Psychological Science ›› 2012, Vol. 35 ›› Issue (3): 735-739.

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A Review of the Properties of Reflected Self-appraisals

YUE Caizhen1,   

  • Received:2011-06-18 Revised:2012-03-20 Online:2012-05-20 Published:2012-05-20

反思自我评价的性质

岳彩镇1,黄希庭2   

  1. 1. 西南大学心理学院
    2. 西南大学
  • 通讯作者: 黄希庭
  • 基金资助:
    教育部哲学社会科学研究重大课题攻关项目:中国心理健康服务体系现状及对策研究;西南大学211三期工程国家重点学科建设项目:时间与人格的多取向整合研究

Abstract: Abstract: Reflected self-appraisals, defined as what the person believed others thought of him or her. It is essential in the formation of self-concept, on one hand, reflected self-appraisals directly influence one’s formation of self-concept; on the other hand, actual appraisals of other people would have remote-effect on self-perception through reflected self-appraisals. Furthermore, it has major affect on racial identity, people may infer others’ view on his own race and internalize these views as racial identity. As to the accuracy of reflected self-appraisal, people are better at understanding how others generally view them, but they seem to have just a tiny glimmer of insight into how they are uniquely viewed by particular other people. The reason may be that under the same circumstances, others may response in the similar way to one people, therefore one can randomly know how specific others deem him. Thus one can not have accurate views of specific others. Reflected self-appraisals on traits are more accurately than affection. Compare with those with low self-esteem, people with high self-esteem know others’ views on themselves more precisely. The accuracy of reflected self-appraisals may differ due to one’s familiarity with others. The accuracy of reflected self-appraisals under different cultural background also differs with each other. Three theoretical resources could be taken accounted for the formation of reflected self-appraisals, i.e. direct observation model, the feedback model, and self-theory model. According to the feedback theory, people observe others' reactions to their behavior and base their reflected self-appraisals on that feedback. According to the direct observation theory, people consider their behavior and then attempt to determine how that behavior influenced the other person's impression of them. From this perspective, people's behavior influences their reflected self-appraisals but does not affect self-perception. Finally, according to the self-theory view, people assume that their personalities, as they see them, will be immediately apparent to others, regardless of their behavior during particular social episodes. From this perspective, reflected self-appraisals is based on people's general views of themselves; people believe simply that others will see them as they see themselves. Interpersonal behavior plays no role in reflected self-appraisals. There is also some development on the neural mechanism of reflected self-appraisals. The neural mechanism is researched when one implements direct self appraisal and reflected self-appraisal, the result shows that the same region, as well as each particular region are activated by these two appraisals. We should construct reflected self-appraisals theory which is appropriate for our cultural background due to the cultural, social and historical differences between Eastern and Western societies. Furthermore, application of the self-reflective theory should be discussed.

Key words: reflected self-appraisals, self-concept, meta-perception, accuracy, neural mechanisms

摘要: 反思自我评价是指个体对于他人如何看待自己的知觉;它对自我概念、种族认同的形成起着重要作用。反思自我评价并不完全准确,它受熟悉性,自尊水平等多种因素的影响。关于反思自我评价的形成,目前主要有三种理论:直接观察模型、他人反馈模型和自我理论模型。由于中西方在文化、社会和历史背景上的不同,应加强建构适合我国文化背景的反思自我评价理论;另外,也应加强对反思自我评价研究的应用探讨。

关键词: 反思自我评价, 自我概念, 元知觉, 准确性, 神经机制