SELF-CONCEPT
Who are you? What makes you “you?” You might answer with “I’m a daughter,” or, “I’m a
student,” or maybe, “I’m a believer,” “I’m a good friend,” “I’m a brother.” Maybe you answer with,
“I am excellent at my studies,” “I’m a skilled singer,” or “I’m a successful artist.” Other responses
might fall into the category of traits: “I’m a kind-hearted person,” “I’m intelligent and hardworking,” or “I’m laid-back and easy-going.”
According to Ackerman (2021), these responses come from your internal sense of who you are.
This sense is developed early in life, but it goes through constant evaluation and adjustment
throughout the lifespan. This sense of self has a specific term: self-concept.

Self-concept is the image that we have of ourselves. It our personal knowledge of
who we are, encompassing all of our thoughts and feelings about ourselves physically,
personally, and socially.

Self-concept also includes our knowledge of how we behave, our capabilities, and
our individual characteristics. For example, beliefs such as "I am a good friend" or "I
am a kind person" are part of an overall self-concept.

To be aware of oneself is to have a concept of oneself.

Our self-concept develops most rapidly during early childhood and adolescence, but
self-concept continues to form and change over time as we learn more about ourselves.
As you age and learn who you are and what’s important to you, these self-perceptions
become much more detailed and organized.
Self-concepts are rarely all positive or all negative; someone may have both positive and
some negative self-concepts in different domains.
Some examples of positive self-concepts include:

A student sees herself as an intelligent person.

A student views himself as a diligent and responsible person.
On the flip side, these people could have negative self-concepts like:

A student sees herself as stupid and slow.

A student views himself as lazy and irresponsible.
We all have many of these mini or domain-specific self-concepts that encompass our selfconcept. Some may be more positive or negative than others, and each is an important piece of
what makes us who we are.
COMPONENTS OF SELF CONCEPT
Carl Rogers, one of the founders of humanistic psychology, suggested that self-concept
includes three components.
1. SELF-IMAGE

The way we see ourselves.

Includes what we know about ourselves physically
(e.g. brown hair, blue eyes, tall), our social roles
(e.g. wife, brother, gardener), and our personality
traits (e.g. outgoing, serious, kind).

Self-image doesn’t always match reality. Some
individuals hold an inflated perception of one or
more of their characteristics. These inflated
perceptions may be positive or negative, and an
individual may have a more positive view of certain aspects of the self and a more
negative view of others.
2. SELF-ESTEEM

The value we place upon ourselves.

How much you like, accept, or value yourself, which
can be impacted by a number of factors including how
others see you, how you think you compare to others,
and your role in society.

Individual levels of self-esteem are dependent on the
way we evaluate ourselves.
When we compare ourselves to others and find that we are
better at something than others and/or that people respond favorably to what we do, our selfesteem in that area grows. On the other hand, when we compare ourselves to others and find
we’re not as successful in a given area and/or people respond negatively to what we do, our
self-esteem decreases. We can have high self-esteem in some areas ("I am a good student")
while simultaneously having negative self-esteem in others ("I am not well-liked").
3. IDEAL SELF

The person or self we would like to be. What you wish you were really like.

It is an idealized version of yourself created out
of what you have learned from your life
experiences, the demands of society, and what
you admire in your role models.

A self-ideal is essentially an ideal future version
of “you” that encompasses your personality,
beliefs, values, and behavior under various
conditions.

My ideal self is who I want to become…

My ideal self is the best version of myself in every situation…

The “ideal you” is, therefore “you”, however it is not the person you are today, but rather
the person you are striving to become tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, and
so on.
A person’s ideal self may not be consistent with what actually happens in the life and
experiences
of
the
person.
Hence,
a
difference may exist between a person’s
ideal self and actual experience. This is
called incongruence. This incongruity can
negatively impact one’s self-esteem.
Where a person’s ideal self and actual
experience are consistent or very similar, a
state of congruence exists. Rarely, if ever does a total state of congruence exist; all people
experience a certain amount of incongruence.
OTHER SELF-CONCEPT THEORIES
According to social psychologist Henri Tajfel's social identity theory, self-concept is composed of
two key parts:

Personal identity: The traits and other characteristics that make you unique.

Social identity: Who you are based on your membership in social groups, such as
sports teams, religions, political parties, or social class.
Psychologist Bruce A. Bracken believed self-concept was multidimensional and could be broken
down into six independent traits:

Academic: Your success or failure in school

Affect: Your awareness of emotional states

Competence: Your ability to meet basic needs

Family: How well you work in your family unit

Physical: How you feel about your looks, health, physical condition, and overall
appearance

Social: Your ability to interact with others
OTHER CONCEPTS RELATED TO “SELF”

Self-awareness: involves being aware of different aspects of the self including traits,
behaviors, and feelings.

Self-confidence: feeling of trust in own abilities, qualities, capacities, and judgment.

Self-efficacy: individual’s belief in his or her capacity to execute behaviors necessary to
meet the challenges ahead of us and complete a task successfully.
Self-Awareness

The capacity of a person to become aware of the totality of his being as much as he
could (including strengths, weaknesses, thoughts, beliefs, motivation and emotions)

Essentially, it is a psychological state in which oneself becomes the focus of attention.

Self-awareness is one of the first components of the self-concept to emerge.
The Johari WIndow
The Johari Window was developed in 1955. The name came about by merging the names of its
founders – John Luft and Harry Ingram. It consists of four panes, which are arranged in a twoby-two matrix. You have a couple of axes: one being stuff that you know and stuff that you don’t
know as well as stuff that’s perceived by you and by others. By combining them, you end up
with four areas.
1. Open/self-area or arena – Here the information about the person his attitudes, behaviour,
emotions, feelings, skills and views will be known by the person as well as by others.
2. Blind self or blind spot – Information about yourselves that others know in a group but you
will be unaware of it. Others may interpret yourselves differently than you expect.
3. Hidden area or façade – Information that is known to you but will be kept unknown from
others. This can be any personal information which you feel reluctant to reveal. This includes
feelings, past experiences, fears, secrets etc. we keep some of our feelings and information as
private as it affects the relationships.
4. Unknown area – The Information which are unaware to yourselves as well as others. This
includes the information, feelings, capabilities, talents etc. This can be due to traumatic past
experiences or events which can be unknown for a lifetime. The person will be unaware till he
discovers his hidden qualities and capabilities or through observation of others.
Question: Which among the four panes needs to increase?
-Of course, your OPEN area.
The ways to increase your open area

Disclose more about yourself

Reflect on experience, discover more about yourself

Seek out feedback-challenge your blindspot.
PERSONALITY
Personality is something that people
tend to think a lot about. When we meet
new people, whether through work,
school, or social events, it is often their
personality on which we immediately
focus. Whether they are nice, helpful,
outgoing, or shy are just a few of the
things that we assess as we evaluate the people around us.
One effective way to understand ourselves is to know our personality. But what do we mean
when we say personality? And why is it necessary to know what type of personality we have for
us to understand ourselves?
DEFINING PERSONALITY

The word personality itself stems from the Latin word persona, which refers to a
theatrical mask worn by performers in order to either project different roles or disguise
their identities.

Personality refers to individual differences in characteristic patterns of thinking,
feeling, and behaving that make a person unique. It is believed that personality arises
from within the individual and remains fairly consistent throughout life.

Personality makes us who we are. It influences nearly every aspect of our lives
including what we choose to do for a living, how we interact with our families, and our
choices of friends and romantic partners.
PERSONALITY TRAITS
People have unique personalities that make them who they are. There are many different
types of personality traits, including some that are positive and some that are negative.
Personality traits reflect people’s characteristic patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.
Positive Personality Traits

Drive, determination and persistence can help keep a student going no matter what.

Courage and confidence can help a student choose to do what is right in tough
situations.

A student who is optimistic tends to look for the bright side of situations rather than
forcing on the negative.
Negative Personality Traits

Being quick to anger will damage relationships and turn people away.

Those who are unfriendly are often viewed as disrespectful and/or uninterested in
connecting with other people.

Being full of laziness and excuses for failing to meet deadlines is sure to suffer
consequences in the end.
Why learn more about your personality?

It answers the question of WHY: It can help you better understand yourself and other
people. You can understand why you think, feel, and act the way you do.

It helps you figure out HOW: It can help you find better answers to questions like, “how
can I be happier”, “how do I find a career I’m passionate about”, “how can I better
communicate with my friends and classmates”, “how do I stay motivated?”, or “how can I
make better decisions.”

Personality + Situation = Behavior: Knowing your personality and reading about
different situations, you can start to predict your own behavior then you can
change your behavior.

It’s about YOU, and it’s also about THEM: It can tell you a lot about yourself and you
will understand better the people around you.
OTHER RELATED CONCEPTS
Character

Objective. Represents who we actually are.

Indicates the traits of a person which are hidden from sight. It includes traits that reveal
themselves only in specific – and often uncommon – circumstances, traits like honesty,
virtue, and kindness.

Expression of inner true traits of a person.
Attitude

Standpoint or the opinion one has towards something. It represents an individual’s
degree of likes or dislikes for a particular thing, topic, person, place or situation.

Behaviour or way of response or thinking in any particular situation of an individual
shows the attitude. It keeps changing according to the situation.
Behaviour

What we do. What a person does.

The way a person acts or reacts to other persons and their surroundings in general. It is
about how a person expresses himself or herself.

It is based on the situation and therefore changes a lot.
CONCLUSION

Everyone has their own self-concept.

Self-concept can be both positive and negative.

Knowing one’s personality is essential in understanding the self.

Everyone has unique personalities.

Character, attitude, behaviour, and personality are different from each other.
To be aware of oneself is to have a concept of oneself.