Self Concept

Your self-concept is the collection of beliefs you hold about yourself. These smaller, specific beliefs are called the Self-schema. They are old sets of memories that would have generalized into beliefs about yourself. For eg, the Self-Schema/belief that 'I am introverted'.

A major feature of this self-schema is that it acts like a self fulfilling prophecy. Your self-schema tells you how to act, and highlights your memories when you acted that way. If you have a self-schema that says 'I am introverted', that will drive your actions at a party(stand by yourself in one of the corners of the room). And when you try to remember the last party you went to, you will tend to remember it in a way that supports your existing belief that you are an introvert: "I hated going to the party because I didn't want to interact with people".

These self-schemas are generally given to us in our childhood by our caregivers when they tell us how to behave. For eg. "Good girls don't make noise." Lot of our current behaviors come from these "Good child/bad child" schemas. Transactional Analysis(a system of therapy) says that these childhood schemas can lead to lifelong standards you hold yourself to - called Drivers.

According to Carl Rogers, Self concept has 3 parts...

People can have a social identity as well.

Existential

  • We see ourselves as separate from the world
  • Distinct from others
  • Constant(as opposed to temporarily tired(which is a state))

Philosophy of Self in Eastern Traditions

Links to this note

Default Mode Network On Drugs

If we can say that the ego has a location in the brain, it would be the default mode network. Its very active when you are doing nothing - its where self talk takes place. Default Mode Network regulates a lot of other parts of the brain -

Fixed Vs Growth Mindset

Fixed Mindset: Fears and avoids feedback - at it might damage their positive self image. Growth Mindset: Actively seek and welcome feedback(positive and negative). Exposes yourself to new challenges and possibl

Social Identity Theory

Social identity is the part of a person's Self-Concept that is made from their membership in a social group. Social Identity theory tries to explain inter-group behaviors as a result of... difference in status within the group leg

Non Self

Buddhism has a different view of self when compared to the west. Self has 5 parts.. Form: Physical body and material phenomena Feeling: Pleasant and unpleasant emotions Cognition: Thoughts, Memories, future plans,

Philosophy Of Personal Identity

Different theories of how one person is themselves over time... Body theory: Bodily continuity. As long as the person is in the same body, its the same person. Problems with this theory: Ship of Theseus(we are constantly changing), Tele

Self Schema

Individual beliefs that you hold about yourself is called Self-Schema. Collectively, they make up the Self-Concept. There is a system of therapy called Schema Therapy that deals with this.

Ideal Self

This refers to who we want to be. This can be our long term goals, ambitions, etc. One interesting fact about your Ideal self is that it is dynamic. It is easier to change than most of the other components in Self-Concept.

Self Esteem

While Self-concept is the belief of who we are(eg. I am introverted), Self-esteem is the value we attach to such a belief(eg. I hate that I am introverted). "The self-concept is what we think about the self; self-esteem, is the posi

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Published on: Jan 27, 2022

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