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Chapter 3: The Self

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    217734
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    Chapter Learning Objectives

    1. The Cognitive Self: The Self-Concept

    • Define and describe the self-concept, its influence on information processing, and its diversity across social groups.
    • Describe the concepts of self-complexity and self-concept clarity, and explain how they influence social cognition and behavior.
    • Differentiate the various types of self-awareness and self-consciousness.
    • Describe self-awareness, self-discrepancy, and self-affirmation theories, and their interrelationships.
    • Explore how we sometimes overestimate the accuracy with which other people view us.

    2. The Feeling Self: Self-Esteem

    • Define self-esteem and explain how it is measured by social psychologists.
    • Explore findings indicating diversity in self-esteem in relation to culture, gender, and age.
    • Provide examples of ways that people attempt to increase and maintain their self-esteem.
    • Outline the benefits of having high self-esteem.
    • Review the limits of self-esteem, with a focus on the negative aspects of narcissism.

    3. The Social Self: The Role of the Social Situation

    • Describe the concept of the looking-glass self and how it affects our self-concept.
    • Explore the impact of the labeling bias, self-labeling, and internalized prejudice on people’s self-concepts, particularly in those from marginalized social groups.
    • Define social comparison, and summarize how people use it to define their self-concepts and self-esteem.
    • Give examples of the use of upward and downward social comparison and their influences on social cognition and affect.
    • Explain the concept of social identity and why it is important to human behavior.
    • Describe how self-evaluation maintenance theory helps to explain how we react when other people’s behaviors threaten our sense of self.
    • Describe the concept of self-presentation and the various strategies we use to portray ourselves to others.
    • Outline the concept of reputation management and how it relates to self-presentation.
    • Discuss the individual-difference variable of self-monitoring and how it relates to the ability and desire to self-present.


    Chapter 3: The Self is shared under a not declared license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by LibreTexts.

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