Self-Conception
Social psychology conceptualization of self
Simply put, self-concept is the way one thinks about what they are and how they evaluate themselves. When one is referred to as aware of self it means that they have concept of self. There are however varied definitions of self-concept especially in regard the relation with self-esteem. Baumeister (1999) indicates that the definition of self is what a person believes about "himself or herself, including the person's attributes and who and what the self is." Self-concept has a wider coverage than self-esteem in that as self-esteem is limited to the emotional reaction, the self-concept covers everything that is known to the person like the name, the race, the dislikes and the likes, beliefs and value systems and even the physical appearances like height and weight (Todd F & Carry L, n.d:2).
Development of self-concept
The social psychologists have come up with several sources or causes of self-conception that people have like (Psychology Press, 2012);
Motivation- these are behaviors driven by intrinsic motivation and have a better platform to definition of self than the extrinsic motivations.
Accessibility- when a person thinks of imagined behaviors or the actual behaviors it heightens the accessibility of personal characteristics that are related to the imagines traits hence self-conception and inferences.
Thoughts and feelings- social psychologists indicate that from the feelings as well as the thoughts of an individual, there can be made closer inference about the self by the person as well as those surrounding him and would like to make inference of him.
From other people's reaction- this is also referred to as looking-glass...
The reactions are like a mirror to us on which we see ourselves. It is said to be more real in children as they become what people describe them to be.
Social comparison -- is yet another way of self-conception where we shape our selves by comparing with others. Since we all want to be perfect, we look out to others to shape our selves like them.
The construction of self is much the same as we form impression of others and people express the internal characteristics from their behavior according to self-perception theory.
There are therefore two categories of self that are overtly manifest in the field of social psychology; the existential self and the categorical self.
The existential self- is known to be the most basic of the self-concept and Bee (1992) refers to it as the sense of being distinct and separate from the rest of the people and the awareness of the constant nature of the self. For instance a little child comes to know that they exist separately from the others and that this state will continue for some duration. It is indicated that this feeling comes to the knowledge of children as young as three months old when they begin to know how to initiate actions like moving a toy.
The categorical self- this comes after the child has realized the existential self, and here he realizes that he is also juts an object in the world like the others and other objects with tangible properties like him.
Self and emotion as related to self-esteem
There is a close link between emotion and self and the presence of a complex sense of self sets them apart from the animals. Since the human being has that constant sense…
