Topical Blog 3/24 10pm - People's Choice

http://www.ericdigests.org/pre-9211/self.htm
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_g2699/is_0003/ai_2699000306/?tag=content;col1
http://music.arts.usf.edu/rpme/rpmereyn.htm

I chose to look up more information on the self-concept. The three links that I found are listed above. Our textbook stated that self-concepts are individual’s mental representations of themselves.
The ERIC article gave the following definition, “Self-concept may be defined as the totality of a complex, organized, and dynamic system of learned beliefs, attitudes and opinions that each person holds to be true about his or her personal existence.” This article gives a history of the self-concept theory and names Freud, Lecky, and Carl Rogers as big players in the term’s development. This article explains how self-concept applies to our lives, “Many of the successes and failures that people experience in many areas of life are closely related to the ways that they have learned to view themselves and their relationships with others.” The author William Purkey also discusses the three major qualities of self-concept that are of interest to counselors: (1) it is learned, (2) it is organized, and (3) it is dynamic.
The second article is from the Gale Encyclopedia of Psychology. This article discusses the link between self-concept and mental health. “The self-concept of a mentally healthy person is consistent with his or her thoughts, experiences, and behavior. However, people may maintain a self-concept that is at odds with their true feelings to win the approval of others and "fit in," either socially or professionally. This involves repressing their true feelings and impulses, which eventually causes them to become alienated from themselves, distorting their own experience of the world and limiting their potential for self-actualization, or fulfillment.” This article tells how social psychologists link self-concept to many other ideas such as social perception, attribution, social learning theory, and internal-external orientation.
The third site is a literature review by Jeanne Wrasman Reynolds. She points out the vast amount of literature relating to self-concept and highlights the problem of using multiple social psychology terms incorrectly and interchangeably. She agrees with our text that while self-esteem is related to self-concept, it is not the same thing. Reynolds sites music education as a mode of raising the positive aspects of self-concept in young people.

For my topic I chose cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance occurs when beliefs/attitudes about who the self is and what the self does are inconsistent (e.g., being a person with moral but actually lying). The process of cognitive dissonance goes as follows: 1. dissonance-producing situational event; 2. inconsistency is produced between cognitions; 3. dissonance motivation arises; 4. dissonance-reduction strategy is put into action; and 5. dissonance is reduced or eliminated.
http://www.psych.rochester.edu/research/apav/publications/documents/1994_ElliotDevine_OntheMotivationalNatureofCognitiveDissonance.pdf
This article is titled “On the Motivational Nature of Cognitive Dissonance: Dissonance as Psychological Discomfort.” This article discusses past research done on cognitive dissonance and argues that most research done on the motivational characteristics of cognitive dissonance focuses on the arousal component of it rather than the psychological component of it. Leon Festinger was the first person to introduce the concept of cognitive dissonance and his research focuses for towards the psychological component of cognitive dissonance. The authors conduct two studies which focus more on the psychological component of cognitive dissonance rather than the arousal component. In the first experiment, participants were assigned to one of four conditions: pre-essay affect/attitude; post-essay attitude/affect; baseline group; proattitudinal controls. Each condition received the materials (affect measure, attitude measure, essay forms) in different orders. The results from experiment 1 support the notion of cognitive dissonance as a motivational state and that it is experienced as a psychological discomfort. Experiment 2 was basically the same as the first one except for one difference: a new measure of post-essay affect/attitude was introduced—affect was assessed after participants composed the ‘counterattitudinal’ essay. The second experiment also supported the notion that cognitive dissonance is experienced as psychological discomfort.
http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/psp/9/3/260.pdf
This article is titled “Smoking and the Reduction of Cognitive Dissonance”. Past research suggests that if smokers are in a state of cognitive dissonance (smoking can kill you vs I am a smoker and am okay with it) it’s expected that smoker would try to reduce their feelings of cognitive dissonance. This article presents a study which examined the significance of differing beliefs of smokers and nonsmokers/ex smokers. The authors predicted that nonsmokers and ex-smokers would be less likely than smokers to support rationalizations of smoking which could potentially reduce feelings of cognitive dissonance created by the smoking behavior. The authors also hypothesized that smokers who said they were going to quit would support fewer ‘dissonance-reducing statements’. Smokers planning on quitting are almost non-smokers; therefore, by reducing cognitive dissonance they would reject ideas of smokers. The third hypothesis of the authors’ was that changes in smoking behavior were related to the degree of agreeing with the ‘dissonance-reducing statements’. Findings suggest that smokers are more likely to support ideas which could potentially lower feelings of cognitive dissonance produced from smoking. Also, smokers who said they were planning on quitting and ex-smokers supported no more rationalizations of smoking than did participants who were nonsmokers. Overall, feelings of cognitive dissonance can be reduced when the smoker beliefs he/she will quit smoking soon or by supporting ideas that attempt to reduce the full impact evidence that smoking is a health hazard.
http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/apl/69/3/416.pdf
This article is titled “Cognitive Dissonance and Energy Conservation”. The purpose of this study was to examine whether consumer described as using high amounts of electricity that were put in a cognitive dissonance-type situation would conserve electricity over a short time period (4 weeks). The author’s hypothesized that the participants in the dissonance group who received feedback and tips would conserve more electricity than no dissonance arousal/feedback/tip group, tips-only group, or a control group. Participants in the dissonance-arousing situation were told of the incongruity between their attitude toward conservation and their actual level of electricity consumption and were given tips on how to conserve energy. The second group were simply given feedback and tips on electricity conservation. The third group received only tips on electricity conservation. The fourth group was the control group which received no dissonance-arousal situation, feedback, or tips. The results showed that group 1 (dissonance arousal/feedback/tips) conserved more electricity than the other groups for the first two week time period. In the final two week period, group 1 conserved more energy than the control group and not the other two groups.

The topic from Chapter 10 that I desired to know more about is 'Identity', which is the idea of "the means by which the self relates to society, as it captures the essence of who one is within a cultural context" (textbook, p. 279). The textbook goes on to explain that once a person inhabits a role, such as a student, parent, job profession, etc., that the identity directs the person to pursue some identity confirming behaviors and to avoid other behaviors such as identity-disconfirming behaviors. Within that idea is the term 'Role', which is the concept of cultural expectations for behavior from persons who hold a particular social position. The book further explains that each of us hold a number of different social positions or roles and which role we inhabit at any given time depends on the situation we are in and the people with whom we are interacting. Also related to Identity is the concept of 'Identity-Restoring Behaviors', which explains that if a person behaves in an identity inconsistent way they can restore the original identity either through restorative behaviors or restorative emotional displays, which both provide identity-relevant information of who that person is. This was the part of the chapter that I found to be the most interesting because I feel like it is very true and I feel like I can relate well to it because it made me realize parts of my life which demonstrate the concepts that I discussed during the paragraph.

http://egitim.baskent.edu.tr/duyuruek/ip_chalid/marcia_idendity.pdf

http://www.jstor.org/pss/1519843

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1348/014466699164149/abstract
The first article studied identity establishment in both adolescence and adults, and the transition/development of an identity from adolescence to adulthood. Its results were that identity has a place within a known theoretical structure and that it relates to constructs in other theoretical systems. Its results also indicated that individuals that ‘have’ it, do better and feel better about themselves and others when they ‘have’ it.
The second article discusses the two dominant theories of self, Identity Theory and Social Identity Theory, and applies them to personal identity both conceptually and empirically. The researcher first argued that values are a cohesive force within personal identity, and furthers that by adding that conceptualizing values are the core of one’s personal identity in terms of them leading a person toward understanding the cohesion experienced among one’s various social identities. Second the researcher used self-enhancement vs. self-transcendence to illustrate how a values-based conception of personal identity influences the formation of a role identity, which was empirical comparison. The researcher found that theoretically relevant values along the self-enhancement/self-transcendence dimension are significant predictors of the volunteer identity.
The third article’s intent was to further examine the role that self-identity plays in the Theory of Planned Behavior and, more specifically, to: (1) examine the combined effects of self-identity and social identity constructs on intention and behavior, and (2) examine the effects of self-identity as a function of past experience of performing the behavior. The study was concerned with the prediction of intention to engage in household recycling and reported recycling behavior. A sample of 143 community residents participated in the study. The study was designed prospectively, in that measures of the predictors and intention were obtained during the first wave of data collection, then behavior was assessed two weeks later. The study found that self-identity significantly predicted behavioral intention, which was a relationship that was not dependent on the extent to which the behavior had been performed in the past. The study’s results also indicated that there was also evidence that the perceived norm of a behaviorally relevant reference group was related to behavioral intention, but only for participants who identified strongly with the group, whereas the relationship between perceived behavioral control (a personal factor) and intention was strongest for low identifiers.

I chose to look up more information about cognitive dissonance theory. Cognitive dissonance theory states that people don’t like inconsistency or dissonance, and they try to avoid these through having consistency in their beliefs, attitudes, values, and behaviors.
The first website I found, http://tip.psychology.org/festinge.html, listed three ways to reduce the dissonance. They are reducing the importance of the dissonant beliefs, add more consonant beliefs that outweigh the dissonant beliefs, or change the dissonant beliefs so that they are no longer inconsistent. It also stated that the greatest dissonance occurs when two options are equally attractive. It provided an example of a person who buys an expensive car and then finds out that it is not comfortable for a long drive. The person can decide that it doesn’t matter since it is comfortable for short drives, or they could get rid of the car. This website also listed two principles for this theory: dissonance results when an individual must choose between attitudes and behaviors that are contradictory and dissonance can be eliminated by reducing the importance of the conflicting beliefs, acquiring new beliefs that change the balance, or removing the conflicting attitude or behavior.
My second website, http://www.ithaca.edu/faculty/stephens/cdback.html, breaks down the theory even more. It was developed by Leon Festinger in 1957 and is focused on cognitions. Cognitions are thought of as a piece of knowledge and can be about an attitude, emotion, behavior, value or other such things. Two cognitions are dissonant if they are opposite. There are four things that affect the magnitude of the dissonance arousal: dissonance increases as the degree of discrepancy among cognitions increases, dissonance increases as the number of discrepant cognitions increases, dissonance is inversely proportional to the number of consonant cognitions held by an individual, and the relative weights given to the consonant and dissonant cognitions may be adjusted by their importance in the mind of the individual.
My last website, http://changingminds.org/explanations/theories/cognitive_dissonance.htm, gave the simplest definition of the cognitive dissonance theory, stating that it’s the feeling of uncomfortable tension that arises from have two conflicting ideas in your mind at the same time. Dissonance increases when the subject is important to us, the thoughts are high in conflict, and we are unable to rationalize to come to solution. Dissonance is strongest when it goes against something we believe about ourselves. For example, if a person believes they are a good friend, and then they do something to be a bad friend it causes more dissonance. Dissonance is a very powerful motivator for change, and it is most powerful when it is about our self-image. If an action is already done, the dissonance prompts us to change our beliefs for future situations.
References:
1. http://tip.psychology.org/festinge.html
2. http://www.ithaca.edu/faculty/stephens/cdback.html
3. http://changingminds.org/explanations/theories/cognitive_dissonance.htm

I chose to do further research on self-schemas. According to our textbook, self-schemeas are defined as cognitive generalizations about the self that are domain specific and are learned from past experiences. One must differentiate the difference between a self-schema and a self concept. A self-schema is similiar to the self-concept in that it is a generalization of past experiences that define one's self. A self concept however, is a collection of self-schemas. One's self concept is defined by the most important self-schemas like academic success, musical or atheletic ability. A person's self-schema of athleticism might include recalling past events such as getting picked last for gym class, or being a part of a team with a losing season. Such events are generalized into one self-schema that labels the person as 'unatheletic'. Say a person is in a popular band, and is constantly writing new songs that receive positive feedback. This person might generalize past musical success and define themselves as a musician. This cognitive process is automatic. When one is asked to define themselves, the environmental cues that they have received in the past are stored in their memory as a generalized self-schema.
Self-schemas can be very helpful in certain situations. They direct our behavior in culturally relevant ways. For example, it is likely that your behavior is different when you're around your parents as opposed to being around your friends. When one is around their friends, they might be more likely to curse, drink or tell offensive jokes. While around their parents however, they talk about school and other family appropriate topics. There is a developed self-schema for each situation that is activated which in turn drives relevant behavior. Self-schemas can also be detrimental. Stereotypes are a result of schemas. This cognitive process is automatic and can drive behavior in negative ways. One's self-schemas can also be negative. This can have negative effects on how one views themselves. They may become overwhelemed with negative thoughts about themselves and believe they're true, when in reality they are just thoughts.
We are not always mentally prepared for every situation. We may enter a completely new environment in which we have no previous generalizations for. For example, if someone grew up never going to church and one day are asked to attend a service with a friend, they may not know how to behave appropriately. While the person may have a pre-conceived idea as to what a church service entails, they may not know how to behave in this situation. Aschematic is defined as the lack of schema for a particular dimension. A non-religious person at their first church service may emit other relevant behaviors such as listening to a speaker but may feel uncomfortable greeting strangers at the end of the service.
As mentioned earlier, self-schemas can be both good and bad. Someone with an eating disorder for example, may generalize past events of feeling overweight and direct their behavior to compensate for those cognitions. Redirecting self-schemas are often used in clinical settings. This is also known as cognitive therapy. According to Dozois, D. et al., those who received only cognitive therapy, rather than pharmaceutical treatment, showed more positive results with their treatment of major depression. Perhaps a greater understanding of our cognitions will can lead to improved methodology of treating those with mental disorders. I know too many people with mental disorders such as depression that have doctors who simply prescribe medication as an alternative to cognitive therapy. Research suggests, however, this is not the best method of treatment.

http://info.med.yale.edu/psych/3s/self_schema.html
http://webspace.ship.edu/ambart/PSY_220/selfschemaol.htm
http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/ccp/77/6/1078.pdf

After reading chapter 10 I wanted to learn more about self regulation. I found this topic to be intriguing because at an age most of us our at right now, I think we are so quick to continue on with our actions without fully evaluating our behaviors. I think it is important that people realize for the most part who they are and how their actions effect every aspect of life. Of course, life takes us on different paths, but if we have certain personality characteristics, beliefs, and morals that lay our foundation, then we will know how to better react to different settings and situations and be able to identify if we are falling behind.

Self regulation is the, "meta-cognitive monitoring and evaluating of one's ongoing effort to attain the goals one seeks". When doing some research I realized that self regulation is an important part of child development. This is because a child's personality and behavior is just starting to form so it is important that they learn how to judge when they are acting out of character. This website was written as a quide for preschool and kindergarten teachers who are trying to instill this in their students. http://teacher.scholastic.com/professional/bruceperry/self_regulation.htm

Aside from children, self regulation is also important for all people. http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/pdf/compass/spco_001.pdf This is a very extensive article that speaks about all the different aspects of self regulation including circumstances in which self regulation would arise. One of which includes ego depletion which occurs when an individual does not have all the resources in which one would need to succeed. It is easy to act accordingly when everything is there to promote positive behavior but when someone is lacking in resources this can prove to become much more difficult.

While doing further research, I found an extremely interesting article that speaks about how a person with a sense of spirituality are better with self regulation. http://www.psy.miami.edu/faculty/mmccullough/Papers/Relig_self_control_bulletin.pdf I found this to be rather intriguing because it seems to be pretty plausible. If we feel as though there is some type of external locus of control (such as faith) then we are more likely to act accordingly. Spirituality is important for many people because it means believing in something greater than ourselves. This would most certainly help with self regulation for we are not only trying to better our lives for ourselves, but trying to better our lives for something greater.

The thing that peaked my curiosity the most while reading chapter 10 was not the idea that low self-esteem leaves a person vulnerable to the suffrages of anxiety and depression, but more so that people with inflated self-esteem are significantly more prone to aggression. I decided to research this topic further and found some interesting results. The first article I looked at was: http://www.sju.edu/academics/centers/ivrp/pdf/Baumeister.pdf. In this article it is stated that murderers, rapists, wife beaters, violent youth gangs, aggressive nations, and other categories of violent people are all marked by strongly held views of their won superiority. When large groups of people differ in self-esteem, the group with the higher self-esteem is generally the more violent one. A couple other good examples were mentioned in this article. People with manic depression, tend to be more aggressive and violent during their manic stage (marked by highly favorable views of self) than during the depressed phase (when self-esteem is low). Alcohol intoxication has been shown to boost self-esteem temporarily, and it also boosts aggressive tendencies. An interesting finding about self-esteem and stability was also discussed. People whose self-esteem is high as well as stable are the least prone to hostility of any group. In contrast, people with high but unstable self-esteem scored highest on hostility. The authors of this article conducted studies that looked at the relationship between self-esteem, narcissism and aggression. They found that narcissists are heavily invested in their high opinion of themselves, and they want others to share and confirm this opinion. When other people question or undermine the flattering self-portrait of the narcissist, the narcissist turns aggressive in response, but only toward those specific people. To determine whether or not these findings had real world generalizability (external validity) the researchers conducted a study in a prison setting. Contradictory to the expectation of prisoners having low self-esteem, the researchers found that prisoners’ scores pointed toward high narcissism as the major cause of aggression. The conclusion that these researchers came to is that a highly favorable self-view constitutes a risk factor for turning violent in response to perceptions that one’s favorable view of self has been disputed or undermined by others. Another article looked at the relations between self-esteem, social problem-solving ability, and aggression within a sample of college students: http://www.unc.edu/~sanna/ljs03bjscp.pdf. In contradiction to the first article I read this study found that low self-esteem was found to be related to anger and hostility, and several specific problem-solving dimensions were found to be related to anger, hostility, and physical aggression. They also found support for the concept of self-esteem and anger being fully mediated by negative problem orientation. This would mean that the effect of self-esteem on anger is fully depended on a person’s negative problem orientation. A third article really looked at a multitude of topics with in the self-esteem/aggression debate: http://persweb.wabash.edu/facstaff/hortonr/articles%20for%20class/donnellan%20low%20se%20and%20aggression.pdf. This research looked at externalizing problems (aggression, antisocial behavior, and delinquency) and self-esteem between such groups as adolescents and college students, and different nationalities. They actually found that effects of self-esteem on aggression were independent of narcissism. These three articles show that there is still a lot of debate to the role that self-esteem plays on a person’s level of aggression.

This is not exactly the assignment but I had to find something I was interested in to write about. Self-regulation or lack of has a great deal to do with ADHD/ADD. I am very interested in the disorder so this seemed like the right direction for me.
Self-regulation can be described on a continuum from high to low self-regulation. People with moderate self-regulation still need some outside incentive. People with low self-regulation show less self-control and their lives may feel chaotic and disorganized. People on this low end of the continuum are often diagnosed as having ADHD. With children, this is just seen as a delay in development. These children improve self-regulation with age but are always behind peers. With this being said, the symptoms can often worsen in adulthood. The person may be seen as irresponsible or lazy although the lack of self-regulation is not voluntary. The hyperactivity is not often seen in adults with this disorder so it can be called adult ADD. ADD is not a lack of willpower. It’s a chemical problem in the brain. Brains of children with ADHD and those without were compared using MRI and differences are found. The cause of the disorder is not completely known.

There are many problems associated with low self-regulation such as poor attention, physical restlessness, impulsivity, excessive procrastination, trouble getting started, focusing on, and finishing a task, losing things, forgetfulness, and poor organization, time management, and planning. These things can interfere with everyday life in every area. Commonly effected areas of life are school, work, and relationships. ADHA/ADD is also linked with depression and high anxiety. This is a result of the feelings created by the problems from low self-regulation. A person may feel incompetent and overwhelmed and may avoid certain situation believed to provoke these feelings.

In people with ADHD/ADD, they may lack forethought and self-monitoring. They perform and self-evaluate but lack goal-setting and implementation intentions and the self-monitoring part of self-reflection. The book says we can develop more competent self-regulation by social learning. When unable to carry out a goal and self-regulate, one should observe an expert, imitate, and regulate by carrying out the goal-setting and performance-monitoring process. For people with ADHD/ADD the last step would be the hardest. It much easier said than done with the disorder. I think what would really help improve self-regulation in people with the disorder is help through all of that instead of being left to do it alone. I understand that the observation and imitation is supposed to prepare one for the next step but it may be necessary to provide guidance to these individuals. There needs to be an external incentive or force because even with internal incentive, it is hard to focus and get the task done. Follow-through with goals is difficult to get achieve for people with the disorder. An outside push and positive vocal motivation would help improve regulation which could lead to a greater self-regulation when one has to begin doing this for themselves. A physical schedule posted somewhere it can be seen often is a good way of increasing self-regulation in people with ADHD/ADD along with other such strategies.

http://www.centerforadd-az.com/diagnose.htm
http://mental-health.emedtv.com/adult-add/adult-add.html
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1249/is_1_72/ai_53889667/pg_2/?tag=content;col1

1. http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/68014/2/10.1177_0272431695015004001.pdf
2. http://faculty.washington.edu/mdj3/MGMT580/Readings/Week%205/Markus.pdf
3. http://researchtools.uni.edu:3210/uni?sid=google&auinit=D&aulast=Kendzierski&atitle=The+role+of+self-schema+in+linking+intentions+with+behavior&id=doi:10.1177/0146167297232003&title=Personality+%26+social+psychology+bulletin&volume=23&issue=2&date=1997&spage=139&issn=0146-1672
google search link: http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=The+role+of+self-schema+in+linking+intentions+with+behavior&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart
A topic from chapter 10 that I found interesting was the self-schema’s impact on future thoughts and actions. I found several different articles, many pertaining to cultural and educational issues. The first article I found (listed above) discussed middle-schools students’ use of self-handicapping (limiting) behaviors in the classroom. It found that students who did not achieve as much as other students in their class used these debilitating behaviors more. In addition, people who thought less of themselves were highly encouraged by responses from teachers and other important figures in their lives. Thus, unlike other students who may maintain a high sense of ability within, these students require praise from others disproportionately more so than their peers. Since this study worked with middle-school age students, it was mentioned that adolescents require higher extrinsic motivation to increase their self-schema. However, if they do not receive this kind of encouragement, it is likely they will continually decrease their ability in school
The second article I found discusses different views of the self based on culture; interdependent and independent. The thought here is that people who attribute to a collectivist or interdependent culture not only include themselves (their own thoughts, actions, etc.) but others whom they interact with, as part of their self-schema. In turn, they may be encouraged to participate in behaviors that benefit not only themselves, but others. In an independent culture, a person usually will view themselves as self-sufficient and self-directed with little thought to others (aside from comparison and influence). Overall, depending on a culture people’s actions will be directed in very different ways based on their self-schema including others or only themselves.
The final article discusses self-schemas in relation to dieting behaviors in undergraduate college students. The article attempted to understand more about how thoughts about the self are connected to actually following through with the behavior (in this case dieting). They had several thoughts about people who had no goals to diet (aschematics) and those who thought they were dieters/could diet (schematics). The authors discussed that aschematics may actually become disheartened and give up on diets, whereas schematics continually try harder to stick to their goals. However, an overall conclusion is that self-schema is complex and that simply because someone has a certain self-schema; it doesn’t necessarily mean they will be more successful than those who do not have that schema.

The textbook defines self-concept as the individuals’ mental representations of themselves. I decided I want to learn more about this concept because I think that how people perceive themselves is very interesting and can be inaccurate.

http://www.enotes.com/gale-psychology-encyclopedia/self-concept is the first site that I chose because it gave a little different definition of self-concept then the textbook. The site defines self-concept as the way in which one perceives oneself. The site then goes on to discuss how self-concept can be divided into personal self-concept, social self-concept, and self-ideals. Personal self-concept is defined as facts or one’s opinions about oneself. An example of this would be I have blonde hair. Social self-concept is defined as one’s perception about how one is regarded by others. An example of social self-concept is people think that that I am a trustworthy and honest person. Self-ideals is defined as what or how one would like to be. An example of a self-idea would be I wish that I were in better shape. When you split self-concept into these smaller sub-categories it makes it a lot easier to understand what would fall into the category.

http://psychcentral.com/encyclopedia/2009/self-concept/ is the second site I chose because the site is specifically designed around psychological concepts. The site defines self-concept as the manner in which one perceives oneself. This site doesn’t break down self-concept into sub-categories but goes on to describe that certain personality traits, how you look, your personal values, your life goals, and your place or role in life falls into self-concept. The site also goes on to say that self-concept is the way that babies begin to understand the world in relation to themselves. The site describes how in childhood the self-concept tends to be tied to concrete or physical things like looks, items and skill levels. Another interesting point the site makes is that the self-concept is an ever-changing concept depending on the person because our feelings, personal belief systems and attitudes can change when new information is shown to us. I like the way this site correlated the self-concept to the early stages of an individuals life.

http://www.selfesteemawareness.com/self-concept.htm is the third site I chose because the site seemed to have contradicting information compared to the textbook. Also, the site attempts to list ways to develop and improve your self-concept. The site defines self-concept as how you know and understand yourself and the conceptual and mental understanding that you hold for your existence. The site lists two things that are important parts of psychology, your self-image and self esteem. Self-image is defined as how you see yourself and you believe others do. I think that the way they define self-image is very closely related to the way that the other sites and the book define self-concept. The site defines self-esteem as how you feel about yourself and continues to say if you are insecure about these feelings you can have poor levels of confidence. This seems to be closely related to what the textbooks discusses concerning self-esteem. After reading through ways to develop and improve your self concept listed by the site it is clear that whoever made this site is not a collegiate level psychology professor. The information provided in theory sounds great but most likely doesn’t have any practical use.

For my topic I choose self-schemas and self-concept certainty. Self-concept certainty is described as the level of confidence an individual has about their self-schema. I thought this was particualarly interesting because only those with low self-concept certainty will undergo self-concept change and only with a strong disconfirming feedback. I actually found it even more interesting for those individuals with high self-concept certainty will simply overlook the strong disconfirming feedback.
The first article I found Constructing the Self: The role of self-structure and self-certainty in social anxiety, was a study that found social anxiety to be linked with low self-concept certainty. In the findings of this research study they found that social anxiety is characterized by low self-concept. It went on the further discuss that the more consistent belief of a low self-concept slowly brings down that individual’s confidence and overall ability to achieve goals. The researcher discussed that individual’s with high self-concept certainty most likely have experience a great sense of control and therefore have a positive influence with their futures. This goes right along with the concepts from chapter nine.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science
The second article I found had more of a focus on children. The article Self-schemas, anxiety, somatic and depressive symptoms in socially withdrawn children and adolescents, explains that there is limited data on withdrawn children because they are less problematic than those who are aggressive and disruptive. With that in mind they have found that withdrawn or shy children is not usually associated with interpersonal issues. They also discuss for young children withdrawn behavior is not immediately damaging nor is it unusual. However they long term effects could possibly have serious effects such as psychological disorders. This is most likely because these children come to feel incompetent in social atmospheres, which in turn lowers their self-concept certainty.
http://www.findarticles.com
The third article was title Chasing Change: Why We Sometimes Run in Circles. Basically what this article talks about is individual’s needing consistency enabling them to predict the world around them. Also individuals need a consistent idea of their self-schema. This is why individuals are not willing to accept disconfirming feedback. This is why individuals seek out information to prove what they already “know.”
http://www.psychologytoday.com

Based on your reading from Tuesday (Chapter 10), choose one specific topic from the chapter you read that you would like to know more about. Do some intensive googling to find high quality information about your topic. Provide a detailed summary of your topic, and include 3 high quality links to more information.

When reading chapter ten I learned more about cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance produces an anxiety when there is a discrepancy between two cognitions such as attitudes and beliefs, actions and opinions, etc. In class we discussed cognitive dissonance and humans being rationalizing beings who justify their bad habits as to not feel the discrepancy. I was interested in this effect and found an article involving cognitive dissonance and smoking: [ http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VC9-4608RSR-3X&_user=10&_coverDate=12%2F31%2F1991&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=gateway&_origin=gateway&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1692551930&_rerunOrigin=scholar.google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=ab237bec193994561e63178d3fd44fe5&searchtype=a ] Smokers say it’s their right and that they want and like to smoke. But what about those smokers who are trying to quit? I was wondering if the affects of cognitive dissonance could facilitate their goal of quitting or if they would rationalize it to such an extreme that their rationalizations would override the cognitive dissonance. The study found that smokers, ex-smokers, and non-smokers were all aware of the bad effects of smoking. The smokers even rated their chances of getting lung cancer as higher than the other two groups; however, when it came to their cognitive dissonance for smoking when they know they might get lung cancer, the smokers rationalizations were more powerful than the cognitive dissonance.
Another article I found was related to cognitive dissonance and society’s ever changing norms. I was curious as to whether society as a whole will justify or change the behavior, or the belief/attitude when cognitive dissonance occurs. The following article: [http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6V8F-45F911V-2T&_user=10&_coverDate=03%2F31%2F1994&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=gateway&_origin=gateway&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1692658612&_rerunOrigin=scholar.google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=79d6c805519d0d46379e1131b481085b&searchtype=a ] states that when people begin acting in immoral ways, they will alter the belief about that particular behavior into being now more morally accepted.
The third article I tracked down because I was interested in the extent to which the presence of cognitive dissonance is apparent. I was interested in whether or not the two cognitions disagree only slightly or extremely makes a difference as compared to the simple presence of cognitive dissonance alone no matter the level of severity. The following article: [http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WJB-4D7003T-1G&_user=10&_coverDate=05%2F31%2F1965&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=gateway&_origin=gateway&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1692749925&_rerunOrigin=scholar.google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=c8e32ff8e42a9b761495e4f37ab50d6b&searchtype=a ] found that when children were told not to play with a highly sought-after toy under little threat they were less likely to engage in playing with the toy weeks later (threat removed) than if the original threat had been severe. This proves that cognitive dissonance had played a major role in their behavior because those who wanted to play with it but didn’t during the sever threat were ecstatic to play with it later after having the threat (or competing cognition) removed. To them, as children they are thinking, this is a toy, I am a child, I should and would enjoy playing with this; however, there is this alternative cognition (the threat) telling me not to. Later when it is removed they are at peace and happy to play with the toy.

the theme I have chosen is the role. Usually when we're with friends playing a role, the role expected of nosootros. You can be "funny", the "smart " or "flirt", but usually within a group identity group behave as expected of us. For example, Professor Josep M. Blanch Ribas of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (Spain), concluded in a study that the perception of gender roles of women, that is, the vision of women that is men's work and that they see themselves as carers family rather than as independent workers and at the same level of men causes unemployment among women is higher.
http://www.tdx.cesca.es/TDX-1122104-170902/

In relation to this, Rocío García-López and Esther Imedio Retamero Zafra investigated how consistency between gender role and leadership was crucial to the allocation of a job. For example, if the work needed high doses of the male candidate's leadership was always better valued than the female candidate.
http://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=2041350

Finally, Mercedes López-Sáez, José Francisco Morales Domínguez, Ana Lisbona, demonstrated in a longitudinal study of stereotype content
feature in Spain between 1993 y2001, confirming the classical type in which more features are assigned to expressive-communal women than men and, conversely, more instrumental traits men-servants.
http://revistas.ucm.es/psi/11387416/articulos/SJOP0808220609A.PDF

These studies support my opinion of the roles as cultural, created by companies and used to justify behavior, assign defined roles, or just help when making decisions.

The topic I chose to investigate further was agency. In my previous blog posting about Chapter 10 I wrote about agency as:
“…the self’s source of motivation. Agency causes action which transpires suddenly from intrinsic motivation and energizes the self to implement and cultivate what the self is capable of. Agency is an important part of progression of the self. When a person realizes they are accomplishing their goals, they become more encouraged to put in more effort that leads to them being more likely to have experiences that satisfy their needs”
I found an article on the website for the Association for Psychological Science called “Toward a Psychology of Human Agency”. The article discussed Albert Bandura’s belief that agency is “a two-way street: people act as agents who intentionally regulate their behavior and life circumstances”. Bandura also believes that people create their environments. He believes that humans have the potential to do just about anything we make up our minds to do. The article mentions that Bandura discussed that humans are not giving other species an opportunity to continue with evolution because we are destroying the environment. Bandura says that with the continual advances in our society, people are increasingly having more control over how we live our lives.
Another article I found was titled, “Your Sense of Agency: Are You In Control of Your Life?” I found this article on the website for Psychology Today. This article is about agency in relationships. The author, Dr. Lamia, says that each person’s ability to take action, be effective, influence their own life, and take responsibility for their own behavior is a key sense of agency to feel in control of their life. She believes that the faith a person has in themselves allows them to feel comfortable as an independent person. Dr. Lamia says that those with a strong sense of agency are more likely to be successful in relationships as opposed to those who are dependent on a high level of need and wanting from a partner.
Dr. Lamia wrote another article about agency in relationships called, “Your Sense of Agency: Influencing Your Own Life and Taking Responsibility”. In this article, she discusses the importance of having attainable intrinsic goals that satisfy needs such as personal growth and affiliation. She says that having a sense of agency goes along with taking responsibility for one’s own actions. Dr. Lamia suggests coming up with a list of positive goals that would culminate to being a happier person. She urges readers to take note of the characteristics they admire in others and consider how they can strive to attain those qualities themselves

Links:

http://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/getArticle.cfm?id=1639

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-white-knight-syndrome/201009/your-sense-agency-are-you-in-control-your-life

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-white-knight-syndrome/201010/your-sense-agency-influencing-your-own-life-and-taking-respons

I chose personal strivings as the topic I wished to know more about. Our text defines personal strivings as “what a person is typically or characteristically trying to do.” Strivings represent both what a person wants to do on a daily basis as well as on a future basis. Personal strivings should not be confused with goals but rather as an overall “organizer” of the goals we seek and consider all aspects of the self such as personality, profession, health, relationships, etc. It is also important to note that personal strivings can be both positive and negative.

After reading our text, I wondered what influences personal strivings? Every person is probably motivated by different things that influence what they strive for in their personal lives. After my internet search, I found three great pieces of literature that discussed some of these reasons and influences.

The first article I read was entitled “Traits, personal strivings and well-being” from the Journal of Research in Personality. The researchers in this study were concerned with how personality traits influence personal strivings. They gave participants standard personality tests with the most commonly used personality traits (Openness, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion and Neuroticism). Then they compared the results with another standardized test used to measure personal strivings called the Personal Strivings Assessment Packet. The results indicated that individuals scoring high in Neuroticism tended to state that they were less successful in personal strivings and predicted poor success in the future due to stressful strivings and environments that hindered their progress. They also needed greater effort investment. Basically, they felt the reason why they had not been successful in their strivings thus far was due to environmental factors rather than their own behaviors. Participants scoring high in Extraversion were more committed to their strivings and perceived them to be important and they felt more success in their struggles. They exhibited positive attitudes about past and future strivings. Those people scoring high in Agreeableness had similar results to those scoring in Extraversion including feeling strong support in achieve their strivings from others. Conscientious individuals also felt strongly committed and (in direct opposition with those scoring high in Neuroticism) felt that their strivings were their own personal responsibilities to fulfill. Openness did not seem to have any effect on personal strivings.

http://www.sciencedirect.com.proxy.lib.uni.edu/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6WM0-4VY2C4C2&_user=724663&_coverDate=08%2F31%2F2009&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=gateway&_origin=gateway&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_acct=C000040479&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=724663&md5=89aa4f8e8874ac6b2ba47aafbc8e0c37&searchtype=a

Another article discussed how past memories and experiences influence personal strivings. This can be found in the Journal of Personality and it was entitled “Going Forward by Drawing From the Past: Personal Strivings, Personally Meaningful Memories, and Personality Traits.” This study was concerned with not only how personal strivings are related to personality traits but also whether past memories affected the content of those strivings. The researchers found that in this case, yes, personal strivings are related to the emotional and motivational content of our self-defining memories. They found that they were related to self-esteem and narcissism. They also fond that personal strivings and memory reciprocally influence each other over time and that people draw on past experiences when setting goals for the future. In other words, our past most definitely influences our future when it comes to personal strivings.

http://web.ebscohost.com.proxy.lib.uni.edu/ehost/detail?vid=4&hid=125&sid=407a2cf4-399b-4121-a02d-59d510e9336e%40sessionmgr114&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=afh&AN=31803854

The third article was also from the Journal of Personality and entitled “Personal Strivings, Daily Life Events and Psychological and Physical Well-Being.” This article discussed the relationship between personal strivings and daily life events and their influence on our psychological and physical needs. Researchers had participants list 15 personal strivings and then categorized them as meeting the psychological need for Power, Affiliation, Intimacy or Achievement. The results of this study showed that individuals who had strivings that related to Power and Affiliation along with everyday interpersonal life events were much more likely to exhibit overall well-being than individuals with the majority of their strivings ranking in the Achievement or Intimacy categories. Researchers explained this result by citing studies that have shown that individuals with more Achievement or Intimacy oriented strivings seem to be more influenced by negative daily life events.

http://web.ebscohost.com.proxy.lib.uni.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=5a8c034a-11ff-47bd-b84a-7c480b4361f2%40sessionmgr111&vid=12&hid=125

Cognitive Dissonance is an uncomfortable feeling caused by holding conflicting ideas simultaneously. This topic is one of my extensively studied ideas in social psychology. An example of this is buyer's remorse. Our experience doesn't match our expectations. Most people will argue that what they think is correct, when sometimes it is not. It is almost like describing a one track mind, where we see no other options as possibly being correct. I think in our society and with our generation we do this A LOT. We often think what we can not attain, was not worth it. If we didn't get a good grade on our test, it was the questions... they were worded poorly. It wasn't testing the correct information. God forbid we just didn't know the answer.
Leon Festinger had one of the earliest and most famous studies in his book When Prophecy Fails. He had a group of people who were told a certain date was the end of the world, yet when the date cam and passed their thought did not disappear, rather they grew. That is somewhat astonishing to me. It makes me think of this who 2012 nonsense going around, or even the Y2K talk.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance
http://www.skepdic.com/cognitivedissonance.html
http://www.ithaca.edu/faculty/stephens/cdback.html
This theory is essentially arguing that unpleasant situations motivate us to change our behavior or attitude. When I personally think of the options, I found myself thinking about how many times I have just tried to forget about something if it didn't match what I thought. If one of my friends tried to prove me wrong, I often just stop listening. In a way, I am protecting myself. I am not the kind of person to appreciate being corrected, whether I am wrong or not. There are other options to reduce this dissonance besides ignoring it. One could attain more knowledge or a person could change their opinion on the subject at hand. I can quickly think of some friends who are known for the latter. No matter how many times they have argue for one side, the second they hear information they are incorrect they hope over to the other side of the line and claim to have always stood there.
This idea or issue is always going to be around. Some people have the personalities to stand strong, no matter how wrong. Like a lot of things in psychology it isn't about changing one's attitude, it is how we deal with it.

The topic I choose to study further was the problem of self-esteem because I found those paragraphs interesting. The book makes the point that increasing self-esteem or boosting self-esteem can be unimportant because research has found that self-esteem doesnt cause anything. The book stated that self-esteem does not cause self-functioning. But research has found that self-esteem and achievement are positively correlated. Achievement produces self-esteem but self-esteem does not produce achievement. The book says that "gains in self-esteem do not cause anything good, and threats to an inflated self-view is a prelude to retaliatory violence". The authors consider self-esteem as "an end product of the self's adaptive and productive funtioning. It is a byproduct of successfully measuring up to personal aspirations and to culturally mandated norms".
The first website I found was about improving self esteem. They defined self-esteem not as high or low but rather healthy or poor. By trying to improve self-esteem the website gives skills for dealing with the world, therefore the statement by seligman in the book "what needs improving is not self-esteem but improvement of our skills for dealing with the world." So although the book believes "the crusade to boost self-esteem (as) overrated" it appears that improving skills for dealing with the world could consequently improve some aspects of our self-esteem. This first website gives 3 steps to improving self-esteem and they state at the beginning "Before you can begin to improve your self-esteem you must first believe that you can change it." This made me think about individuals with a high need for autonomy, so having this belief that they are given a choice or decision in their own view of self-esteem could fulfill an individuals need for autonomy. I think what might be more important would be trying to improve an individual's self-efficacy, which could improve their chances for achievement which could improve self-esteem. Individual's feeling that improving their self esteem would not cause anything good also brings to mind terms like learned helplessness.
The second website I found was a study done about exercise and intervention on childrens self esteem. The reviewers concluded that exercise had a short term positive influence on self esteem.
The third website I found upheld the results found by Baumeister et al. on inflated self esteem and its relation to aggression and acts of violence.
Overall I just find the book being somewhat contradictory stateing that "gains in self-esteem do not cause anything good" but previously stating that self-esteem is "correlated positively with being happy".

http://cmhc.utexas.edu/booklets/selfesteem/selfest.html

http://persweb.wabash.edu/facstaff/hortonr/articles%20for%20class/donnellan%20low%20se%20and%20aggression.pdf

http://74.125.155.132/scholar?q=cache:rET-pyMN4p0J:scholar.google.com/+psychology+improve+self+esteem&hl=en&as_sdt=0,16&as_vis=1