Enhancing self-perception through bibliotherapy

Bibliotherapy has been used for generations by professionals in medicine, psychology, counseling, social work, and education. A selected review of the literature is provided to show how bibliotherapy was used in the past and how it is currently employed to implement and facilitate self-identification and to enhance self-perception. Researchers concur that the process of providing pupils with carefully monitored literature will result in positive or negative changes in their self-perception.     

Resolving discrepant results of the Wheatstone Experiment

Summary Soon after Wheatstone published his results obtained with the twelve earliest stereograms. Brewster disputed the result obtained with one of them. This stereogram consisted of a thick vertical line presented to one eye and a thin vertical and thick inclined line to the other. Wheatstone reported seeing depth with this figure but Brewster did not. We conducted three experiments to explore the possible reason for the disagreement. Experiment 1 indicated that the stereogram produces a variety of perceptions including the depth as reported by Wheatstone and the rivalry as reported by Brewster. Experiment 2 showed that Brewster's procedure of keeping the eyes fixed while viewing the stereogram reduces the proportion of subjects reporting depth. In Experiment 3, the top half and the bottom half of the stereogram were presented in different trials. The top of the stereogram that contains no conflicting cues produced reliable depth, but the bottom that does, did not. It is concluded that the difference in the procedures they used and the nature of the stimulus were responsible for the conflicting results.     

The distortion of self-perception by learned helplessness

This study examined the impact of learned helplessness on self-perception of competence. The participants were 180 undergraduates who were placed in control, failure, or success groups where they were given a list of traits on which to evaluate themselves, followed by an anagram-solution test. Significant performance effects were observed on the test; self-assessment was more representative of actual ability, however, than of the treatment situation. The results suggest that although experiencing uncontrollable failure may result in performance deficits, perception of ability may not be distorted.     

Adolescents' hero identification and self-perception.

This study explored associations for having a hero with aspects of adolescents' self-concept for 168 high school students who completed Harter's Self-per ception Profile and questions about their heroes. Having a hero was related to having a stronger sense of social acceptance, romantic appeal, and athletic competence and a weaker sense of scholastic competence.     

Attitude accessibility following a self-perception process

Self-perception processes have been postulated to occur only to the extent that initial attitudes are weak. The present research asked whether the outcome of such a process is a strengthening of the attitude in question. Two experiments investigated the accessibility of attitudes from memory following self-inference from behavior. Experiment 1 examined the consequence for attitude accessibility of reviewing and considering previously performed religious behaviors that were recent and primarily unmanded versus distant in time and "manded" in nature. Experiment 2 involved the performance of a new behavior that was either required or freely chosen. In each case, control subjects either did not review prior behaviors or did not perform a new behavior. In both experiments, attitude accessibility, as measured by the latency of response to attitudinal inquiries, was enhanced by the consideration or performance of unmanded behavior, but not by manded behavior. The relevance of this finding to issues regarding attitude-behavior consistency and attitudinal persistence is discussed.     

Effects of team outcome on children's self-perception: Little League baseball

Abstract.— To determine how children use various attributional categories in making judgments about themselves as a function of team performance outcomes, answers were sought to the questions of how invariant children's perceptions of their characteristics are, and how they expect social agents to judge them under the various outcome conditions of team performance. Subjects were 300 Little League baseball players. Team failure did not decrease the players' judgments of their own internal qualities (ability and effort) but did decrease their judgments of those of the team. In addition, the players judged themselves and expected social agents (coach and spectators) to judge them as being unlucky and having a difficult task following team failure. Theoretical implications of the results were discussed.     

The discrepant effect of acute stress on cognitive inhibition and response inhibition

This study aimed to investigate how acute stress impinges on individual’s cognitive inhibition and response inhibition abilities. Electroencephalography was adopted when 35 healthy adult females performing the No Go Flanker task before and after the Trier Social Stress Test. Both inhibition processes evoked N2 and P3 components, but only the response inhibition evoked the late positive potential (LPP), indicating the response inhibition needed continuous cognitive effort to inhibit the prepotent response. The N2 and the P3 amplitudes were decreased, while the LPP amplitudes were increased under acute stress. These results suggested that acute stress caused the detrimental effect by occupying cognitive resources. Contrastingly, individuals actively regulated and made more efforts to counteract the detrimental effect of acute stress on response inhibition. Thus, acute stress impaired cognitive inhibition but did not affect response inhibition.     

Economic inequality is linked to biased self-perception

People's self-perception biases often lead them to see themselves as better than the average person (a phenomenon known as self-enhancement). This bias varies across cultures, and variations are typically explained using cultural variables, such as individualism versus collectivism. We propose that socioeconomic differences among societies--specifically, relative levels of economic inequality--play an important but unrecognized role in how people evaluate themselves. Evidence for self-enhancement was found in 15 diverse nations, but the magnitude of the bias varied. Greater self-enhancement was found in societies with more income inequality, and income inequality predicted cross-cultural differences in self-enhancement better than did individualism/collectivism. These results indicate that macrosocial differences in the distribution of economic goods are linked to microsocial processes of perceiving the self.     

Sex differences in children's discrepant perceptions of peer acceptance

Sex differences in children's play patterns during middle childhood are thought to promote greater awareness of social acceptance among girls compared with boys. The present study posited that girls are more discerning of peer acceptance than are boys; however, these sex differences were predicted to vary depending on how discrepant perceptions were assessed (i.e., inaccuracy versus bias). Additional differences were expected if children perceived acceptance by same- versus opposite-sex peers. Participants were 912 third through fifth graders (420 girls and 492 boys). Consistent with predictions, boys were more inaccurate than girls, but only for perceived acceptance by same-sex peers. As expected, girls were more negatively biased than boys, but only for perceived acceptance by opposite-sex peers. Results did not support the hypothesis that boys have more positively biased perceptions of peer acceptance than girls. Overall, these findings raise important issues regarding the evaluation of children's discrepant self-perceptions of peer acceptance.     

Adolescent self-perception as a function of vision loss.

The potential effect of vision loss on adolescents' self-perception has been the subject of limited research. Several previous studies have failed to shed much light on this relationship. This study, utilizing a sample of adolescents with visual problems and a comparison sample with normal vision, found significant differences in dimensions of perceived self-concept between these groups. Some possible interpretations of these results are offered. The need for new research in this field of inquiry is emphasized.     

The spyglass self: a model of vicarious self-perception

Self-perception theory posits that people sometimes infer their own attributes by observing their freely chosen actions. The authors hypothesized that in addition, people sometimes infer their own attributes by observing the freely chosen actions of others with whom they feel a sense of merged identity--almost as if they had observed themselves performing the acts. Before observing an actor's behavior, participants were led to feel a sense of merged identity with the actor through perspective-taking instructions (Study 1) or through feedback indicating that their brainwave patterns overlapped substantially with those of the actor (Studies 2-4). As predicted, participants incorporated attributes relevant to an actor's behavior into their own self-concepts, but only when they were led to feel a sense of merged identity with the actor and only when the actor's behavior seemed freely chosen. These changes in relevant self-perceptions led participants to change their own behaviors accordingly. Implications of these vicarious self-perception processes for conformity, perspective-taking, and the long-term development of the self-concept are discussed.