What is Self Concept in Psychology ?

The concept of self is usually about how someone evaluates, perceives or thinks about themselves. It is a very broad and complex concept as it encircles all that we know about ourselves. A person’s self-concept is the collection of beliefs about oneself which includes elements such as their academic performance, sexuality, gender roles and racial identity.

Self-concept is the perception of our abilities and how distinct we are from others. It is actually the image that we have of ourselves. It is a collection of beliefs about our own nature, our unique qualities and the behavior. In simpler words we could say that self-concept is the mental picture of ourselves, what we actually know and think about ourselves. We all are aware of our good and bad qualities. We know about it in our mind because we have the ability to learn and know more about ourselves.
An individual consists of personality traits or attributes that differentiate them from other individuals. According to the social identity theory, self-concept can be divided into two parts:

• Personal identity

• Social identity.

Our personal identity includes our personality traits or attributes that makes us unique from others, while the social identity traits are the groups we belong to, which includes our college, community, religion or any other group.

Carl Roger, a Humanist psychologist, believes that self-concept consists of three components:

• Self-image

• Self-esteem

• Ideal self

Self Image

Self-image is actually the view you have about yourself or how you see yourself. It is not necessary that self-image would coincide with reality. It can sometimes be wrong. What you think about yourself is not always right, it may actually be different in reality.

Self-Esteem

Self-esteem or self-worth is how much you value yourself. Self-esteem usually depends upon how we compare ourselves with others. When we get a positive response from other we are more likely to develop a positive self-esteem, but when we compare ourselves to others and find ourselves lacking, it can have a negative impact on our self-esteem.

Ideal Self

Ideal self is how you wish you could be. The way we see ourselves and the way we want to see ourselves does not usually matchup which is likely to affect how much we value ourselves.

Single Self and Multiple Selves

[large]The psychologists researched on two things i.e. if a person has single or multiple selves. They claimed that most of the people are not consistent of having a single personality with the same set of ideas, thoughts, values and behavior. Our ideas, thoughts and behaviors sometimes oppose with each other. Only the people that are psychologically healthy can often resolve confusing aspects of themselves. Such people remain essential throughout their life. But the fact is that most of the people are having multiple selves. The people tend to be different and have multiple personalities according to the different roles they play in life.

Methods of Self-Concept Assessment

Self-concept is integrally phenomenological, which means it refers to the person’s own view of him- or herself. Therefore, self-concept is almost always assessed through self-report. The four most commonly used self-report methods are defined below:

1.Rating Scales:  are the most frequently used type of instrument. Composed of a set of statements, respondent expresses a degree of agreement or disagreement such responses are then summed to form a score for a specific scale.

2. Checklists: involves having respondents check all of the adjectives that they believe apply to themselves. Because the adjectives have been assigned to a category “self-favorability,” based on either rational or experiential criteria, the person’s choices are charted to form a self-concept measure. Checklists provide interesting qualitative information, but have two shortcomings. First, reactions are dichotomous (yes/no); there is no way for the respondent to designate gradation of agreement

3. Q-sorts: used widely in self-concept research but because they are time consuming and require a lot of commitment from the client, are seldom used by practicing counselors .In brief, the Q-sort technique involves having the person sort cards that contain self-descriptors (e.g., “I am strong”) into a pre-defined number of piles ranging from “most like me” to “least like me.” Typically, 100 or more cards would be used and each pile can contain only a pre-determined number of cards

4. Free-response: methods are seldom used in self-concept research but have favor with many counselors because the open-ended, qualitative nature of the task lends itself to enabling conversation with the client. In simple words, in this type of a test. Respondents are asked to complete the partial statements. The rather low reliability of such methods, however, argues against interpreting the results as a “measure” of self-concept.