Sharpening Self-Concept

Overview

Our Self-Concept is everything that we think and feel about ourselves. It is the entire collection of attitudes and beliefs we hold about who and what we are. While we are not born with a self-concept, certainly we develop one.The day we’ve recognized ourselves as separated from our surroundings, life became to change as we str,ve to fit into the world as we’ve seen it. To a large extend our self-concept is shaped by our environment and by the people around us, including our parents, relatives, teachers, supervisors, friends and coworkers.


Positive and Negative Self-Concept

If people who are important to us have made us feel accepted, valued, worthwhile, lovable and significant we have probably developed a positive self-concept. On the other hand, if those who are important to us have made us feel left out, small, worthless, unloved or insignificant; we have probably developed a negative self-concept.


Who am I?

If someone ask us on 10 different occasions: “Who you are?” and if each time we have to supply a different answer – what types of responses should we think we offer? What should we say then about ourselves? To what extent could our answers be grouped into categories?

For example, we might see ourselves in reference to:
Gender–(male or female), Occupation–(Student, Worker, Boss, Employee), Religion–(Muslim, Buddhist, Jewish, Christian), Race–(Asian, African, American, German), Nationality–(Bangladeshi, Turkish, Chinese, Japanese), Physical Attributes–(Fat, thin), Roles–(Son, Daughter, Wife, Father, Mother). Emotion–(Hopeful, Pessimistic), Mental Abilities–(Smart or Slow). Talents–(Musician, Artist) etc.

The kinds of description we use to express our perception reveal both to us and others what we think we are like. The mask we wear is different as the environment demands.


Image Created by Self

So, the self-concept stands alone as the picture or self-image formed by our own, knowingly or in an unknown form. Even though we are constantly undergoing changes, the picture/self-image we have of ourselves is fairly stable and difficult to alter. Our opinions grow more and more resistant to change as we become older and presumably wiser.


Philosophy

No matter what our age (18 or an octogenarian) , race, group or occupation, it is important that we all should spend some time considering who we are and what we intend to do with the rest of our life.  Because, in our self-image the statements we make are more or less accurate “maps” of the territory that is of ourselves. But, some of us map their territory better than others – that is , some of us have a more accurate picture of their own strengths, weakness and needs than others do.
How  can we also do so?


Understand clues & Improve The Communication Skills.

As our world is being shaped by the way we communicate, thereby sharpening the self-concept remains mostly depended on our communication skills. Clues to understand us better come continually as we interact with others and with our environment. If we are to understand ourselves, we need to be open to information that people give us about ourselves: just as we tend to categorize ourselves and others, so others also tend to categorize themselves and us.  For better or worse, monitoring and understanding the categorization process is the basic part to improve the interpersonal communication.


Modify the Behavior.

Throughout each day, we vary the masks we wear and the roles we perform. The language we use, the attitudes we display and the appearances we present constantly change. In effect, we become different selves as we move from one set of conditions to another. The more we attempt to be ourselves, the more selves we find. It is important to recognize that conditions and circumstances affect the nature of the self. In every situation, how we see ourselves and how we think about ourselves in relation to others, direct and modify our behavior.

The transparent answer of the question “Who am I?” will extremely be significant, since it determines what we choose to do, how we choose to act, with whom we choose to communicate and even whether we choose to communicate at all or not.


Conclusion

As we can see, our self-concept is influenced by our own unique personal experiences as well as by our membership in a group or groups. Together with behavior these influences play integral parts in helping us to formulate a better sense of self. So, why not to seek for it when the help is at hand?