Identity list

1. Identity list • Number the lines on a sheet of paper from 1-15. On each line, complete the statement “I am…” with whatever aspects of yourself comes to mind. Answer as if you were talking to yourself, not to somebody else. Write the answers in the order they occur to you. • No one is going to see this list but you, so be honest about what comes to your mind.

2. Self concept: • Knowledge about who we are • Beliefs and feelings about ourselves

3. Status – position we occupy • Assigned: given at birth • Achieved: attained through individual effort • Look again at your identity list: • Place a 1 after an assigned status • Place a 2 after an ascribed status

4. Sociological Psychological • Role Dispositional • Collectivistic Individualistic

5. Collectivistic – descriptions that refer to the self in relation to others: • Roles (student, boyfriend) • Membership in groups (Smith family member, UWM student) • Social identities based on ethnicity, race, sex

6. Individualistic – qualities that apply to you personally. • Self assured • Believe in free enterprise • Bad singer

7. Read each of your statements and classify them into either a collective or an individualist quality category. • C = collectivistic • I = individualistic

8. Did you tend to list individualistic qualities earlier in the list than collectivistic ones? • Yes • No

9. Which qualities are more central to your identity? • Collective components • Individualistic components

10. Would you expect people in western cultures to identify self concept more in terms of ascribed or achieved statuses? • Ascribed • Achieved

11. Trait adjectives • aggressive intelligent • friendly superstitious • quiet sentimental • bold athletic • persistent trusting • sensitive energetic • romantic shy

12. Self reference effect: • We can process info relevant to ourselves better than other types of info • We spend more time thinking about words/events if they are relevant to ourselves

13. Master identity/status: the status that takes precedence over all other statuses

14. Which of the following is an example of an achieved status? • Brother • Uncle • Father • Cousin

15. One of my identities is “teacher.” Which of the following concepts applies to that identity? • Psychological identity • Dispositional identity • Individualist identity • Collectivistic identity

16. When I asked you to recall the names I mentioned at the beginning of class I was demonstrating which of the following? • Self-concept • Self efficacy • Self reference effect • Self esteem

17. Self esteem: • the way we evaluate our self identities

18. How do we assess ourselves? • 1. Evaluate our good qualities vs our bad qualities. • 2. Evaluate ourselves by comparing our self concepts with our concepts of our ideal selves. • 3. Evaluate ourselves in comparison with a reference group.

19. Downward social comparison: comparing yourself to someone worse off than you (may increase self esteem) • Upward social comparison: comparing yourself to someone who is better off than you • (may lower self esteem)

20. Roots of self-esteem • Direct experiences of competence/self efficacy • Evaluation of ability to perform a task or reach a goal • Social feedback • Especially the appraisals from significant others.