Welcome to this series about Positive Thinking. Enjoy the principles and I hope you can learn something new. Enjoy the benefits of Positive Thinking.
What is self-concept? It’s the image we hold of ourselves. How does it form over time, and how does it change? It develops in several ways, but it is influenced by our interactions with the important people in our lives.
How Is It Defined?
How is it defined by psychologists? It’s thought of as our perceptions of self, of our unique characteristics, our abilities, and our behavior. It is a mental picture of yourself, or you as a person and of who you are and the beliefs that you hold about yourself.
Beliefs such as, “I am kind, I am a good friend, and I am caring” all form part of our overall self-concept.
It is more malleable when we are young and going through the stages of self-discovery and forming our identities. As we age, though, those self-perceptions become more organized, more detailed. We have a better idea of what is important to us, and of who we are.
The individual self-deals with personality traits and attributes.
The relational self, deals with relationships that we have with significant people in our lives, including lovers, family, and close friends. The collective self, meanwhile, is defined by our membership in a social group, such as American, or British.
Self-Concept Components
Several theorists have proposed varying ways of considering self-concept.
The social identity theory suggests that self-concept is made up of two parts: social and personal identities.
The personal identity encompasses the traits that make us unique, while the social identity involves the groups we belong to, including religion, college community, etc.
Other theorists suggest there are six parts:
- Family
- Social
- Academic
- Competence
- Physical
- Affect
While others stick to the theory of three self-concept parts:
- Self-esteem – self- esteem is how we value ourselves. Many factors can have an impact on our self-esteem. When we constantly compare ourselves to the people around us, and even how other people respond to us. When people respond favorably, we tend to develop a more positive self-esteem. When we compare ourselves to the people around us and believe we are lacking, we see a negative impact on our self-esteem. WebMD offers tips on how to improve your self-esteem if it’s something you find yourself struggling with.
- Self-image – self-image is how we see ourselves. It doesn’t always match reality. Many people have inflated sense of self, while others are prone to negative thoughts and poor images of themselves. For instance, a teenager may feel as though they are socially awkward, while people have always thought of them as likable and charming. Some teenagers may see themselves as overweight, when they’re on the skinny side. Self-image is a combination of personality traits, social roles, and physical characteristics.
- Ideal self – the ideal self is how we wish we were. It may be how we see ourselves, even though it doesn’t match up to the person that we really are.
Reality
We stated how our self-concepts might not align with reality. The terms congruence and in congruence explain the degree to which an individual’s self-concept matches to reality.
It is common to distort our reality to some degree and when our self-concept is aligned closely with reality this is congruence. When our self-concept does not match to reality whatsoever, this is known as in congruence.
In congruence tends to stem from childhood when our parents present conditions for affection. When parents only express love when their children “earn” it, children are left with a distorted memory of their experiences that will leave them feeling unworthy of love.
Unconditional love fosters congruence, as children who are loved freely and continually don’t need to distort their memories.
WebMD reports that children are naturally inclined to believe that they are worthy of love and acceptance as they are, when they have been exposed to unconditional love.
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Nick Thorne is the founder of NicksDigitalSolutions Limited, a company specializing in Education, Training and Writing. He lives in Levin, New Zealand.