MOOC "Social psychology". Module 4.

Hello there! I hope you are doing fine and you take care of yourself.  No matter what happens, one thing remains the same: we continue doing our social psychology course! This week we have to watch videos of the 4th module and then pass the test. So, now let’s quickly revise what we studied.

 In the 1st lecture I learned about the way how people perceive their personality. The lecturer old about one's self-concept, its structure, peculiarities. One's self-concept consists of self-evaluation and self-image.

There are different types of the so-called "self- schemata" which represents one's particular features that are included in one's self-concept. Schematics are people who think that their feature is important and it describes them well. Individuals who consider that the feature is important but it describes them badly are called non-schematics. Aschematics reckon that the feature is not important and it describes them not well.

Self-evaluation can be individual, collective, common, particular and it can be based on internal or external reasons. Besides, there are various types of self- modalities: real, ideal, possible, proper.

In the 2nd lecture I studied about such qualities of self-concept as stability, accessibility .

There is such an interesting phenomenon which is called working self-concept. It means that we can be different in different situations and with different people. For example, I am very cheerful with my friends, but in the university I am quite still and firm.

Also, if a person quickly remembers about his personality and if he is constantly self-aware, then we can talk about self-focusing. Objective self-awareness means that people do not always think of their personality, hence the quality of self-concept as accessibility is not stable. Self-awareness can be of two types: private and public. It's the way how people perceive themselves: whether they form their self-image on their own or they depend on others' opinion about them. Deindividuation can be described as the situation in which individuals act in groups and do not see themselves as individuals.

There are two levels of self-construction: personal identity(realization of one’s unique peculiarities that make one stand out in the crowd) and social identity (realization of belonging of oneself to a certain social group).

The 3d lecture was devoted to the topic of formation of self-concept. Social comparison theory states that individuals determine their own social and personal worth based on how they stack up against others. Social comparison can be ascending (occurs when one compares himself with more successful people), descending (occurs when one compares himself with less successful people) and based on equal rights. Ascending social comparison leads to the development, but it makes one feel bad about himself. Descending social comparison, in the contrary, does not let a person to grow, but it brings positive feelings to him.

The lecturer told also about motives that are connected with self-concept: self-discovery, self-affirmation, self-elevation. The false uniqueness effect refers to a tendency for people to underestimate the similarity and overestimate the distinctiveness of personal attributes compared to others. False consensus effect is the tendency for individuals to overestimate the level at which other people share their beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors. According to this effect we think that our own opinions are common and appropriate, so that others must also feel the same way. The effect of unrealistic optimism suggests that a person thinks that he is luckier than other people and nothing bad can happen to him.

The 4^th lecture was about self-concept and behavior. People with high self-esteem do not change their attitudes, beliefs and opinions very often, they are certain about their self-image, also they are confident enough to communicate with a lot of individuals.

Self-effectiveness is one’s evaluation of his ability to achieve his goals. It can be individual, collective, common, particular. People who have high self-effectiveness are more successful than others.

Self-regulation is a process of managing one’s behavior. One can rely on his ideals and hopes and change himself for the better. However, one can only avoid failure and he will do things that are inly required from him. He will not try to improve himself by his own intentions.

In the 5^th lecture there was information about impression control.

Self-presentation is one’s behavior, intention of which is to create image of him to a partner. There are 5 strategies of self-presentation:

1.                The desire to be liked by others

2.                Self-promotion (the desire to show everyone one’s abilities and skills)

3.                The desire to be an example to other people

4.                The desire to get a sympathy from others

5.                The desire to frighten people and show one’s power

Self-monitoring is one’s proclivity to control his behavior in accordance with others’ expectations.

Here is my result of the test:

Honestly, I liked that videos were rather short, but informative. I learned a lot of useful things and it was interesting for me to analyze myself and people around me using the new knowledge. For example, I realized that sometimes I do tasks only because I avoid punishment. Now I understand I need to change it and try to become a more motivated person. Anyway, the module was so helpful for me! What about you? Did you like the 4^th module? What are your results of the test? Leave some comments down below!