General characteristics of the “I-concept” in psychology. The concept of self-concept in brief

I-CONCEPT(English) self-concept) - developing system submissions a person about himself, including: a) awareness of his physical, intellectual, characterological, social, etc. properties; b) self-esteem; c) subjective perception of those influencing one’s own personality external factors. The concept of I-k. born in the 1950s in line with the phenomenological, humanistic psychology, whose representatives ( A.Maslow,TO.Rogers), in contrast to behaviorists and Freudians, they sought to consider the holistic human self as a fundamental factor in behavior and personality development. Symbolic interactionism (C. Cooley, J. Mead) and the concept of identity ( E.Erickson). However, the first theoretical developments in area Ya-k. undoubtedly belong to W. James, divided the global, personal self ( Self) to the interacting I-consciousness ( I) and I-as-object ( Me).

I-k. often defined as a set of attitudes aimed at oneself, and then, by analogy with attitude, distinguish 3 in it structural components: 1) cognitive component- “Image of Self” (English) self-image), To to which the content of ideas about oneself relates; 2) emotional-value(affective) component, which is an experienced attitude towards oneself as a whole or towards individual aspects of one’s personality, activities, etc.; This component, in other words, includes the system of self-esteem (eng. self-esteem); 3) behavioral component, which characterizes the manifestations of cognitive and evaluative components in behavior (including in speech, in statements about oneself).

I-k. - a holistic formation, all components of which, although they have relatively independent logic development are closely interconnected. It has conscious and unconscious aspects and is described from the point of view. the content of ideas about oneself, the complexity and differentiation of these ideas, their subjective significance for the individual, as well as internal integrity and consistency, coherence, continuity and stability over time.

There is no uniform description scheme in the literature complex structure I-k. For example, R. Burns represents Ya-k. in the form of a hierarchical structure. The top is global I-k., concretized in the totality of the individual’s attitudes towards himself. These settings have different modalities: 1) real self(what I think I really am); 2) ideal self(what I would like and/or should become); 3) mirror self(how others see me). Each of these modalities includes a number of aspects - physical self, social self, mental self, emotional self.

The discrepancy between the “ideal self” and the “real self” is the basis for self-esteem feelings, serves important source personality development, however, significant contradictions between them can become a source of intrapersonal conflicts And negative experiences(cm. Inferiority complex).

Depending on what level - organism, social individual or personality - a person’s activity manifests itself, in the I-k. distinguished: 1) at the “organism-environment” level - physical self-image(body schema), caused by the need for the physical well-being of the body; 2) at the level of the social individual - social identities: gender, age, ethnic, civil, social-role, related to a person’s need to belong to a community; 3) at the personal level - differentiating image of self, characterizing knowledge about oneself in comparison with other people and giving the individual a sense of his own uniqueness, providing the needs for self-determination and self-realization. The last 2 levels are described in the same way as the 2 components of I-k. (V.V. Stolin): 1) “connecting”, ensuring the unification of the individual with other people and 2) “differentiating”, promoting his isolation in comparison with others and creating the basis for a sense of one’s own uniqueness.

Also distinguished are the dynamic “I” (how, according to my ideas, I change, develop, what I strive to become), the “presented I” (“I-mask”, how I show myself to others), the “fantastic I”, the triad of chronological I: I am the past, I am the present, I am the future, etc.

The most important function I-k. is to ensure the internal consistency of the individual and the relative stability of his behavior. Ya-k herself. is formed under the influence of a person’s life experience, primarily child-parent relationships, but quite early it acquires an active role, influencing the interpretation of this experience, the goals that the individual sets for himself, the corresponding system of expectations, forecasts about the future, and assessment of their achievement - and thereby on one’s own formation, personality development, activity and behavior.

Ratio concepts I-k. And self-awareness not exactly defined. They often act as synonyms. At the same time, there is a tendency to consider I-k. as a result, the final product of the processes of self-awareness. (A.M. Parishioner.)

I-CONCEPT- relatively stable, more or less conscious, experienced as a unique system of an individual’s ideas about himself, on the basis of which he builds interaction with other people and relates to himself. A holistic, although not without internal contradictions, image of one’s own self, acting as an attitude towards oneself. Self-concept contains components:

1) cognitive - the image of one’s qualities, abilities, appearance, social significance, etc. (-> self-awareness);

2) emotional - self-respect, selfishness, self-abasement, etc.;

3) evaluative-volitional - the desire to increase self-esteem, gain respect, etc. Self-concept is a prerequisite and consequence of social interaction, determined by social experience. Its components include:

1) physical self - a diagram of one’s own body;

2) real self - the idea of ​​oneself in the present tense;

3) dynamic self - what the subject intends to become;

4) social self - correlated with the spheres of social integration: gender, ethnicity, civil, role, etc.;

5) existential self -; as an assessment of oneself in the aspect of life and death;

6) the ideal self, which the subject, in his opinion, should become, focusing on moral norms;

7) fantastic I - what the subject would like to become, if it were possible. Self-concept is an important structural element of appearance psychological personality, the ideal representation of an individual in himself as in another, formed in communication and activity. The formation of a person’s self-concept occurs with the accumulation of experience in solving life problems and when they are assessed by other people, especially parents. The formation of the self-concept, ultimately conditioned by a broad socio-cultural context, arises in the circumstances of the exchange of activities between people, during which the subject “looks like in a mirror at another person” and thus fine-tunes, clarifies, and corrects the images of his self. Formation of an adequate self -concepts, and above all self-awareness, are one of the important conditions for educating a conscious member of society.

Self-concept (self- concept)

For centuries, theologians, philosophers and public figures agreed that the origins and consequences of people's ideas about themselves, or I-k., deserve the most serious attention. However, practically no attempts have been made to give a sufficiently strict definition of J-k., which would allow us to assess the degree of similarity and difference in the views of philosophers, politicians, scientists and other professional thinkers on Y-k.

WITH late XIX and until the middle of the 20th century. only a few psychologists, sociologists and psychiatrists tried to study the language, especially. on the abstract or theoretical. level. The most famous psychologist who worked in the 19th century. The problem I was William James, who based his statements on everyday, insightful, uncontrolled observations of his own conscious experiences, using for this his modification of the method of introspection. Mary Calkins tried to move learning I-k. in psychology laboratory. In 1935, Kurt Koffka identified the Self as one of the most important independent research topics of Gestalt psychologists who used the so-called. phenomenological introspection, in which observers report their conscious experiences without any artificial restrictions or attempts to analyze them. Meanwhile, sociologists such as Charles Horton Cooley and George Herbert Mead pointed to the important role of social interactions in the formation of self-concepts, which, in turn, were considered as the main. determinant of social people's behavior; however, all these discussions were based on personal observations and not on scientific research.

At the same time, a whole galaxy of clinicians in Europe and the USA were developing various options ideas that I-k. important for clinical understanding of people and for formulating general provisions theories of personality they propose. However, in general, their ideas, based almost entirely on uncontrolled clinical observations of individual cases, were not sufficiently rigorous and inaccessible to empirical verification, and sometimes even denied the provisions of scientific determinism. All this led to the fact that their views for several years. been on the sidelines for decades scientific psychology in USA.

Child psychologists began to study the development of social. knowledge - knowledge about others and about oneself in relation to others. This included questions about the supposed existence of qualitatively different stages of social development. cognition and the possible connection of age-related trends in speech development with developing ideas about oneself and others. Along with this, the problem of the influence of parental qualities and parental behavior on the child’s ideas about himself was also raised; It was also obvious that theory and research. moral development important to study assimilation of I-k. and ideals of the self.

Social psychologists have recognized the importance of personality traits. in their theories of interpersonal attraction, human conformity. behavior and cognitive dissonance. Variables I-k. also appear in attribution theory. Social psychologists also teamed up with sociologists in research. influences of age variables, social class, race and gender on Y-k. Representatives of the theory of social learning theories have argued for variables such as locus of control and learned helplessness, each of which is associated (as in attribution theory) with the conditions under which a person views his or her characteristics or behavior as important factors in determining outcomes.

Psychologists dealing with the problems of professional self-determination and work intensification emphasized the theory. the meaning of ideas such as guide role of Y-k. in choosing a profession and eventual development professional Ya-k. Thus, theorists and researchers have so far considered almost exclusively the phenomenal, or conscious self., without affecting the so-called. unconscious I-k.

1. Personal I-k. ( personalself-concept). This descriptive characteristics or the behavioral properties of an individual as he sees them. These characteristics can range from relatively specific to highly general. It should be noted that personal I-k. includes not only physical, behavioral and internal characteristics, but also such aspects as gender identity, racial/ethnic identity, socioeconomic class identity, age identity, and the feeling of “being, in some respects, the same person over a period of time.”

2. Social I-k. ( social self-concepts). These are the descriptive characteristics or behavioral properties of an individual as he believes they are seen by others.

Social I-k. may or may not correspond to the characteristics of the individual's own self as he sees them.

3. Self-ideals relating to the personal self. ( self-ideals regarding one's personal self-concept). These are ideas about what an individual would actually like to be.

4. Self-ideals relating to social selves. ( self-ideals regarding one's social self-concepts). These are ideas about how an individual would like to appear to others.

5. Descriptive assessments personal I-k. relative to resp. personal self-ideals ( evaluations of personal descriptive self-conceptions in relation to the ideals for self regarding those attributes). In other words, these are estimates of item 1 compared to item 3.

6. Assessments of descriptive social selves. relative to resp. ideals for social I-k. (evaluations of descriptive social self-conceptions in relation to the ideals for one"s social self-concept). That is, these are estimates of item 2 compared to item 4.

Self-esteem

Most theories. works and empirical research. in the area of ​​Ya-k. one way or another relate to self-esteem ( self-esteem). In the literature on Ya-k. The term self-acceptance is also widely used ( self assertertance) to indicate a person's sympathy or respect for himself despite his recognition of his shortcomings.

Although researchers have reached considerable agreement regarding general idea on what to measure, progress in measurement has been slow due to a) the extreme complexity of the set of variables; b) unsuccessful attempts identify the components in Ya-k. and develop adequate measurements for them; and c) neglect of accepted procedures for establishing the necessary levels of reliability and construct validity prior to the use of measurements in research.

Wiklund hypothesized that the observed connections between self-concepts and associated behaviors become stronger when a person is in a state of “self-awareness.” This condition can be caused when working with a mirror or a tape recording of one’s voice, it can also be permanent distinctive feature certain people in comparison with others.

Due to the numerous factors presumably associated with Ya-k., several. Thousands of published empirical papers are scattered widely and thinly across a variety of intersecting subject areas. B. h. published research. focuses on variables related to levels of general self-esteem or self-acceptance. Dr. a significant part of them is devoted to I-k., relating to levels of relatively stable abilities.

Factors that researchers most often tried to associate with variables J-k., are achievements, intelligence and creativity; age and level of development; authoritarianism and dogmatism; family variables; floor; interpersonal attraction; psychoter.; racial/ethnic status; socio-economic status.

It is striking that almost zero or weak relationships were found between self-esteem and each of a number of variables under consideration, with which self-esteem is both so-called. theory, and from the standpoint of common sense - it would seem to have a strong connection, for example, with age, race, gender, socio-economic level, psychotherapeutic status, creativity and persuasiveness. It seems obvious that it is more practical and interesting results A more thorough elaboration of the theories could help. provisions. For example, more attention should be paid to: a) components of self-esteem; b) relationships, in which individual aspects of I-k. achieve characteristic differences in the definition of self-esteem (likely varying from one person to another), and c) the possibility that neither children nor adults compare themselves with those very broad, generalized reference groups, the importance of which is implicit in researchers engaged in searching for influences on self-esteem from gender, race or social background. class.

Self-concept- this is a system of a person’s attitudes towards himself, a generalized idea of ​​himself. Self-concept is formed, develops, changes in the process of socialization of the individual, in the process of self-knowledge.

Under the influence of various external or internal factors Self-concept changes, i.e. Self-concept is a dynamic formation.

Traditionally, psychologists distinguish three modalities of the self-concept: the real self, the ideal self, and the mirror self.

I am real- these are attitudes (ideas) associated with how an individual perceives himself: appearance, constitution, capabilities, abilities, social roles, status. These are ideas about what he really is.

I'm perfect– attitudes associated with ideas about what he would like to be.

I am a mirror- attitudes associated with an individual’s ideas about how he is seen and what others think about him.

There are three components of self-concept:

cognitive,

emotional-evaluative

behavioral.

Cognitive component - these are the main characteristics of self-perception and self-description of a person, which make up a person’s ideas about himself. This component is often called "In the image of I." The components of the “I-Image” are : Self-physical, Self-mental, Self-social.

Self-physical includes ideas about your gender, height, body structure, and your appearance in general.

I-psychic – this is a person’s idea of ​​his own characteristics of cognitive activity (perception, memory, thinking, etc.), about his mental properties (temperament, character, abilities).

Self-social – ideas about one’s social roles (daughter, sister, friend, student, athlete, etc.), social status (leader, performer, outcast, etc.), social expectations, etc.

Emotional-evaluative component – This is a self-assessment of the self-image, which can have varying intensity, since individual traits, characteristics, and personality properties can cause different emotions associated with satisfaction or dissatisfaction with them.

Self-esteem reflects the degree to which a person develops a sense of self-esteem and a sense of self-worth.

Self-esteem can be underestimated or overestimated, low or high, adequate or inadequate.

Behavioral The self-concept component is a person's behavior (or potential behavior) that can be caused by the self-image and self-esteem of the individual.

Psychological defenses

A person uses defense mechanisms to protect his “I” from shame, guilt, anger, anxiety, conflict, i.e. any danger. The purpose of defense mechanisms is to urgently relieve tension and anxiety.

crowding out– involuntary removal of unpleasant or illicit desires, thoughts, feelings from consciousness into the unconscious sphere, forgetting them.

Negation– avoiding reality, denying an event as untrue or reducing the severity of the threat.

Rationalization – it is a way of rationally justifying any actions and actions that contradict the norms and cause concern.

Projection– attributing to other people one’s own negative qualities, states, desires, and, as a rule, in an exaggerated form.

Substitution is expressed in partial, indirect satisfaction of an unacceptable motive in some other way, motive.

Sublimation- this is the transformation of the energy of suppressed, forbidden desires into other types of activity, i.e. transformation of drives.

Intellectualization- the process through which the subject seeks to express his conflicts and emotions in a discursive form in order to master them.

Formation of reaction– suppression of unwanted motives of behavior and conscious maintenance of motives of the opposite type.

Interest in the Self, in the mystery of its comprehension and in a person’s awareness of what he himself is, arises in philosophy in connection with its more common problems And for a long time is within its competence. The problem of self and self-awareness became the subject of actual psychological concepts only in the second half of the 19th century.

In contrast to philosophical theories that claim to reveal the “true nature” and “essence” of the “I” as a whole, psychology tries to divide this problem into component parts that could become the subject of experimental research.

Self-awareness is understood as a person’s awareness of himself, his own qualities. Personal self-awareness is the totality of a person’s ideas about himself (I-concept) and attitude towards it (self-esteem).

According to B.G. Ananyev, self-awareness arises during the period when the child begins to distinguish himself as the subject of his actions, and in the future this development goes from evaluating his actions to self-esteem. First, the physical self stands out, then the spiritual self. transition period In a teenager, self-awareness acquires new properties and changes qualitatively. Further, self-awareness as a specific type of consciousness performs in the mental life of the individual the function of self-regulation, cognition and attitude towards oneself [ 34, p. 35].

The central concept of the psychology of self-awareness is the concept of self-concept, or self-image. There are different points of view on the relationship of these concepts.

Self-image is associated with the attitude towards oneself or individual qualities, self-esteem or self-acceptance. To designate this content area - self-image, the terms “I”, “I-concept”, “cognitive component of self-awareness”, “self-perception”, etc. are also used, in which self-awareness is dynamic characteristic of the self-image, and the self-concept is the totality of all an individual’s ideas about himself, associated with their assessment and regulatory-activity functions.

The concept of “Self-concept”, introduced by W. Thomas and F. Znaniecki, is defined as the totality of all a person’s ideas about himself, associated with their assessment. R. Burns considers the self-concept as a set of attitudes aimed at oneself and includes beliefs, assessments and behavioral tendencies. Self-concept is the integration of three components: self-image (self-image), attitude towards these ideas (self-esteem) and behavior in accordance with self-image and self-esteem.

The cognitive part of the attitude, the individual’s idea of ​​himself, is called self-image.

The self-image has a specific, situationally variable character and reflects self-perception in this moment time, contains a limited set of human characteristics (mainly an internalized repertoire of social roles). Awareness of the image of the Self is associated with situational obstacles in activity, with adaptive reaction in response to external influence other people, with more early dates emergence than the self-concept. Its changes do not change the self-concept of the individual.

At the same time, the concept of self-image can be used not only in the meaning of an operational-situational image, but also synonymous with the concept of self-concept, and to designate quite stable dimensions included in the self-concept, reflecting a person’s ideas about himself in specific areas of his life. .

V.V. Stolin considers the concepts of self-concept and self-image as synonymous, defining the self-image not just as a product of self-consciousness, but also important factor determination of human behavior, such an intrapersonal formation that largely determines the direction of his activities, behavior in situations of choice, contacts with people.

As a result of the analysis of the self-image, Stolin identifies two aspects in it: knowledge about oneself and self-attitude. In the course of life, a person gets to know himself and accumulates about himself various knowledge, this knowledge constitutes the meaningful part of his ideas about himself - his “I-concept”. However, knowledge about himself, naturally, is not indifferent to him: what is revealed in it turns out to be the subject of his emotions, assessments, and becomes the subject of self-attitude. Self-attitude is understood as a holistic, relatively constant emotional attitude towards oneself, a measure of an individual’s acceptance or non-acceptance of himself.

E.T. Sokolova, F. Pataki interpret the “image of the self” as an integrative
installation education, including components:
1) cognitive - an image of one’s qualities, abilities, capabilities, social significance, appearance, etc.;
2) affective - attitude towards oneself (self-respect, selfishness, self-abasement, etc.), including as the owner of these qualities;
3) behavioral – implementation in practice of motives and goals in relevant behavioral acts.

The self-image ensures internal consistency and self-realization of the individual, his satisfaction with life; regulates emotional condition, interprets experience. Acts as a system-forming subjective world of the individual and arises on the basis of interaction with environment. The self-image participates in the preservation of stable systems of social stratification, reveals the content of microsocial processes and intrapersonal mechanisms of adaptation and disadaptation, and develops in the process of self-actualization of the individual throughout life.

Although the “image of the self” always includes a certain set of components (the idea of ​​one’s body, one’s mental properties, moral qualities, etc.), their specific content and significance vary depending on social and psychological conditions and states. In addition, a person not only “recognizes”, “discovers”, but also actively shapes himself. Awareness of some of his abilities changes his self-esteem and level of aspirations, and these abilities themselves not only manifest themselves, but are also formed in activity.

The self-image is at the same time the ideal self of the subject - what he should, in his opinion, become in order to meet the internal criteria of success. The ideal self acts as a necessary guideline in the self-education of the individual.

By identifying the nature and effectiveness of this guideline, one can gain the opportunity to significantly influence education. At the same time, it is important to know which ideal a young person is guided by as a model for building his life, since the social value of these models varies greatly, and their motivating value is very great.

The image of the Self, which develops as a result of personal life experience, in turn influences a given person’s perception of the world, other people, and the assessments that a person gives of his own behavior. The degree of a person’s satisfaction with life, the degree of completeness of happiness he experiences directly depends on the extent to which his experience, his real self and ideal self are consistent with each other.

Real and ideal self-image may coincide, but more often they still differ. The discrepancy between the real and ideal self can lead to both negative and positive consequences.

A large discrepancy between a person’s ideal and real self, according to clinical psychologists, is an alarming symptom, since it indicates inadequacy of self-esteem and attitude towards oneself, which often leads to emotional and behavioral deviations.

Thus, the self-image is a generalized idea of ​​oneself, the formation, development and change of which are determined by internal and external factors. The self-image, being a product of a person’s self-awareness, in turn includes knowledge about oneself and an emotional attitude towards oneself. The formation of a person’s self-awareness, and with it the self-image, occurs intensively in adolescence, during the transitional stage of a person’s maturation.

Psychological characteristics adolescence become prerequisites for the formation of a holistic picture of self-image. The development of self-image and attitude towards oneself is influenced by various factors, which largely determine the development of a teenager’s personality.


Related information.


In psychology, the meaning of which is that a person is Living being, who has the ability to speak clearly, create something and use the results of his work. A person has consciousness, and consciousness directed at oneself is the self-concept of the individual. This is a moving system of assessing one’s intellectual, physical and other qualities within oneself, that is, self-esteem under the influence of certain factors throughout one’s life. A person’s personality is subject to internal fluctuations and affects all life manifestations with early childhood until old age.

Today, Rogers' personality theory is taken as the basis for examining the system. The essence of this theory can be considered as a mechanism of consciousness, reflexively working under the influence of culture, one’s own and others’ behavior. That is, simply put, a person gives an assessment of a particular situation, to other people and to himself. Self-evaluation encourages him to behave in a certain way and forms the self-concept.

One of the central concepts in psychology is the self-concept of personality, although there is still no single terminology and definition. Carl Ransom Rogers himself believed that his method was effective in working with a wide variety of psychotypes and was suitable for working with people of different cultures, professions, and religions. Rogers has formed his views based on his own experience working with his clients who have

The self-concept of a person is a certain structure, the apex of which is Global Self, representing a sense of continuity of oneself and awareness of one’s own uniqueness. Parallel Global Self coming Self image, which is divided into modalities:

  1. Real Me- this is a person’s awareness of what he really is, that is, an understanding of his status and role.
  2. Mirror Self- this is a person’s awareness of how others see him.
  3. Ideal Self- a person’s idea of ​​what he would like to be.

This structure is applicable only in theory, but in practice everything is much more complicated, because all the components are intertwined. In essence, the self-concept of a person is a mobile system of self-installation, which, in turn, has its own structure:

  1. Cognitive - cognitive processes human consciousness.
  2. Affective is a short-term emotional process that is intense and manifested physically.
  3. Activity - any meaningful human activity.

Cognitive and affective attitudes include three modalities, such as awareness of the present self, awareness of the desired self, and self-image through the eyes of others, and each of these three modalities contains mental, emotional, social and physical components.

Development The self-concept is developed on the basis of the individual’s personal characteristics, as well as under the influence of communication with other individuals. In essence, the self-concept plays a role in achieving internal coherence of the individual, interprets experience and is a factor of expectations. The functionality of this structure is human self-awareness.

Last update: 04/18/2015

Self-concept is the image of ourselves that each of us develops. How exactly is it formed and does it change over time? We will try to answer these questions today.

The self-concept is formed through a combination of a number of factors; First of all, the role is played by how we interact with important people in our life.

What definitions do scientists give to the self-concept?

“The self-concept is our perception, the image of our abilities and our uniqueness. At first, each of us has a very general and variable self-concept... As we get older, this concept becomes much more organized, detailed and specific.”

Pastorino & Doyle-Portillot (2013)

“The self-concept is a set of ideas about one’s own nature, unique qualities and typical behavior. Your self-concept is your mental image of yourself. This is a whole set of sensations. It may include, for example, statements such as “I am easy-going,” “I am nice,” or “I am a hard worker.”

Weiten, Dunn and Hammer (2012)

“The individual self consists of attributions and personality traits that distinguish us from others (for example, “introvert”). The relative self is determined by our relationships with close people (for example, “sister”). Finally, the collective self reflects our belonging to social groups(for example, “Englishman”).”

R.J. Crisp & R. N. Thener (2007)

Components of self-concept

As with other concepts within psychology, different theorists offer different perspectives on self-concept.

According to a theory known as social identity theory, self-concept consists of two main aspects: personal and social identity. Our personal identity includes the personality traits and other characteristics that make each person unique. Social identity includes the groups to which we belong - including our religious affiliation etc.

Bracken (1992) proposed that there are six specific aspects of self-concept:

  • social (ability to interact with others);
  • competence (ability to satisfy basic needs);
  • affective (awareness of emotional states);
  • physical (feeling of appearance, health, physical condition and general appearance);
  • academic (success in learning);
  • family (functioning within the family).

Humanistic psychologist Carl Rogers believed that there are three components of the self-concept:

  • Self-image, or how you see yourself. It is important to understand that this image does not necessarily coincide with reality. People may think they are better than they really are. On the other hand, people also tend to form a negative image; very often they only perceive or exaggerate their own shortcomings and weak spots. For example, a teenager may believe that he is clumsy and awkward when in fact he is quite charming and likeable. A girl may believe that she is overweight when in reality she is slim. Each person's self-image appears to be the result of a combination various factors including him physical characteristics, personal qualities and social roles.
  • Self-esteem, or how much you value yourself. Self-esteem can be influenced by the most various factors- including how we compare ourselves to others and how others react to us. When people respond positively to our behavior, we are more likely to develop positive self-esteem. When we compare ourselves to others and find faults in ourselves, it can have an impact Negative influence on our self-esteem.
  • Ideal Self, or what you would like to be. In many cases, how we see ourselves and how we would like to be are not exactly the same.

Conformity and nonconformity

As mentioned earlier, our self-perception does not always coincide with reality. Some students may feel that they are doing a great job curriculum, however, their marks may indicate otherwise. According to Carl Rogers, the extent to which a person's self-concept coincides with reality should be called congruence/correspondence. We all tend to distort reality to a certain extent; conformity occurs when our self-concept is fairly consistent with reality.