8.1 The Self

What is the self? Although many researchers have studied the self, none have been able to identify clearly what it is. If you are asked to describe yourself, you may provide up to twenty different traits or characteristics about yourself, but would those tell the whole story of yourself? The self is a complex network of everything that makes you who you are.

Who makes the self: the individual or society? The self comprises the biological processes of the human body and the sociocultural system to which a person belongs. The sociocultural system comprises other people in the society in addition to that system’s shared beliefs and practices.

Can you tell me a little bit about yourself? We’ve all probably heard this question. When asked this question, most people will likely provide descriptions of their personality traits, physical characteristics, abilities, values, goals, and social roles. At the foundation of all human thought and behavior is the self, our sense of personal identity, and who we are as individuals.

We use the word self for grammatical convenience when applied to many different things that are not selves. For example, we might say:

• The hurricane blew itself out.
• The Scotch tape stuck to itself.
• The computer turned itself off.
• The comatose patient scratched himself.

Such entities may “do things to themselves,” but they do not know what they are doing, as no conscious thought is involved. The term self becomes psychologically interesting only when the activity in question is cognitive and reflexive, when there is self-awareness, self-consciousness, and self-knowledge. Any analysis of self-knowledge must confront several obvious issues. What do individuals know about themselves, and how do they know it? When (developmentally speaking) do they know it? And how can we, as observers, be sure they know it? (Rochat, 1995).

Many theories attempt to explain what the self is or might be; however, none can claim that they have discovered the self. The self is the most challenging aspect of the human being to identify or define. Some descriptions of the self are based on the many elements of human identity, personality, cognition, affect, morals, values, motivation, social awareness, and self-awareness. Although anyone you ask may conceptually understand what the self is (especially if using words like myself), no one can say precisely what it is.

Baumeister and Bushman note, “some brain researchers have begun to say that the self is an illusion, mainly because they cannot find any specific spot in the brain that seems to correspond to the self…[However] if the self were merely an illusion, there would be no genuine difference between you and me…” (2014). Most researchers agree that, among many genetic and environmental factors, the self develops from a person’s experiences, culture, environment, and social interactions with others. Moreover, the self is designed to enable us to relate to others, including claiming and sustaining a place in a cultural system that connects us to many other people.

Some nonhuman animals, including chimpanzees, orangutans, and perhaps dolphins, have at least a primitive sense of self (Boysen & Himes, 1999). We know this because of some interesting experiments that have been done with animals. In one study (Gallup, 1970), researchers painted a red dot on the forehead of anesthetized chimpanzees and then placed the animals in a cage with a mirror. When the chimps woke up and looked in the mirror, they touched the dot on their faces, not the dot on the faces in the mirror. This action suggests that the chimps understood that they were looking at themselves and not at other animals, and thus we can assume that they can realize that they exist as individuals. Most other animals, including dogs, cats, and monkeys, never realize that it is themselves they see in a mirror.

Infants with similar red dots painted on their foreheads recognize themselves in a mirror like chimps do, and they do this by about 18 months of age (Asendorpf et al., 1996; Povinelli et al., 1996). The child’s knowledge about the self develops as the child grows. By two years, the infant becomes aware of his or her gender as a boy or a girl. At age four, the child’s self-descriptions are likely to be based on physical features, such as hair color, and by about age six, the child can understand basic emotions and the concepts of traits, being able to make statements such as “I am a nice person” (Harter, 1998).

By the time children are in grade school, they have learned that they are unique individuals and can think about and analyze their own behavior. They also begin to show awareness of the social situation—they understand that other people are looking at and judging them the same way that they are looking at and judging others (Doherty, 2009).

Baumeister and Bushman (2011) discuss three main parts of the self, which allow us to balance our selfish impulses and social conscience. The three main parts of the self include:

1. self-knowledge
2. interpersonal self, and
3. agent self

These will be outlined in more detail below.

Self-Knowledge 

Self-knowledge or self-concept refers to knowledge of one’s mental processes, emotions, personality, temperament, and dispositions. It is a person’s capacity to understand the representational properties of one’s mental and emotional states and how they influence behavior.

Part of what is developing in children as they grow is the fundamental cognitive part of the self, known as self-knowledge or self-concept, which is the knowledge representation that contains knowledge about ourselves, including our beliefs about our personality traits, physical characteristics, abilities, values, goals, and roles, as well as the knowledge that we exist as individuals.

The specific content of our self-concept powerfully affects how we process information relating to ourselves. Does a person have a positive or negative self-concept? How can we measure that specific content? One way is by using self-report tests. One is a deceptively simple fill-in-the-blank measure widely used by many researchers to understand an individual’s self-concept (Rees & Nicholson, 1994). The Twenty Statements Test (TST) is a list of 20 items in which the measures are the same, but the person is asked to write a different response for each statement. This self-report measure can reveal a lot about a person because it is designed to measure the most accessible aspects of a person’s self-concept.

Although each person has a unique self-concept, we can identify some common characteristics across the responses given by different people on the measure.

• Physical characteristics
• Personality traits
• Social identity

Physical characteristics

Physical characteristics are an essential component of self-concept, which most people mention when they describe themselves. If you’ve been concerned lately that you’ve been gaining weight, you might write, “I am overweight.” If you think you’re particularly good-looking (“I am attractive”) or if you think you’re too short (“I am too short”), those things might have been reflected in your responses. Our physical characteristics are essential to our self-concept because we realize that others use them to judge us. People often list the physical characteristics that make them different from others in either positive or negative ways (“I am blonde,” “I am short ”), in part because they understand that these characteristics are salient and thus likely to be used by others when judging them (McGuire et al., 1978).

Another aspect of self-concept relating to personal characteristics is made up of personality traits—the specific and stable personality characteristics that describe an individual (“I am friendly,” “I am shy,” “I am persistent”). These individual differences are important determinants of behavior, and this aspect of the self-concept varies among people. There will be further discussion on his aspect of self-knowledge later in the lesson.

Social identity reflects the more external, social aspects of self-concept; for example, social roles—being part of a family or social groups, and the issues we care about. Typical responses for this component may include “I am an artist,” “I am a Christian,” “I am a student,” and/or “I am a mother/sister/daughter.” As we will see later in this lesson, group memberships form a vital part of self-concept because they provide us with our social identity—the sense of ourselves that involves our status in social groups.

Interpersonal Self

The interpersonal self, or public self, is the part of the self that moves an individual to connect to others. Most individuals have an image they strive to portray socially. The public self may appear similar to self-concept, but they are different. Often, individuals put forth a lot of effort to convey a particular image of themselves to other people, even though it may not be the complete and precise truth as they know it. Consider some things a person might do to make an impression on others. You dress up for a social event; show friends that you are fun-loving and easygoing; convince your employer that you have a good work ethic, are reliable, dependable, and a team player; you get your home especially clean when expecting guests. You might hold back on expressing your religious or political views because other people present may disagree or be offended. You worry about what someone thinks of you. When talking about yourself on a first date, you leave out specific unappealing details about yourself, or how you like to burp the lyrics to a particular song. In addition, many emotions might be stirred up due to concerns about how one appears to others. You feel delighted when your boss compliments you on your work. You might feel embarrassed if you do something “stupid” in the presence of others, or even if you spill a drink. You feel guilty if you forget the birthday of an important person in your life. “These episodes reveal that the self is often working in complex ways to gain social acceptance and maintain good interpersonal relationships” (Baumeister & Bushman, 2011, p. 74).

Within this part of the self, we develop our social roles, the actions people take, and the behaviors they exhibit in different situations. Returning to the question, “What is the self?” One answer: The self strives to gain social acceptance. “People are not designed to live by themselves. They need other people to accept them to have a job, friends and lovers, and a family. The self is one tool people use to accomplish these goals” (Baumeister & Bushman, 2011, p. 77).

Agent Self

The agent self, or executive function, is the part of the self that gets things accomplished. It allows the self to make choices and exercise control over other people and things. Sometimes you decide to begin a healthier diet. Sometimes you choose to make a promise and take steps to try to keep that promise. Sometimes you decide which college courses to take. You may choose to sign a lease for a new apartment. Maybe you decide to go to the gym at 5:00 am even though you’re tired from going out the night before. Maybe you place a bet against your favorite team because you know the other team is better. “All of these actions reveal the self as not just a knower but also a doer” (Baumeister & Bushman, 2014, p. 74).

Cultural Implications of the Self

Although we all define ourselves in relation to these three broad categories of characteristics—physical, personality, and social—some interesting cultural differences in the relative importance of these categories have been shown in people’s responses to the TST. For example, Ip and Bond (1995) found that the responses from Asian participants included significantly more references to themselves as occupants of social roles (e.g., “I am Joyce’s friend”) or social groups (e.g., “I am a member of the Cheng family”) than those of American participants. Similarly, Markus and Kitayama (1991) reported that Asian participants were more than twice as likely to include references to other people in their self-concept than their Western counterparts. This greater emphasis on the self-concept’s external or social aspects reflects the relative importance that collectivistic and individualistic cultures place on interdependence versus independence (Nisbett, 2003).

Interestingly, bicultural individuals who report acculturation to both collectivist and individualist cultures show shifts in their self-concept depending on which culture they are primed to consider when completing the TST. For example, Ross et al. (2002) found that students born in China but living in Canada reported more interdependent aspects of themselves on the TST when asked to write their responses in Chinese instead of English. These culturally different responses to the TST are also related to a broader distinction in self-concept, with people from individualistic cultures often describing themselves using internal characteristics that emphasize their uniqueness, compared with those from collectivistic backgrounds who tend to stress shared social group memberships and roles. In turn, this distinction can lead to significant differences in social behavior.

One simple yet powerful demonstration of cultural differences in self-concept affecting social behavior is shown in a study conducted by Kim and Markus (1999). In this study, participants were contacted in the waiting area of the San Francisco airport and asked to fill out a short questionnaire for the researcher. The participants were selected according to their cultural background: about one-half indicated they were European Americans whose parents were born in the United States, and the other half indicated they were Asian Americans whose parents were born in China and who spoke Chinese at home. After completing the questionnaires (which were not used in the data analysis except to determine the cultural backgrounds), participants were asked if they would like to take a pen with them as a token of appreciation. The experimenter extended his or her hand, which contained five pens. The pens offered to the participants were either three or four of one color and one or two of another color (the ink in the pens was always black).

Consistent with the hypothesized preference for uniqueness in Western but not Eastern cultures, the European Americans preferred to take a pen with the more unusual color. In contrast, the Asian American participants preferred one with the more common color.

Cultural Differences in Self-Concept

Social media self-descriptions provide insight into independent and interdependent self-concepts and the role of culture. Cultural differences in self-concept have been found in people’s self-descriptions on social networking sites. DeAndrea et al. (2010) examined individuals’ free-text self-descriptions in the About Me section in their Facebook profiles. Consistent with the researcher’s hypothesis and previous research using the TST, African American participants had the most independently (internal) described self-concepts, and Asian Americans had the most interdependent (external) self-descriptions, with European Americans falling somewhere in the middle.

In addition to indications of cultural differences in self-concept, there is also evidence of parallel gender differences between males and females from various cultures, with females, on average, giving more external and social responses to the TST than males (Kashima et al., 1995). Interestingly, these gender differences are more apparent in individualistic cultures than in collectivistic cultures (Watkins et al., 1998).

Beyond East and West Differences

The work of Markus and Kitayama (1991) has had a big impact on psychology, especially in the areas of social, personality, and developmental psychology. Their research helped psychologists pay more attention to how culture shapes the way we think about ourselves. They introduced the idea that people can see themselves in two main ways: as independent (focused on being unique and self-reliant) or interdependent (focused on relationships and fitting in with others).

However, not all researchers agree with this idea. Some studies have found mixed or conflicting results (Matsumoto, 1999). A large international study by Vignoles and colleagues (2016), involving 71 researchers, 33 countries, and 55 cultural groups, questioned this simple two-way (or “dichotomous”) view of the self.

Using data from over 7,000 adults, the researchers found that the way people see themselves is more complex than just “independent” or “interdependent.” They identified seven different dimensions that describe how people relate to themselves and others: difference, connection, self-direction, self-reliance, consistency, self-expression, and self-interest. These dimensions reflect both personal beliefs and cultural norms that are shaped by social practices and traditions.

When they tested this new model, the results challenged many common assumptions. For example:

• People in Western cultures (like the U.S. and Europe) were not always highly independent. They scored high on five dimensions but lower on self-reliance and consistency.
• Latin American cultures, often seen as interdependent, actually scored similarly to Western cultures on some dimensions and even higher on self-interest and consistency.
• People from poorer countries scored highest on self-interest, which goes against the idea that individualism is linked to wealth.
• Western cultures scored high on commitment to others, challenging the stereotype that they are selfish.
• Religion also played a role. Muslim and Catholic participants scored high on consistency, possibly because both religions emphasize behaving in a consistent way to achieve salvation.

Overall, this study shows that how we see ourselves is not just a matter of being independent or interdependent. Instead, it’s shaped by many factors, including culture, religion, history, and economic conditions. By moving beyond a simple either/or view, psychologists can better understand the rich and varied ways people think about themselves around the world.

Self-Enhancement and Self-Effacement

Self-enhancement is related to self-concept, the processes we use to bolster self-esteem. Early research linked enhancement with individualistic cultures (Heine et al., 1999). However, evidence for the culture-specific model has been mixed. The more commonly accepted view, the pancultural perspective, argues that all cultures engage in enhancement, but how, when, and to what extent differs by culture (Brown, 2010; Becker et al., 2014; Sedikides et al., 2015). Cai and colleagues (2011) explored a pancultural theory of self-enhancement in Western (U.S.) and Eastern (China) samples. Results revealed that participants endorsed more positive traits when describing themselves and negative traits as non-self-descriptive. The degree of this effect was higher in the Western than the Eastern sample, confirming that self-enhancement is positive in both cultures, but it is higher among the Western sample. Sedikides (2000) found that even when individuals strive for self-knowledge and reflection, they are prone to self-enhancement and self-protection. Attempted interventions to curtail these strivings proved difficult to implement and sustain, suggesting that it may be more beneficial to channel those inclinations, rather than trying to remove them.

Imagine you lead a major work project and have been asked to provide a status update to the executive board. You and your team spend hours preparing the presentation. At the end of the presentation, one of the board members congratulates you on the project and the presentation. You reply, “I am dedicated to this project and work hard to meet the expectations.” This exemplifies self-enhancement because you emphasize your dedication and role in the project.

Self-effacement is the tendency to downplay one’s virtues or characteristics. In general, Asians tend to be more self-effacing (although most studies only use samples from Japan and China) (Kurman, 2001). Under normal conditions, self-effacement is a facet of modesty and is not a lack of confidence or of self-esteem. Self-effacement reflects cultural norms, and some collectivist cultures, such as in China and Japan, consider modesty a virtue. Self-effacing tactics are used to reduce the social risk of offending others, so in this way, self-effacement is not linked to self-esteem.

Let’s consider our earlier scenario and the congratulations offered by a board member. If this time you say, “It is my team who worked hard to achieve the project’s goals.” This could be considered an example of self-effacement because you understate your role and emphasize the team members.

Most of the research in this area has focused on cross-cultural research between Western and Eastern cultures. Suzuki and colleagues (2008) examined the role of self-enhancement, self-effacement, and reactions to criticism among multicultural, female youth in the United States. Results revealed that European American and African American youth had more self-enhancing reactions to praise. Asian American and Hispanic youth were less self-enhancing and more self-effacing than the other two groups. The differences in reactions to praise were explained by differences in generational histories in the United States and cultural exposure. The youth with the highest self-enhancing reactions (European Americans and African Americans) were all born in the United States and had greater exposure to individualist norms.

Asian American and Hispanic study participants reported that at least one person in their household was born abroad in less individualist and more collectivist cultures. These differences explain why the Asian American and Hispanic youths might have had more self-effacing reactions.

Better than average effect (BTAE) is considered a form of bias or inaccuracy in self-assessment. While most people are average, only a small percentage recognize this as a reality. Research using a direct method asked participants to evaluate themselves compared to an average person on a single scale test (Wylie, 1979). Using an indirect method, research participants rated themselves and the average person on separate scales, and the average evaluation is subtracted from the ratings. Research on the BTAE shows that adults in the United States typically consider themselves more intelligent and attractive than average, and this effect was stronger for males than females. Early studies found that BTAE was associated with individualistic cultures but not collectivist ones. One researcher even asserted that it was not found in Japan, but this research was inconclusive. The BTAE may be correlated with age. Zell and Mark (2011) found that older adults rated themselves worse than average on some age-related measures. One study examined prisoners on BTAE and found that a significant number considered themselves to be more prosocial than other prisoners (Sedikides et al., 2013).  Zell, et al. (2020) conducted a meta-analysis (a study that systematically assesses the results of a large body of research) and concluded that there is a robust tendency for people to think that they are superior to their peers, and that this effect is more prevalent for personality traits than for skills and abilities. They noted that their meta-analysis included European American samples and that few studies compared cultural groups, so more research is necessary to determine the impact of BTAE across cultures.

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