William Swann

Last updated
William B. Swann
Born
New Jersey
Alma mater Gettysburg College
University of Minnesota
Known for Self-verification theory Identity fusion Identity negotiation
AwardsResearch Scientist Development Award, National Institute of Mental Health (twice), [1] Distinguished Lifetime Career Award, International Society for Self and Identity, 2016, Career Contribution Award, Society of Personality and Social Psychology, 2018
Scientific career
Fields Social Psychology, Personality psychology
Institutions University of Texas at Austin

William B. Swann (born 1952) is a professor of social and personality psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. He is primarily known for his work on identity, self and self-esteem, but has also done research on relationships, social cognition, group processes, accuracy in person perception and interpersonal expectancy effects. He received his Ph.D. in 1978 [2] from the University of Minnesota and undergraduate degree from Gettysburg College. [1]

Contents

Research

Self-verification theory

Swann devised self-verification theory, [3] which focuses on people's desire to be known and understood by others. Once people develop firmly held beliefs about themselves, the theory suggests that they will come to prefer that others see them as they see themselves—even if their self-views are negative. Swann and his colleagues have found this tendency in many experiments. [4] [5] For example, married people with negative self-views are more committed to the relationship and less likely to divorce if their spouse views them negatively. [6] Recent research has applied this theory to understanding phenomena ranging from reactions to procedural justice in organizations, [7] the productivity of members of work groups and teams, [8] and extreme group behavior, such as fighting for one's group. [9]

There is a tension between self-enhancement (the drive for a positive self-image) and self-verification, which reinforces even the negative aspects of a self-image. Swann and colleagues have found that emotional reactions favor enhancement, while more thoughtful processes favor verification. [10] [11] They also found that people are more likely to seek enhancement early on in a relationship, but verification as the relationship develops. [10]

Identity negotiation

More recently Swann has contributed to identity negotiation theory. Identity negotiation refers to the processes whereby people in relationships reach agreements regarding "who is who." Once reached, these agreements govern what people expect of one another and the way they relate to one another. As such, identity negotiation processes provide the interpersonal "glue" that holds relationships together. [12] Identity negotiation theory has been used to examine how people work or study together in groups, especially the role of diversity. [12]

Identity fusion

Identity fusion is a visceral sense of "oneness" with a group and its individual members that motivates personally costly, pro-group behaviors. [9] [13] Past approaches, most notably social identity theory, have assumed that when people align with groups they are bound to the group by collective ties to the group category. [14] [15] Fusion theory emphasizes the ways in which alignment to groups can be based on fit with the personal self and attachment to other group members. Strongly fused persons are especially inclined to endorse pro-group action when either the personal or the social self is salient, when physiological arousal is high, or when they perceive that group members share essential qualities (e.g., genes, core values) with one another. [16] [17] [18] [19] Moreover, feelings of personal agency, perceptions of family-like ties to other group members, and a sense of group-related invulnerability mediate the link between identity fusion and pro-group behaviors. All of these effects emerge while controlling for identification, which predicted extreme sacrifice for the group weakly if at all. Moreover, identity fusion is associated with actual extreme behaviors, such as willingness to volunteer for front-line duty among Libyans during the 2011 revolution. [20] By specifying some of the key antecedents of extreme pro-group behavior as well as the role of the personal self and relational, family like ties in such behavior, the identity-fusion approach fills an important explanatory gap left largely unaddressed by earlier perspectives on group processes.

Academic service

Swann was the 2010 President of the Society of Experimental Social Psychology. [21]

Related Research Articles

Group dynamics is a system of behaviors and psychological processes occurring within a social group, or between social groups. The study of group dynamics can be useful in understanding decision-making behaviour, tracking the spread of diseases in society, creating effective therapy techniques, and following the emergence and popularity of new ideas and technologies. These applications of the field are studied in psychology, sociology, anthropology, political science, epidemiology, education, social work, leadership studies, business and managerial studies, as well as communication studies.

In the psychology of self, one's self-concept is a collection of beliefs about oneself. Generally, self-concept embodies the answer to the question "Who am I?".

In-group favoritism, sometimes known as in-group–out-group bias, in-group bias, intergroup bias, or in-group preference, is a pattern of favoring members of one's in-group over out-group members. This can be expressed in evaluation of others, in allocation of resources, and in many other ways.

Self-knowledge is a term used in psychology to describe the information that an individual draws upon when finding answers to the questions "What am I like?" and "Who am I?".

Confidence is the feeling of belief or trust that a person or thing is reliable. Self-confidence is trust in oneself. Self-confidence involves a positive belief that one can generally accomplish what one wishes to do in the future. Self-confidence is not the same as self-esteem, which is an evaluation of one's worth. Self-confidence is related to self-efficacy—belief in one's ability to accomplish a specific task or goal. Confidence can be a self-fulfilling prophecy, as those without it may fail because they lack it, and those with it may succeed because they have it rather than because of an innate ability or skill.

Self-monitoring, a concept introduced in the 1970s by Mark Snyder, describes the extent to which people monitor their self-presentations, expressive behavior, and nonverbal affective displays. Snyder held that human beings generally differ in substantial ways in their abilities and desires to engage in expressive controls. Self-monitoring is defined as a personality trait that refers to an ability to regulate behavior to accommodate social situations. People concerned with their expressive self-presentation tend to closely monitor their audience in order to ensure appropriate or desired public appearances. Self-monitors try to understand how individuals and groups will perceive their actions. Some personality types commonly act spontaneously and others are more apt to purposely control and consciously adjust their behavior. Recent studies suggest that a distinction should be made between acquisitive and protective self-monitoring due to their different interactions with metatraits. This differentiates the motive behind self-monitoring behaviours: for the purpose of acquiring appraisal from others (acquisitive) or protecting oneself from social disapproval (protective).

Self-sacrifice is the giving up of something that a person wants for themselves so that others can be helped or protected or so that other external values can be advanced or protected. Generally, the act of self-sacrifice conforms to the rule that it does not serve the person’s best self-interest and will leave the person in a worse situation than the person otherwise would have been.

Self-verification is a social psychological theory that asserts people want to be known and understood by others according to their firmly held beliefs and feelings about themselves, that is self-views. It is one of the motives that drive self-evaluation, along with self-enhancement and self-assessment.

Positive illusions are unrealistically favorable attitudes that people have towards themselves or to people that are close to them. Positive illusions are a form of self-deception or self-enhancement that feel good; maintain self-esteem; or avoid discomfort, at least in the short term. There are three general forms: inflated assessment of one's own abilities, unrealistic optimism about the future, and an illusion of control. The term "positive illusions" originates in a 1988 paper by Taylor and Brown. "Taylor and Brown's (1988) model of mental health maintains that certain positive illusions are highly prevalent in normal thought and predictive of criteria traditionally associated with mental health."

Identity negotiation refers to the processes through which people reach agreements regarding "who is who" in their relationships. Once these agreements are reached, people are expected to remain faithful to the identities they have agreed to assume. The process of identity negotiation thus establishes what people can expect of one another. Identity negotiation thus provides the interpersonal "glue" that holds relationships together.

Harvey Whitehouse is chair of social anthropology and professorial fellow of Magdalen College at the University of Oxford.

Self-enhancement is a type of motivation that works to make people feel good about themselves and to maintain self-esteem. This motive becomes especially prominent in situations of threat, failure or blows to one's self-esteem. Self-enhancement involves a preference for positive over negative self-views. It is one of the three self-evaluation motives along with self-assessment and self-verification . Self-evaluation motives drive the process of self-regulation, that is, how people control and direct their own actions.

In social psychology, illusory superiority is a cognitive bias wherein people overestimate their own qualities and abilities compared to others. Illusory superiority is one of many positive illusions, relating to the self, that are evident in the study of intelligence, the effective performance of tasks and tests, and the possession of desirable personal characteristics and personality traits. Overestimation of abilities compared to an objective measure is known as the overconfidence effect.

Impression formation in social psychology refers to the processes by which different pieces of knowledge about another are combined into a global or summary impression. Social psychologist Solomon Asch is credited with the seminal research on impression formation and conducted research on how individuals integrate information about personality traits. Two major theories have been proposed to explain how this process of integration takes place. The Gestalt approach views the formation of a general impression as the sum of several interrelated impressions. As an individual seeks to form a coherent and meaningful impression of another individual, previous impressions significantly influence the interpretation of subsequent information. In contrast to the Gestalt approach, the cognitive algebra approach asserts that individuals' experiences are combined with previous evaluations to form a constantly changing impression of a person. A related area to impression formation is the study of person perception, making dispositional attributions, and then adjusting those inferences based on the information available.

In psychology, certain seemingly-maladaptive human behaviors superficially appear to be attempts to confirm one's own self views, even when this self-view is negative or inaccurate. Raison oblige theory (ROT) instead explains these behaviors as consequences of a rational obligation to accept information only inasmuch as it concurs with one's current self-views.

In social psychology, collective narcissism is the tendency to exaggerate the positive image and importance of a group to which one belongs. The group may be defined by ideology, race, political beliefs/stance, religion, sexual orientation, social class, language, nationality, employment status, education level, cultural values, or any other ingroup. While the classic definition of narcissism focuses on the individual, collective narcissism extends this concept to similar excessively high opinions of a person's social group, and suggests that a group can function as a narcissistic entity.

Interpersonal emotion regulation is the process of changing the emotional experience of one's self or another person through social interaction. It encompasses both intrinsic emotion regulation, in which one attempts to alter their own feelings by recruiting social resources, as well as extrinsic emotion regulation, in which one deliberately attempts to alter the trajectory of other people's feelings.

Identity fusion, a psychological construct rooted in social psychology and cognitive anthropology, is a form of alignment with groups in which members experience a visceral sense of oneness with the group. The construct relies on a distinction between the personal self and the social self. As the name suggests, identity fusion involves the union of the personal and social selves. When fusion occurs, both the personal and social selves remain salient and influential but the boundaries between them become highly permeable. In addition, the theory proposes that fused persons come to regard other group members as "family" and develop strong relational ties to them as well as ties to the collective. Therefore, fused persons are not just bound to the collective; they are tied to the individual members of the collective.

The theory of divergent modes of religiosity (DMR) is intended to explain how religions are created, transmitted, and changed. DMR theory was first developed by anthropologist Harvey Whitehouse following his ethnographic fieldwork in Papua New Guinea. The theory proposes that religions tend to coalesce around two divergent modes, termed imagistic and doctrinal, which are distinguished primarily by their ritual practices. The imagistic mode is characterized by infrequently performed, high arousal rituals (e.g. initiation rites) and is associated with small scale, exclusive religious groups. In contrast the doctrinal mode is characterized by frequently performed, low arousal rituals (e.g. daily recitations of sacred texts) and is associated with larger inclusive communities, as found in the major world religions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter J. Rentfrow</span>

Peter Jason Rentfrow is professor of personality and individual differences in the Psychology Department at Cambridge University, where he directs the Social Dynamics Research Center. He is an elected Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science, the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, and the Alan Turing Institute.

References

  1. 1 2 http://www.mccombs.utexas.edu/execed/faculty/bios/swann.asp [ dead link ]
  2. ↑ Nosek, Brian A.; Jesse Graham; Nicole M. Lindner; Selin Kesebir; Carlee Beth Hawkins; Cheryl Hahn; Kathleen Schmidt; Matt Motyl; Jennifer Joy-Gaba; Rebecca Frazier; Elizabeth R. Tenney (2010). "Cumulative and Career-Stage Citation Impact of Social-Personality Psychology Programs and Their Members". Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. 36 (10): 1283–1300. doi:10.1177/0146167210378111. PMID   20668215. S2CID   5662937.
  3. ↑ Jackson, Ronald L. (29 June 2010). "Self-Enhancement Theory". Encyclopedia of Identity. SAGE Publications. p. 367. ISBN   978-1-4129-5153-1 . Retrieved 22 March 2011.
  4. ↑ Kassin, Saul; Fein, Steven; Markus, Hazel Rose (29 January 2010). Social Psychology. Cengage Learning. p. 92. ISBN   978-0-495-81240-1 . Retrieved 22 March 2011.
  5. ↑ Hauf, Petra; Försterling, Friedrich (2007). Making minds: the shaping of human minds through social context. John Benjamins Publishing Company. p. 69. ISBN   978-90-272-2234-3 . Retrieved 22 March 2011.
  6. ↑ Swann, William B.; Rentfrow, Peter J.; Guinn, Jennifer S. (13 July 2005). "Self-verification: the search for coherence". In Mark R. Leary, June Price Tangney (ed.). Handbook of self and identity. Guilford Press. pp. 367–383. ISBN   978-1-59385-237-5 . Retrieved 22 March 2011.
  7. ↑ North, Rebecca; Swann, William (2009). "Self-verification 360°: Illuminating the Light and Dark Sides". Self and Identity. 8 (2): 131–146. doi:10.1080/15298860802501516. ISSN   1529-8868. S2CID   13017456.
  8. ↑ Swann, William B.; Kwan, Virginia S. Y.; Polzer, Jeffrey T.; Milton, Laurie P. (2003). "Fostering Group Identification and Creativity in Diverse Groups: The Role of Individuation and Self-Verification". Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. 29 (11): 1396–1406. doi:10.1177/0146167203256868. ISSN   0146-1672. PMID   15189577. S2CID   11200102.
  9. 1 2 Swann, William B.; Gómez, Ángel; Seyle, D. Conor; Morales, J. Francisco; Huici, Carmen (2009). "Identity fusion: The interplay of personal and social identities in extreme group behavior". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 96 (5): 995–1011. CiteSeerX   10.1.1.596.6883 . doi:10.1037/a0013668. ISSN   1939-1315. PMID   19379032.
  10. 1 2 Sorrentino, Richard M.; Yamaguchi, Susumu (2 June 2008). Handbook of motivation and cognition across cultures. Academic Press. p. 134. ISBN   978-0-12-373694-9 . Retrieved 22 March 2011.
  11. ↑ Kwang, T.; Swann, W. B. (2010). "Do People Embrace Praise Even When They Feel Unworthy? A Review of Critical Tests of Self-Enhancement Versus Self-Verification". Personality and Social Psychology Review. 14 (3): 263–280. doi:10.1177/1088868310365876. ISSN   1088-8683. PMID   20435799. S2CID   10975254.
  12. 1 2 Swann, William B. (1987). "Identity negotiation: Where two roads meet". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 53 (6): 1038–1051. CiteSeerX   10.1.1.323.4130 . doi:10.1037/0022-3514.53.6.1038. ISSN   1939-1315. PMID   3320335. S2CID   6759432.
  13. ↑ Swann, W.B.; Jetten, J.; Gomez, A.; Whitehouse, H.; Bastian, B (2012). "When group membership gets personal: A theory of identity fusion". Psychological Review. 119 (3): 441–456. doi:10.1037/a0028589. PMID   22642548.
  14. ↑ Tajfel, H.; Turner, J.C. (1979). "An integrative theory of intergroup conflict.". In William, G.A. (ed.). The social psychology of intergroup relations. Monterey, CA: Brooks/Cole. pp. 33–47. ISBN   978-0818502781.
  15. ↑ Turner, J.C.; Hogg, M.A.; Oakes, P.J.; Reicher, S.D.; Wetherell, M.S. (1987). Rediscovering the social group: self-categorization theory. Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell. ISBN   9780631148067.
  16. ↑ Swann, W.B.; Gomez, A; Dovidio, J.F.; Hart, S; Jetten, J. (2010). "Dying and Killing for One's Group". Psychological Science. 21 (8): 1176–1183. doi:10.1177/0956797610376656. PMID   20622141. S2CID   16751081.
  17. ↑ Swann, W.B.; Buhrmester, M.D.; Gomez, A; Jetten, J; Bastian, B; Vazquez, A; Ariyanto, A; Besta, T; Christ, O (2014). "What makes a group worth dying for? Identity fusion fosters perception of familial ties, promoting self-sacrifice". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 106 (6): 912–926. doi:10.1037/a0036089. PMID   24841096.
  18. ↑ Swann, W.B.; Gomez, A; Burhmester, M.D.; Lopez-Rodriguez, L.; Jiménez, J.; Vázquez, A. (2014). "Contemplating the ultimate sacrifice: Identity fusion channels pro-group affect, cognition, and moral decision making". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 106 (5): 713–727. doi:10.1037/a0035809. PMID   24749820.
  19. ↑ Swann, W.B.; Gomez, A.; Huici, C., C.; Morales, J.F.; Hixon, J.G. (2010). "Identity fusion and self-sacrifice: Arousal as a catalyst of pro-group fighting, dying, and helping behavior". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 99 (5): 824–841. doi:10.1037/a0020014. PMID   20649370.
  20. ↑ Whitehouse, H.; McQuinn, B.; Buhrmester, M.D.; Swann, W.B. (2014). "Brothers in arms: Libyan revolutionaries bond like family". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 111 (20): 17783–17785. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1416284111 . PMC   4273349 . PMID   25385591.
  21. ↑ "SESP Officers and Committees". www.sesp.org. Society for Experimental Social Psychology. Retrieved 2 January 2011.

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