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Social Psychology: Sociological Perspectives

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1 Social Psychology: Sociological Perspectives
David E. Rohall Melissa A. Milkie Jeffrey W. Lucas This multimedia product and its contents are protected under copyright law. The following are prohibited by law: ● any public performance or display, including transmission of any image of a network; ● preparation of any derivative work, including the extraction, in whole or in part, of any images; ● any rental, lease, or lending of the program

2 Social Psychology: Sociological Perspectives
Chapter 5: Self and Identity

3 The Sociology of Self and Identity
Sociologists rarely study personality per se, but the self, self-concept, and identities The self is a process in which we construct a sense of who we are through interaction with others The self process at a given point in time is the self-concept Copyright (c) Allyn Bacon 2007

4 Copyright (c) Allyn Bacon 2007
Dimensions of the self Scholars examining the self-concept focus on self-identities, the kind of person we see ourselves as and self-evaluations, the judgments we make of ourselves Three self-evaluations often studied include: Self-esteem Mastery Mattering Copyright (c) Allyn Bacon 2007

5 SI: The Self as a Process
From the symbolic interactionist perspective, the self is a process, just like the construction of any social reality We give meaning to our self in many different ways during our interactions with others by asking the questions like: Are we good or bad people? How well do we do the tasks we set out to do? Copyright (c) Allyn Bacon 2007

6 Copyright (c) Allyn Bacon 2007
SI: The I and the Me We use symbols and language to communicate with other people, but we also use language to think internally, a process Herbert Blumer calls self-indication According to George Herbert Mead, a large part of our internal dialogue occurs as interplay between the Me, the organized set of attitudes toward the self, and the I, our active self Copyright (c) Allyn Bacon 2007

7 SI: Identity and Identity Theory
Identity refers to our internalized, stable sense of who we are, including role identities, social categories, and personal characteristics Identity theory examines the ways society shapes how we view ourselves, and how those views, or identities, affect our behavior Copyright (c) Allyn Bacon 2007

8 SI: Principles of Identity Theory
Identity theory is rooted on five basic principles: Behavior is based on an already classified world Positions in society are among the things classified People develop their identities based on their positions in society We incorporate our social positions into our sense of identity Social behavior is derived from the shaping and modifying of the expectations of our positions Copyright (c) Allyn Bacon 2007

9 SI: Emotions and Identities
David Heise’s affect-control theory incorporates elements of identity theory; it states that emotions serve as signals about how well we are producing our identities Congruence between our self-perceived identity and the information we receive about ourselves generally produces positive emotions Copyright (c) Allyn Bacon 2007

10 SI: Dramaturgical Sociology
From an interactionist perspective, individuals have the ability to choose how to act, above-and-beyond their inclinations The study of how we present ourselves, playing roles and managing impressions during interactions with other people, is called dramaturgical sociology Dramaturgical sociology is most closely associated with Erving Goffman (1922–1982) Copyright (c) Allyn Bacon 2007

11 SI: Goffman and Impression Management
Erving Goffman believed that we use information from others’ presentations to help establish expectations of our behavior and that of the people around us Impression management refers to the ways individuals seek to control the impressions they convey to other people, however, there are impressions given and impressions given off—the impression you believe that you are giving and the impression the other person has of you Copyright (c) Allyn Bacon 2007

12 SI: Motivations Behind Impression Management
Goffman argued that we are driven to maintain positive impressions, probably because outcomes of interactions serve as a source of self-esteem Supporting others’ impressions is important because we may need support in our own impression management efforts later in the interaction Copyright (c) Allyn Bacon 2007

13 SI: Regions of Impression Formation
There are two regions of impression formation that affect how we interact with people: The front stage, the place where we present ourselves to others, and the backstage, the region where we relax our impression management efforts and we may practice our performances People regularly move in and out of these regions Copyright (c) Allyn Bacon 2007

14 Copyright (c) Allyn Bacon 2007
SI: The Situated Self In the interactionist framework, the self changes as quickly as our social environments Social forces like globalization and technological advances lead to rapid changes in our social worlds Scholars to argue that we have a much more situated self, a temporally based sense of who we are, associated with a lack of clear sense of identity Copyright (c) Allyn Bacon 2007

15 SSP: The Self and Social Structure
Scholars from the social structure and personality perspective focus on how our social positions and relationships affect our self-evaluations Researchers from this tradition often study the relationship between social positions and the self-concept in the form of self-esteem, mastery, and mattering Copyright (c) Allyn Bacon 2007

16 SSP: Evaluative Dimensions of the Self
Three of the most studies forms of the self-concept include self-esteem, mastery, and mattering Self-esteem is the positive or negative evaluation of our self as an object Mastery refers to our perceptions of our ability to control our environments Mattering refers to our sense that we are important to other people in the world Copyright (c) Allyn Bacon 2007

17 Copyright (c) Allyn Bacon 2007
SSP: Self-Esteem Self-esteem is considered a foundational aspect of the self; it answers the question: How good am I? There are four sources of the self-concept, including self-esteem: Social comparisons Reflected appraisals Psychological centrality Self-perceptions Research generally shows that reflected appraisal are most central to our self-esteem Copyright (c) Allyn Bacon 2007

18 Copyright (c) Allyn Bacon 2007
SSP: Mastery Mastery addresses the question: How powerful am I to do the things I would like to do? Personal accomplishments are the most important source of efficacy in adulthood Several studies show that higher levels of mastery is associated with fewer mental and physical health problems Copyright (c) Allyn Bacon 2007

19 Copyright (c) Allyn Bacon 2007
SSP: Mattering Mattering answers the question: How much do I matter to others? Morris Rosenberg argued that we have an intrinsic need to feel that we are needed by the people around us Research show that mattering is positively related to self-esteem and negatively related to depression and anxiety Copyright (c) Allyn Bacon 2007

20 SSP: Measuring the Self-Concept
SSP scholars rely on a number of common methods to assess the self-concept Manford Kuhn’s Twenty-Statements Test (TST) is a popular way to measure the self Morris Rosenberg’s Self-Esteem Scale is a popular method of assessing self-esteem Copyright (c) Allyn Bacon 2007

21 SSP: Class and Self-Esteem
Rosenberg and Pearlin (1978) used data from surveys of children, adolescents, and adults from Baltimore and Chicago to compare levels of self-esteem at different class levels The researchers found that social class position begins to affect self-esteem as children enter adolescence, when occupation, income, and education become more important to one’s identity Copyright (c) Allyn Bacon 2007

22 SSP: Ethnicity and Self-Identities
Ethnicity not only affects self-evaluations, it is an integral to self-identities Joanne Nagel (1995), for instance, found that there were very large increase in the number of residents identifying themselves as “American Indian” in the 1970s and 1980s yet there had been no increase in birthrates She found that societal changes made being of American Indian ancestry less stigmatized and more acceptable, leading more people to accept that identity Copyright (c) Allyn Bacon 2007

23 GP: Identity and Group Processes
Groups serve as a way to establish and maintain our sense of self Groups can also serve to give you an identity that is a collective one Copyright (c) Allyn Bacon 2007

24 GP: Social Identity Theory
Social identity theory argues that we carry self-definitions that match all the categories to which we belong In the theory, these self-definitions are called social identities Originally developed in psychology, social identity theory proposes that our social identities describe to us who we are, provide us with information about how to behave, and tell us how we should evaluate other people Copyright (c) Allyn Bacon 2007

25 GP: Social Identity Theory and Interactions
Social identity theory says that we will perceive ourselves according to that identity and behave in ways that are stereotypical of that identity We also engage in a process of categorization, the process through which we draw sharp dividing lines between group membership categories and assign people to relevant categories Once categorized, we engage in self-enhancement, the process through which we make comparisons that favor our group Copyright (c) Allyn Bacon 2007

26 Chapter 5: Bringing It All Together
The three perspectives in social psychology approach the study of self and identity in different ways Interactionists emphasize how our sense of self is actively constructed Social structure and personality scholars focus on the ways that our social positions impact the self-concept Group processes work emphasize the important role of group memberships in our sense of identity Copyright (c) Allyn Bacon 2007


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