The Self

The Self

Introduction

The concept of self carries immense significance in the social world and has colossal implications in both humanities and social psychology. The concept of self, or more succinctly, the self-concept embodies the thoughts and perceptions about ourselves, i.e., how we think about ourselves (McLeod, 2008). Though, there is an assortment of terms employed in explaining an individual's notion of himself, the following definition serves the purpose of a general consensus: the self-concept is an association of traits that an individual ascribes to himself. It is implicit that the term traits carries wider implications and incorporates both the characteristics that an individual articulates in terms of adjectives such as intelligent, ambitious, determined, etc. and also the roles he sees himself in such as doctor, father, engineer, etc.

Discussion

To be conscious and concerned about oneself is to have a self-concept. The development of self-concept, thus, slots in two facets as Lewis (199) proposes: the existential self and the categorical self. The existential self is the most rudimentary aspect of the self-concept or self-scheme. It signifies the gist of being a distinct individual from others and the understanding of the consistency and firmness of identity (Bee, 1992). For instance, the child comprehends their existence as a separate and distinct being from others and that it persists over time and space. According to Lewis, the understanding of the existential self develops as early as when the child is two to three months old and evolves in some way because of the connection the child has with the world. For example, the child cries and someone comforts him or the child smiles and recuperates the same response from his mother or father, or the child touches some object and observes it moving.

In contrast, the categorical self is based on a child's perception about himself as an object to the world. While other objects including people have features that can be felt or seen such as small, big, smooth, soft, red, black and so on, likewise the child perceives himself as an object that can be experienced and that has some characteristics. The self, in addition, can be categorized into various grouping such as age, sex, size, nationality, skill, and so on. For example, 'I am 3 years old' (age) or 'I am a boy' (sex) are some of the categories that a child places himself into, hence, which designates the child's categorical self. During the early children, the categories or groupings the child places him into are very tangible such as height, weight, age, hair color, and favorite things. However, with the passage of time as the child grows, his self-concept begins to incorporate aspects of his inner emotional traits, relative assessments, and how others perceive them.

Carl Rogers (1959) suggests that an individual's self-concept is build up of three different components: self-image, self-esteem, and the ideal self. Self-esteem or self worth pertains to the extent an individual values himself or herself. In other words, how a person evaluates and assesses himself is a person's ...