Psychology

Exploring Stereotypes

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According to social scientists, people cannot help but learn about stereotypes because these prototypes are in the very culture of every country.

Every country has its own set of simple and complex stereotypes and gradually, these stereotypes are passed on to the next generation through institutions like the press and the family. Social exposure is a key factor when it comes to learning stereotypes.

A person would only be able to use a stereotype when processing information if he has learned about the stereotype. If not, he will create his own stereotypes based on subjective experience.

Social class also plays a role in the learning and propagation of stereotypes. While there will be similarities in some broad social categories, there will be differences in the stereotypes used by people from low-income earning families and people who have been brought up in the wealthiest parts of the city.

Social groups propagate stereotypes and different social groups will propagate different stereotypes. And this is when it can get messy. Because of the variations of stereotypes spread across an uneven national population, a bias called the illusory correlation emerges.

Illusory correlation is actually a kind of belief that two or more factors or variables are connected when in objective reality, the variables in question have no real association or connection. What is the implication of illusory correlations?

Well, according to some foundational studies, it appears that people were more likely to assign negative attributes to minority groups. By minority groups we refer to social groups or categories that are rarely visible and therefore, are almost never in the consciousness of people.

Visibility of a social category is equivalent to immediate informational availability and if a social category is not clearly visible unless there is a cue, then people would more likely assign negative traits to the group if they were given a chance to assign positive traits and negative traits to a majority group (a social category that was highly recognizable) and a minority group (a little known social category).

It is important to note that illusory correlations rarely produce accurate representations or inferences.

For example, if you were invited to attend two book launches, you would most likely attend the book launch of your favorite author and you will just discard the other author’s invitation and regard him as being ‘one of the lesser authors of this century’ even if the author has no real connection to other authors in the past one hundred years.

In this situation, hard facts are rarely sought out by people. When a person has already made an illusory correlation, there is no further motivation to verify the illusory correlation. Illusory correlations usually come about when a person uses representativeness heuristics to analyze a situation.

Because highly available information is used, people will use prototypes and whatever doesn’t fit in with majority group will be relegated to a minor group and will be assigned traits that seem to be incongruent with the majority group.

Minority groups and majority groups are almost always binary opposites. If one group of is good, the other has to be bad, one way or another.

Leveraging The Peripheral Route

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To people like marketers and advertisers, there is a hidden wish for people to just stick to their “gut feel” (or peripheral route). The reason for this is quite simple. With the peripheral route, a person is more likely to respond to cues or signals.

These signals can be given out or expressed in such a manner that the other person will be led to believe in something or the other person can be convinced to do something after the persuasive message has been conveyed.

One of the most powerful peripheral cues that you can use is similarity. Similarity to your audience can be expressed in many, many ways. I’ll leave you to figure out how to create the similarities, but I’m going to give you some major clues:

  • Appearance
  • Values
  • Attitudes
  • Social group
  • Social categories

If you can utilize some or all of these forms of similarity, you can be sure that your persuasive message would have a much larger impact on people because you are showing them that you are not only persuasive but you share direct similarities with them.

By expressing similarities to your audience, you are giving them a direct message that you are not foreign/alien and therefore, you should be trusted because you share a commonality with each and every one of them.

Though this approach may sound old (and I’m not going to hide the fact that it is one of foundational principles in disciplines like marketing) it does work and it will continue to work because you are tapping into the primordial region of someone’s mind when you use a peripheral cue like similarity. People are hardwired to accept similarity as a sign that the other person can be trusted.

The second peripheral cue that you should pay attention is attractiveness. Now don’t get me wrong: I know that everyone is unique and there is no real standard of beauty that can be followed each and every time.

However, it is also true that people who come close to standards of attractiveness tend to be more persuasive than those who do not make an effort to make themselves look good.

So if you are always out in the field, you have to do something about the way you look. You have to exert effort to look really good so people would be drawn to your message and they would respond more readily to you because you are attractive. Attractiveness, though it is a physical trait, is reflected not only by your bone structure but also how you dress yourself, how you carry yourself in public, etc.

The third peripheral cue that you should never forget is credibility. To be a credible person, you have to show people that you are unbiased in your views and you are some that should be trusted by others.

One easy way of appearing to be a credible person is by showcasing your knowledge of a particular topic. So if you are trying to sell a water filtration system to a company, you will appear more credible if you can answer all of the client’s questions and you also have the initiative to volunteer information to your client.

Now, I know that for some of you, it is very difficult to appear as an expert because there will always be older and more seasoned competition around you. Don’t worry about them.

Just do your homework and do your best to present information the way an expert would – with no hesitation and with utmost conviction. Even if the other person is not persuaded by your arguments right now it is possible that you will be able to persuade that person at a later date.

Why am I saying this? Well, social psychologists have identified a peculiar tendency in people when it comes to so-called credible sources.

It appears that over time, a person’s conviction that he should only listen to one source alone decays and eventually, that person will choose to listen to other sources as long as the other sources are providing clear information and sound arguments.

Processing Routes In Persuasion

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Persuasion can be considered as one of the great ivory thrones of influence because with persuasion, you can convince a person to change his mind and adapt your view.

Persuasion generally comes from without than from within. Understanding how persuasion works is like finding the key to the human mind. To understand what goes on in the human mind when you are trying to persuade someone is like discovering the roadmap to mastering persuasion.

There are many theories regarding persuasion but at the very root of these theories is the fact that people generally have two ways of processing information from the outside world: the central route and the peripheral route.

With the central route, a person who is receiving the stimulus or information will act like a naïve scientist. He will carefully think about the input and he will make a decision based on his theories.

With the peripheral route, the person receiving the information or stimulus will not pursue the critical path. Instead, he will choose to take a thin slice of the stimulus so he can compare it with whatever readily available information he has in his memory. In this regard, a person becomes a cognitive miser yet again.

What‟s the difference between the naïve scientist and the cognitive miser when it comes to persuasion? There is a big difference!

The naïve scientist will pay close attention not only to the message itself but also to the way it was delivered, etc. The naïve scientist is also interested in the why and how of the message.

The cognitive miser on the other hand, will do the direct opposite. Instead of paying close attention to the actual message, cognitive misers will be more interested in receiving small cues that will tell them whether or not the message is worth considering or not.

Figuring Out Which Route a Person Will Take

We now know that there are two possible routes when it comes processing persuasive information – the peripheral route and the central route.

Earlier in our exploration of heuristics, we discovered that there are common factors that affect a person‟s decision to become a cognitive miser instead of being naïve scientist.

While these factors (like lack of time) can be used to determine whether a person will use heuristics or critical analysis, there are other factors that come into play. These factors are:

- Speech rate - Mood - Involvement - Individual difference - Humor

Speech rate has a major effect on how a person processes persuasive information. You know why?

Because if a person cannot follow what you are saying, he will not become a naïve scientist and in the process, he will choose to ignore most of the content of your message in favor of cues that will allow him to analyze only „thin slices‟ of the whole message.

Usually, a person who is unable to follow a speedy persuasive message will only take note of the number of arguments present and make a decision based on this number.

Mood, surprisingly, also has a determining role in persuasion. Let us zero in on two important moods – the happy mood and the unhappy mood.

When you‟re happy, you feel light, carefree and you feel like you are on top of the world. You will feel like there is nothing in this world (or the Universe) that can bring you down because you are so happy at the moment.

Now take this mindset and imagine yourself in a situation where another person is trying to persuade you to do something.

Will you stop and analyze what the other person is saying to you? Or will you just barely follow what the other person is saying and just say yes? The answer of course, is usually the latter.

Happy people tend to choose the peripheral route in processing persuasive messages. Inversely, unhappy people are more critical. By „unhappy‟ we refer to individuals who feel sad, depressed, worried, scared, angry, anxious, etc. A person who is presently experiencing any negative emotion should be considered an unhappy person.

I am placing emphasis on this important distinction because unhappy people tend to become critical of persuasive messages because deep down, they are aware that something is not right with their lives.

Deep down, unhappy people are on the alert because something is not balanced and this incongruence between their reality and their needs and expectations will awaken the naïve scientist in unhappy people.

I am not saying that you need to make your audience unhappy before you can convince them to do something.

What I am saying here is that if you find yourself in the presence of a happy person, there is a bigger chance of being able to persuade that person because he will most likely take the peripheral route.

That means all you have to worry about at that point in time would be to relay your message well and provide sound arguments so the other person will agree more quickly (since he is a cognitive miser at the moment and he is using heuristics instead of critical processing).

Now when you are looking at the involvement factor you are actually looking at the impact of the persuasive message to the other person‟s self-concept. To illustrate this point, evaluate the two statements below:

Statement # 1: I have something that might improve your business in two to three years.

Statement # 2: Do you want to retire a millionaire? How about mansion in Beverly Hills? An island getaway all to yourself and that special someone? I have the key – and I can give it to you right now if you want it. After reading the two statements, which statement do you think has a more palpable impact to another person‟s self-concept?

Let's analyze the two statements. The first statement has a forward- thinking angle that emphasizes that a business will become stable with whatever is being offered in a few years.

The second statement opens with a question (this creates instant interest in the audience because it relates directly to one of basic needs, which is financial stability and of course, the survival needs) and also offers tantalizing potential realities to the audience.

After presenting all of the goodies, the statement ends with an open- ended sentence that creates a two-fold impression on the other person. The other person has two choices. His first choice is he can take the „key‟ and live the millionaire‟s lifestyle, as promised by the statement. The second choice is he can choose not to take the key and he will gain nothing.

Notice that all of the components of the second statement focus on genuine needs and desires of people.

With a touch of extravagance, a persuasive fantasy is created and the audience is presented with a tantalizing opportunity to rise above the rest in terms of financial security. And yet, we should remember, the statement isn‟t even real to begin with.

What‟s real to the audience is the fantasy and emotions that it invokes instantly – and so the audience will automatically focus on the second statement more than the first statement because there is much more at stake in the second statement than the first statement.

Now let us talk about the fourth factor, which are individual differences. This factor is fairly straightforward: people are different, right?

Some people prefer taking the central route (critical thinking) while some people are more likely to stick with the „default‟ route, which is the peripheral (auto-pilot) route.

So in essence, some people are naïve scientists most of the time while some feel that they are better off being cognitive misers because they can save their cognitive resources for more important times. Naïve scientists have a higher need for cognition while cognitive misers have a lower cognition requirement to get through their days.

It is also worthwhile to note that people who self-monitor more frequently are more likely to take the critical route in processing persuasive messages.

Self-monitoring is simply the degree at which a person is concerned with what other people are think about himself. If you are the kind who doesn‟t really care about what other people think, then you are most likely a cognitive miser most of the time.

And finally, we have the humor factor. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines “humor” as: something that is or is designed to be comical or amusing. Let‟s face it – we like dropping jokes every now and then.

Laughing makes people feel good and we know for a fact that humor can be a powerful tool when you are trying to communicate to critical individuals. So be careful when you are trying to influence people with your words because the wrong kind of humor can elicit the wrong type of response from people.

If you want your audience to have critical response to your message (i.e. you want them to really think about the benefits that you are offering to them) you have to craft related humorous items so a more critical response is triggered.

If you simply want to put your audience at ease, then you are better off with non-related humor. That is, you need to drop jokes and humorous anecdotes that do not relate to the topic/s that you are presently tackling. Non-related humor does not trigger the usage of the central route.

How Attitudes Change

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What drives a person to change his attitude and potentially, his intention to follow through with a specific behavior? One theory called the cognitive dissonance theory argues that when a person does something that is not in line with his existing attitude toward the object in question, a negative experience results.

Now this negative experience is quite relevant because negative experiences bring a concatenation of negative emotions. As human beings we have a natural aversion to negative emotions because naturally, we want to feel whole, happy and positive all the time.

Positive feelings lead to positive actions, which in turn satisfy our psychological, social and physical needs. Negative feelings on the other hand usually lead to inaction or negative actions, which directly contradict our various individual needs.

Here’s a good example of how cognitive dissonance can work in a person’s life. Let’s say that Person W has been a vegetarian for a few years now. Now because of a special event, this person was forced to eat chicken meat in the presence of many other friends who were not vegetarians at all.

The vegetarian eats the food, but later on, he feels guilty and unhappy because he went against his own beliefs regarding the consumption of meat. Here’s another example: let’s say that Person X is an avowed supporter of Person C, a candidate for mayor. Person C is actually Person X’s good friend for over twenty years.

However, Person X decides to vote for Person Y because Person Y had a better plan for the city. Though Person X’s friend was not aware of who Person X actually voted for, Person X felt terrible because Person C was a very good friend in the past and has been very helpful on many occasions.

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It is normal for human beings to sometimes engage in behavior that is not completely in line or congruent to our attitudes. This happens for a variety of reasons. As we have discussed before, people have to take into consideration the things that they discover or learn as they become either privately self-aware or publicly self-aware.

There are always expectations, norms, mores and standards that we have to think about because in the end, humans are social beings that want to be part of a winning social group. Unless a conscious choice is made to exclude oneself from any social group, we can safely assume that people behave in accordance to the standards of the group that they belong to.

So if you want predict the behavior and attitudes of a person, being fully aware of his social group would help immensely in the process of analyzing what you have to do to communicate with the other person effectively. What do we do when our behavior does not satisfy our present attitudes?

Do we just ignore the negative experience associated with dissonant behaviors? Or do we do something about it? According to the theory of cognitive dissonance, people care deeply when their actions do not reflect their attitudes. Now we know for a fact that attitude strength is a strong determinant when it comes to the actual implementation or execution of a behavior.

We can infer from this other theory that negative experiences associated with dissonant behavior also has varying degrees. If you have a weak conviction about a certain attitude, then you won’t care as much when your behavior does not really reflect the attitude.

But when you do something that completely ignores an attitude that you hold with strong conviction, then you can be sure that you will feel quite awful afterward.

Naturally, if a person feels negatively about a behavior because of the discrepancy between the behavior and the actual attitude, then that person will mostly likely be motivated to remedy the discrepancy or difference. This can be done in two ways:

Through rationalization or explaining to themselves why it was necessary to act that way in that specific situation.

Changing the behavior partially or completely so that it will now be congruent with the existing attitude toward the target object.

Attitude Formation

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When a person behaves or reacts in a negative way to an event, we say that the person has a ‘bad attitude’ or ‘negative attitude’ to that event. The concept of attitude has been in common usage for so long but few people actually know what goes into the creation of a person’s attitude.

If you want to understand how attitudes are born and how these evolve over time, we have to go to into an in-depth exploration of social attitudes and how attitudes related to individuals and to society itself. But first off, what is attitude?

Social psychology defines attitude as a collection of beliefs that a person associates with a specific object.

By object, we mean anything and everything that a person can focus on, including other people, events, himself or even the behavior of other people. Each person has a distinct attitude when it comes to specific stimuli and events. Attitudes, like other personal structures of belief, are held dearly by individuals.

How Attitudes Are Formed

Social psychology has identified four key avenues of attitude formation in people. These avenues are:

Mere exposure

Associative learning

Self-perception

Functional reasons

The Key Avenues of Attitude Formation

Each key avenue is distinct because the formational coordinates are also distinct/different from each other. In mere exposure, it is believed that in order for a person to develop a more positive attitude toward a particular object (remember, an ‘object’ can be anything that a person can focus on), that person must be exposed continually to the said object.

So if you can increase the exposure of another person to an object (i.e. a product, service or business offer), the more positive that person’s attitude will be toward that particular object. This is illustrated in a study made some years ago; test subjects were exposed to characters that resembled Chinese characters.

The test subjects were told later on that the characters were actually adjectives. The subjects were then asked if they can guess which characters represented positive traits.

The study showed that the longer a person was exposed to a character, the more he associated the said character to a positive trait. A linear (or consistent upward) trend was noted in the study – which proves that repetition and continual exposure does have an impact in the way people viewed the world. This key avenue shows that people can assimilate new objects if they are exposed to the said objects long enough. So remember: the longer a person sees something, more likely he will like the said object after a time.

Another interesting study worth noting here is a joint study by Mita, Dermer and Knight. These three researchers showed test subjects two photographic prints. One print was a regular photograph of themselves while the other photograph showed mirror images of themselves.

So one image would be a regular photo while the other one represented what people saw when they looked into a mirror. After exposing the test subjects to the different prints, they were asked to choose which print they liked best.

A majority of the test respondents states that they like the mirror prints best. There was no other explanation for this trend other than the mirror prints represented what the test subjects saw more frequently in their daily life.

Though the images were almost indistinguishable from each other, the test subjects were still able to correctly identify which prints contained the mirror images.

Social Categorization Defined

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Social categorization, as the name implies, involves the classification of things based on similarity and difference. At its very core, this is social categorization. But I am not saying that social categorization stops here.

Otherwise, everyone would simply be making decisions based on similarity and difference (and that is just plain strange). Social categorization thrives of equivalence and differences because this allows people to make sense of information as it arrives by the boatload every single day.

Social categorization, like attribution, is an important activity that directly affects a person’s self-concept. Because as a person matures and develops through the years, he amasses his own categorical schemas that in turn shape his drives and desires.

For example, over time, a person would be able to classify a whole bunch of activities as desirable. Inversely, this person would also have a schema of activities that he would never do again because of perceived disadvantages. Without social categorization, there would be no way to create order in a very chaotic physical reality.

This activity gives a person control over the information that he receives so he can classify or even discard information as he sees fit. Social categorization also allows people to directly compare one object to another object or to a whole group of objects. Relationships of varying degrees can also be established with the help of social categorization.

For example, if Person A had a preference for Windows-based computers, he would associate a cellular phone with a Windows-based platform with the current Windows operating system.

This in turn would encourage a person to buy the cellular phone because it has an intimate association with that person’s favorite operating system. Here’s another example: if a person was in love with a brand of fast food, what are the chances of this person buying a condiment (i.e. barbecue sauce) that has the same fast-food brand?

Of course, chances are this person would be converted immediately to the new barbecue sauce brand because it has a deep connection with the person’s favorite fast-food. However, we should remember that the rubric of social categorization itself does not capture the entirety of human perception.

Again, we will hit a brick wall if we choose to fit human perception in a very solid framework. Human perception is very fluid; theories like social categorization are not. The boundaries of theoretical frameworks need to be rigid in order to be believed in by social scientists; human perception is vacuous and is always in a state of flux.

Like mercury in room temperature, it’s hard to pin down human perception with just one finger. It will slip and slide effortlessly, eluding your weary hand. Here’s a good example: what is the first thing that comes to mind when you think of the word “pet”? It is likely that you answered either dog or cat.

Some of you may have answered parakeet or turtle. And still some (though these are rare) would have answered baby octopus and sugar gliders. If I ask you why you chose a particular animal when you read the word “pet”, your response would probably be something along the lines of: the animal is more pet-like than the other animals that I know.

There is nothing wrong with picking other animals; this just reflects the fact that some people have different schemas for common categories. But for the majority, the schemas that they are using to utilize social categorization are actually filled with prototypes or stereotypes.

What are prototypes? Let’s erase the negative connotation of the word prototype or stereotype, because this is actually a very important concept in the realm of human influence. Let me explain: categories are actually groups of concepts that are associated with each other in varying degrees.

These categories emerge from popular culture and popular knowledge and we actually learn these categories little by little, as we engage in informal discussions with different people. And of course we cannot ignore the impact of popular media like the Internet and television.

These outlets of mass culture also play a role in creating and propagating categories and stereotypes. Now, let’s go back to the earlier question that I posed to you. Since social categories are simply interconnected bits of information (i.e. objects, events, politics, etc.), eventually, there will be a hierarchy in these sets of information.

Some members of these sets will be more visible and will be more recognizable, too. The most recognizable members of social sets are called the stereotypes. Stereotypes are representative members because the information about these members are highly available to people.

People tend to use the most accessible pieces of information when they need to analyze a situation. And thus, it is unavoidable for people to use stereotypes because these are indeed highly accessible pieces of information. Of course, excessive use of stereotypes can lead to gross errors.

For example, if you believe that only men can be great trial lawyers, you may become slack jawed to see female trial lawyers on the forefront of highly controversial criminal trials.

The Most Powerful Self Motive

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Why do we hold on to the concept of the self all the time? Why do we continually struggle with private and public standards of achievement, appearance, etc.? There are three associated motivations with the self:

- Self-verification - Self-assessment - Self-enhancement

Among these three associated motivations, no motivation is more powerful than self-enhancement. The motivation for self-enhancement pushes a person to seek new information as to how he can improve himself in different ways.

This self-motive is present in everything that we do unless a person consciously avoids thinking about himself when he tries to accomplish things. Self-awareness and self-motive are intimately associated; one cannot exist without the other.

When a person is motivated by self-enhancement, he looks for positive information that will help him achieve goals or satisfy standards. There is a big contrast if we compare self-enhancement with self-verification.

Self-verification is primarily concerned with finding differences or discrepancies between groups of self-schemas. In a way, this leads a person to focus on negative aspects of himself rather than on positive aspects. It is alright to seek out genuine weaknesses and areas that you can improve but I have to warn everybody that you should never dwell on negative aspects of the self.

Dwelling on something is quite different from acknowledging it and acting upon a negative aspect to improve that aspect. If you focus on self-enhancement most of the time, you will be able to modify your behavior in such a way that you will be able to continually reach your goals by simply being yourself. The modification of negative traits will come naturally as you implement plans that you have devised after you have utilized the self-enhancement motive.

Self-Enhancement Strategies

People make use of two main strategies to maintain their positive outlook in life. The first strategy focuses on self-affirmation. Self-affirmation usually occurs when a person suffers from low self-esteem, either because he feels that he has not been able to attain his goals or he his ego has been threatened in some other way by people or situations.

A person affirms his positive traits and qualities in the face of low self- esteem to raise his self-esteem and to improve his outlook in life. This strategy is useful not only for raising your self-esteem but also for improving the chances of following through with plans and goals.

According to a foundational study, it was discovered that people who affirmed that they possessed a particular trait or were ready for a particular undertaking were 95% more likely to respond to a similar undertaking just so they can re-affirm that they indeed possess this trait or capability.

Let me explain how this strategy is actually implemented: when something good happens to a person, he will immediately attribute his success to internal factors, like his traits. Inversely, when a person experiences something bad, like failure, he will attribute the failure or negative event to extraneous factors (i.e. other people, society, circumstances, etc.)

Here are some examples of how this strategy is used by people to maintain their level of self-esteem:

“I aced the exam because I have always been clever in Mathematics.” “I failed the exam because the teacher did not discuss the subject matter adequately.”

“I got a hole-in-one today because I’ve been working so hard on my swing these past few months.” “My golf was horrible today because of the wind speed and we tried out a new golf course.”

“I sold a lot of products today because of my good marketing skills.” “I wasn’t able to sell a lot of products because people didn’t have money and they don’t know how to respond to a great marketer like me!”

How The Mind Thinks About Goals

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As humans, we are able to access knowledge about ourselves by referring to the various self-schemas that we have developed over the years. But the question now is: how do these self-schemas develop in the first place?

Modern studies in human behavior and thinking have been able to define specific contours and boundaries when it comes to the formation of the concept of the self. Of course, there can be endless debates as to how the self is actually developed over time.

The concept of the self is so important to so many disciplines that you will find different models and theories about it across a wide plethora of fields such as anthropology, philosophy and even literary criticism. But for the purpose of this book, we will be looking carefully at the concept of the self as it is applied directly to any social setting.

Now, let’s move on to a concept called self-comparison. Self-comparison is every important to the concept of the self because without it, there would be no way for a person to establish coordinates that will allow him to develop the self over time.

How does self-comparison work? Here’s a straightforward explanation: self-comparison works by setting standards that person would model himself against. These standards may come from an ideal mental image of the self or from certain standards emanating from one’s own social group. The type of comparison taking place in our minds is dependent on the kind of self-awareness that we have.

If you are always privately self-aware, you are more concerned with personal standards of appearance, behavior, accomplishments, etc. If you have a higher level of public self-awareness, you will be more concerned with what other people think of you and how other see you, so you are more concerned with extraneous  standards of behavior, appearance, etc.

Self-comparison can happen on both conscious and subconscious levels. So even if you are not consciously thinking that you are trying to satisfy certain standards in your life, you are actually actively working to fulfill these standards in your own life.

Only a person with very dim self-awareness will be able to avoid this type of thinking because any person who wants to at the best position to influence others and to accomplish his goals in life would want full access to mental tools that will allow a person to modify his way of thinking.

The Four-Step Feedback Method

According to one theory, people consciously (or unconsciously) use a four-step feedback method to test whether or not they are attaining personal goals or satisfying particular standards. You can use this feedback method too, so you can systematically improve certain aspects of your life that require your attention. The four-step feedback method works this way:

Step # 1: Identify a particular goal or standard that you think would help improve yourself in any way.

Step # 2: Ask yourself – do you already fulfill this standard or have you attained this goal?

If the answer is “no”, proceed to Step # 4. If the answer is “yes”, proceed with Step # 3.

Step # 3: What would help you attain this goal or satisfy this private/personal or public standard? Test your theory and perform the actions needed to satisfy the standard you had in mind. After testing your theory through action and appropriate decision-making, ask yourself once again: do you satisfy the standard?

If the answer is “no”, repeat Step # 3. If the answer is “yes”, proceed to Step # 4.

Step # 4: You have completed the feedback method.

It is crucial that you always ask yourself this vital question when you are performing the four-step feedback method: am I attaining my goal with what I am doing? Since you are choosing to consciously perform this feedback method, I have to remind you gentle folks that you have to go back to Step # 3 if you still haven’t satisfied the standard or goal that you had in mind.

Since this process of self-critique can be quite taxing, I recommend that you focus on one standard or one goal only whenever you want to perform this feedback method. Because according to social theory, 9 times out of 10, you will be mentally tuckered out after just one round with the four-step feedback method. So learn to pace yourself and don’t focus on other issues when you are actively engaged in this method.

Self Schemas Defined

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The human mind thrives on organization. Memories and thoughts are not store haphazardly; there is a system and self-awareness itself uses a particular scheme to store information in a way that will make sense to a person when he is engaged in reflective thought. This scheme is called the self-schema.

A self-schema can be defined in two ways:

  1. A self-schema shows you exactly how you intend to react to specific situations and events.
  2. A self-schema consists of our experiences and traits; specific traits are bound to different events. Our behavior is defined by the way we react to people and situations.

Here are examples of self-schemas:

Person A has always been an introvert (because he has always been a quiet person at school and he keeps to himself most of the time).

He is good at sports (he joined the basketball team in high school and earned an educational scholarship with his basketball prowess).

Person A has always loved Oriental cooking (as evidence by his preference for Chinese and Japanese cuisine).

Take note that we do not code all of traits, tendencies and behaviors in one large schema. We create many schemas in our memory and we use these schemas as needed.

As you can imagine, some self-schemas are more useful and important than other schemas. Some minor schemas are only used in rare occasions (i.e. when a person is required to dance in front of others with a partner; the response to this type of situation is dictated by the particular schema that a person already has about similar experiences).

It is very important to become aware of our self-schemas because these are the internal codes that we refer to when we need to something. Without self-schemas, reflective thought and meaningful interaction with others is simply not possible. When a person is faced with a situation, it is the self-schema that tells the person directly what to do.

Simply put – you cannot escape your own self-schemas any more than you can escape the fact that you have to wake up at one point during the day. It is unavoidable which is why we need to embrace it because you can actually use self-schemas to improve the way you behave or react in different situations.

The Two Types Of Self Awareness

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With the presence of the self comes the realization that we are all distinct individuals with peculiar behaviors, drives and desires. This individuation (which occurs on the most basic levels of human community and interaction) is defined by self-awareness. Self-awareness is like your rear-view and side-view mirrors: it gives you a way to evaluate your own position in relation to others.

With self-awareness, you become more aware of your positionality within specific contexts or situations. It gives you access to true knowledge regarding your own thought patterns and behaviors. Without self-awareness, you will not be able to exert influence over others because influence requires a mastery of the self, primarily, not of others.

Self-awareness plays a very crucial role in the formation of one’s identity, which is the cornerstone of influence in society. Now, does self-awareness emerge along with other natural instincts, like suckling or moving around our arms when feel like we’re falling from a high place?

The answer is no: self-awareness, though it is peculiar to the human species, actually develops over a period of time. Babies are not born with a concept that they are distinct individuals moving

about in an environment with ever changing variables. An old study conducted a few decades ago proved that at the outset, babies will treat their own mirror reflections as other individuals.

However, when babies reached at eighteen months of age, they will begin to react to their reflection in the mirror by performing actions that will validate that they are indeed the ones in the mirror. For example, if you place a red dot on an eighteen month old baby’s nose, that baby will react by touching the red dot on his nose. That single action marks the transition from being ‘just’ a baby to a being a self-ware individual.

Now, why does this happen in the first place? According to studies in neurological science, it appears that the frontal lobe (which is responsible for intentional behavior) begins to develop at an accelerated pace at this age. During adulthood, there is evidence that there is also increased activity in the frontal lobe when a person chooses to be more self-aware.

There are generally two kinds of self-awareness: private self-awareness and public self-awareness. An individual becomes temporarily self-aware about his appearance or actions when he sees himself on a mirror or when he stops to think what he will be doing throughout the day. When a person chooses to engage in private self-awareness, three things happen:

  1. There is a heightened emotional response
  2. There is a more accurate analysis of existing condition
  3. There will be reinforcement of familiar beliefs

Let’s discuss these three consequences. The first consequence revolves around a person’s emotions. If a person is happy when he becomes privately self-aware, the tendency is that he will become even happier. There is a marked intensification of existing emotional states.

Inversely, a depressed individual, upon contemplating his current circumstances, may become even more depressed. A person’s state of mind is affected greatly by self-awareness and contemplation, which is why it’s important to shift out of negative emotional states because negative emotions will only attract more negative emotions.

The second consequence is that a person becomes more aware of what’s happening within himself and without. A person who is privately self-aware will base his analysis on what is truly happening rather than what is being said by others.

There is an increased drive to clarify new and existing knowledge and the person becomes more aware of the variables and conditions in his own situation. The third consequence concerns self-validation more than anything.

A person who is not self-aware will find it easier to change specific behaviors if these behaviors have a negative impact on himself; inversely, if a behavior is proving to be a beneficial behavior, he will continue on the same path.

Self-awareness on the other hand, will allow a person to ‘stick to his guns’ regardless of the impact of the behavior. Normative forces in society will not affect a person’s decision to stick to his behaviors. Influence, therefore, decreases, when a person becomes privately self-aware.

The second kind of self-awareness (based on a person’s positionality) is public self-awareness. Public self-awareness occurs when a person experiences heightened self-consciousness because he can be evaluated by another person or by a group of people (i.e. the media, an audience in a meeting, audience in an academic presentation, etc.)

Anxiety and other negative emotions are common when a person experiences public self-awareness. When you become too self-aware when you have to present something to an audience, your body language and speech will reveal your exact emotions. If you think that you will not look good when you talk to someone or when you present something to a large audience, you become even more anxious and nervous.

During periods of public self-awareness, a person also becomes aware of two different images or projections of himself: the private image (or what he thinks of himself) and the public image (the image seen by others when he is evaluated by the public). There is a big difference between what you think you look like and what others see in you.

If there is a big incongruence between these two images, people tend to think and feel negatively. Public self-awareness, unlike private self-awareness, has a normative impact on people. Public self-awareness can force a person to adhere to certain parameters of acceptable behavior. The kinds of behavior that may be adapted by a public self-aware individual will vary depending on the situation.

Now, it is important to note that it is normal for people to become self-aware at specific situations. There is nothing wrong with self-awareness; in fact, with self-awareness, you can discover more about yourself and you can improve the facets of yourself that have a direct impact on the persona that you are projecting to the public.

However, if you become too self-conscious and you fail to use this ability to reflect on your public image and your behavior, you may have to deal with certain consequences. According to studies, people who have a very high level of private self-awareness are more likely to develop neuroses or psychological problems (i.e. depression) because self-aware people tend to focus on negative aspects of their lives instead of the positive aspects.