This article is for use only of students enrolled in GPS 520: Advanced Social Psychology for purposes associated with this course and may not be retained or further disseminated.
Hoyle,
R. H., Kernis, M. H., Leary, M. R., & Baldwin, M. W. (1999). Selfhood:
Identity, esteem, regulation. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
The
Self-System
All models are wrong but some models are useful.
—Box (1979, 202)
What
is the
self? Collectively,
social and behavioral scientists have made significant progress in characterizing the self. Spurred by the
cognitive revolution
in psychology,
empirical research in the late 1970s and early 1980s laid
the groundwork
for what is now an impressive body of knowledge about the self. Although the theoretical model of the self
that is emerging from
this body of
knowledge is incomplete, and most certainly wrong in some
of the
particulars, it serves
the useful function of orienting an increasingly large number of self researchers toward a common set of questions.
A
fundamental characteristic of this emerging model of the self is the almost
constant interplay between the self-system and the social environment. In this
chapter, we attempt to capture the essence of this interplay and provide a
framework for our subsequent review of the burgeoning research literature on
the self, using an explicit definition of the self-system. After stating the
definition, we elaborate on each key concept through comparisons with familiar physical systems. In this chapter, we
refer sparingly to
findings from specific research studies; however, abundant support for
most aspects
of the definition
will emerge from our integrative review of research findings in the chapters
that follow.
We
define the self, which, for reasons that will become apparent, we refer to as the "self-system,” as follows:
The
self-system is an interactive, self-regulating system
of
self-referent thoughts, feelings, and motives. It gives rise to an enduring
experience of physical and psychological existence—a phenomenological sense
of continuity and predictability. The self is reflexive and dynamic
in nature:
responsive yet stable, complex
yet unified both
private and public, conscious and nonconscious, variable and fixed.
(Page
12)
Given
our introductory
remarks, it is
perhaps surprising that the word "social"
does not appear in our definition. But, as closer examination will reveal, the
importance of social experience is apparent at every turn.
Self-Regulating
System
What
do we mean by the
statement that “the self-system is an interactive, self-regulating system of self-referent
thoughts, feelings, and motives”? A key word in this statement and our definition is “system.”
Indeed, it is
this idea on which the remainder of our definition rests. In describing the self as a
system, we mean
that it is
composed of multiple components that are meaningfully organized into a stable,
cohesive, functioning whole. Like other systems, the self-system can be
characterized as follows:
• It
serves a small number of basic functions.
• It is organized.
• It is
sell-regulating.
In
the interest of
clarity, let us digress for a moment to consider a familiar bodily system—the
cardiovascular system.1 Its basic function is the transportation
of various substances in a fluid medium to and from cells throughout the body.
Structurally, it consists
of interdependent parts—the heart and the blood vessels, the latter comprising
arteries, veins, and capillaries. These parts are organized in such a
way that the basic function of the system is served efficiently and effectively.
Oxygen-carrying blood moves through arteries away from the heart and is
distributed throughout the body, and oxygen-depleted blood moves through veins
from throughout the
body, back to
the heart. The cardiovascular system is said to be self-regulating
because the
volume of blood circulated to and from different destinations in the body and
the speed with which it
is circulated
are adjusted in response to a complex interaction of signals from bodily
tissues and the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. For instance,
blood pressure, which is vitally important to the basic function of moving
fluids through the body, must stay within limits the body can tolerate—too
high and vessels rupture;
too low and
circulation stops. In a properly functioning cardiovascular system, blood
pressure is regulated by processes that are sensitive to these limits, such as
fluctuations in the size of the blood vessels,
(1We
rely heavily on Anthony and Thibodeau’s (1984) excellent primer on anatomy and
physiology, Structure and Function of the Body, and a basic treatment of
cardiovascular functioning by Carlson (1988) for information presented in
this section.)
(Page 13)
variability
in the volume of fluid in the system, and the strength and rate of the heartbeat
(Anthony and Thibodeau 1984).
Let
us now
consider these same basic characteristics of a system as they manifest in the
self-system.
Basic
Functions
All
systems serve at least one basic function, and without at least a basic
understanding of a system’s function(s), it
is not possible
to characterize it
in any kind of
meaningful way. Perhaps surprisingly, given the long history of
intellectual
inquiry about the self, there is not a widely recognized list of basic functions
served by the self-system. On the basis of the empirical research literature
in social psychology, we see at least three basic functions
of the
self-system.
·
Planning and interpreting behavior. The self provides a basis for planning and
evaluating behavior in the form of standards. These standards include
internalized values
(Greenberg,
Pyszczynski, and Solomon 1986), principles (Carver and Scheier 1982), and goals
(Higgins
1987; Markus and Nurius 1986; Taylor, Neter, and Wavment 1995) that
function to motivate the individual to engage in particular actions and avoid
others in light of prevailing circumstances. For instance, Greenberg et al.
(1986) posit that internalized standards of culturally valued behavior provide a
context for behaving in ways that contribute to feelings of value and worth.
And Higgins (1987) proposes that behavior is evaluated against self-beliefs that
correspond to one’s own and significant others’ desires and sense of
obligation. McAdams (1995; see also Graziano, Jensen, Campbell. and
Finch 1997) refers to these collectively as Level II concerns of the person,
deriving jointly from personality traits and contextual forces such as time,
place, and role.
·
Monitoring. The self serves as a monitor of the degree to which the individual is
adequately fulfilling basic organismic needs. Two such needs are social
inclusion (Baumeister
and Leary 1995) and cultural adherence (Becker 1962). In the case of each of these basic human needs, personal
self-esteem has been posited as a gauge of the degree to which that need is
adequately fulfilled. With regard to social inclusion, sociometer theory (Leary
and Downs 1995) proposes that, as a gas gauge indicates how much fuel is in the tank,
self-esteem indicates
how adequate and fulfilling are a person’s social relations. In terms of cultural adaptation, terror management
theory (Greenherg, Pvszczyriski, and Solomon 1986) posits that self-esteem
arises from viewing oneself as a valuable adherent to a cultural
(Page
14)
worldview.2
In each case, thoughts and feelings that arise within the self-system
serve a monitoring function in the service of basic, survival-oriented needs.
·
Information processing. Third, cognitive aspects of the self-system provide
a coherent context within which information about oneself and social experience
is understood and utilized. Greenwald (1980) eloquently stated this function as
follows: “Ego [i.e., self], as an organization of knowledge, .
. . serves the
functions of observing (perceiving) and recording (remembering) personal
experience; it can
be characterized, therefore, as a personal historian” (p. 603). In an even
stronger statement of this function, Combs and Snygg (1959) suggest that “the phenomenal self .
. . is the frame
of reference in terms of
which all other
perceptions gain their meaning” (p. 145). How
is this function accomplished? In a review of research on the self in
information processing, Kihlstrom et al. (1988) concluded that “the self is
one of the richest, most elaborate knowledge structures stored in memory”
(p. 150). Although
it now
appears that self-knowledge is not qualitatively different from knowledge
about other objects (Klein and Kihlstrom 1986), the sheer volume of
self-knowledge and the ease and frequency with which it
is referenced
render it uniquely
central in memory and thinking (Greenwald 1980). For instance, in the seminal
experiment regarding the self in information processing, Rogers et al. (1977)
showed that people remember words encoded with reference to the self better
than words encoded with reference to particular qualities of the words themselves.
Complementing this evidence of a self-reference effect was Markus’s (1977) demonstration that
self-knowledge is structured and organized and figures prominently in judgments
about the self and interpretation of information relevant to the self. These
foundational findings, described more fully in Chapter 3, along with a substantial
body of research findings published subsequently, clearly and directly implicate
the self in information processing.
Organization
Unlike
the components of bodily systems, which can be touched, manipulated, even
replaced, components of the self-system are intangible. That is
(2Unlike
sociometer theory, which portrays self-esteem largely as an indicator, terror
management theory views self-esteem as both an indicator and a valued
commodity for which the individual directly strives.)
(Page 15)
not
to say that
they are not
real or consequential. Indeed, the parts we have identified—thoughts,
feelings, and motives—are as real and consequential in everyday life as a limb
or an organ. At issue in the present context is the degree to which these parts
are, like the parts of any functioning system, organized.
Perhaps
owing to the cognitive revolution in psychology, which has profoundly affected
research methods as well as theorizing during the past two decades, most of the evidence regarding the organization of the self-system has
focused
exclusively on thoughts. Markus (1977) argued that, by inference,
self-referent thoughts are organized because the self functions to organize
social experience (i.e., the information processing function detailed earlier).
She described the self-system as a set of interrelated cognitive structures that
both reflect the
individual’s experience and affect the individual’s planning and
understanding of subsequent experiences (Markus and Sentis 1982). These
substructures include various forms of self-representation— from individual differences (e.g., “self as woman”), to relationships
(e.g., "self with best friend”), to particular situations (e.g., “self
at school”)— that
become
associated in memory as they are brought to mind simultaneously in social experience.
Considerably less empirical research has focused
on the place of feelings and motives in the self—system. One possibility is
that they are implicit in the "cognitive” structures that are the
building blocks of cognitively oriented accounts of the self-system. This
possibility is considered in Markus’s (1983) call for an "expanded
view” of self-knowledge. The expanded view would move beyond the relatively
passive self-as-object models of the self-system that focus on self-knowledge
(often to the exclusion of feelings and motives; e.g., Kihlstrom et al. 1988) to
an expanded conceptualization in which knowledge structures, because they affect
expectations for future action (Markus 1983; Markus and Nurius 1986) and
evaluations of those actions (Higgins 1987), include affective
information and prescribe desires and goals that motivate action and inspire
self-improvement (e.g., deCharms 1968; Deci and Ryan 1995; White 1959).
Yet
even with the issue of where feelings and motives fit into the self-system
somewhat resolved, fundamental questions about the organization of the
self-system remain unanswered. For instance, it is not yet clear exactly what
the structure of the self-system is like. Terms such as “complexity”
(Linville 1985), "compartmentalization” (Showers 1 992a), and
“differentiation" (Donahue et al. 1993) suggest particular ways
and degrees to which self-knowledge may be organized (these ideas are elaborated
in Chapter 4), but there is, at this point in time, no explicit hypothesis as to
how or where the thoughts, feelings, and motives that make up the self-system
are arrayed.
Perhaps
an even more fundamental question concerns how these knowledge structures come
to be organized, in whatever form they might take,
(Page 16)
into a system in the first place. For a
plausible explanation and to highlight the nature of the problem, we turn to an
example from the natural sciences, in which biologists, mathematicians,
geologists, and physicists attempt to understand the laws that give rise to a
wide range of complex systems— from molecules to galaxies (e.g., Yates 1987).
In an enlightening essay, biologist Arthur Iberall (1987) described how the
emergence and flow of rivers can he understood on the basis of a few
well-reasoned assumptions (e.g., water flows downhill) and a few well-understood
processes (e.g., rainfall, evaporation). Given the assumptions and raw
materials, the processes give rise to a relatively stable and predictable but
complex system. States Iberall, "Natural systems are not like man-made
systems. They are self-organizing ... within boundary constraints. Within the
field so loosely constrained, they sort themselves out in both form and
function” (p. 33). In line with lberall’s statement, we suggest that
the self-system, in the course of cognitive and social development, “sorts
itself out” according to a small number of lawful processes that most
certainly involve social experience. As will be apparent in later chapters,
social psychologists have made great strides during the past two decades toward
explicating the involvement of the self-system in personal and social
experience. Thus, we might optimistically conclude that plausible models of
the organization of the self-system are forthcoming.
Self-Regulation
Another basic property of a system, and
therefore of the self, is self-regulation. By self-regulation we mean the
system functions in such a way that, under normal circumstances, it remains
within adaptive limits on critical indicators without outside intervention.
Recalling the example of the cardiovascular system presented earlier, blood
pressure is a critical indicator, and the design of the cardiovascular system
ensures that, under normal circumstances, blood pressure is neither too low
nor too high.3 A properly self-regulating system, physical or
psychological, functions at or near homeostasis—relative
constancy—most of the time (Cannon 1929).
What are the critical indicators of homeostasis within the self-system?
As noted earlier, it would appear that self-esteem, though perhaps not an end in
itself, gauges the degree to which the individual is socially accepted and
culturally adapted. More generally, negative self-directed emotions such as
guilt and shame may indicate instability or incongruence within the self-system
(Higgins 1987). And elevations in physiological arousal (e.g., tension,
(3Of
course, self-regulation can fail (e.g., hypertension), in which case the
influence of forces outside the system (e.g.. medicine, dietary constraints) is
required.)
(Page 17)
anxiety)
accompany disharmony between self-representation and behavior (Cooper and Fazio 1984). Two characteristics of these
indicators are of note. First, emotions and arousal instigate and influence
behavior, which, as described below, is a primary means of restoring homeostasis
within the self-system. Second, these indicators can, to some degree, be traced
to the neurology and physiology of the body (Cacioppo, Berntson, and Crites 1996). Thus there
is a clear link between the self-system and certain bodily systems, thereby
implicating both psychology and biology in self-regulation.
The
mechanisms or strategies that function to maintain homeostasis within the
self-system fall into two broad categories: interpersonal and cognitive. Interpersonal
strategies reflect
calculated behavior, whereas cognitive strategies involve strategic thinking. These strategies are detailed in later
chapters, so, for purposes of the present discussion, we touch on them only
briefly here. Interpersonal strategies involve choosing situations, interaction
partners, or specific behaviors that are likely to lead to affirmation of
personal goals, values, and principles (e.g., Carver and Scheier 1982; Swann,
Stein-Seroussi, and Giesler 1992). Cognitive strategies involve managing
information in such a way that it “fits
in” with knowledge structures in the self-system. For example, explanatory
maneuvers that allow one to feel responsible for good performances and blame
someone or something for failures (e.g., Arkin and Baumgardner 1985)
are
cognitive strategies that serve a
self-regulatory
function. In tandem, interpersonal and cognitive strategies of self-regulation
effectively hold the self-system within healthy limits on critical indicators.
Personhood
According
to our definition, the self-system, along with personality and physical
characteristics, "defines the person.” A brief discussion of aspects of
the person that we view as distinct from (though related to) the self will bring
our notion of
the self-system into sharper relief. Consistent with McAdams’s (1995) model of the person, we view personality as
antecedent to the self. To understand the basis for this assertion, consider the
three levels of personhood proffered by McAdams:
·
Level 1: traits. These are broad, decontextualized, and relatively nonconditional
constructs . . . a
dispositional signature” (p. 365). Collectively, they represent what
classically is known as personality (e.g., shyness, dominance). Their influence
on the behavior of the individual transcends circumstances such as time and
place and, because these more immediate concerns can be highly salient, may
not influence behavior
at all (Caspi
and Mofflt 1993).
(Page
18)
·
Level 11: personal concerns. These include "personal strivings, life tasks,
defense mechanisms, coping strategies, domain-specific skills and values, and
a wide
assortment of other motivational, developmental. or strategic constructs that
are contextualized in time, place, or role" (p. 365). The overlap between
this level of personhood and the self-system as we have described it is
apparent.
·
Level III: evolving identity. This is our term for what McAdams describes as
~‘the person’s
identity as an internalized and evolving life story (p.
365). Here,
McAdams is referring to the larger concerns of personhood
that deal with
meaning and purpose in life. Specifically, individuals define themselves with
reference to a set of values and strivings that provide personally meaningful
context for their thoughts and actions.
McAdams’s (1995) eloquent analysis of personhood clearly places personality
in the background and the self in the foreground of personal experience, a
position that would characterize any treatment of the self (such as ours) that
is primarily social in orientation. Nevertheless, it is not uncommon to see
the terms "personality" and “self” used interchangeably or the
self portrayed as a facet of personality (e.g., Markus 1983). As McAdams’s
analysis and our definition make clear, the self-system is influenced by personality
but is not synonymous with it.
Similarly,
physical attributes, though consequential in the thoughts, feelings, and motives
that constitute the self-system, are distinct from it. Perceptions of
physical attributes, evaluations of physical appearance, and feelings of
physical health and vitality are clearly part of the self-system, hut these are interpreted
notions of the body, not the body itself. We should note that we part
company with some self theorists in drawing the distinction between the
physical body and the psychological self. James (1950) saw the body as
the most fundamental component of the material self, which, in his model,
corresponds to possessions. (He described the body as "intimately
ours.") Use of the term “self” in this manner risks construing the
notion of self in such broad and encompassing terms that it loses integrity as
a distinct object of empirical research. An alternative view, one that is
consistent with our view of the self as a psychological construct, is that
perceptions, evaluations, and feelings associated with one’s body, but not the
body per se, are part of the knowledge base that forms the structure of the
self-system.
This internalization of the interpreted sense
of body, along with a large measure of additional subjectively encoded
information about oneself (e.g., intellectual ability, social skill),
contributes to what we term the “enduring experience of physical and
psychological existence.” Here we are referring most directly to the notion of
consciousness of oneself as a complex, multifaceted
(Page 19)
being,
related to and dependent on other people, places, and objects, but distinct
from them. Admittedly, there are various levels of consciousness, and it would
appear that even the simplest of living species can distinguish itself from the
environment. Clearly, the experience of consciousness in human beings far
exceeds this rudimentary form of self-recognition to include not only the
capacity to self-reflect, a capacity shared with other primate species (Gallup
1977), but the capacity to set goals, plan behavior, foresee consequences, and
guard the integrity of the self (Sedikides and Skowronski 1997).
Continuity and
Predictability
Voicing
an observation that is as profound as it is obvious, Allport (1943) stated,
"The existence of one’s own self is the one fact of which every mortal
person—every psychologist included—is perfectly convinced” (p. 451).4
We would extend Allport’s observation to include the perhaps more obvious
observation that the self is always present (though, as Wicklund 1979,
notes, not always influential)—a psychological and phenomenological constant.
One might lose an organ or a limb, but the self cannot be excised from the
person. The self is continuous, though not unchanging, across rime and
circumstances and, as a result, it anchors personal and social experience. Of
course, the self undergoes change. But amid even the most profound changes in
the self-system is the reassuring truth that the “I” that gave way to
slumber last evening is the same “I” that greeted the new day this morning.
The implications of this continuity are perhaps
best understood by considering what subjective experience would be like were
the self not continuous across time and circumstances. Imagine facing a
challenging task with no sense of how likely it is you will fail or how others
might treat you if you do (Bandura 1997). Or consider how volatile social life
would be without a consistent basis for choosing interaction partners and
social situations (Swann 1985; Swann, Stein-Seroussi, and Giesler 1992). Indeed,
on what basis would people contemplate, evaluate, and plan social behavior apart
from a continuous experience of self? Continuity in the experience of self and
reflexivity are essential qualities of the self-system.
4In
sharp contrast. Epstein and Koerner (1986) state, "People have always
invented inner agents, mental processes, traits, and cognitive structures
which—grammatically, anyway—seem to explain things. The self-concept and its
close relatives, self-knowledge, and self-awareness, are a subset of the many
inventions of this sort which have been handed down to modern psvchology"
(p. 27)
(Page
20)
Reflexivity
A
characteristic that sets humans apart from all other species is the ability to
self-reflect. By self-reflection, we mean more than the pervasive and
rudimentary capacity of living organisms to distinguish between self and
environment, or even the ability of some nonhuman primates to recognize
themselves and use this recognition as a basis for reasoning (Sedikides and
Skowronski 1997). The degree of reflexivity of the human self-system is remarkable,
and the consequences of that reflexivity are profound.
Rosenberg (1990) defined reflexivity
as “the process of an entity acting back upon itself” (p. 3). The processes
and consequences of reflexivity can be divided into two broad categories:
reflexive thinking and reflexive action. Rosenberg (1990) refers to these
processes, respectively, as reflexive cognition and reflexive agency.
·
Reflexive cognition refers to
the uniquely human capacity to bring all cognitive processes of which we are
capable to bear on ourselves. Just as people can remember and think about other
objects of which they are aware, they can remember and think about the self.
·
Reflexive agency refers to the ability to act on oneself so as to cause one
5 own
behavior. Just
as people can manipulate circumstances or other people
to produce
intended outcomes, they can manipulate the thoughts, feelings,
and motives that constitute the self-system.
The
process by which humans think and behave reflexively involves self-awareness. As
noted earlier, many, if not all, living organisms evince a rudimentary level of
self-awareness. The unique qualities of human self-awareness are perhaps best
understood when compared with self-awareness in other species. In a provocative
treatment of self-awareness, Sedikides and Skowronski (1997) integrated
principal assumptions of evolutionary psychology with findings from research
on self-awareness in primates and humans. This integration led them to
distinguish between three levels of self-awareness. We position these along a
self-awareness continuum, depicted in Figure 2.1. The most rudimentary form of
self-awareness, subjective sell-awareness, involves the fundamental distinction
between self and environment. This level of self-awareness, which is a
nonconscious characteristic of all living organisms, contributes to the basic
survival of the organism by allowing it to manipulate and maneuver within
its environment (Lewis 1992)
A
more sophisticated level of self-awareness, one documented only in humans and
certain nonhuman primates, is objective self-awareness. Objective
self-awareness is conscious and cognitive. By virtue of objective
self-awareness, an organism can think about itself and be aware that it is
(Page 21)
FIGURE 2.
1 Levels
of Self-Awareness
____________________________________________________________________________
Subjective
Objective
Symbolic
_______________________________________________________
All living
Humans
Humans
organisms
Orangutans/Chimpanzees
____________________________________________________________________________
SOURCE:
The symbolic self in evolutionary context, by C. Sedikides and J. J. Skowronski.
1997. Personality and Social Psychology Review 1: 80—102.
doing so (Sedikides
and Skowronski 1997). In addition to humans, chimpanzees and orangutans evince
the capacity for objective self-awareness, which seems to depend on interactions
with others. This latter point is illustrated in Gallup’s (1977) classic
research on chimpanzees. To demonstrate self- recognition, Gallup anesthetized
young chimpanzees, placed red marks on one eyebrow and one ear, then, when they
had fully recovered, exposed them to a mirror. The chimps not only noticed the
red marks on their body; they used the mirror as a means of inspecting the
marks, thereby showing clear evidence of self-recognition. In subsequent
research, Gallup demonstrated that chimps raised in isolation from birth did
not develop a rudimentary self-awareness until they were housed with other
chimps for a few months. This intriguing program of research illustrates two
important points about self-awareness, first, that humans are not unique in
their capacity for objective self-awareness and, second, that social
interaction is critical to the development of a sense of self-awareness.
Further along the self-awareness continuum is symbolic self-awareness,
the uniquely human capacity to form, refer to, and communicate an abstract
representation of oneself (Sedikides and Skowronski 1997). Symbolic
self-awareness gives rise to the symbolic self, which is an elaborate knowledge
structure that underlies most of the phenomena that we have grouped under the
selfhood rubric. Symbolic self-awareness and the resultant symbolic self are
central to interpersonal communication, goal setting, goal-directed action,
self-evaluation, self-referent emotions (e.g., guilt, shame), and
self-protective strategies (Sedikides and Skowronski 1997; see also Rosenberg
1988). Indeed, the contents of the remainder of this book are primarily an
elaboration on the strategies and experiences that result from symbolic
self-awareness.
The reflexivity made possible by self-awareness is both a blessing and a
curse. Awareness of self and the ability to project the self backward and
forward in time is critical to survival in a complex social world. Sedikides
(Page 22)
and Skowronski
(1997) noted a number of survival-oriented advantages to reflexivity such as the
ability to plan behavior based on past experience and the ability to internalize
in-group values and attitudes, thereby increasing cooperation within groups and
raising the likelihood of success in competition between groups. The
downside to this capacity for reflexivity is the relatively constant reminder
of oneself. The same ability that allows people to plan their behavior by
projecting themselves forward in time reminds them that they could fail or fall
short of what others expect (Markus and Nurius 1996). And, although
self-reflection can prolong the afterglow of praise for a job well done, it can
serve as a constant reminder of significant losses or failures (Pyszczynski and
Greenberg 1987).
Because of this downside to self-awareness,
the symbolic self, which has taken center stage in the lives of
twentieth-century humans, is sometimes a burden (Baumeister 1987). Most people
bear the burden of self through strategic and adaptive application of cognitive
and behavioral strategies of self-regulation (Carver and Scheier 1982); however,
some are unable to do so and resort to drastic measures, such as masochism or
suicide, to escape the burden of self (Baumeister
1988, 1990).
Dynamic
Properties
Reflexivity
coupled with the richness and uncertainty of social life renders the self a dynamic
system. By dynamic,
we mean that the self-system routinely and continuously compensates for or adjusts to information from outside the
system. Such information, which arises during social encounters as well as
through impersonal mechanisms of feedback (e.g., reports of test scores), can be
relevant to identity, competency, or control. For instance, finding out that a
new acquaintance perceives one to be politically conservative when one is, in
fact, liberal requires social behavior that asserts and reaffirms ones political
identity. Similarly, faring poorly on an important examination
when one
ordinarily performs well requires casting the performance in a light that
diminishes its impact on self-perceptions of competency. And, learning that
one was treated unfairly in the job-selection process might motivate behaviors designed to bolster feelings of control over future
outcomes. In
each of these instances, motivated strategic behavior or thought serves the purpose of restoring a temporarily
unsettled self-system to a state of equilibrium.
The
research literature in social psychology includes many examples of the dynamic properties of the self-system. For instance, when people are
provided with psychological test results that contradict their self-view, they
discredit the test
and their subsequent self-descriptions are negligibly affected by the feedback
(Markus 1977).
What happens if
people are not provided such
an opportunity
to respond to feedback that contradicts their
(Page 23)
self-views?
When competent people learn of a poor performance in a public forum, and they
are not asked to respond to the feedback, their self-esteem, ironically,
increases (Greenberg and Pyszczynski 1985). This compensatory self-inflation appears
to be an instance of self-regulation initiated within the self-system when
behavioral strategies of self-regulation are not possible. Indeed, the
self-system can be set into action by the mere presence of other people with
particular characteristics: Young women’s ratings of their own attractiveness
are more positive after viewing a photograph of an unattractive woman than
after viewing a photograph of an attractive woman (Brown et al. 1992). Such
contrast effects provide compelling evidence that the self-system is responsive
to the social environment. At a more general level, people might disidentify with—or
render irrelevant to their identity— people or activities that consistently
contribute to devaluation of the self, thereby becoming “psychologically
insulated” from the threat to the self-system posed by the people or
activities (Steele 1992). These findings are representative of research that
demonstrates the dynamic functioning of the self-system (see also Fazio, Effrein,
and Falender 1981; Morse and Gergen 1970). Taken together, the results of these
research studies establish the sensitivity of the self-system to social
information, and the impressive ability of the system to adjust to that
information.
(Apparently)
Contradictory Features of the Self
The
final part of our definition points up several apparent contradictions or
inconsistencies in the structure and functioning of the self-system. For instance,
though the self-system is responsive to an ever changing social matrix, it is,
at another level, quite stable over time. Although there is great variety in the
thoughts, feelings, and motives that constitute the self-system, there is
considerable evidence of unity. Some aspects and activities of the self-system
are not directly influenced by other people, whereas others rely almost
exclusively on the perceived opinions or evaluations of other people. Although
people are aware of much of the content of the self-system, there are
self-referent thoughts, feelings, and motives of which people are not fully
aware. And, though the content of self-knowledge may seem to vary across
situations or relationships, it actually is relatively fixed. These seeming
contradictions or inconsistencies are only apparent, and a deeper consideration
reveals that they are adaptive characteristics of a complex, flexible, and
resilient system.
Responsive
Yet Stable
It,
as the symbolic interactionists assert, the self is entwined with social life,
then it is reasonable to ask how people maintain a relatively stable view of
(Page 24)
themselves in
a social arena that is constantly changing. As noted in the earlier sections
on
self-regulation and dynamic qualities of the self-system, the key to stability of the
self-system is its responsiveness to the social forces that routinely impinge upon it.
This
responsiveness contributes to stability because the self-system is not passive
when affected by social forces, a characteristic that would lead to change in
the self that mirrors change
in the social
environment (cf. Baumgardner 1990; Brockner 1983). Rather, the self-regulating
characteristic of the self-system gives rise to cognitive and behavioral
strategies that countervail in the face of social inputs that
challenge the
self.
A compelling example of this tug-of-war between
the self-system and the social environment
is the
spontaneous self-concept—self-knowledge available to
a person in a
particular context upon self-reflection (McGuire and McGuire 1982). When
children are asked to describe themselves, they are most likely to mention self-aspects that distinguish them from other individuals
in the immediate social environment. For instance, the greater the proportion of
other-sex people living in the home, the more likely children are to mention
their sex when
asked to describe themselves (McGuire and McGuire 1981). This and other similar
findings support the distinctiveness postulate, which states that the most
salient aspects of self-knowledge in a particular social setting will be those
characteristics that distinguish the individual from others in that setting or
in typical social settings (McGuire and Padawer-Singer
1976). For present purposes, the distinctiveness postulate is an example of
the responsiveness of the self-system to the social environment
and of the
manner in which that responsiveness contributes to stability as opposed to change in self-knowledge.
Another take on responsiveness and stability is
self-verification theory (Swann 1983).
According to self-verification theory, people seek to confirm their
self-concepts because stability of self-conception underlies stability of social
life. Perceived stability of social life contributes to perceived control over
social outcomes. So strong is this need for perceived control that people who
view themselves negatively, when given a choice, choose to interact with
people who
evaluate them unfavorably rather than with people who evaluate them favorably (Swann, Stein-Seroussi, and Giesler 1992).
Thus the choice of interaction partners is one means by which the self-system,
in an ongoing
struggle with
potentially contradictory social forces, remains stable.
In summary, the self is, at the same time,
responsive to social forces but stable
in the face of
highly variable social inputs. The apparent contradiction between these two
characteristics is resolved when the nature of the responsiveness
is made clear. With rare
exception, the self is not battered about by prevailing social winds. Rather,
individuals exert control over the social
forces that impinge upon them and, when those forces challenge their
(Page 25)
self-conceptions,
social and cognitive strategies of self-regulation can act to raise rather than
lower confidence in those self-conceptions.
Complex
Yet Unified
The
self-system comprises a complex web of thoughts, feelings, and motives.
Research indicates that particular thoughts, feelings, and motives become
associated in memory to varying degrees, rendering coherent clusters of
self-referent information (e.g., Markus and Wurf 1987). These clusters have been
variously referred to as self-schemas (Markus 1977), self-aspects (Linville
1985), self-views (Pelham and Swann 1989), self-attributes (Higgins,
Van Hook, and Dorfman 1988), components (Donahue et al. 1993), and domains
(Hoyle 1991). The information they typically comprise can he conceptualized
in various ways. For instance, the different social roles individuals adopt
(e.g., student, spouse, team member) may give rise to coherent clusters of
self-knowledge relevant to the enactment of those roles (e.g., Stryker 1987).
Alternatively, self-aspects can be conceptualized in terms of salient dimensions
of personal and social experience such as physical appearance, social
competence, and general competence or ability (e.g.. Harter 1985a; Hoyle 1991).
In Chapter 3 we detail how self-aspects emerge from social experience, and in
Chapter 4 we discuss the implications of different numbers and arrays of
self-aspects.
Private
and Public
Not
only does the self comprise multiple facets, only a subset of which are
engaged at any point in time, hut those facets can be experienced or reflected
on from different perspectives (Buss 1980; Fenigstein 1987; Higgins 1987). Two
general perspectives that figure prominently in social-psychological accounts
of the self and self-referent phenomena are private and public. The private
perspective involves self-reflection in the purest sense. It is the
individual’s experience or understanding of self in light of his or her
personal values, ideals, and standards. The public perspective is the experience
or understanding of self with reference to the values, ideals, or standards of
other people. We must be careful not to portray these two modes of
self-reflection as independent (Tetlock and Manstead 1985; Wicklund and
Gollwitzer 1987). Indeed, it is hard to imagine personal values, ideals, or
standards, no matter how strongly embraced, that were not formed or adopted in
interactions with significant others (Stryker 1987). Similarly, it is hard to
imagine that an individual’s understanding of the values, ideals, or
standards of a significant other are not colored by his or her personal values,
ideals, and standards (Greenwald 1980). The line between private and public
experiences of self is fuzzy, indeed.
(Page
26)
In addition to private and public
perspectives on the self, there is private and public knowledge about the
self (Froming, Walker, and Lopyan 1982; Scheier and Carver
1981, 1983). Private
self-knowledge is
information about oneself to which observers are not privy, such as
undisclosed thoughts,
feelings, and
motives. Public self-knowledge encompasses thoughts, feelings, and motives disclosed (intentionally or
not) during conversation, on apparel, or by choice of social setting or
interaction partner. Private self-knowledge
is implicated in self-regulatory strategies that concern fidelity to personal
goals and values (Carver and Scheier 1981), whereas public self-knowledge is
implicated in the wide variety of impression management strategies identified
by social psychologists (Leary 1995).
Conscious
and Nonconscious
Traditional
methods of assessing characteristics of the self-system have involved
self-report measures of various kinds. As a result, researchers were for many
years restricted to studying characteristics of the self that people can
reliably report (Wylie 1974). Perhaps because psychology is strongly committed
to empirical methods of inquiry (i.e., one should not “stray far from the
data”), theorizing about the self tended to focus on characteristics of the
self that are available for introspection (e.g., Allport 1955; Rogers
1951). Only recently have investigators begun to develop strategies of assessment
that extract information about the self-system of which respondents are not
readily aware, thereby rendering nonconscious characteristics of the self
available for empirical study. Information produced by these strategies, which
are described and illustrated in Chapter 4, indicates a number of important
nonconscious characteristics that have significantly influenced contemporary
accounts of the self.
Perhaps the most influential methodological
advance in the study of the self is the application of research strategies
developed for the study of information processing to the study of
self-referent phenomena (Kihlstrom et al. 1988). These strategies include such
tacks as priming, word associates, response latencies, and various forms
of recall, which, when creatively applied, provide a compelling basis for
drawing inferences about information processing structures and mechanisms. Each
of these methods allows researchers to tap into aspects of the self-system of
which people might not be aware. Pioneering applications of these strategies by
Markus (1977) and Rogers, Kuiper, and Kirker (1977) signaled a new era in the
study of the self. Indeed, findings from studies that used the information
processing approach form the foundation for contemporary treatments of the self
such as ours (see reviews by (Greenwald and Pratkanis 1984; Kihlstrom et al.
1988). One virtue of these strategies is the access they provide to nonconscious
self-referent phenomena such as selective processing of self-referent
information
(Page 27)
(Marktis
1977) and the role of self-knowledge in processing of information not explicitly
relevant to the self (Rogers, Kuiper, and Kirker 1977).
Other
approaches—variations on the self-report method—also show promise as means
of tapping nonconscious aspects of the self. For instance, statistical
variability in repeated assessments of self-esteem gauges stability of
self-esteem, a characteristic that people seem unable to accurately report about
themselves (Kernis, Grannemann, and Barclay 1992). As illustrated in Chapter 4,
self-ratings on adjectives (e.g., competent, kind, failure) as they apply
to various self-aspects (e.g., “me as student,” “me with my friends”)
can be arrayed as a Self-Aspect x Trait matrix and analyzed in various ways to
provide a picture of the degree of differentiation of self-knowledge (e.g.,
Donahue et al. 1993; Linville 1985; Showers 1992a). Such information
appears to he nonconscious and, therefore, inaccessible via traditional
self-report instruments (Nisbett and Wilson 1977). More importantly,
nonconscious aspects of the self-system such as stability and differentiation
have important implications for social interaction and well-being.
Variable
and Fixed
How
can the self he both variable and fixed? This seeming contradiction is resolved
in an elegant model of the self-concept offered by Markus and Kunda (1986).
Their model was inspired by a schism in the empirical literature on the
stability of self—concept. Whereas results of some research in that literature
indicate that self-concept is relatively fixed (e.g., Markus 1977; Swann and
Read 198 1), other research findings suggest that the self-concept is quite
variable (e.g., Alexander and Knight 1971; McGuire and McGuire 1982). In Markus
and Kunda’s model, this schism is bridged by the notion of a working
self-concept. The working self-concept is one of a universe of
specialized self-conceptions that, together, constitute the self-concept as typically
defined. The particular working self-concept that is active at a particular
moment depends on the social forces impinging on the person, the personal
resources he or she has recruited to interact or problem solve, and the
immediately prior working self-concept. Importantly, the working self-concept
engaged in a particular circumstance is but one of a relatively stable
constellation of working self-concepts. Thus, at the situational level, the self
appears variable, whereas across situations, the self appears stable (see also
Danmn and Hart 1986; Pelham and Wachsmuth 1995).
Putting
It All Together
The
self-system is a rich, dynamic psychological system that exerts substantial
influence over peoples understanding of themselves and their world. As
(Page
28)
a system, the
self is multifaceted and organized, reliably performing a limited number of
basic functions
that contribute to survival in a complex social world. Humans’ extensive
capacity for self-reflection, coupled with the self-regulating nature of the
self-system in an ever changing social arena, gives rise to a dynamic, fluid
system of thoughts, feelings, and motives that is stable vet flexible.
We
now turn to a consideration of people’s subjective experience of the
self-system——-how they understand and define themselves.