we desire to communicate with anyone.
How Self-Concept Develops
How did your self-concept form? The day you recognized yourself as separate from your surroundings, life for you began to change. At that moment, your concept of self—that relatively stable set of perceptions you attribute to yourself—became your most important possession.
Although you are not born with a self-concept, you definitely play a role in its construction.16 Even though you are constantly undergoing change, once built, the theory or picture you have of yourself is fairly stable and difficult to alter. Have you ever tried to revise your parents’ or friends’ opinions about themselves? Did you have any luck? Over time, our opinions about ourselves grow more and more resistant to change.
A number of forces converge to create your self-concept. Among them are the ways in which others relate to you; how you experience and evaluate yourself; the roles you enact; the messages you absorb from popular and social media; the expectations you and others have for you; and the gender, cultural, and technological messages you internalize.
To a large extent, your self-concept is shaped by your environment and by the people around you, including your parents, relatives, teachers, supervisors, friends, and coworkers. If those important to you have a good image of you, they probably make you feel accepted, valued, worthwhile, lovable, and significant. As a result, you are likely to develop a positive self-concept. In comparison, if those important to you have a poor image of you, it can make you feel left out, small, worthless, unloved, or insignificant. You, more than likely, will develop a negative self-concept as a consequence.
The Connection Between Self-Concept and Behavior
We are both cause and the controlling force of our perceptions. But what leads us to respond to what we experience as we do?
Attribution Theory
According to attribution theory, we like to be able to explain why things happen. We assign meaning to behavior, coming up with possible motives and causes. When we attribute behavior to something in the disposition of others, we assume their behavior to have an internal cause—it is caused by something about them and their characteristics. When we attribute it to something about the situation or environment, we identify an external cause—and ascribe it as being the result of something outside of the person.
When we assume too often that the primary motivation for another’s behavior is in the person, and not the situation, we commit a fundamental attribution error. We overemphasize factors internal to the individual and discount the role played by the situation. For example, a friend disappoints us by failing to show up on time to a study group. We’re more likely to decide it’s because our friend is inconsiderate rather than to believe that external factors, like the bus running late, are the cause.
It’s different, however, when we ascribe reasons for our own behavior. When offering reasons for why we behave as we do, we are more likely to overemphasize external factors and downplay internal ones. This tendency, known as the self-serving bias, functions to raise our own self-esteem. We take credit for the positive while denying culpability for the negative. When it comes to ourselves, we attribute any negatives to factors beyond our control.
We also are prone to committing over-attribution errors—the attributing of everything a person does to a single or a few specific factors. For example, we might ascribe a person’s alcohol use, poor grades, lackluster job performance, and lack of interest in close relationships to a broken romance.17
Quite simply, when it comes to interpreting the behavior of others and ourselves, we find behavior’s causes where we look for them.
Self-Esteem
A teacher praises a student for a job that wasn’t done very well, observing that “I didn’t want to hurt the student’s self-esteem.”18 Others challenge the merit of a “feel-good curriculum” bemoaning the fact that we walk around on eggshells not to hurt another’s self-esteem.19 Why is self-esteem so critical? How does it impact us?
The Dark Side of Self-Esteem
Might an overemphasis on reinforcing self-esteem, especially in individuals whose self-esteem is already high, lead to an increase in bullying and narcissism?
Bullies are often among the most popular people.20 This popularity can lead to self-appraisalsthat are unrealistically inflated.21 Typically, high self-esteem combined with a sense of arrogance and narcissistic tendencies contributes to bullying.22
iStock/PeopleImages
Next, consider the adulation given to professional athletes, musicians, movie stars, and trendsetters on social networks. Our behavior toward them helps precipitate the self-centered, egomaniacal characteristics that they too often exhibit.
Do you think that we should balance the amount of praise we give to public figures, lest we feed their sense of self-importance to outsized proportions? When self-esteem is undeservedly high, people tend to ignore their own weaknesses. They suffer from an inflated sense of their worth, displaying an inappropriate overconfidence in their abilities. Unprepared for criticism, however, they quickly fall apart if told that they are wrong or lacking in some ability.23
Unlike those with high self-esteem, people with low self-esteem primarily define themselves by their limitations and can be negative about a lot of things. Those who possess either extremely high or low self-esteem do share something in common, however: self-absorption.
The Bright Side of Self-Esteem
People with normally high self-esteem tend to be happier24 and less affected by peer pressure than those who have low self-esteem.25 Individuals with healthy self-esteem are not self-absorbed. Rather than filling themselves with “unwarranted self-regard,” they have a realistic sense of their abilities.26 In touch with both their strengths and their weaknesses, they display grit—a combination of passion and perseverance for a singularly important goal, together with resilience and a tolerance for feeling frustrated.27 Expecting a positive outcome, they persist in spite of failure. They are both confident and resilient, traits necessary for success.28
Researchers assert that high self-esteem is an effect of good performance, rather than its cause. According to J. D. Hawkins, president of the National Self-Esteem Association (NSEA), “Self-esteem is more than just feeling good about yourself. It’s about being socially and individually responsible.”29
Skill Builder
Me, You, and Popular and Social Media
1 Choose an adjective or color to describe how you felt when interacting with every person you came into contact with yesterday, either face-to-face or online. Evaluate why some people made you feel more positive or negative about yourself.
2 Consider how celebrities affect your picture of yourself. For example, how is your self-evaluation
