Mental Representations of the Self

doi:10.1016/S0065-2601(08)60117-3

Advances in Experimental Social Psychology

Volume 17, 1984, Pages 1-47

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0065-2601(08)60117-3 Get rights and content

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The study of the self is now of concern to almost every part of social psychology. This chapter attempts to adopt two complementary theoretical perspectives in cognitive psychology and pursue their implications for research and for theory on the structure and function of the self-concept. These implications should be construed as hypotheses rather than conclusions. It concerns with the cognitive aspects of the self, however, there are problems that must be confronted. Self-assessment is represented by a process involving the direct look up of features associated with the self concept. Because of the widespread implications and the great interest in the self throughout the behavioral sciences, research and theorizing in this field have inevitably followed different approaches. In the chapter, the relatively new information-processing perspective and the way the concepts and methods employed in the study of memory and information processing generally contribute in important ways to understand the self-concept is reviewed. The self-concept may be construed as a set of features that are characteristic of the person and also distinguish him or herself from other individuals.

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Cited by (357)

Individual differences and moral disengagement in Pay-What-You-Want pricing
2022, Journal of Business Research
Citation Excerpt :
Self-enhancement is one of the compelling attributes of human nature (Rechter & Sverdlik, 2016). The notion of the self represents a schema that systematizes self-referent experiences and governs the organization and classification of available information (Kihlstrom & Cantor, 1984). Rogers et al. (1999) define self as “an abstract representation of experience with personal data“ (p. 677).
The present research explores the role of psychological reactance, individual precursors and moral disengagement in explicating customer behaviour in Pay-what-you-want (PWYW). Psychological reactance is examined with individual factors i.e., empathy, positive reciprocity beliefs, consumer cynicism, self-enhancement and moral disengagement in PWYW. Mediating impact of moral disengagement on customers’ distinct psychological differences and willingness-to-pay is also explored. Study 1 operationalised complete freedom to choose the prices (no price suggestion) with the student population to arouse a lower level of reactance. Study 2 triggered a higher level of reactance by restricted freedom to choose the prices (price suggestions) with a non-student sample and two moderators i.e., perceived threat to freedom and proneness to psychological reactance. Empathy and positive reciprocity beliefs significantly impact moral disengagement. Individuals with higher cynicism and self-enhancement traits are more likely to disengage from moral concerns. Individuals with higher moral disengagement tendencies are likely to exhibit lower payment intentions.
On the utility of the self in social perception: An Egocentric Tactician Model
2021, Advances in Experimental Social Psychology
This chapter describes the Egocentric Tactician Model. The model purports to account for the influence of the self on social thought. Such thought refers to the social world and those who inhabit it (i.e., characterizing or construing another's actions, predicting others’ preferences or behaviors, evaluating what is normative or right). The model posits that the influence of the self on social thought is contingent on both the content of the self-concept and the motives that work to maintain or increase the positivity of the self-concept. Two primary motives are self-enhancement and self-protection. The model further asserts that during social thought these motives affect, and are affected by, various cognitive processes and structures. Different chapter sections demonstrate that the Egocentric Tactician Model is empirically grounded, has a broad explanatory scope, is generative, and differs from other models in describing how the self affects social thought.
Childhood maltreatment and moral sensitivity: An interpretation based on schema theory
2020, Personality and Individual Differences
It has been found that childhood maltreatment can lead to immoral behaviors, and the occurrence of immoral behaviors is mainly caused by low moral sensitivity. Therefore, the current study explored the relationship between childhood maltreatment and moral sensitivity and the mediation mechanism of perceived social support based on schema theory. We administered the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS), the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ) and an experiment to measure the moral sensitivity to a nonclinical sample of Chinese university students (N = 383). The results indicated that childhood maltreatment negatively predicted moral sensitivity, and perceived social support played a partial mediating role. Multiple mediation analysis showed that only the significant others’ support component of MSPSS acted as a mediator betweenchildhood maltreatment and moral sensitivity. The results of the current study are helpful to understand individual moral behaviors and provide theoretical basis for the intervention and mitigation of the negative effects of childhood maltreatment.
A social identity approach to religion: religiosity at the nexus of personal and collective self
2020, The Science of Religion, Spirituality, and Existentialism
Religion is often a defining feature of the personal and social selves, with both individual and collective outcomes. On one hand, religion might manifest as a form of individual expression (e.g., religious “orientations”) with collective outcomes (e.g., inciting discrimination or collective action). On the other, religion can also be seen as a form of collective expression (e.g., shared beliefs and practices) with individual outcomes (e.g., promoting health and well-being and mitigating existential anxiety). In this chapter, drawing on a social identity and self-categorization theory framework, we argue for a more unified view of religion at the nexus of the individual and collective selves where religious personal and social identities align. And while this reciprocal relationship between personal and social aspects of identity is likely to be true in a number of contexts, we argue that it is particularly potent in the case of religious identities, by their potentially all-encompassing nature.
Egocentric foundations of trust
2019, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
Citation Excerpt :
While trust research has increased its interest in internal cues, it has largely ignored the self as one of the most natural sources of such information. Information about the self is abundant, relatively certain, chronically accessible, and automatically activated whenever another person is judged (Dunning & Hayes, 1996; Kihlstrom & Cantor, 1984; Mussweiler, 2003a), even though it may be biased (John & Robins, 1994; Zell & Krizan, 2014). While in principle also information about persons different from the self can help judges to predict how a target person may behave (Mussweiler, 2003b), typically individuals initially refer to the self when judging others (Dunning & Hayes, 1996).
Trusting the trustworthy brings benefits whereas trusting the untrustworthy brings harm. Discriminating between the two is key to every social encounter. We propose that humans turn to internal information, namely the self, when judging the trustworthiness of others. Simulating how oneself would behave in situations that involve trust helps to predict how a counterpart may behave. Importantly, using the same self as a basis for judgments about others may result in diverging outcomes, depending on how the information is processed. If a judge focuses on similarities between the self and the target person, the judge expects the counterpart to act alike. However, if a judge focuses on differences, the target is expected to behave in ways opposite to the self. In Study 1, natural variations in self-ascribed levels of trustworthiness correlate positively with expectations of a target person's trustworthiness. Inducing a similarity-focus increases this correlation as compared to a difference-focus. Interestingly, this effect holds even if information speaks to the target's trustworthiness. In manipulating the perception of the participants' own trustworthiness as well as the processing focus, Studies 2–4 demonstrate that when individuals focus on similarities, those who perceive themselves as highly (vs. less) trustworthy perceive others as similarly highly (less) trustworthy. However, when they focus on differences, the reverse pattern tends to occur. These effects hold for trust judgments (Study 2–3) and trust behavior in an economic game (Study 4). Together, these findings demonstrate that trust involves egocentric inferences that are flexible enough to adjust for basic social relations.
No self to spare: How the cognitive structure of the self influences moral behavior
2018, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes
Citation Excerpt :
People’s representations of their self-concepts vary not only in terms of content (“I am smart,” “I am clumsy”), but also in terms of structure. Social-cognitive theories suggest people represent knowledge about their self-concept in terms of multiple cognitive structures or self-aspects (Gergen, 1971; Greenwald & Pratkanis, 1984; James, 1892; Kihlstrom & Cantor, 1983; Kivetz & Tyler, 2007; Linville, 1985; Markus & Nurius, 1986; Markus & Wurf, 1987; McConnell, 2011; Rosenberg & Gala, 1985). These self-aspects may take the form of social roles, interpersonal relationships, activities, or goals.
People represent knowledge about their self-concept in terms of multiple cognitive structures or self-aspects. “Self-overlap” refers to the extent to which people perceive their various self-aspects as interconnected, such that their thoughts and feelings about themselves are similar across these self-aspects. The present research shows self-overlap influences moral behavior. Specifically, people high in self-overlap (interconnected self-aspects) are more likely to behave ethically than people low in overlap (independent self-aspects), because they tend to see their actions as “self-diagnostic” (i.e., representative of the type of person they are). In six studies, we find this pattern of behavior for chronic/measured (Studies 1 and 2) and situational/manipulated self-overlap (Studies 3 – 6). We show people low in self-overlap behave as though they have “no self to spare”—unless their actions are presented as non-diagnostic for inferences about the self (Study 5), or unless they do not value the context-relevant moral characteristic (e.g., being altruistic; Study 6). Finally, we introduce a 7-item measure of perceptions of self-diagnosticity (SDS).

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¹: Preparation of this paper was supported in part by Grant #MH-35856 from the National Institute of Mental Health, United States Public Health Service, and in part by Grant #BNS-8022253 from the National Science Foundation.

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Mental Representations of the Self*

Publisher Summary

Journal of Research in Personality

Cognitive Psychology

Cognitive Psychology

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology

Personality: A psychological interpretation

Becoming

Pattern and growth in personality

Trait-names, a psycho-lexical study

Psychological Monographs

Mirror self-image reactions before age two

Developmental Psychology

Language, memory, and thought

Cognitive psychology and its implications

Concepts, propositions, and schemata: What are the cognitive units

Human associative memory

An elaborative processing explanation of depth of processing

Social learning theory

Attention and automaticity in the processing of self-relevant information

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

Self-perception: An alternative interpretation of cognitive dissonance phenomena

Psychological Review

Self-perception theory

The judgmental process in personality functioning

Psychological Review

Dementia praecox, or the group of schizophrenias

A multicomponent theory of the memory trace

Mood and memory

American Psychologist

Hypnosis, attribution, and demand characteristics

International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis

The psychology of subtle control: An attributional analysis of behavioral persistence

Canadian Journal of Behavioral Sciences

A study of thinking

Self-consciousness and social anxiety

Perceptions of situations: Situation prototypes and person-situation prototypes

Cognitive and social processes in personality

Prototypes in person perception

Psychiatric diagnosis as prototype categorization

Journal of Abnormal Psychology

Human nature and the social order

Proportion of episodic memories from early childhood by years of age

Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society

Frequency of episodic memories as a function of their age

Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society

Expectancy confirmation processes arising in the social interaction sequence

American Psychologist

Subliminal perception: The nature of a controversy

The self-concept revisited, or a theory of a theory

American Psychologist

Has Ebbinghaus decayed with time? The growth of recall (hypermnesia) over days

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

Behavior and awareness

A theory of cognitive dissonance

Cognitive development

Englewood Cliffs

Metamemory

Self-schemas and judgments about others

Social Cognition

Self-recognition in primates: A comparative approach to the bidirectional properties of consciousness

American Psychologist

The concept of self

The presentation of self in everyday life

The mismeasure of man

Mental Representations of the Self^*