Cultural differences in mental representations of the self

2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julie Spencer-Rodgers ◽  
Helen Boucher ◽  
Lei Wang ◽  
Kaiping Peng
2014 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 209-228
Author(s):  
Anita Kasabova

Abstract How the self perceives reality is a traditional topic of research across several disciplines. I examine the perceived self on Facebook, as a case-study of self-knowledge on „classical” social media. Following Blascovich & Bailenson (2011), I consider the distinction between the real and the virtual as relative. Perceptual self-knowledge, filtered through social media, requires rethinking the perceived self in terms of social reality (Neisser, 1993). This claim dovetails Jenkins’s (2013) notion of the self as an active participant in consumption. I argue that the perceived self in social media could be conceived in terms of how it would like to be perceived and appraised by its virtual audience. Using Neisser’s (1993) typology of self-knowledge and Castañeda’s (1983) theory of I-guises, I analyse seven samples from Anglo-American and Bulgarian Facebook sites and show that the perceived self produces itself online as a captivating presence with a credible story. My samples are taken from FB community pages with negligible cultural differences across an online teenage/twens (twixter) age group. I then discuss some problematic aspects of the perceived self online, as well as recent critiques of technoconsumerism.


2006 ◽  
Vol 20 (7) ◽  
pp. 525-547 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia Pöhlmann ◽  
Bettina Hannover

We suggest that social relationships shape the self in different ways, depending on whether persons define themselves as independent or interdependent. While the self of independents is most strongly associated with mental representations of others to whom they are related because of their own deliberate action (e.g. friends), the self of interdependents is most strongly connected with representations of others with whom they share allocated group memberships (e.g. family members). We took both explicit (Study 1) and implicit measures (Studies 2, 3 and 4) on how strongly independent and interdependent selves are associated with self‐chosen versus allocated close others. In Studies 3 and 4, we additionally primed the independent or interdependent self. Both explicit and implicit measures indicated that mental representations of family members were more strongly associated with the interdependent self than with the independent self, while romantic partners and friends were connected with both the independent and interdependent self. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.


2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 204380871984091
Author(s):  
Amy E. Pinkham ◽  
Jonathon R. Shasteen ◽  
Robert A. Ackerman

Individuals with schizophrenia (SCZ) form less accurate mental representations of the self and others, which contributes to social dysfunction. It remains unclear, however, whether such deficits extend to metaperception (MP), the ability to understand how others view one’s own personality. In Phase 1 of this study, 30 individuals with SCZ and 30 healthy controls (HCs) had a videotaped conversation with an experimenter and then completed a Big Five trait questionnaire, with the goal of predicting how strangers who view their videos would rate them on the five personality traits. In Phase 2, separate participants watched the videos and rated targets’ personalities. These ratings served as “The Truth” to which Phase 1 MPs were compared for Tracking Accuracy (i.e., extent to which The Truth predicts MPs) and Directional Bias (i.e., extent to which MPs overestimate or underestimate the truth). Tracking Accuracy was weaker in SCZ than in HC for Openness, Conscientiousness, and Agreeableness. Moreover, Tracking Accuracy and Directional Bias of MPs in SCZ were unrelated to mentalizing abilities and clinical insight. Our results suggest that the capacity to understand how others view one’s own personality is impaired in SCZ and may be a distinct component of the social cognitive system.


2008 ◽  
Vol 36 (6) ◽  
pp. 851-864 ◽  
Author(s):  
Junsheng Hu ◽  
Ye Yang ◽  
Dengfeng Wang ◽  
Yang Liu

The aim in this study was to examine whether contingency of domain self-esteem moderates the effect of domain self-esteem on global self-esteem. Chinese university students (N = 320) completed the Contingencies of Self-worth Scale and the Self-worth Questionnaire (both by Yang, Hu, Pang, & Wang, 2007) and the Chinese version (Robinson, Shaver, & Wrightsman, 1997) of the Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1965). Results indicated that in domains that the individual could control, such as ability or behavior style, domain self-esteem directly influenced global self-esteem; in domains that the individual could not control, such as appearance and nationality, contingency of domain self-esteem moderated the effect of domain self-esteem on global self-esteem. Cultural differences in contingencies of domain self-esteem are also discussed.


2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian A. Nosek

With the rise of social cognition, use of response latency as a dependent variable has become common in social psychological research. Response latency has been used by researchers to investigate processes that are not easily testable with other methodologies, such as self-report. Response latency’s usefulness as a methodological tool is notable due to its broad application in social psychology, from research on close relationships and attribution to investigations of the self and attitudes. This paper reviews the breadth of social psychological research that has used response latency to inform about mental representations, cognitive processes, and motivational tendencies.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document