Reading Blog Due 11/1 at midnight

Chapter 10 focused on the self. This chapter started out with explain that there are four main problems that make up the self. These are 1. Defining or creating the self 2. Relating the self to society 3. Discovering and developing personal potential 4. Managing or regulating the self. For defining and creating the self, self-concept is what energizes and direct behavior. For relating the self to society, identity energizes and directs behavior. As for discovering and developing the potential of the self, agency is what energizes and directs behavior. Lastly, managing or regulating focuses on self-regulation.

An individual’s self-concept is made out of mental representations of themselves. To construct a self-concept, people pay attention to feedback they receive in past experiences. For instance, if one has an experience where she doesn’t talk to anyone at a gathering, has another experience where she during a group discussion she feel uncomfortable and at lunch she would rather sit by herself, she is going to generalize the fact that she is shy. Self-schemas are cognitive generalizations about the self that are domain specific and are learned from past experiences. Domain specific means that for each category of such as socially or academically, a person is going to have a generalization. From the example above, the girl’s social domain is labeled as shy and from her past experiences of getting A’s on all of her papers, her academic domain is labeled as intelligent. All of these different domains make up an individual’s self-concept. Self-schemas motivate people in two ways: 1. Motivate people to act in a way where they will receive feedback that supports their self-concept 2. Self-schemas also motivate individuals to move from their present self towards their future self.

Identity is the second major aspect of the self. Identity is the means by which the self relates to society as it reveals who on e is within a cultural context. People have many different identities. For instance, I have the identities of being a student, daughter, fiancé, sister, employee, director, roommate, friend and much more. In each of these different roles the way I act changes.

Agency deals with intrinsic motivation. Agency describes the actions and developments from within that motivate. The psychological needs such as autonomy, competence and relatedness, foster agency.
Self-regulation is how an individual monitors and regulates how well things are going for them.

Self-regulation is an ongoing process that involves forethough, action and reflection. This cycle is made up of performance, self-regulation and forethought. Even though everyone engages in self-regulation, some people do it better than others. Those who can regulate their goals and obtain good coping strategies, will do better than those that lack the two.

The information that I found to be the most interesting was the content about self- esteem. I have always thought that if one increases their self- esteem, they will feel better about themselves and in return be motivated to do more. However, this chapter states that this way of thinking is totally wrong. This chapter states that there is not research that backs up the statement that with higher self esteem comes higher levels of motivation.

This knowledge will help me obtain my goals through many different ways. Thanks to this chapter I will be more observant and careful as to how I generalize my domains that create my self-concept. I will be away of my different roles that create my identity and I will have a higher level of self-regulation. I think the self-regulation is the element from this chapter that will really help me in achieving my goals. I say that because I feel as if I have been doing poorly with this. When I fail at obtaining a goal, I don’t take the time to understand what went wrong. I also need to spend more time monitoring the process. Usually I pay attention to the beginning and the end and I need to start paying more attention to the middle of the process.

Self-concept, identity, agency, self-regulation, self-schema, domain, present self, future self, intrinsic motivation, autonomy, competence, relatedness, self-esteem

Chapter 10 discusses the self and what its strivings. The four things that surround this issue are 1. Defining or creating the self 2. Relating the self to society 3. Discovering and developing personal potential and 4. Managing or regulating the self. These four issues define the major topics of the chapter: Self-concept, identity, agency and self-regulation. The self- concept is a collection of domain-specific self-scemas. Examples of self schemas include intellectual ability and athletic performance. People tend to act in ways that confirm how they view themselves and avoid behaving in ways that contradict their self-view. Self-scemas can change when there is low certainty of self-concept or when a person puts for effort to change from the present self to the possible self (desired self). Cognitive dissonance is what occurs when one's self beliefs and actions are contradictory. This creates psychological discomfort and tries to be avoided in various ways. The next aspect of the self is identity. Identity directs a person to pursue some behaviors and avoid other behaviors. People act in ways that confirm their identity. For example if a person identifies themselves as a mom they will act in ways that are supportive of that role. Agency is another aspect of the self. The term agency suggests that people are active. Differentiation expands the self into multiple dimensions while integration brings the different levels of complexity into a single self. The self-concordance model states that self-concordant goals (things we WANT to do rather than things we HAVE to do) express our core values which increase effort and therefore have a greater likelihood of goal attainment. The last aspect of the self described in chapter 10 is self-regulation. Self-regulation monitors and evaluates one's ongoing effort to attain a goal. Self-regulation starts by observing a model, imitation their behavior, and then attain the skills to carry out the behavior independently.

The most surprising/interesting thing I learned in this chapter was about self-esteem. Self-esteem does not lead to achievement, but rather achievement can boost self-esteem. I thought it was very interesting how so many schools adopted the idea that Increasing self-esteem would boost their performance in school when their had been no evidence to support this statement.

The self has a lot to do with motivation and what goals we seek to achieve. Intrinsic motivation derives from self interests and core values while extrinsic motivation arrives from external sources and environmental pressures. This chapter has helped me realize that if I want to do something I will be more successful than if I set a goal that I feel I have to accomplish. I think this relates to a lot of people when choosing a career path. If you choose a path that you have passion for then you will satisfy your psychological needs better than a person who choses a job that others are pushing you to pursue.

Terms: self-concept, identity, agency, self-regulation, self-scemas, present self, possible self, cognitive dissonance, differentiation, integration, self-conconrdance model, intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation

Chapter ten deals with self motivation, identity, self concept and conflicts that can occur within those fields.

The only thing that truly surprised me in this case was the section on the agency concept. It was the only thing in this chapter that was utterly unfamiliar to me and it is perhaps the second time I've seen the concept of tabula rasa critiqued in a way that didn't strike me as utterly ridiculous. The concept of looking at children as creatures with pre-linguistic identities is brilliant. Framing within that context also reshapes how one might think about animals since my previous schema for children had them as closer to their innate biological instincts. While this isn't inaccurate, pre-linguistic is more accurate.

I get the sensation that this isn't fully accurate either, since facial expressions are a form of communication. My initial thought was that they were biologically hard-coded, but I had it backward. They were biological reactions first that later became a method of communication.

The self is the only real source of motivation. Even with major motivating factors, biological attraction toward another or repulsion from harm for instance, it is up to us to decide how to react to them. Certainly, there are the hard coded reflex actions at surprise to sudden injury but those can be overridden. There are subcultures or occasionally cultures in the world that do so. The same holds true of social factors. That they have influence is undeniable, but how the influence affects us is up to each and every individual in that circumstance.

This isn't new knowledge for me, though it is presented a good deal more in depth and better annotated then my previous experiences with these concepts. What reading this chapter made me realize is that maybe I'm past time for sitting on my laurels. I've spent years looking toward the future, coming up with plans and paths but relatively little time moving forward. I need to be more concise in my goal setting, and adhere to strict deadlines to spur myself myself because otherwise I will put it off.

Chapter 10 was about the self and its development. The self was introduced with its four central problems. These are defining/creating the self, relating the self to society, discovering/developing personal potential, and managing/regulating the self. When we define or create ourselves we develop self concept. When we begin to relate ourselves to the society in which we live we develop identity. When we find that we have the desire and potential to act, we begin seeing ourselves as an agent in our environment. This creates agency. When we learn to stop acting impulsively we begin to regulate ourselves.

The self concept is made up of self schemas. Self schemas are things that we identify with as being “us”. We learn these from past experiences and they are domain specific. Sometimes it appears that these self schemas aren’t consistent. If we see and individual at a party as an outgoing person, then we see them again on Monday in the library being quiet, this does not mean they have two different “personalities”. Our sense of self is consistent throughout situations that are similar. This individual is probably always loud and outgoing when the situation permits, but they may also take school seriously and therefore are studious during the week when necessary. Self schemas are important in the fact tha they work to motivate us. All self schemas have motivational properties. The individual who likes to be loud and outgoing at parties will be more likely to seek out stimulating or exciting parties. They would avoid parties that involve playing board games quietly. This does not mean that they will always seek out this type of environment. They may prefer having silence when studying, therefore they will look for the quietest place in the library to get to work. Self schemas also work to motivate the present self to a future self. The individual may see their present self as a student, but wishes in the future to be a teacher. Their future self is represented by a teacher, and therefore their present actions are motivated by this. They will sign up for classes that reflect this or work at a school to get experience.

Possible selves are a large source of motivation. Our possible selfs determine our self-schemas and generate action. Our possible selves are mainly determined by social influences. We observe the possiblel selves of others and model ours after theirs. Discrepancies between our possible self and present self are what motivate us to change. We adapt our self-schemas to better fit that of our possible self.

Cognititve dissonance occurs when we hold two conflicting values at the same time. I observe this in myself with my use of tanning. Although I know that skin cancer kills many people, and that the sun causes cancer, I still choose to be in the sun in the summer and tan sometimes in the winter. The tension that arises from holding both these beliefs is cognitive dissonance. Some situations foster cognitive dissonance, and there fore we work to avoid them. Choice is one of them. During a situation where we are forced to evalute different choice, we have to look at the hard facts of the decision we’re making. These provides us with more opportunities to make the “wrong” decision. Insufficient justification can also cause cognitive dissonance. This occurs when we have to explain the actions that we do with little to no thinking. Effort justification is another situation. For my situation, this could occur if it suddenly became very expensive to tan or if I had to drive 2 hours to get somewhere to go tanning. It would suddenly become very difficult for me to justify the effort that I am putting into a bad habig. New information can also provide us with more reasons to not do what we’re currently doing. For that reason, we may avoid it.

The most surprising thing I learned was on the topic of cognitive dissonance. This is because once we realize it, we can see it occur many times in our day to day lives. Everything from not exercising, eating something we shouldn’t, not flossing, etc. can be seen as cognitive dissonance. It’s surprising how much we know we “should do” and even with that knowledge we choose not to. The self works to motivate us through many different ways. The most interesting one I found was that our current actions are aimed at creating our possible self. Many times we do things without even thinking about it. These things that we do are unconcious steps at becoming our possible self. There are also things that we could be doing to reach our possible self more easily. If we make a list of these things, we are more likely to accomplish our goals. This knowledge is going to make me really think about the possible self I want to achieve. In class we learned that a more developed sense of self increases the likelihood that we will accomplish our goals. This will motivate me to do more now so I am more likely to achieve my various goals.

TERMS: self, self schemas, possible selfs, present self, identity, self concept, agency, cognitive dissonance, choice, insufficient justification, effort justification, new information

Chapter 1O discusses the Self and its strivings. The four main issues are 1. defining or creating the self 2. relating the self to society 3. discovering and developing personal potential and 4. managing or regulating the self. Some aspects of self-definition are already given to us ie our gender, others however must be achieved through acts of choice ie one's career. How one relates the self to society shows how identity directs behavior. It gives an individual some choice in determining their relationships with others and to society. Once a person inhabit a role the identity directs the person to pursue some behaviors and to avoid other behaviors. Agency means the self having the power and intention to act. Agency shows a natural motivational force that originates from within the person rather than the environment. Managing the self shows how self regulation makes competent functioning more likely. The self can help us not act impulsively, regulate goals, evaluate goals, and make needed adjustments. Our personal strivings represent what an individual is characteristically aim to accomplish in day to day behavior. Self regulation is key in monitoring one's efforts to attain their goals. Some people are better at this. People who are better at it tend to imitate someone they have set as their model, and by doing so receive social guidance and feedback.
I found the section on self esteem really interesting. I never looked at increasing someones self esteem, especially those with low self esteem as a bad thing. In reading the chapter and seeing how in increasing ones self esteem it is easier to increase their motivation. People with low self esteem tend to suffer unusually high levels of anxiety. People with high self esteem buffer the self against things such as depression. With this being said just because low self esteem is bad, doesn't mean inflating it is good. Inflated self esteem has a dark side, people tend to be more prone to aggression and acts of violence when their favorable self views are threatened. Ie, someone thinks they are publicly insulted they usually become aggressive. So with this all being discover, it shows in a sense that self-esteem is like happiness - trying to be happy doesn't get you very far.
This deals with motivation because the self drives our feelings and thoughts on ourselves and on others. It also deals with motivation because we strive to reach our possible self rather than our consistent self.
Terms: Identity, Agency, Self Regulation, Consistent Self, Possible Self, Self Esteem

Chapter 10 discusses The Self, which is one of the most interesting topic to me. First, the author explains what are the six statements that represent facets of psychological well-being. It is: self acceptance, positive interpersonal relations, autonomy, environmental mastery, purpose in life, personal growth.He also explains what is The Self. To define or create the self we usually ask ourselves who are we, how other people see us and how different or similar we are with other people. The problem with Self-esteem; people usually to increase self esteem increase motivation. Self esteem and achievement are correlated positively with one another. Low self esteem people usually suffer from anxiety and depression. Saying briefly, self esteem is like happiness. Self esteem exists as an end product of the self's adaptive and productive functioning and that lead to our happiness ( at least to most of people).
Next part of this chapter is dealing with self-schemas. It is a cognitive generalization about the self that are domain specific and are learned from past experiences. Also, self schemas generate motivation to move the present self toward a desired future self, something like goal setting creating process. Consistent self is when people see us as we see ourselves, we adapt self presentation that announce who we are or at least think we are. Possible self is for example, the rich self, the popular self, the rejected self etc.And people do verify because they want to find who they really are and know themselves better.
Identity is when the self relates to society that captures the essence of who on is withing a cultural context and each of us holds a number of different social roles(student, athlete, daughter, girlfriend, mother etc).
Personal striving is is basically an objective that someone is trying to accomplish that lead to motivation topic. Personal striving could be positive (something you trying to achieve) or negative ( something you trying to avoid). People who try to accomplish their goals they mentally step back and monitor, observe themselves and evaluate how much they already accomplish, what do they have to do to improve, what to make better etc.To develop more component self regulation, you start doing this more often , for example in sport, practice every day, watch an expert first then attempting to do by yourself, more and more often- "Start with your master, finish with yourself"
Knowing those things definitely help me to motivate myself towards my desire goals because I am gonna learn what to do to reach my goals and what steps to take .

Terms:

the self, self esteem, self concept, self schemas, consistent self, possible self, self verify, identity, personal striving, self regulation, motivation.

Chapter 10 is all about the self and the many self schemas that we have and develop as we progress through the life course. According to the book there are 4 problems/concepts that work in formation of the self: 1.defining and creating the self 2. relating the self to society. 3. discovering and developing personal potential. 4. managing or regulating the self. The first componenet refers to our own self-concept; who we feel we are as an indiviual. The second component refers to what we see our role as in the society, many roles work together to form one ultimate role (our identity). The third component is better explained as constantly challenging yourself and broadening your horizions (agency). Lasty, the fourth component refers to keeping oneself in check and making sure you are on the right track that you want to be on. In other words, these four components lead to four terms: self-concept, idenity, agency, and self-regulation that help motivate the self within. The book describes how the self can be looked at in two different ways: the consistent self and the possible self. The consistent self refers to a cumulation of past and present evens the form a self-schema in particular domains. Meaning, we cognitively see our self as the same person in varying events and once a schema is made we work to keep that schema the same throughout life. The possible self refers to the "someone" that we want to be in the future. Setting a high, reasonable goal for your possible self generally leads to better outcomes than setting lower goals. Similar to ideal and present state, if your consistent self is noticably different than your possible self, you will experience cognitive dissonance. The book says that we work to reduce our dissonance by maintaining consistency in our values, ideals, attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs. Within the self, if our possible self is far different from our consistent self we have a few different choices in how to reduce our dissonance. We can either change our behavior, change our belief, reduce the dissonance, or create a consance.
The most interesting thing that I learned from this chapter came from our lecture rather than our book. We were discussing how there are underlying domains that connect all of the different schemas that we have. For instance, a girl in class said that her concept has always involved helping people. I have always felt that my mindset has been the very same since I was real little so it was fun learning that there was actual cognitive processes behind that feeling. Even more intersting is that even though I have always felt that way, I really couldn't think of any thing that I would say has been an underlying domain in my self concept. It was very suprising to realize that I had never thought of this until today.
In a way, the self has everything to do with motivation. If we didn't have a self-concept or develop self schemas, we wouldn't care about anything and everything would feel new to us all the time. For me, my self-concept is the basis behind all of my motivation. After reading the chapter, I thought of goals that I made early this year that I have failed to reach/make progress on. I now realized that this is beacuse the goals I made were because I was experiencing cognitive dissonace and wanted to reduce it. As we learned in class, cognitive dissonance isnt enough to change a behavior so rather, I changed my belief. Insteading thinking in terms such as "I must change this," I thought more like "Its okay because...etc." This chapter taught me that inorder to really achieve my goals, I must stick to my original plan because that is theonly thing that will throughoughly reduce my cognitive dissonance.

Terms: agency, identity, self-concept, self-regulation, possible state, consistent self, cognitive dissonance, ideal state, present self.

Chapter 10 is a detailed compilation about the self, self-concept, identity, agency and self-regulation. As discussed in the book, there are four topics related to the self. These four topics deal with things such as defining the self, relating to society, and developing potential. Self-concept is having a set of beliefs that the person will use to define who they are based on specific self-schemas. Self-schemas are developed by learning from past experiences. Someone’s self-concepts can be comprised of many different self-schemas. Next, the book explains that there is a concept known as the “possible self”. This explains that self-schemas motivate individuals to move from their present self to a desired self, known as the future self. Cognitive dissonance is also brought up in this chapter. This refers to a state of tension that comes about because an individual has inconsistent cognitions. An example of this would be when someone smokes. Most people know that smoking is harmful and leads to death. However, this person is more likely to justify their smoking behavior by changing their thoughts. Such thoughts could be “I drink so I might as well smoke”, or “big deal if I die 10 years earlier”. The chapter goes into detail about the different justifications and motivation underlying cognitive dissonance. Identity and agency are also introduced in this chapter. Identity refers to how an individual relates to society. In general is encompasses all that a person is within their culture. Agency is related to action. This means that agency refers to the internal motivation one has as the action they take with that motivation. Finally is self-regulation. This is explained as the person’s conscious awareness of monitoring how their goal-setting process is going.

The most surprising thing I learned was about self-esteem. The book explained that back in 1996, California legislators wanted to boost self-esteem to improve the lives of their residents. After much time had passed and empirical research was done, they actually found that trying to have self-esteem doesn’t actually cause a person to have higher self-esteem. Many parent, teachers and coaches often times focus on helping students increase their self-esteem but they aren’t aware that research shows there is no connection between self-esteem and motivation. The self has a lot to do with motivation. Because people have many different self-schemas and they can always be changing, they can therefore use these for motivation. People are also able to see themselves in a present self and then are motivated toward the ideal future self or possible self. Personally, after reading this chapter I am more motivated to set goals for myself and actually sit down and think about the possible or ideal future self I want to be. By doing this, I already have an upper-hand and will more likely be motivated to due to cognitive dissonance.

Self, self-concept, identity, agency, self-regulation, self-schemas, possible-self, cognitive dissonance, motivation and self-esteem

This chapter focuses on the self and identity. According to the textbook there are 4 things that define the self 1)defining or the creating the self 2) relating the self to society 3) discovering our potential 4) managing or regulating the self.

Self esteem and achievement are correlated positively, in other words, achievement increases self esteem. Self concepts are mental representations of one's self. Our self concept is constructed from our experiences, and our reflections on those experiences. Therefore, people's feedback can affect our self concept and "what we are like." In addition, we have self schemas that are generalizations about our self that may be domain specific or learned from our experiences.

Individuals want to be consistent with their "self" and will seek out symbols to help us identify with "who we are" in society. Examples of these symbols are clothing, personal possessions, and plastic surgery.

Cognitive dissonance is when beliefs about the self are different than the actual self. Therefore, individuals experience an uncomfortable state.

Identity is the means by which the self relates to society. When individual identifies a role in society they direct their behavior to that role. This relates to motivation because they are motivated to keep this image or identify with this role. Therefore, they will direct that behavior in order to avoid cognitive dissonance. One can feel motivated to keep up with that image that they receive from feedback. For example, celebrities who form an image as role models will identify with the comments or opinions from society. Whether it be negative or positive, the feedback can motivate behaviors, and an individual will identity with that self.

Personal strivings are similar to goals in a way because we aim to achieve this behavior more on a day to day basis rather than long term setting. This also relates to motivation because if we have these strivings, we will continue on our path to accomplish this.

Self regulation is the monitoring and evaluating of ones efforts to attain their goal. Therefore, regulation of ones goal helps motivate our behaviors also. The phases of self regulation are : performance, self reflection, and forethought. Self reflection is the monitoring process or self evaluating that will help you mentally achieve your goals. Forethought is the actual goal setting, and implementation. Therefore, actually acting out on certain behaviors in order to accomplish your goals.

Terms used: self esteem, self regulation, feedback, personal strivings, identity, cognitive dissonance, achivement, forethought, implementation, motivation, self reflection, self evaluation, self concepts, consistent self

Chapter 10 was about the self. There are four ways to define the self; define/creating self, relating self to society, discovering personal potential, and managing/regulating self. Defining/creating self shows how self concept energizes and directs behavior. Some are ascribed to us, such as gender and some are gained through achievement, such as one’s career. The self to society gives us the choice/responsibility in determining one’s relationships to others. The agency has the power and intention to act and creates motivation within the self. Regulating ourselves. A self-concept is the set of beliefs one uses to conceptualize the self. They are usually domain specific; for example, we act differently around our friends than we do our grandparents. We then develop self schema as a reflection of our social behavior. To be consistent, we actively seek information that is consistent with our self concept and ignore information that contradicts the view of our self. Cognitive dissonance can occur when the beliefs about who the self is and what the self does are inconsistent. We try to establish an identity to relate to society as it captures the essence of who we are within context. One thing that was interesting is that self esteem does not boost achievement, but rather achievement boosts self esteem. There is no evidence to support that self esteem boosts achievement when this is what we are taught in school. The concept of cognitive dissonance is also interesting because although we know something is bad for us, we continue to do it. We continue to smoke, drink and sleep around as a society even though we know it results in bad health. Each of us can rationalize these bad things away to make them ‘acceptable.’ This chapter relates to motivation towards goals in that we have a consistent and possible self. The possible self is the motivation to move the present self toward a desired future self. We are all at this point in our lives right now. I am in the process of applying to graduate school. My present self is that I am an undergraduate speech pathology major and hope to become a great speech pathologist for the elderly population. In order to achieve this goal, I have to obtain a Master’s degree. Although I am tired of school, I cannot practice without a master’s so my desired future self is a graduate student. I am also using self-regulation in that I monitor and evaluate my ongoing effort to attain my goals. I start with self reflection in that I monitor and evaluate my goals. I need to get good grades, be involved and volunteer to stand out as a candidate for graduate school. This then leads to forethought in my goal setting to get a master’s degree in graduate school and determines my performance. Because I am working for a higher degree, I still have to do well in school and continue to set academic goals. I continue to strive for my possible self instead of settling for my consistent self.

self, agency, self regulation, self concept, self schema, consistent self, possible self, identity, cognitive dissonance

Chapter ten dealt with the concept of self and its strivings. The four problems associated with self are defining or creating the self, relating the self to society, discovering and developing personal likelihood, and managing or regulating the self. The problems were discussed as self-concept are (defining the self), identity (relating self to society), agency (developing personal potential), and self-regulation (managing self).

Self-concept is how people mentally think of themselves. Self-concept is derived from experiences and from reflections on those experiences. Self-schemas are mental generalizations about the self that are area specific and are learned from previous experiences. So the self-concept would contain a collection of area specific self-schemas, like academic competence or athletic competence. Self-schemas generate motivation in two ways, consistent self and possible self. Kind of similar to the discrepancy term where you have your present state and ideal state. When one has a consistent self, self-schemas direct behavior that is used to validate one’s self-concept. In terms of possible self, one observes others and creates a view of the future self or what one would like to be like.

Identity is how the self relates to society from a cultural standpoint. Once people have a certain social role like a mother or a father they are expected to behave as a mother or a father would according to cultural norms.

Agency is the motivation that the self possesses. This is an action based activity, is intrinsically motivated, and a development from within. The book gives an example of a newborn and how as they grow physically they also grow developmentally by walking, talking, and being intrinsically motivated. The newborn grows from reliance on others to autonomy and being reliant on self. Differentiation expands the self to a more complex person in terms of the newborns growth and integration creates the emerging complex person into a unified self.

Self-regulation deals with monitoring or managing goals. The individual evaluates the process as goals are strived for through observations and personal judgments. Comparisons are made of past performance in relation to goals. The more a person can self-regulate the better they can carry out the goal-setting procedure.

The most surprising thing I learned was about self-esteem. I was surprised to read that “there are almost no findings that self-esteem causes anything at all” or “there is simply no evidence that boosting people’s self-esteem will boost their functioning.” Seems like we have been conditioned to think that self-esteem is how you feel about yourself and your self worth that it deals a lot about feelings. When in reality it deals more with success and failures. Although it may reflect how things are going, it’s not the source of motivation that allows life to go well. The book offered a view of self-esteem and to think of it like happiness. Trying to be happy won’t get you very far, but happiness rather is a result of life’s satisfaction and overcoming obstacles. I guess I felt like I’ve had the wrong definition of self-esteem after reading the passage about self-esteem.

In terms of self and motivation, we define or create who we want to be. Self-schemas generate motivation by consistent self or possible self as discussed above. These things motivate us to move from the self we are now to the possible self.

I think by having this knowledge about self can help me narrow and focus on my goals. I look at it like here is where I am now and here is where I want to be (in terms of self), what do I have to do to get from point A to point B? What can I use as motivators to help me along the way of becoming my possible self?

Terms: self-concept, self-schemas, identity, agency, self-regulation, intrinsic motivation, differentiation, integration, consistent self, possible self, self-esteem.

There are four problems that were introduced regarding the self: self concept, identity, agency, and self regulation. Self concept is described as a mental representation of oneself. The self concept is formed from past experiences and from reflections on those experiences. Self concept is made up of several self schemas, or generalizations about the self that are domain specific. For example, I continually perform poorly on math exams. So, I can conclude that I am mathematically inept. However, I typically perform very well on exams in other subject areas. My self concept will generalize to being intellectually intelligent, but mathematically inept. Self schemas generate motivation by directing an individual’s behavior in ways that confirm an individual’s established self view and generate motivation to move the present self toward a desired future self. After an individual establishes a self schema they act to preserve the self view, because inconsistency or contradiction creates discomfort (cognitive dissonance). People develop social environments that will provide feedback that’s consistent with their self view and avoid people who might treat us in ways that are inconsistent with our self view. In other words, we tend to use social interactions to maintain and verify our self view. When an individual receives information that is not consistent with their self view, they tend to distort the information. For example, an individual might provide information that would disconfirm the feedback that was inconsistent with their self view. However, when an individual has a low self schema, feedback that is inconsistent with their self view can cause them to change their self schema. Self schemas also generate motivation to move the present self toward a desired future self (possible self) by initiating goal directed behavior. Self schemas allow an individual to process information about the self easily, confidently predict their future behavior in the domain, quickly retrieve self related behavioral evidence from the domain, and resist counter schematic information about him or herself.
Identity is another aspect of the self in relation to society. Once an individual has gained a role in society, the identity directs the person to pursue certain behaviors and avoid other behaviors. Our identity in society informs us how to act appropriately in certain contexts. Agency is the component of the self that deals with action. In terms of agency, an individual starts out observing the actions of others and eventually the self moves towards autonomy. Self regulation is the fourth component of the self, which involves monitoring and evaluating personal effort to attain goals. Self regulation involves goal setting and planning, action, and reflection. The development of self regulation involves three phases. During the first phase, gains in self regulation are made from observing the expert. The second phase involves imitation of the skills of the expert. The last phase allows the individual to carry out goal setting and performance monitoring process on their own.

The concept that I found to be most interesting from chapter ten was cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance occurs when beliefs about the self are inconsistent with behaviors. People reduce cognitive dissonance by removing the dissonant belief, reduce the importance of the dissonant belief, add a new consonant belief, and increase the importance of the consonant belief. Cognitive dissonance motivates us to change our beliefs and behavior. Cognitive dissonance theory attributes changes in beliefs in response to an aversive emotional state dealing with cognitive contradiction.

Chapter ten made me realize that I need to gain a clearer self schema. Having a well developed self schema would allow me to process information about myself easily and help me predict my own future behavior in a domain. Chapter ten also helped me realize the importance of recognizing my possible selves, which are representations of attributes, characteristics, and abilities that I don’t yet posses.

Self concept, identity, self regulation, self schema, possible self, cognitive dissonance, agency,

Chapter ten discusses the concept of “self” and ways which we describe and define it through motivation. Self is a complex word when it comes to defining and understanding truly how individuals define themselves. One concept typically thought of is self-esteem. Self-esteem is an impression or label of oneself directed by respect. It defines to which extend we feel good about ourselves. Increasing self-esteem is a positive facet, while those who are low on self-esteem lack motivation. Self- esteem is factor of our success, or failure, in life. Self-esteem is dependent upon our achievements. The more we achieve the higher self-esteem becomes.
Our self-concept is a mental illustration to how we perceive our self. You may be timid during class, make little conversation in public places, or avoid situations that include large groups. We generalize these experiences into our self-concept. You might characterize yourself as fearful. Self-concept of others is often times hard to accurately describe people for the fact they may appear one way in particular instances, but away from the situation act completely opposite of our perception of them. Along with self-concept, we develop self-schemas. Self-schemas are the generalized components of self that we categorize into a domain based on life experiences. The generality of fearfulness is our self-schema, because we learned this behavior from previous experiences and it is domain specific. Self-schemas motivate through prompting feedback. Individuals behave accordingly to confirm their view of self. There may be tension that arises from self-schema as well. When others view our self-schema as differently then we view it, inconsistency occurs and we attempt to restore this schema by being consistent and continuous.
The consistency from our personal self-schema domain is characterized by our consistent-self. There are cues we give in order to help ensure others agree with our view of self. This can range from the clothes we wear to the career and lifestyle we live, and everything in between. We tend to conform to friends and social activity that are consistent with our self. Most likely those closest to us will agree with our views in a consistent self unlike people who we have met only once or twice. It is hard to make a judgment based on first impressions, though they may be accurate if we are truly consistent in such things as how we dress and the physical image we reveal.
Another concept discussed in the chapter is our possible self. When someone has a desire to change what they do or do not want to become defines our possible self. This is simply evaluating our current self and looking toward the future, based on social and environmental experience, to possibly become something. If we see a doctor who has helped saved numerous lives, and we are not doing anything remotely accomplishing to the standards we see that person, we might envision a possible self to study medicine and make a change for the better. Some sort of enticement we find motivationally appealing leads us to motivationally change, or become similar, or not similar.
Branching of the concept of self, chapter ten introduces the idea of identity. Identity describes the condition of self in society. Identity can be found in self value amongst individual and collectivist cultures. In individualistic cultures our identity is was separates us from the rest. Collectivistic cultures are identified as a whole unit. It includes behaviors and perceptions as how we characterize the self in our cultural setting.
The last main topic of chapter ten involves self-regulation. Self-regulation involves taking a close look at oneself and assessing it. Self-regulation is a continuous cycle dependent on performance, and inducement of our forethoughts. Forethought is the effort we take in goal setting. Self-regulation is also attained through the social context. They are important as we look toward goals we set. Developing self-regulatory skills involves the phases: lack of self-regulation skill, social learning process, and acquisition of competent self-regulation skill.
The most surprising thing I learned from the chapter was about self-perception theory and cognitive dissonance theory. The self-perception theory exclaims that people change behavior from their own self observations. The cognitive dissonance theory, however, says people change beliefs to a negative emotional state in cognitive contradictions. There was controversy over the two theories, but further research concludes both are accurate.
Self has a lot to do with motivation because it allows us to understand who we really are, along with what it is we want to be seen as. When we understand our self-concept and the domain of our self-schemas, we are intrinsically motivated to keep the consistency and avoid dissonance. When we look at our possible self, we are more extrinsically motivated to make change because of observable life experiences and in turn come to value some aspect of life that leads us to motivationally change behavior. Another important relation between self and motivation is goal setting. Being aware of our current state often leads us to set goals which motivate certain behaviors. I am motivated toward the goals I set last week because of my perceived self. I feel by looking ahead and trying to discover a possible self, I am more strongly motivated to achieve them. I am also motivated to maintain consistency within my self-schema domain to accomplish these goals.
Terms: Self, self-esteem, self-concept, self-schema, consistent self, possible self, identity, self-regulation, self-perception theory.

Chapter 10 begins with titling the four main problems with our self and our striving: 1.) defining or creating the self (Self-Concept) 2.) relating the self to society (Identity) 3.) discovering and developing personal potential ( Agency) and 4.) managing or regulating the self (Self-Regulation). The chapter states that there is a complete misconception when it comes to self-esteem stating that there is no evidence to assume self-esteem causes anything at all. They chop it up to just a term almost synonymous with happiness.
However, back to the four problems, the book describes each one in full. First off, self-concept are the mental representations of ourselves which are constructed from experiences and reflections on said experiences; most are translated into general representations instead of specific experiences. Within in this category there is the broad topic of self-schema which are cognitive generalizations about the self that are domain specific and are learned from experiences. The self-concept is a collection of these domain-specific self-schemas. These schemas have certain motivational properties. One being that is directs behavior toward feedback consistent with said schema because consistency and self-confirmation make people more comfortable with who they are. Secondly, the provide motivation towards a desired self.. The consistent self will do what it takes to make sure the self-concepts are consistent and provide the reassurance that they know themselves. The desired self or possible self, is what kind of person you want to be; providing one with goals and models to live by. The chapter than goes on to talk about something that occurs within this called cognitive dissonance which is when beliefs about who the self is and what the self does inconsistent or hypocrisy as I see it. People either gets so uncomfortable with the dissonance that they cease the upsetting behavior or they rationalize their behavior so that they don't feel as bad for the inconsistency.
Identity is how the self relates to society. Its a series of roles in which each of us follow such as student or daughter so on and so forth. Within in this we chose which behaviors and emotions are the most appropriate and this is determined by our identity. Sometimes when we act outside of what we have conceptualized ourselves as, we shock ourselves and act with identity-restoring behaviors which remind us to get back to consistency.
Agency is a view of the self as action and development from within, as innate processes and motivations. Basically it is saying that there is something innate in us as people that prompt what interest and goals we pursue, which talents to develop and other core things about ourselves; these things we strive for have something to do with something more than just what we see and live around but also how we feel towards things at deeper levels.
Self-Regulation is, in short, an evaluation of the effort towards our goals and striving through reflection.
The most surprising thing I learned was how self-esteem doesn't really correlate with motivation. I have seen a therapist before and we spent months on self-esteem issues. I know they didn't help me much and now I know why. The content in this chapter has to do with motivation because it is stating that who we are and what we want to do is something that motivates us. Either we are motivated to becoming something else or remaining consistent in our self-schema or we are motivated to avoid being something or avoid inconsistency amongst ourselves which leads to confusion on who we are as people. This knowledge motivates me towards my desired goals because it exposes to me how I need to examine myself and try to figure out what in my life could be causing me uneasiness. I think I am going to make a self-schema chart to get a better idea of myself so that I can clearly identify by goals so that attaining them will be easier.
Self-concept, self-schema, consistent self, possible self, cognitive dissonance, identity, agency, self-regulation.

Chapter ten focuses on the self, identity, and self-regulation. The self is pretty much how one views him or herself in life. Defining or creating the self shows how self0concept energizes and directs behavior. Relating the self to society shows how identity energizes and directs behavior. Discovering and developing the potential of the self is also a motivational struggle. Managing or regulating the self shows how self-regulation makes competent functioning more likely. Self-concepts are individuals’ mental representations of themselves. To construct a self-concept, people attend to the feedback they receive in their day-to-day affairs that reveals their personal attributes, characteristics, and preferences. During times of reflection, people put their life experiences into general conclusions. Self-schemas are cognitive generalizations about the self that are domain specific and learned from past experiences. Self-schemas generate motivation in two ways. First, they direct an individual’s behavior in ways that elicit feedback consistent with the established self-schemas. Second, they generate motivation to move the present self toward a desired future self. People don’t like cognitive dissonance, so they try to change their present of consistent self to meet their possible self. A second major aspect of the self is identity. This is the means by which the self relates to society as it captures the essence of who one is within a cultural context. Lastly is self regulation. As people attempt to accomplish the goals they have for themselves, they mentally step back to monitor and evaluate how well things are going. This helps people behave how they should and gives motivation to change when they see something is wrong.

I was very surprised to learn how much a person’s self concept actually influences their behaviors and other people’s behaviors around and towards them. When a person has a negative self concept, he or she is likely to act in those negative ways and not want to change much. But, when a person has a positive self-concept, he or she is more likely to act in those positive ways. It’s crazy to think how much a person’s concept of their self actually affects behavior because normally people don’t think about this all that much. A lot of people don’t really even know what they would describe their “self” as, so they don’t really have a basis off of how to act in social situations.

The self has a lot to do with motivation because how a person is viewed or thinks of themselves, they act. If a person is viewed as a caring person, that person is more motivated to act like a caring person. If a person is viewed as a bad student, that person is more motivated to act like a bad student. This is because people don’t like to have cognitive dissonance or an anxious feeling because their views and other’s views don’t match real like situations.

This knowledge can motivate myself towards desired goals by looking into myself and figuring out what I am all about. If I do this, I will know exactly what types of goals I should set for myself and what I am capable of. Once I set these goals, I will be more likely to reach them if I feel confidence in myself and have a positive view of the skills and qualities I need in myself to get there.

Key Terms: self, identity, self-regulation, competent, self-concept, reflection, self-schemas, feedback, motivation, consistent self, possible self, behavior

Chapter 10 is related to the self and its strivings. There are four problems when it comes to the self. The first is defining or creating the self. The second is relating the self to society. The third is managing or regulating the self. And the fourth is discovering and developing personal potential. One important concept when it comes to the self is one’s self-concept. The self-concept is the set of beliefs one uses to conceptualize his or herself. Or in other words, a person’s self-concepts are the mental representations of themselves. These are constructed from one’s experiences, as well as their interpretations and reflections upon those experiences. People form these self-concepts from general conclusions and memories they have, rather than specific experiences. Self-concepts come from self-schemas. Self-schemas are cognitive generalizations about the self that are domain-specific and are learned from past experiences. There are benefits of having well-developed self-schemas. It’s a lot easier to process info about yourself when you have self-schemas. You can also predict your own future behavior from these schemas. And you can resist any information that contradicts your self-schema. There are also motivational properties when it comes to self-schemas. Once self-schemas are formed, they can direct one’s behavior to confirm the self-view and prevent episodes that generate feedback that might disconfirm that self-view. This is the consistent self. A second motivational property is that self-schemas generate motivation to move the present self toward a desired future self. This is the possible self. This is similar to the discrepancy between the present state and the ideal state. There is motivation to achieve the possible self. Possible selves are representations of attributes, characteristics, and abilities that the self doesn’t yet possess but you want to possess them. These are mostly social in origin as you see the self modeled by others. The most important thing is that the self is dynamic – it is constantly changing, and it has a past, present, and a future. There can be cognitive dissonance present within the self. This is the state of tension that occurs when an individual simultaneously holds two cognitions that are psychologically inconsistent with each other. For example, a person who smokes knows that smoking can kill them, but they continue to smoke despite this knowledge. Most people are motivated to justify their own actions and beliefs, and rationalize why they do the things they do. Another important concept of the self is identity. Identity is the means by which the self relates to society, and is in a cultural context.
The most surprising thing to me was the fact that self-esteem doesn’t cause anything at all. I’ve always thought that the way to boost someone’s idea of themselves is to boost their self-esteem. So to read that there are no findings that self-esteem causes anything at all was very surprising. Self-esteem is not a causal variable, according to the textbook, but rather a consequence of cumulative achievement-related successes and failures. I will have to keep this in mind now when I’m feeling down about myself. I need to improve my self-esteem but rather improve my skills for dealing with the world.
Your self-concept has a lot to do with motivation. How you view yourself, and the self-schemas you have of yourself, directly influence your actions and in turn motivate you towards certain ends. For example, I have always thought of myself as someone who likes to help people. This self-schema of myself motivated me to apply for my current job now as an RA in the dorms, and is motivating me to apply to grad schools for occupational therapy, for I want to help kids and senior citizens improve their quality of life. I also have a self-schema of being shy. This has motivated me to work hard at my job as an RA to counteract this shyness and get to know my residents. This knowledge motivates me to think about my other self-schemas and how I can apply them to do better in school as well as succeed in the future.
Concepts: the self, self-concept, self-schemas, the consistent self, the possible self, self-esteem, cognitive dissonance, identity

Chapter 10 was all about the “self” and how we create our self. There are four issues dealing with self that include defining the self, relating the self to society, discovering and developing personal potential and managing or regulating the self. When we are creating our self we think about who we are, how others view us, and how we compare with others in society. When we try to define our self we create a self-concept which energizes and directs behavior. Self-definition is a thing that can be assigned to us and that we can also create. An example of this includes if you are a boy or a girl or on the other side if you are a doctor or a certain religion. When we relate our self to society we are also directing behavior with identity. This could be with careers or activities. Agency is when an agent has the power and intention to act. This happens when we are discovering and developing our potential self. We use self regulation to regulate functions. We monitor are goals and values and evaluate our status to create the self. Self schemas are cognitive generalizations about the self that are domain specific and are learned from past experiences. These can be domain specific that one recalls when thinking about certain things. When I think of high school I think of classes, show choir, and friends. However, when I think about college I think of friends, parties, bars, and lots of tests. We associate different concepts with different schemas. When we develop a certain schema we develop a consistent self. If I think of myself as outgoing I’m going to find certain activities and behaviors that preserve that view. If there is a certain way I want to view myself and others to view me I would think of a possible self. When there is something that we don’t necessarily like about ourselves but we don’t want to change we have cognitive dissonance. An example of this could be college students drinking heavily on the weekends. We know its wrong but we do it anyways. This causes inconsistency that we want to fill so we tell ourselves things to make us look better. We could say well I’m trying to be social, or everyone goes out, and I’m young this is what I’m supposed to do in college.
I think the thing I found to be the most interesting is about self-esteem. I think that the general belief among many is that if you have high self-esteem you will have a higher level of achievement. According to the book it is the exact opposite. The more you achieve the higher your self esteem will be.
The text relates to motivation because if you set goals for your possible self you will strive to meet your goals and direct your attention to them. I want to be a successful psychologist which means I need to go to grad school once I graduate. I need to start planning how I will accomplish this and then make short term goals to get closer to being my possible self.

Self concept, identity, agency, self regulation, self schema, domain, present self, possible self, consistent self, cognitive dissonance

Terms: Self-concept, self-schemas, personal self, feedback, cognitive dissonance, insufficient justification, effort justification, identity, identity-conforming behavior, agency, identity-confirming behaviors, self-regulation, forethought, performance, self-reflection

The chapter begins with a few questions regarding your satisfaction with life. After reading through and answered these questions, I’ve come to realize that I quite well-off in the satisfaction of my life. I don’t feel I agree with any of the six statements: I feel very confident, can think and make decisions on my own, etc.

When a person takes a look at themselves, they tend to think of aspects that make them who they are, what defines them… what do others see or think of when they are reminded of you. There are four major characteristics that make up “the self”. First, you must define or create the self. Second, is how you relate yourself to society. Then it’s how you discover or develop your potential. Lastly, you must manage or keep yourself in line within the set of norms of life. There are also ideas you have about yourself that are also thought of when you tap into your brain and think about things; these are processes that make you think of one thing and relate it to many other things. These are called self-concepts and they tend to be related to what is especially related to what you do and what you are.

When you are able to have a good outlook on yourself, and can see both the positives and negatives, you generally have a well-developed self-schema. There are many benefits that contribute to having a well-developed self-schema: it’s easier for you to process information about yourself, you are able to recover information about your behavior that is specific to you and the traits you do on a regular basis, you can confidently predict future behaviors based on the knowledge you possess about yourself, and you can oppose what others say about you that contradict what you think.

Also, when you have a well-rounded thought process about yourself, you can see that there are behaviors you work to prevent actions you don’t wish to see or that interfere with your self-thoughts; this is a behavior of a ‘consistent self’. When you see a behavior you wish to increase or create, you are more apt to motivate yourself and produce a ‘possible self’ outlook.

Possible selves are the many different characteristics that your self can eventually possess. These involve the observation of others’, behaviors you are motivated to possess, something that helps us understand how the thoughts have developed and a pay of making a distinction from past, present and future selves.

There are times where people hold two contradictory thoughts at the same time; this is called cognitive dissonances. An example of this would be “smoking is bad for you” and “I smoke”. People cope with these by justifying their actions… “Everyone dies in the end” or “it helps me relieve things of stress in my life”. People are especially great at manipulating their beliefs to encourage a negative behavior or discourage a positive behavior in the eyes of the normal society.

The roles you hold for yourself are what create your identity. These are meant to create an outlook for those who only see you and also for how you develop in society. A way of becoming the “perfect” role you see for yourself is through self-regulation. When you monitor the progress of the goals you set, you are more able to establish and complete these goals.

After processing all this information, I am able to see the positives and negatives I attribute to myself. I am able to work with what I’ve got to become what I want to be. I have a sense of self and know who I am, therefore, I can make my own decisions and fight for what I believe in and what I feel I stand for. Because of my high security with myself, I know what I wish to attain, and it makes me more able to work for my goals of school, successful job and a family in the future. Obviously the self has much to do with motivation, because, if you didn’t know who you were or what you wanted out of life, you would need no motivation. You would be able to free-flow through life. I was quite surprised at just how much a self-identity contributes to motivation and goals, because ‘my self’ tends to be put on the back burner in life. I tend to be a people pleaser and focus on the needs of others before my own needs. After taking all this information in, it’s helped me process a better look at myself and see where I need to shift my focus for now.

Terms: satisfaction, self-concepts, outlook, self-schema, consistent self, possible self, motivation, coping, cognitive dissonance, identity, self-regulation

Chapter 10 talks about the self and its strivings. There are six dimensions of psychological well being which reflect a distinct contour of self functioning and psychological well being. Self acceptance- positive evaluations of oneself; positive interpersonal relations- close, warm relationships with others; autonomy- self determination; environmental mastery-sense of reflectance in mastering circumstances and challenges; purpose in life- a sense of meaning that gives ones life a sense of direction and purpose; personal growth- harboring a developmental trajectory characterized by improvement.

In Motivational analysis of the self four problems take center stage and they go as follow; 1) defining or creating the self, 2) relating the self to society, 3) discovering and developing personal potential, and managing or regulating the self.

Self concepts are individuals mental representations of themselves, and are constructed from experiences. To construct a self construct, people attend to the feedback they receive they receive in their day to day affairs that reveal their personal attributes, characteristics, and preferences.

Self-schemas are cognitive generalizations about the self that are domain specific and are learned from past experiences. Self schemas generate motivation in two ways, first schemas, once formed, direct individual’s behavior in ways that elicit feedback consistent with established self-schemas. And secondly, self-schemas generate motivation to move the present self toward a desired future self. Self- schema consistency is that if a person is told she is introverted when she believes she is extraverted, the contradictory feedback generates a motivational tension. Therefore people behave in self-schema consistant ways to prevent feeling an aversive motivational tension.

The theory of cognitive dissonance theory illustrates one way the consistent self maintains its self-view. The basic tenets of cognitive dissonance theory are that people dislike inconsistency, the experience of dissonance is psychologically aversive, and people seek to reduce dissonance by striving to maintain consistency in their beliefs. When facts or behaviors are in opposition to ones beliefs and values, people will find a way to reconcile them. Ways to reduce dissonance are remove the dissonant belief, add a new consonant belief, decrease the importance of dissonant belief, and increase the importance of consonant belief. Identity is the means by which the self relates to society.

Terms: identity, self-schemas, cognitive dissonance, self acceptance, positive interpersonal relations, autonomy, environmental mastery, purpose in life, personal growth, self concepts,

Chapter 10 discusses the concept of the self and how it relates to motivation. The first issue with the self, discussed within the chapter, is that of how to not only define the self, but also how to create a sense of self through developing a self-concept (cognitive structure of whom you are). Developing a self-concept is often times done through creating self-schemas (cognitive generalizations about the self that are learned from past experience and are domain specific). The chapter goes on to discuss how self-schemas can work to motivate individuals through their own concepts of their consistent selves as well as possible selves. The consistent self is defined as self-schemas that direct behavior to confirm one’s self-view and to prevent dissonance (since people tend to dislike inconsistency which is seen as aversive in guiding behavior) of one’s self-view. People are motivated through self-schemas when they run into their possible-self, which is a self-schema that motivates the person to become the person they would wish to be further down the road in the future. This portrays the self as a dynamic entity made up of the past, present and future and is constantly motivating us until we become our possible selves.

The second issue of the self is that of identity of the self. This refers to how the self relates to society and how it captures the essence of the self within a cultural context. When people assume new social roles, such as that of a mother or father, they direct their behavior in a way that it is supposed to be directed in the sense of a cultural value. Individuals acting with identity-confirming behavior allows for social interactions to flow smoothly.

The third issue brought up within the self is that of agency, which is the motivation that the self possesses within itself. Agency leads to action through intrinsic motivation and the processes of differentiation and integration. Intrinsic motivation causes the self to develop and apply it’s own inherent capabilities. After developing and exercising these inherent capabilities, differentiation occurs where the self’s capabilities and interests continue to grow and manifest as time continues. Integration occurs when all of these sorts of characteristics within the self and agency are brought together in unity leading to a further and ongoing development of the self.

The fourth issue brought up on the self and self-concept within the chapter is the issue of self-regulation. Self-regulation involves an individual’s own monitoring of how his/her goal-setting process. Monitoring one’s own goal-setting process involves self-judgment as well as objective self-observation in comparing one’s present state with their ideal state.

Terms

Self-concept
Self-schema
Consistent self
Possible self
Cognitive dissonance theory
Identity
Agency
Differentiation
Integration
Self-regulation

This chapter covered the self, our self-concept, our identity, agency and our self-regulation. It began by discussing the problem with self-esteem: increasing someone’s self-esteem does not necessarily increase their motivation. Although it is widely believed by teachers, coaches and employers that an increase in self-esteem will lead to a definite increase in motivation and therefore productivity or achievement, there is no empirical evidence to support that claim. In fact, there is little evidence to suggest that an increase in self-esteem does anything at all. Researchers say that self-esteem is more like a score card that shows someone’s wins (or successes) and losses (or failures) during a given time period. In 1986, the state of California set a long-term goal to boost the self-esteem of all residents as a strategy to reduce crime, welfare dependency, unemployment, unwanted pregnancy, and drug addiction. They seemed to follow the logic that the root of nearly all psychological problems is low self-esteem. Programs like Upward Bound, Head Start, and the Early Training Project came about in this way. But once social scientists began researching the effectiveness of these programs, they found that the programs failed at achieving their desired effect.
There are two types of ways we create our self-definition or self-concept. The first are those definitions that are given to us at birth. These are things like our sex; we are not able to choose the anatomy that we are born with. Other aspects of our self-concept we can choose and create from our experiences with the environment. These are things like our values, friends, religion, or career path. Unlike our biological sex, we are able to able to make a choice on which of these aspects we want ourselves to be. But a simple choice is not enough, to become these things we have a responsibility of achievement which motivates us to set and accomplish our goals.
Relating the self to society shows how our identity motivates and guides our actions and choices. In many ways, society will allow us little or no choice in the roles it encourages us to pursue, while in other ways it is more flexible. Society gives people the ability to choose our relationships to others (friends or partners), and society (our careers). The ability of choice and the internalization of responsibility to follow through on those choices make our effort to relate the self to society a motivational factor. Self-schemas are cognitive generalizations about the self that are learned from past experiences. These are also domain specific which means they are specific to a particular area and do not generalize across to other areas. An example of this would be the schema of being shy. It is specific to the domain of relationships with others and is learned from past experiences such as group discussion or lunchroom conversations. There are two ways self-schemas generate motivation. The first is how once they are formed a person behaves in ways which confirm their schema while in that domain. Second, they generate the motivation for a person to want to change from their present self and become their desired self.
Agency means that a person has the power and intention to act. This makes discovering and developing our potential self a motivational factor. Agency is a natural force that motivates us from within; it is beside environmental or cultural factors of motivation. The presence of agency in a person creates a motivational struggle throughout life.
Self-regulation is our efforts to manage or regulate our behaviors based on environmental factors. The self does not act impulsively; instead it monitors its goals and evaluates its goal progress as well as its resources. This allows the self to make the necessary changes it needs to in order to achieve optimal functioning. The self also finds it helpful to observe and evaluate themselves in comparison with

Chapter ten’s main focal point was the self. In order to acquire one’s self concept, one encounters four problems: defining or creating self, relating the self to society, discovering and developing personal potential, and managing or regulating of self. The pursuit throughout life is to discover or create ourselves.
In establishing ourselves, we use a foundation called self-concept. This is how an individual views themselves mentally. We create our self-concept through self-schemas which are established from past experience and are domain specific. In different situations that are domain specific, we asses ourselves by taking past events and observing the overall idea of those events creating a generalization in a specific area. Those generalizations then become a collection of domain specific self-schemas creating ones self-concept. Self-schema in turn motivates one’s behavior in two ways. First, a person desires to be perceived by others as how they view themselves. When someone views them as introverted instead of extroverted, they are motivated to change their behavior to produce feedback that is consistent with their personal view of themselves. Secondly, self-schemas motivate one to obtain their desired self. They seek to act in a way that will assistance them in reaching their future self. Self-schemas can also influence a person’s actions to accommodate their desired possible self. One’s possible self is much like their desired future self—they type of person one would like to be or what they are afraid of becoming. When ones actions are not consistent with their beliefs, tension occur called cognitive dissonance. When this takes place, a person is motivated to reduce this discrepancy through removing or reducing the dissonant belief, or adding and increasing the importance of the consonant believe.
Three other major fundamentals to self is identity, agency and self-regulation. Identity is who one is within society. A person can hold many identities. Each of those identities establish how one acts in their situation. For instance, a student exerts behaviors such as being attentive, listening, and following directions in the classroom. However, at a job, that student may identify as an employee who exerts behaviors consistent with an employee. In these situations, identity-confirming behaviors are displayed. We can predict and understand ones behaviors when we understand their identity. Agency is a concept proposing that people are active. One begins to develop personal potential through agency. Self-regulation is managing one’s self is attain their goals. In doing this, there are three steps: forethought, performance and self-reflection. Forethought is the initial setting of goals, which flows into performance. Lastly, self-reflection is evaluation one over the performance.
The most surprising thing I learned was about self-esteem. I thought that self-esteem would increase your achievement because you would do better with a high self-esteem. I was always encouraged to increase my self-esteem and I would produce better results on a test, or some other aspect of life. However, the book points out that it is the other way around.
This chapter really taught me the overall picture of self-concept. I didn’t realize how many parts there were to establishing a self-concept and how it can motivation one to do something. I also didn’t realize how important ones identity can be in establishing self-concept. It’s interesting to understand the concept of the people you associate with, or the way you present yourself can motivate you. I think this will help me set goals on who I want to be in the future. It will give me guidance to becoming my possible self.

Self-concept, self-schemas, personal self, feedback, cognitive dissonance, insufficient justification, effort justification, identity, identity-conforming behavior, agency, identity-confirming behaviors, self-regulation, forethought, performance, self-reflection

“Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.” - Dr. Seuss. As evident throughout this entire book, everyone is unique. These unique qualities are part of what determines “The Self.” The Self has to go through four basic steps. These problems are identified as “Self-concept (defining the self), identity (relating the self to society), agency (developing personal potential), and self regulation (managing the self).”

How would you describe the self? Generalizations that you form cognitively from past experiences are defined by the book as “Self-Schemas.” These self-schemas are specific to areas and domains of one’s life. They are then collected to create one’s self-concept. A person’s self concept fuels motivation in two ways: the consistent self and the possible self. Self Schemas direct behavior to keep confirm who the self is (consistent self), while shcmeas also direct you to who you want to become. (possible self). Through cognitive dissonance theory, this leads people to get aspirations and goals.
Identity is how the self relates to society, in a cultural context. People assume social roles and stick to these behaviors. For example, I am a “theater major,” so I might find that I am overly animated when I tell stories, interact with people, etc.
Agency is the self’s motivation. Intrinsic motivations cause the self to differentiate preferences and interests, and then untie itself with integration. The self tires to get self-congruence, when its goals enhance well-being and self confidance. Self regulation is how a person keeps tabs on how goal-setting and goal-striving is going.

One thing that struck my fancy in this chapter is how much of The Self and the actions deriving from them are subconscious. The book discusses how The Self is motvated by self-concept, identity, agency, and self-regulation. However, most of these are not conscious processes. In today’s society, there is always so much push to “be whatever you want to be.” While I am firm proponent to that concept, I think it is fascinating how little conscious control we have over the motivations derived from self. Take for example, identity. Many identities we claim are not from a conscious decision: son, nerd, etc. We can’t control the past, we have little conscious control over our self-schemas either. So I still firmly advocate for “being who you want to be,” I would say a more accurate phrase is “Be whoever you want to be, within the context of the opportunities and Self that you already are.”

As evidenced by the chapter, the self has everything to do with motivation. Our self-concepts and shcemas drive our behavior to stay who we are or become who we want to be. Our self agencies entails us to take action towards goals and aspirations. This knowledge helps me understand better how motivation works. Many of the actions and behaviors of my life that I engage in are based on forming and maintaining my Self.

“The Self and its Strivings” is an analysis of domain-specific self-schemas, or a set of beliefs an individual used to conceptualize his or herself in settings such as school, work, family, and as an individual. The Self is a dynamic entity, with a past, present, and future. And as something that is “created,” there are four main areas that contribute to its manifestation: (1) defining or creating the self, (2) relating the self to society, (3) discovering and developing personal potential, and (4) managing or regulating the self. Once a self-concept has been established, this is the baseline by which all future change is measured. In this way, having a well-developed self schema can actually facilitate change, while having a weakly-developed self schema can cause personal confusion and instability. A well-developed self-schema (or confidence in “who” we are) helps us make decisions and confidently predict our own future behaviors, resist counter schematic information about our self, and can act as a motivating factor via cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance is “a state of tension that occurs when an individual simultaneously holds two cognitions (ideas, attitudes, beliefs, opinions) that are psychologically inconsistent with one another.” In other words, it is the warning sign of hypocrisy. Those who have a strong sense of self will either change their beliefs or change their behaviors in order to remain consistent. Most people will justify their actions, beliefs, and feelings in a rationalizing way. Those with a weak sense of self have a lesser awareness of hypocritical behaviors and beliefs. Self-schemas also generate motivation to move the present self toward a desired future self, making one more likely to achieve goals and succeed in endeavors. This “future self” is often based on one’s observations of others and then is aspired toward.

This idea of a dynamic self in a constant metamorphosis is further described by the concepts of differentiation and integration. Differentiation “expands and elaborates the self into an ever-increasing complexity, while integration synthesizes that emerging complexity into a coherent whole, preserving a sense of a single, cohesive self.” Much of our identity is based on the society in which we live, therefore, some self-structures reflect the core self, while others only reflect and reproduce the society we exist within.

Self-Regulation (or “metacognitive monitoring”) is just as important in our strivings for self as it is in striving for any other achievement goals in life. The process of Forethought to Action to Reflection is a dynamic motivational system that establishes goal setting and strategic planning, provides feedback via discrepancies (obstacles, difficulties, distractions, interruptions), and self-monitoring and self-evaluation allow the reflection necessary to make judgments that compare current performance to the possible or expected goal state.

The most surprising to me is the link between self-worth and being open to experience. I would have never drawn a connection or correlation between the two. I, personally, fit 5 of the 6 descriptors of those who are open to experience, and therefore “value the self for who one is.” And yet, I often think of myself as somewhat insecure and in need of others’ approval. I am honest and self-disclosing during interpersonal interactions (to a fault!), I take responsibility for my behaviors and do not hide or distort information to deceive others, I engage in few activities to escape self-awareness (I don’t watch much TV or many movies or play video games), I rarely take experience altering substances, and I prefer interactions with others who fulfill innate needs rather than with those who promote extrinsic goals such as image or wealth. The only one I’d question is in showing less defensiveness, including criticism of others. While I don’t much care what others think of me, I DO tend to be highly critical – often because I wish others were more like me! This sounds conceited, but it’s just that I feel like I’ve got a few things figured out that I wish others could understand! On the flip side, I would have never figured that the opposite of all of those statements indicates one who has a weak or low sense of self-worth. That explains the behaviors of a lot of people I know, and how sad that is! It reminds me of the Dr. Seuss Quote, “Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind, don’t matter, and those who matter, don’t mind!” I’ve always said, “I learn, therefore I am.” And that any experience we can learn from is worthwhile. Part of my sense of self-worth is in knowing that I am free to change – to make mistakes, change my mind, be wrong – and in the process to learn and grow. There is no shame in that, only strength.

ME terms used: Domain, self-schema, dynamic, personal potential, cognitive dissonance, rationalizing, motivation, present self, future self, differentiation, integration, identity, society, self-regulation, discrepancies, self-monitoring, self-regulation, reflection, expected goal state, self-worth