Self-Discovery

Self-Discovery

What I Learnt About Myself

Through introspection, I learned that I am afraid of failing my exams or performing poorly in exams or interviews. After writing an application letter for a scholarship I have desired to get for some time, I wondered if there are other intelligent students out there who are more competitive than me. I also started thinking that there were probably White Caucasian candidates who were smarter than me and had written a better proposal than mine. While in these thoughts, I find myself doing something else to distract myself, like reading a book or watching a movie. I have questioned my capabilities and wondered if someone else would consider them basic and obvious. At the same time, I still want to succeed in getting the scholarship and excel in my career because I am scared that my fellow students will perceive me as an underachiever. I sometimes feel that way because of the few papers I scored average in the past, and I felt very small in my class. I decided to study in a disciplined manner every night between 10 pm and 12 pm, when my concentration was at its best. I was happy with the results because I performed better in the next papers. However, there are other papers that were a bit tough and did not score as I desired. My friend said I performed really well, but I was not pleased because there were few other students who performed better than me. Also, learning that my community experienced demoralizing impacts of racial prejudice in the past and even in the present (The National Archives, n.d.) often challenged my perspective of getting a scholarship.

View of Myself: Interdependent or Independent

I believe I have both an independent and interdependent view of myself. In my culture, while growing up, talking back to a grown-up or a parent was considered disrespectful, and my siblings and I used to be beaten or punished in another way when we did that. I grew up in a culture where a grown-up, especially a parent or a teacher, was always right, and our job as children was to obey and follow the lead and instructions they give. Even school performance or home responsibilities were considered as good as the parent could determine. I could not determine whether I had performed well unless I got a positive or a negative comment from my parents or teachers, or even fellow students. According to Wilson, Aronson, & Sommers (2021), this is an interdependent view of myself. This view’s impact on my behavior or beliefs is that I find it hard to acknowledge my own successes and wins, even when they are very evident unless someone else validates them. My first belief was that I was not good enough until someone told me that I was, and even when they did, their view tended to fade away as the days went by. Therefore, I have to look for validation somewhere else, which is embarrassing to me.

Additionally, if my mother found unwashed dishes while at home, she would not ask who was responsible and did not do the dishes. Rather, she would hold all of the children accountable for not washing dishes and punish all of us. This cultural practice of communal cooperation has made me believe that I am good at teamwork, something that I am proud of. I tend to listen to other people’s views about things and ensure that most of their views are incorporated into the project we work on together. If one person fails in their responsibility in the group, I feel like everyone in the group is responsible, including myself. However, whenever I see conflict arising in a group or team, I tend to compromise to avoid arguing with others. Sometimes, I would quit if I strongly disagreed with others.

I also learned from my class that students can challenge viewpoints and concepts and be proud of it and that it is okay to have a different opinion or perspective even if it challenges someone else’s view. This is why when I feel like I strongly disagree with someone, I avoid them, and sometimes, when it is in a group, I quit because I believe that my values are not aligned with the rest of the group. Wilson, Aronson, & Sommers (2021 claim that this is an independent view of self in which one defines oneself based on one’s own actions, feelings, and thoughts and not based on other people’s actions, feelings, and thoughts.

Social Comparison Theory Application

According to social comparison theory, people learn their attitudes and abilities by comparing themselves to others (Crusius, Corcoran, & Mussweiler, 2022). This happens when people are not certain of themselves in specific areas and when there is a lack of an objective standard to measure oneself against (Aronson, Wilson, & Sommers, 2021). For example, as a student, I like singing as an extracurricular activity outside class. I joined a singing worship group in my church to assess my skill in vocal singing. Since I started learning about vocal techniques and skills, I started comparing myself with a classmate who sings in concerts and evening dinners. Initially, I thought I could never sing with her vigor, but I later discovered that constant practice at my singing group would help me scale up to achieve her skill. I felt motivated, which Aronson, Wilson, & Sommers (2021) call upward comparison. Moreover, in the singing group, there were those who could not maintain harmonies in a song, and I felt better about my abilities despite not being an expert like my classmate. Aronson, Wilson, & Sommers (2021) called this a downward comparison.

Self-justification

I had engaged in internal self-justification before, which helped me make the negative effects more tolerable. I told myself that eating potato fries thrice a week is not bad for my health, given that I exercise daily and burn calories. The source of my cognitive dissonance was eating potato fries, which are rich in calories and fats and could make me unhealthy. This internal self-justification reduced the dissonance by trying to justify my eating potato fries by engaging in physical exercise every day, which burns the fats and calories consumed.

References

Aronson, E., Wilson, T.D., & Sommers, S.R. (2019). Social Psychology, 10^th Edition. New York: Pearson Education Limited.

Crusius, J., Corcoran, K., & Mussweiler, T. (2022). Social Comparison: Theory, Research, and Applications. Theories in social psychology, 165.

The National Archives (n.d.). Powers of Persuasion: Poster art from World War II. http://ruby.fgcu.edu/courses/tdugas/ids3301/acrobat/

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In order to understand those around you and society as a whole, it is important to understand or know yourself, that is, to have self-knowledge. Self-knowledge includes many aspects of the self and is developed with input from many sources. Development of your self-knowledge is influenced by your family and those around you, how you were raised, environment and culture, and the countless experiences you have in your life.

Self-Discovery

As a simple example, if your parents and teachers consistently told you that you were good with numbers, you probably felt confident that you could succeed in math. If you then succeeded in math courses in school and selected a career in which you could apply your math skills, your self-concept related to math probably would be positive.

In this week’s Assignment, you explore the many different areas that makeup self-knowledge, using yourself as an example. By better understanding yourself (self-knowledge), you can better understand others.

To prepare:

Read Chapter 5 in your course text, Social Psychology, and thoughtfully complete the following inventories:
Measurement of Independence and Interdependence (p. 123)
Private Self-Consciousness Scale (p. 127)
Read pages 149-151 and 155-166 of Chapter 6 in your course text, Social Psychology.
View the video excerpt on self-concept and self-efficacy found at minutes 6:03–10:36 of the video “The Self” (lines 39–73 of transcript).
Think about specific sources of your self-knowledge, including feedback from others, your self-perception, your social identity, and your culture.
Think about one aspect of your life. For example, think about yourself in the role of a student, a spouse, a parent, an employee, or some other role. How would you apply each element of social comparison theory to an aspect of your own life?
Recall a time in which you engaged in self-justification and consider how it reduced your cognitive dissonance.
The Assignment (2–4 pages):

Discuss something important you learned about yourself and how you learned it through introspection or through self-perception.
Do you have an interdependent view of yourself, an independent view of yourself, or both? What is your culture(s), and how does your culture(s) contribute to this view? Provide one example of how this view influences your behavior or your beliefs. Your example may include, but is not limited to: (a) how your interdependent or independent self-view influences what kinds of things make you feel especially proud, (b) how your interdependent or independent self-view influences what kinds of things make you feel especially embarrassed, and (c) how your interdependent or independent self-view influences the way you interact with others.
Then, select one specific aspect of your life, such as your role as a student, a spouse, a parent, an employee, or some other role, and apply the social comparison theory to this role.
Briefly discuss a time you engaged in one of the following types of self-justification: Justification of effort, external justification, internal justification, or justification of a good deed. What was the source of your cognitive dissonance, and how did this self-justification reduce that dissonance?

Sources:
Aronson, E., Wilson, T. D., & Sommers, S. R. (2019). Social psychology (10th ed.). New York, NY: Pearson.
Chapter 5, “The Self: Understanding Ourselves in a Social Context”
Chapter 6, “Cognitive Dissonance and the Need to Protect Our Self-Esteem” (pp. 149-151; 155-166)
Chapter 7, “Attitudes and Attitude Change: Influencing Thoughts and Feelings”
The National Archives. (n.d.). Powers of persuasion: Poster art from World War II Links to an external site. Retrieved from http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/powers_of_persuasion/powers_of_persuasion_intro.html
Aronson, E., Wilson, T. D., & Sommers, S. R. (2019). Social psychology (10th ed.). New York, NY: Pearson.
Chapter 5, “The Self: Understanding Ourselves in a Social Context”
Chapter 6, “Cognitive Dissonance and the Need to Protect Our Self-Esteem” (pp. 149-151; 155-166)
Chapter 7, “Attitudes and Attitude Change: Influencing Thoughts and Feelings”
The National Archives. (n.d.). Powers of persuasion: Poster art from World War II Links to an external site. Retrieved from http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/powers_of_persuasion/powers_of_persuasion_intro.html