PSYC20009 Chap.6 The Self and Perceiving Others
The Self and Perceiving Others
Self-concept is the mental representation of knowledge about the self, while self-esteem concerns evaluation of the self. Self-knowledge can be organised as traits, role-based self-aspects, self-schemas and narrative identity. The working self-concept is the subset made accessible by the current situation.
People construct self-knowledge through self-perception, introspection, social comparison and social feedback, with culture shaping how the self is construed. Perceiving other people uses a related but distinct set of processes. Accessible knowledge and salient cues shape rapid first impressions.
A correspondent inference treats behaviour as reflecting a trait, and correspondence bias occurs when dispositional causes are overweighted relative to environmental influence. Deeper processing can use consensus, distinctiveness and consistency information to compare people, targets and occasions.
The chapter joins self and other perception by asking whose behaviour is interpreted, which information is accessible and what causal conclusion the evidence warrants.
What this chapter covers
- 01
Self-concept as knowledge and self-esteem as evaluation
- 02
Traits, self-aspects, schemas and narratives within self-knowledge
- 03
Working self-concept and situational accessibility
- 04
Self-perception from freely chosen behaviour
- 05
Introspection into thoughts and feelings
- 06
Social comparison and the importance of the target
- 07
Social feedback as a mirror for self-concept
- 08
Automatic first impressions and cue salience
- 09
Correspondent inference and correspondence bias
- 10
Consensus, distinctiveness and consistency in attribution
Worked example · free
Repair an immediate trait attribution
- 1Name the initial move as a correspondent inference from behaviour to a personal trait.
- 1Check consensus by asking whether other people were also late under the same meeting conditions.
- 1Check distinctiveness by comparing the classmate's behaviour across other meetings or commitments.
- 1Check consistency by asking whether the same behaviour recurs toward this meeting across time.
Key terms
- Self-concept
- The mental representation of a person's beliefs, memories, roles, relationships and other knowledge about themselves.
- Self-esteem
- A person's positive or negative evaluation of themselves, distinct from the descriptive content of self-concept.
- Self-schema
- A knowledge structure that organises and weights components of self-concept and guides interpretation and behaviour.
- Working self-concept
- The contextually accessible part of self-knowledge that guides thought, feeling and action in the current moment.
- Self-perception
- The process of inferring self-knowledge from observing one's own freely chosen behaviour when prior knowledge is uncertain.
- Social comparison
- The process of learning about oneself by comparing traits, abilities, attitudes or emotions with those of other people.
- Correspondence bias
- The tendency to overestimate dispositional causes of another person's behaviour relative to situational influence.
- Covariation information
- Consensus, distinctiveness and consistency evidence used to reason about why a behaviour occurred.
The Self and Perceiving Others FAQ
How do self-concept and self-esteem differ?
Self-concept concerns what a person believes and knows about themselves. Self-esteem concerns how positively or negatively the person evaluates themselves across personally important life domains.
When is self-perception most likely?
It is most likely when self-knowledge is weak or ambiguous, the behaviour was freely chosen and no strong situational explanation already accounts for the action.
Why does the social-comparison target matter?
Extreme targets can prompt contrast, moderate targets can prompt assimilation and similar others often provide more diagnostic information for an accurate and personally relevant self-assessment.
What makes a correspondent inference biased?
Trait inference is not automatically biased. Bias occurs when a person overweights disposition despite situational causes or missing relevant comparison information that should reduce confidence.
How can deeper processing improve attribution?
With time, motivation and capacity, a perceiver can compare consensus, distinctiveness and consistency rather than relying only on the first salient behaviour or available cue.
Exam move
Split a page into self and other perception. On the self side, map self-concept, self-esteem, self-schema and working self-concept, then add the four routes through which self-knowledge is constructed. On the other side, map sensory cues, accessibility, correspondent inference and covariation. Create original vignettes and identify whose behaviour is observed, who is making the inference and which comparison is missing.
Practise the consensus, distinctiveness and consistency questions until their comparison targets are automatic. When reviewing cultural or accessibility effects, use probabilistic language and avoid treating one context as a fixed type of person. Make a comparison-target drill with three rows: other people facing this target, this person facing other targets and this person facing this target over time.
Translate those rows into consensus, distinctiveness and consistency without relying on initials. For self-knowledge, take one action and generate an introspective explanation, a self-perception inference, a social-comparison judgement and feedback from another person. State which route is most diagnostic and what could distort it.
Finally, rewrite every dispositional conclusion with a confidence qualifier and list the situational information that would increase or decrease that confidence. This makes correction a controlled update rather than a switch between fixed labels.
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