THE SELF

EARLY THEORISTS OF THE SELF

William James, Charles Cooley
SELF-CONCEPT & SELF-ESTEEM
Pelham & Swann (1989)
Gender differences?
Self-objectification theory

EARLY THEORISTS OF THE

SELF

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:
perceiving, feeling,

the I does the

CHARLES COOLEY (1864-1929)

Human Nature and the Social Order

The Social Self:

Self cant be understood in isolation-must be studied in interaction with others
Self is not an inherent property of
human nature but rather a sociallyconstructed 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

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.
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SELF-CONCEPT & SELF-ESTEEM

PARADOX: Often there is no obvious relationship between peoples

accomplishments and virtues and their global self-esteem

Augusto Pinochet (1915-?)

Sylvia Plath (1932-1963)

Undeserved high self-esteem ? Undeserved low

self-esteem ?

How do people move from having specific

knowledge about their attributes to global
evaluations of their self-worth?

PELHAM & SWANN (1989)

GLOBAL SELF-ESTEEM (GSE)
General affective evaluation of owns 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:

Known as self-concept (SC)

CONTENT

Hierarchically organized set of specific mental self-views about ones

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

DYNAMICS
determine

FRAMING FACTORS:
1. Attribute importance
2. Attribute certainty
3. Actual/Ideal/Ought
discrepancy

POSITIVE
&
NEGATIVE
AFFECT

TRAIT
SELFESTEEM
(AFFECTIVE
COMPONENT)

SELFCONCEPT
(COGNITIVE
COMPONENT)

GLOBAL SELF-ESTEEM
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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)

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GIRLS SELF-ESTEEM
(Gilligan, 1990)
Girls 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
self-presentation
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PHYSICAL SELF IN YOUNG

WOMEN

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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.
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Highly recommended reading !!

Fredrickson, Roberts, Noll, Quinn, &

Twenge (1998).
That swimsuit becomes you: Sex
differences in self-objectification,
restrained eating, and math performance.
Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology.

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Question for the class:

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

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