The repertory grid approach to analysing family members' perception of self and others: a pilot study

We report a pilot study involving the administration of a questionnaire to family members, based upon the three key target dimensions of the distance regulation theory of Kan tor and Lehr (1975). The questions, concerning family relationships and personal attributes of family members, were based on constructs derived from the theory, and the responses of family members were in a form consistent with repertory grid analysis procedures. The method allows the family researcher or therapist to explore the organization of the constructs for each family member, showing how each member is construed both by others and by themselves.     

Categorizing others and the self: How social memory structures guide social perception and behavior

In keeping with the special issue theme of “Remembering the Future,” this article provides a selective review of research on how memory for social information (i.e., social category representation) influences future processing and behavior. Specifically, the authors focus on how categorization and stereotyping affect how we perceive others and ourselves. The first part of the article reviews research on how individuals perceive others. The authors review research on the determinants and outcomes of social categorization and stereotype activation, concluding with the influence of ingroup/outgroup categorization on face processing. The second part of the article reviews research on how individuals perceive themselves. The authors argue that stereotype threat—concerns about being judged or behaving in ways that confirm negative group stereotypes, leading to poor performance—is the result of both self-categorization and stereotype activation. Overall, the article highlights the complex relationship between memory for social category information and future social perception and behavior.     

Personality correlates and sex differences in the topological representations of self and others

This investigation attempted to identify the underlying components of the Social Self-Esteem measure. Although devised to function as a brief nonverbal measure of self-esteem applicable to a wide range of special populations, understanding of the measure remained limited. Relationships of this measure to related personality constructs and socioeconomic variables were examined to develop a clearer picture of what the Social Self-Esteem measure is actually assessing. Results indicated that the personality factor Capacity for Status was significantly related to the measure's assessment only among males. it was suggested that the Social Self-Esteem measure assesses some aspect Of what may be termed an individual's status ideal. The usefulness of differentiating scoring levels on the measure is demonstrated. Reasons for the lack of measurement usefulness among females were discussed, in terms of continued reliance among females upon significant others for status satisfaction.     

Sex differences in estimating multiple intelligences in self and others: A replication in Russia

This was a crosscultural study that focused on sex differences in self‐ and other‐estimates of multiple intelligences (including 10 that were specified by Gardner, 1999 and three by Sternberg, 1988) as well as in an overall general intelligence estimate. It was one of a programmatic series of studies done in over 30 countries that has demonstrated the female “humility” and male “hubris” effect in self‐estimated and other‐estimated intelligence. Two hundred and thirty Russian university students estimated their own and their parents’ overall intelligence and “multiple intelligences.” Results revealed no sex difference in estimates of overall intelligence for both self and parents, but men rated themselves higher on spatial intelligence. This contradicted many previous findings in the area which have shown that men rate their own overall intelligence and mathematical intelligence significantly higher than do women. Regressions indicated that estimates of verbal, logical, and spatial intelligences were the best predictors of estimates of overall intelligence, which is a consistent finding over many studies. Regressions also showed that participants’ openness to experience and self‐respect were good predictors of intelligence estimates. A comparison with a British sample showed that Russians gave higher mother estimates, and were less likely to believe that IQ tests measure intelligence. Results were discussed in relation to the influence of gender role stereotypes on lay conception of intelligence across cultures.     

Dispositional forgiveness of self, others, and situations

Six studies regarding forgiveness are presented. The Heartland Forgiveness Scale (HFS), a self-report measure of dispositional forgiveness (with subscales to assess forgiveness of self, others, and situations) was developed and demonstrated good psychometric properties. Forgiveness correlated positively with cognitive flexibility, positive affect, and distraction; it correlated negatively with rumination, vengeance, and hostility. Forgiveness predicted four components of psychological well-being (anger, anxiety, depression, and satisfaction with life); forgiveness of situations accounted for unique variance in these components of psychological well-being. Forgiveness and hostility demonstrated equivalent, inverse associations with relationship duration, and forgiveness accounted for unique variance in relationship satisfaction, even when controlling for trust. Forgiveness level correlated positively with decreased negativity in statements written about transgressions in the present versus the past tense.     

Observer orientation and actor-observer differences in attributions for failure

In a series of two experiments, male undergraduates either operated or watched another person operate a model racecar set. Instructions varied observers' expectancies about future involvement with the task. The drivers' causal attributions for their performance were compared with those of neutral observers as well as those of involved observers who anticipated running on the track. Predictions, derived from the Jones and Nisbett framework of actor/observer differences, were that actors should make more external than internal attributions and that neutral or “passive” observers should do the opposite. Moreover, the involved or “active” observer groups were expected to display attributional patterns similar to those of the actors. These predictions were confirmed. Results are discussed in terms of information and information-processing differences between groups.     

Through the looking glass: self and others

In the present article we discuss the relevance of the mirror mechanism for our sense of self and our sense of others. We argue that, by providing us with an understanding from the inside of actions, the mirror mechanism radically challenges the traditional view of the self and of the others. Indeed, this mechanism not only reveals the common ground on the basis of which we become aware of ourselves as selves distinct from other selves, but also sheds new light on the content of our self and other experience, showing that we primarily experience ourselves and the others in terms of our own and of their motor possibilities respectively.     

The self and others in the experience of pride

Pride is seen as both a self-conscious emotion as well as a social emotion. These categories are not mutually exclusive, but have brought forth different ideas about pride as either revolving around the self or as revolving around one’s relationship with others. Current measures of pride do not include intrapersonal elements of pride experiences. Social comparisons, which often cause experiences of pride, contain three elements: the self, the relationship between the self and another person, and the other person. From the literature on pride, we distilled three related elements; perceptions and feelings of self-inflation, other-distancing, and other-devaluation. In four studies, we explored whether these elements were present in pride experiences. We did so at an implicit (Experiment 1; N?=?218) and explicit level (Experiment 2; N?=?125), in an academic setting with in vivo (Experiment 3; N?=?203) and imagined pride experiences (Experiment 4; N?=?126). The data consistently revealed that the experience of pride is characterised by self-inflation, not by other-distancing nor other-devaluation.     

Differentiation in judgements of self and others: The role of self-consciousness

This study investigated the role of individual differences in Private and Public self-consciousness (SC) on differentiation of self and others in judgements of personality. Ss judged themselves and six other familiar persons on personality constructs derived from a modified Rep Grid procedure. Results showed that the judgements of high scorers on Private SC exhibited greater within-self and self-other differentiation than those of low scorers. There was no significant influence of Private SC on differentiation of other stimulus persons. Public SC had no significant influence on any of the measures of differentiation. The findings were discussed in terms of previous research on self-awareness, the specificity of measures of self-consciousness, and Duval and Wicklund's attentional model of self-awareness.     

Developmental differences in episodic memory across school ages: evidence from enacted events performed by self and others

The aim of this study was to examine action memory as a form of episodic memory among school-aged subjects. Most research on action memory has focused on memory changes in adult populations. This study explored the action memory of children over time. A total of 410 school-aged child participants, comprising 201 girls and 208 boys in four age groups (8, 10, 12, and 14), were included in this study. We studied two forms of action encoding, subject-performed tasks (SPTs) and experimenter-performed tasks (EPTs), which were compared with one verbal encoding task as a control condition. At retrieval, we used three memory tests (free recall, cued recall, and recognition). We observed significant differences in memory performance in children aged 8–14 years with respect to free recall and cued recall but not recognition. The largest memory enhancement was observed for the SPTs in the 8–14-year-old participants under all test conditions. Participants performed equally well on the free recall of SPTs and EPTs, whereas they displayed better performances on the cued recall and recognition of SPTs compared to EPTs. The strategic nature of SPTs and the distinction between item-specific information and relational information are discussed.     

Confusions of self with close others

This article explores the cognitive underpinnings of interpersonal closeness in the theoretical context of "including other in the self" and, specifically, the notion of overlap between cognitive representations of self and close others. In each of three studies, participants first rated different traits for self, close others (e.g., romantic partner, best friend), and less close others (e.g., media personalities), followed by a surprise source recognition task (who was each trait rated for?). As predicted, in each study, there were more source confusions between traits rated for self and close others (e.g., a trait rated for self recalled as having been rated for the close other) than between self (or close others) and non-close others. Furthermore, several results suggest that the greater confusions between self and close others are due specifically to interpersonal closeness and not to greater familiarity or similarity with close others     

The mirror reflects both ways: Action influences perception of others

Substantial evidence links perception of others’ bodies and mental representation of the observer’s own body; however, the overwhelming majority of this evidence is unidirectional, showing influence from perception to action. It has been proposed that the influence also runs from action to perception, but to date the evidence is scant. Here we report that ordinary motor actions performed by the subject affect concurrent psychophysical judgments of human-body stimuli. Subjects remained unaware of the connection between the action and the main task. The results show that perception can change as a result of the observer’s ongoing actions.     

The self and others: Imitation in infants and Sartre's analysis of the look

In Being and Nothingness Jean-Paul Sartre contends that the self's fundamental relation with the other is one of inescapable conflict. I argue that the research of the last few decades on the ability of infants - even newborns - to imitate the facial expressions and gestures of adults provides counter-evidence to Sartre's claim. Sartre is not wrong that the look of the other may be a source of self-alienation, but that is not how it functions in the first instance. An earlier and more primary form of looking with and at the other is a source of self-discovery. In early imitation, the infant and adult each see the other not as objects of experience but as subjects of action. Such looking is necessary for the infant to realize its own potential as a self-conscious, goal-directed subject of perception and action. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Individual risk taking for self and others

In this experimental study, individual risk taking for self and others was observed for three experimental situations (the choice dilemma situations of Kogan and Wallach, 1964, the Pruitt and Teger gambling situation, 1969, and a simple one-trial gamble game). The results of the present study suggest that one takes as much risk for oneself as for somebody else. An attempt was made to determine to what degree the results could be explained by properties of the experimental situations.