Psychology of the self WF-PS-PN-ER

This course will combine the perspectives of psychology of individual differences and personality and social psychology to study the self and identity - what makes us us and what we know and sense about ourselves. We will discuss the creation of self-concept from the basic sense of self and self-awareness to self-actualization. We will discuss how self-awareness and self-concept are represented in the brain and what happens when the normal function of the brain is disrupted. Next, we will study how we acquire self-knowledge and what is the role of our social and cultural connections in this process. We will study levels of the self and self-complexity. Then, we will move into the realm of self-evaluation and study the importance of the motivation to maintain positive self-esteem. We will discuss how this motive affects our self-perception, how it buffers against the fear of death and creates cognitive dissonance. We will discuss the role of self-esteem in personal wellbeing and its overlaps and differences with narcissism and self-compassion. Finally, we will focus on the concept of narcissism and discuss its various facets, antecedents and consequences. The course will run as a series of 7 online meetings accompanied by e-learning

E-learning https://e.uksw.edu.pl/course/view.php?id=55333

Online meetings on Teams

17/03 Session 1. The sense of the self. Self-awareness and its distortions
24/03 Session 2. Self-knowledge & self-complexity
14/04 Session 3. Culture and the self
5/05 Session 4. Self-evaluation. Self-esteem, narcissism, self-compassion
12/05 Session 5. Faces of narcissism and cultural fit
19/05 Session 6. Collective narcissism
26/05 Session 7. Test

Presentations
24/03 Session 2
Presentation 1: Rusbult, C. E., Finkel, E. J., & Kumashiro, M. (2009). The Michelangelo Phenomenon. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 18(6), 305-309.
Presentation 2: Wakefield JRH, Bowe M, Kellezi B, McNamara N, Stevenson C. When groups help and when groups harm: Origins, developments, and future directions of the “Social Cure” perspective of group dynamics. Soc Personal Psychol Compass. 2019;13:e12440. https://doi.org/10.1111/spc3.12440

14/04 Session 3.
Presentation 3: Wang, Q. (2006). Culture and the Development of Self-Knowledge. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 15(4), 182-187.
Presentation 4: Hong, Y.-y., Zhan, S., Morris, M. W., & Benet-Martínez, V. (2016). Multicultural identity processes. Current Opinion in Psychology, 8, 49–53. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.copsyc.2015.09.020

5/05 Session 4
Presentation 5: Neff, K.D. (2011), Self-Compassion, Self-Esteem, and Well-Being. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 5: 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2010.00330.x
Presentation 6: Brummelman, E., Thomaes, S., & Sedikides, C. (2016). Separating Narcissism From Self-Esteem. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 25(1), 8-13.

12/05 Session 5.
Presentation 7: Miller, J. D., Back, M. D., Lynam, D. R., & Wright, A. G. C. (2021). Narcissism Today: What We Know and What We Need to Learn. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 30(6), 519-525.
Presentation 8: Sedikides C. In Search of Narcissus. Trends Cogn Sci. 2021 Jan;25(1):67-80. doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2020.10.010.

19/05 Session 6.
Presentation 9: Cichocka A, Marchlewska M, Biddlestone M. Why do narcissists find conspiracy theories so appealing? Curr Opin Psychol. 2022 Oct;47:101386. doi: 10.1016/j.copsyc.2022.101386.
Presentation 10: Golec de Zavala A, Bierwiaczonek K, Ciesielski P. An interpretation of meta-analytical evidence for the link between collective narcissism and conspiracy theories. Curr Opin Psychol. 2022 Oct;47:101360. doi: 10.1016/j.copsyc.2022.101360