In psychology we work with ideas and concepts that can often cause confusion.
He selfconcept, for example, is one of the most used theoretical constructs, but that does not mean that everyone understands what we are talking about when we use this term. Its meaning is not as intuitive as that of the word self-esteem and, in turn, it is not always easy to understand what it is about if we ignore some assumptions from which current psychology works.
So that… What is self-concept exactly? Throughout this article we will see what the characteristics of this psychological phenomenon are, what implications it has for mental health, and why it is important to dedicate resources to keeping it in good condition.
The self-concept is the image we have created about ourselves Not just a visual image, of course; It is rather the set of ideas that we believe define us, on a conscious and unconscious level. This includes a practically infinite number of concepts that could be included in this “image” about ourselves, since each idea can house many others within it, creating systems of categories that are one inside another.
Thus, our idea of what shyness is could be a component of our self-concept, but also an approximate idea about our intelligence. There are many elements that can be a constituent part of this self-image, and the self-concept serves to encompass them under a label.
In this way, if we assume that a person’s mind is composed of a network of concepts that partially overlap each other (for example, “rose” overlaps a little with “plant” and with “red”, if we we imagine the flowers of that color), the self-concept is the point at which different ideas and beliefs overlap at the same point, causing the concept of “I” to emerge from this combination, something that is present in animals with the ability to create and interpret abstract concepts.
Definitely, The self-concept is the set of characteristics (aesthetic, physical, emotional, etc.) that serve to define the image of the “I”
Some keys to understand what self-concept is
These are some explanations to clarify the meaning of the term self-concept; some of its main characteristics.
1. It is relatively stable
It makes sense to talk about the existence of the self-concept precisely because It is possible to find patterns and defining characteristics of each person that tend to always be there If the self-concept varied completely every second, it would not exist.
That is why many psychologists dedicate part of their efforts to discovering what defines people’s self-concept. This can be used to address problems in clinical psychology, but also, for example, to establish population or consumer profiles.
On the other hand, self-concept can evolve over time, but not abruptly, and always following rather gradual and gentle trends. It can also change through psychotherapy, in which tools such as cognitive restructuring help modify beliefs about oneself.
2. Self-concept can change
Although it tends to remain relatively the same over time, The self-concept is by no means something static It is constantly changing, just as our experiences and the course of our thoughts constantly vary. However, the fact that the self-concept does not always remain the same does not mean that any idea about ourselves fits into it.
It is clear that something that we considered totally foreign to our way of being or behaving can, after a time, become part of the set of things that we consider define us. However, this does not change the fact that, at first, that idea or quality was not part of our self-concept, and that only with the passage of days has it been able to become included in it.
We find numerous examples of this variability of self-concept in adolescents. Adolescence is a stage in which the ways of understanding reality, feeling and relating to others abruptly change. And these “shakings” occur, of course, also in the way these young people see themselves. It is very normal to see how adolescents completely deny an aesthetic and a system of values that, shortly after, will be integrated into their self-concept
3. Self-concept has diffuse limits
The self-concept It is a theoretical construct that psychologists work with, not something that can be isolated in a laboratory This means that, where the self-concept is reflected, there are also other elements: an emotional and evaluative tint of oneself, the influences of ideas associated with each other, the influence of culture on the way one conceives oneself, etc.
Thus, the difference between self-concept and self-esteem, or between self-concept and the rest of the concepts (that is, those that refer not to oneself, but to others or the rest of the world) is fundamentally a limit established by psychologists and that serves to better understand the functioning of mental processes.
4. The distance between ideas is relative
This is something that follows from the previous point. Usually, People do not understand that all those ideas that are included within our self-concept define us equally, in the same way that there are certain elements that remain on the limit between what defines us and what does not. That is why everything we talk about when we talk about self-concept is relative. We always assess the extent to which we are defined by something by comparing it with another element.
For example, we may not be big fans of a sports clothing brand, but when we think about other types of clothing that we perceive as totally foreign to us (for example, a folkloric costume from some remote islands), we consider that brand to be quite close to the set of ideas that populate our self-concept.
5. There is a difference between self-concept and self-esteem
Although both ideas are similar, self-concept is not the same as self-esteem The first serves only to describe ourselves, while self-esteem is the concept that refers to our way of valuing ourselves. That is, self-concept serves to refer to the cognitive aspect of our way of seeing ourselves, while self-esteem has its reason for being in the emotional and evaluative component from which we judge ourselves. Both theoretical constructs, however, refer to something subjective and private.
Many times, in addition, the term “self-concept” is used, assuming that it includes both self-concept and self-esteem. However, To clear up doubts, it is advisable to use these terms separately
6. It is related to self-awareness
A self-concept exists because we are aware that we exist as an entity differentiated from the rest. That is why, At the moment in which we begin to perceive the presence of things that are foreign to us, a form of self-concept is already being born, no matter how rudimentary it may be It is a dialectic in which one concept gives rise to the existence of the other.
The term self-concept can lead us to the error that this is a mental phenomenon that simply appears in people, and whose only relationship with the environment is from the inside out: it affects how we behave and act by modifying the environment, but it is not seen affected from outside. This is a mistake.
Self-concept is a dynamic process, caused by a mixture of interactions between genes and the environment. Therefore, it is not isolated within people, but rather our experiences and our habits make it evolve. This is the reason why self-concept is closely linked to our social life, and it is through language, a phenomenon that arises from the community, that we are able to arrive at an idea of the “I”.
What is it for?
The self-concept allows us to make inferences about everything that has to do with our way of behaving and the way others behave towards us. If, for example, we believe that we are not good at soccer and we assume that our peers value this negatively, we will tend to believe that in that social circle the possibilities of having a good status are reduced, and perhaps we will choose to meet new people.
Another behavioral perspective
The term self-concept can make us think that this is another piece of the brain, an element that makes us emit certain types of behaviors and not others. However, there is a paradigm of psychology that denies this type of definition of self-concept.
For behaviorism, the self-concept is not an internal phenomenon of the human mind, but a behavior, a way to perform certain actions ; more specifically, a way of making verbal assessments about how we tend to behave in relation to what surrounds us.
Thus, we must not lose sight of the fact that the self-concept always exists in relation to the material world in which we live, and not in isolation in our body.
