

particular on the concept of deindividuation as a way of trying to account for the
forces that Le Bon described. Festinger et al. (1952), for instance, argued
that members of large groups do not pay attention to other people as individuals
and do not feel that their own behavior is being scrutinized. Under this view, being
unidentified and thereby unaccountable has the psychological consequence of
reducing inner restraints and increasing behavior that is usually repressed, such
as that often seen in riots.

Extending these ideas, Zimbardo (1969) argued that

deindividuation involved feelings of reduced self-observation, which then bring
about antinormative and disinhibited behavior. In support of this position, he
found that participants engaged in more antisocial behavior when their identity
was made anonymous by wearing Ku Klux Klan uniforms. However, in the
context of rioting, these perspectives, which focus on behaviors that
are antinormative (e.g., aggressive behavior is typically antinormative), neglect
the possibility that they might actually be normative in the particular situation. For
example, during some riots, antisocial behavior can be viewed as a normative
response to injustice or oppression. Consistent with this assertion, Johnson and
Downing (1979) found that when participants were able to mask their identities by
wearing nurses uniforms, their individuated state actually led them to show more
prosaically behavior than when their identities were visible to others. In other
words, if the group situation is associated with more prosocial norms,

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 deindividuation can actually increase these behaviors, and therefore does not
inevitably lead to antisocial conduct.

Building on these findings, researchers have developed more

contemporary accounts of deindividuation and rioting. One particularly important
approach has been the social identity model of deindividuation effects (or SIDE
model), developed by Reicher, Spears, and Postmes (1995). This perspective
argues that being in a deindividuated state can actually reinforce group salience
and conformity to specific group norms in the current situation. According to this
model, deindividuation does not, then, lead to a loss of identity per se. Instead,
people take on a more collective identity. Seen in this way, rioting behavior is
more about the conscious adoption of behaviors reflecting collective identity than
the abdication of personal identity and responsibility outlined in the earlier
perspectives on deindividuation.

In support of the SIDE model, although crowd behavior during riots might
seem mindless, antinormative, and disinhibited to the outside observer, to those
taking part it is often perceived as rational, normative, and subject to well-defined
limits (Reicher, 1987). For instance, when law enforcement officers are the target
of rioters, then any targeting of other civilians by rioters is often condemned and
policed by the group members themselves (Reicher & Stott, 2011). Indeed, as
Fogelson (1971) concluded in his analysis of rioting in the United States in the
1960s, restraint and selectivity, as opposed to mindless and indiscriminate
violence, were among the most crucial features of the riots.

Seeing rioting in this way, as a rational, normative response, Reicher and

Stott (2011) describe it as being caused by a number of interlocking factors,
including a sense of illegitimacy or grievance, a lack of alternatives to
confrontation, the formation of a shared identity, and a sense of confidence in
collective power. Viewing deindividuation as a force that causes people to
increase their sense of collective identity and then to express that identity in
meaningful ways leads to some important recommendations for controlling rioting
more effectively, including that:

 Labeling rioters as “mindless,” “thugs,” and so on will not address the underlying
causes of riots.
 Indiscriminate or disproportionate use of force by police will often lead to an
escalation of rioting behavior.
 Law enforcement personnel should allow legitimate and legal protest behaviors
to occur during riots, and only illegal and inappropriate behaviors should be
targeted.
 Police officers should communicate their intentions to crowds before using force.

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 Tellingly, in analyses of the policing of high-risk rioting situations, when
police follow these guidelines, riots are often prevented altogether, or at least de-
escalated relatively quickly (Reicher & Stott, 2011). Thus, the social
psychological research on deindividuation has not only helped us to refine our
understanding of this concept, but has also led us to better understand the social
dynamics of rioting behavior. Ultimately, this increased understanding has helped
to put more effective strategies in place for reducing the risks to people and
property that riots bring.

Two aspects of individual differences in self-awareness have been found

to be important, and they relate to self-concern and other-concern, respectively
(Fenigstein, Scheier, & Buss, 1975; Lalwani, Shrum, & Chiu, 2009). Private self-
consciousness refers to the tendency to introspect about our inner thoughts and
feelings. People who are high in private self-consciousness tend to think about
themselves a lot and agree with statements such as “I’m always trying to figure
myself out” and “I am generally attentive to my inner feelings.” People who are
high on private self-consciousness are likely to base their behavior on their own
inner beliefs and values—they let their inner thoughts and feelings guide their
actions—and they may be particularly likely to strive to succeed on dimensions
that allow them to demonstrate their own personal accomplishments (Lalwani et
al., 2009).

Public self-consciousness, in contrast, refers to the tendency to focus on

our outer public image and to be particularly aware of the extent to which we are
meeting the standards set by others. Those high in public self-consciousness
agree with statements such as “I’m concerned about what other people think of
me,” “Before I leave my house, I check how I look,” and “I care a lot about how I
present myself to others.” These are the people who check their hair in a mirror
they pass and spend a lot of time getting ready in the morning; they are more
likely to let the opinions of others (rather than their own opinions) guide their
behaviors and are particularly concerned with making good impressions on
others.

Research has found cultural differences in public self-consciousness,

with people from East Asian, collectivistic cultures having higher public self-
consciousness than people from Western, individualistic cultures. Steve Heine
and colleagues (2008) found that when college students from Canada (a Western
culture) completed questionnaires in front of a large mirror, they subsequently
became more self-critical and were less likely to cheat (much like the trick-or-
treaters discussed earlier) than were Canadian students who were not in front of
a mirror. However, the presence of the mirror had no effect on college students
from Japan. This person-situation interaction is consistent with the idea that
people from East Asian cultures are normally already high in public self-

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consciousness compared with people from Western cultures, and thus
manipulations designed to increase public self-consciousness influence them
less.
So we see that there are clearly individual and cultural differences in the
degree to and manner in which we tend to be aware of ourselves. In general,
though, we all experience heightened moments of self-awareness from time to
time. According to self-awareness theory (Duval & Wicklund, 1972), when we
focus our attention on ourselves, we tend to compare our current behavior
against our internal standards. Sometimes when we make these comparisons,
we realize that we are not currently measuring up. In these cases, self-
discrepancy theory states that when we perceive a discrepancy between our
actual and ideal selves, this is distressing to us (Higgins, Klein, & Strauman,
1987). In contrast, on the occasions when self-awareness leads us to
comparisons where we feel that we are being congruent with our standards, then
self-awareness can produce positive affect (Greenberg & Musham, 1981). Tying
these ideas from the two theories together, Philips and Silvia (2005) found that
people felt significantly more distressed when exposed to self-discrepancies
while sitting in front of a mirror. In contrast, those not sitting in front of a mirror,
and presumably experiencing lower self-awareness, were not significantly
emotionally affected by perceived self-discrepancies. Simply put, the more self-
aware we are in a given situation, the more pain we feel when we are not living
up to our ideals.

In part, the stress arising from perceived self-discrepancy relates to a

sense of cognitive dissonance, which is the discomfort that occurs when we
respond in ways that we see as inconsistent. In these cases, we may realign our
current state to be closer to our ideals, or shift our ideals to be closer to our
current state, both of which will help reduce our sense of dissonance. Another
potential response to feelings of self-discrepancy is to try to reduce the state of
self-awareness that gave rise to these feelings by focusing on other things. For
example, Moskalenko and Heine (2002) found that people who are given false
negative feedback about their performance on an intelligence test, which
presumably lead them to feel discrepant from their internal performance
standards about such tasks, subsequently focused significantly more on a video
playing in a room than those given positive feedback.

There are certain situations, however, where these common dissonance-

reduction strategies may not be realistic options to pursue. For example, if
someone who has generally negative attitudes toward drug use nevertheless
becomes addicted to a particular substance, it will often not be easy to quit the
habit, to reframe the evidence regarding the drug’s negative effects, or to reduce
self-awareness. In such cases, self-affirmation theory suggests that people will
try to reduce the threat to their self-concept posed by feelings of self-discrepancy

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by focusing on and affirming their worth in another domain, unrelated to the issue
at hand. For instance, the person who has become addicted to an illegal
substance may choose to focus on healthy eating and exercise regimes instead
as a way of reducing the dissonance created by the drug use.

Although self-affirmation can often help people feel more comfortable by

reducing their sense of dissonance, it can also have have some negative
effects. For example, Munro and Stansbury (2009) tested people’s social
cognitive responses to hypotheses that were either threatening or non-
threatening to their self-concepts, following exposure to either a self-affirming or
non-affirming activity. The key findings were that those who had engaged in the
self-affirmation condition and were then exposed to a threatening hypothesis
showed greater tendencies than those in the non-affirming group to seek out
evidence confirming their own views, and to detect illusory correlations in support
of these positions. One possible interpretation of these results is that self-
affirmation elevates people’s mood and they then become more likely to engage
in heuristic processing, as discussed in Chapter 2.

Still another option to pursue when we feel that our current self is not
matching up to our ideal self is to seek out opportunities to get closer to our ideal
selves. One method of doing this can be in online environments. Massively
multiplayer online (MMO) gaming, for instance, offers people the chance to
interact with others in a virtual world, using graphical alter egos, or avatars, to
represent themselves. The role of the self-concept in influencing people’s choice
of avatars is only just beginning to be researched, but some evidence suggests
that gamers design avatars that are closer to their ideal than their actual selves.
For example, a study of avatars used in one popular MMO role-play game
indicated that players rated their avatars as having more favorable attributes than
their own self-ratings, particularly if they had lower self-esteem (Bessiere, Seay,
& Keisler, 2007). They also rated their avatars as more similar to their ideal selves
than they themselves were. The authors of this study concluded that these online
environments allow players to explore their ideal selves, freed from the
constraints of the physical world.

There are also emerging findings exploring the role of self-awareness and
self-affirmation in relation to behaviors on social networking sites. Gonzales and
Hancock (2011) conducted an experiment showing that individuals became more
self-aware after viewing and updating their Facebook profiles, and in turn
reported higher self-esteem than participants assigned to an offline, control
condition. The increased self-awareness that can come from Facebook activity
may not always have beneficial effects, however. Chiou and Lee
(2013) conducted two experiments indicating that when individuals put personal
photos and wall postings onto their Facebook accounts, they show increased
self-awareness, but subsequently decreased ability to take other people’s

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perspectives. Perhaps sometimes we can have too much self-awareness and
focus to the detriment of our abilities to understand others. Toma and Hancock
(2013) investigated the role of self-affirmation in Facebook usage and found that
users viewed their profiles in self-affirming ways, which enhanced their self-
worth. They were also more likely to look at their Facebook profiles after receiving
threats to their self-concept, doing so in an attempt to use self-affirmation to
restore their self-esteem. It seems, then, that the dynamics of self-awareness
and affirmation are quite similar in our online and offline behaviors.

Having reviewed some important theories and findings in relation to self-

discrepancy and affirmation, we should now turn our attention to diversity. Once
again, as with many other aspects of the self-concept, we find that there are
important cultural differences. For instance, Heine and Lehman (1997) tested
participants from a more individualistic nation (Canada) and a more collectivistic
one (Japan) in a situation where they took a personality test and then received
bogus positive or negative feedback. They were then asked to rate the desirability
of 10 music CDs. Subsequently, they were offered the choice of taking home
either their fifth- or sixth-ranked CD, and then required to re-rate the 10 CDs. The
critical finding was that the Canadians overall rated their chosen CD higher and
their unchosen one lower the second time around, mirroring classic findings on
dissonance reduction, whereas the Japanese participants did not. Crucially,
though, the Canadian participants who had been given positive feedback about
their personalities (in other words, had been given self-affirming evidence in an
unrelated domain) did not feel the need to pursue this dissonance reduction
strategy. In contrast, the Japanese did not significantly adjust their ratings in
response to either positive or negative feedback from the personality test.

Once more, these findings make sense if we consider that the pressure to
avoid self-discrepant feelings will tend to be higher in individualistic cultures,
where people are expected to be more cross-situationally consistent in their
behaviors. Those from collectivistic cultures, however, are more accustomed to
shifting their behaviors to fit the needs of the ingroup and the situation, and so
are less troubled by such seeming inconsistencies.

Overestimating How Closely and Accurately Others View Us

Although the self-concept is the most important of all our schemas, and
although people (particularly those high in self-consciousness) are aware of their
self and how they are seen by others, this does not mean that people are always
thinking about themselves. In fact, people do not generally focus on their self-
concept any more than they focus on the other things and other people in their
environments (Csikszentmihalyi & Figurski, 1982).

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 On the other hand, self-awareness is more powerful for the person
experiencing it than it is for others who are looking on, and the fact that self-
concept is so highly accessible frequently leads people to overestimate the extent
to which other people are focusing on them (Gilovich & Savitsky, 1999). Although
you may be highly self-conscious about something you’ve done in a particular
situation, that does not mean that others are necessarily paying all that much
attention to you. Research by Thomas Gilovich and colleagues (Gilovich,
Medvec, & Savitsky, 2000) found that people who were interacting with others
thought that other people were paying much more attention to them than those
other people reported actually doing. This may be welcome news, for example,
when we find ourselves wincing over an embarrassing comment we made during
a group conversation. It may well be that no one else paid nearly as much
attention to it as we did!

There is also some diversity in relation to age. Teenagers are particularly

likely to be highly self-conscious, often believing that others are watching them
(Goossens, Beyers, Emmen, & van Aken, 2002). Because teens think so much
about themselves, they are particularly likely to believe that others must be
thinking about them, too (Rycek, Stuhr, McDermott, Benker, & Swartz, 1998).
Viewed in this light, it is perhaps not surprising that teens can become
embarrassed so easily by their parents’ behaviour in public, or by their own
physical appearance, for example.

People also often mistakenly believe that their internal states show to
others more than they really do. Gilovich, Savitsky, and Medvec (1998) asked
groups of five students to work together on a “lie detection” task. One at a time,
each student stood up in front of the others and answered a question that the
researcher had written on a card (e.g., “I have met David Letterman”). On each
round, one person’s card indicated that they were to give a false answer, whereas
the other four were told to tell the truth.

After each round, the students who had not been asked to lie indicated
which of the students they thought had actually lied in that round, and the liar was
asked to estimate the number of other students who would correctly guess who
had been the liar. As you can see in Figure 3.7, “The Illusion of
Transparency,” the liars overestimated the detectability of their lies: on average,
they predicted that over 44% of their fellow players had known that they were the
liar, but in fact only about 25% were able to accurately identify them. Gilovich and
colleagues called this effect the “illusion of transparency.” This illusion brings
home an important final learning point about our self-concepts: although we may
feel that our view of ourselves is obvious to others, it may not always be!

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 ELABORATE
Self, identity, and self-concept are not fixed in one-time frame. For
example, when you are asked about who you are, you can say “I was a varsity
player in 5th Grade” which pertains to the past, “a college student” which may be
the present, and “a future politician” which is the future. They are not also fixed
for life nor are they ever – changing at every moment. Think of a malleable metal,
strong and hard but can be bent and molded in other shapes. Think about water.
It can take any shape of the container, but at its core, it is still the same element.
Carl Rogers captured this idea in his concept of self – schema or our organized
system or collection of knowledge about who we are (Gleitman, Gross, and
Reisberg 2011; Jhangiani and Tarry 2014). Imagine an organized list or a
diagram similar to the one below Hobbies

Family Religion
SELF

Nationality

The schema is not limited to the example above. It may also include your
interest, work, course, age, name, and physical characteristics, among others.
As you grow and adapt to the changes around you, they also change. But they
are not passive receivers, they actively shape and affect how you see, think, and

PR – WK - 03 VAL1 – UNDERSTANDING THE SELF 18

feel about things (Gleitman, Gross, and Reisberg 2011; Jhangiani and Tarry
2014).
For example, when someone states your first name even if they are not talking
about you, your attention is drawn to them. If you have a provincial language and
you hear someone using it, it catches your attention. If you consider yourself a
book – lover, a bookstore may always entice you out of all the other stores in a
mall.
Several psychologists, especially during the field’s earlier development,
followed this trend of thought, looking deeper into the mind of the person to
theorize about the self, identity, self – concept, and in turn, one's personality. The
most influential of them is Sigmund Freud. Basically, Freud saw the self, its
mental processes, and one's behavior as the results of the interaction between
the Id, the Ego and Superego.
• The self-concept is a schema that contains knowledge about us. It is primarily
made up of physical characteristics, group memberships, and traits.
• Because the self-concept is so complex, it has extraordinary influence on our
thoughts, feelings, and behavior, and we can remember information that is
related to it well.
• Self-complexity, the extent to which individuals have many different and
relatively independent ways of thinking about themselves, helps people respond
more positively to events that they experience.
• Self-concept clarity, the extent to which individuals have self-concepts that are
clearly defined and stable over time, can also help people to respond more
positively to challenging situations.
• Self-awareness refers to the extent to which we are currently fixing our attention
on our own self-concept. Differences in the accessibility of different self-schemas
help create individual differences: for instance, in terms of our current concerns
and interests.
• People who are experiencing high self-awareness may notice self-
discrepancies between their actual and ideal selves. This can, in turn, lead them
to engage in self-affirmation as a way of resolving these discrepancies.
• When people lose their self-awareness, they experience deindividuation.
• Private self-consciousness refers to the tendency to introspect about our inner
thoughts and feelings; public self-consciousness refers to the tendency to focus
on our outer public image and the standards set by others.

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• There are cultural differences in self-consciousness: public self-consciousness
may be higher in Eastern than in Western cultures.
• People frequently overestimate the extent to which others are paying attention
to them and accurately understand their true intentions in public situations.

Summary

is a schema that contains knowledge about us. It is primarily made up of physical

characteristics, group memberships, and traits. Because the self-concept is so
The self-concept complex, it has extraordinary influence on our thoughts, feelings, and behavior, and
we can remember information that is related to it well.

These self-schemas can be studied using the methods that we would use to study
Development and
any other schema. One approach is to use neuroimaging to directly study the self in
Characteristics of a Self -
the brain., neuroimaging studies have shown that information about the self is
Concept
stored in the prefrontal cortex, the same place that other information about people is
stored.

As we have seen, the self-concept is a rich and complex social representation of

who we are, encompassing both our internal characteristics and our social roles. In
Self – Complexity and addition to our thoughts about who we are right now, the self-concept also includes
Self – Concept Clarity thoughts about our past self—our experiences, accomplishments, and failures—and
about our future self—our hopes, plans, goals, and possibilities (Oyserman, Bybee,
Terry, & Hart-Johnson, 2004).

Like any other schema, the self-concept can vary in its current cognitive
accessibility. Self-awareness refers to the extent to which we are currently fixing
our attention on our own self-concept. When our self-concept becomes highly
Self - Awareness accessible because of our concerns about being observed and potentially judged by
others, we experience the publicly induced self-awareness known as self-
consciousness (Duval & Wicklund, 1972; Rochat, 2009).

Rioting occurs when civilians engage in violent public disturbances. The targets of
these disturbances can be people in authority, other civilians, or property. The
triggers for riots are varied, including everything from the aftermath of sporting
Deindividuation and
events, to the killing of a civilian by law enforcement officers, to commodity
Rioting shortages, to political oppression. Both civilians and law enforcement personnel are
frequently seriously injured or killed during riots, and the damage to public property
can be considerable.

PR – WK - 03 VAL1 – UNDERSTANDING THE SELF 20

 Activity 1

Answer the following questions cogently but honestly. Write your answers in a
piece of paper.
1. What are the most important aspects of your self-concept, and how do they
influence your self-esteem and social behavior?

2. Consider people you know who vary in terms of their self-complexity and self-
concept clarity. What effects do these differences seem to have on their self-
esteem and behavior?

3. Describe a situation where you experienced a feeling of self-discrepancy

between your actual and ideal selves. How well does self-affirmation theory help
to explain how you responded to these feelings of discrepancy?

4. Try to identify some situations where you have been influenced by your private
and public self-consciousness. What did this lead you to do? What have you
learned about yourself from these experiences?

5. Describe some situations where you overestimated the extent to which people
were paying attention to you in public. Why do you think that you did this and
what were the consequences?

Activity 2

Do a research and list ten (10) things to boost your self – esteem or improve
your self – concept. Cite your sources. Analyze which of those tips are more likely
to backfire and make someone conceited or narcissistic and revise them to make
the statements both helpful to the individual as well as society in general.

PR – WK - 03 VAL1 – UNDERSTANDING THE SELF 21

REFERENCE:
1. Eden Joy Pastor Alata. Bernardo Nicolas Caslib, Jr. Janice Patria
Javier Serafica. R.A Pawilen. Understanding The Self. Rex
Bookstore
2. Elmore, Kristen, George Smith, and Daphna Oyserman. 2012.
“Self, Self – Concept and Identity. “Handbook of Self and Identity.
2nd Ed. Edited by Mark R. Leary and June Price Tangney: 69-95.
New York: The Guilford Press.

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