Identity and Self concept

Identity and Self concept

1. Self-face perception

   • We are faster to recognize our own face relative to the face of other familiar people (Keenan et al., 1999). Even in implicit tasks when face perception not relevant. Good at processing! But why? Familiarity? Research from social psychology - face is particularly relevant to us. Does the own face grab attention more efficiently? Moray (1959): Dichotic listening task 4/12 participants remembered having heard their own name at unattended ear. Other words were not remembered, even though presented many times. But: Is this specific to self-relevant stimuli? Face particulalry efficient at grabbing attention. Cocktail effect! What about other information not self relevant? This doesnt relate to face processing
     • Devue & Bredart, 2008. Used flanker paradigm. Presentation of own face, familiar face (classmate for at least 2 years), and unfamiliar faces as distracters in digit-parity task. Add two number surrounding face and ask if odd or even. Will it make dif if own face presented? In Block 1, own/familiar face occurred only once in trial 29/39. In Block 2, own face and familiar face occurred in 12 trials each, unfamiliar faces in 24 trials. Results: Self-face has no enduring distractive power! Self-face was never consistently more distractive than other familiar face! :( familiar, not someone they know for whole life or as familiar as own face
       • Response time slower, face more distracting, costs them. If can ignore face, they will be faster! 1) ppt relatively slow when a familiar/own face presented. Hard time ignoring face. Face distracted them from primary task. No difference between familiar and own face condition. 2) During first half, see effect for familiar face, both slower and distracting. In second half, effect completely goes away. Not the case that whenever see own face it strikes automatic effect. Self face never more distractive than familiar! so all about familiarity. This way of explaining own face effect - not good. Cannot explain. Attention explanation unlikely.
   • Ma & Han (2010): Implicit positive association theory. Pictures of ourselves activate positive attributes in the self-concept. E.g., in Implicit association tests, participants respond faster when self-items are paired with positive than with negative items (Greenwald & Farnham, 2000). Participants respond faster to positive than negative items (e.g., positive vs. negative words, names of “good” vs “bad” people etc.) If positive self-view underlies own-face advantage, changing the self-view should eliminate/reduce the effect. Exp.1: Participants are either primed in a self-concept threat (SCT) or neutral condition. Does this procedure affect implicit self-view? In SCT, participants have to judge whether negative attribute describe themselves to assign negative traits to the self In control condition, same adjectives are rated for valence.
     • This approach would say we associate positive information with ourselves and this drives the effect. Can test this with Implicit Association Test. Picture of ourselves, positive attributes. Present pic of yourself and another. Alwatys press left when yourself. Then positive and negative words/items. Always press left when good. then cobine, press same key for positive word and own image, other for negative nad other image. Then change the mapping. Test with your image and negative words being same key press. IAT effect, better and faster when you are combined with positive. This makes you more efficient at recognising own face. Experiment 1 - bring up negative associations to yourself. SCT priming reverses the IAT effect! When self concept no threatened then me+positive is faster. When first had to judge negative words, ppts then slower for me+positive. This manipulation has effect on implicit attitudes towards yourself. But: does SCT priming also affect the self-face advantage?
       • Exp.2: Participants undergo priming in SCT or neutral condition. Then perform orientation task with self-, familiar, and scrambled faces Self-face advantage not observed in SCT condition. Look at image of ppt/friend, say whether left or right facing. Either in SCT or not. In SCT ppt faster for own face, which reverses for condition in which they were first primed..SCT = self concept threat. Exp.3: Effect is specific to SELF-concept threat! FRIEND-concept threat does not affect the self-face advantage! The self-face advantage is mainly based on a social-cognitive, not a perceptual mechanism! Tested whether this priming of nefative adjectives was to self.

2. The self

   • In our experience, the self feels unitary and indivisible. Contemporary views: the self as collection of systems that operate according to different principles and draw on different kinds of knowledge. The self is not equated with self-awareness, our conscious feeling of a unitary, ongoing self. Instead it is equated to a variety of mechanisms, many of which are not available for conscious report. Gillihan & Farah (2005): Self-mechanisms include awareness of face and body ownership, agency, personality traits, and autobiographical memory. Mechanisms are not unique to the self, but also involved in other circumstances. Some researchers regard the notion of a self as an illusion constructed by our brain (e.g., Dennett, 2003). It can then still be studied scientifically, just as visual illusions can be studied.
   • Ward 2012
   • Sense of agency
     • We feel that we are in control of our own actions. When we ourselves generate an action, we can use the motor plan to predict what this action will feel like in terms of velocity, trajectory, force on contact etc. (Wolpert et al., 1995) --> forward model. Match between the predicted effects of the action and the actual action --> action attributed to the self. We know we can do something because we plan a particular movement. Sensory feedback - can match feedback to initial plans/model. If what we predict is close to what we percieve then we perceive we did the action.
     • Libet et al 1983
       • Participants instructed to make a button press whenever they wanted to, note the time of conscious intention to move. EEG recorded from electrodes over motor cortex. Brain generates a movement-related potential several hundred milliseconds before the person reports any intention! PPt sit in room. Button to press and clock showing seconds. Press button whenever and note down what position the clock was when they were aware of their intention to press key. EEG recorded from motor cortex. Long lasted negativity 1s before pressing.Brain prepares self initiated movement before movement starts - readiness potential. Time they noticed intention was about half. We infer that our intention causes the action, but this is not necessarily so! But: Note that the Libet experiment is about timing of actions, not about what particular actions are chosen! Libet thought our idea that our intentions cause our actions may not be true, we may not be aware of our actions before we start planning them.
         • This is about timing of movements- ppts still have free will! Sum up - readiness potential started before ppt was aware of wanting to move. Some ppl said this was empirical evidence against free will. Shows that sometimes somthing happens before we are aware.
   • Sense of embodiment
     • Out-of-body experiences (participants report being in a location different from their physical location) can arise from damage to right temporo-parietal junction (Blanke et al., 2004). Out-of-body experiences can also be induced in healthy participants (Lenggenhager et al., 2007): Body projected in front of participant using virtual reality. If both virtual person and participants are stroked on the back in synchrony, participants feel a drift of their own body towards the virtual body. Illusion does not occur when a virtual object is stroked. Hard to imagine - we know boundaires of bodies so well, such a basic thing
   • Knowledge of personality traits
     • Personality described as limited number of traits (e.g., extraversion – introversion, conscientious – spontaneous). Traits relatively stable across time. We know things about ourself - theory of our personality traits. Kelley et al., 2002: Making trait judgment about oneself vs. familiar other activates ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC). Making personality judgments per se activates left lateral prefrontal cortex (semantic memory?). Special role for vmPFC in thinking about the self? Personality traits described you, famous person or trait presented in upper case. Activity from ventromedial PFC when making trait judgements about oneself greater. Area has something to do with processing self-relevant information. Left lateral PFC when making judgements. Researchers now believe this area is related to thinking about yourself. VMPFC - relates to cultural context?
   • Cultural and social identity
     • Tajfel & Turner, 1986: Distinction between one’s personal identity and social identity related to membership of various groups. Extent to which behaviour is influenced by these different identities depends on what information is salient and varies, to some degree, across cultures. East Asian cultures: people tend to regard themselves as having an inter-dependent self. Own identity, beliefs, and goals strongly interconnected with the people around oneself (Markus & Kitayama, 1991). Western cultures: people tend to perceive own beliefs and goals as largely independent (--> independent self). Emphasis is on self-discovery and personal achievement. E.g., success of Olympic athletes explained by both personal attributes and social background in Japan, whereas personal attributes are the main focus in the USA (Markus et al., 2006). Such differences may be seen as reflecting collectivist and individualist cultures.
     • Zhu et al. (2007): Chinese and Western participants presented with trait adjectives (brave, childish etc.) Task: judge appropriateness to self, mother, or to famous person (other). Self-referential judgements activated ventromedial PFC, judgments about famous people did not. Chinese showed similar vmPFC activity to self and mother judgments. Westerners responses for mother judgments more similar to famous person. Self-concept can be construed as inter-dependent with kin and close acquaintances in some cultures.

3. Summary

   • The self-concept entails two broad processes: Differentiation reflects the notion that the self is a unique entity with a distinct history and dispositions, occupying a particular body and being in control of thoughts and actions. Assimilation reflects that one’s identity is embedded in a particular social and cultural context, that we identify ourselves with one or more groups, and share the values and practices of those groups. The latter may differ cross-culturally to some extent. The self should not be construed as a discrete entity or linked to one brain mechanism. Thinking about the self activates the ventromedial PFC. Thinking about similar others also does, which points to the conclusion that the self is represented socially (in terms of associations with particular others).

Images and files in the map