Self-image

Last updated
A cartoon representation of one's self-image Is this me mental disorder of looking.jpg
A cartoon representation of one's self-image

Self-image is the mental picture, generally of a kind that is quite resistant to change, that depicts not only details that are potentially available to an objective investigation by others (height, weight, hair color, etc.), but also items that have been learned by persons about themselves, either from personal experiences or by internalizing the judgments of others. In some formulations, it is a component of self-concept.

Contents

Self-image may consist of six types:[ citation needed ] [1]

  1. Self-image resulting from how an individual sees oneself.
  2. Self-image resulting from how others see the individual.
  3. Self-image resulting from how the individual perceives the individual seeing oneself.
  4. Self-image resulting from how the individual perceives how others see the individual.
  5. Self-image resulting from how others perceive how the individual sees oneself.
  6. Self-image resulting from how others perceive how others see the individual.

These six types may or may not be an accurate representation of the person. All, some, or none of them may be true.

A more technical term for self-image that is commonly used by social and cognitive psychologists is self-schema . Like any schema, self-schemas store information and influence the way we think and remember. For example, research indicates that information which refers to the self is preferentially encoded and recalled in memory tests, a phenomenon known as "self-referential encoding". [2] Self-schemas are also considered the traits people use to define themselves, they draw information about the self into a coherent scheme. [3] [4]

Poor self-image

Poor self-image may be the result of accumulated criticisms that the person collected as a child which have led to damaging their own view of themselves. Children in particular are vulnerable to accepting negative judgments from authority figures because they have yet to develop competency in evaluating such comments. Also, adolescents are highly targeted to suffer from poor body-image issues. Individuals who already exhibit a low sense of self-worth may be vulnerable to develop social disorders.

Negative self-images can arise from a variety of factors. A prominent factor, however, is personality type. Perfectionists, high achievers and those with "type A" personalities seem to be prone to having negative self-images. [5] [6] [ full citation needed ] This is because such people constantly set the standard for success high above a reasonable, attainable level. Thus, they are constantly disappointed in this "failure."

Another factor that contributes to a negative self-image is the beauty values of the society in which a person lives. In the American society, a popular beauty ideal is a slimness. Oftentimes, girls believe that they do not measure up to society's "thin" standards, which leads to their having a negative self-image. [7]

Maintenance

When people are in the position of evaluating others, self-image maintenance processes can lead to a more negative evaluation depending on the self-image of the evaluator. That is to say stereotyping and prejudice may be the way individuals maintain their self-image. When individuals evaluate a member of a stereotyped group, they are less likely to evaluate that person negatively if their self-images had been bolstered through a self-affirmation procedure, and they are more likely to evaluate that person stereotypically if their self-images have been threatened by negative feedback. [8] Individuals may restore their self-esteem by derogating the member of a stereotyped group. [9]

Fein and Spencer (1997) conducted a study on Self-image Maintenance and Discriminatory Behavior. This study showed evidence that increased prejudice can result from a person's need to redeem a threatened positive perception of the self. The aim of the study was to test whether a particular threat to the self would instigate increased stereotyping and lead to actual discriminatory behavior or tendencies towards a member of a "negatively" stereotyped group. The study began when Fein and Spencer gave participants an ostensible test of intelligence. Some of them received negative feedback, and others, positive and supportive feedback. In the second half of the experiment, the participants were asked to evaluate another person who either belonged to a negatively stereotyped group, or one who did not. The results of the experiment showed that the participants who had previously received unfavorable comments on their test, evaluated the target of the negatively stereotyped group in a more antagonistic or opposing way, than the participants who were given excellent reports on their intelligence test. They suggested that the negative feedback on the test threatened the participants' self-image and they evaluated the target in a more negative manner, all in efforts to restore their own self-esteem. [8]

A present study extends the studies of Fein and Spencer in which the principal behavior examined was avoidance behavior. In the study, Macrae et al. (2004) found that participants that had a salient negative stereotype of "skinheads" attached, physically placed themselves further from a skinhead target compared to those in which the stereotype was not as apparent. Therefore, greater salience of a negative stereotype led participants to show more stereotype-consistent behavior towards the target. [10]

Residual

Residual self-image is the concept that individuals tend to think of themselves as projecting a certain physical appearance, [11] [ full citation needed ] [12] or certain position of social entitlement, or lack thereof. [13] The term was used at least as early as 1968, [14] but was popularized in fiction by the Matrix series, where persons who existed in a digitally created world would subconsciously maintain the physical appearance that they had become accustomed to projecting. [15]

Victimisation

Victims of abuse and manipulation often get trapped into a self-image of victimisation. The psychological profile of victimisation includes a pervasive sense of helplessness, passivity, loss of control, pessimism, negative thinking, strong feelings of self-guilt, shame, self-blame and depression. This way of thinking can lead to hopelessness and despair. [16]

Children's disparity

Self-image disparity was found to be positively related to chronological age (CA) and intelligence. Two factors thought to increase concomitantly with maturity were capacity for guilt and ability for cognitive differentiation. [17] However, males had larger self-image disparities than females, Caucasians had larger disparities and higher ideal self-images than African Americans, and socioeconomic status (SES) affected self-images differentially for the 2nd and 5th graders. [18]

Strengtheners

A child's self-awareness of who they are differentiates into three categories around the age of five: their social self, academic persona, and physical attributes. Several ways to strengthen a child's self-image include communication, reassurance, support of hobbies, and finding good role models. [19] [ full citation needed ]

Evolved awareness in mirror

In the earliest stages of development, infants are not aware that images in mirrors are themselves. Research was done on 88 children between 3 and 24 months. [20] Their behaviors were observed before a mirror. The results indicated that children's awareness of self-image followed three major age-related sequences:

Physical activity

Regular practice of endurance exercise was related to a more favourable body-image. There was a strong association between participation in sports and the type of personality that tends to be resistant to drug and alcohol addiction. Physical exercise was further significantly related to scores for physical and psychological well-being. Adolescents who engaged regularly in physical activity were characterised by lower anxiety-depression scores, and displayed much less social behavioural inhibition than their less active counterparts…

It is likely that discussion of recreational or exercise involvement may provide a useful point of entry for facilitating dialogue among adolescents about concerns relating to body image and self-esteem. In terms of psychotherapeutic applications, physical activity has many additional rewards for adolescents. It is probable that by promoting physical fitness, increased physical performance, lessening body mass and promoting a more favourable body shape and structure, exercise will provide more positive social feedback and recognition from peer groups, and this will subsequently lead to improvement in an individual's self-image. [21]

Automatic activation of stereotypes and threat

Does self-image threatening feedback make perceivers more likely to activate stereotypes when confronted by members of a minority group? Participants in Study 1 saw an Asian American or European American woman for several minutes, and participants in Studies 2 and 3 were exposed to drawings of an African American or European American male face for fractions of a second. These experiments found no evidence of automatic stereotype activation when perceivers were cognitively busy and when they had not received negative feedback. When perceivers had received negative feedback, however, evidence of stereotype activation emerged even when perceivers were cognitively busy. [22]

Women's sexual behavior

A magazine survey that included items about body image, self-image, and sexual behaviors was completed by 3,627 women. The study found that overall self-image and body image are significant predictors of sexual activity. Women who were more satisfied with body image reported more sexual activity, orgasm, and initiating sex, greater comfort undressing in front of their partner, having sex with the lights on, trying new sexual behaviors (e.g. anal sex), and pleasing their partner sexually than those dissatisfied. [23] Positive body image was inversely related to self-consciousness and importance of physical attractiveness, and directly related to relationships with others and overall satisfaction.

Men's sexual behavior

An article published in the journal, Psychology of Men & Masculinity, analyzed how (perceived) penile size affected body satisfaction in males. Based on the responses received from 110 heterosexual individuals (67 men; 43 women) to questions on the matter, the article concluded:

Men showed significant dissatisfaction with penile size, despite perceiving themselves to be of average size. Importantly, there were significant relationships between penile dissatisfaction and comfort with others seeing their penis, and with likelihood of seeking medical advice with regard to penile and/or sexual function. Given the negative consequences of low body satisfaction and the importance of early intervention in sexually related illnesses (e.g., testicular cancer), it is imperative that attention be paid to male body dissatisfaction. [24]

See also

Related Research Articles

Social psychology is the scientific study of how thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others. Social psychologists typically explain human behavior as a result of the relationship between mental states and social situations, studying the social conditions under which thoughts, feelings, and behaviors occur, and how these variables influence social interactions.

Self-esteem is confidence in one's own worth, abilities, or morals. Self-esteem encompasses beliefs about oneself as well as emotional states, such as triumph, despair, pride, and shame. Smith and Mackie define it by saying "The self-concept is what we think about the self; self-esteem, is the positive or negative evaluations of the self, as in how we feel about it ."

In social philosophy, objectification is the act of treating a person as an object or a thing. It is part of dehumanization, the act of disavowing the humanity of others. Sexual objectification, the act of treating a person as a mere object of sexual desire, is a subset of objectification, as is self-objectification, the objectification of one's self. In Marxism, the objectification of social relationships is discussed as "reification".

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?".

The halo effect is the tendency for positive impressions of a person, company, country, brand, or product in one area to positively influence one's opinion or feelings. Halo effect is ”the name given to the phenomenon whereby evaluators tend to be influenced by their previous judgments of performance or personality.” The halo effect is a cognitive bias which can prevent someone from accepting a person, a product or a brand based on the sum of all objective circumstances at hand.

The physical attractiveness stereotype, commonly known as the "beautiful-is-good" stereotype, is the tendency to assume that physically attractive individuals, coinciding with social beauty standards, also possess other desirable personality traits, such as intelligence, social competence, and morality. The target benefits from what has been coined as “pretty privilege”, namely social, economic, and political advantages or benefits. Physical attractiveness can have a significant effect on how people are judged in terms of employment or social opportunities, friendship, sexual behavior, and marriage.

In psychology and cognitive science, a schema describes a pattern of thought or behavior that organizes categories of information and the relationships among them. It can also be described as a mental structure of preconceived ideas, a framework representing some aspect of the world, or a system of organizing and perceiving new information, such as a mental schema or conceptual model. Schemata influence attention and the absorption of new knowledge: people are more likely to notice things that fit into their schema, while re-interpreting contradictions to the schema as exceptions or distorting them to fit. Schemata have a tendency to remain unchanged, even in the face of contradictory information. Schemata can help in understanding the world and the rapidly changing environment. People can organize new perceptions into schemata quickly as most situations do not require complex thought when using schema, since automatic thought is all that is required.

Stereotype threat is a situational predicament in which people are or feel themselves to be at risk of conforming to stereotypes about their social group. It is theorized to be a contributing factor to long-standing racial and gender gaps in academic performance. Since its introduction into the academic literature, stereotype threat has become one of the most widely studied topics in the field of social psychology.

The evaluation apprehension theory was proposed by Nickolas B. Cottrell in 1972. He argued that we quickly learn that the social rewards and punishments that we receive from other people are based on their evaluations of us. On this basis, our arousal may be modulated. In other words, performance will be enhanced or impaired only in the presence of persons who can approve or disapprove of our actions.

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.

Social cognitive theory (SCT), used in psychology, education, and communication, holds that portions of an individual's knowledge acquisition can be directly related to observing others within the context of social interactions, experiences, and outside media influences. This theory was advanced by Albert Bandura as an extension of his social learning theory. The theory states that when people observe a model performing a behavior and the consequences of that behavior, they remember the sequence of events and use this information to guide subsequent behaviors. Observing a model can also prompt the viewer to engage in behavior they already learned. Depending on whether people are rewarded or punished for their behavior and the outcome of the behavior, the observer may choose to replicate behavior modeled. Media provides models for a vast array of people in many different environmental settings.

Implicit cognition refers to cognitive processes that occur outside conscious awareness or conscious control. This includes domains such as learning, perception, or memory which may influence a person's behavior without their conscious awareness of those influences.

Aversive racism is a social scientific theory proposed by Samuel L. Gaertner & John F. Dovidio (1986), according to which negative evaluations of racial/ethnic minorities are realized by a persistent avoidance of interaction with other racial and ethnic groups. As opposed to traditional, overt racism, which is characterized by overt hatred for and discrimination against racial/ethnic minorities, aversive racism is characterized by more complex, ambivalent expressions and attitudes nonetheless with prejudicial views towards other races. Aversive racism arises from unconscious personal beliefs taught during childhood. Subtle racist behaviors are usually targeted towards African Americans. Workplace discrimination is one of the best examples of aversive racism. Biased beliefs on how minorities act and think affect how individuals interact with minority members.

The self-schema refers to a long lasting and stable set of memories that summarize a person's beliefs, experiences and generalizations about the self, in specific behavioral domains. A person may have a self-schema based on any aspect of themselves as a person, including physical characteristics, personality traits and interests, as long as they consider that aspect of their self to be important to their own self-definition. When someone has a schema about themselves they hyper focus on a trait about themselves and believe what they say to themselves about that specific trait. A self schema can be good or bad depending on what that person talks to themselves about and in what kind of tone.

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stereotype</span> Generalized but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing

In social psychology, a stereotype is a generalized belief about a particular category of people. It is an expectation that people might have about every person of a particular group. The type of expectation can vary; it can be, for example, an expectation about the group's personality, preferences, appearance or ability. Stereotypes are often overgeneralized, inaccurate, and resistant to new information. A stereotype does not necessarily need to be a negative assumption. They may be positive, neutral, or negative.

The Proteus effect describes a phenomenon in which the behavior of an individual, within virtual worlds, is changed by the characteristics of their avatar. This change is due to the individual's knowledge about the behaviors that other users who are part of that virtual environment typically associate with those characteristics. Like the adjective protean, the concept's name is an allusion to the shape changing abilities of the Greek god Proteus. The Proteus effect was first introduced by researchers Nick Yee and Jeremy Bailenson at Stanford University in June 2007. It is considered an area of research concerned with the examination of the behavioral effects of changing a user's embodied avatar.

Attributional ambiguity is a psychological attribution concept describing the difficulty that members of stigmatized or negatively stereotyped groups may have in interpreting feedback. According to this concept, a person who perceives themselves as stigmatized can attribute negative feedback to prejudice. This can lead stigmatized group members to feel uncertainty about whether negative outcomes are due to discrimination against them or their own behavior. In comparison, they might discredit positive feedback as a form of sympathy rather than seeing it as the result of their ability and achievement. The term was coined by Melvin Snyder, Robert E. Kleck, Angelo Strenta, and Steven J. Mentzer in 1979 before being popularized by Jennifer Crocker, Brenda Major and their colleagues in the 1990s.

An implicit bias or implicit stereotype is the pre-reflective attribution of particular qualities by an individual to a member of some social out group. Recent studies have determined that "implicit bias" towards those of the opposite gender may be even more influential than racial implicit bias.

In social psychology, social projection is the psychological process through which an individual expects behaviors or attitudes of others to be similar to their own. Social projection occurs between individuals as well as across ingroup and outgroup contexts in a variety of domains. Research has shown that aspects of social categorization affect the extent to which social projection occurs. Cognitive and motivational approaches have been used to understand the psychological underpinnings of social projection as a phenomenon. Cognitive approaches emphasize social projection as a heuristic, while motivational approaches contextualize social projection as a means to feel connected to others. In contemporary research on social projection, researchers work to further distinguish between the effects of social projection and self-stereotyping on the individual’s perception of others.

References

  1. ↑ Gronbeck, Bruce E. (2019-06-26), "Negative Political Ads and American Self Images", Presidential Campaigns and American Self Images, Routledge, pp. 60–81, doi:10.4324/9780429302947-5, ISBN   978-0-429-30294-7, S2CID   199144382 , retrieved 2024-01-22
  2. ↑ Rogers, T. B.; Kuiper, N. A.; Kirker, W. S. (1977). "Self-Reference and the Encoding of Personal Information". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 35 (9): 677–688. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.35.9.677. PMID   909043.
  3. ↑ Schacter (2010-12-10). Psychology (2nd ed.). Worth Publishers. ISBN   978-1-4292-3719-2.
  4. ↑ Schacter, Daniel L.; Daniel T. Gilbert; Daniel M. Wegner (2011). Psychology (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Worth Publishers. pp.  494. ISBN   9781429237192.
  5. ↑ Adler, Ronald B.; Rosenfeld, Lawrence B.; Proctor, Russell F. Interplay: The Process of Interpersonal Communication. p. 25.
  6. ↑ Flett, Gordon L.; Panico, Teresa; Hewitt, Paul L. (June 2011). "Perfectionism, Type A Behavior, and Self-Efficacy in Depression and Health Symptoms among Adolescents". Current Psychology. 30 (2): 105–116. doi:10.1007/s12144-011-9103-4.
  7. ↑ "Risk Factors". 2017-02-21.
  8. 1 2 Fein, S.; Spencer, S. J. (1997). "Prejudice as self-image maintenance: Affirming the self through derogating others". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 73 (1): 31–44. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.73.1.31. S2CID   10447603.
  9. ↑ Florack, A.; Scarabis, M.; Gosejohann, S. (2005). "The Effects of Self-Image Threat on the Judgment of Out-Group Targets". Swiss Journal of Psychology. 64 (2): 87–101. doi:10.1024/1421-0185.64.2.87.
  10. ↑ Macrae (1994). "Self-image Maintenance and Discriminatory Behavior". Revue Internationale de Psychologie Sociale: 153–171.
  11. ↑ Literature and Psychology. 49 (4): 43. ISSN   0024-4759.{{cite journal}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  12. ↑ Lankton, Stephen R.; Lankton, Carol H. (1986). Enchantment and Intervention in Family Therapy. New York: Brunner/Mazel. p.  57. ISBN   978-0-87630-428-0.
  13. ↑ Bhavnani, Kum-Kum; Phoenix, Ann (1994). Shifting Identities, Shifting Racisms: A Feminism & Psychology Reader. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. p. 31. ISBN   978-0-8039-7787-7.
  14. ↑ Barnett, Marjorie C. (1968). "'I Can't' Versus 'He Won't'; Further Considerations of the Psychical Consequences of the Anatomic and Physiological Differences Between the Sexes". Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association. 16 (3–4): 588–600 [p. 594]. doi:10.1177/000306516801600312. PMID   5685227. S2CID   37404582. Women remain 'depriving competitors,' and the residual self image is 'I don't have the equipment to attract men.
  15. ↑ Lawrence, Matt (2004). Like a Splinter in Your Mind: The Philosophy Behind the Matrix. Malden: Blackwell. p. 212. ISBN   978-1-4051-2523-9.
  16. ↑ Braiker, Harriet B. (2004). Who's Pulling Your Strings? How to Break The Cycle of Manipulation . New York: McGraw-Hill. ISBN   978-0-07-140278-1.
  17. ↑ Katz, P.; Zigler, E. (1967). "Self-image Disparity: A Developmental Approach". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 5 (2): 186–195. doi:10.1037/h0024190. PMID   5633508.
  18. ↑ Phillips, D. A.; Zigler, E. F. (1980). "Children's self-image disparity: Effects of age, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, and gender". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 39 (4): 689–700. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.39.4.689.
  19. ↑ Bourland, Julia (1999). Parenting . 13 (4): 168–169.{{cite journal}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  20. ↑ Amsterdam, B. (1972). "Mirror self-image reactions before age two". Developmental Psychobiology. 5 (4): 297–305. doi:10.1002/dev.420050403. PMID   4679817.
  21. ↑ Kirkcaldy, B. D.; Shephard, R. J.; Siefen, R. G. (2002). "The relationship between physical activity and self-image and problem behaviour among adolescents". Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology. 37 (11): 544–550. doi:10.1007/s00127-002-0554-7. PMID   12395145. S2CID   23846821.
  22. ↑ Spencer, S. J.; Fein, S.; Wolfe, C. T.; Fong, C.; Duinn, M. A. (1998). "Automatic Activation of Stereotypes: The Role of Self-Image Threat". Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. 24 (11): 1139–1152. doi:10.1177/01461672982411001. hdl: 2027.42/68770 . S2CID   143480850.
  23. ↑ Ackard, D. M.; Kearney-Cooke, A.; Peterson, C. B. (2000). "Effect of body image and self-image on women's sexual behaviors". International Journal of Eating Disorders. 28 (4): 422–429. doi:10.1002/1098-108X(200012)28:4<422::AID-EAT10>3.0.CO;2-1. PMID   11054789.
  24. ↑ Johnston, Lucy; McLellan, Tracey; McKinlay, Audrey (2014). "(Perceived) Size Really Does Matter: Male Dissatisfaction With Penis Size". Psychology of Men & Masculinity. 15 (2): 225–228. doi:10.1037/a0033264.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.