5.1 External Influences on the Self-concept

What knowledge makes up the self-concept? Each individual has unique knowledge about him- or herself, accumulated over years of personal experience. These experiences are heavily influenced by culture, gender, and the social situation.

The Influence of Culture on the Self-concept

As we noted when we introduced the cultural perspective in chapter 2, people’s self-concept emerges as they are socialized into the prevailing cultural worldview conveyed by parents, teachers, and the mass media. Culture shapes virtually all the ways that people describe themselves. When you are asked the question “Who are you?” your first response is usually your name. If you’re like me, your name seems somehow meaningful and not at all arbitrary: I’m Jeff. I can’t think of myself any other way. But your name is not an inherent part of you. It’s a label given to you at birth that reflects various cultural influences, such as famous movie stars (in Jeff’s case) and the Bible (in Mark’s case). In some cultures, such as the Native American Nez Perce culture in Idaho, people’s names often change over the course of their lives (Cash Cash, 2006). After you give your name, other ways of describing yourself might come to mind: I am a student, woman, friend of Susan’s, American citizen, psychology major, honest person, shy person, amateur photographer, Gemini, daughter, Jew, Midwesterner. This list illustrates the various ways in which culture shapes people’s self-concept. Across the person’s lifespan, culture offers a set of socially acknowledged identities (e.g., woman, American), roles (e.g., student, friend of Susan), traits (honest, shy), and interests and hobbies (e.g., photography). If you are raised in Canada, your self-concept may very well include hockey player, but this is rather unlikely if you are raised in equatorial Africa.

Even within a geographic region, culture influences the self-concept. According to social identity theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1979), people define themselves largely in terms of the social groups with which they identify. People come to know what characteristics they have by thinking of themselves in terms of family, race, nationality, and other important group memberships. Thus, two people raised in the same geographic region may define themselves in very different ways depending on the groups with which they identify (Smith & Henry, 1996; Tropp & Wright, 2001).

Social identity theory

The theory that people define and value themselves largely in terms of the social groups with which they identify.

FIGURE 5.1

Groups and Self-definition
Students told their group is high in a trait they have never heard of assumed themselves to be high in that trait. People define themselves in terms of their social groups.

In a study to demonstrate this tendency (Schmader & Major, 1999), college students were asked to complete an artistic-preference task for which they made subjective judgments of abstract paintings. They were then informed that analysis of artistic preferences reveals that some individuals have a “figure” orientation whereas others have a “ground” orientation. In fact, each student was randomly told she or he was a part of either the figure or ground group. The students were next asked to complete a questionnaire measuring a new personality trait called surgency. Without learning their own score on the measure, students were told that both groups tend to be equal in surgency, that figures tend to be higher in surgency, or that grounds tend to be higher in surgency (FIGURE 5.1). Although the participants didn’t know what surgency was (no one does, it’s a fictitious trait!), they assumed that if their ingroup scored higher on surgency, then they probably were high in surgency as well, and furthermore, that surgency was a pretty important trait to have!

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In addition to defining the identities, roles, and traits with which people describe themselves, cultures differ in whether they promote an understanding of the self as an independent or an interdependent entity. As we noted in chapter 2, in relatively individualistic cultures—for example, in North America, Australia, and Europe—people are socialized to view themselves as unique individuals, relatively independent from others. The person’s repertoire of attributes, abilities, thoughts, and feelings (I am artistic and compassionate; I want to excel in school) are most central to one’s self-concept. By contrast, people socialized in collectivist cultures—for example, China, Japan, India, and Mexico—tend to view themselves as interdependent, defined primarily in relation to other people (I am a daughter; I am a Buddhist) (Markus & Kitayama, 1991).

The Influence of Gender on the Self-concept

The electronically activated recorder (EAR; worn by the woman on the right) is a device that enables researchers to record snippets of people’s everyday conversations, revealing a great deal about how people actually interact with each other.
[Dr. Matthias Mehl]

The biological differences between males and females are obvious. For example, men are physically bigger and stronger on average, and only women have the capability to bear children. We often assume that these biological differences lead men and women to have very different experiences, beliefs, and outlooks. Yet the differences between the sexes are not so substantial as we might think. In a thorough review of the research on sex differences, Janet Hyde (2005) concluded that men and women are much more similar to one another than they are different. Women rate themselves as more trusting, more anxious, and somewhat more conscientious, whereas men rate themselves as more assertive and a little more open to new experiences, but most of these differences are statistically small, and other factors such as gregariousness, impulsivity, and life satisfaction show virtually no difference at all. For example, an American stereotype holds that women talk more than men. Matthias Mehl and colleagues (2007) put this stereotype to the test. They had female and male college students wear a device called the electronically activated recorder (or EAR!), which recorded ambient sound at random times throughout the day for more than a week. Contrary to the stereotype, men and women talked virtually the same amount—about 1,600 words a day.

Not only do we imagine and exaggerate differences between men and women; we also tend to be mistaken about the origin of the differences that do exist. We commonly assume that those differences are essential to men and women because they are biologically or genetically based (Hyde, 2005). But people also learn from their culture what behaviors and self-views are appropriate for their gender. Freud (1921/1955b) noted this when he argued that children tend to identify strongly with the same-sex parent and emulate that parent’s traits and qualities. Research supports the idea that children model their behavior in sex-specific ways (Bussey & Bandura, 1999). When children see other members of their sex consistently perform a behavior, they are more likely to model that behavior themselves (Perry & Bussey, 1979).

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Are these women satisfying their “natural” role? Social role theory says that people often falsely infer that men and women take on gender-specific roles because they are inherently suited to those roles.
[Left: Lana K/Shutterstock; right: Goodluz/Shutterstock]

In fact, adopting sex-specific behavior doesn’t even require that the person observe others perform an action. Simply knowing that something is appropriate for boys or girls is enough. For example, when preschoolers are told that some unfamiliar toys are for boys and others for girls, they tend to like the toys described as appropriate for their sex and dislike the toys that are said to be for the opposite sex (Martin et al., 1995). Through this kind of sex-role socialization, most individuals (although clearly not all) come to develop a sense of themselves and their role in life that is consistent with their culture’s sex roles.

Of course, once we say that sex differences are at least partly learned as people engage with their culture over the course of their development, we’re faced with broader questions: Why do cultures promote different roles for females and males? Why do women and men typically conform to gender-appropriate behaviors and preferences? How do gender roles shape people’s self-concepts? To address these questions, Alice Eagly developed social role theory (1987), which proposes that gender differences in self-concepts arise because of a long history of role distribution between the sexes. The biological differences between the sexes in physical strength and childbearing ability have meant that, across history and culture, men have traditionally taken on physically demanding efforts to acquire food and shelter and fend off predators, while women have had more control over child rearing and managing communal relationships. Eagly acknowledges that men and women are, to some extent, genetically predisposed to succeed at these different tasks. But she suggests an additional possibility: By observing males and females engage in these specific roles, people may infer that women do more socially oriented and caregiving kinds of behaviors because that is what they are intrinsically good at, and that men find themselves in more roles associated with leadership and power because that is what they are intrinsically good at. From this perspective, men’s and women’s social roles shape their self-concepts, pushing them toward more gender-consistent self-perceptions.

Social role theory

The theory that gender differences in behavior, personality, and self-definition arise because of a long history of role distribution between the sexes.

Stable and Malleable Aspects of the Self-concept

Think ABOUT

Does the self-concept remain pretty much the same as people move from one social situation to another? Or does it change? Research supports both possibilities. Some aspects of the self-concept are relatively stable and unchanging. Often they are the attributes the person views as most important for defining his or her sense of self. A person might view his intelligence or his athletic ability, for example, as most central to who he is as a person, whereas other attributes are descriptive but not so self-defining. Take a moment to think about your own self-defining attributes. What aspects are central to who you are?

According to Hazel Markus (1977), people are likely to have a lot of knowledge about self-defining attributes. This knowledge is mentally organized as a self-schema: an integrated set of memories, beliefs, and generalizations about an attribute that is central to one’s self-concept. A self-schema for compassion, for example, may include memories of specific events (“Last week I helped a duck get out of the road”) and more general beliefs about how one typically behaves in various situations (“I always give change to homeless people”). Markus and colleagues have found that people process information about a self-defining attribute very quickly, remember a lot of specific behaviors that reflect that attribute, and are reluctant to believe information that conflicts with their belief about how much of that attribute they possess.

Self-schema

An integrated set of memories, beliefs, and generalizations about an attribute that is part of one’s self-concept.

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Although central aspects of the self-concept remain stable, people’s immediate social situation can also highlight different aspects of their self-concepts, changing how they think and act. At a party, you might be more conscious of your identity as Susan’s friend (since you came to the party with her), that you are shy (when feeling awkward talking to people), and that you enjoy photography (when admiring several photographs hanging in the house). This portion of your self-schema that is currently activated and influencing your thoughts, feelings, and action is known as the working self-concept (Markus & Kunda, 1986). Which aspects of your total self-concept are active in your working self-concept at any given moment can be determined by your social situation, information you’ve been primed with, and your motivation to think or act in particular ways. When you’re in class, for example, situational cues such as books and computers, as well as your motivation to succeed, will likely bring aspects of your “student self” (e.g., intelligent, industrious) to the forefront of your consciousness, whereas those same aspects are less likely to be active and shape your thoughts and behavior in a different context, as when you’re playing Frisbee in the park.

Working self-concept

The portion of one’s self-schema that is currently activated and strongly influences thoughts, feelings, and action.

The brightly dressed woman might view attributes such as spontaneity and cheerfulness as central to her self-concept. But that might be a temporary result of her solo status among the suits.
[Greg Ceo/Getty Images]

Another situational factor is the people around you. People tend to define themselves in terms of attributes that distinguish them from other people in their current environment. To illustrate, imagine how you might see yourself if you showed up for a social gathering and realized that you were the only student in a group of elderly family members, or were the only girl in a group of young boys. When you have this sense of solo status, your unique attribute in relation to the group becomes more prominent in your working self-concept. In one study, when children were asked to consider who they are, they tended to mention characteristics such as age, gender, and ethnicity if they differed on those characteristics from the majority of their classmates (McGuire et al., 1978).

Solo status

A sense that one is unique in some specific manner in relation to other people in the current environment.

SECTION review: External Influences on the Self-concept

External Influences on the Self-concept

People’s self-concept is shaped by their cultural and social environments.

Cultural Influences

Culture shapes virtually all the ways people describe themselves.

People define themselves in terms of the social groups with which they identify.

Gender Influences

Men and women are more similar than they are different.

Children learn from adults and the broader culture how men and women behave.

Social role theory proposes that gender roles in society, although often assumed to be “natural,” are the product of history.

Situational Influences

The self-concept is stable from one occasion to another because people have self-schemas for the attributes that are important to them.

At the same time, the self-concept is malleable. Features of the social situation, such as solo status, highlight different self-knowledge, changing the contents of one’s working self-concept at any given moment.

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