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Chapter 2

The Social Self

Chapter 2 The Social Self

The Sense of Self: Reflected Self-Appraisal and Social Comparison

According to Charles Cooley, we base our image on what we think other people see (Cooley 1902). We imagine how we must appear to others, then react to …

Self-Schemas

In general, a schema is a mental construct consisting of a cluster or collection of related concepts (Bartlett, 1932). There are many different …

Trait and State Self-Esteem

The term self-esteem is often used generically, to refer to how people feel about themselves. However, according to research, there are three …

Self-Evaluation: Self-Enhancement and Self-Verification

Social psychologists have documented that feeling good about ourselves and maintaining positive self-esteem is a powerful motivator of human behavior …

Self-Discrepancy Theory

One influential perspective on what motivates people's behavior is detailed in Tory Higgin's self-discrepancy theory (Higgins, 1987). He …

Self-Presentation: Self-Monitoring and Self-Handicapping

People can go to great lengths to protect their self-image and present themselves in ways that they want others to see them. Sociologist Erving Goffman …

The Rouge Test: Searching for a Sense of Self

Source: Laboratories of Nicholaus Noles and Judith Danovitch—University of Louisville Humans are different from other animals in many ways, but one …

Effects of Thinking Abstractly or Concretely on Self-control

Source: Diego Reinero & Jay Van Bavel—New York University Whether it’s refraining from having a second serving of ice cream, studying instead of …

The Social Dimension of Stress: Experimental Manipulations of Social Support and Social Identity in the Trier Social Stress Test

In many situations humans are influenced by the behavior of other people and their relationships with them. For example, in stressful situations …

Creating Virtual-hand and Virtual-face Illusions to Investigate Self-representation

Studies investigating how people represent themselves and their own body often use variants of "ownership illusions", such as the traditional …

Experimental Paradigm for Measuring the Effects of Self-distancing in Young Children

Self-distancing (i.e., creating mental distance between the self and a stimulus by adopting a less egocentric perspective) has been studied as a way to …