Self Perception and How an Individual Develops Attitudes - Essay Example

Self Perception Introduction Self perception is a theory that defines how an individual develops attitudes by observing his own behaviour. It is related to the emotional behaviour of human beings. It tries to study how people perceive themselves and why they behave in a certain manner. It also analyzes what attitudes must have caused them. It believes that people look at their own behaviour just like an outside observer. It has been found that people’s behaviour or self presentation can also change depending on their goals or contexts. There are different theories on how people perceive themselves and why. Schachter’s cognitive labeling theory of emotions This theory believes that the experience of emotions arises from cognitive labeling of physiological sensation. The theory assumes that it is not enough to explain the more subtle differences in emotion self-perception like the difference between fear and anger (Schachter and Singer, 1962). So the individual will gain information from the context and use it to label the situation. Thus it has two necessary conditions- Undifferential Arousal , External cues and context. Bem’s self-perception theory Daryl Bem developed this theory that believes that the individual develops his attitude by observing his own behaviour and concluding their causes. Thus the individual makes self attributions of attitudes, beliefs and so forth, on the basis of observing his own behaviour and the contextual cues. This is an alternative explanation to the cognitive dissonance theory. It explains that people will change their attitudes if they are aroused and they will attribute the cause of this to their own behaviours and attitudes. Self-knowledge Self knowledge in general terms means knowledge of one’s self, or of one’s own character, power and limitations. In the context of social psychology it means the knowledge of an individual’s mental state, belief, desire and sensation. It can be as uncertain as knowledge of others. Internal state can be highly influenced by our own behaviour and the social context it occurs in. Thus it has two factors affecting it- self knowledge as perceived by the individual himself and the other one is the social context, that is comparing himself with the other individuals around him and his interactions with them. Self Concept vs Self Esteem Self concept is a theory that helps us create our sense of identity and how positively we feel about self. It is elaborate, contains a lot of knowledge and helps us to attain three main goals - explanation, prediction and control. It is basically our knowledge about ourself. This is the cognitive component of the self. Self esteem is how we feel about the knowledge that we have about ourself. High levels of self-esteem have been associated with positive outcomes but the research findings(Baumeister et al, 2003) do not support it. It says that contrary to common belief, high self esteem does not cause better performance or better interpersonal success. It may probably bring about more happiness and may affect healthier lifestyles in a sporadic manner. Self Judgment Self judgment is our knowledge of whether we are doing well or not, whether we are doing right or wrong and how should we behave when. It may differ from person to person and it may differ in the same person also time to time. It seems that it is based on our own judgment but that is not the case. Our self judgments is constrained by a variety of factors that can affect its accuracy: a) Influence of mood: Self judgment is highly affected by mood(Schwarz & Clore, 1983). This is evident in the study done by Schwarz & Clore to find out the level of happiness, desire to change and satisfaction with life. It was seen that on a sunny day, they wer more happy and more satisfied with life than on a rainy day. Their want to change also increased on a rainy day as compared to a sunny day. b) The Pollyanna Principle: This principle is about the inclination of people to agree with all positive descriptions about them. It has been seen that ordinary, happy folk are systematically over-optimistic about themselves (Weinstein, 1980) whereas the depressed and unhappy people are those who are more evenhanded and rational about themselves. Understanding depression and its treatment has been a subject of Social psychology research and theories. c) Memory Reconstruction: Research has consistently suggested that memories are highly malleable and the power of suggestion can induce individuals to develop convincing memeories of events that never occurred, (Loftus, 2004). Individuals who had their attitudes to everyday behaviours changed, recalled past behaviours that were consistent with the altered attitudes (Ross et al., 1981). The case of Larry Mayes of Indiana isn example of malleable memory. He was convicted for rape and spent 21 years in prison. After two decades, DNA testing proved his innocence. He was one of the 100 convicts who were prosecuted on basis of memory of the witness but proved wrong later.(Memories of things unseen, Loftus) d) Self-fulfilling prophecies : According to this, the perceiver forms expectancy about target which is followed by perceptual confirmation. The perceiver interprets target behaviour through bias of expectation and acts accordingly. Target responds in kind to perceiver’s behaviour leading to behavioural confirmation and that sets the whole cycle again.( Snyder, Tanke and Bercheid,1977). e) The power of personal experience has many influencing factors and it can be misleading. Self presentation: While studying Self perception, we need to understand self presentation as well. Like self- concept, self esteem and self judgment, this is also an area related to self. This talks about the way one presents oneself. It can be analyzed on the following parameters:- 1) The nature of self –presentation: Self -presentation often focuses on emphasizing our strengths and minimizing our weaknesses. It may be deceptive also as people may present themselves in a certain manner for achieving certain goal. But trust is an important factor in social relationships and liars can be detected. 2) Goals – people have certain goals related to likability and gaining acceptance. They mould their self presentation according to the subject. This is also called ingratiation. They want to be seen as a likable person according to the criterias of the other person and their self promotion can be adjusted accordingly. At times, self presentation can be influenced by intimidation also. 3) Mode of achievement: to reach their goals of being likable for the other person people can adopt various methods. They can express liking for others. Creating similarity with the other person is also a tool to achieve likability. People make themselves physically attractive to appear likable and project a modest image. Conclusion Self- perception is a complex study of self. People normally decide their own attitudes and feelings from watching their own behaviour in different situations. Especially when their internal observation is weak, they effectively put themselves in the position of the other person and observe from their point of view. There are different theories to explain this. Schachter’s cognitive labeling theory of emotions believes that people recognize their emotions, identify them and then react in a particular manner. Bem’s self-perception theory gives a different point of view. It says that people derive cues from their own behaviour. Self- knowledge is a person’s knowledge of self and his strengths and weaknesses. This is highly influenced by external factors and may or may not be true. Self-concept and self esteem are two terms very close in meaning but not actually the same. Self concept deals with understanding or knowledge of self while self esteem deals with the feeling or the emotion generated by that knowledge. Self judgment has a major role of memory that can be very deceiving and can make people believe in things that never actually happened. Self-presentation also moulds itself based on the external factors and internal goals mainly based on gaining someone’s attention or liking. So, it is not an objective phenomenon as it is governed by many factors. Reference: . 1. Elizabeth F. Loftus. (2004). Memories of things unseen. University of California, Irvine. American Psychological Society. 2. Schwarz & Clore, Moods Misattributions and judgments, 1983. 3. Schachter and Singer, 1962, Cognotive, Social and physiological Determinants of Emotional state 4. Snyder, Tanke and Bercheid, Self Fulfilling Prophecy, 1977. Social Behavior: Attribution Theory Introduction Attribution theory explains the ways in which people attribute the behaviour of others or their own behaviour with something else. It analyzes how people attribute causes to events and how this affects their motivation. This theory has been developed by Harold Kelley. He says that this theory has three informative dimensions:- consensus, distinctiveness and consistency. They define whether other people behave the same way towards the target; whether the person behaves in the same way to other items in this class of targets and whether the person consistently behave this way towards the target. Factors and principles This theory explains two ways people see the attribution:- Internal : this is assigning factors within the person External : this is assigning to an outside factor. For example if we consider an imaginary situation where Susan and John are on their first date. John is attractive and she likes him but he keeps looking around the room throughout their conversation and keeps asking Susan to repeat herself. Initially Susan explains his inattentiveness as his being self-absorbed and then to his anxiousness due to this being their first date. The point to note here is that she initially attributes his negative behaviour to an internal characteristic and then to an external attribution.( Fletcher et al, Social Cognition in Intimate Relationships). Covariation principle : According to this principle, people have a tendency to exaggerate correlations that are consistent with casual belief and do not notice the relationship between variables that do not go with their beliefs (Chapman & chapman.1969) Motivation and learned helplessness: People often attribute their helplessness to an external factor this is known as Learned helplessness. For example if something goes well, they attribute it to their own self like some strength that they have but if something goes wrong then they attribute it to some external factor as a Learned Helplessness. This is seen from small children to big adults in very senior positions as well (Dweck and Goetz). A research programme was carried out by Dweck and his colleagues(Dweck & Goetz, 1978) looking at the attributions for learned helplessness following failure in children. They discovered initially that: If a task was directly preceded by a failure experience, children’s performance detoriated badly compared to earlier success on an identical type of task. Helpless Children and mastery-oriented children did not differ in success ratings on initial success task. There was a difference in their attributions for their failure and subsequent performance. Another research suggests that: 1. the attributional pattern causes children to be either helpless or mastery oriented. 2. this attributional pattern can be changed. 3. girls are more helpless than boys ,partly, because of the different interaction pattern between teachers and girls and boys. More recent research has explored the role of praise, and suggested that it too can either increase or decrease intrinsic motivation, depending on what sort of attributions are encouraged in the recipient. . Other studies showed that ‘intellligence’ praise also undermined their ability to later deal with experiencing failure on the same sort of problems. This body of research has serious implications for the use of praise and reward in classroom and educational settings and raises doubts about using a simple ‘reinforcement’ approach. Conclusion A lot of research over the last three decades has applied attribution theory to motivation. It explains why people are not motivated when there is no internal reward. When they perform a task on external reward, then they do not get any enjoyment out of it which is necessary for motivation. When the internal reward is there, i.e. they enjoy doing the task then it increases intrinsic motivation. (Deci and Ryan 1985) It shows that when rewards are contingent on the degree of successs, they tend to enhance intrinsic motivation, but when they are contigent simply on performing a task, then they tend to undermine intrinsic motivation(Boggiano & Rubble, 1979) Attribution theory has been applied in many settings, and used in many social psychological theories, including intimate relationships, educational settings and motivation. Reference: Boggiano, A.K. & Rubble, D.N., 1979, Competence and the overjustification effect: A developmental study, Journal of personality and social psychology, 37, 1462-68. Deci, E.L. & Ryan, R.M., 1985, Intrinsic Motivation an dself determination in human behaviour. Intimate Relationship Introduction Intimate relationship is a relationship where the participants know and trust each other very well and they confidants of one another. These relationships normally have physical and emotional intimacy. There are many theories people have developed to analyze intimate relationships. The basic reason is that it is an important aspect of our lives. With many role models and lots of information around, people develop these theories. Some of them believe that love is an important factor in intimate relationships. This is quite true yet difficult to define. Social psychology started its scientific study in 60’s and 70’s. Communication in intimate relationships In a research done by Gottman, interactional patterns of communication in married couples was studied. It was seen that there was an increased escalation of negative interaction within the married couples. There was more of verbal and non-verbal negative behaviour and as they rewarded each other for the positive behaviour, they punished each other for negative behaviour. This caused unhappiness in the relationships. According to Fletcher, there is a mutual influence of relationship interactions and relationship satisfaction.(Fletcher & Thomas, 2000) Based on the research findings, Fletcher has divided the couples into three types:- The good communication relationship:- They approach conflict and discuss problems in open and honest fashion. They normally have liberal views and are well educated. They enjoy talking about their relationship with their friends and partners and like to analyze their relationship. They actively nurture the relationship and give value to their individuality and freedom to grow. The good management relationship:- They avoid conflict and do not talk about their relationship. They accept their dependency openly without obsessing about their loss of individuality. They are affectionate and warm but still rigid and traditional. The volatile relationship:- They bicker and argue too much and are feisty and assertive. They say what they think. They are very passionate and can express love and affection in an inhibited manner but there is more possibility of physical violence. According to John Gottman, there are four horseman of the apocalypse or behaviours that lead to marital dissolution:- complain/ criticize, contempt, defensiveness and stonewalling. These are negative behaviours and can be both verbal and non-verbal but there existence leads the relationship to bitterness and causes it to break. The role of cognitive processing It is not just the behaviour that defines relationship but also how people think about each other also plays a critical role. Research in this area started in 1980 and social cognitive process came up as a major study focus. It shows that attributions are related in predictable ways to relationship satisfaction and the occurrence of positive on-line cognition and interactive behaviour(Fletcher, 2002) It means that people’s interpretation of positive and negative behaviour retains their prior levels of relationship satisfaction. Blaming has a major corrosive effect in intimate relationships. There are two competing models that are mostly debated. On general model claims that normally social cognition is positively biased overoptimistic and Pollyannaish. This approach believes that the motivation to retain a positive and good level og self –esteem is a persuasive motive and it leads to a positive level of relationship. The other model called the relationship reality model, argues that people are motivated by the desire to be accurate in their relationship judgments and that makes their judgments mostly correct. It says that a firm grasp of relationship reality is necessary for healthy functioning relationships. Lay relationship theories Lay relationship theories are naïve theories. They have two functions:- motivational and epistemic. According to Fletcher(2002), people are motivated by the desire to maintain a positive aim of their intimate relationship, but it is also likely that they will sometimes be motivated by more epistemic aims, like accurate predictions and good explanations. Lay relationship theories could be of two types:- general theories about hypothetical relationships and specific theories about specific relationships. General theories are based on media-delivered information, biological adaptations, experiences and observations. They are also loaded with mental baggage brought in by the people themselves. Normally people judge their relationship by comparing what they want and what they have.(Fletcher, 2002) If it matches, then they are more likely to continue. For example, if we consider the case of John and Susan again, on their second date. Susan sees that John is nicely dressed and also has a good job then it fits into her criteria of an ideal man. But at the same time she is concerned about his caring and sensitivity also. If her boyfriend is to engrossed in his carrer and does not have enough time for her, it might affect their long term relationship. She had faced similar situation earlier and had the fear of not getting the love. During the course of conversation, she finds some common interests and theat gives her hope.( Social cognition in intimate relationships, Fletcher et al)There are certain features that are universal in mate selection. These are physical attractiveness, good health, vitality, status and resources. These criteria are explained in evolution theory and also socio-economic theory. The preferences of these criteria are different for men and women. They also differ based on whether they are looking for a long term relationship or short-term relationship. Attachment theory Attachment theory was initially a developmental theory developed by John Bowlby. It is based on the idea that people develop relationship models or working models based on early interaction with caretakers. Ainsworth classifies them in 3 types:- Secure, Anxious/ ambivalent and Avoidant. Secure people are easy to get close to others and they are comfortable in depending on them. They are not worried about either being abandoned or someone getting too close to them. Anxious people feel that others are reluctant to get as close to them as they would like. They often worry that their partner does not love them as much or will abandon them. They want to get too close to their partner and sometimes scare them away. Avoidant people are uncomfortable in getting close to others. They cannot trust them and they do not like depend on them either. They have a feeling that their partner is trying to be closer than they would like them to be. These styles can be used to describe attachment styles in adult romantic partners by Hazan and Shaver(1987). They said that these styles are derived from infant attachment styles. This theory has been criticized also and critics have raised questions like whether these attachment styles are stable over long periods of time? And do the individuals have same attachment style for different categories like platonic relationships or with parents or in sexual relationships.(Fletcher & Friesen,2003) Simpson, Rholes & Nelligan(1992) have done a study to show that the Secure individuals offer and seek more support from their Avoidant partners when they are under stress. It has been examined by Mikulincer(1998), in context of trust0related strategies. He found that when a context stem was presented with trust violation, like “I trust my partner and he/she hurts me’, the words – talk and worry, were identified faster by the anxiously attached individuals where as the avoidantly attached individuals identified the words – escape and worry , faster.( Social cognition in intimate relationships, Fletcher et al) This shows the characteristic of anxious and avoidant individuals. Gender differences in Relationship process There are some differences in the gender but there are more differences within the gender than the genders themselves. There is a traditional demarcation of roles based on gender. Some relationships follow the traditional roles but some are based on equal partner status. Mate selection process also finds differences in criteria of men and women while seeking or offering mate selection. Intimate relationship studies have seen some behaviour more prevalet in women as compared to men like leaving relationships more often, or engaging in problem solving interactions while men try to avoid it. Women are more inclined to talk about their relationships than men although they are more complex than men. Conclusion The human nature and complexity of intimate relationships has intrigued the human mind for centuries. It has given rise to numerous theories like attachment theory, cognitive theory, lay theory etc. All of them have some logic but since the human nature itself is not always based on logic, it is difficult to predict it or to define it precisely. People’s choice of partners and their relationship is also equally complex. It is best to quote William Shakespeare from Midsummer Night’s Dream:- Love sees not with the eye, but with the mind; And therefore is wing’d Cupid painted blind. This sums up the intimate relationship as based on emotions and thinking both. Reference: Carrere,S., Buehlman, K.T., Gottman, J.M. Coan, J,A., & Ruckstuhl, L.(200). Predicting marital stabiltity and divorce in newly-wed couples. Journal of family Psychology, 14, 42-58. Fletcher, G.J.O.,Simpson,J.A., Thomas, G & Giles, L.(1999). Ideals in close relationships. Journal of personality and social psychology, 76,72-89. Fletcher, G.J.O. and Thomas, G. (2000). On-line cognition and marital interaction: A longitudinal invetigation. Personal relationships. Hazan, C. and Shaver, P.R.(1987) Romatic love conceptualized as an attachment process, journal of personality and social psychology, 52, 511-524. Social Psychology in the Courtroom Introduction Social psychology in court room can cover a very wide range of topics related to the court room like jury selection, decision making, influences on verdicts and testimonies of the witnesses. Especially the testimonies of witnesses have undergone considerable research. It shows that half the time the testimony of a witness could be wrong. It all depends on the circumstances.(Wells & Olson,2003) There have been many cases, in USA where the individuals convected for a serious crime like rape have been released after the new DNA evidence. Similar cases have taken place in New Zealand also. New Guidelines Now USA has developed new guidelines based on the eyewitness research. These include:- Interviewing a witness with open –ended questions and avoiding questions that would lead the witness. To have only one witness at a time in a line up and ensuring that people who fit the general description given by the witness to be the ‘fillers’. The witness will be told that he perperator may not be there in the line up. Jury Selection and Verdicts Jury selection normally involves peremptory challenges coming from the lawyers. USA has been using a scientific (so-called) jury selection that involves the use of attitude questionnaires and shadow juries but their effectiveness has been questioned. Even in very high profile cases like O J Simpson and Rodeney King, the scientific jury selection was used. Jury verdicts have many determinants like witness and defendant attractiveness, their similarities to jurors, the instructions of the judges and also the attitudes and prejudices of the jurors. The most important variable out of all these things is the quality and quantity of the evidence. This also depends on the special kind of situation that a jury has to represent. It was seenin a survey done by Kalven and Zeisel(1966) that hung juries normally needed an initial minority of 3 or 4 people. Context of Movies These studies can be done in the context of many movies that are based on court trials. For example,In the movie called “12 Angry Men” we can study many points of the social psychology of the court- room. The movie itself is very dramatic where one juror persuades eleven others which is highly unlikely in reality. However, in this movie, we can see eyewitness testimony and decision- making. Decision making here involves majority and minority factors. The persuasion attempts are made based on evidence and arguments. There is a major role of prejudice and belief perseverance. We can see the effect of similarity of defendant to jury members. The noticeable things are judge’s instructions and special norms of beyond reasonable doubt. One needs to look at the attempt of proving guilt and not innocence. Another example could be the Rodney King Case, where the jury had no access to anyone, not even media. Virginia Loya, who was one Hispanic juror had to fight for many days to get at least one policeman convicted but had to finally give in to the majority. Her comments were noted as “the people’s eyes weren’t open and I said to God- if you give me one more person on my side I would know”. Conclusion All these studies help us see the application of social psychological principals in real life. Courtrooms especially are a vital study grounds as most of the judgments are based on psychological aspects of the jury, the convicts, the witnesses and not to forget the lawyers. Many studies have already been done in this area where the factors affecting a judgment have been closely examined. The inclusion of new guidelines in the USA law, is a result of such studies only. More research in this area can help refine this process and make it more fool proof. Reference: Kalven, H.Jr., & Zeisel, H. (1996), The American Jury. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Wells, G.L., & Olson, E. (2003). Eyewitness testimony. Annual Review of Psychology, 54, 277-295. Read More