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PYC3701 Chapter 4 Summary
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- University Of South Africa (Unisa)
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Chapter 4: The self1. Self Presentation: Managing The Self In Different Social Contexts
Ppl who are high in stigma consciousness- a readiness to see negative outcomes as
stemming from their devalued group membership- may attribute exclusion or other negative
social outcomes to discrimination.
Self presentation tactics
Self promotion: we can try to ensure that others form impression of us based on our most
favourable self-aspects.
Self verification perspective: process we use to lead others to agree with our views of
ourselves.
Research on this topic suggests that negotiation occurs with others to ensure they agree
with our self claims.
Example: if u see urself as a good student when meeting others you will emphasise those
parts of urself, while underplaying the parts of urself that are fun…even if this leads the other
to see u as boring (u wish others to see u as u see urself, even if negative)
According to this view even if it means potentially receiving info that is negative from
others about ourselves – we may still wish to have other see as we see ourselves.
When given a choice we prefer to be with ppl who verify our views about ourselves. Even
if those views are negative.
We can also create a favourable view of ourselves (self presentation) by conveying our
positive regard for others – we like to feel that others respect us and we appreciate those
who convey it to us.
To transmit this view to others u can represent urself as someone who particularly values
or respects them
When we want to make a good impression on someone it can be useful to employ:
Ingratiation tactics: we make others like as by praising them. This is effective unless we
overdo it.
Self-deprecating: imply that we are not as good as someone else – to communicate
admiration or lower ppls expectations of our abilities.
Research on collage students has shown that those who tell more lies have more friends.
Presenting online is different to real life; it is especially helpful for those that are shy, as they
can act in a more outgoing manner because of the lack of auditory and visual feedback.
Downside of a dependence on online social interaction: Individuals who lack self-
presentation skills are more likely to be attracted to online social interaction relative to face-to-
face or other forms of synchronous communication. Dependency on the internet for one’s
social interactions cannot help but detract from building skills for dealing with people in the
real world. One of the primary seductions of the Web is the ability to present those aspects of
ourselves we wish to present and to more easily control our responses to others. We need to
balance our online interactions with offline communications; this will likely help us to maintain
a healthy relationship with this constantly developing technology.
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, 2. Self Knowledge: How Do We Know Who We Are?
Introspection: looking inward to discover causes of our own behaviour
One method that is useful for learning about the self is to engage in -
Introspection – to privately think about whom we are
Is this really the best way to understand ourselves?
We don’t have conscious access to the reason for all our actions – we can generate what
might seem like logical theories of why we acted in a specific way.
However thinking about reasons for our actions can misdirect our quest for self-
knowledge when our behaviours are really driven by our feelings.
We often don’t know why we act in a certain way or feel something- introspection can
lead us to the wrong conclusions.
Introspection can mislead us when we attempt to predict how we will respond to a
particular situation in the future.
When we are not in the particular circumstance we might not be able to accurately
predict how we would respond when we are in them.
This does not mean that introspection is misleading, it does depend what we are
introspecting about. When behaviour in question is based on conscious decision making
process thinking about these reasons might well lead to accurate self judgements, when
we fail to take into account factors that really do influence how we feel our introspection
may lead to inaccurate self inferences
So while looking inward may be helpful it really depends on the situation
The self from the other’s perspective:
Another attempt to learn about ourselves involves taking an “observer” perspective on our
own past (from outside in)
When we analyse our own behaviour we attribute our behaviour to more external
(situational) causes; when we observe others we tend to attribute the same behaviour to
be more dispositional (internal) causes.
So when we take an observers perspective we will probably see ourselves in
dispositional or trait terms
Pronin and Ross: found the above to be true- College students and middle-aged staff
members had to describe themselves as they were 5 years ago or as they are today
The past self was described in more dispositional and trait terms – as observers do – than
was the present self; the present self was seen as varying in different situations.
How does this (‘observing’ ourselves) change how we see ourselves? When we try to
learn about ourselves from another’s vantage point, we are likely to see ourselves as
observers do – in terms of consistent traits.
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