Summary

• Self-awareness is the ability to objectively view yourself as a unique person distinct from your environment and reflect on your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.
  • We create self in part by engaging in social comparison, or observing and assigning meaning to others’ behaviors and then comparing it against our own.
  • To enhance interpersonal communication, we practice a targeted kind of self-awareness called critical self-reflection, which involves asking such questions as “What am I thinking and feeling?” and “How am I communicating?”
• Self-concept is your overall perception of who you are, based on the beliefs (convictions that certain things are true), attitudes (evaluative appraisals), and values (enduring principles that guide actions) you have about yourself.
  • Self-concept is shaped by many factors, including gender, family, friends, and culture.
  • Our looking-glass self is formed by our beliefs about how others see and evaluate us and how we react to that judgment.
  • Self-concepts are difficult to change.
  • Self-fulfilling prophecies (both positive and negative) are predictions we make about future interactions that lead us to behave in ways that make those predictions come true.
• Self-esteem is the overall value, positive or negative, that we assign to ourselves.
  • Self-esteem strongly shapes interpersonal communication, relationships, and physical and mental health. High self-esteem may lead to greater life satisfaction, while low self-esteem may lead to the opposite.
  • Self-discrepancy theory suggests that self-esteem is determined by how your ideal self (the self you want to be) compares to your ought self (what others expect you to be). Discrepancy between the two leads to low self-esteem.
  • Improving your self-esteem requires several steps: (1) assess your self-concept by listing your positive and negative beliefs, attitudes, and values; (2) analyze your ideal self to determine who you wish you were, and to determine whether your ideal self is realistically attainable; (3) analyze your ought self to determine whether you could ever become your ought self, and whether doing so would satisfy others’ expectations; (4) revisit and redefine your standards so that your ideal and ought selves can be realistically achieved; (5) create an action plan for resolving any self-discrepancies with a realistic timeline.

• Gender—the composite of learned social, psychological, and cultural attributes that characterize us as male or female—is arguably the most profound force that shapes self.
  • Many men and women appreciate and embrace both feminine and masculine characteristics in their self-concepts.
• Family communication and interaction affects attachment anxiety (the degree to which a person fears rejection by relationship partners) and attachment avoidance (the degree to which someone desires close interpersonal ties).
  • Secure attachment individuals are low on both anxiety and avoidance, so they are comfortable with intimacy and seek close ties with others.
  • Preoccupied attachment adults are characterized by high anxiety and low avoidance, so they desire closeness but fear rejection; such individuals may use sexual contact to satisfy the compulsive need to feel loved.
  • Dismissive attachment adults have low anxiety and high avoidance, so they view close relationships as unimportant and prioritize self-reliance.
  • Fearful attachment adults are high in both attachment anxiety and avoidance, so they fear rejection and shun relationships because they suffer from a chronic lack of faith in themselves, their partners, and the viability of their relationships.
• Culture—the established set of beliefs, attitudes, values, or practices shared by a large group of people—also affects the development and presentation of self. It is like a collective sense of self that is shared by a large group of people.
  • Culture includes many different types of large-group influences: nationality, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, physical abilities, age.
  • Most people belong to more than one culture simultaneously; unfortunately, the various cultures sometimes clash, requiring the choice of allegiance to just one culture.

• We present a face, a public self that comprises the qualities we want others to see. Sometimes a face is a mask, a public self designed to strategically veil one’s private self.
  • When some aspect of our public face is contradicted, we experience embarrassment (feelings of shame, humiliation, and sadness).
  • If you lose face, others may view your actions as inconsistent with your communication, which reduces your credibility.
  • To maintain face, (1) use words and actions consistent with the face you’re trying to craft, (2) make sure your communication and behaviors mesh with the knowledge that others already have about you, and (3) acknowledge any missteps and apologize immediately without making excuses that contradict what people know really happened.
• Online communication provides unique benefits and challenges for self-presentation.
  • During online interactions, the amount of information communicated—visual, verbal, and nonverbal—is radically restricted.
  • Viewers of online photos tend to form impressions of a profile’s subject that match the subject’s intended self-presentation.
  • Unless you have met someone in person, you will have difficulty determining whether their online self is authentic or a mask.
• Warranting value is the degree to which information is supported by other people and online evidence.
  • Low warranting value refers to information that is crafted by an individual about herself or himself but is unsupported by others.
  • High warranting value refers to information that is created and supported by others, and that can be readily verified.
• Research and theory suggest three ways for improving online self-presentation:
  • Remember that online communication is dominated by visual information (text, photos, videos), so make wise choices in the words and images you select to present yourself to others.
  • Remember the important role that warranting value plays in shaping others’ impressions of you: what others say about you online is more important than what you say about your self.
  • Submit your online self-presentation to the “interview test.” Would you feel comfortable sharing this information during a job interview? If not, modify your current online self-presentation immediately.

• Social penetration theory envisions the self like an onion, consisting of many layers.
  • Peripheral layers include basic demographics (age, gender, etc.).
  • Intermediate layers include attitudes about such matters as entertainment, food, and politics.
  • Central layers include core characteristic: self-awareness, self-concept, self-esteem, personal values, fears, distinctive personality traits.
• The revealing of selves that occurs during relationship development involves both breadth (the number of aspects revealed at each layer) and depth (how deeply partners penetrate into one another’s selves). Breadth and depth of social penetration is related to intimacy, the feeling of closeness and union between partners.
  • The Johari Window is a model of the relational self, which suggests that some “quadrants” of our selves are open to self-reflection and sharing with other people, while others remain hidden.
  • In the early stages of a relationship, the public area of self is much smaller than our hidden area. Over time, the public area increases while the hidden area diminishes.
  • As we increasingly share previously hidden information with relationship partners, our unknown and blind quadrants remain fairly stable and remain unknown. Improving interpersonal communication requires examining and changing blind areas, which involves challenging fundamental beliefs about one’s self.
• Self-disclosure is revealing private information about ourselves to others.
  • According to the interpersonal process model of intimacy, the closeness we feel towards others in our relationships is created through (1) self disclosure and (2) responsiveness of listeners to disclosure.
  • The act of sharing thoughts and feelings with another person does not signal an intimate relationship.
  • Being non supportive in response to disclosures, or sharing information a partner finds problematic, can undermine intimacy.
  • In any culture, people vary in the degree to which they self-disclose.
  • People in different cultures differ in their self-disclosure.
  • People disclose more quickly, broadly, and deeply when interacting online than face-to-face.
  • Self-disclosure appears to promote mental health and relieve stress.
  • Little evidence supports the stereotype that men can’t disclose their feelings in relationships.
• To competently disclose your self, consider these recommendations:
  • Know your self.
  • Know your audience.
  • Don’t force others to self-disclose.
  • Don’t presume gender preferences.
  • Be sensitive to cultural differences.
  • Go slowly. It is best to be wary of self-disclosure online; the secrets you post are no longer secrets and may lead to post-cyber-disclosure panic.