The Complex Creature that is me: A Self Evaluation of my Social-Self

Abstract:

The aim of this blog is to explore my personal concept of self from a social-psychological perspective. This blog uses current research in the area of self concept as a basis for forming categories of self evaluation, allowing me to explore who I am on a personal and societal level.

Self: The Motivation

Self is “an important tool with which the human organism makes its way through human society…” (Baumeister & Bushman, p. 72, 2008). The notion of self is hypothesised by Gaertner, Sedikides, Vevea & Iuzzini (2002), to be comprised of three primary motivators; the ‘I’, the ‘We’ and the ‘When’. In social-psychological terms these motivators can be seen as being the self concept, the interpersonal self and the agent self (Baumeister & Bushman). Hogg and Williams (2000) use the social identity theory to explain that it is an interaction between nature (personal) and culture (society) that create the basis for how one perceives themselves and is in turn perceived. “Self-concept is not a fixed entity but rather a dynamic structure that comes about through interaction with the social environment” (English & Chen, p.478, 2007), thus it is reasonable to say that one’s self is represented in their past and present. In this blog, I will delve into my past and present experiences and apply social psychological theory to develop a greater understanding of my self-concept.

Self Concept: The “I”

In a brainstorming activity, I identified the factors represented my concept map as being significant components of what makes me the way I am. Factually, I am a 21 year old, male, Caucasian university student. My family would be considered upper middle-class, yet I would consider it to be far from typical. The structure of my family unit is blended, made up of my father, mother, step father, biological brother, step brother and an adopted brother. My father is Swiss-born, with much of my extended family living in Switzerland; this heritage has been incorporated into my life since birth. If I were to be asked to describe myself adjectively I would use the words; positive, persistent, strong-minded, extrovert, selfish and content. I have recently left the family home to pursue a Bachelor of Laws and Psychology degree in Canberra; as such I currently hold the belief that I am also quite independent and capable.


The Interpersonal Self: The “We” (Social Roles)

“A man has as many social selves as there are individuals who recognize him and carry an image of him in their mind” – James (1890), as cited by Sinclair, Lowery & Hardin p. 529, (2006).

Amongst society, I fill a wide range of roles. These roles include that of a son, a brother, a friend, an employee and a student. I believe that these roles do not command equal attention from me. I fill my life with time spent as a family member and friend, as interaction with people close to me takes priority over time spent dedicated to a task such as paid work or university commitments. This seems to be a constant in my life, looking back on teenage years, the next ‘house party’ or disco tended to consume my thoughts rather than an impending exam or a shift at work. A recent move into a shared house with 24 housemates has certainly contributed to an increase in time spent socialising and embarking on recreational activities rather than work hours, and a realisation of this conscious distribution of my energy.

Social Categorisation

“Collective identities are social extensions of the self” – Brewer & Gardner (1996).

Urada, Stenstrom, & Miller (2007) explained the concept of social categorization through an experiment that observed subjects whom identified with similar group members (in group) and those that were not group members (out group); showing that humans do create groups that possess distinct criteria for acceptance. Categorisation is most commonly based on demographic considerations (Chattpadhyay, George & Lawrence, 2004), such as; race, gender, religion, socio-economic status and beliefs. Chattpadhyay, George & Lawrence further noted that the self-categorisation theory explained such categorisations occur as a result of humans wishing to minimise their uncertainty about others. I take this as meaning that one is more likely to gravitate towards, and associate with, other people who present similarly, as a means of avoiding the unknown.

I believe I demonstrate this human behaviour in terms of the social categories I have put myself into. At a simplistic level, the majority of the people I closely associate with are Caucasian, Australian and within the age-range of 19 to 25 years. Further to this, I actively follow membership of groups that are based around subject matter that is directly related to themes central to my own self-concept. I am a member of the Swiss Review, a society for Swiss citizens living abroad. I was baptised at birth, and in later years pursued further acceptance from the Catholic community through attending Sunday school and Church. I became a member of the University of Canberra Law Society upon accepting a place in the Law School. I also regularly attend night clubs and music festivals targeted at young adults who have spare time and money. I think it would be reasonable to suggest that I pursue these groups because of the expectation that acceptance will be easy, and the fellow members will be similar to myself.

Social Comparison

In 1954, Festinger proposed the notion of social comparison (Baumeister & Bushman, 2008), as being a process people undertake to compare themselves with others in order to develop their understanding of own self. Suh (2002) put forward the idea that as a result of Western culture’s desire for consistency, people often hold “multiple selves” (p. 1378) that are context sensitive, and available to the individual to use in order to maintain harmony in changing environments. This theory would suggest that people maintain a constant state of comparison, with the other people around them.

My prime motivator to pursue a degree in Psychology was my love for 'people watching'. Often, I spend hours in coffee shops or shopping centres with friends in order to analyse and critique other people. After researching the social comparison theory, I have realised that my judgement of people’s appearance, clothing and mannerisms is my way of validating myself and dealing with any insecurities I may have.

This is closely related to the theory of social categorisation, as hypothesised by Marques et al. (1998), it is human behaviour to seek “inter-group distinctiveness and legitimization of in-group norms” (p. 976), I believe me being judgemental and critical of others is possibly an attempt to legitimise my membership to certain groups and distinguish myself from those different to me. Often I am quite shallow and the basis of my judgement is (to my shame) the appearance of a person I stereotypically believe to be of a lower socio-economic background or people whose priorities differ from my own. In writing this last paragraph I have experienced first- hand the effect of the ‘looking glass self’ (Cooley 1902, as cited by Cook & Douglas, 1998). By imagining how superficial the statement may appear to others I have learnt a little bit about myself.

The Agent Self: The “When”

The Agent Self relates to the self in action (Baumeister & Bushman, 2008). Research undertaken by Miller et al. (1987) demonstrated that one’s actions are likely to be influenced by the view held by other members of the group involved in the decision. It could be argued then, that a person’s agent self acts in a way that best represents the social category they are in and discriminates against opposing categories.

In the introduction, I described myself adjectively in quite a positive way, indicating that I believe I have quite high self esteem. In part, I attribute this to the belief that I most often act out in a way that is accepted by the people within my social categories. I have been raised with Catholic values and live my life in a way which maintains those beliefs. Furthermore, my family, including myself, robustly support the Liberal Party in Australian politics. This influences my vote at election time but also how passionately I defend criticism levelled at the current government. Both of these values could potentially be viewed as controversial, however I chose to promote these feelings in order to act in a manner that remains true to the person I believe I am. Ultimately when I act on something, I do so to seek the approval of those around me that I consider to share the same values .

Conclusion:

In conclusion, it has become clear to me that my sense of self is in a constant state of evolution, influenced and moulded by experience. Even by completing this assessment I have altered slightly the way I feel about myself by analysing my thoughts and expressed behaviour using appropriate social psychological theory and research. This blog is a brief analysis of what is essentially a very complex creature, self.

Word Count: 1511

References

Baumeister, R., F & Bushman, B., J. (2008). Social Psychology and Human Nature. Thompson Wadsworth (USA).

Brewer, M., B, & Gardner, W. (1996). Who is this “we”? Levels of collective identity and self representations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71, 83-93.

Cook, W., L, & Douglas, E., M. (1998). The looking glass self in family context: A social relations analysis. Journal of Family Psychology, 12, 299-309.

Chattopadhyay, P., & George, E. (2004). Why does dissimilarity matter? Exploring self-categorization, self-enhancement, and uncertainty reduction. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89, 892-900.

English, T., & Chen, S. (2007). Culture and self-concept stability: Consistency across and within contexts among Asian Americans and European Americans. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 93, 478-490.

Gaertner, L., Sedikides, C., Vevea, J., L, & Iuzzini, J., (2002). The “I”, the “We”, and the “When”: A meta-analysis of motivational primacy in self-definition. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83, 574-591.

Hogg, M., A, & Williams, K., D. (2000). From I to we: Social identity and the collective self. Group Dynamics: Theory, Research and Practice, 4, 81-97.

Sinclair, S., Hardin, C., D, & Lowery, B., S. Self-stereotyping in the context of multiple social identities. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90, 529-542.

Suh, E., M. (2002). Culture, identity consistency, and subjective well-being. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83, 1378-1391.

Urada, D., Stenstrom, D., M, & Miller, N. (2007). Crossed categorization beyond the two-group model. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92, 649-664.

Appendices

Appendix A: Theory

The theories explored in this blog were created using current research into the area of self- concept. From the literature I have attempted to create some unique sub-headings within the theories with the thought in mind that by expanding the theory into sub headings and presenting theory-based personal explanation/examples, the theories would become simplified and easily broken down into workable ‘chunks’. A problem encountered was the extra time it took to find different research articles to support the various avenues I wanted to explore.

Appendix B: Research

The research I have conducted for this assessment, I believe is adequate but not substantial. I have used 10 research articles and one text book. A greater variety of texts/media may have made the blog more interesting considering the question was relatively subjective as apposed to academic. I do however feel that the research used in the blog is up-to-date and used relevantly.

Appendix C: Written Expression

I believe I have maintained a balance between APA style and subjective introspective writing. As the assessment was largely based in the first person, I found it easy to slip into less academic language, and use a colloquial terminology. A conscious effort was made to ensure though that any thoughts about myself were adequately explained so that the reader (who has far less intimate knowledge of me than I do) could grasp a personal understanding of me as a person but also had relevant research based support and reference.

The use of readability analysis in MS Word was a new experience for me. Its significance seems questionable, and I probably will never base how readable my assessments are on it in the future unless the statistic is explicitly required. For the purpose of this assessment the statistics for my blog are as follows:

Flesch Reading Ease(FRE) = 36.3
Web text should ideally achieve a FRE of between 60-80; the higher the score the more readable the work is.

Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level = 12
Web text should ideally achieve a FKGL of between 6-7; the lower the score the more readable the work is.

Word Count = 1511
This word count includes in-text citations. If these are removed, the word count lies well within the required 1500 word limit.

I have a tendency to write quite long sentences broken up by the use of commas. In the future for blog assessments I may try a more shortened, brief style of sentence to improve the flow.

Appendix D: Online Engagement

In the early stages of this semester I have been reluctant to engage online using the blogs. I have found it new and a little daunting, and it is in my nature to avoid things like that until I am comfortable with how it works. I have though during the writing of this blog realised that by avoiding the blogs I have missed out on valuable help from other students. It will be my goal to engage more heavily in the blog posting of ideas, comments and suggestions in the coming term.
I have attempted to use headings and simple language in the hope that it makes engaging with blog post 1 easy for other people, and I welcome any comments or questions to be posted on my wall. This will help me just as much with embracing the online engagement concept!