The term “Self-concept”, which can be heard today from psychologists of various directions, sociologists and other specialists in the field of the personal sphere of a person, is interpreted as a system of ideas of an individual about himself. These ideas can be perceived by a person to varying degrees and be relatively stable. This concept is the result of a person’s self-knowledge and self-evaluation through individual images within various real and imagined situations, as well as through the opinions of others and a person’s correlation of himself with them.
It doesn't take a genius to come to the conclusion that a person's self-image is very important and has a direct impact on his personality and life. Taking into account the relevance of this topic, we want to talk about the “I-concept”.
The emergence of the “I-concept”
As an independent concept, “I-concept” began to take shape at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, when ideas about the dual nature of man as a subject of the knower and the known were actively discussed. Then, already in the 50s of the last century, it was developed by phenomenological and humanistic psychological science, the most prominent representatives of which were Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers. They viewed the single human “I” as the fundamental behavioral and developmental factor. Thus, having appeared in foreign literature on psychology, in the 80s and 90s of the 20th century, the term “Self-concept” became part of domestic psychological science.
Despite this, it is quite difficult to find any precise and unified interpretation of the term in question, and the closest to it in meaning is the term “self-awareness”. The relationship between these two terms is not precisely defined today, but quite often they are considered synonyms. However, in some cases, the “I-concept” is considered separately from self-awareness, acting as a finished product of its processes.
Concept and structure
Self-concept is a system of psychological attitudes of an individual that relate to himself. It is formed and develops as one grows up and develops as an individual in society.
The processes of self-knowledge are influenced by many factors. Some of them are changed by a person himself, others do not depend on him.
Considering the structure of the self-concept, psychologists distinguish three components - cognitive, evaluative, and behavioral. Each of them covers different areas of self-esteem.
Cognitive
The cognitive component of the self-concept is a set of beliefs that can be true or deceptive.
Looking at beliefs in more detail, we can say that they have different significance. For example, a person considers himself brave, pays special attention to this, but at the same time does not think about his strength at all. The hierarchy of beliefs itself is not constant.
It can change with the stages of growing up, the influence of society, and social status.
Estimated
Each person constantly evaluates his characteristics. Estimates are formed under the influence of several factors:
- determining the effectiveness of one’s own activities;
- comparison of current social status;
- comparison of the idea of the ideal self.
Behavioral
The behavioral component of the self-concept is an objective opinion about oneself. A person cannot deny his behavior, words, actions, mistakes.
What is “self-concept”?
So, what exactly is the “I-concept” and what psychological meaning should be given to it?
If we turn to psychological dictionaries, then “I-concept” is defined in them as a dynamic system of ideas of an individual about himself. English psychologist Robert Burns in his work “Development of Self-Concept and Education” speaks of “Self-concept” as the totality of all ideas a person has about himself, interconnected with their assessment.
“I-concept” arises in an individual during social interaction as an inevitable and always unique result of mental development, as well as as a relatively stable and, at the same time, subject to internal transformations of mental acquisition.
The initial dependence of the “I-concept” on external influences cannot be disputed, but as it develops, it begins to play an independent role in the life of all people. The surrounding reality and ideas about other people are perceived by people through the filter of “I-concept”, which is formed in the process of socialization and at the same time has specific individual biological and somatic prerequisites.
What are cognitive abilities
Society often divides people into smart and stupid. The principles by which this division occurs are different each time. But the bottom line in most cases is that if you have coped with the task, you are smart. It didn’t work out, I made a mistake - I’m a fool. However, this is an incorrect assessment of human capabilities. The most accurate measure of intelligence is cognitive ability. In simple terms, cognitive skills are the ability to use the fruits of your brain.
If we take students of one class as an example, the teacher will say - this student is smart, he only gets A's, and that student is stupid - he only gets C's. In this case, it is not the child’s ability to think that is assessed, but the ability to remember the text of the paragraph covered and retell it in his own words, or apply the learned formula using an example with numbers. But the child’s perseverance and interest in the material must also be added to the study, which not everyone has.
In addition, memorizing information, reading a lot and reproducing orally memorized text is not an indicator of intelligence, not the level of intelligence. And the ability to apply the acquired knowledge in practice, draw your own conclusions, and weed out unimportant information is already intelligence. This cannot be taught in school; these are individual characteristics of a person.
Cognitive ability is the ability to use information received daily from the environment. Remember it, apply it in everyday life, think logically, draw conclusions from incomplete data. Cognitive means connecting, building cause-and-effect relationships. It is a process that expands knowledge by analyzing the information received and drawing conclusions about it.
How is the “I-concept” formed?
The connections of each person with the outside world are extremely wide and rich. It is in the complex of these connections that a person is forced to function in different roles and qualities, being the subject of all kinds of activities.
Any interaction with the material world allows a person to create an image of his own Self. Through introspection and division of different images of himself into separate formations (both external and internal), a person’s so-called study of his nature and its “discussion” is carried out. According to the Soviet psychologist and philosopher Sergei Leonidovich Rubinstein, the image of the personal Self is constantly integrated into ever new connections, due to which it begins to appear in new qualities, fixed in new concepts. This image, so to speak, constantly shows its new side, each time showing new properties.
In this way, over time, a generalized idea of one’s self is formed, which is, as it were, an “alloy” of individual elements, which is formed in the process of self-perception, self-knowledge, introspection and introspection. This generalized idea of one’s own self, formed from disparate images conditioned by situation, includes the basic ideas and traits of a person about his own nature, which is expressed, in fact, in the “I-concept”. And the “I-concept,” in turn, forms the individual’s sense of self-identity.
Along with all of the above, the “I-concept” formed in the process of a person’s cognition of himself can also be called something that is characterized by constant internal changes - it is not permanent and is not something that is given to a person once and for all. With practice, i.e. real life, both its adequacy and its maturity change. Based on this, the “I-concept” has a huge impact on the individual’s psyche and his worldview, and also serves as a basic factor in the formation of his behavioral type.
Cognitive component of self-concept
All self-descriptive characteristics, such as reliable, conscientious, sociable, kind, etc., are included in the self-image. Ways of self-perception can be different. The hierarchy and significance of the elements of self-description, depending on the context, life experience or the influence of a certain moment, can change.
Self-descriptions are, as a rule, general in nature and do not really correlate with real contexts, because they reflect a general self-perception. On the one hand, as elements of a generalized image of an individual, they reflect stable tendencies of his behavior, and on the other hand, they reflect the selectivity of our perception.
Are you an expert in this subject area? We invite you to become the author of the Directory Working Conditions
When describing himself, a person tries to express the main characteristics of his usual self-perception, for example, a description of property, life goals, etc. With different specific weights, they are all included in the image of the Self, only some seem more significant to the individual, and others - less. R. Burns considered self-description a way to characterize the uniqueness of each personality through a combination of its individual traits.
The structure of the “I-concept”
The above-mentioned Robert Burns, along with many domestic psychologists, defines three elements that make up the “Self-concept”:
- The cognitive component is a person’s self-image, which contains his ideas about his personality
- The evaluative component is self-esteem based on an affective assessment of the self-image
- The behavioral component is behavior consisting of behavioral reactions or specific actions caused by self-image and self-esteem
The presented division of the “I-concept” into individual elements is conditional, because it itself is an integral formation, each of the elements of which, although distinguished by some independence, is in close relationship with each other.
Behavioral component of self-concept
It is a well-known fact that people do not always act in accordance with their beliefs. The direct expression of an attitude in behavior may be restrained due to its social unacceptability, some doubts of the individual, or fear of possible consequences. Any attitude is an emotionally charged belief and it is associated with a certain object, which in the concept is the bearer of the attitude itself. All emotions and evaluations associated with the self-image, as a result of this self-direction, are very strong and stable. It’s enough just not to attach importance to another person’s attitude towards you - there is an arsenal of psychological defense.
It’s another matter if we are talking about attitude towards oneself - verbal manipulations here may be powerless. No one can simply change their attitude towards themselves.
This component has two vectors:
- Expectations regarding oneself, e.g. willingness to act on your own;
- Expectations for others in relation to oneself. This component can be expressed by such statements as “I am always ready...”, “this always happens to me”, etc.
Sometimes the impression may arise that the behavioral component is at the same time the most sensitive to the peculiarities of the life situation and the most rigid, i.e. little changing in its essence, using the same scenarios for solving life problems.
This component of the self-concept is least described by specialists.
The impact of “I-concept” on a person’s life
In the life of each of us, the “I-concept”, by and large, has a triple meaning.
First of all, the “I-concept” ensures the internal consistency of the personality and relative behavioral stability. In the case when the new experience that a person receives does not diverge from his vision of himself, it is easily accepted by the “I-concept”. But if this experience is not consistent with the existing image and contradicts it, psychological defense mechanisms are activated, helping the person either somehow explain the negative experience, or simply reject it. Thanks to this, the “I-concept” remains balanced, even if real experience puts it at risk. According to the idea of Robert Burns, this desire of the individual to protect himself and avoid destructive influences can be called one of the foundations of normal behavior.
The second function of the “I-concept” can be called determining the nature of a person’s understanding of the experience he receives. Self-vision is a specific internal filter that determines the characteristics of an individual’s perception of any event and any situation. When events and situations pass through this filter, they are reinterpreted and given meanings that correspond to the self-concept.
And finally, the third on this list is that the “Self-concept” serves as the basis of a person’s expectations, in other words, his ideas about what should happen. People who are confident in their importance always expect that others will treat them accordingly, and those who doubt their worth tend to believe that no one needs them and no one likes them and, as a result, try to limit them as much as possible. your social contacts.
Hence the conclusion that the development of each person’s personality, as well as his activities and behavior, are always determined by the influence of the “I-concept”.
FINALLY: As you may have noticed, the topic of “Self-concept” is closely related to the process of self-knowledge, which means that if a person understands the characteristics of his personality and is aware of his own “Self-concept”, he can function in the world, interact with others, achieve success and development will become much easier and even more interesting for him. So we suggest that you do not put off working on yourself “on the back burner” and start getting to know yourself now (or at least in the near future) - especially for you, we have created a very interesting and effective course on self-knowledge, which can perhaps reveal to you almost all facets of your “I-concept”. You will find the course here.
We wish you success and productive self-knowledge!
We also recommend reading:
- Storytelling
- Group polarization
- Socialization of personality: briefly about the main thing
- Cognitive psychology and cognitive psychotherapy
- Business Ethics: The Triple Criterion Concept
- Theory of knowledge
- Interactionism in social psychology
- How to get to know yourself better?
- Vygotsky's concepts: contemporary relevance and actual modernity
- Personality criteria
- Philosophical foundations of the linguistic concept of Wilhelm von Humboldt
Key words:1Psychoregulation
Psychological features of self-image
The article presents a theoretical analysis of the psychological characteristics of the self-image. The cognitive, affective and conative components of the self-concept are described.
Key words: self-image, self-concept, psychological characteristics, cognitive, affective, conative components.
The article presents a theoretical analysis of the psychological characteristics of the image of “I“. The cognitive, affective and conative components of the self-concept are described.
Keywords: image of “I”, I-concept, psychological characteristics, cognitive, affective, conative components.
Formulation of the problem. From the moment of its inception, the self-concept becomes an active principle, an important factor in the interpretation of experience. The self-concept contributes to the achievement of internal consistency of the individual, determines the interpretation of experience and is the source of expectations, that is, ideas about what should happen.
The study of the image of “I” is a promising direction in the field of general psychology, since its results can have significant practical benefits in psychological counseling, psychotherapy and medicine. The formed image of “I” is an integral indicator of normal personality development.
Literature analysis. The concept of “self-image” appeared in connection with the need to study and describe the deep psychological structures and processes of the individual. It is used together with such concepts as “self-awareness”, “self-esteem”, “I-concept”, “I”, “I-picture”, “self-image” and is inextricably linked with them. [8].
The image of “I” is an idea about oneself: about the mind, body, abilities, character traits. The presence of his own “I” in every person is expressed in the fact that he understands his identity in the present, past and future.
At first, babies do not differentiate between themselves and the world around them. As one grows, the bodily “I” begins to develop, with the awareness of which comes an understanding of the non-identity of the internal and external worlds. Later, young children begin to compare themselves with their parents, peers and relatives, finding certain differences. By middle childhood, their knowledge about themselves expands so much that it already includes a whole system of assessing their own qualities.
In adolescence and adolescence, self-esteem takes on a more abstract character, and adolescents develop a noticeable concern about how others perceive them. Finding yourself, collecting your own identity from the mosaic of knowledge about yourself becomes a paramount task for boys and girls. It is during this period that their intellect reaches a level of development that allows them to think about what the world around them is and what it should be.
Throughout the adult period of life, a person’s self-concept simultaneously strives to maintain continuity and undergoes changes. Important life events: changing jobs, marriage, the birth of children and grandchildren, divorce, job loss, war, personal tragedies - force us to reconsider our attitude towards ourselves [5].
The purpose of the article is to consider a theoretical analysis of the psychological characteristics of the image of “I”.
Presentation of the main material.
The history of studying the image of the “I” begins with a number of works in which the “I” is considered as a conscious part of the mental apparatus. W. James, identified two aspects of understanding the Self - structural and procedural. In the structural aspect, the problem is given in the framework of the analysis of states, role positions, structural elements of personality (physical, social, moral, mirror “I”, Ego). In the procedural aspect, these are the processes of self-awareness, self-perception, self-regulation, self-attitude, self-esteem, self-actualization. [1].
S. Kon emphasizes that the image of “I” is not just a mental reflection in the form of ideas or concepts, but also a social attitude that is resolved through the individual’s attitude towards himself [6].
According to D. A. Oshanin, one of the main features of the “image of the self” is the duality of its purpose:
1) an instrument of cognition - an image, designed to reflect an object in all the richness and variety of properties available to its reflection;
2) action regulator - a specialized information complex, the content and structural organization of which are subordinated to the tasks of a specific, purposeful influence on the object [7].
Traditionally, the cognitive, evaluative and behavioral components of the “I” concept are distinguished. The cognitive component is an individual’s ideas about himself, a set of characteristics that he thinks he possesses. Evaluative is how an individual evaluates these characteristics and how he relates to them. Behavioral is how a person actually acts.
Cognitive:
Usually a person believes that he has certain characteristics. These characteristics cannot be deduced or reduced to one current moment in his life - if a person believes that he is “strong”, this does not mean that he is currently lifting weights. Moreover, in fact, this person may not be objectively strong. Or maybe it is. A set of beliefs about oneself is the cognitive component of the “I” concept.
These beliefs may have different meanings for an individual. He may believe, for example, that he is brave first of all, and strong only tenth. This hierarchy is not constant and may change depending on the context or over time. The combination and significance of characteristics at a given moment largely determine the individual’s attitudes and expectations about himself.
Along with other things, the cognitive component of the “I” concept is represented in the mind of the individual in the form of social roles and statuses.
Estimated:
An individual not only believes that he has certain characteristics, but also evaluates them in a certain way and relates to them. He may or may not like the fact that he is, for example, strong. An important role in the formation of this assessment is played by:
− correlation of ideas about oneself with the ideal “I”;
− correlation of self-image with social expectations;
− assessment of the effectiveness of one’s activities from the perspective of one’s identity.
Behavioral:
No matter who a person considers himself to be, he cannot ignore how he actually behaves, what he actually succeeds in. This “objective” part is the behavioral component of the “I” concept.
Most modern scientists dealing with personality problems come to the conclusion that when studying the “I” image, it is most productive to move from metaphors to the spheres and properties of the psyche that “work” on the “I” image. They, like vectors, determine a certain general load and direction of the central structure, which is often called the “self” [2].
G. E. Zalessky distinguishes two components of the image of “I” - motivational and cognitive. In relation to the study of age-related characteristics of the development of the “I” image, special attention is paid to clarifying the question of how the formation of each of the components occurs when two components of the “I” image begin to interact.
The cognitive block of the “I” image reflects meaningful ideas about oneself. This understanding of the cognitive block of the “I” image is close to the understanding of the “I” image by other researchers. But both evaluative (self-esteem) and target (level of aspirations, system of prohibitions and rewards) components are added to this block. The motivational block is responsible for the functional significance of these qualities, that is, whether these qualities act as criteria in the choice of motives, goals, and actions. And if they do, then do the qualities perform the function of active or meaning-forming motives [4].
The most common is the idea of the structure of the “I” image as a unity of cognitive (the image of one’s qualities, abilities, appearance, etc.), emotional (self-esteem, self-abasement, etc.) and evaluative-volitional (the desire to increase self-esteem, gain respect, etc. .) components (A. V. Petrovsky, M. G. Yaroshevsky).
R. Burns identified the cognitive, emotional-evaluative and behavioral components of the “I” image.
The cognitive component includes the individual’s knowledge of his or her capabilities, including physical ones. It is also the perception of your appearance, your body, physical data (strength, endurance, agility, etc.). This element not only forms a person’s idea of himself, but also includes his attitude towards himself and reflects his level of self-esteem. The development of this component of the self-image largely depends on the social environment, family upbringing and life experience.
The emotional-evaluative component of the “I” image reflects the results of comparing an individual’s knowledge about himself with others. The affective assessment of a person’s ideas about his or her capabilities can have varying intensity. Specific negative or positive characteristics of the self-image can evoke more or less strong emotions associated with acceptance or condemnation of oneself. The formation of the emotional component of self-esteem is greatly influenced by a person’s generalized idea of himself in the process of communication and activity. A negative emotional assessment of oneself often leads to self-destructive behavior, which can manifest itself in drug addiction, alcoholism, smoking, gambling, etc.
The behavioral component of self-image includes specific actions that can be caused by self-image and self-esteem. This is a very important component of an individual’s adaptation to the surrounding reality [3].
The content and scope of the concept of “self-image” remain not fully studied to this day. [8]. It has also not yet been studied with the help of what internal mechanisms a person becomes aware of his characteristics reflected by the external environment and why the Image of “I” seems to be social in origin and the internal motivation of behavior is denied [9].
Conclusions. The results of the theoretical analysis make it possible to determine that “I-Image”, or a person’s idea of himself, is a person’s generalized idea of himself, a system of his attitudes regarding his own personality.
There are many options for describing the main components of the self-image. In my opinion, these approaches are more similar, because almost every scientist identifies three key features of the self-image:
− cognitive component, which characterizes the content of a person’s ideas about himself: his abilities, relationships with others, appearance, social roles, interests;
− the affective component reflects a person’s attitude towards himself as a whole or towards individual aspects of his personality, activities, etc. and manifests itself in self-esteem, level of aspirations and self-esteem;
− The conative component presupposes an analysis of a person’s actions and the ability to change one’s “I.”
Literature:
- Asmolov A. G. Personality psychology / A. G. Asmolov - M.: Smysl, 2001–414 p.
- Burns R.B. What is Self-concept // Burns R.B. Development of Self-concept and education: trans. from English - M.: Progress, 1986. - P. 30–66.
- Burns, R. Development of self-concept and education / R. Burns - Moscow: Progress, 1986. - pp. 30–66.
- Bozhovich L. I. Personality and its formation in childhood / L. I. Bozhovich. - M.: Flinta, 1968. - 300 p.
- Zalessky G. E., Redkina E. B. Psychodiagnostics of personal beliefs and orientations. - Moscow State University, 1996.
- Zvorykin A. A. From the history of the development of cultural theory in the West // Questions of Philosophy. - 1992. - No. 10, - P. 99.
- Oshanin, D. A. Subject action and operational image: abstract. dis…. Doctor of Psychology Sciences / D. A. Oshanin. - M., 1973. - 42 p.
- Psychology of self-awareness: Reader / ed.-comp. D. Ya. Raigorodsky. - Samara: Publishing House “Bakhrakh-M”, 2003. –303 p.
- Kjell, L. Theories of personality /L. Kjell, D. Ziegler; lane from English S. Melenevskaya, D. Viktorova. - St. Petersburg: Peter Press, 1997. - 608 p.
