This document summarizes key aspects of the self, including the physical self, social self, and personal self. It discusses self-concept, self-esteem, and ideal self. It also covers social perception and formation of impressions of others, including the influence of body language, stereotypes, prejudice, and attribution theory. Identity development is discussed, including identity statuses and challenges that may be faced by those from minority groups.

1. Self in a Social World
Chapter 6

2. THE SELF
• Self = our impressions + thoughts + feelings
• SCHEMA: A set of beliefs and feelings about
something. Examples include stereotypes,
prejudices and generalizations.
• Parts of the Self: Physical, Social, and Personal.
• Activity: Now take out a piece of paper and
fold it into 4 sections. Write your name in one
section.

3. PHYSICAL SELF
• Physical Self: Ones’ psychological sense of one’s
physical being (ex. height, weight, hair color, race, and
physical skill).
• How is it linked to self-esteem?
• Our adjustment to traits that are mostly permanent,
such as height, sex & race, is closely linked to self-
acceptance/esteem.
• However, other traits such as weight, fitness and hair
style can be modified.
• What are your “Physical Self” traits?

4. SOCIAL SELF
• Social Self: The social roles one plays— student,
worker, husband, mother, citizen, leader, and etc.
• Roles and masks are adaptive responses to the
social situation.
• However, when our entire lives are played behind
masks, it may be difficult to discover true inner
selves.
• What are some of the social roles you play?

5. PERSONAL SELF
• Personal Self: One’s private, continuous sense
of being oneself in the world. Personal Self
includes values, ethics, your name, self-
concept, self-esteem and the ideal-self
• Ethics: Standards for behavior. A system of
beliefs from which one derives standards for
behavior.
• What are some of your values and ethics?
• Now write your name or a name you identify
with in the last section of your paper.

6. WHAT’S IN A NAME?
• Names can influence many things…such as
physical attractiveness and assumptions
people may place on us.
• Nicknames can reflect our attitudes towards
ourselves…(ex. Robert versus Bob versus
Bobby).

7. SELF-CONCEPT
• Self-Concept: Perception of oneself including one’s
traits and an evaluation of those traits.
• The self-concept includes one’s self-esteem and one’s
ideal self.
• Self-Esteem: Self-approval.
• One’s self-respect or favorable opinion of oneself.
• Self-esteem is neither fixed nor unchangeable.
• Though relatively stable over time, self-esteem can
fluctuate, for better or worse.
• Ideal self: One’s perception of what one “ought” to be
and do. Also called the self-ideal.

8. IDENTITY STATUSES
• Identity Achievement: individuals who have
resolved an identity crisis and committed to a
relatively stable set of beliefs or a course of
action.
• Identity Foreclosure: individuals who have
adopted a commitment to a set of beliefs or a
course of action without undergoing an identity
crisis.
• Often, they have adopted the views of their
parents without seriously questioning them.

9. IDENTITY STATUSES
• Identity Moratorium: individuals who are in
the throes of an identity crisis—an intense
examination of alternatives.
• Who feels that they are either in this status or
have been in this status?
• Identity Diffusion: individuals who have
neither arrived at a commitment as to who
they are and what they stand for nor
experienced a crisis.

10. DIVERSITY AND IDENTITY
• Something to reflect on:
• Researchers have found that identity
formation is often more complicated for
adolescents from ethnic minority groups.
These adolescents may be faced with two sets
of cultural values: those of their ethnic group
and those of the dominant culture.

11. Perception of Others
• Social Perception: The process by which we form
understandings of others in our social environment,
based on observations of how others act and
information we receive.
• Primacy Effect: The tendency to evaluate others in
terms of first impressions.
• Recency Effect: The tendency to evaluate others in
terms of the most recent impression.

12. Body Language
• Body language is an important contributor to forming
person schemas and first impressions. Examples: eye
contact patterns, body posture, touching, gazing and
staring.
• Body language does vary by culture. The same gesture
may have a different meaning in one culture than it does
in another. For example, people in Bulgaria shake their
heads up and down to signal “no”.

13. Using Body Language
• Be aware of what other people are telling you
with their body language.
• Pay attention to your own body language as a
way of helping to make the desired impressions
on other people.
• Pay attention to your own body language as a
way of learning about yourself.

14. PREJUDICE
• Prejudice: The belief that a person or group,
on the basis of assumed racial ethnic, sexual,
or other features will possess negative
characteristics or perform inadequately.
• Types of prejudice include sexism, racism,
classism and ageism.

15. Discrimination and Stereotypes
• Discrimination: The denial of privileges to a
person or group on the basis of prejudice
• Stereotypes: Fixed, conventional ideas about a
group that can lead us to process information
about members of the group in a biased
fashion.

16. Sources of Prejudice and Discrimination
• Dissimilarity: tend to like people who share our attitudes and we
tend to assume that people of different races have different
attitudes.
• Social Conflict: People of different races and religions often
compete for jobs, giving rise to feelings of prejudice.
• Social Learning: Children often acquire some of their attitudes by
observing other people, especially their parents.
• Information Processing: Prejudices serve as cognitive schemes,
filters through which people see the social world. It is easier to
attend to and remember instances of behavior that fit with our
prejudices.
• Social Categorization: People tend to divide their social world into
“us” and “them.” People tend to view others in their group more
favorably than those out of their group.

17. Attribution Theory
• Attribution Process: The process by which people
draw conclusions about the factors that influence
behavior.
• Dispositional Attribution: Ascribe a person’s
behavior to internal factors, such as personality traits
and free will.
• Situational Attributions: Attribute a person’s
actions to external factors, such as the social pressure
found in a situation.

18. Attribution Theory
• Fundamental Attribution Error: the tendency to assume
that others act on the basis of choice or will, even when
there is evidence suggestive of the importance of their
situations.
• Actor-Observer Effect: The tendency to attribute our
own behavior to external, situational factors but to
attribute the behavior of others to internal,
dispositional factors such as choice or will.
• Self-Serving Bias: The tendency to view one’s successes
as stemming from internal factors and one’s failures as
stemming from external factors.

19. Enhancing Self-EsteemEnhancing Self-Esteem

20. 21 day
affirmations
Extra credit!!!