Chapter 10 - The Self

Chapter 10 was about the self. More specifically, this chapter went over the main ideas of self-concepts, identities, agency, and self-regulation. The first few pages of this chapter discuss the 6 dimensions of psychological well-being. These are listed and described as self-acceptance, positive relations with others, autonomy, environmental mastery, purpose in life, and personal growth. Next, the problem with self-esteem is discussed and it is said that self-esteem does not produce increases in achievement. The two are positively correlated and it is thought that achievement actually produces increases in self-esteem. Self-esteem is described as an end-product of the self’s adaptive and productive functioning.

The first of the four main pursuits in this chapter is up next. Self-concepts are defined as “individuals’ mental representations of themselves.” Within self-concepts are self-schemas. Self-schemas are “cognitive generalizations about the self that are domain specific and are learned from past experiences.” The self-concept is described as a collection of self-schemas then. The motivational properties of self-schemas are talked about and these are 1) self-schemas direct one’s behavior in ways that elicit feedback consistent with the already established self-schema and 2) self-schemas generate motivation to move the present self to a future self. A section is then dedicated to the topic of the consistent self. Our self-schemas are preserved by surrounding ourselves with people who treat us in ways that are consistent with our self-view. In addition, individuals may have high self-concept certainty which stabilizes self-schemas or low self-concept certainty. The idea of possible selves is given attention next. Possible selves are described as being mostly social in origin. Possible selves are thought to represent the future self. Cognitive dissonance follows the discussion of possible selves and is described as a psychologically uncomfortable state that results from an inconsistency between beliefs about who the self is and what the self does. Dissonance arousing situations are described and listed as choice, insufficient justification, effort justification, and new information. The discussion of self-perception theory (which says that people develop and change their behavior based simply on self-observations of their own behavior) ends this section.

The second of the four main pursuits, identity, is next in chapter 10. Identity is defined as “the means by which the self relates to society, as it captures the essence of who one is within a cultural context.” The concept of roles is talked about followed by identity-confirming and identity-restoring behaviors.

The third pursuit, agency, is discussed as a deeper construct than self-concept and identity. Agency is more intrinsic and entails action, according to chapter 10. The discussions of differentiation and integration and internalization and the integrating self are next. Differentiation is described as expanding and elaborating the self into an ever-increasing complexity while integration synthesizes that emerging complexity into a coherent whole. Internalization is defined as “the process through which individuals take in and accept as their own an externally prescribed way of thinking, feeling, or behaving.” Internalization is said to occur for two reasons: 1) the individual’s desire to achieve meaningful relationships and 2) the individual’s desire to interact effectively with the social world. Self-concordance follows these discussions. Chapter 10 states that self-concordance asks 1) How do people decide what to strive for in their lives? And 2) How does this personal striving process sometimes nurture the self and promote well-being yet other times go awry and diminish well-being? It is said that self-concordant goals tend to generate greater effort than self-discordant goals. The idea of personal strivings sums up the agency section. Personal strivings are described as being different from goals in that they integrate many different goals an individual may seek.

Finally, the fourth pursuit of self-regulation is discussed and finishes chapter 10. Self-regulation includes monitoring and evaluating how well things are going for our selves. Self-regulation is described as an ongoing, cyclical process. The topic of developing more competent self-regulation is given attention and this can be done by observing the behavior of an expert model. The individual receives feedback after imitating and starts to internalize standards.

I would say that the most surprising thing I learned dealt with self-esteem and achievement. I was shocked to learn that “in the relationship between self-esteem and self-functioning, self-esteem is not a causal variable.” I, like most others may have thought, believed that those with high self-esteem were generally high achievers due to their self-esteem. Instead, I learned that their high achievement was produced by corresponding increases in self-esteem. In addition, I was surprised that no evidence exists to support the idea that “boosting people’s self-esteem will improve their functioning.” It just seems logical that increasing an individual’s self-esteem will help them function better in society.

The self has everything to do with motivation! From everything like self-schemas to identities, our self motivates us in choosing the people we surround ourselves with, choosing the type of career we want for ourselves, and basically choosing how to act around certain people. It was interesting to learn that we tend to see ourselves as others describe us so after we attribute a certain quality to ourselves (i.e. shyness) we look for consistencies in feedback that help us preserve our self. In this way, we are motivated to act in certain ways due to our sense of self. In addition, our self motivates us to make progress toward our possible, future selves. We try to become our possible selves through personal strivings.

The knowledge from this chapter helps to motivate me towards my desired goals in that my possible self consists of being a wife, mother, and having a career in the field of psychology. These are all considered my personal strivings as well. I am in the process of starting to plan a wedding so I am motivated by the future self I want to become to get married and become a wife. I also try to think of myself as organized in planning this wedding because my self-concept consists of a self-schema that says I am organized. Another goal besides becoming a wife is to someday have a career in psychology. I am motivated now to receive my BA in psychology and, ultimately, a higher degree. I am motivated to receive a higher degree because my self-concept tells me I am a high achiever. To preserve my consistent self, I will continue pursuing degrees.

Terms: self-acceptance, autonomy, environmental mastery, personal growth, self-esteem, self-concepts, self-schemas, consistent self, possible selves, future selves, cognitive dissonance, insufficient justification, effort justification, self-perception theory, identity, roles, agency, differentiation, integration, internalization, integrating self, self-concordance, personal strivings

Chapter ten was an informative and interesting discussion of the self and its strivings. The book starts off with the discussion of the self. There are four main problems when it comes to the motivation of the self and its strivings, defining or creating the self, relating the self to society, discovering and developing personal potential and managing or regulating the self. All of these issues are components of what is needed to develop the self as well as exploring what is interesting to us, the values we hold to as individuals, seeking to develop talents as well as managing time to build relationships with others. There are many different aspects to the self, first of which is self esteem. Self-esteem is often thought of as a self motivator, encouraging people to want to do better. Although self-esteem and achievement are positively correlated, the boost of self-esteem does not produce an increase in achievement. Self-esteem is a reflector of how life is going, not a source of motivation to want to excel in life.

The book also discusses the concept of self-concept. Self-concept is an individuals mental representations of themselves and is constructed from a general conclusion of their daily feedback and experiences that they have been through. When it comes to the development of self-concepts, there are multiple different contributing factors one of which is self-schemas. Self-schemas, cognitive generalizations about the self that are domain and specific that are learned from past experiences, generate motivation in two different ways. First, they direct behavior in ways that elicit feedback that is consistent with the established self-schema in the fact that the feedback the individual is receiving confirms their pervious thoughts about themselves. If the feedback is contradicting to an individuals self-schema, motivation is created in the fact that the individual wants to return to the self-schema they have set for themselves. Second, self-schemas motivation people to move the present self toward a desired future self. After individuals have developed an expressed self-schema, they try to preserve that self view and avoid inconsistencies and contradictions which can generate emotional discomfort which signals for consistency to be restored. Often we will choose to interact with others who treat us in a way that is consistent with our self-view and avoid people with inconsistent views of ourselves. There are times in which our self-schemas change due to social feedback. In these cases we begin to imagine possible selves. Mostly in a social origin, possible selves represent an individual’s ideas of what they would like to become and what they are afraid of becoming. Possible selves also represent our future selves and are important in understanding how the self develops. When peoples beliefs of who the self is and what the self does are inconsistent, the individual may experience and uncomfortable feeling referred to as cognitive dissonance. When these feelings become extremely uncomfortable, dissonance takes on motivational properties and the individual begins to find ways in which they can eliminate or reduce the dissonance.

Along with the development of the self, it also has the capacities to grow, develop and differentiate. Ways in which the self grows is through internalization. Internalization is the process through which and individual transform a formerly externally prescribed way of behaving or valuing into an internal one. Internalization develops from the individuals desire to make meaningful relationships, and from the individuals desire to interact effectively with the social world.

The most surprising thing I learned from this chapter was the fact that a concept of self and knowing who you are can have a huge role in motivation and what leads you to do certain things. The self has many different impacts on motivation in the fact that our understanding and development of our self is what drives us to do certain things, interact with people in particular ways, and do the simple things we do in our day to day lives. Based on this information, I now have the desire to develop myself even more and evaluate what my internal self looks like through self reflection. I feel like having a better understanding of myself will defiantly help me in motivating myself to reach both the short term and long term goals I have set for myself.

Terms: Self, Self-esteem, self-concept, self-schema, possible selves, internalization

This chapter was all about the concept of the self. There are four concepts associated with the self; self-concept, identity, agency, and self-regulation. Self-concept is how someone defines themselves, and this is done with self-schemas, which are cognitive generalizations about the self that are learned from past experience about various aspects of the self, such as competence in athletics or academics. Identity is how and where the self fits into the rest of society, and is defined by the various roles we undertake, such as doctor, mother, or homeless person. These roles direct their behavior in ways that fit with the culturally expected behaviors of that role, such as a doctor being kind to their patients. Agency involves developing the personal potential of the individual. This process involves intrinsic motivation to motivate us, differentiation, which encourages us to diversify our interests and create a more complex self, and integration, where all these separate interests are brought together into a unified, coherent whole personality. The final concept of the self is self-regulation, which involves a person monitoring the progress of their goal directed behavior. Self-regulation is a process of stepping back from yourself and judging where you are compared to where you're goal location or situation is. This can help you modify your strategy and allow you to reach your goals more efficiently.
The most surprising thing I learned was the concept of social roles. I already knew about how people's behavior changes depending on which social role they are trying to fill. I think that it is interesting how even though we see ourselves as a society of individuals, we still strive to fill these roles and fulfill the behaviors that come with them. I think that most people try to follow social norms as much as possible to prevent dissonance among others around them. For example, a doctor who doesn't act like a doctor can be very disconcerting because he is supposed to be a professional, and you dont want to trust your health to someone who isn't acting the way they are supposed to. I believe that the concept of self-regulation will be the most helpful for me when I am in goal-striving mode, as I am very bad at following through with big plans that I laid out for myself and a little regulation couldn't hurt.

Terms: Self-concept, identity, agency, self-regulation, self-schema, differentiation, integration.

The chapter begins by discussing the four main problems that people face when it comes to the self. These problems include self-concept, identity, agency, and self-regulation, all of which generate motivation.

Self-concept deals with defining the self, and we do this by interpreting feedback that we get from others and the environment. We reflect on that feedback and then make generalizations about ourselves. These generalizations are called self-schemas, and they motivate us in two different ways. The first way is through the consistent self, which seeks feedback that preserves our self view. The second way is through the possible self, which works to change the present self to a desired future self. Whether we seek feedback in order to reinforce our current self-concept or we seek feedback in order to change ourselves, we are motivated to seek out something in particular in order to accomplish what we want. In order to use this knowledge to achieve desired goals, I would have to acknowledge my possible self and determine (and follow!) the steps I would need to take in order to achieve it.

Identity is formed when we relate ourselves to society. Our identities are highly influenced by our culture. When we form an identity (or think we have formed an identity) we are likely to behave according to how someone with that identity should behave. For example, I am not an assertive person by nature, but as a resident assistant, I act assertively when residents violate policies; I do this because resident assistants are expected to behave this way, which makes my behavior culturally-motivated rather than intrinsically motivated. The book tells us that when people act consistent to their identities, then “social interactions flow smoothly” (pg. 292). If I were not assertive during policy violations, residents would not respect me as an RA, particularly those who are not directly involved but witness my behavior nonetheless.

Agency refers to one’s own motivation which leads to action. We learned in the book that agency is driven by intrinsic motivation, and that differentiation and integration are two components of agency. Differentiation occurs as we explore different interests and become more a more complex individual based on the knowledge and experiences we acquire. I think of the variety of courses that I had to take in order to satisfy the liberal arts core at college when I think of this. As we become more complex, integration kicks in. Integration is what blends and organizes our many interests and self-schemas into a single self. In regards to the liberal arts core, integration would be the idea that the liberal arts core – with subjects all over the board – adds up into a single education. In addition to intrinsic motivation, differentiation and integration, agency is also developed by internalization. The book defines internalization as “the process through which an individual transforms a formerly externally prescribed way of behaving or valuing into an internal one” (pg. 283). Internalization happens for two reasons. The first is to achieve meaningful relationships with others, and the second is to interact well with society. In regards to the second one, I had to internalize the foreign customs of the countries that I lived abroad in to prevent myself from offending the citizens there. Both of the desires to achieve meaningful relationships with others and to interact well with society are motivated by the need for competence.

Self-regulation refers to the process by which we monitor ourselves to determine if we are accomplishing our goals. In order to determine this, we compare our present performance with our overall goal. We learn how to judge this through social learning, in which we observe and imitate an expert, and then internalize their self-regulatory skills. If we can effectively self-regulate ourselves, we become more capable of setting our own goals and accomplishing them. I had to do this as I learned to play the flute. I took private lessons from a very good instructor, and had to observe and imitate how she played when I first began. As I improved, I began internalizing her thoughts and was able to play more independently, without needing much guidance.

The most surprising thing that I learned is that well-being is determined more by personal strivings than by what we actually obtain. According to the book, well-being does not depend on whether or not we actually obtain our goals, which is news to me. It makes sense though; even though a lot of the popular kids at my high school strove for popularity and obtained it, they were generally not happy kids. This idea is also consistent with the stories about extremely rich people being unhappy; even though they accomplished their goal of obtaining a lot of money, the money itself did not make them happy.

Terms: self-concept, self-schema, consistent self, future self, identity, agency, differentiation, integration, internalization, self-regulation, personal strivings

Chapter 10 is focusing on one major question and that’s, “who am I”. This obviously can’t be answered within a single chapter, but I feel as if Chapter 10 covers a wide range of ways we define ourselves. There are six dimensions of psychological well-being; self-acceptance, positive interpersonal relationships, autonomy, environmental mastery, purpose in life, and personal growth. These are dimensions I find that we as individuals work or establishing through-out our entire lives. In order to be psychologically well we must obtain all six of these dimensions and in pursuing these six qualities is province of the self. Within ‘the self’ and the motivational aspects and strivings there are four problems, as follows.
Every single person has their own self-concept or views on who they are, and what type of person they are, when we construct our self-concept it is from the experiences we endure and from our own reflections on regards to those experiences. When looking at our self-concept it’s essentially what drives our individual and specific behavior, within our self-concept we have a self-definition; there can be two sides of our self-definition. One being something we are given; such as a gender, and the other being something that we have achieved, such as a specific career. Within our self-concept, we have self-schemas, which are our cognitive generalizations about the self which are learned from past behaviors that are domain specific. An example of being shy is a domain because it doesn’t represent our self-concept but rather it represents the self in a particular setting, or domain. As we age and come into different stages of our lives, these domains will change given our different life changes.
Following Self-Concepts with in ‘the self’ would be identity; which is very important because this is the means in which the self can relate to society. To identity one’s self within society can also be seen as who we are in a cultural context. We are all different in our own personality traits and goals but as humans we all belong to some type of social group or culture, within these groups we are given identities based on a specific role. An example being seen as a mother or motherly figure, this identity causes that person to engage in a given behavior that is deemed acceptable for that given role (identity-confirming behaviors) and to stray away from the behaviors that would be seen as inappropriate(identity-disconfirming behaviors). Through-out our entire day, and lives we as individuals hold many different roles, this is why we can see people as having a variety or set of identities rather than just one identity, it just varies and depends on the situation that person is currently within. Also known as “definition of the situation” or that once you figure out what role you and someone else should take within a social setting then the appropriate interaction follows.
The third and deepest concept because it looks further then cognitive structures (self-concept) and social relationships (identity) would be agency. Agency is looking at intrinsic motivation and it entails action. The importance of intrinsic motivation within the self is that it is the motivation that underlies agency as it energizes individuals to pursue their interests. There are two processes within agency, the first one being differentiation. Differentiation can be seen as how we look at different domains in our lives, that not every person or event is going to be the same. Integration is the second process and it essentially brings those differentiated parts together, this occurs within the self’s individual parts; self-schemas, identities, interests. Self-concordance asks two important questions. 1.) How do people decide what to strive for in their lives, 2.) How does this personal striving process nurture the self/promote well-being but yet also diminish well-being. To sum it up when someone sets out on a goal that goal is going to be congruent, or concordant, with their core self. Personal striving is the last aspect of agency and it is seen as what a person is trying to do. The things we strive for can be seen in our day to day interactions and behaviors over the course of our life time. They are not in and of themselves goals but rather aspects of our self that integrates the many different goals we may have.
Finally, self-regulation, this is a perfect way to sum up the four concepts and the chapter because self- regulation deals with a person’s attempt to accomplish the goals they have set, but then mentally stepping back and evaluating the process of reaching that goal. This is a process that is on-going and can be seen as a continuous cycle.
Something I found surprising and interesting was the section on self-esteem; I would say that the most surprising thing I learned dealt with self-esteem and achievement. It surprised me to learn that in the relationship between self-esteem and self-functioning, self-esteem is not a causal variable. I always assumed that people with high self-esteem were going to be high achievers due to their self-esteem and thinking that is what essentially motivated them. However, I learned that their high achievement was produced by corresponding increases in self-esteem. I also found it interesting that there is no evidence supporting the idea that “boosting people’s self-esteem will improve their functioning.” To me it always seemed that if I could talk someone up, especially before a softball game, then it would result in them possibly playing better because I felt as if I had given them a reason to be confident in themselves.
After reading this chapter it has helped to motivate me towards my desired goals in that my ‘ideal’ self consists of having a career in counseling, and enjoying that career, being a wife and loving spouse. These can be considered my personal strivings. I want to establish a career for myself before I start a family or anything of that nature, that’s actually one of my big goals in life. I have always had a set plan of obtaining a career, marriage, then a family. The self is directly related to motivation, as it somewhat can be the means of developing motivation in the first place. We start off by identifying ourselves as certain things or obtaining certain roles within a society or culture, which then motivates us to achieve and maintain our ‘self’.
Terms: self-concept, self-definition, the self, psychological well-being, self-acceptance, positive interpersonal relationships, autonomy, environmental mastery, purpose in life, and personal growth, self-schemas, identity, identity-confirming behaviors, identity-disconfirming behaviors, agency, differentiation, integration, self-concordance, personal striving, self-regulation,

Chapter 10 is about the self and its strivings. The self and strivings has four problems according to the text. These problems are: defining or creating the self, relating the self to society, discovering and developing personal potential, and managing or regulating the self.

Self-concepts are defined as individual’s mental representations of themselves. For one to construct a self-concept, they must attend to the feedback they receive in everyday interactions that enables a reveal of personal attributes, characteristics, and preferences. Self-schemas enable people to construct their self-concept. Self-schemas are cognitive generalizations about the self that are domain specific and that are learned from past experiences. The text further helps to identify the relationship between self-concepts and self-schemas by stating that the self-concept is a collection of domain-specific self-schemas. Self-schemas generate motivation by: directing individual’s behavior in ways that elicit feedback consistent with the self-schemas established, and by moving the present self toward the desired self. Once established, self-schemas become increasingly resistant to contradictory information in which inconsistency and contradiction generate emotional discomfort that signals that the consistency needs to be restored. In order for a self-schema to change, two things must be present: the self-concept must be low, and self-discrepant feedback must be potent and ambiguous – difficult to discredit. The text explains that people self-verify because (1) they seek to know themselves, because (2) verifications of the self, bolster perceptions that the world is predictable and coherent, and because (3) people wish to avoid interactions that might be fraught with misunderstanding and unrealistic expectations and performance demands. Possible selves are mental representations of attributes, characteristics, and abilities that the self does not yet possess – they represent the future self and are mostly social in origin. When beliefs about who the self is and what the self does are inconsistent, people experience a psychologically uncomfortable state referred to as cognitive dissonance. If the cognitive dissonance is intense and uncomfortable enough, people are motivated to seek ways to eliminate or at least reduce the dissonance. People reduce dissonance in one of four ways: remove dissonant belief, reduce the importance of the dissonant belief, add a new consonant belief, or increase the importance of a consonant belief. Dissonance-arousing situations are those that involve choice, insufficient justification (i.e., donating money to charity my lead one to believe that “[they] are generous”), effort justification (i.e., “if I did that, then I must really love this place”), and new information. Cognitive dissonance theory states that “people develop and change beliefs in response to a negative emotional state born in cognitive contradiction.” Self-perception theory states that “people develop and change their behavior based simply on self-observations of their own behavior.” The similarity between these two theories is that they both revolve around the fact that “saying, or doing, is believing.” The difference between the two theories is that cognitive dissonance theory argues that beliefs change because of negative affect from cognitive inconsistencies; whereas self-perception theory argues that people simply come to believe whatever they do and say.

Identity is a means by which the self relates to society as it captures the essence of which one is within a cultural context. Roles make up an identity and they are defined as cultural expectations for behavior from persons who hold a particular social position in society. The text states the process of figuring out roles is known as the “definition of the situation.” Identities direct behavior and behaviors then maintain and confirm identity. Behaviors and emotions can then be used to restore one’s identity.

Agency entails action. A view of the self is action and development from within, as innate processes and motivations. Intrinsic motivation is a source of motivation that underlies agency as it spontaneously energizes people to pursue interests, seek out environmental challenges, exercise their skills, and develop their talents. Differentiation and integration are two processes inherent within agency that guide ongoing motivation and development. Differentiation expands and elaborates the self into an every-increasing complexity. Integration is emerging complexity into a coherent whole that preserves the sense of a single, cohesive self. Integration is an organized process that brings the self’s differentiated parts together. Internalization is the process through which individuals take in and accept as their own, an externally prescribed way of thinking, feeling, or behaving. It is a process through which an individual transforms a formerly externally prescribed way of behaving or valuing into an internal way of behaving or valuing. Internalization occurs because: (1) occurs from individuals’ desire to achieve meaningful relationships with friends, family, and others (motivated by a need for relatedness), and (2) occurs from individuals’ desire to interact effectively with the social world (motivated by a need for competence). The self-concordance model attempts to answer: how do people decide what to strive for in their lives and how does this personal striving process sometimes nurture the self and promote well-being yet other times go awry and diminish well-being? The text explains that when people pursue goals that are congruent or “concordant” with their core self, that they pursue “self-concordant” goals. The model begins when an individual sets a goal for which they will strive to accomplish. Self-concordant goals reflect and express an integrated, agentic self. Self-discordant goals reflect and express nonintegrated action that emanates out of controlling internal and external pressures. The question one should ask in order to differentiate between these two goals is, “Am I striving to do something that I WANT to do (self-concordant), or am I striving for something that I HAVE to do (self-discordant)?” Personal strivings are what a person is typically or characteristically trying to do. Personal strivings can be either positive or negative. A positive personal striving could be that they are fun to be with; whereas a negative personal striving could be that they need to quit smoking. Personal strivings that cultivate self-concordant goals, personal growth, and subjective well-being are those that seek greater autonomy competence, or relatedness. The text defines subjective well-being as something that comes from the content of what one is trying to do; it is more about what one is striving for than what one actually attains.

Self-regulation is a metacognitive monitoring and evaluating of one’s ongoing effort to attain goals the individual seeks. It involves forethought, action, reflection, and the capacity to carry out the full goal-setting process on one’s own. Self-monitoring is a self-observational process in which a person keeps track of the quality of their ongoing performance. Self-evaluation is defined in the text as a judgment process in which a person compares their current performance with the hoped-for goal state. In order to develop self-regulatory skills, three phases are addressed. The first phase is that the person is unable to regulate their behavior and is unable to carry out the goal-setting process on their own. The second phase is that observation leads to imitation, as the person participates in the social learning process by taking on self-regulatory skills of an expert model. The third and final phase is that the person is able to competently regulate their behavior and carry out goal-setting and performance-monitoring process on their own. Effective self-regulation progresses through four developmental phases: (1) observation, (2) imitation, (3) self-control, and (4) self-regulation.

The most surprising thing I learned from chapter 10 was concerning self-esteem. I found it very interesting and surprising that increases in self-esteem to not produce corresponding increases in achievement, but rather, increases in achievement produce corresponding increases in self-esteem. In hindsight this makes complete sense. However, I know a few people who attempt to raise their self-esteem by increasing their achievement. I feel that the “backfiring” of this method is what contributes to their either unchanging, or lowered self-esteem. I was glad and surprised that I was able to apply this to people in my life.

Creating the self is an elaborate and time-consuming process. The self contributes to motivation in numerous ways. According to the text, the motivational analysis of the self and strivings has four problems: defining or creating the self, relating the self to society, discovering and developing personal potential, and managing or regulating the self. According to the text, “in the quest to regulate the self, we reflect on our capacities, monitor how well we are accomplishing our goals, and make the self-related adjustments that are needed to achieve enhanced self-functioning. People are motivated to create and portray the self they wish to be. In order to accomplish their ideal self, they are motivated to move away from their present self and fulfill their goals of attaining their ideal self.

This knowledge helps me motivate myself towards my desired goals by helping me to recognize my present self and to further my search for my ideal self. I am extremely indecisive and have a hard time focusing on what I want to become or do with my life. I get anxious as I am not sure where I want my life to head. This chapter has shown me that any idea of self is a motivator to what you want to achieve to become closer to your ideal self. Little things, such as how I want to portray myself to others is a step for me in attaining my ideal self. I am able to take this minute characteristic and use it as a motivator for me to accomplish my goal and ideal self. The small steps that I am taking will all be motivators to me as I move towards my desired goals.

Terms: self-concept, self-schemas, possible selves, cognitive dissonance, cognitive dissonance theory, self-perception theory, identity, roles, agency, differentiation, integration, internalization, self-concordance, self-concordant model, self-concordant goals, self-discordant goals, personal strivings, subjective well-being, self-regulation, self-monitoring, and self-evaluation

Chapter ten focuses on the self and its strivings. The general concept is that we create a self based on identity and past experience. One then experiences self concept, they maintain and idea about oneself and act this concept out with self-schemas. Self concept is the mental representation we have set out for ourselves and self schemas are generalizations about one developed through experience. A large amount of feedback affects our self concept. Based on well-being and agency we achieve the best self possible. Through four main aspects we maintain and idea of self the four include; defining and creating self, relationship with society, discovery and development, and regulation. The self generates motivation with these four aspects.

The most surprising thing that I learned is how affected we are by our self concept. Meeting and maintaining our self concept could be considered as a need. After reading this chapter I have noticed some of the self concepts that are surrounding me within my friends. Basically the real life examples that I have noted are highly affected when their actions contradict the self concept they have. They experience a consistent self, and after established contradictory action take away motivation. Motivation is also another key factor in the self and its strivings. A person has total choice in actions, therefore they should experience contentment. However, when they challenge themselves and do not succeed motivation is also lost and a new aspect is added to their self concept. For example my friend is very ambitious with school and has a positive attitude about completing and furthering her education. Although, when she fails a test she will lose all motivation for approximately a week. This completely contradicts herself concept and makes her behavior extreme. Stability in one self can be the contributing factor to be successful in achieving the desired self. The motivation to change also is driven to achieve self. Contribution agency is energized through self structure and reflection.

This knowledge helped further motivate me by understanding my goal for myself and what my priorities are in order to achieve my desired self. Having a strong goal is the first step to achieving a goal. Then making the goal apparent and concrete is the next step. Thinking of a goal is simply not enough; the goal has to be involved everyday and have a plan to make steps to achieve the goal. The self that I strive for is correlated with the goals I have for myself. This chapter helped me to realize that feedback can really improve oneself and instill self confidence. Always taking time to reflect and think about myself will help me to achieve. Another thing that I learned from this chapter was the importance of those surrounding you. In order to have positive feedback, maintaining relationships with positive people will help me increase self-esteem and increase the likelihood of success.

Key Terms: self concept, self-schemas, feedback, well-being, agency, contribution agency, motivation, need,reflection, relationships, self-esteem

“Who am I?” This is a question that people often ask of them self. Chapter 10 explains the self. It goes on to tell the four ideas that people need to have and what problems can arise from each one. The aspects are self concept, identity, agency, and self-regulation. This chapter really makes a person reflect and be able to think about their own lives.

The chapter starts with saying that a person needs to first ‘define or create the self'. They then need to be able to 'relate the self to society'. Thirdly they must discover their own 'potential'. Finally a person needs to 'regulate themselves'. People need to figure out who they are and what are able to do so they do not have the four problems. A person needs to find something they are good at and work on that skill.
Also, they must improve and have a good self esteem. It is a building block to understanding the self and making yourself the best you can be. Self esteem is how you feel about yourself. You need to think of yourself positively. Having high self esteem will lead people to be happier. Having low self esteem on the other hand, can lead to anxiety and depression.

The aspect of self concept is the first to be discussed. Self concept is the mental representation of themselves. It is biased on how people respond to them and how they perform day to day. To help figure out their representation they use self-schema's. These are specific and learned over time from their own experiences. Once a person has a schema for themselves they baised their behavior around it. They do a behavior that will get the desired feedback from others. It drives us toward behaviors that match who we want to be biased on who we think we are. We also drift toward people who give us the feedback we want. Once a person has a set self schema it is called a consistent self.

Identity is how a person related to society. Everyone is different and has different talents. Once a person has a label (like athlete) they go toward that group they identify with. They join that group and conform to that stereotype. This is called identity conforming behavior. We also afford behaviors that our group would not like. We all play a role and where we are and who we are with determines the roll. At work we play one roll but at home another.
The next aspect is Agency. Agency is growing and changing as you learn new things. It is about knowing your limits and your potential. This is what they use for making goals and deciding what they want with their future. The book talks about how people have a core self that says what a person enjoys doing and what they should do. It is their interests, and beliefs. When we follow our core and do activities we enjoy we help build our agency. Yet there is another layer to a person, it what society thinks we need to do. It hurts our agency.

Self- Regulation is the final aspect. As people are doing goals, they need to look at their progress and evaluate what they are doing. It is always happening and a very important step in goal making. People will make mistakes, slide backward, or get distracted on their goals. A person needs to look at their progress and it if it is still heading toward the final goal. Self-Regulation is something that needs to be practiced in order to get good at it. The best way is to have someone as a mentor showing you what to do and encouraging. When they are no longer there you can keep driving yourself forward toward the goal.
The most surprising thing about chapter 10 to me was how greatly schemas are engraved into us. We need to be able to label ourselves and others. Everyone needs to fit into a certain schema and once there they need to stay there and do what is expected of that group. We start labeling ourselves at an early age by what people tell us. We then act the way that people are giving us positive feedback for. We realize really quickly how important schema's are. I kept thinking of gender. We have so many stereotypes about what little girls and boys are expected to do. They learn really fast that girls should not play sports and get dirty, and boys should not play with dolls.

The self has almost everything to do with motivation. We are drawn to activities that we like and enjoy. They are in our core. How a person sees themselves dictates what activities they think they will be able to do and what they can accomplish. If a person had great self esteem and has a positive view of them self’s, then they will try harder. If a person is always told they have so much potential then they will have higher goals and will have high goals. Yet society can get in the way of the self sometimes but telling us what we can and cannot do. It can stop us from doing what we want.

As for my goal of getting good grades, it does drive me to do better. I need to believe in myself. I feel that I am one of those people who when I get one little bad grade on a quiz, I then think I am dumb. I need to have higher self esteem. Also I need to know what I can and cannot so and set realistic goals. I also need to figure out is getting straight A’s really my goal? Or is it my parents? Or is it what everyone expects of me? I need to look at my core and figure out if it is what I want. I know what I want to do with my future and I need to understand the material of a certain class to be able to accomplish my goal of being a youth minister. Yet the question comes back around to is getting an A the most important thing or is learning and growing as a person? I am more motivated to get an A but I also know that if I do not, it is not the end of the world. As a person I need to figure out what will lead me to my main goals at this point and then go from there. I might get distracted and my goals might interfere with each other but I need to remember to self-regulate.

Terms: self esteem, drive, goals, Self concept, self schema, consistent self, Identify, Agency, Self Regulation, motivation.

Chapter 10 begins by presenting and discussing the six dimensions of psychological well-being which essentially lead to discovering ones sense of self definition. These include self-acceptance, positive interpersonal relations, autonomy, environmental mastery, purpose in life, and personal growth. Individuals are driven by any of these varying facets to create or define their sense of self. When it comes to self-esteem it is important for individuals to find a balance; individuals with high self-esteem are happier, however individuals with inflated self-esteem become violent when challenged. The next major point presented in the textbook is self-concept, which is an individuals internal depiction and view of themselves. A self-concept is based on feedback given to them by others. Furthermore, a self-schema is an individuals "cognitive generalizations about the self that are domain specific and are learned from past experiences" as defined by the textbook. This is how an individual views themselves within the confines of certain environments or situations. Individuals are constantly driven by their self-schemas; they are either driven to maintain their current self-schema, or change their current self into that of a more desirable image. When an individual mandates a certain self-schema, they work to maintain that self into a consistent self. Individuals constantly receive feedback about themselves, and when maintaining a consistent self, individuals tend to seek out information that reinforces their self-schema, and avoid or ignore those that contradict it. When an individual has a stable self-schema it is uncommon for any information that contradicts their self-concept to have any effect. On the other hand, when an individual has an unstable self-schema and receive contradictory feedback, they experience a 'crisis self-verification,' possibly causing a self-schema change. As was stated earlier, individuals are also motivated by a desire to change their current self-schema into a more desirable one, and becoming their ideal 'possible self.' This possible self will either heavily motivate the individual to change into their possible self, or cause them to reject that possible self and create a new one. Cognitive dissonance is an uncomfortable psychological state that occurs when their is a contradiction between ones belief about their self and how the self acts. When cognitive dissonance becomes large enough, it motivates the individual to somehow eliminate or reduce the dissonance. Next the textbook presents identity, or "the means by which the self relates to society." Once created, the identity serves to drive and direct individuals to act, and refrain from acting, in certain ways. An individual behaves differently when taking on the identity of student, versus the identity of friend in varying situational demands.
Thirdly the textbook discusses agency, which is the "active nature of the developing self." Both differentiation and integration are inherent processes that "drive ongoing motivation and development." Differentiation is an individuals expansion in their sense of self, while integration brings those new ideas together to create one consistent sense of self. Finally the textbook presents self-regulation, which is defined as the "meta-cognitive monitoring and evaluation of one's ongoing effort to attain the goals one seeks," consisting of forthright, action, and reflection.
Something that I found surprising was that when an individual receives contradictory information to their self-schema, it is possible for them to be completely unaffected if their self-schema is stable enough. I had always thought that if an individual continuously received feedback that refute their self-schema, that they would quickly alter their self-schema to one that fit the new feedback.
The self is absolutely essential when it comes to motivation. People are so easily motivated by a desire to either alter or maintain a self-schema. For example, an individual desperately wishes to maintain a self-schema and reputation of being a 'nice guy,' so they seek out opportunities to make themselves the 'nice guy' that they may otherwise ignore.
This helps me because I think about the characteristics and qualities about myself that are positive and focus on those characteristics to motivate myself to do things I may otherwise attempt to avoid. For example, I want to eventually graduate college, but if I constantly skip my classes, I will not do well in my classes and will not graduate. Thus I am motivated to go to class, in order to maintain my ideal-self as that of a college graduate.

TERMS: Self-Concept, Self-Schema, Consistent Self, Cognitive Dissonance, Identity, Agency, Self-Regulation

In Chapter 10 we learn about the self. There are four main problems when it comes to motivating self and strivings, defining or creating the self, relating to the self to society, discovering and developing personal potential, and managing or regulating the self. Along with these components, this chapter talks about the six dimensions of psychological well-being. Which is basically an assessment on what we agree or disagree when it comes to answers. To give an example of how we delve into something. Self-esteem is what helps motivate us. It’s a measure of how poorly or well things go for someone. If achievement goes up, so does self-esteem, however it does work if you were to reverse their roles. If you have high self-esteem you are more likely to avoid having anxiety and depression. When self views are threatened where self-esteem is concerned at, it may lead someone to become very aggressive along with being more violent.
Self-concepts are defined as by the book to be individuals mental representations of themselves. This self-concept is described as a collection of self-schemas. Self-schemas are cognitive generalizations about the self that are domain specific and are learned from past experiences. Consistent self is brought up where we find out that self-schemas are preserved by how we surround ourselves with people who are consistent with our self-view.

Cognitive dissonance is when you believe one thing, yet actually behave in the opposite way. With cognitive consistency, you are a person who has morals, and you tell the truth. Whereas if you show cognitive dissonance, you are a person who has morals, but you lie. A person seeks to eliminate or reduce the dissonance, when intense and uncomfortable situations occur.

Identity is a huge part of self. This is where the self can relate to society. Roles come about in the identity search, because the identity directs the person to pursue some behaviors, and to avoid other behaviors. Basically a role is defined as being an expected behavior from people who hold a social position. People can change their role throughout their lives, by the way they act, converse with others, and their tone of voices.

Agency etails action and development from within. Here is where the self can process the act of discovering, developing, and fulfilling the individual’s potential. Here is where the dependency on to others go away, toward autonomy to relay on self, to become a fully functioning person. People tend to organize their behavior and self-worth around the needs of the core self when the environment supports autonomy and personal agency. Also, people organize their behaviors and self-worth around external validation when the environment supports neither their autonomy and personal agency, but instead their extrinsic aspirations are shown.
Self-regulation is where the monitoring and evaluation of one’s ongoing effort to attain the goals that one seeks. People want to do better than others. So they can gain in self-regulatory competence within a social learning process and observation level. This involves the carrying out of the goal-setting process of one’s own. There are three phases to go by. The first is the way you can observe an expert. A student learning from their teacher would be an example of this one. Second, is where the person imitates by observations, and imitation leads to internalization to the roots of effective self-regulation. Thirdly, the person can regulate their behavior and carry out the goal-setting and performance-monitoring process on their own.

I found the information about self-verify to be something surprising that I learned, because I learned that here is where they seek to know themselves and be true to themselves. They want to look for a partner who knows what to expect from them, where they seek interactions. They don’t want to deal with interactions that might get misunderstood with unrealistic expectations and performance demands. This is something that surprises me, because I’ve never heard of why people self-verify and I was able to understand the meaning behind this, in the small paragraph the book explains what it’s about.

The self deals with motivation by how we maintain self-concepts and are motivated to go about those self-concepts to others on who we think we are. We want to know who we are, it crosses a lot of people’s minds. We are desired to be the self where we strive to have and be our own possible self. We need to be honest and open to who we are as people. If more people went about being true to themselves, instead of covering up lies and hurting loved ones, I believe we’d be more happy and relaxed as a society. This chapter helped me to be realize I need to be more honest with myself and be content that I am who I am and not to be ashamed of that fact.

Terms: six dimensions of psychological, self-esteem, achievement, self-concept, self-schemas, Cognitive dissonance, identity, role, agency, cognitive consistency, self-worth, self-regulation, self-verify.

Chapter 10 discussed the self and its strivings. The problem with self-esteem is discussed, stating that it does not produce increases in achievement. The two are positively correlated and it is thought that achievement may actually increase self-esteem. Self-concept deals with defining the self, and we do this by interpreting feedback from others and the environment. We reflect on that feedback and then make generalizations about ourselves. The generalizations are called self-schemas, and they generate motivation in two ways. First, they direct our behavior in ways that elicit feedback consistent with the established self-schema. Second, they direct our behavior toward our desired future self. Identity and agency were also discussed. Once we assume social roles in society, our identities direct behaviors in the ways that go along with the cultural values those roles. Agency refers to the self-possessed motivation and involves action. Agency is developed through intrinsic motivation, witch energizes us and develops through differentiation and integration. Self-regulation involves the person’s metacognitive monitoring of how goal setting is going.

The connection between self-esteem and achievement surprised me the most. I assumed that if I had high self-esteem, I would have a high self-functioning. I thought that high self-esteem is what motivated people to work and ultimately achieve what they wanted. It surprised me to learn that self-esteem is mainly a consequence of achievement-related successes and failures.

This chapter has helped me realize how much self-concept is related to my motivation. Recognizing the discrepancy between my present self and ideal self, I am motivated to close the gap. I now know that my idea of self is something I can use as motivation to get closer to that ideal self. It is helpful to see that I chose what information I hear (to have a consistent self). Having a more open mind might lead me to learn more things about myself, even if it’s not staying consistent with my current self-concept.

Terms: self-esteem, self-concept, feedback, self-schema, future self, identity, agency, intrinsic motivation, differentiation, integration, goal setting, present self, ideal self

Chapter 10 was a great chapter to learn about how our views of ourselves motivate us. Our personal selves are a big factor when it comes to motivation. We can be affected by our mood, our viewed roles, our self-esteem, and many more factors. There are six “facets” of personal well-being. The first is self-acceptance. This is if we possess a positive attitude towards our self. The next is having positive relations with others which are having satisfying relationships with the people around us Next is autonomy which is our ability to evaluate ourselves based on our personal standards. Fourth is environmental mastery, the competence to manage the environment around us. Fifth is having a purpose in life, having goals and direction. Last is personal growth which is a feeling of having continued development.
The next section of the chapter is on self-concept. Self-concepts are our mental images that we have of ourselves. This is the same as how people have mental images on what other people, places, and events; we also have representation on what we are like. One big example that I can think of is when people have to give a speech in front of a classroom. In my opinion, a big majority of people do not enjoy giving speeches because they feel they will look stupid. This is an example of how people’s representation of themselves can either help them or prevent them to do well on a task. Our views on giving speeches could also be a self-schema. If we have had a terrible speech-related experience in the past, it can demotivate us to try when giving a speech in the future.
The next concept is identity. This is how we feel we relate to society. We are surrounded by people all the time whether it is at school, work, or social time, and being able to identify with those around us is very important to the self. We are also influenced by our role in society. If we hold a specific position, we will be influenced to make different decisions than others that do not hold that position. An extreme example of this is that the President holds a very high role and is most likely not motivated to get drunk and go to a bar like a college student would be.
Finally we get to self-regulation. This is our ability to see what our goals are and then stepping back and seeing how we are progressing towards those goals. This is observed everywhere, but this can be majorly observed in school. Someone that needs to do well in a specific class or during a specific semester can easily check their grades to see how they are doing with progressing towards those goals.
The most surprising thing I learned was how identifying with others can influence us so much. As I look at the chapter, I can see how the people around my have influenced me to be different than I was before. Being accepted is a very important concept in our lives, and it’s amazing to see how much people will change for friends or a significant other just so they will have someone.
I think that the self has a big role in our motivation because it is always pushing us to be that person that we want to be. When we look in the mirror every day, we see the person that we want to become, and all these factors are ways that we can monitor our progress. I think that this information will help me progress towards my desired goals because now I understand why I have those goals. It is so I can have the most pleasing version of myself.

Terms: self-acceptance, self-esteem, positive relations, autonomy, environmental mastery, purpose, personal growth, self-concept, self-schema, identity, role, self-regulation

Chapter ten discusses the self and the self’s strivings and desires. There are four problems that take focus in a motivational analysis and these include defining the self, relating the self to society, discovering and developing personal potential, and managing or regulating the self. When the self is created it shows how self-concept determines behavior. Some of these concepts are natural and some are developed by the individual through environmental stimuli and experiences. When the self is related to society, an identity is created. This identity differs from culture to culture and some places allow for more identity autonomy than other places do. Agency is the potential the self has to create the power and intention to act. Self-regulation is another concept and prevents the self from acting on impulsive thoughts and stay on track with the goals that have been previously set.
The book also states increasing one’s self-esteem is the best way to motivate someone to achieve a goal. If one has a high self-esteem, it probably means they are competent in the action they are taking a part in. This is sort of a “chicken and egg” debate. I had always thought high self-esteem lead to higher performance but in actuality, improved performance actually creates a higher self-esteem. Recently with all of the self-help books and TV shows telling you how to improve your life, it seems as though as long as you have a high self-esteem, you can achieve anything. In reality, the movement to increase everyone’s self-esteem is kind of a waste of time. Instead, people’s skills should improve and then the individual will become more confident and with a higher self-esteem. This portion surprised me a lot because all throughout elementary school I remember being taught “I am special” and other generic terms meant to make us feel better. I understand what they were trying to do, but I now realize it is not the correct way to go about increasing motivation or making children’s self-esteem go up.
The book next discusses self-concept which is the mental representation of oneself. This is an aggregate of all life experiences and from this aggregate a mental representation is created (self-concept). A self-schema is similar to the self-concept, but it involves cognitive experiences about oneself that are situation specific (i.e. I usually only talk to people at parties, otherwise, I am shy.) Additional self-schemas can arise in different domains. Self-schemas also allow feedback that can alert the individual of feedback on their perceived view of themselves. If the feedback doesn’t match their imagined schema motivational tension is created. The motivational tension motivates the self to change and make reality coincide with their self-schema. This is assisted by choosing who one surrounds them with. This is called selective interaction. This means we surround ourselves by people who will confirm our self-schema and create less motivational tension.
There is not just one “self” for each person, but there are “possible selves.” This means there are selves that individuals either wish they could become or selves they fear becoming. These possible selves represent future selves and can create motivation to either become or not become this possible self, depending on how desired the certain possible self is.
Cognitive dissonance is a concept I had heard of in multiple other classes and this occurs when who one thinks the self is does not agree with the behavior the self is taking part in. A good example is an environmentalist being forced to drive an Escalade. The environmentalist is in favor of a cleaner environment but driving the Escalade will create a worse environment. Because the environmentalist’s behaviors do not match her beliefs, she will experience cognitive dissonance.
Just as the self deals with internal happenings and attempts to keep the internal self balanced with the desired self, identity serves a similar function with society. Identity is the means the self relates to society and discovers their role in society. This happens differently for different cultures and each person holds different roles in each culture. A role is just a social position. People must change how they act depending on what role they choose to portray
The self has a lot to do with motivation. If the self is not at equilibrium, it is motivated to change its behavior and become more like the desired self. To meet my goals, I know I need to decrease the difference between my desired self and my current self. If I do that every day, I will be one day closer to my goals.
Terms: self, strivings, identity, behavior, agency, self-esteem, self-concept, motivational tension, self-schema, cognitive dissonance, identity, role

Chapter 10 is about the self and its strivings. There are four problems that occupy the self. Defining and creating the self, relating the self to society, discovering and developing personal potential, and managing or regulating the self. This chapter also discussed self-schemas is pretty much how you see yourself. There are two ways to motivate self-schemas. With the consistent self and the possible self. The consistent self is the self that you see and try to maintain. The possible self is the self that you thrive to be. Another thing that was discussed in chapter 10 was identity. The book defines identity as the means by which the self relates to society. Self monitoring is a big part of the self and goals. This is when you take a step back and look at where you are at and where you set your goal.

The most surprising thing that I learned was the ideas of the cognitive dissonance theory and the self-perception theory. The cognitive dissonance theory says that people develop and change their beliefs in response to a negative emotional state. Self-perception theory says that people develop and change their behavior based on their own self observation. The book gave the example of eating squid, but not realizing it was squid. So the cognitive dissonance theory says that we ate squid and there was no negative affect we must like squid. The self-perception theory says since we ate the squid that must mean that we like it. I find these two theories to be very similar and kind of confusing. It surprised me how many ideas out there like these two are out there, but I would never think about it in those terms until now.

The self has to do with motivation because you have to be aware of your self. Meaning you have to know who you are and what you want out of life in order to motivate yourself or to achieve any goals in life. I you do not know who you are or how you fit into society then you can not really know how to motivate yourself.

The information I learned in chapter 10 helps motivate me to achieve my goals because it talked all about the self and how to motivate the self. This chapter was all about the self. Which really sounds like it should be pretty easy. Out of everything in life you should know your own self, but in reality the self is something that people struggle with a lot because they feel they have to live up to societies standards on which they should be. This chapter was all about the self and how we motivate the self.

Terms: Self, self-schemas, consistent self, possible self, self-monitoring, motivate, cognitive dissonance theory, self-perception theory

Chapter 10 is all about you and yourself. Everybody is different, no one is alike. We all are our own person. Every individual has their own life that defined and created. There are times where we wonder about who we are, how others see us, how similar and how different we are from others, and whether we can become the person we want to be. These are all questions that we (as humans) ask ourselves. Maybe these questions occur on a daily basis, weekly, yearly, ect. At some point or another we cannot avoid these questions. In response to these questions, we start to discover and develop the self. We begin to explore what our interests are, and what values we have. In the process, developing yourself gets related to society because of the role that our society plays in our lives. Society show how identity energizes and directs behavior. Society can be very stingy on certain aspects, but nonetheless can be flexible too. It gives us responsibility in determining our future choices. For example: relationships to others (partners) or careers. Through the process of developing the self, motivation is playing a role. This is tied with the concept of agency. Agency means that the self has the power and intention to act; therefore, we have our own choices to make. It reveals the motivation we have. If we act upon a situation, obviously we have some sort of motivation behind our action.

Developing one’s self is very complex. Self-schemas are part of this life process. Self-schemas are cognitive generalizations about the self that are learned from past experience. The human body is made to learn and grasp understanding of past events. For example: When I was growing up, I through a piece of paper outside the car when we were traveling, my parents informed me on littering. I quickly realized that this has greater negative consequences than positives. Therefore, I quit doing that and I continue to act in that manner. Self-schemas influence motivation in two ways: consistent self and possible self. The consistent self, behavior is used to verify one’s self-concept, whereas, possible self the individual observes others and proactively forecast a view of the future self that the person would like to become.

The aspect of identity was most surprising to me. The word “identity” is a very common word, but I quickly realized that there is much more to it than I originally thought. Identity is the means by which the self relates to society. Obviously everybody has there are own identities because every individual is different. Once a person inhabit a role(mother), the identity directs them to pursue a certain behavior(identity-confirming behavior) and to avoid other behaviors (identity-disconfirming behaviors). While assuming one role rather than another, people change how they act. For example: The way someone talks with their friends is going to be different than how they talk with their grandparents. The actions they do, the words they say, and tone of voice are all aspects of this. I thought this idea was very intriguing to read about. It was interesting to find out that our own self has a tough time dealing with this and that it is difficult when the identities of the self and others remain in question.

The self can possess motivation of its own. Like mentioned before, we are motivated to do what we do. Agency necessitates our actions. As humans, our intrinsic motivation is triggered and our actions emerge. Intrinsic motivation, which is inherent within psychological needs, energizes the self to exercise and develop. The idea of the self-concordance model illustrates the motivational aspect behind our core self. The two questions asked in this model are 1) how do people decide what to strive for in their lives? And 2) how does this personal striving process sometimes nurture the self and promote well-being yet other times go awry and diminish well-being? Both of these questions revolve around motivation and “self.” One’s self and one’s goals are enhanced to lead a more satisfying lifestyle and promote both well-being and future gains in self-concordance. Along with this, our self motivates us into being who we want to be. It was interesting to read about how we usually see ourselves as others describe us. In this case, we are motivated to act in a certain manner due to our outlook on our self.

This knowledge is beneficial in helping me motivate myself toward desired goals. Understanding your own self and continuing to grow and develop in which the way you want to view yourself in the future is something to strive for. It is a difficult process, but can be fulfilled. Becoming a person you imagine and achieving that is satisfying. This means I should become a good husband someday and hopefully a father. The concept of personal strivings plays a big factor in accomplishing this. Personal strivings are aimed toward accomplishing day-to-day behavior and over the course of one’s life. They are not goals, but simply exist as super ordinate aspects of the self that organize and integrate the many different goals a person seeks. We try to become our possible selves through these.

Key Terms: self, society, agency, self-schemas, consistent self, possible self, identity, identity-confirming behavior, identity-disconfirming behavior, intrinsic motivation, psychological needs, self-concordance, personal strivings

The section on self esteem is interesting to me. It feels like the logic is flawed when it comes to self esteem. It outright states that low self esteem results in anxiety and depression both of which can impact functioning. If low self esteem is generating high levels of anxiety, it would definitely affect the work one is able to produce, generating successive cascading failures that are building upon each other. If one is depressed, they might already feel buried and have trouble motivating the self to dig out from under that.

Their findings on high self esteem aren't much better in my book. It doesn't feel all that objective, it even uses the language of inflated self worth when speaking of the people in the study. This implies that the people writing the study were taking individuals who they felt had a higher self worth then what they had earned through achievements, which is possible and is in conflict with the idea that self-esteem is a scoreboard of achievements that comes before the section on the Baumeister, Smart and Boden '96 study.

What degree of public ridicule or dissing do they have to do to provoke violent behavior? It clearly isn't people with average self esteem. There's two scenarios in which I see this as reasonable. One, they are using people whose self esteem borders on narcissism. Two, the people they used didn't have actually high self esteem but were merely portraying that they did. When challenged, they responded poorly. Truly high self esteem is hard to challenge, even through insults, personal attacks and challenges to the self. Most people with average or higher self esteem would still rise to defend themselves but not generally in violent ways. Aggressive language I could see, but violence is a totally different matter. We definitely live in a world where insults and challenges to self worth are pretty common place and yet we don't generally walk through the world fighting duels or watching people get clocked in the nose for some offhand comment or another.

The self has a lot to do with motivation or a lack thereof. Possible selves, selves that the individual hopes to live up to are probably the greatest formative part of the self concepts. It's how we begin to model behavior, based on what we see around us and what we aspire to be. When we are young, we hope to take what we perceive as the best qualities of the people around us into kind of an idealized hero self. As we grow older, this image tends to get a little more realistic.

Where reality and this idealistic self interact is where the self-schema begins to form. We don't always pay attention to the actions we take but they still leave an imprint, leading toward patterns of behavior even if we don't recognize them. Actions deemed acceptable within their self-schema reinforce that particular section. Actions that are at odds with the schema can be justified situationally or cause dissonance within the individual.

Who one wants to be can be a major motivating factor in the present day. Eventually, we acknowledge that this possible self doesn't come into being on hopes and dreams and that we must take actions to make it happen. Everyone takes some at least some actions toward this possible self even if they don't follow through on a hundred percent of their goals or even succeed in achieving their dreams.

Identity also factors into behavior. Identity is more where the self-schema and the social environment meet. Society imprints roles and obligations upon an individual, we're taught them by the people around us. Even children, depending on their social environment have certain expectations that they have to live up to. As we get older, we develop more roles and obligations, and grow out of some or they change.

Identities are situational, and in any given day an individual switches between a number of identities based on where they are and who they are with. With a child, they would be a parent, when with students, one might be a teacher. Roles can generate a conflict of interest. Such as, if one was to teach their own child in a a conventional school, they have to look out to try and avoid some nurturer behaviors that is appropriate for parent role but may seem inappropriate and unprofessional for a teacher to do.

Identities can also conflict with the self-schema, because identities can call upon an individual to do things that they don't agree with on a personal level.

Terms

Self Esteem,
Depression,
Anxiety,
Self-schema,
Possible Selves,
Dissonance,
Identity

Chapter ten focuses mainly on four components of the self. They are identity, agency, self-concept, and self-regulation. Identity deals with relating the self to society such as a role you hold in your culture like a mother. As a mother you take on the characteristics of that role by being nurturing and putting your children’s needs ahead of your own. Agency deals with your personal potential and developing it or taking action that is caused by your own intrinsic motivation and acting on it. Self-regulation is pretty much what it sounds like which is managing the self and your goals and observing your progress and making judgments based on your progress and performance. Self-concept is defining the self. Self-schemas were also heavily discussed in the chapter and that can be described as characteristics you have about yourself that are developed through experiences and knowing yourself as you develop. You may have a much stronger schema about yourself than you do about other people simply because you know your feelings and experiences better than you would know someone else’s. Agency, identity, self-concept, and self-regulation all play a part in our motivations and our emotions and help develop our schema as we get older and learn things about ourselves as we change and grow.

One of the most interesting things I learned from this chapter was the concept of self-concordance. I never gave much thought to why people choose the goals that they choose to follow. I have friends that have known since the 7th grade what they wanted to do with the rest of their lives. This includes careers, personal family goals, or their own individual goals that focus just on themselves. I have never really known what path to follow, so I try I have tried a lot of different majors and a lot of different hobbies to see what sticks with me. One friend in particular that I have has wanted to be a physical therapist since she was very hung and had knee replacement surgery. That one event in her life somehow clicked with her and she knew exactly what she wanted to do and she knew the reasons she was doing it were positive ones. I think it is interesting that sometime these choices work for people and sometimes they don’t and can leave some people feeling like “what was the point?”.

I feel like the self has everything to do with motivation. If we don’t know ourselves and allow ourselves to grow and become better people and adapt to change, then how can we continue to be motivated to continue with anything throughout our lives? I think this chapter helped me look at myself and my actions and little closer and it makes me want to focus on only engaging in behaviors that will better myself as a person and so that the schema I feel fits myself, others would be willing to say the same things about me. If I’m not a math whiz or even an athlete on some competitive team, I can at least look at my life and say that I am making healthy decisions that will improve my self-concept and maybe make my schema something that doesn’t just exist in my head but can be what others see in me too.

Terms: intrinsic motivation, schema, identity, agency, self-regulation, self-concept

Chapter 10 is about the self. There are four basic problems that the book covers with the self. These are defining and creating the self, relating the self to society, discovering and developing personal potential, and managing or regulating the self. These problems are part of the self-concept, identity, agency, and self-regulation. Self-schemas are cognitive generalizations about the self that are specific and are learned from someone’s past experiences. Self-concepts are collections of self-schemas. Self-schemas create motivation in two ways, with the consistent self and the possible self. The consistent self means that self-schemas direct behavior to confirm someone’s self view, or behavior verifies self-concept. The cognitive dissonance theory says that people do not like inconsistency and experiencing dissonance is aversive, so people seek to reduce it by maintaining consistency in their beliefs, attitudes, values, and behaviors. On the other hand, the possible self, people observe others and decide what they want to become.

Identity is how the self relates to society, and captures the self in a cultural context. Once you take on a social role, your identity will direct behavior in ways that express the role-identity’s cultural value. When people act in ways that conform to their identity, social interactions are smooth.

The next part of the self is agency. Action emerges from intrinsic motivation, and its development proceeds through differentiation and integration. Differentiation occurs when the self exercises it’s intrinsic interests, preferences, and capacities. Integration occurs when these differentiated parts of the self are brought together. This is a dynamic process where intrinsic motivation, differentiation, integration, and internalization of social experience all contribute to the development and growth of the self. The self-concordance model is an illustration of the motivational and developmental benefits of pursuing life goals that come from the core self. Self-congruence between the self and goals generates effort that leads to a better likelihood of satisfying experiences that promote well-being.

Finally, self-regulation involves a person’s cognitive monitoring of how their goal-setting progress is going. When people are trying to maintain their goals, they monitor and evaluate the process. Self-monitoring is an observational and judgment process where people compare their present performance with the goal. Self-regulatory processes are often acquired through social learning processes where people observe, imitate, and then internalize the competent self-regulatory skills.

Terms: self-concept, identity, agency, self-regulation, self-schema, consistent self, possible self, cognitive dissonance, differentiation, integration, self-concordance model