Chapter 4

Self and identity

Chapter contents
Who are you? 118
Social identity theory 132
Self and identity in historical context 118 Personal identity and social identity 132
Psychodynamic self 119 Processes of social identity salience 132
Individual versus collective self 119 Consequences of social identity salience 134
Collective self 119
Self-motives 134
Symbolic interactionist self 120
Self-assessment and self-verification 135
Self-awareness 122 Self-enhancement 135
Self-knowledge 123 Self-esteem 137
Self-schemas 123 Self-esteem and social identity 140
Regulatory focus theory 125 Individual differences 142
Inferences from our behaviour 127 In pursuit of self-esteem 143
Social comparison and self-knowledge 128
Self-presentation and impression management 145
Many selves, multiple identities 129 Strategic self-presentation 145
Types of self and identity 129 Expressive self-presentation 146
Contextual sensitivity of self and identity 130
Cultural differences in self and identity 147
In search of self-coherence 131

What do you think?

1 To what extent is your identity unique, distinguishing you from all other human beings?
2 Would you accept that you are overwhelmingly driven to look good in other people’s eyes?
3 Manfred asks: if people generally want to feel good about themselves, have those with low self-
esteem failed in their quest? Clarify this apparent anomaly for Manfred.
4 Andrea has found out that you are studying social psychology. She asks your advice for
presenting herself in the best possible light to others. Can you give her some tips?
118 CHAPTER 4 SELF AND IDENTITY

Who are you?

Take a look in your wallet. You will find cards that have your name on them, and probably a
rather gruesome photograph of yourself. What happens when you meet someone? Very early
on you discover each other’s name, and soon after that you establish such things as their occu-
pation, their attitudes and what they like to do. You also try to identify mutual acquaintances.
In more formal contexts, people sometimes display their identity by donning a uniform, whip-
ping out a flashy business card or wearing one of those often embarrassing name/role badges.
In the brave new world of the Internet, people can of course construct and nurture, courtesy
of Facebook and other social media, limitless more or less truthful selves and identities.
Your identity and your self-concept underpin your everyday life. Knowing who you are
allows you to know what you should think and do and how others might think of and treat
you; and knowing who others are allows you to predict what they think and what they do.
Knowing our identity regulates and structures how we interact with others, and in turn,
identities are grounded in social interaction and the structure of society.
Many scholars believe that it is reflexive thought – that is, the ability to think about our-
selves thinking – that separates us from almost all other animals. Reflexive thought means
that we can think about ourselves, about who we are, how we would like to be and how we
would like others to see us. Humans have a highly developed sense of self, and self and iden-
tity are fundamental parts of being human. We should not be surprised that social psycholo-
gists in particular have become intrigued with the self.
In this chapter, we explore the self – where it comes from, what it looks like and how it
Constructs influences thought and behaviour. Because self and identity are cognitive constructs that influ-
Abstract or theoretical ence social interaction and perception, and that are themselves influenced by society, the mate-
concepts or variables that
are not observable and are
rial in this chapter connects to virtually all other chapters in the text. The self is an enormously
used to explain or clarify a popular focus of research (e.g. Leary & Tangney, 2003; Sedikides & Brewer, 2001; Swann &
phenomenon. Bosson, 2010). Ashmore and Jussim (1997) reported 31,000 social psychological publications
on the self over a two-decade period to the mid-1990s. There is now an International Society
for Self and Identity and a scholarly journal imaginatively entitled Self and Identity.

Self and identity in historical context

The self is, historically, a relatively new idea (Baumeister, 1987). In medieval society, social
relations were fixed and stable and legitimised in religious terms. People’s lives and identities
were mapped out according to their position in the social order – by ascribed attributes such
as family membership, social rank, birth order and place of birth. In many ways, what you
saw was what you got, so the idea of a complex individual self lurking underneath it all was
superfluous and difficult to imagine.
All this started to change in the sixteenth century, and the change has gathered momen-
tum ever since. The forces for change included:
● Secularisation – the idea that fulfilment occurs in the afterlife was replaced by the idea
that you should actively pursue personal fulfilment in this life.
● Industrialisation – people were increasingly seen as units of production that moved from
place to place to work and thus had a portable personal identity that was not locked into
static social structures such as the extended family.
● Enlightenment – people felt that they could organise and construct different, better, iden-
tities and lives for themselves by overthrowing orthodox value systems and oppressive
regimes (e.g. the French and American revolutions of the late eighteenth century).
● Psychoanalysis – Freud’s theory of the human mind crystallised the notion that the self
was unfathomable because it lurked in the gloomy depths of the unconscious (see the
‘Psychodynamic self’ section).
 SELF AND IDENTITY IN HISTORICAL CONTEXT 119

Psychoanalysis challenged the way we think about self and identity: it attributes behav-
iour to complex dynamics that are hidden deep within the person’s sense of who they are.
Earlier in the text (see Chapter 3; also see Chapter 5), we explored the theory of social rep-
resentations – a theory that invoked psychoanalysis as an example of how a novel idea or
analysis can entirely change the way that people think about their world (e.g. Moscovici,
1961; see Lorenzi-Cioldi & Clémence, 2001).
Together, these and other social, political and cultural changes caused people to think
about self and identity as complex and problematic. Theories of self and identity propa-
gated and flourished in this fertile soil.

Psychodynamic self
Freud (e.g. 1921) believed that unsocialised and selfish libidinal impulses (the id) are repressed
and kept in check by internalised societal norms (the superego), but that, from time to time
and in strange and peculiar ways, repressed impulses surface. Freud’s view of the self is one
in which you can only truly know yourself, or indeed others, when special procedures, such
as hypnosis or psychotherapy, are employed to reveal repressed thoughts. His ideas about
self, identity and personality are far-reaching in social psychology: for example, Adorno,
Frenkel-Brunswik, Levinson and Sanford’s (1950) influential authoritarian personality
theory of prejudice is a psychodynamic theory (see Chapter 10).

Individual versus collective self

Freud, like many other psychologists, viewed the self as very personal and private – the high
point of individuality: something that uniquely describes an individual human being. When
someone says ‘I am . . .’ they are describing what makes them different from all other human
beings. But think about this for a moment. ‘I am British’, ‘I come from Bristol’, ‘I am a social
psychologist’ – these are all descriptions of myself, but they are also descriptions of many
other people’s selves (there are 64 million Britons, over 440,000 people currently living in
Bristol, and many thousands of social psychologists). So the self can also be a shared or col-
lective self – a ‘we’ or ‘us’.
Social psychologists have argued long and hard for more than a century over what to
make of this – is the self an individual or a collective phenomenon? The debate has created
polarised camps, with advocates of the individual self and advocates of the collective self
slogging it out in the literature. It is fair to say that the advocates of the individual self have
tended to prevail. This is largely because social psychologists have considered groups to be
made up of individuals who interact with one another rather than of individuals who have a
collective sense of shared identity. Individuals interacting in aggregates is the focus of social
psychology as a behavioural science, whereas groups as collectives is the focus of social sci-
ences, such as sociology and political science (see Chapters 1 and 11).
This perspective on groups, summed up by Floyd Allport’s legendary proclamation that
‘There is no psychology of groups which is not essentially and entirely a psychology of individu-
als’ (Allport, 1924, p. 4), has made it difficult for the collective self to thrive as a research topic.

Collective self
It was not always like this. In the early days of social psychology, things were very different
(see Farr, 1996; Hogg & Williams, 2000). Wilhelm Wundt was the founder of psychology as
an experimental science, and he proposed that social psychology was the study of:
those mental products which are created by a community of human life and are, therefore,
inexplicable in terms merely of individual consciousness since they presuppose the recipro-
cal action of many.
Wundt (1916, p. 3)
120 CHAPTER 4 SELF AND IDENTITY

Wundt’s social psychology dealt with collective phenomena, such as language, religion,
customs and myth, which, according to Wundt, could not be understood in terms of the
psychology of the isolated individual. Emile Durkheim (1898), one of the founding fathers
of sociology, was influenced by Wundt’s interest in collective life and also maintained that
collective phenomena could not be explained in terms of individual psychology.
The view that the self draws its properties from groups is shared by many other early
social psychologists: for example, early theorists of collective behaviour and the crowd (e.g.
LeBon, 1908; Tarde, 1901; Trotter, 1919; see also Chapter 11). Notably, William McDougall,
in his book The Group Mind (McDougall, 1920), argued that out of the interaction of indi-
viduals there arose a ‘group mind’, which had a reality and existence that was qualitatively
distinct from the isolated individuals making up the group. There was a collective self that
was grounded in group life. Although phrased in rather quaint old-fashioned language, this
idea has a direct line of descent to subsequent experimental social psychology which con-
firms that human interaction has emergent properties that endure and influence other peo-
ple: for example, Muzafer Sherif’s (1936) research on how norms emerge from interaction
and are internalised to influence behaviour, and some of Solomon Asch’s (1952) research on
conformity to norms.
Since the early 1980s there has been a revival of interest in the notion of a collective self,
largely initiated by European research on the emergence of social representations out of
social interaction (e.g. Farr & Moscovici, 1984; Lorenzi-Cioldi & Clémence, 2001; see
Chapters 3, 5, 7 and 8), and on the role of social identity in group processes and intergroup
behaviour (e.g. Tajfel & Turner, 1986; also see Hogg, 2006; Hogg & Abrams, 1988; dis-
cussed later in this chapter but covered fully in Chapter 11).

Symbolic interactionist self

Another twist to the idea of the collective self is recognition that the self emerges and is
shaped by social interaction. Early psychologists such as William James (1890) distinguished
between self as stream of consciousness, ‘I’, and self as object of perception, ‘me’. In this
way, reflexive knowledge is possible because ‘I’ can be aware of ‘me’, and people can there-
fore know themselves. However, this is not to say that people’s self-knowledge is particularly
accurate. People tend to reconstruct who they are without being aware of having done it
(Greenwald, 1980), and in general, although people may be aware of who they are in terms
of their attitudes and preferences, they are rather bad at knowing how they arrived at that
knowledge (Nisbett & Wilson, 1977).
Symbolic interactionism Nevertheless, people do have a sense of ‘me’, and according to symbolic interactionism,
Theory of how the self the self arises out of human interaction (Mead, 1934; see also Blumer, 1969). G. H. Mead
emerges from human
interaction, which involves
believed that human interaction is largely symbolic. When we interact with people, it is
people trading symbols mainly in terms of words and non-verbal cues that are rich with meaning because they
(through language and symbolise much more than is superficially available in the behaviour itself (see Chapter 15).
gesture) that are usually Mead believed that society influences individuals through the way individuals think about
consensual and represent
abstract properties rather
themselves, and that self-conception arises and is continually modified through interaction
than concrete objects. between people. This interaction involves symbols that must have shared meaning if they
are to be communicated effectively. If you say to your friend ‘let’s eat out tonight’, you
both know what this means and that it opens up a variety of choices that each of you know
about.
Interacting effectively also rests on being able to take the role of the other person. This of
course entails ‘looking in from outside’ and seeing oneself as others do – as a social object,
‘me’, rather than a social subject, ‘I’ (cf. Batson, Early, & Salvarani, 1997). Because others
often view us as representatives of a category (e.g. a student), the ‘me’ is probably more
often seen as a collective ‘me’ – we might even think of it as ‘us’. The representations, or
views, that our society has of the world are traded through interacting symbolically with
 SELF AND IDENTITY IN HISTORICAL CONTEXT 121

The looking glass self

According to G.H. Mead,
our self-concept derives
from seeing ourselves as
others see us. Is the
broken mirror a
metaphor for her
self-concept?

others. We are effective only if we can take the role of the other and thus see ourselves as
others (ultimately, society) do. In this way, we construct a self-concept that reflects the soci-
ety we live in; we are socially constituted.
Symbolic interactionism offers a quite sophisticated and complex model of how the self
is formed. And yet it generates a very straightforward prediction. Because forming our con-
cept of self comes from seeing ourselves as others see us (the idea of the looking-glass self), Looking-glass self
how we view ourselves should be closely shadowed by how others view us. Shrauger and The self derived from seeing
ourselves as others see us.
Schoeneman (1979) reviewed sixty-two studies to see if this was true. What they found was
that people did not tend to see themselves as others saw them but instead saw themselves as
they thought others saw them. For a more recent example of research on the looking-glass
self, see Box 4.1 and Figure 4.1.
One implication of the idea that people do not see themselves as others see them, but
instead see themselves as they think others see them, is that we do not actually take the role
of the other in constructing a sense of self. An alternative reading is that the communication
process in social interaction is noisy and inaccurate. It is influenced by a range of

Box 4.1 Research highlight

Public versus private self-presentation

Dianne Tice (1992) conducted an experiment where behaviour. (This was a ruse, since there was no one actu-
undergraduate students were asked to act as ‘stimulus per- ally monitoring the students.) In the next phase, they were
sons’ for postgraduate clinical psychology trainees. Their asked to rate themselves in terms of how responsive they
task was to use an intercom system to answer verbal ques- really were. They made their ratings on a 25-point scale
tions in a way that would reflect an aspect of their person- ranging from 1 (stable = not responsive) to 25
ality. Effectively, they were to describe themselves so that (responsive).
they would come across as either consistently emotionally Tice intended the public condition to be the one that
stable (implying not responsive) or emotionally responsive would engage the looking-glass self. As predicted, subse-
in different situations. quent descriptions of self were more radically altered
There were two experimental conditions: (a) a private under public conditions than private conditions (see
condition where the students believed no one was watch- Figure 4.1) – suggesting that the students did not see
ing them, and (b) a public condition where they believed a themselves as others saw them, but instead as they thought
clinical psychology trainee was closely monitoring their others saw them.
122 CHAPTER 4 SELF AND IDENTITY

20 Private
Public

Self-conception as emotionally responsive

15

Figure 4.1 Conceiving of oneself as emotionally

stable or emotionally responsive, as a function
of public or private self-presentation
● People were instructed to present themselves as 10
either less emotionally responsive (i.e. more stable)
or more emotionally responsive.
● Next, they rated their ‘true’ level of emotional
responsiveness on a 25-point scale, ranging from 5
a low score (less emotionally responsive) to a high
score (more emotionally responsive).
● When they believed that their earlier behaviour
had been public, their self-conception moved
in the direction of their action: closer to a score 0
Emotionally stable Emotionally responsive
of 1 for those who had been less emotionally
responsive, or closer to a score of 25 for those who Self-presentation
had been more emotionally responsive.
Source: Based on data from Tice (1992), Study 1.

self-construal motivations (motives to view others, and be viewed by them, in particular

ways) that conspire to construct an inaccurate image of others and what they think about
us. People are mostly unaware of what other people really think of them (Kenny & DePaulo,
1993), perhaps fortunately so. A sage person once said, ‘if you really want to hear how much
people like you, you’d better listen to what they say at your funeral!’
As we discover in this chapter, our concept of self is linked to how we go about enhancing
our self-image. People normally overestimate their good points, overestimate their control
over events and are unrealistically optimistic – Sedikides and Gregg (2007) call this the self-
enhancing triad.

Self-awareness
If the truth be known, you do not spend all your time thinking about yourself. Self-awareness
comes and goes for different reasons and has an array of consequences. Although I am sure
you can all think of people who appear to think only of themselves almost all the time (we
discuss narcissism later in this chapter)!
In their book A Theory of Objective Self-Awareness, Shelley Duval and Robert Wicklund
(1972) argued that self-awareness is a state in which you are aware of yourself as an object,
much as you might be aware of a tree or another person. When you are objectively self-aware,
you make comparisons between how you actually are and how you would like to be – an ideal,
a goal or some other standard. The outcome of this comparison is often a sense that you have
shortcomings, along with negative emotions associated with this recognition. People then try to
overcome their shortcomings by bringing the self closer into line with ideal standards. This can
be very difficult, leading people to give up trying and thus feel even worse about themselves.
Objective self-awareness is generated by anything that focuses your attention on yourself
as an object: for example, being in front of an audience (see Chapter 6) or catching your
image in a mirror. Indeed, a very popular method for raising self-awareness in laboratory
studies is actually to place participants in front of a mirror. Charles Carver and Michael
 SELF-KNOWLEDGE 123

Scheier (1981) introduced a qualification to self-awareness theory, in which they distin-

guished between two types of self that you can be aware of:
1 the private self – your private thoughts, feelings and attitudes;
2 the public self – how other people see you, your public image.
Private self-awareness leads you to try to match your behaviour to your internalised stand-
ards, whereas public self-awareness is oriented towards presenting yourself to others in a
positive light.
Being self-aware can be very uncomfortable. We all feel self-conscious from time to time
and are only too familiar with how it affects our behaviour – we feel anxious, we become
tongue-tied, or we make mistakes on tasks. We can even feel slightly paranoid (Fenigstein,
1984). However, sometimes being self-aware can be a terrific thing, particularly on those
occasions when we have accomplished a great feat. In early December 2003, having won the
Rugby World Cup, the England team paraded through London and ended up in Trafalgar
Square in front of three-quarters of a million people – standing in an open-topped bus, the
team looked freezing but certainly did not suffer from the crowd’s adulation.
Self-awareness can also make us feel good when the standards against which we compare
ourselves are not too exacting: for example, if we compare ourselves against standards
derived from ‘most other people’ or from people who are less fortunate than ourselves
(Taylor & Brown, 1988; Wills, 1981). Self-awareness can also improve introspection, inten-
sify emotions and improve performance of controlled effort-sensitive tasks that do not
require undue skill, such as checking over an essay you have written.
The opposite of being objectively self-aware is being in a state of reduced objective self-
awareness. Because elevated self-awareness can be stressful or aversive, people may try to
avoid this state by drinking alcohol, or by more extreme measures such as suicide (Baumeister,
1991). Reduced self-awareness has also been identified as a key component of deindividuation, Deindividuation
a state in which people are blocked from awareness of themselves as distinct individuals, fail to Process whereby people
lose their sense of socialised
monitor their actions and can behave impulsively. Reduced self-awareness may be implicated individual identity and
in the way that crowds behave and in other forms of social unrest. Read how this comes engage in unsocialised,
about in both small groups and crowd settings in Chapters 11 and 12. often antisocial, behaviours.
Self-awareness is about being aware of self. However, recent research suggests that the same
effect of trying to match one’s behaviour to standards can be obtained by unconsciously focus-
ing attention on self. Silvia and Phillips (2013) report two studies where self-awareness was
primed not by usual explicit mirror method but by subliminal first-name priming. The effects
were the same; suggesting that self-awareness can be primed subliminally and is therefore not
a deliberative awareness phenomenon but an automatic attention phenomenon. Silvia and
Phillips suggest perhaps talking more about self-focused attention than self-awareness.

Self-knowledge
When people are self-aware, what are they aware of? What do we know about ourselves, and
how do we gain a sense of who we are? Self-knowledge is constructed in much the same way
and through many of the same processes as we construct representations of other people.
We looked at some of these general processes when we discussed social thinking and attri-
bution in Chapters 2 and 3.
Schema
Self-schemas Cognitive structure that
represents knowledge about
Earlier (see Chapter 2) we saw how information about other people is stored in the form a concept or type of
stimulus, including its
of a schema. We cognitively store information about the self in a similar but more com- attributes and the relations
plex and varied way – as separate context-specific nodes where different contexts activate among those attributes.
124 CHAPTER 4 SELF AND IDENTITY

An ideal self
‘Wow! So how do
I look?’

different nodes and thus, effectively, different aspects of self (Breckler, Pratkanis, &
McCann, 1991; Higgins, Van Hook, & Dorfman, 1988). You are probably now itching to
ask, ‘So . . . where in the brain is the self?’ Well, research suggests that no single brain sys-
tem or area of the brain is, of itself, responsible for one’s sense of self. Instead, the experi-
ence of self emerges from widely distributed brain activity across the medial prefrontal
and medial precuneus cortex of the brain (e.g. Saxe, Moran, Scholz, & Gabrieli, 2006).
The self-concept is neither a singular, static, lump-like entity nor a simple averaged view
of the self – it is complex and multi-faceted, with a large number of discrete self-schemas
(Markus, 1977; Markus & Wurf, 1987). People tend to have clear conceptions of themselves
(i.e. self-schemas) on some dimensions but not others – i.e. they are schematic on some but
aschematic on others. People are self-schematic on dimensions that are important to them,
on which they think they are extreme and on which they are certain the opposite does not
hold. For example, if you think you are sophisticated, and being sophisticated is important
to you, then you are self-schematic on that dimension – it is part of your self-concept. If you
do not think you are sophisticated, and if this does not bother you, then being sophisticated
is not one of your self-schemas.
Most people have a complex self-concept with a relatively large number of discrete self-
schemas. Patricia Linville (1985, 1987; see ‘Many selves, multiple identities’ in this chapter)
has suggested that this variety helps to buffer people from the negative impact of life events by
making sure that there are always self-schemas from which they can derive a sense of satisfac-
tion. People can be quite strategic in how they use their self-schemas – Linville used a colour-
ful phrase to describe what we usually do: ‘don’t put all your eggs in one cognitive basket’.
Self-schemas that are rigidly compartmentalised have disadvantages (Showers, 1992). If
some self-schemas are very negative and some are very positive, events may cause extreme
mood swings according to whether a positive or negative self-schema is primed. Generally,
more integrated self-schemas are preferable. For example, if James believes that he is a won-
derful cook but an awful musician, he has compartmentalised self-schemas – contexts that
prime one or the other self-schema will produce very positive or very negative moods. Contrast
this with Sally, who believes she is a reasonably good cook but not a great musician. She has
self-schemas where the boundaries are less clear – context effects on mood will be less extreme.
 SELF-KNOWLEDGE 125

Self-schemas influence information processing and behaviour in much the same way as
schemas about other people (Markus & Sentis, 1982): self-schematic information is more
readily noticed, is overrepresented in cognition and is associated with longer processing
time. Self-schemas do not only describe how we are. Markus and Nurius (1986) have sug-
gested that we have an array of possible selves – future-oriented schemas of what we would
like to become, or what we fear we might become. For example, a postgraduate student may
have future selves as a university lecturer or a rock musician.
Another perspective is offered by Higgins’s (1987) self-discrepancy theory. Higgins sug- Self-discrepancy theory
gests that we have three types of self-schema: Higgins’s theory about the
consequences of making
1 actual self – how we currently are; actual – ideal and actual –
‘ought’ self-comparisons
2 ideal self – how we would like to be; that reveal
3 ‘ought’ self – how we think we should be. self-discrepancies.

The ideal self and the ought self are ‘self-guides’, but they mobilise different types of self-
related behaviours. The same goal – for example, prosperity – can be constructed as an ideal
(we strive to be prosperous) or an ‘ought’ (we strive to avoid not being prosperous).
Discrepancies between actual and ideal or ‘ought’ motivate change to reduce the discrep-
ancy – in this way we engage in self-regulation. (In Chapter 13 we discuss self-regulation in Self-regulation
the context of close relationships.) Furthermore, these self-discrepancies make us emotion- Strategies that we use to
match our behaviour to an
ally vulnerable. When we fail to resolve an actual–ideal discrepancy, we feel dejected (e.g. ideal or ‘ought’ standard.
disappointed, dissatisfied, sad); when we fail to resolve an actual–ought discrepancy, we feel
agitated (e.g. anxiety, threat, fear). Read how Higgins and his colleagues tested self-discrep-
ancy theory in Box 4.2 and Figure 4.2.

Regulatory focus theory

Self-discrepancy theory and the general notion of self-regulation have been elaborated into
regulatory focus theory (Higgins, 1997, 1998). Higgins proposes that people have two sepa- Regulatory focus theory
rate self-regulatory systems, termed promotion and prevention, which are concerned with A promotion focus causes
people to be approach-
the pursuit of different types of goals. oriented in constructing a
sense of self; a prevention
● The promotion system is concerned with the attainment of one’s hopes and aspirations
focus causes people to be
– one’s ideals. It generates sensitivity to the presence or absence of positive events. People more cautious and avoidant
in a promotion focus adopt approach strategic means to attain their goals. For example, in constructing a sense of self.
promotion-focused students would seek ways to improve their grades, find new challenges
and treat problems as interesting obstacles to overcome.
● The prevention system is concerned with the fulfilment of one’s duties and obligations –
one’s oughts. It generates sensitivity to the presence or absence of negative events. People
in a prevention focus use avoidance strategic means to attain their goals. For example,
prevention-focused students would avoid new situations or new people and concentrate
more on avoiding failure than on achieving the highest possible grade.
Some people are habitually more approach-focused and others more prevention-focused – it
is an individual difference that can arise during childhood (Higgins & Silberman, 1998). A pro-
motion focus can arise if children are habitually hugged and kissed for behaving in a desired
manner (a positive event) and love is withdrawn as a form of discipline (absence of a positive
event). A prevention focus can arise if children are encouraged to be alert to potential dangers
(absence of a negative event) and punished and shouted at when they behave undesirably (a
negative event). Against the background of individual differences, regulatory focus can also be
influenced by the immediate context, for example by structuring the situation so that people
focus on prevention or on promotion (Higgins, Roney, Crowe, & Hymes, 1994).
Research shows that people who are promotion-focused are especially likely to recall
information relating to the pursuit of success by others (Higgins & Tykocinski, 1992).
126 CHAPTER 4 SELF AND IDENTITY

Box 4.2 Research classic

Self-discrepancy theory: the impact of using self-guides

Tory Higgins and his colleagues measured self-discrepancy after a priming procedure. For their ‘ideal’ prime they were
by comparing the differences between attributes of the asked to discuss their own and their parents’ hopes for
actual self with those of either the ideal self or those of the them; for their ‘ought’ prime they discussed their own and
‘ought’ self (Higgins, Bond, Klein, & Strauman, 1986). their parents’ beliefs about their duties and obligations.
They administered questionnaires to identify students It was hypothesised that an actual–ideal discrepancy
who were either high in both kinds of discrepancies or else would lead to feeling dejected (but not agitated), whereas
low in both. Several weeks later, the same students partici- an actual–’ought’ discrepancy would lead to feeling agi-
pated in an experiment in which emotions that reflected tated (but not dejected). These predictions were sup-
dejection or agitation were measured, both before and ported, as the results in Figure 4.2 show.

6 Dejection
Agitation

4
Change in emotion

Figure 4.2 Priming the ideal self can lead to 2

dejection, whereas priming the ‘ought’ self
can lead to agitation
People with a high actual–ideal and actual–ought
self-discrepancy experienced: 0
● an increase in dejection but not agitation
emotions after being primed to focus on their
ideal self, and
● an increase in agitation but not dejection –2
Ideal prime Ought prime
emotions after being primed to focus on their
Type of self-prime
‘ought’ self.
Source: Based on Higgins, Bond, Klein and Strauman (1986),
Experiment 2.

Lockwood and her associates found that people who are promotion-focused look for inspi-
ration to positive role models who emphasise strategies for achieving success (Lockwood,
Jordan, & Kunda, 2002). Such people also show elevated motivation and persistence on
tasks that are framed in terms of gains and non-gains (Shah, Higgins, & Friedman, 1998).
People who are prevention-focused behave quite differently – they recall information relating
to the avoidance of failure by others, are most inspired by negative role models who high-
light strategies for avoiding failure, and exhibit motivation and persistence on tasks that are
framed in terms of losses and non-losses.
Regulatory focus theory has also been explored in the context of intergroup relations and
how people feel about and behave towards their ingroup and relevant outgroups (e.g. Jonas,
Sassenberg, & Scheepers, 2010; see Chapter 11). For example, studies have shown that in
intergroup contexts, a measured or manipulated promotion focus strengthens positive emo-
tion-related bias and behavioural tendencies towards the ingroup, while a prevention focus
strengthens more negative emotion-related bias and behavioural tendencies against the out-
group (Shah, Brazy, & Higgins, 2004).
 SELF-KNOWLEDGE 127

Inferences from our behaviour

One of the most obvious ways to learn about who you are is to examine your private thoughts
and feelings about the world – knowing what you think and feel about the world is a very
useful clue to the sort of person you are.
However, when these internal cues are weak, we may make inferences about ourselves
from what we do – our behaviour. This idea underpins Daryl Bem’s self-perception theory Self-perception theory
(Bem, 1967, 1972). Bem argues that we make attributions not only for others’ behaviour Bem’s idea that we gain
knowledge of ourselves only
(see Chapter 3) but also for our own, and that there is no essential difference between by making self-attributions:
self-attributions and other-attributions. Furthermore, just as we form an impression of for example, we infer our
someone else’s personality by making internal dispositional attributions for their behav- own attitudes from our own
iour, so we form a concept of who we are not by introspection but by being able to attrib- behaviour.

ute our own behaviour internally. So, for example, I know that I enjoy eating curry
because, if given the opportunity, I eat curry of my own free will and in preference to
other foods, and not everyone likes curry – I am able to make an internal attribution for
my behaviour.
How we perceive ourselves can also be based on simply imagining ourselves behaving in a
particular way (Anderson & Godfrey, 1987). For example, sports psychologist Caroline van
Gyn and her colleagues divided runners into two groups; one group practised power training
on exercise bikes, the other did not. Half of each group used imagery (i.e. also imagined
themselves sprint training), whereas the others did not. Of course, the sweaty business of
power training itself improved subsequent performance; but, remarkably, those who imag-
ined themselves sprint training did better than those who did not. The researchers concluded
that imagery had affected self-conception, which in turn produced performance that was
consistent with that self-conception (Van Gyn, Wenger, & Gaul, 1990).
Self-attributions have implications for motivation. If someone is induced to perform a
task by either enormous rewards or fearsome penalties, task performance is attributed exter-
nally and thus motivation to perform is reduced. If there are minimal or no external factors
to which performance can be attributed, we cannot easily avoid attributing performance
internally to enjoyment or commitment, so motivation increases. This has been called the
overjustification effect (see Figure 4.3), for which there is now substantial evidence (Deci & Overjustification effect
Ryan, 1985). In the absence of obvious
external determinants of our
For example, Mark Lepper and his colleagues had nursery-school children draw pictures.
behaviour, we assume that
Some of the children drew of their own free will, while the rest were induced to draw with we freely choose the
the promise of a reward, which they were subsequently given. A few days later, the children behaviour because we
were unobtrusively observed playing; the children who had previously been rewarded for enjoy it.
drawing spent half as much time drawing as did the other group. Those who had received no
extrinsic reward seemed to have greater intrinsic interest in drawing (Lepper, Greene, &
Nisbett, 1973).
A review by John Condry (1977) concludes that introducing external rewards may back-
fire by reducing motivation and enjoyment of a task that was previously intrinsically moti-
vated. The educational implications are obvious. Parents love to tell their children stories,
and they encourage the young ones to enjoy stories by learning to read themselves. However,
if reading is accompanied by rewards, the children’s intrinsic joy is put at risk. So, is it pos-
sible for rewards to play any useful role? The answer is yes. The trick is to reduce reliance on
rewards that are task-contingent and make more use of those that are performance-
contingent. Even a task that people find boring can be enlivened when they shift their atten-
tion to features of their performance (Sansone, Weir, Harpster, & Morgan, 1992). Consider
how you look for ways to maintain interest in a monotonous physical fitness programme,
especially when you have to exercise alone. You could, of course, listen to music or watch
television. However, a performance-contingent strategy is to set targets using measures such
as ‘distance’ covered on an exercycle, checking your heart rate and how many calories you
expended.
128 CHAPTER 4 SELF AND IDENTITY

Conditions of task performance Attribution/reason Example Consequences

for performing task

• Intrinsic interest • Enjoy the task

salient • Greater efficiency
• Rewards signify Internal/ Working • Confront greater
competence intrinsic because challenges
• Rewards are contingent interest one enjoys it • Better performance
on good performance • Self-motivated
performance

• Rewards are salient • Work hard

• Rewards do not signify • Less task enjoyment
competence External/ Working • Externally motivated
• Rewards are not extrinsic because it performance
contingent on good rewards pays well • Avoid challenges
performance • Less efficient
• Rewards constitute • Poorer performance
efforts at control

Figure 4.3 The overjustification effect

One’s motivation to perform a task can be reduced, and performance of the task impaired, if there are obvious external causes for task
performance – an overjustification effect that is reversed if performance can be internally attributed.

Social comparison and self-knowledge

Are you intelligent? How do you know? Although we can learn about ourselves through
introspection and self-perception, we can also learn about ourselves by comparing ourselves
Social comparison with other people. This simple truth lies at the core of Festinger’s (1954) social comparison
(theory) theory, which describes how people learn about themselves through comparisons with oth-
Comparing our behaviours
and opinions with those of
ers (see also Suls & Wheeler, 2000; Wheeler, 1991). People need to be confident about the
others in order to establish validity of their perceptions, attitudes, feelings and behaviour, and because there is rarely an
the correct or socially objective measure of validity, people ground their cognitions, feelings and behaviour in those
approved way of thinking of other people. In particular, they seek out similar others to validate their perceptions and
and behaving.
attitudes, which can, to some extent, be read as meaning that people anchor their attitudes
and self-concept in the groups to which they feel they belong.
When it comes to performance, we try to compare ourselves with people who are slightly
worse than us – we make downward social comparisons which deliver an evaluatively posi-
tive self-concept (Wills, 1981). Often, however, our choices are limited: for example, younger
siblings in families often have no option but to compare themselves with their more compe-
tent older brothers and sisters. Indeed, upward comparison may sometimes have a harmful
effect on self-esteem (Wood, 1989).
Self-evaluation How can we avoid this? According to Abraham Tesser’s (1988) self-evaluation mainte-
maintenance model nance model, we try to downplay our similarity to the other person or withdraw from our
People who are constrained
to make esteem-damaging
relationship with that person. Medvec and her colleagues conducted an intriguing study
upward comparisons can along these lines (Medvec, Madley, & Gilovich, 1995). They coded the facial expressions of
underplay or deny similarity medal winners at the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona and found that the bronze medal-
to the target, or they can lists expressed noticeably more satisfaction than the silver medallists! Medvec and colleagues
withdraw from their
relationship with the target.
argued that silver medallists were constrained to make unfavourable upward comparisons
with gold medallists, whereas bronze medallists could make self-enhancing downward com-
parisons with the rest of the field, who received no medal at all.
 MANY SELVES, MULTIPLE IDENTITIES 129

Downward comparisons also occur between groups. Groups try to compare themselves
with inferior groups in order to feel that ‘we’ are better than ‘them’. Intergroup relations are
largely a social comparison-based struggle for evaluative superiority of one’s own group
over relevant outgroups (see Hogg, 2000c; Hogg & Gaffney, 2014; Turner, 1975). Because we
tend to describe and evaluate ourselves in terms of groups we belong to, this process
enhances self-evaluation and self-esteem (Tajfel & Turner, 1986 – see Chapter 11).
Sport provides a perfect context in which the outcome of this process can be seen. Few
Portuguese will not have felt enormously positive when their team beat France, the host
nation, in the finals of the 2016 UEFA European Championship. Bob Cialdini and his col-
leagues have referred to this phenomenon as ‘basking in reflected glory’, or BIRGing (Cialdini BIRGing
et al., 1976). To illustrate the effect, they conducted experiments in which they raised or Basking in Reflected Glory;
that is, name-dropping to
lowered self-esteem via feedback on a general knowledge test; and student participants were
link yourself with desirable
then, seemingly incidentally, asked about the outcome of a recent football game. Participants people or groups and thus
who had had their self-esteem lowered tended to associate themselves with winning and not improve other people’s
with losing teams – they tended to refer to the teams as ‘we’ in the former case and as ‘they’ impression of you.
in the latter.

Many selves, multiple identities

It is probably inaccurate to characterise the self as a single undifferentiated entity. In his
book The Concept of Self, Kenneth Gergen (1971) depicts the self-concept as containing a
repertoire of relatively discrete and often quite varied identities, each associated with a dis-
tinct body of knowledge. These identities have their origins in the array of different social
relationships that form, or have formed, the anchoring points for our lives, ranging from
close personal relationships with friends and family, through relationships and roles defined
by work groups and professions, to relationships defined by ethnicity, race, nationality and
religion.
As we noted earlier, we differ in self-complexity (Linville, 1985). Some of us have a more
diverse and extensive set of selves than do others – people with many independent aspects of
self have higher self-complexity than people with only a few, relatively similar, aspects of
self. The notion of self-complexity is given a slightly different emphasis by Marilynn Brewer
and her colleagues (Brewer & Pierce, 2005; Roccas & Brewer, 2002), who focus on self that
is defined in group terms (social identity) and the relationship among identities rather than
the number of identities people have. People have a complex social identity if they have dis-
crete social identities that do not share many attributes, and a simple social identity if they
have overlapping social identities that share many attributes.
Grant and Hogg (2012) have recently suggested and shown empirically that the effect,
particularly on group identification and group behaviours, of the number of identities one
has and their overlap may be better explained in terms of the general property of social iden-
tity prominence – how subjectively prominent, overall and in a specific situation, a particu-
lar identity is in one’s self-concept.

Social identity
Types of self and identity That part of the self-concept
that derives from our
membership in social
Social identity theorists (Tajfel & Turner, 1986) have argued that there are two broad classes
groups.
of identity that define different types of self:
Personal identity
1 social identity, which defines self in terms of group memberships; The self defined in terms of
unique personal attributes
2 personal identity, which defines self in terms of idiosyncratic traits and close personal or unique interpersonal
relationships. relationships.
130 CHAPTER 4 SELF AND IDENTITY

Table 4.1 Self and self-attributes as a function of level of identity (social versus personal) and type
of attributes (identity versus relationship)
Identity attributes Relationship attributes
Social identity Collective self Collective relational self
Attributes shared with others that Attributes that define how the self as
differentiate the individual from a an ingroup member relates to specific
specific outgroup, or from others as ingroup or outgroup
outgroups in general. members.
Personal identity Individual self Individual relational self
Attributes unique to self that Attributes that define how the self as a
differentiate the individual from unique individual relates to others as
specific individuals, or from other individuals.
individuals in general.

Now check the first ‘What do you think’ question.

Brewer and Gardner (1996) asked the question ‘Who is this “We”?’ and distinguished
three forms of self:
1 Individual self – based on personal traits that differentiate the self from all others.
2 Relational self – based on connections and role relationships with significant others.
3 Collective self – based on group membership that differentiates ‘us’ from ‘them’.
More recently it has been proposed that there are four types of identity (Brewer, 2001;
Chen, Boucher, & Tapias, 2006):
1 Person-based social identities – emphasising the internalisation of group properties by
individual group members as part of their self-concept.
2 Relational social identities – defining the self in relation to specific other people with
whom one interacts in a group context – corresponding to Brewer and Gardner’s (1996)
relational identity and to Markus and Kitayama’s (1991) ‘interdependent self’.
3 Group-based social identities – equivalent to social identity as defined above.
4 Collective identities – referring to a process whereby group members not only share self-
defining attributes but also engage in social action to forge an image of what the group
stands for and how it is represented and viewed by others.
The relational self is interesting. Although in one sense it is an interpersonal form of self,
it can also be considered a particular type of collective self. For example, East Asian cultures
define groups in terms of networks of relationships (Yuki, 2003), and women place greater
importance than men on their relationships with others in their groups (Seeley, Gardner,
Pennington, & Gabriel, 2003; see also Baumeister & Sommer, 1997; Cross & Madson,
1997). East Asians and women are often considered to be more collectivist than Western
Europeans and men, respectively.
Table 4.1 shows one way in which different types of self and self-attributes could be clas-
sified according to level of identity (social versus personal) and type of attributes (identity
defining versus relationship defining).

Contextual sensitivity of self and identity

Evidence for multiple selves comes from research where contextual factors are varied to dis-
cover that people describe themselves and behave differently. For example, Russell Fazio and
his colleagues were able to get participants to describe themselves in very different ways by
 MANY SELVES, MULTIPLE IDENTITIES 131

asking them loaded questions that made them search through their stock of self-knowledge
for information that presented the self in a different light (Fazio, Effrein, & Falender, 1981).
Other researchers have found, time and time again, that experimental procedures that
focus on group membership lead people to act very differently from procedures that focus on
individuality and interpersonal relationships. Consider ‘minimal group’ studies in which
participants are either (a) identified as individuals or (b) explicitly categorized, randomly or
by some minimal or trivial criterion as group members (Tajfel, 1970; see Diehl, 1990, and
Chapter 11). A consistent finding is that being categorized makes people discriminate
against an outgroup, conform to ingroup norms, express attitudes and feelings that favour
the ingroup, and indicate a sense of belonging and loyalty to the ingroup. Furthermore,
these effects of minimal group categorization are generally very fast and automatic (Otten
& Wentura, 1999).
The idea that we have many selves, and that contextual factors bring different selves into
play, has a number of ramifications. Social constructionists have suggested that the self is
entirely situation-dependent. An extreme form of this position argues that we do not carry
self-knowledge around in our heads as cognitive representations at all; rather, we construct
disposable selves through talk (e.g. Potter & Wetherell, 1987; see the discussion of discourse
analysis in Chapters 1 and 15). A less extreme version has been proposed by Penny Oakes
(e.g. Oakes, Haslam, & Reynolds, 1999), who does not emphasise the role of talk but still
maintains that self-conception is highly context-dependent. A middle way is to argue that
people do have cognitive representations of the self that they carry in their heads as organis-
ing principles for perception, categorization and action, but that these representations are
temporarily or more enduringly modified by situational factors (e.g. Abrams & Hogg, 2001;
Turner, Reynolds, Haslam, & Veenstra, 2006).

In search of self-coherence
That we have many selves needs to be placed in perspective. Although we may have a diver-
sity of relatively discrete selves, we also have a quest: to find and maintain a reasonably
integrated picture of who we are. Self-conceptual coherence provides us with a continuing
theme for our lives – an ‘autobiography’ that weaves our various identities and selves
together into a whole person. People who have highly fragmented selves (e.g. some people
with schizophrenia, amnesia or Alzheimer’s disease) find it extraordinarily difficult to func-
tion effectively.
People use many strategies to construct a coherent sense of self (Baumeister, 1998). Here
are some that you may have used yourself:
● Restrict your life to a limited set of contexts. Because different selves come into play as
contexts keep changing, you will protect yourself from self-conceptual clashes.
● Keep revising and integrating your ‘autobiography’ to accommodate new identities.
Along the way, get rid of any worrisome inconsistencies. In effect, you are rewriting your
history to make it work to your advantage (Greenwald, 1980).
● Attribute changes in the self externally to changing circumstances, rather than internally
to fundamental changes in who you are. This is an application of the actor–observer Actor–observer effect
effect (Jones and Nisbett, 1972; see also Chapter 3). Tendency to attribute our
own behaviours externally
We can also develop a self-schema that embodies a core set of attributes that we feel dis- and others’ behaviours
internally.
tinguishes us from all other people – that makes us unique (Markus, 1977; see ‘Self-schemas’
discussed earlier in this chapter). We then tend to recognise these attributes disproportion-
ately in all our selves, providing thematic consistency that delivers a sense of a stable and
unitary self (Cantor & Kihlstrom, 1987).
In summary, people find ways to construct their lives such that their self-conceptions
appear steady and coherent.
132 CHAPTER 4 SELF AND IDENTITY

Social identity theory

Social identity theory Because social identity theory is a theory of both self and identity, and group and inter-
Theory of group group behaviour, we say a little about it here, but we discuss it fully in Chapter 11 (see
membership and intergroup
relations based on self-
Abrams & Hogg, 2010; Hogg, 2006; Hogg & Abrams, 1988, 2003).
categorization, social Social identity theory has its origins in research by Henri Tajfel on social categorization,
comparison and the intergroup relations, social comparison, and prejudice and stereotyping (e.g. Tajfel, 1969,
construction of a shared 1974) – often called the social identity theory of intergroup relations (Tajfel & Turner,
self-definition in terms of
ingroup-defining properties.
1986). Later developments by John Turner and his associates specified the role of social cat-
egorization of self and others to broaden the theory to understand group behaviour more
generally (Turner, Hogg, Oakes, Reicher, & Wetherell, 1987) – called the social identity
Self-categorization theory theory of the group, or self-categorization theory.
Turner and associates’
theory of how the process
of categorizing oneself as a Personal identity and social identity
group member produces
social identity and group As noted above, social identity theorists propose the existence of two broad classes of iden-
and intergroup behaviours. tity that define different types of self: (1) social identity, which defines the self in terms of
group memberships (e.g. one’s ethnicity), and (2) personal identity, which defines the self in
terms of idiosyncratic personal relationships and traits (e.g. one’s relationship with one’s
romantic partner, or being witty). We have as many social identities as there are groups that
we feel we belong to, and as many personal identities as there are interpersonal relationships
we are involved in and clusters of idiosyncratic attributes that we believe we possess.
Social identity, our main focus in this section, is associated with group and intergroup behav-
iours such as ethnocentrism, ingroup bias, group solidarity, intergroup discrimination, con-
formity, normative behaviour, stereotyping and prejudice. Social identity can be a very important
aspect of our self-concept. For example, Citrin, Wong and Duff (2001) describe a study in which
46 per cent of Americans reported that they felt being an American, a social identity, was the
most important thing in their life. In contrast, personal identity is associated with positive and
negative close interpersonal relationships and with idiosyncratic personal behaviour.

Processes of social identity salience

In any given situation, our sense of self and associated perceptions, feelings, attitudes and
behaviour rests on whether social or personal identity, and which specific social or personal
identity, is the psychologically salient basis of self-conception. The principle that governs social
identity salience hinges on the process of social categorization (Oakes, 1987) and on people’s
motivation to make sense of and reduce uncertainty about themselves and others (Hogg, 2012),
and to feel relatively positive about themselves (e.g. Abrams & Hogg, 1988) – see Figure 4.4.
People use limited perceptual cues (what someone looks like, how they speak, what atti-
tudes they express, how they behave) to categorise other people. Generally, we first ‘try out’
categorizations that are readily accessible to us because we often use them, because they are
important to us or perhaps because they are glaringly obvious in the situation. The catego-
rization brings into play all the additional schematic information we have about the cate-
Prototype
Cognitive representation of
gory. This information is cognitively stored as a prototype, which describes and prescribes
the typical/ideal defining the attributes of the category in the form of a fuzzy set of more or less related attributes,
features of a category. rather than a precise checklist of attributes.
Meta-contrast principle
Category prototypes accentuate similarities within groups, but they also accentuate dif-
The prototype of a group is ferences between groups – they obey what is called the meta-contrast principle. As such,
that position within the group prototypes usually do not identify average or typical members or attributes, but ideal
group that has the largest members or attributes. The content of a group prototype may also vary from situation to
ratio of ‘differences to
ingroup positions’ to
situation. For example, Britishness will probably be slightly different in a situation where
‘differences to outgroup one is interacting with other ‘Brits’ than a situation where one is interacting with Americans.
positions’. Category attributes in memory interact with situational factors to generate the
 SOCIAL IDENTITY THEORY 133

Social identity
salience
The wearing of the kilt is
a mark of nationalism,
commitment to the
cause and a resolve to
act in unison in times
of stress.

Social categorization ‘X’ is situationally

accessible and chronically accessible

Does categorization ‘X’ have good structural fit?

Does it account for relevant similarities and If no – try a new
differences between people in the context? categorization

If yes – does categorization ‘X’ have good

normative fit? Does it make sense of people’s If no – try a new
behaviour in the context? categorization

If yes – does categorization ‘X’ satisfy If no – try a new

uncertainty reduction in that context? categorization

If yes – does categorization ‘X’ satisfy If no – try a new

self-enhancement motives in that context? categorization

Figure 4.4 Social

identity theory’s
model of the
If yes – categorization ‘X’ is the psychologically sequence through
salient basis for self-conception in that context. which a particular self-
conception becomes
psychologically salient
in a specific context
134 CHAPTER 4 SELF AND IDENTITY

situation-specific prototype. Category attributes stored in memory act as an anchor that

ensures the integrity of the core identity and imposes limits on the amount and type of influ-
ence situation can have on the prototype (Van Bavel & Cunningham, 2010).
Ultimately, if the categorization fits, in that it accounts for similarities and differences
between people satisfactorily (called structural fit), and it makes good sense of why people
are behaving in particular ways (called normative fit), then the categorization becomes psy-
chologically salient as the basis of categorizing self and others.

Consequences of social identity salience

When a categorization becomes psychologically salient, people’s perception of themselves and
others becomes depersonalised. This means that people no longer consider themselves or oth-
ers as unique multidimensional persons but as more or less complete embodiments of the cat-
egory prototype – they are viewed through the relatively narrow lens of a group membership
that is defined by the specific ingroup or outgroup prototype. Swann and colleagues have sug-
gested that when this process is extreme, identity fusion arises such that one’s personal identity
becomes fused with the group and thus with social identity (Swann, Jetten, Gomez, Whitehouse,
& Bastian, 2012); and then, because there is no prototype-based differentiation of self within
the group, behavior can become extreme (Swann, Gómez, Seyle, Morales, & Huici, 2009).
In addition to the transformation of self-conception into social identity, people also think,
feel, believe and behave in terms of the relevant prototype. The process produces the range
of behaviour we characteristically associate with people in groups and with the way groups
treat each other, a theme that recurs throughout this text.
The actual nature of the behaviour (what people think and do) depends on the specific
content of the relevant prototype, and on people’s beliefs about the status of their group in
society and about the nature of the relations between groups (Tajfel & Turner, 1986; see
Ellemers, 1993; Hogg & Abrams, 1988). Group status is important because groups define
social identity and social identity defines our self-concept; thus, the evaluative implications
of a specific group (the status, prestige and regard in which it is held) reflect the esteem in
which others hold us, and they influence the esteem in which we hold ourselves, our self-
esteem (Crocker & Major, 1994; see the discussion of social stigma in Chapter 10).
So, people strive for membership in prestigious groups, or they strive to protect or enhance
the prestige and esteem of their existing group. How they do this is influenced by their
understanding of the nature of the status relations between their group and a specific
outgroup – is it permeable, is it stable, is it legitimate? If the group’s evaluation in society is
generally unfavourable and you feel you can pass into a more prestigious group, you might
try to leave the group entirely; however, this can be very difficult, because in reality the psy-
chological boundaries between groups can be impermeable or impassable. For example,
various immigrant groups in Britain may find it difficult to ‘pass’ as British because they
simply do not look British or they are readily ‘given away’ by subtle clues in their accent. If
‘passing’ is not possible, people can try to make sure that the attributes that do define their
group are positive ones, or they can focus attention on less prestigious groups, in compari-
son with which they will look rather good.
Groups can sometimes recognise that the entire basis on which their group is considered low
status is illegitimate, unfair and unstable. If this recognition is tied to feasible strategies for
change, then groups will compete directly with one another to gain the upper hand in the status
stakes – a competition that can range from rhetoric and democratic process to terrorism and war.

Self-motives
Because selves and identities are critical reference points for leading a well-adapted life, peo-
ple are enthusiastically motivated to secure self-knowledge. Entire industries are based on
this search for knowledge, ranging from personality tests to dubious practices such as
 SELF-MOTIVES 135

astrology and palmistry. However, people do not go about this search in a dispassionate way;
they have preferences for what they would like to know about themselves and can be dis-
mayed when the quest unearths things they did not expect or did not want to find.
Social psychologists have identified three classes of motive that interact to influence self-
construction and the search for self-knowledge:
● self-assessment motivates pursuit of valid information about self;
● self-verification motivates pursuit of information that is consistent with our own self-image;
● self-enhancement motivates pursuit of information that makes us look good.

Self-assessment and self-verification

The first motive is a simple desire to have accurate and valid information about oneself –
there is a self-assessment motive (e.g. Trope, 1986). People strive to find out the truth about Self-assessment
themselves, regardless of how unfavourable or disappointing the truth may be. The motivation to seek out
new information about
But people also like to engage in a quest for confirmation – to confirm what they already ourselves in order to find
know about themselves they seek out self-consistent information through a self-verification out what sort of person we
process (e.g. Swann, 1987). So, for example, people who have a negative self-image will actu- really are.
ally seek out negative information to confirm the worst. Although the ‘self’ in self-verification Self-verification
was originally viewed as the idiosyncratic personal self, research shows that self-verification Seeking out information
can also occur at the group level. People seek information and behave in ways aimed at that verifies and confirms
verifying their social identity (Chen, Chen, & Shaw, 2004). what we already know
about ourselves.

Self-enhancement
Self-enhancement
Above all else, we like to learn good things about ourselves – we seek new favourable knowl-
The motivation to develop
edge about ourselves as well as revise pre-existing but unfavourable views of ourselves. We and promote a favourable
are guided by a self-enhancement motive (e.g. Kunda, 1990). This motive to promote image of self.

Self-affirmation theory
‘Way to go, man!’
136 CHAPTER 4 SELF AND IDENTITY

self-positivity has a mirror motive, self-protection, which fends off self-negativity. Research
suggests that self-enhancement functions operate routinely and relatively globally, but that
self-protection functions are usually occasioned only by an event or series of events that
threatens a specific self-related interest (Alicke & Sedikides, 2009).
One manifestation of the self-enhancement motive is described by self-affirmation
Self-affirmation theory theory (Sherman & Cohen, 2006; Steele, 1988). People strive publicly to affirm positive
The theory that people aspects of who they are; this can be done blatantly by boasting or more subtly through
reduce the impact of threat
to their self-concept by
rationalisation or dropping hints. The urge to self-affirm is particularly strong when an
focusing on and affirming aspect of one’s self-esteem has been damaged. So, for example, if someone claims you are a
their competence in some lousy artist, you might retort that while that might be true, you are an excellent dancer. Self-
other area. affirmation rests on people’s need to maintain a global image of themselves as being compe-
tent, good, coherent, unitary, stable, capable of free choice, capable of controlling important
outcomes and so on. Ultimately, we like to be viewed as moral beings – and so we engage in
a range of behaviours aimed at establishing and even asserting our moral credentials
(Merritt, Effron, Fein, Savitsky, Tuller, & Monin, 2012; Monin & Miller, 2001). Box 4.3
describes research by Claude Steele (1975) in which self-affirmation processes were studied
in the context of religious adherence.
Which motive is more fundamental and more likely to prevail in the pursuit of self-
knowledge – self-assessment, self-verification or self-enhancement? In a series of six experi-
ments, Constantine Sedikides (1993) pitted the three motives against one another. He used a
self-reflection task where participants can ask themselves more or less diagnostic questions
focusing on different aspects of themselves – the asking of more diagnostic questions indi-
cates greater self-reflection, and the focus of self-reflection differs depending on what
self-motive is operating:
● Self-assessment – greater self-reflection on peripheral than central traits of self, whether
the attribute is desirable or not, indicates a drive to find out more about self (people
already have knowledge about traits that are central for them).
● Self-verification – greater self-reflection on central than on peripheral traits, whether the
attribute is positive or not, indicates a drive to confirm what one already knows about
oneself.

Box 4.3 Research classic

Self-affirmation in Salt Lake City

Claude Steele (1975) reported a study in Salt Lake City in knowledge that, as members of their community, they
which Mormon women who were at home during the day were either:
were telephoned by a female researcher posing as a com-
● un-cooperative with community projects (a direct
munity member. The researcher asked the women if they
threat to a core component of their self-concept), or
would be willing to list everything in their kitchen to assist
● un-concerned about driver safety and care (a threat to a
the development of a community food cooperative; those
relatively irrelevant component of their self-concept), or
who agreed would be called back the following week.
● cooperative with community projects (positive rein-
Because community cooperation is a very strong ethic
forcement of their self-concept).
among Mormons, about 50 per cent of women agreed to
this time-consuming request. Consistent with self-affirmation theory, the two threats
In addition to this baseline condition, there were three greatly increased the probability that women would sub-
other conditions in the study arising from a previous call, sequently agree to help the food cooperative – about 95
two days earlier, by an entirely unrelated researcher pos- per cent of women agreed to help. Among women who
ing as a pollster. In the course of this previous call, the had been given positive reinforcement of their self-
pollster mentioned in passing that it was common concept, 65 per cent agreed to help the cooperative.
 SELF-ESTEEM 137

Box 4.4 Your life

Techniques to enhance or protect positive aspects of the self

You may have noticed how people (perhaps you!) are ● They try to dismiss interpersonal criticism as being
inclined to boost themselves. Think about all the ways you motivated by prejudice (e.g. Crocker & Major, 1989).
might do this . . . then read on. Here are some of the tricks ● They perform a biased search of self-knowledge to sup-
that people get up to – do they seem familiar to you? port a favourable self-image (e.g. Kunda & Sanitoso,
1989).
● They take credit for their successes but deny blame for
● They place a favourable spin on the meaning of ambig-
their failures (e.g. Zuckerman, 1979); this is one of the
uous traits that define self (e.g. Dunning, Meyerowitz, &
self-serving biases (see Chapter 3).
Holzberg, 1989).
● They forget failure feedback more readily than success
● They persuade themselves that their flaws are widely
or praise (e.g. Mischel, Ebbesen, & Zeiss, 1976).
shared human attributes but that their qualities are rare
● They accept praise uncritically but receive criticism
and distinctive (e.g. Campbell, 1986).
sceptically (e.g. Kunda, 1990).

● Self-enhancement – greater self-reflection on positive than on negative aspects of self,

whether the attribute is central or not, indicates a drive to learn positive things about self
(see Box 4.4).
Sedikides found that self-enhancement was strongest, with self-verification a distant sec-
ond and self-assessment an even more remote third. The desire to think well of ourselves
reigns supreme; it dominates both the pursuit of accurate self-knowledge and the pursuit of
information that confirms self-knowledge. (Does this apply to you? See the second ‘What do
you think?’ focus question.)
Because self-enhancement is so important, people have developed a formidable repertoire
of strategies and techniques to pursue it. People engage in elaborate self-deceptions to
enhance or protect the positivity of their self-concepts (Baumeister, 1998). It has even been
suggested that the name-letter effect, where people prefer letters that occur in their own
name over those that do not, reflects self-esteem and can actually be used as an indirect
measure of self-esteem (Hoorens, 2014).

Self-esteem
Why are people so strongly motivated to think well of themselves – to self-enhance? Research
suggests that people generally have a rosy sense of self – they see, or try to see, themselves
through ‘rose-tinted spectacles’. For example, people who are threatened or distracted often
display what Del Paulhus and Karen Levitt (1987) called automatic egotism – a widely favour-
able self-image. In their review of a link between illusions and a sense of well-being, Shelley
Taylor and Jonathon Brown (1988) concluded that people normally overestimate their good
points, overestimate their control over events and are unrealistically optimistic. Sedikides and
Gregg (2003) call these three characteristics of human thought the self-enhancing triad.
For example, a study conducted in an American setting found that very low-achieving stu-
dents (in the bottom 12 per cent) thought they were relatively high achievers (in the top 38 per
cent) (Kruger & Dunning, 1999). According to Patricia Cross (1977), your lecturers show
positivity bias too, with 94 per cent convinced that their teaching ability is above average! The
tendency to overestimate our good points is well documented in research (Brown, 2012;
Guenther & Alicke, 2010; Williams & Gilovich, 2012) and is referred to as the above-average-
effect. See Box 4.5 and Figure 4.5 for an applied example of this bias among young drivers.
138 CHAPTER 4 SELF AND IDENTITY

Box 4.5 Our world

Self-enhancement in young drivers

How able and cautious young drivers think they are pre- average or well above average, both on skill and safety.
dicts how optimistic they are about avoiding a crash. Although there was no age difference, the genders did dif-
Another factor is . . . perceived luck in avoiding crashes! fer: in comparison to their peers, men gave themselves
Can people accurately judge how good they are as slightly higher skill ratings while women gave themselves
drivers? Niki Harré and her colleagues addressed this slightly higher safety ratings.
question in a study of self-enhancement bias and crash Crash-risk optimism was also measured. These young
optimism in young drivers (Harré, Foster, & O’Neill, 2005). drivers estimated the likelihood of being involved in a
More than three hundred male and female technical insti- crash, again relative to their peers. Perceived ability and
tute students (aged 16–29 years) compared their driving perceived caution were significant predictors of crash-risk
attributes to their peers on a series of ten items. optimism, in combination with another measure –
Each item was responded to on a seven-point scale that believing that luck would help them avoid crashes!
ranged from 1 (much less) to 7 (much more) with the mid- Harré and her colleagues noted that their study was not
point 4 labelled about the same. Factor analysis showed designed to identify which young drivers are biased, since
that the ten items reflected two underlying dimensions: to do so would require measuring a person’s actual skill
perceived driving ability (e.g. ‘Do you think you are more and actual safety when driving. Nevertheless, these drivers
or less skilled as a driver than other people your age?’) and had an overly optimistic view of themselves. Other
perceived driving caution (e.g. ‘Do you think you are more research suggests that optimistic drivers may, for example,
or less safe as a driver than other people your age?’) ignore safety messages because they do not believe they
A self-enhancement bias was found on both scales and are relevant (Walton & McKeown, 1991). This is a concern,
all items. The results for the skilled and safe items are given that safe-driving campaigns are a major strategy for
shown in Figure 4.5. Most rated themselves as above reducing the road toll.

35
% skilled Self-enhancement bias
% safe
30

25

20

15

10

0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Much less About the same Much more

Self–other comparisons (7-point scale)

Figure 4.5 Self-enhancement bias: Rating one’s driving as above average

● Young drivers compared attributes of their individual driving behaviour (skilled, safe) with their peers.
● Most showed a self-enhancement bias, using above-average ratings of 5, 6 or 7.
Source: Based on data from Harré, Foster and O’Neill (2005).
 SELF-ESTEEM 139

Box 4.6 Our world

Threats to your self-concept can damage your health: ways of coping

There are three major sources of threat to our self- ● Denial – people may take alcohol or other drugs, or
concept, and all can affect our sense of self-worth: engage in risky ‘just for kicks’ behaviour. This is not a
1 Failures – ranging from failing a test, through failing a particularly constructive coping mechanism, since it
job interview, to a marriage ending in divorce. can create additional health problems.
2 Inconsistencies – unusual and unexpected positive or
● Downplay the threat – this is a more constructive strat-
negative events that make us question the sort of per- egy, either by re-evaluating the aspect of self that has
son we are. been threatened or by reaffirming other positive aspects
3 Stressors – sudden or enduring events that may exceed of the self (Steele, 1988). For example, Taylor (1983)
our capacity to cope, including bereavement, a sick found that breast cancer patients who were facing the
child and over-commitment to work. possibility of death often expressed and reaffirmed what
they felt were their most basic self-aspects – some quit
Threats to our self-concept not only arouse negative
dead-end jobs, others turned to writing and painting,
emotions that can lead to self-harm and suicide, they also
and others reaffirmed important relationships.
contribute to physical illness (Salovey, Rothman, & Rodin, ● Self-expression – this is a very effective response to
1998). They can affect our immune responses, nervous
threat. Writing or talking about one’s emotional and
system activity and blood pressure. For example, one
physical reactions to self-conceptual threats can be an
study found that when people were reminded of signifi-
extraordinarily useful coping mechanism. It reduces
cant self-discrepancies, the level of natural killer cell activ-
emotional heat, headaches, muscle tension and pound-
ity in their bloodstream decreased (Strauman, Lemieux, &
ing heart, and it improves immune system functioning
Coe, 1993). These cells are important in defending the
(Pennebaker, 1997). Most benefits come from commu-
body against cancers and viral infections.
nication that enhances understanding and self-insight.
There are several ways in which people try to cope with ● Attack the threat – people can directly confront threat by
self-conceptual threats:
discrediting its basis (‘This is an invalid test of my abil-
● Escape – people may remove themselves physically ity’), by denying personal responsibility for the threat
from the threat situation. When people who had done (‘The dog ate my essay’), by setting up excuses for failure
poorly on an intelligence and creativity task were asked before the event (on the way into an exam, announcing
to wait in another room equipped with a mirror and that you have a terrible hangover – self-handicapping
video camera (to heighten self-awareness), they fled (Berglas, 1987; see Chapter 3) or by taking control of the
the scene much more quickly than participants who problem directly, such as seeking professional help or
had done well on the task (Duval & Wicklund, 1972). addressing any valid causes of threat.

People who fail to exhibit these biases can tend towards depression and some other forms Self-handicapping
Publicly making advance
of mental illness (e.g. Tennen & Affleck, 1993). Thus, a self-conceptual positivity bias, based
external attributions for our
on positive illusions, is psychologically adaptive. Box 4.6 describes some health aspects of anticipated failure or poor
self-esteem and self-conception. performance in a
However, a breathlessly inflated sense of how wonderful one is, is nauseatingly gushy. It forthcoming event.
is also maladaptive, as it does not match reality. Although feeling good about oneself is
important, it needs to be balanced by a degree of self-conceptual accuracy (Colvin &
Block, 1994). Generally, the self-conceptual positivity bias is small enough not to be a seri-
ous threat to self-conceptual accuracy (Baumeister, 1989), and people suspend their self-
illusions when important decisions need to be made (Gollwitzer & Kinney, 1989).
Nevertheless, a positive self-image and associated self-esteem is a significant goal for most
people most of the time.
The pursuit of self-esteem is an adaptive and global human pursuit that persists through- Self-esteem
out one’s life (e.g. Wagner, Gerstorf, Hoppmann, & Luszcz, 2013). However, how one pur- Feelings about and
evaluations of oneself.
sues self-esteem differs across individuals, groups and the life span. One notable difference is
between cultures (Falk & Heine, 2015). For example, although Japanese society stresses
communality and interconnectedness and engages in self-criticism, research suggests that
140 CHAPTER 4 SELF AND IDENTITY

this is simply a different way of satisfying self-esteem – in Western countries, self-esteem is

more directly addressed by overt self-enhancement (Kitayama, Markus, Matsumoto, &
Norasakkunkit, 1997). According to Mark Leary and his colleagues, self-esteem is a reflec-
tion of successful social connectedness (Leary, Tambor, Terdal, & Downs, 1995), as we see
in the next subsection.

Self-esteem and social identity

As we have seen above (see also Chapters 10 and 11), self-esteem is closely associated with
social identity – by identifying with a group, that group’s prestige and status in society
attaches to one’s self-concept. Thus, all things being equal, being identified as belonging to
the group of obese people is less likely to generate positive self-esteem than being identified
as belonging to the group of Olympic athletes (Crandall, 1994). However, there is a general
caveat: members of stigmatised groups are generally extremely creative at avoiding the self-
Stigma esteem consequences of stigma (Crocker & Major, 1989; Crocker, Major, & Steele, 1998;
Group attributes that see Chapter 10).
mediate a negative social
evaluation of people
In practice, and consistent with social comparison theory (see earlier in this chapter and
belonging to the group. also Chapter 11), there can be several outcomes when self-esteem is tied to social identity.
These depend on the perceived status of comparison outgroups relative to our own group.
Take the example of Jesse Owens: he was the star athlete at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, the
winner of four gold medals. As a member of the US team he was triumphant in demonstrat-
ing the athletic superiority of the United States over Germany against the backdrop of
Hitler’s white supremacist notion of the Master Race. Jesse Owens was less happy on his
return home, where, as an African American, he was just another member of a disadvan-
taged minority.
Ethnicity and race are significant sources of social identity-related self-esteem. Studies
have shown that members of ethnic minorities often report perceptions of lowered self-
esteem, but only when making inter-ethnic or inter-racial comparisons with dominant
groups (e.g. Cross, 1987).

Self-esteem
She wants to look like
this. How close is she
to her goal?
 SELF-ESTEEM 141

Some of the original and classic research on ethnic identity and self-worth was done in
the United States in the 1930s and 1940s and was restricted to studies of African American
and white American children (see Box 4.7). Later work focused on other non-white minori-
ties such as Native Americans, ‘Chicanos’, Chinese and French Canadians (see review by
Aboud, 1987), New Zealand Maori (e.g. Vaughan, 1978a), and indigenous Australians
(Pedersen, Walker, & Glass, 1999). Consistently, children from non-white minorities showed
clear outgroup preference and wished they were white themselves.
Although pre-adolescent children from an ethnic minority might prefer to be members
of the ethnic majority, this effect gradually declines with age (see Box 11.3 for an exam-
ple). It is probable that young, disadvantaged children experience a conflict between their
actual and ideal selves (see Box 4.2). As they grow older, they can rectify this in different
ways:
● They can avoid making self-damaging intergroup comparisons (see Chapter 11).
● They can join with other ingroup members in a quest to establish more equal status rela-
tive to the majority group (again see Chapter 11).
● They can identify or develop ingroup characteristics, such as their language and culture,
which provide a sense of uniqueness and positivity (see Chapter 15).

Box 4.7 Research classic

Depressed self-esteem and ethnic minority status

Research on children’s ethnic identity has a long history in led to Kenneth Clark appearing as a witness in a landmark
social psychology. Some of the earliest studies were con- case in the US Supreme Court – Brown v Topeka Board of
ducted by two African Americans, Kenneth and Mamie Education (1954) – in which he testified that black chil-
Clark (1939a, 1939b, 1940). The Clarks showed young dren’s self-esteem was extensively damaged over time.
African American children pairs of black and white dolls, Flowing from this case, the legal decision to outlaw school
probing for the children’s ethnic identity and ethnic pref- segregation was instrumental in helping to legitimise the
erence. Independently, Horowitz (1936, 1939) used a dif- civil rights movement in the United States (Goodman,
ferent method – sketches of black and white people – to 1964).
test white children’s awareness of differences between Despite later claims that the ‘doll studies’ were meth-
ethnic groups and attitudes towards blacks. Mary odologically flawed (Hraba, 1972; Banks, 1976), an analysis
Goodman (1946, 1952), who worked with the social psy- of the trends in ethnic identity studies carried out in other
chologist Gordon Allport at Harvard University, studied countries pointed to at least two stable patterns (Vaughan,
ethnic awareness and attitudes among white and African 1986):
American nursery-school children in more detail. She
1 Ethnic minorities that are disadvantaged (education-
extended the Clarks’ method by including a doll play tech-
ally, economically, politically) are typified by lowered
nique to allow the children to project attitudes towards
self-esteem when intergroup comparisons are made.
their ethnic ingroup and outgroup.
2 Social change in the status relationship between ethnic
These investigations used different samples from differ-
groups leads to a significant improvement in minority
ent American states, at slightly different periods and with
pride and individuals’ feelings of self-worth.
an extensive range of tests. Their results consistently
showed that when making ethnic comparisons: With respect to the second pattern, Hraba and Grant
(1970) documented a phenomenon in African American
● White children preferred white children.
children called ‘Black is Beautiful’, following the success of
● African American children preferred white children.
the American Black Power movement in the late 1960s.
● African American children had lower self-esteem.
(Social stigma and self-esteem are discussed in detail in
Goodman referred to the main effect as ‘White over Chapter 10, and the processes underlying social change
Brown’. A wider recognition of the impact of these studies are discussed in Chapter 11.)
142 CHAPTER 4 SELF AND IDENTITY

Individual differences
We all know people who seem to hold themselves in very low regard and others who seem to
have a staggeringly positive impression of themselves. Do these differences reflect enduring
and deep-seated differences in self-esteem; and are such differences the causes, consequences
or merely correlates of other behaviours and phenomena?
One view that has become somewhat entrenched, particularly in the United States, is that
low self-esteem is responsible for a range of personal and social problems such as crime,
delinquency, drug abuse, unplanned pregnancy and underachievement in school. This view
has spawned a huge industry, with accompanying mantras, to boost individual self-esteem,
particularly in childrearing and school contexts. However, critics have argued that low self-
esteem may be a product of the stressful and alienating conditions of modern industrial
society, and that the self-esteem ‘movement’ is an exercise in rearranging deck chairs on the
Titanic that merely produces selfish and narcissistic individuals.
So, what is the truth? First, research suggests that individual self-esteem tends to vary
between moderate and very high, not between low and high. Most people feel relatively
positive about themselves – at least university students in the United States do (Baumeister,
Tice, & Hutton, 1989). However, lower self-esteem scores have been obtained from Japanese
students studying in Japan or the United States (Kitayama, Markus, Matsumoto, &
Norasakkunkit, 1997; see also Chapter 16).
Even if we focus on those people who have low self-esteem, there is little evidence that low
self-esteem causes the social ills that it is purported to cause. For example, Baumeister,
Smart and Boden (1996) searched the literature for evidence for the popular belief that low
self-esteem causes violence (see also Chapter 12). They found quite the opposite. Violence
was associated with high self-esteem; more specifically, violence seems to erupt when indi-
viduals with high self-esteem have their rosy self-images threatened.
However, we should not lump together all people who hold themselves in high self-esteem.
Consistent with common sense, some people with high self-esteem are quietly self-confident
and non-hostile, whereas others are thin-skinned, arrogant, conceited and overly assertive
(Kernis, Granneman, & Barclay, 1989). These latter individuals also feel ‘special’ and supe-
Narcissism rior to others, and they actually have relatively volatile self-esteem – they are narcissistic
A personality trait that is (Back, Küfner, Dufner, Gerlach, Rauthmann, & Denissen, 2013). Colvin, Block and Funder
volatile, comprising self-love
and an inflated or grandiose
(1995) found that it was this latter type of high-self-esteem individual who was likely to be
view of oneself. maladjusted in terms of interpersonal problems. Some personality theorists see narcissism
as often going together with Machiavellianism and psychopathy to produce what is omi-
nously referred to as personality’s ‘dark triad’ (Paulhus & Williams, 2002) – leaders who
have these attributes are particularly destructive (see Chapter 9).
Narcissistic individuals may also be more prone to aggression – specifically, according to
the threatened egotism model, if they feel that their ego has been threatened (Baumeister,
Smart, & Boden, 1996). Bushman and Baumeister (1998) conducted a laboratory experi-
ment to test this idea. After writing an essay, student participants received an evaluation of
the essay which was either an ‘ego threat’ or an ‘ego boost’. Later, they were given the oppor-
tunity to act aggressively against the person who had offended them. Self-esteem did not
predict aggression, but narcissism did – narcissistic individuals were more aggressive towards
people who they felt had provoked and offended them. An interesting extension to this idea
has focused on group-level narcissism, collective narcissism, and shown how narcissistic
groups (e.g., narcissistic ethnic groups, religions or nations) that experience a status threat
are more likely than non-narcissistic groups to resort to collective violence (Golec de Zavala,
Cichocka, Eidelson, & Jayawickreme, 2009).
Overall, research into self-esteem as an enduring trait provides quite a clear picture of
what people with high and low self-esteem are like (Baumeister, 1998; see Table 4.2). There
are two main underlying differences associated with trait self-esteem (Baumeister, Tice, &
Hutton, 1989; Campbell, 1990): (1) self-concept confusion – high self-esteem people have a
 SELF-ESTEEM 143

Terror management
theory
Everyone dies. People
buffer fear of their own
death by elevating their
self-esteem.

more thorough, consistent and stable stock of self-knowledge than do low self-esteem peo-
ple; (2) motivational orientation – high self-esteem people have a self-enhancing orientation
in which they capitalise on their positive features and pursue success, whereas low self-
esteem people have a self-protective orientation in which they try to remedy their shortcom-
ings and avoid failures and setbacks. (Knowing this, you might want to learn a bit more
about Manfred. See the third ‘What do you think?’ question.)

In pursuit of self-esteem
Why do people pursue self-esteem? This may seem a silly question – obviously, self-esteem
makes you feel good. There is of course some truth here, but there are causality issues to be
addressed – being in a good mood, however caused, may create a rosy glow that distorts the
esteem in which people hold themselves. So, rather than self-esteem producing happiness,
feeling happy may inflate self-esteem. Terror management
theory
Fear of death The notion that the most
fundamental human
One intriguing, and somewhat gloomy, reason given for why people pursue self-esteem is motivation is to reduce the
that they do so in order to overcome their fear of death. Greenberg, Pyszczynski and terror of the inevitability of
death. Self-esteem may be
Solomon (1986; Greenberg, Solomon, & Pyszczynski, 1997; Pyszczynski, Greenberg, & centrally implicated in
Solomon, 1999, 2004; Solomon, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, 1991) developed this idea in effective terror
their terror management theory. They argue that the inevitability of death is the most management.

Table 4.2 Characteristics of people with high and low self-esteem

High self-esteem Low self-esteem
Persistent and resilient in the face of failure Vulnerable to impact of everyday events
Emotionally and affectively stable Wide swings in mood and affect
Less flexible and malleable Flexible and malleable
Less easily persuaded and influenced Easily persuaded and influenced
No conflict between wanting and obtaining Want success and approval but are sceptical
success and approval of it
React positively to a happy and successful life React negatively to a happy and successful life
Thorough, consistent and stable self-concept Sketchy, inconsistent and unstable self-concept
Self-enhancement motivational orientation Self-protective motivational orientation
144 CHAPTER 4 SELF AND IDENTITY

fundamental threat that people face, and thinking about our own death produces ‘paralys-
ing terror’ – fear of dying is thus the most powerful motivating factor in human existence.
Self-esteem, however achieved, is part of a defence against that threat.
Through high self-esteem, people can escape from the anxiety that would otherwise arise
from continual contemplation of the inevitability of their own death – the drive for self-
esteem is grounded in terror associated with dying. High self-esteem makes people feel good
about themselves – they feel immortal, and positive and excited about life. One way to ele-
vate self-esteem to protect against fear of death is to acquire symbolic immortality by iden-
tifying with and defending cultural institutions and their associated world view – cultural
institutions survive long after we are dead.
To support this analysis, Greenberg and his colleagues conducted three experiments in
which participants did or did not receive success and positive personality feedback
(manipulation of self-esteem) and then either watched a video about death or anticipated
painful electric shocks (Greenberg et al., 1992). They found that participants who had had
their self-esteem raised had lower physiological arousal and reported less anxiety (see
Figure 4.6).
Another factor that may buffer death anxiety is humility. Pelin Kesebir (2014) conducted five
studies in which humility, as an individual difference or personality trait, or as a temporary
state induced by priming, buffered fear of death. Kesebir’s explanation is that humility is a
virtue that embodies forgivingness, generosity and helpfulness, which stands in contrast to
being neurotic and narcissistic. The humble person is less self-focused. People with high self-
esteem may respond to the thought of death by acting defensively or even aggressively (Bushman
& Baumeister, 1998); a person with humility may be blessed with ‘existential anxiety buffer’.

Self-esteem as a ‘sociometer’
Another reason why people pursue self-esteem is that it is a reliable index, or internal moni-
tor, of social acceptance and belonging. In this respect, self-esteem has been referred to as a
‘sociometer’. Leary and his colleagues have shown that self-esteem is quite strongly corre-
lated (at about 0.50) with reduced anxiety over social rejection and exclusion (e.g. Leary &

40
Neutral self-feedback
Positive self-feedback
35

30

25
Anxiety (0–60)

20

15

10
Figure 4.6 Anxiety as a function of positive
or neutral self-esteem feedback and of having
viewed a death video 5

People felt more anxious (on a 0–60 scale) after

watching an explicit video about death if their self- 0
Neutral video Death video
esteem had not previously been elevated through
positive feedback, than if their self-esteem had Type of video
previously been elevated.
Source: Based on data from Greenberg et al. (1992), Experiment 1.
 SELF-PRESENTATION AND IMPRESSION MANAGEMENT 145

Kowalski, 1995), and there is strong evidence that people are pervasively driven by a need to
form relationships and to belong (e.g. Baumeister & Leary, 1995; also, the consequences of
social ostracism are discussed in Chapter 8 and social isolation in Chapter 14). Leary feels
that having high self-esteem does not mean that we have conquered our fear of death, but
rather that we have conquered the threat of loneliness and social rejection.
Leary and colleagues conducted a series of five experiments to support their view (Leary,
Tambor, Terdal, & Downs, 1995). They found that high self-esteem participants reported
greater inclusion in general and in specific real social situations. They also found that social
exclusion from a group for personal reasons depressed participants’ self-esteem.
Other critics of terror management theory worry that the theory is unfalsifiable and over-
stretched because it tries to explain all of human behaviour in terms of a single motive
(Martin & Van den Bos, 2014). Yet others suggest more specifically that high self-esteem
may be a response to overcoming existential uncertainty or uncertainty about who we are
and our place in the world, rather than overcoming fear associated with dying (Hohman &
Hogg, 2011, 2015; Van den Bos, 2009).

Self-presentation and impression management

Selves are constructed, modified and played out in interaction with other people. Since the
self that we project has consequences for how others react, we try to control the self that we
present. In The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, the sociologist Erving Goffman (1959)
likened this process of impression management to theatre, where people play different roles Impression management
for different audiences. Hundreds of studies show that people behave differently in public People’s use of various
strategies to get other
than in private (Leary, 1995). people to view them in a
There are two classes of motive for self-presentation: strategic and expressive. Research positive light.
by Mark Snyder (1974) into individual differences in self-monitoring suggests that high self-
Self-monitoring
monitors adopt strategic self-presentation strategies because they typically shape their Carefully controlling how
behaviour to project the impression they feel their audience or the situation demands, we present ourselves. There
whereas low self-monitors adopt expressive self-presentation strategies because their behav- are situational differences
iour is less responsive to changing contextual demands. and individual differences in
self-monitoring.

Strategic self-presentation
Building on classic work by Jones (1964), Jones and Pittman (1982) identified five strategic
motives:
1 self-promotion – trying to persuade others that you are competent;
2 ingratiation – trying to get others to like you;
3 intimidation – trying to get others to think you are dangerous;
4 exemplification – trying to get others to regard you as a morally respectable individual; and
5 supplication – trying to get others to take pity on you as helpless and needy.
The behaviour that represents the operation of these motives is fairly obvious (see Chapter 6
on persuasion tactics). In fact, ingratiation and self-promotion service two of the most com-
mon goals of social interaction: to get people to like you and to get people to think you are
competent (Leary, 1995). As we saw earlier (Chapter 2), warmth and competence are the two
most fundamental and pervasive dimensions on which we form impressions of people (e.g.
Cuddy, Fiske, & Glick, 2008; Fiske, Cuddy, & Glick, 2007). Research into ingratiation shows
that ingratiation has little effect on an observer’s liking for you but a big effect on the target
– flattery can be hard to resist (Gordon, 1996). (Use Box 4.8 to help advise Andrea. See the
fourth ‘What do you think?’ question.)
146 CHAPTER 4 SELF AND IDENTITY

Box 4.8 Your life

Some tips on how to present yourself so that others like you

Think about what you might do to get others to like you. 2 Be selectively modest (a) by making fun of your stand-
We all like to be liked, but it can be quite a challenge to ing on unimportant issues and (b) by putting yourself
know how best to do this. Fortunately, social psychology down in areas that do not matter very much.
has some very reliable answers. 3 Try to avoid appearing too desperate for others’
The key to getting people to like you through strategic approval. Try to get others to do the strategic self-
self-presentation is to be relatively subtle so that it does not presentation for you and, if it is left up to you, use the
look too obviously like ingratiation. According to Ned Jones strategy sparingly and do not use it under conditions
(1990), there are four principal strategies you should adopt: where it would be expected.
4 Basking in reflected glory really does work. Make cas-
1 Agree with people’s opinions (similarity enhances
ual references to your connections with winners, and
attraction – see Chapter 13), but make it credible (a) by
only make links with losers when such links cannot be
balancing agreement on important issues with disa-
turned against you.
greement on trivial issues and (b) by balancing forceful
agreement with weak disagreement.

Source: Based on Jones (1990).

Expressive self-presentation
Self-presentation Strategic self-presentation focuses on manipulating others’ perceptions of you. In contrast,
A deliberate effort to act in expressive self-presentation involves demonstrating and validating our self-concept through
ways that create a particular
our actions – the focus is more on oneself than on others (Schlenker, 1980). But we are not
impression, usually
favourable, of ourselves. unrealistic: we usually seek out people whom we believe are likely to validate who we are.
The expressive motive for self-presentation is a strong one. A particular identity or self-
concept is worthless unless it is recognised and validated by others – it is of little use to me
if I think I am a genius but no one else does. Identity requires social validation for it to per-
sist and serve a useful function.
For example, research by Nicholas Emler and Steve Reicher (1995) has shown that delin-
quent behaviour among boys is almost always performed publicly or in forms that can be
publicly verified, because its primary function is identity validation – validation of posses-
sion of a delinquent reputation. There is little point in being a closet delinquent. Other
research confirms that people prefer social situations that allow them to act in ways that are
consistent with their self-concept (e.g. Snyder & Gangestad, 1982), and they prefer partners
who agree with their own self-images (Swann, Hixon, & de la Ronde, 1992).
Social validation of expressed behaviour also seems to be implicated in self-concept
change. Refer back to Tice’s experiment in Figure 4.1, where she asked her participants to
act as if they were either emotionally stable or emotionally volatile. Half of them performed
the behaviour publicly and half privately. They all then completed ratings of what they
believed their ‘true self’ was like. Tice found that only publicly performed behaviour was
internalised as a description of their self. What is important in self-concept change is that
other people perceive you in a particular way – this is social validation. It is not enough for
you, and only you, to perceive yourself in this way (Schlenker, Dlugolecki, & Doherty, 1994).
The self-conceptual consequences of public behaviour have additional support from a
programme of research by Snyder (1984; see Figure 10.10). Observers were led to believe that
a target stranger they were about to meet was an extrovert. Snyder then monitored what
happened. The expectation constrained the target to behave as an extrovert would. In turn,
this confirmed the expectation and strengthened the constraint, leading the target to believe
that he or she really was an extrovert.
 CULTURAL DIFFERENCES IN SELF AND IDENTITY 147

Identity on display
Sometime soon they
will dress in their civvies
and walk outside. It will
be hard work to feel
good on the ‘inside’
as well.

This process where expectations create reality can have a nicely positive outcome – called
the Michelangelo phenomenon (Drigotas, Rusbult, Wieselquist, & Whitton, 1999; Rusbult,
Finkel, & Kumashiro, 2009 – also see Chapter 14). In close relationships, the partners often
view each other positively and have positive expectations of one another – and these posi-
tive expectations guide each person towards their ideal selves. If I affirm your ideal self, you
increasingly come to resemble your ideal self – and vice versa. Of course, the opposite can
also happen – if the relationship is dysfunctional and each person can only see the bad in
the other.

Cultural differences in self and identity

We discuss culture and cultural differences fully in Chapter 16. As far as self and identity are
concerned, however, there is one pervasive finding. Western cultures such as Western Europe,
North America and Australasia tend to be individualistic, whereas most other cultures, such
as those found in Southern Europe, Latin America, Asia and Africa, are collectivist (Triandis,
1989; also see Chiu & Hong, 2007; Heine, 2016; Oyserman, Coon, & Kemmelmeier, 2002).
The anthropologist Geertz puts it beautifully:
The Western conception of the person as a bounded, unique, more or less integrated, moti-
vational and cognitive universe, a dynamic centre of awareness, emotion, judgement, and
action organized into a distinctive whole and set contrastively both against other such wholes
and against a social and natural background is, however incorrigible it may seem to us,
a rather peculiar idea within the context of the world’s cultures.
Geertz (1975, p. 48)
Markus and Kitayama (1991) describe how people in individualistic cultures have an
independent self, whereas people in collectivist cultures have an interdependent self.
Although, in both cases, people seek a coherent sense of who they are, the independent self
is grounded in a view of the self as autonomous, separate from other people and revealed
through one’s inner thoughts and feelings. The interdependent self is grounded in one’s con-
nection to and relationships with other people. It is expressed through one’s roles and rela-
tionships. ‘Self . . . is defined by a person’s surrounding relations, which often are derived
from kinship networks and supported by cultural values such as filial piety, loyalty, dignity,
148 CHAPTER 4 SELF AND IDENTITY

Interdependent self
Women from traditional
collectivist cultures have strong
family connections, are non-
confrontational, and often dress
demurely in public settings.

Table 4.3 Differences between independent and interdependent selves

Independent self Interdependent self
Self-definition Unique, autonomous individual, separate from Connected with others, embedded in social context,
context, represented in terms of internal traits, represented in terms of roles and relationships.
feelings, thoughts and abilities.
Self-structure Unitary and stable, constant across situations and Fluid and variable, changing across situations and
relationships. relationships.
Self-activities Being unique and self-expressive, acting true to your Belonging, fitting in, acting appropriately to roles and
internal beliefs and feelings, being direct and self- group norms, being indirect and non-confrontational,
assertive, promoting your own goals and your promoting group goals and group harmony.
difference from others.
Source: Based on Markus and Kitayama (1991).

and integrity’ (Gao, 1996, p. 83). Table 4.3 shows the ways in which independent and inter-
dependent selves differ. We return to this cultural difference in the self in Chapter 16.
From a conceptual review of the cultural context of self-conception, Vignoles,
Chryssochoou and Breakwell (2000) conclude that the need to have a distinctive and inte-
grated sense of self is probably universal. However, self-distinctiveness means something
quite different in individualist and collectivist cultures. In one it is the isolated and bounded
self that gains meaning from separateness, whereas in the other it is the relational self that
gains meaning from its relations with others.
Consistent with our historical analysis of conceptions of the self at the beginning of this
chapter, the most plausible account of the origins of individualist and collectivist cultures,
and the associated independent and interdependent self-conceptions, is probably in terms of
economic activity. Western cultures have, over the past two hundred to three hundred years,
 SUMMARY 149

developed an economic system based on labour mobility. People are units of production that
are expected to move from places of low labour demand to places of high labour demand –
they are expected to organise their lives, their relationships and their self-concepts around
mobility and transient relationships.
Independence, separateness and uniqueness have become more important than connect-
edness and the long-term maintenance of enduring relationships – these values have become
enshrined as key features of Western culture. Self-conceptions reflect cultural norms that
codify economic activity.

Summary
● The modern Western idea of the self has gradually crystallised over the past two hundred years as
a consequence of a number of social and ideological forces, including secularisation, industrialisa-
tion, enlightenment and psychoanalysis. As a recent science, social psychology has tended to view
the self as the essence of individuality.
● In reality, there are many different forms of self and identity. The three most important are the col-
lective self (defined in terms of attributes shared with ingroup members and distinct from out-
group members), the individual self (defined in terms of attributes that make one unique relative
to other people) and the relational self (defined in terms of relationships that one has with specific
other people).
● People experience different selves in different contexts, yet they also feel that they have a coher-
ent self-concept that integrates or interrelates all these selves.
● People are not continuously consciously aware of themselves. Self-awareness can sometimes be
very uncomfortable and at other times very uplifting – it depends on what aspect of self we are
aware of and on the relative favourability of that aspect.
● Self-knowledge is stored as schemas. We have many self-schemas, and they vary in clarity. In par-
ticular, we have schemas about our actual self, our ideal self and our ‘ought’ self. We often com-
pare our actual self with our ideal and ‘ought’ selves – an actual–ideal self-discrepancy makes us
feel dejected, whereas an actual–ought self-discrepancy makes us feel anxious. The way in which
we construct and regulate our sense of self is influenced by the extent to which we are prevention-
or promotion-focused.
● People construct a concept of self in a number of ways in addition to introspection. They can
observe what they say and what they do, and if there are no external reasons for behaving in that
way, they assume that the behaviour reflects their true self. People can compare themselves with
others to get a sense of who they are – they ground their attitudes in comparisons with similar
others but their behaviour in comparison with slightly less well-off others. The collective self is
also based on downward comparisons, but with outgroup others.
● The collective self is associated with group memberships, intergroup relations and the range of
specific and general behaviour that we associate with people in groups.
● Self-conception is underpinned by three major motives: self-assessment (to discover what sort of
person you really are), self-verification (to confirm what sort of person you are) and self-
enhancement (to discover what a wonderful person you are). People are overwhelmingly moti-
vated by self-enhancement, with self-verification a distant second and self-assessment bringing
up the rear. This is probably because self-enhancement services self-esteem, and self-esteem is a
key feature of self-conception.
● Some people have generally higher self-esteem than others. High self-esteem people have a clear
and stable sense of self and a self-enhancement orientation; low self-esteem people have a less
clear self-concept and a self-protective orientation.
150 CHAPTER 4 SELF AND IDENTITY

● People pursue self-esteem for many reasons, one being that it is a good internal index of social
integration, acceptance and belonging. It may indicate that one has successfully overcome loneli-
ness and social rejection. To protect or enhance self-esteem, people carefully manage the impres-
sion they project. They can do this strategically (manipulating others’ images of the self) or
expressively (behaving in ways that project a positive image of the self).
● Individualist Western cultures emphasise the independent self, whereas other (collectivist) cul-
tures emphasise the interdependent self (the self defined in terms of one’s relations and roles
relative to other people).

Key terms

Actor-observer effect Regulatory focus theory Self-monitoring

BIRGing Schema Self-perception theory
Constructs Self-affirmation theory Self-presentation
Deindividuation Self-assessment Self-regulation
Impression management Self-categorization theory Self-verification
Looking-glass self Self-discrepancy theory Social comparison (theory)
Meta-contrast principle Self-enhancement Social identity
Narcissism Self-esteem Social identity theory
Overjustification effect Self-evaluation maintenance Stigma
Personal identity model Symbolic interactionism
Prototype Self-handicapping Terror management theory

Literature, film and TV

Invisible Man attempt to cure his cancer. His appearance is changed, and
Ralph Ellison’s 1947 novel about how black people in the people respond with disgust to who he is, so he responds
United States are ‘invisible’ to white people. It shows the by assuming an alter ego, Deadpool, and becoming a
consequences of ostracism or denial of identity and masked vigilante tracking down the person, Ajax, who did
existence. this to him. This film can be read to confront issues of
identity, self-assessment, self-verification and self
enhancement that are discussed in this chapter.
The Departed
Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon and Jack Eat Prey Love
Nicholson, this is a dramatic and violent 2006 film about A 2010 romantic comedy-drama directed by Ryan Murphy,
Irish American organised crime in Boston. But it is also a starring Julia Roberts and also featuring Javier Bardem and
study of the strain of nourishing multiple identities and liv- Viola Davis. This is essentially an ‘in search of self ’ odyssey
ing an all-consuming double life – Billy Costigan is an under- in which Elizabeth Gilbert, Roberts’s character, has it all
cover cop who has infiltrated the mob, and Colin Sullivan is and is then thrown into identity turmoil by divorce. She is
a hardened criminal who has infiltrated the police. lost and confused and unclear about who she is, so she
embarks on a mid-life quest for self-discovery, travelling to
Deadpool three very different cultures – Italy, India and Indonesia.
A 2016 superhero film based on Marvel Comics and star- She discovers the true pleasure of food in Italy, the power
ring Ryan Reynolds as Wade Wilson. Wilson is terribly dis- of spirituality in India, and the inner peace and balance of
figured with burn-like scars over his body by a (malicious) true love in Indonesia.
 LEARN MORE 151

Guided questions
1 Do you have a looking-glass self? How and why might you present yourself differently in public
and in private?
2 If the way you actually are is different from the way you would like to be, or how you think you
should be, how might this be revealed?
3 What are the usual ways that people try to enhance their sense of self-worth?
4 How could threats to your sense of self-worth damage your health?
5 What does it mean to say that you are objectively aware of yourself?

Learn more
Abrams, D., & Hogg, M. A. (2001). Collective identity: Group membership and self-conception. In M.
A. Hogg & R. S. Tindale (Eds.), Blackwell handbook of social psychology: Group processes
(pp 425–460). Oxford, UK: Blackwell. Detailed discussion and overview of the relationship between
the self-concept and group membership, with an emphasis on the collective self and social
identity.
Baumeister, R. F. (Ed.) (1993). Self-esteem: The puzzle of low self-regard. New York: Plenum. An edited
collection of chapters from most of the leading self-esteem researchers, each describing and over-
viewing their research programme and general conclusions.
Baumeister, R. F. (Ed.) (1999). The self in social psychology. Philadelphia, PA: Psychology Press.
A detailed overview of theory and research on self and identity organised around reprints of
twenty-three key and classic publications on the self. There is an integrative introductory chapter
and short introductory pieces to each set of readings. This is an excellent resource for the study of
self and identity.
Leary, M. R., & Tangney, J. P. (Eds.) (2012). Handbook of self and identity (2nd ed.). New York: Guilford.
A completely up-to-date and wide-ranging selection of scholarly chapters from leading scholars
of self and identity.
Oyserman, D. (2007). Social identity and self-regulation. In A. W. Kruglanski & E. T. Higgins (Eds.),
Social psychology: Handbook of basic principles (2nd ed., pp. 432–453). New York: Guilford. Detailed
and up-to-date coverage of research on self and identity, with a particular emphasis on collective
identity.
Sedikides, C., & Gregg, A. P. (2007). Portraits of the self. In M. A. Hogg & J. Cooper (Eds.), The SAGE
handbook of social psychology: Concise student edition (pp. 93–122). London: SAGE. A detailed but
accessible overview of research and theory on self and identity. Sedikides is one of the world’s
leading self researchers.
Swann, W. B., Jr, & Bosson, J. K. (2010) Self and identity. In S. T. Fiske, D. T. Gilbert, & G. Lindzey (Eds.),
Handbook of social psychology (5th ed., Vol. 1, pp. 589–628). New York: Wiley. Comprehensive and
up-to-date coverage of the literature on self and identity – in the most recent edition of the
authoritative handbook of social psychology.