SELF

The word “self” means complete individuality. It can also refer to one’s character, one’s nature or one’s interest. The term “concept” is an abstract idea which gives meaning to what it represents. Therefore, self-concept is how we define our self, based on the characteristic we know and the values we hold to ourselves. These values and characteristics are linked to various aspects of our self-concept such as self, self-estimation, self-identity, self-image, self-consciousness, self-perception, self-awareness, self-regard, self-esteem, self-efficacy and self-regulation (Baumeister, 1999; Hattie, 2003, 2014). The concept of self has been a central part in different disciplines such as philosophy, sociology and psychology for more than a century by number of well-known researchers.

Philosophical self

Descartes, highlights the dualism of the self and the essential aspect of the self as a cognitive process. “I think therefore, I am” –Descartes (1596- 1650), has a profound impact on researchers moving towards studying, exploring and understanding of the self (Hattie, 2014).

According to chapter on consciousness of self by William James, ( as cited in Green, 1997), the self is divided into 2 parts, “Me and I”. For James, “Me” is the object that is referred to when describing experiences, and the “I” is the Ego which tells us who we are and what we are doing. He later divided the “I” into three prepositions; the material self, the social self and the spiritual self. The material self consists of the things that belong to us to the things that we are part of, the fundamental aspect of material self is our body, eg: clothes, our personal belongs or our family. The social self describes who we are in a given situation. The premises for the social self is based on the notion that our behaviour and thoughts depend on the situation. For example; we will behave different in a party or social gathering than the way we usually behave at home. The spiritual self is who we are, in other words our fundamental values and personality. Therefore, the summation of the self can be explained in terms of all that the individual have, including the material, social, spiritual with the individual’s ego, in other words known as concept of the self.

Symbolic Self

From a symbolic interactionism perspective the self is viewed as a product and a reflection of social life ( as cited in Shrauger & Scheneman, n.d.). Hence, Cooley (1902) developed the idea of the “looking glass” self, whereby he claims that the self is a reflection of others. He also proposed that the self has three aspects: 1) imagination of our appearance to other people, 2) imagination of the other person’s judgment of that appearance and, 3) the feelings of pride or mortification (Hattie, 2014; Shrauger & Scheneman, n.d.). Moreover,  

Mead (1934), described self being a self only in relation to the social interactions (Hattie, 2014). Therefore, he divided the self into two parts. The “I” and the “me”, the I is the immediate response we have towards others or towards other things. For example, we are not sure if we want something, unless we have seen someone else using it. Therefore in this instant, the “I” will respond in a friendly manner towards the other person. Mead described this as the spontaneous self and we are not sure how we will react in a given situation. Mead’s major claim was that we as human beings can only describe ourselves to the extent of how we act or behave towards ourselves as well as towards other beings. The “me” is the opposite of the “I”. “Me” acts in accordance with the attitudes of others around us. Therefore, “me” is always trying to fit to the social setting so that it can have shared social identity (Hattie, 2014). Thus, “me” is known as the social self. Hence, according to Mead, the self is regularly changing to adapt and to enhance to the conflicts between “I” and “me” in such a way that it evaluates the self constantly. Hence, this process is known as self-evaluation.

Freud’s Self   

Freud stated that there are two aspects of self, the conscious and the unconscious self. The conscious part of the self is barred from the knowledge of unconscious. Thus, the conscious self is divided into three parts; id, ego and super ego. The id is the pleasure seeking force and tries to avoid pain, the super ego translate these pleasure and pains in the form of expectations, norms and values and strive to find the ideal self. Ego is the moderator between id and super ego. In other words, the ego differentiate the ideal and the reality. The id and the super ego are in constant conflict. Therefore, the ego has to find ways to protect the individual from harm hence, employs defense mechanisms. Based on Freud’s theory it is understood that we as human beings are very sensitive to our self. We will try to find ways to protect our self, our ego and our identity in any way we possibly can. Further, the Neo-Freudian, such as Alfred Adler argued that the self has more to consciousness and that we as humans are capable of controlling and guiding our actions towards self-realization. Additionally, the self and the social interactions are not dual entities but a dichotomy (Hattie, 2014). Furthermore, Adler highlighted the importance about how we see ourselves with that of what we believed about ourselves with regard to our social interactions, thus, this collectively is known as our self-concept (Hattie, 2014).

Stages of Self

Furthermore, Erik Erikson, proposed that certain stages of development needs to be fulfilled before an individual can strive for his/her identity. These stages starts from the birth and continues till the death of the individual. The stages are: 1) trust verse mistrust (0-1 year), 2) autonomy verse shame and doubt (2^nd year of life), 3) initiative verse guilt (preschool age), 4) industry verse inferiority (middle childhood), 5) identity verse role confusion (adolescence), 6) intimacy verse isolation (young adulthood), 7) generation verse stagnation (prime adulthood), 8) ego integrity verse despair (old age). To sum up, it can be argued that as children develop and grow the aspect they are getting aware about themselves can be termed as self-concept.

Self as a Concept

Self-concept is the knowledge about ourselves including, our values, emotions, thoughts, beliefs, personality traits, physical traits, abilities, goals and our mere existence (Luo, Wang, Marnburg, & Øgaard, 2016; Slaninova & Stainerova, 2015). Therefore, self-concept is a rich and complex social representation of who we are and we grow up forming, revising, adjusting and re-evaluating our self-concept.