Sources
https://www.simplypsychology.org/self-concept.html
https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-self-concept-2795865
http://psypress.co.uk/smithandmackie/resources/topic.asp?topic=ch14-tp-04
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance
https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-self-concept-2795865
http://psypress.co.uk/smithandmackie/resources/topic.asp?topic=ch14-tp-04
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance
Script
Episode 5
Helllllo and welcome to Sai-cology, with me Saira! Today is the second and final installment in our topic, Personalities!In specific, we’ll talk about the Changing Self.
SAICOLOGY
First, let’s look at our Self-Concept. This is how someone thinks about or perceives themselves. The two parts of this is one, our idea of existing and our identities as individual beings, and two, our categorical self that helps us fit into society by saying “I am x race, y gender, z sexual orientation, and however many years old, whatever hair color, etc.” When you ask someone “Who am I?” You get answers that are either, a physical description, a social role, a personality trait, or an existential, abstract concept “I’m a human.” This is linked to our self-esteem or self-worth, which is how much we like, accept, or value ourselves. The four major factors that influence our esteem are how others react to us, how we compare ourselves with others, our social roles and the attitudes around that, and our identification with other groups, as well as our parent’s influence.
So there is how we see our selves but there is also our Ideal selfor who we want to be. When these don’t match up is where Cognitive Dissonancecan come into play. In order for us to become self-actualized, or our best selves, we have to be in congruence, or not in Cognitive Dissonance. Congruence can be fostered by having unconditional parental love. Incongruence starts in childhood – when parents make their love conditional – kids start to distort memories in order to feel worthy of love and acceptance. So, to make someone have a better self image, try to give them unconditional love and acceptance.
Cognitive Dissonanceor changing how we see ourselves in comparison to how we behave can be solved in four ways. First you can change the behavior or thought. (Don’t eat any more sweets) Second, you justify one or the other by changing the thought (I’m allouwed to eat sweets sometimes! This is my cheat day!). 3, justify the behavior or cognition by adding new thoughts “I’ll work out more to balance it” or, just deny information that conflicts with beliefs “I heard that chocolate was good for you.” Finding an effective way to increase or reduce the amount of cognitive dissonance will also have the possibility to change their beliefs or actions.
Next, there are 6 ways to increase prosocial/helpful behavior, but these can be applied to helping increase any kind of desired behavior.
First, reduce ambiguity – people are more likely to follow clear, direct instructions than lofty goals. Two, Increase the internal motivation – make them want to do it, rather than feeling incentivized externally like with money. Three, make this desired behavior normal and show examples and models that show real life expectations and successes. Four, make people more aware to when that behavior happens. Five, Be direct with the responsibility – that it is up to them, not a group to do that behavior, and six, promoting identification. This can be done by using verbs over nouns – calling someone a “voter” rather than “someone who votes” will integrate this action into their identity.
So, using by understanding these principles, you could have the power to change what people believe and how they act, thus changing their self-image and their personality, but there is a caution here, we have a built in aversion to changing. We like the status quo and look for reinforces of it before we look for signs that we need to change. Again, just like in *Like Minds* we like the familiar. So, how can we ease change? First, warn people or ease them into it –we don’t like unexpected change – this is why new year’s is a great cover to become a “new you.” Using milestones as front’s for big changes helps people prepare and accept the reasoning for changes. Next, be clear in exactly what is going to change.Third, let their be a transition period to allow adjusting and reduce helplessness. Also, let people know you want their feedback and how you are addressing or fixing specific issues from the past.
So to put this into practice, say you want to start travelling more, but your friends and family aren’t a fan of that idea. So pick some sort of milestone to indicate a new chapter – a birthday, graduation, new year, new season, etc. And be clear in saying I’ll be traveling this distance, for this amount of time, and give them clear details, to let them know you won’t just disappear off the grid. Then, ease your way in, first go on shorter trips to get them used to it, then later you can go on longer ones. Finally, you can ask them for ideas of where to go, or how long, and say that you wanted to do this because they had told you “you needed to broaden your horizons”, etc. I know this example might not be the best, but hopefully it helps you see how this could work with other big changes.
Today, we talked about the self and how to use the difference in how people see themselves and how they want to be in order to help change behavior or thought. Then we talked about how to increase specific behaviors and lastly, how to ease people into change. Next week, we’ll get even more into the mind and talk about how to Control What People Think. Until then, be sure to like, subscribe and hit that bell so you won’t miss it and comment down below any thoughts, experiences or questions you have. Also, check out my sources, other cool psychology resources and the previous sai-cology episodes. Thanks for watching, and Behave Yourself.
Helllllo and welcome to Sai-cology, with me Saira! Today is the second and final installment in our topic, Personalities!In specific, we’ll talk about the Changing Self.
SAICOLOGY
First, let’s look at our Self-Concept. This is how someone thinks about or perceives themselves. The two parts of this is one, our idea of existing and our identities as individual beings, and two, our categorical self that helps us fit into society by saying “I am x race, y gender, z sexual orientation, and however many years old, whatever hair color, etc.” When you ask someone “Who am I?” You get answers that are either, a physical description, a social role, a personality trait, or an existential, abstract concept “I’m a human.” This is linked to our self-esteem or self-worth, which is how much we like, accept, or value ourselves. The four major factors that influence our esteem are how others react to us, how we compare ourselves with others, our social roles and the attitudes around that, and our identification with other groups, as well as our parent’s influence.
So there is how we see our selves but there is also our Ideal selfor who we want to be. When these don’t match up is where Cognitive Dissonancecan come into play. In order for us to become self-actualized, or our best selves, we have to be in congruence, or not in Cognitive Dissonance. Congruence can be fostered by having unconditional parental love. Incongruence starts in childhood – when parents make their love conditional – kids start to distort memories in order to feel worthy of love and acceptance. So, to make someone have a better self image, try to give them unconditional love and acceptance.
Cognitive Dissonanceor changing how we see ourselves in comparison to how we behave can be solved in four ways. First you can change the behavior or thought. (Don’t eat any more sweets) Second, you justify one or the other by changing the thought (I’m allouwed to eat sweets sometimes! This is my cheat day!). 3, justify the behavior or cognition by adding new thoughts “I’ll work out more to balance it” or, just deny information that conflicts with beliefs “I heard that chocolate was good for you.” Finding an effective way to increase or reduce the amount of cognitive dissonance will also have the possibility to change their beliefs or actions.
Next, there are 6 ways to increase prosocial/helpful behavior, but these can be applied to helping increase any kind of desired behavior.
First, reduce ambiguity – people are more likely to follow clear, direct instructions than lofty goals. Two, Increase the internal motivation – make them want to do it, rather than feeling incentivized externally like with money. Three, make this desired behavior normal and show examples and models that show real life expectations and successes. Four, make people more aware to when that behavior happens. Five, Be direct with the responsibility – that it is up to them, not a group to do that behavior, and six, promoting identification. This can be done by using verbs over nouns – calling someone a “voter” rather than “someone who votes” will integrate this action into their identity.
So, using by understanding these principles, you could have the power to change what people believe and how they act, thus changing their self-image and their personality, but there is a caution here, we have a built in aversion to changing. We like the status quo and look for reinforces of it before we look for signs that we need to change. Again, just like in *Like Minds* we like the familiar. So, how can we ease change? First, warn people or ease them into it –we don’t like unexpected change – this is why new year’s is a great cover to become a “new you.” Using milestones as front’s for big changes helps people prepare and accept the reasoning for changes. Next, be clear in exactly what is going to change.Third, let their be a transition period to allow adjusting and reduce helplessness. Also, let people know you want their feedback and how you are addressing or fixing specific issues from the past.
So to put this into practice, say you want to start travelling more, but your friends and family aren’t a fan of that idea. So pick some sort of milestone to indicate a new chapter – a birthday, graduation, new year, new season, etc. And be clear in saying I’ll be traveling this distance, for this amount of time, and give them clear details, to let them know you won’t just disappear off the grid. Then, ease your way in, first go on shorter trips to get them used to it, then later you can go on longer ones. Finally, you can ask them for ideas of where to go, or how long, and say that you wanted to do this because they had told you “you needed to broaden your horizons”, etc. I know this example might not be the best, but hopefully it helps you see how this could work with other big changes.
Today, we talked about the self and how to use the difference in how people see themselves and how they want to be in order to help change behavior or thought. Then we talked about how to increase specific behaviors and lastly, how to ease people into change. Next week, we’ll get even more into the mind and talk about how to Control What People Think. Until then, be sure to like, subscribe and hit that bell so you won’t miss it and comment down below any thoughts, experiences or questions you have. Also, check out my sources, other cool psychology resources and the previous sai-cology episodes. Thanks for watching, and Behave Yourself.