Self-knowledge - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Self-knowledge is a term used in psychology

Psychology

Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...

to describe the information that an individual draws upon when finding an answer to the question "What am I like?".

While seeking to develop the answer to this question, self-knowledge requires ongoing self-awareness

Self-awareness

Self-awareness is the capacity for introspection and the ability to reconcile oneself as an individual separate from the environment and other individuals...

and self-consciousness

Self-consciousness

Self-consciousness is an acute sense of self-awareness. It is a preoccupation with oneself, as opposed to the philosophical state of self-awareness, which is the awareness that one exists as an individual being; although some writers use both terms interchangeably or synonymously...

(which is not to be confused with consciousness

Consciousness

Consciousness is a term that refers to the relationship between the mind and the world with which it interacts. It has been defined as: subjectivity, awareness, the ability to experience or to feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and the executive control system of the mind...

.) Young infants and even animals will display some of the traits self-awareness and agency/contingency, yet not be considered as also having self-consciousness. At some greater level of cognition

Cognition

In science, cognition refers to mental processes. These processes include attention, remembering, producing and understanding language, solving problems, and making decisions. Cognition is studied in various disciplines such as psychology, philosophy, linguistics, and computer science...

, however, a self-conscious component emerges in addition to an increased self-awareness component, and then it becomes possible to ask "What am I like?", and to answer with self-knowledge.

Self-knowledge is a component of the self

Self (psychology)

The psychology of self is the study of either the cognitive and affective representation of one's identity or the subject of experience. The earliest formulation of the self in modern psychology derived from the distinction between the self as I, the subjective knower, and the self as Me, the...

, or more accurately, the self-concept

Self-concept

Self-concept is a multi-dimensional construct that refers to an individual's perception of "self" in relation to any number of characteristics, such as academics , gender roles and sexuality, racial identity, and many others. Each of these characteristics is a research domain Self-concept (also...

. It is the knowledge of one's self and one's properties and the desire to seek such knowledge that guide the development of the self concept. Self-knowledge informs us of our mental representations of ourselves, which contain attributes that we uniquely pair with ourselves, and theories on whether these attributes are stable, or dynamic.

The self-concept is thought to have three primary aspects:

The Cognitive Self
The Affective Self
The Executive Self

The affective and executive selves are also known as the felt and active selves respectively, as they refer to the emotional and behavioral components of the self-concept.
Self-knowledge is linked to the cognitive self in that its motives guide our search to gain greater clarity and assurance that our own self-concept is an accurate representation of our true self; for this reason the cognitive self is also referred to as the known self. The cognitive self is made up of everything we know (or think we know about ourselves). This implies physiological properties such as hair color, race, and height etc.; and psychological properties like beliefs, values, and dislikes to name but a few.

Self-Knowledge and its Relation with Memory

Self-knowledge and its structure affect how events we experience are encoded

Encoding (Memory)

Memory has the ability to encode, store and recall information. Memories give an organism the capability to learn and adapt from previous experiences as well as build relationships. Encoding allows the perceived item of use or interest to be converted into a construct that can be stored within the...

, how they are selectively retrieved/recalled

Recollection

Recall in memory refers to the retrieval of events or information from the past. Along with encoding and storage, it is one of the three core processes of memory. There are three main types of recall: free recall, cued recall and serial recall...

, and what conclusions we draw from how we interpret the memory

Memory

In psychology, memory is an organism's ability to store, retain, and recall information and experiences. Traditional studies of memory began in the fields of philosophy, including techniques of artificially enhancing memory....

. The analytical interpretation of our own memory can also be called metamemory

Metamemory

Metamemory, one component of metacognition, is about one’s memory capabilities and strategies that can aid memory, as well as the processes involved in memory self-monitoring. This self-awareness of memory has important implications for how people learn and use memories...

, and is an important factor of metacognition

Metacognition

Metacognition is defined as "cognition about cognition", or "knowing about knowing." It can take many forms; it includes knowledge about when and how to use particular strategies for learning or for problem solving...

.

The connection between our memory and our self-knowledge has been recognized for many years by leading minds in both philosophy

Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

and psychology, yet the precise specification of the relation remains a point of controversy.

Is There a Specialized Memory for Self-Knowledge?

Studies have shown there is a memory advantage for information encoded with reference to the self.
Patients with Alzheimer's who have difficulty recognizing their own family have not shown evidence of self-knowledge.

Self-Knowledge and the Division of Memory

Self-theories have traditionally failed to distinguish between different source that inform self-knowledge, these are episodic memory

Episodic memory

Episodic memory is the memory of autobiographical events that can be explicitly stated. Semantic and episodic memory together make up the category of declarative memory, which is one of the two major divisions in memory...

and semantic memory

Semantic memory

Semantic memory refers to the memory of meanings, understandings, and other concept-based knowledge unrelated to specific experiences. The conscious recollection of factual information and general knowledge about the world is generally thought to be independent of context and personal relevance...

. Both episodic and semantic memory are facets of declarative memory

Declarative memory

Declarative memory is one of two types of long term human memory. It refers to memories which can be consciously recalled such as facts and knowledge. Its counterpart is known as non-declarative or Procedural memory, which refers to unconscious memories such as skills...

, which contains memory of facts. Declarative memory is the explicit counterpart to procedural memory

Procedural memory

Procedural memory is memory for how to do things. Procedural memory guides the processes we perform and most frequently resides below the level of conscious awareness. When needed, procedural memories are automatically retrieved and utilized for the execution of the integrated procedures involved...

, which is implicit in that it applies to skills we have learnt; they are not facts that can be stated.

Episodic Memory

Episodic memory

does not refer to concept-based knowledge stored about a specific experience like episodic memory. Instead it includes the memory of meanings, understandings, general knowledge about the world, and factual information etc. This makes semantic knowledge independent of context and personal information.
Semantic memory enables an individual to know information, including information about their selves, without having to consciously recall the experiences that taught them such knowledge.

Semantic Memory

Semantic memory

is the autobiographical memory that individuals possess which contains events, associated emotions, and knowledge around a given context.
This kind of declarative memory provides an individual with a personal narrative and a view of their selves as existing throughout a period of time.

Semantic Self as the Source of Self-Knowledge

People are able to maintain a sense of self that is supported by semantic knowledge of personal facts in the absence of direct access to the memories that describe the episodes on which the knowledge is based.

Individuals have been shown to maintain a sense of self despite catastrophic impairments in episodic recollection. For example subject W.J., who suffered dense retrograde amnesia
Retrograde amnesia
Retrograde amnesia is a loss of access to events that occurred, or information that was learned, before an injury or the onset of a disease....

leaving her unable to recall any events that occurred prior to the development of amnesia. However, her memory for general facts about her life during the period of amnesia remained intact.
This suggests that a separate type of knowledge contributes to the self-concept, as W.J.'s knowledge could not have come from her episodic memory.
- A similar dissociation occurred in K.C. who suffered a total loss of episodic memory, but still knew a variety of facts about himself.
Evidence also exists that shows how patients with severe amnesia
Amnesia
Amnesia is a condition in which one's memory is lost. The causes of amnesia have traditionally been divided into categories. Memory appears to be stored in several parts of the limbic system of the brain, and any condition that interferes with the function of this system can cause amnesia...

can have accurate and detailed semantic knowledge of what they are like as a person, for example which particular personality traits and characteristics they possess.

This evidence for the dissociation between episodic and semantic self-knowledge has made several things clear:

Episodic memory is not the only drawing point for self-knowledge, contrary to long-held beliefs. Self-knowledge must therefore be expanded to include the semantic component of memory.
Self-knowledge about the traits one possesses can be accessed without the need for episodic retrieval. This is shown through study of individuals with neurological impairments that make it impossible to recollect trait-related experiences, yet whom can still make reliable and accurate trait-ratings of themselves, and even revise these judgements based on new experiences they cannot even recall.

Motives that Guide our Search for Self-Knowledge

People have goals that lead them to seek, notice, and interpret information about themselves. These goals begin the quest for self-knowledge.
There are three primary motives that lead us in the search for self-knowledge:

Self-Enhancement
Accuracy
Consistency

Self-Enhancement

Self-enhancement

Self-enhancement is a type of motivation that works to make people feel good about themselves and to maintain self-esteem. This motive becomes especially prominent in situations of threat, failure or blows to one's self-esteem...

refers to the fact that people seem motivated to experience positive emotional states and to avoid experiencing negative emotional states. People are motivated to feel good about themselves in order to maximize their feelings of self-worth, thus enhancing their self-esteem

Self-esteem

Self-esteem is a term in psychology to reflect a person's overall evaluation or appraisal of his or her own worth. Self-esteem encompasses beliefs and emotions such as triumph, despair, pride and shame: some would distinguish how 'the self-concept is what we think about the self; self-esteem, the...

.

The emphasis on feelings differs slightly from how other theories have previously defined self-enhancement needs, for example the Contingencies of Self-Worth Model.

Other theorists have taken the term to mean that people are motivated to think about themselves in highly favorable terms, rather than feel they are "good".

In many situations and cultures, feelings of self-worth are promoted by thinking of oneself as highly capable or better than one's peers. However in some situations and cultures, feelings of self-worth are promoted by thinking of oneself as average or even worse than others. In both cases, thoughts about the self still serve to enhance feelings of self-worth.
The universal need is not a need to think about oneself in any specific way, rather a need to maximize one's feelings of self-worth. This is the meaning of the self enhancement motive with respect to self-knowledge.

Arguments

In Western societies, feelings of self-worth are in fact promoted by thinking of oneself in favorable terms.

In this case, self-enhancement needs lead people to seek information about themselves in such a way that they are likely to conclude that they truly possess the qualities.

See "Self-Verification Theory" section.

Accuracy

Accuracy needs influence the way in which people search for self-knowledge. People frequently wish to know the truth about themselves without regard as to whether they learn something positive or negative.
There are three considerations which underlie this need:

Occasionally people simply want to reduce any uncertainty. They may want to know for the sheer intrinsic pleasure of knowing what they are truly like.
Some people believe they have a moral obligation to know what they are really like. This view holds particularly strong in theology
Theology
Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...

and philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

, particularly existentialism
Existentialism
Existentialism is a term applied to a school of 19th- and 20th-century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, shared the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject—not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual...

.
Knowing what one is really like can sometimes help an individual to achieve their goals. The basic fundamental goal to any living thing is survival, therefore accurate self knowledge can be adaptive to survival.

Accurate self-knowledge can also be instrumental in maximizing feelings of self-worth. Success is one of the number of things that make people feel good about themselves, and knowing what we are like can make successes more likely, so self-knowledge can again be adaptive. This is because self-enhancement needs can be met by knowing that one can not do something particularly well, thus protecting the person from pursuing a dead-end dream that is likely to end in failure.

Consistency

Many theorists believe that we have a motive to protect the self-concept (and thus our self-knowledge) from change. This motive to have consistency leads people to look for and welcome information that is consistent with what they believe to be true about themselves; likewise, they will avoid and reject information which presents inconsistencies with their beliefs. This phenomenon is also known as self-verification theory

Self-verification theory

Self-verification is a social psychological theory that asserts people want to be known and understood by others according to their firmly held beliefs and feelings about themselves, that is self-views...

.
Not everyone has been shown to pursue a self-consistency motive; but it has played an important role in various other influential theories, such as cognitive dissonance theory

Cognitive dissonance

Cognitive dissonance is a discomfort caused by holding conflicting ideas simultaneously. The theory of cognitive dissonance proposes that people have a motivational drive to reduce dissonance. They do this by changing their attitudes, beliefs, and actions. Dissonance is also reduced by justifying,...

Self-Verification Theory

This theory was put forward by William Swann

William Swann

William B. Swann is a professor of social and personality psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. He is primarily known for his work on identity, self and self-esteem, but has also done research on relationships, social cognition, group processes, accuracy in person perception and...

of the University of Texas at Austin in 1983 to put a name to the aforementioned phenomena. The theory states that once a person develops an idea about what they are like, they will strive to verify the accompanying self-views.
Two considerations are thought to drive the search for self-verifing feedback:

We feel more comfortable and secure when we believe that others see us in the same way that we see ourselves. Actively seeking self-verifying feedback helps people avoid finding out that they are wrong about their self-views.
Self-verification theory assumes that social interactions will proceed more smoothly and profitably when other people view us the same way as we view ourselves. This provides a second reason to selectively seek self-verifying feedback.

These factors of self-verification theory create controversy when persons suffering from low-self esteem are taken into consideration. People who hold negative self-views about themselves selectively seek negative feedback in order to verify their self-views. This is in stark contrast to self-enhancement motives that suggest a person is driven by the desire to feel good about themselves.

Sources of Self-Knowledge

There are three sources of information available to an individual through which to search for knowledge about the self:

The Physical World
The Social World
The Psychological World

The Physical World

The physical world is generally a highly visible, and quite easily measurable source of information about one's self. Information one may be able to obtain from the physical world may include:

Weight - By weighing oneself.
Strength - By measuring how much one can lift.
Height - By measuring oneself.

Limitations

Many attributes are not measurable in the physical world, such as kindness, cleverness and sincerity.
Even when attributes can be assessed with reference to the physical world, the knowledge that we gain is not necessarily the knowledge we are seeking. Every measure is simply a relative measure to the level of that attribute in, say, the general population or another specific individual.
- This means that any measurement only merits meaning when it is expressed in respect to the measurements of others.
- Most of our personal identities are therefore sealed in comparative terms from the social world.

The Social World

The comparative nature of self-views means that people rely heavily on the social world when seeking information about their selves. Two particular processes are important:

Social Comparison Theory
Social comparison theory
Social comparison theory is a theory initially proposed by social psychologist Leon Festinger in 1954. It explains how individuals evaluate their own opinions and desires by comparing themselves to others.- Basic framework :...
Reflected Appraisals

Social Comparison

People compare attributes with others and draw inferences about what they themselves are like. However, the conclusions a person ultimately draws depend on whom in particular they compare themselves with. The need for accurate self-knowledge was originally thought to guide the social comparison process, and researchers assumed that comparing with others who are similar to us in the important ways is more informative.

Complications of the Social Comparison Theory

People are also known to compare themselves with people who are slightly better off than they themselves are (known as an upward comparison); and with people who are slightly worse off or disadvantaged (known as a downward comparison).
There is also substantial evidence that the need for accurate self-knowledge is neither the only, nor most important factor that guides the social comparison process, the need to feel good about ourselves affects the social comparison process.

Reflected Appraisals

Reflected appraisals occur when a person observes how others respond to them. The process was first explained by the sociologist

Sociology

Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...

Charles H. Cooley in 1902 as part of his discussion of the "looking-glass self", which describes how we see ourselves reflected in other peoples' eyes. He argued that a person's feelings towards themselves are socially determined via a three-step process:

"A self-idea of this sort seems to have three principled elements: the imagination of our appearance to the other person; the imagination of his judgment of that appearance; and some sort of self-feeling, such as pride or mortification. The comparison with a looking-glass hardly suggests the second element, the imagined judgment which is quite essential. The thing that moves us to pride or shame is not the mere mechanical reflection of ourselves, but an imputed sentiment, the imagined effect of this reflection upon another's mind." (Cooley, 1902, p.153)

In simplified terms, Cooley's three stages are:

We imagine how we appear in the eyes of another person.
We then imagine how that person is evaluating us.
The imagined evaluation leads us to feel good or bad, in accordance with the judgement we have conjured.

Note that this model is of a phenomenological

Phenomenology (psychology)

Phenomenology is an approach to psychological subject matter that has its roots in the philosophical work of Edmund Husserl. Early phenomenologists such as Husserl, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty conducted their own psychological investigations in the early 20th century...

nature.

In 1963, John W. Kinch adapted Cooley's model to explain how a person's thoughts about themselves develop rather than their feelings.

Kinch's three stages were:

Actual Appraisals - What other people actually think of us.
Perceived Appraisals - Our perception of these appraisals.
Self-Appraisals - Our ideas about what we are like based on the perceived appraisals.

This model is also of a phenomenological approach.

Arguments Against the Reflected Appraisal Models

Research has only revealed limited support for the models and various arguments raise their heads:

People are not generally good at knowing what an individual thinks about them.
- Felson believes this is due to communication barriers and imposed social norms which place limits on the information people receive from others. This is especially true when the feedback would be negative; people rarely give one-another negative feedback, so people rarely conclude that another person dislikes them or is evaluating them negatively.
Despite being largely unaware of how one person in particular is evaluating them, people are better at knowing what other people on the whole think.
- The reflected appraisal model assumes that actual appraisals determine perceived appraisals. Although this may in fact occur, the influence of a common third variable could also produce an association between the two.

The sequence of reflected appraisals may accurately characterize patterns in early childhood due to the large amount of feedback infants receive from their parents, yet it appears to be less relevant later in life. This is because people are not passive, as the model assumes. People actively and selectively process information from the social world. Once a person's ideas about themselves take shape, these also influence the manner in which new information is gathered and interpreted, and thus the cycle continues.

The Psychological World

The psychological world describes our "inner world". There are three processes that influence how people acquire knowledge about themselves:

Introspection
Introspection
Introspection is the self-observation and reporting of conscious inner thoughts, desires and sensations. It is a conscious and purposive process relying on thinking, reasoning, and examining one's own thoughts, feelings, and, in more spiritual cases, one's soul...
Self-Perception Processes
Self-perception theory
Self-perception theory is an account of attitude change developed by psychologist Daryl Bem. It asserts that people develop their attitudes by observing their behaviour and concluding what attitudes must have caused them. The theory is counterintuitive in nature, as the conventional wisdom is that...
Causal Attributions
Attribution (psychology)
Attribution is a concept in social psychology referring to how individuals explain causes of behavior and events. Attribution theory is an umbrella term for various theories that attempt to explain these processes. Fritz Heider first proposed a theory of attribution The Psychology of Interpersonal...

Introspection

Introspection is the self-observation and reporting of conscious inner thoughts, desires and sensations. It is a conscious and purposive process relying on thinking, reasoning, and examining one's own thoughts, feelings, and, in more spiritual cases, one's soul...

involves looking inwards and directly consulting our attitudes, feelings and thoughts for meaning.
Consulting one's own thoughts and feelings can result in meaningful self-knowledge.

A stranger's ratings about a participant are more correspondent to the participant's self-assessment ratings when the stranger has been subject to the participant's thoughts and feelings than when the stranger has been subject to the participant's behavior alone, or a combination of the two.

Arguments Against Introspection

Whether introspection always fosters self-insight is not entirely clear. Thinking too much about why we feel the way we do about something can sometimes confuse us and undermine true self-knowledge. Participants in an introspection condition are less accurate when predicting their own future behavior than controls and are less satisfied with their choices and decisions.

Self-Perception Processes

Wilson's work is based on the assumption that people are not always aware of why they feel the way they do. Bem's self-perception theory makes a similar assumption.
The theory is concerned with how people explain their behavior. It argues that people don't always know why they do what they do. When this occurs, they infer the causes of their behavior by analyzing their behavior in the context in which it occurred. Outside observers of the behavior would reach a similar conclusion as the individual performing it. The individuals then draw logical conclusions about why they behaved as they did.

"Individuals come to "know" their own attitudes, emotions, and other internal states partially by inferring them from observations of their own overt behavior and/or the circumstances in which this behavior occurs. Thus, to the extent that internal cues are weak, ambiguous, or uninterpretable, the individual is functionally in the same position as an outside observer, an observer who must necessarily rely upon those same external cues to infer the individual's inner states." (Bem, 1972, p.2)

The theory has been applied to a wide range of phenomena. Under particular conditions, people have been shown to infer their attitudes, emotions, and motives, in the same manner described by the theory.

Similar to introspection, but with an important difference: with introspection we directly examine our attitudes, feelings and motives. With self-perception processes we indirectly infer our attitudes, feelings, and motives by analyzing our behavior.

Causal Attributions

Causal attributions are an important source of self-knowledge, especially when people make attributions for positive and negative events. The key elements in self-perception theory are explanations people give for their actions, these explanations are known as causal attributions.

Causal attributions provide answers to "Why?" questions by attributing a person's behavior (including our own) to a cause.

People also gain self-knowledge by making attributions for other people's behavior; for example "If nobody wants to spend time with me it must be because I'm boring".

Activation of Self-Knowledge

Individuals think of themselves in many different ways, yet only some of these ideas are active at any one given time. The idea that is specifically active at a given time is known as the Current Self-Representation. Other theorists have referred to the same thing in several different ways:

The Phenomenal Self
Spontaneous Self-Concept
Self-Identifications
Aspects of the Working Self-Concept

The current self-representation influences information processing, emotion, and behavior and is influenced by both personal and situational factors.

Self-Concept

Self-concept

, or how people usually think of themselves is the most important personal factor that influences current self-representation. This is especially true for attributes that are important and self-defining.

Self-concept is also known as the self-schema, made of innumerable smaller self-schemas that are "chronically accessible".

Self-Esteem

Self-esteem

affects the way people think about themselves. People with high self-esteem are more likely to be thinking of themselves in positive terms at a given time than people suffering low self-esteem.

Mood State

Mood state influences the accessibility of positive and negative self-views.

When we are happy we tend to think more about our positive qualities and attributes, whereas when we are sad our negative qualities and attributes become more accessible.

This link is particularly strong for people suffering low self-esteem.

Goals

People can deliberately activate particular self-views. We select appropriate images of ourselves depending on what role we wish to play in a given situation.

One particular goal that influences activation of self-views is the desire to feel good.

Physical Factors

Chemical imbalances in the brain can trigger positive and negative thoughts about oneself.

Other physiological factors such as hunger, lack of sleep, and hormonal changes can also alter the way people think about themselves.

Certain drugs such as Lithium

Lithium pharmacology

Lithium pharmacology refers to use of the lithium ion, Li+, as a drug. A number of chemical salts of lithium are used medically as a mood stabilizing drug, primarily in the treatment of bipolar disorder, where they have a role in the treatment of depression and particularly of mania, both acutely...

and Fluoxetine

Fluoxetine

Fluoxetine is an antidepressant of the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor class. It is manufactured and marketed by Eli Lilly and Company...

(Prozac) can have a similar effect.

Some of the effect will be mediated through mood.
Some of the effect will be direct, from the chemicals in the drugs.

Social Roles

How a person thinks of themselves depends largely on the social role they are playing. Social roles influence our personal identities.

Social Context and Self-Description

People tend to think of themselves in ways that distinguish them from their social surroundings.

The more distinctive the attribute, the more likely it will be used to describe oneself.

Distinctiveness also influences the salience of group identities.

Self-categorization theory

Self-categorization Theory

Self-categorization theory is a theory of social categorization that includes categorization of the self as a key feature. The theory was developed by John Turner and colleagues, and along with social identity theory it is a constituent part of the social identity approach...

proposes that whether people are thinking about themselves in terms of either their social groups or various personal identities depends partly on the social context.

Group identities are more salient in the intergroup contexts.

Group Size

The size of the group affects the salience of group-identities. Minority groups are more distinctive, so group identity should be more salient among minority group members than majority group members.

Group Status

Group status interacts with group size to affect the salience of social identities.

Social Context and Self-Evaluation

The social environment has an influence on the way people evaluate themselves as a result of social-comparison processes.

The Contrast Effect

People regard themselves as at the opposite end of the spectrum of a given trait to the people in their company. However, this effect has come under criticism as to whether it is a primary effect as it seems to share space with the Assimilation Effect.

The assimilation effect states that people evaluate themselves more positively when they are in the company of others who are exemplary on some dimension.

Whether the assimilation or contrast effect prevails depends on the psychological closeness, with people feeling psychologically disconnected with their social surroundings being more likely to show contrast effects. Assimilation effects occur when the subject feels psychologically connected to their social surroundings.

Significant Others and Self-Evaluations

Imagining how one appears to others has an effect on how one thinks about oneself.

Recent Events

Recent events can cue particular views of the self, either as a direct result of failure, or via mood.

The extent of the effect depends on personal variables. For example people with high self-esteem do not show this effect, and sometimes do the opposite.

Memory for prior events influence how people think about themselves.

Fazio et al. found that selective memory for prior events can temporarily activate self-representations which, once activated, guide our behavior.

Misperceiving

Deficiency in knowledge of the present self.
Giving reasons but not feelings disrupts self-insight.

Misremembering

Deficiency of knowledge of the past self.
Knowledge from the present overinforms the knowledge of the past.
False theories shape autobiographical memory.

Misprediction

Deficiency of knowledge of the future self.
Knowledge of the present overinforms predictions of future knowledge.
Affective forecasting

Affective forecasting

Affective forecasting is the forecasting of one's affect in the future. This kind of prediction is affected by various kinds of cognitive biases, or systematic errors of thought also known as "empathy gap" and "impact bias"....

can be affected by durability bias.

External links

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