SELF-PERCEPTION &

SELF-PRESENTATION
CHAPTER 3

THE NATURE OF THE SELF

Who are you?
How did you come to be this person
you call myself?
The founder of American
psychology, William James (1842
1910), described the basic duality of
our perception of self.

THE NATURE OF THE SELF

The self is composed of our thoughts and beliefs about ourselves, or
what James (1890) called the known, or, more simply, the me.
The self is also the active processor of information, the knower, or
I.

In modern terms, we refer to the known aspect of the self as the selfconcept, which is the content of the self (our knowledge about who
we are), and to the knower aspect as self-awareness, which is the act
of thinking about ourselves.
These two aspects of the self combine to create a coherent sense of
identity:
Your self is both a book (full of fascinating content collected over
time) and the reader of that book (who at any moment can access a
specific chapter or add a new one).

SELF-CONCEPT
An individuals overall beliefs about his or her own
attributes.
If someone asks you what are you like, what
would you say?
Smart, friendly, artistic, athletic?

The self-concept is made up of distinct beliefs

that we hold about ourselves and that influence
what we notice about the world and how we
process information.

THINKING ABOUT
YOUR THOUGHTS
o Introspection: The examination or observation of one's
own mental (insights) and emotional (feelings) processes.
o Hazards of introspection: Despite common sense belief that thinking
about why we like something can help us understand our attitudes,
introspection is actually not very effective way of gaining insight into
our true attitudes.
o Gut-feelings

o Overestimation of the impact of events: We believe

various factors will influence our mood much more than
they actually do.
o Affective forecasting: the process of predicting the impact of both
positive and negative events on mood.
o Examples:
1. Expectations of breaking up and our future happiness.
2. Perception of being happier if one lived in sunny California.

SELF-AWARENESS
Another factor that can influence the way we see
ourselves:
Self-discrepancy theory: our self-concept is
influenced by the gap between how we actually see
ourselves and how we want to see ourselves.
The impact of self-awareness:
Self-awareness theory: people notice selfdiscrepancies only when they focus on their own
behavior.
Example: Looking in the mirror or hearing ones own voice.
If you are forced to be self-aware, you will be motivated to either
change your behavior (in order to match your own personal
standards) or try to escape from self-awareness (so you dont notice
this contradiction).

REGULATING THE SELF

Limits of self-control:
Once we spent energy on controlling our thoughts and
desires, we have difficulty doing so again.
Trying to control or suppress our thoughts can backfire
and make these thoughts particularly salient.
Example: Trying not to think about something.

Escape from self-awareness:

Can have both positive and negative consequences
depending on the case.
Examples:
Positive: A person on a diet trying to avoid thinking about food by
reading a book.
Negative: Drinking alcohol to prevent thinking about oneself.

EXAMINING YOUR BEHAVIOR

Another factor that can influence how we see ourselves is
our own behavior:
Self-perception theory: we look at our own behavior
to determine our attitudes and beliefs, in just the same
way that we may examine other peoples behavior to
see what they are like.
Self-perception theory explains why asking people to
perform a behavior, especially with little pressure, can
lead them to experience a change in their self-concept.
Example: Going bowling with friends.
Positive association: Here I am bowling, therefore I must like it.

Facial Feedback Hypothesis: changes in facial

expressions can lead to change in emotion.

INTERPRETING YOUR MOTIVATION

Another factor that can influence how people view
themselves is the motivation they identify as the
reason for their behavior:
Intrinsic motivation: the desire to engage in
activity for its own sake, because you find it
interesting or enjoy it internal factors, sheer
interest.
Extrinsic motivation: the desire to engage in
activity for external rewards or pressures
obligations, benefits, avoid punishment.

MOTIVATION
The dangers of over-justification:
Receiving external rewards can undermine our intrinsic
interest in engaging in the behavior for internal reasons, a
phenomenon called over-justification.
This means that sometimes activities that should be intrinsically
motivating, such as reading a book, getting good grades, attending
classes, become less enjoyable once external motivations for such
behavior are provided.
Examples? Volunteering

Overcoming over-justification: Rewards can work very

well to stimulate interest in a given activity.
Task-contingent rewards: Providing rewards for finishing a task
and/or showing high quality work can be quite effective.
Performance-contingent rewards: Self-imposed deadlines to
complete a task, i.e. homework.

WHAT MOTIVATES YOU?

Work Preference
Inventory
Instructions: Rate each item on a scale of 1 (never
or almost never true of me) to 4 (always or almost
always true of me).

1. I enjoy trying to solve complex problems.

2. I am strongly motivated by the
money/grades I earn.
3. Curiosity is the driving force behind much of
what I do.
4. I am strongly motivated by the recognition I
can earn from other people.
5. I prefer to figure things out for myself.
6. I have to feel that Im earning something for
what I do.
7. It is important for me to be able to do what I
enjoy.
8. To me, success means doing better than
other people.
9. Im more comfortable when I can set my
own goals.
10.I prefer working on projects with clearly
specified procedures.

Scoring: Add up your scores on

the odd-numbered items to
create on subscale. Then add up
your scores on the evennumbered items to create a
second subscale.

Interpretation: This scale

assesses peoples focus on
work for intrinsic versus
extrinsic reasons. People
with higher scores on the
intrinsic scale (the odd
numbers) than the extrinsic
scale (the even numbers) are
more motivated by intrinsic
factors and vice versa.

SOCIAL FACTORS INFLUENCE ON

THE SELF-CONCEPT
Factors in the social world, including actual as well
as hypothetical comparison targets, can influence
our own feelings and behavior. Two theories that
show this impact are:
1. Social comparison theory
2. Two-factor theory of emotion

SOCIAL COMPARISON THEORY

People evaluate their own abilities and attributes by
comparing themselves to others.
Influences ones self-esteem.
High achievers in high school vs. attending college with
other academic stars.

Comparisons seem to occur at an automatic or

unconscious level.
Subliminal messages can influence the self-concept.

People choose particular people to serve as

relevant comparison models against which to
assess their own behavior.
Comparisons of best friends, even though that person may
be very different than ourselves.

TWO FACTOR THEORY OF EMOTION

Consider how happy, angry, or afraid you feel at
any given time.
How do you know which emotion you are
experiencing?
This question probably sounds kind of silly; dont
we know how we feel without having to think about
it?
The way in which we experience emotions,
however, has a lot in common with the kinds of
self-perception processes we have been discussing.

TWO FACTOR THEORY OF EMOTION

The experience of a distinct emotion is determined by two
distinct factors the presence of physiological arousal (i.e.
racing heart, heavy breathing, sweating, etc.) as well as
the cognitive label a person gives to that arousal.
When we feel physiologically aroused, for whatever
reason, we interpret that arousal in a particular way based
on the cues present in the situation.
If we feel physiologically aroused when standing next to
an attractive person, we interpret that feeling as love or
lust.
However, being in close proximity to a dangerous animal
(lion or snake) then we interpret the emotion as fear.

MISATTRIBUTION OF AROUSAL
The process whereby people make mistaken
inferences about what is causing them to feel the
way they do.
Residual arousal from one source (e.g., caffeine,
exercise, a fright) can enhance the intensity of how
the person interprets other feelings (e.g., attraction
to someone).

SELF-EVALUATION
A. How do you rate your ability as a student?
Well above average
Above average
Average
Below average
Well below average

SELF-EVALUATION
B. Compared to other students in this class, how
would you rate your ability to get along with
others?
Well above average
Above average
Average
Below average
Well below average

SELF-EVALUATION
C. How confident are you in the accuracy of your
ratings?
100%
80%
60%
40%
20%
0%

SELF-EVALUATION
"A survey of university professors found that 94%
thought they were better at their jobs than their
average colleague"
"A survey of one million high school seniors found
that all students thought they were above average"
in their "ability to get along with others . . . and
25% thought they were in the top 1%".

WHY IS THIS?

SELF-SERVING BIAS
On average, people have a self-serving bias
and an overly positive view of themselves.
People have also been found to rate their
ideas and answers more confidently than
objectively should be the case.

MAINTAINING A POSITIVE
SELF-CONCEPT
We see our own desirable behavior as better than
those of our peers, which is known as the false
uniqueness effect.
People use other self-serving strategies to maintain
positive beliefs about themselves:
1)
2)
3)
4)

Self-serving
Self-serving
Self-serving
Self-serving

biases
beliefs
comparisons
behavior

SELF-SERVING BIASES
We feel good about ourselves by
misremembering events in a particular way.
College students will remember their university
entrance exams and GPAs as being higher than
what they actually were.
Faced with the acknowledgment of a less-than
desirable outcome, i.e failing a test, losing a game,
etc. then we make self-serving attributions.
People maintain positive self-views by blaming
their failures on external factors. When
experiencing success then we attribute the
outcome to internal factors.

SELF SERVING BIASES

People assume their views and behaviors are
normative that is, their views and behaviors are
shared by most other people.
False consensus effect: refers to the tendency
to overestimate the extent to which other people
share our opinions, attitudes, and behaviors.
This is the reason why people are surprised when your
political candidate is not elected or your television show
is canceled.
Why do we make this mistake? In part, we surround ourselves
with people who share similar beliefs.

SELF-SERVING BELIEFS
People maintain positive self-concepts by seeing
themselves as more likely than other people to
experience good events, and as less likely that
other people to experience bad events. This
phenomenon is known as unrealistic optimism.
This explains why we see ourselves as betterthan-average across multiple dimensions,
including more positive personality traits (honesty,
maturity, intelligence, etc.) and being less at risk of
experiencing negative events (getting divorced,
having a car accident, etc.).

SELF-SERVING BIASES
People have high levels of perceived control over
uncontrollable events.
For example, people tend to assume that they
can control random events (picking lottery
tickets, betting on your team to win the game,
etc.).
People also are overconfident in their judgments.
Consequences:
President Bushs confidence in WMDs in Iraq leads to
war.
Eyewitness testimony regarding a suspect, especially
when followed by confirmatory feedback from police
officers.

SELF-SERVING COMPARISONS
People maintain their positive self-concepts by associating
with successful others, a phenomenon known as
basking in reflected glory.
If your team won the game, you say we won.
If your team lost the game, you say they lost.

Benefits of downward comparison: We use social

comparisons in order to make ourselves feel better by
comparing ourselves who are worse off then we are.
When comparing ourselves to people who are clearly
better than us, we overcome threatening
comparisons by emphasizing their various advantages,
acknowledge their abilities in one domain, and exaggerate
the other persons ability and see them as unusual.

SELF-SERVING BEHAVIOR
Because of our desire to feel good about ourselves,
we often use strategies to help maintain our
positive self-views.
Self-handicapping is such a strategy by
creating obstacles to success so that potential
failure can be blamed on these external factors
as opposed to internal traits.
Procrastination on homework assignments or studying
for an exam.

SELF-PRESENTATION
Individuals motivation is to think of themselves in
positive ways as well as to have others in their
social world think of them in such ways.
People present and create positive views of
themselves through impression management
strategies:
Self-promotion
Ingratiation
Self-verification

SELF-PROMOTION
The strategy of self-promotion focus on making
people think you are competent or good in same
way.
Example: Athletes who brag about their accomplishments.

What are the drawbacks of self-promotion?

Competence speaks for itself, i.e. through ones actions.
There are more reasons to explain a negative performance. If
you fail you can blame it on external factors. However, if you
do something well, your performance is likely to be
attributed to your ability.
People can be viewed as unlikeable, especially for women.

INGRATIATION
Ingratiation is a strategy in which people try to
make themselves likeable to someone else, often
through complimenting, flattery, and praise.
Consequences of ingratiation?
It can lead other people to dislike you because they
see your behavior as insincere and caused by an
ulterior motive (desire for a promotion, a raise, a
better grade, etc.).
Sycophant, brown-noser, ass-kisser.

SELF-VERIFICATION
People typically want others to perceive them as they
perceive themselves, regardless of whether they see
themselves in a positive or negative way.
This leads us to prefer to interact with those who see us as we
see ourselves.
Our desire to have other people see us as we see ourselves leads
us to act in even more extreme ways if we are misread by
someone, as a way of correcting the wrong impression.

Self-monitoring is the extent to which one adjusts to

ones self-presentation in different situations.
High self-monitors: easily modify their behavior.
Concerned more about external factors.

Low self-monitors: care little about modifying their behavior.

Concerned more about internal attributes.

THE GOOD AND BAD OF

SELF-PRESENTATION
People go to great lengths to present themselves in
particular ways. However, other people arent paying
as much attention to us as we often believe.
In fact, people overestimate the extent to which their
own appearance and behavior are obvious to others,
which is a phenomenon called spotlight effect.
Concerns with self-presentation sometimes lead
people to engage in crazy or dangerous behaviors.
Refusing to use sunscreen (Western cultures) or using
whitening cream (Eastern cultures), failing to use condoms.

CULTURES INFLUENCE ON THE

SELF-CONCEPT
In many Western cultures, people have an
independent view of the self.
A way of defining oneself in terms of ones own
internal thoughts, feelings, and actions and not in
terms of the thoughts, feelings, and actions of other
people.

Westerners learn to:

Define themselves as quite separate from other
people, and
Value independence and uniqueness.

CULTURES INFLUENCE ON THE

SELF-CONCEPT
In contrast, many Asian and other non-Western
cultures have an interdependent view of the self.
A way of defining oneself in terms of ones relationships
to other people; recognizing that ones behavior is
often determined by the thoughts, feelings, and actions
of others.

Asians learn to:

Connectedness and interdependence between
people is valued,
Whereas independence and uniqueness are
frowned on.