What follows below is an excerpt of a longer article titled Components of Social Control, which I posted on this blog on May 8th, 2012. It is published here as a stand-alone piece to spotlight a concept -- that is, Self-Concept -- that's at the centre of anyone's idea of who one is, or even who one really is in the increasing complexity, indeed the 'cauldron', of social life.
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1.1. Self-Concept:
Concerning self-concept, Saul McLeod (2008) starts off by noting that “To be aware of oneself is to have a concept of oneself.” To be aware of oneself, thus, is not only to perceive that one is but also to have a sense of who’s the one who is. This should usually include the realization that one is not, in the place one is, alone – but with another or others in a surrounding. Citing Lewis (1990), McLeod points out that self-concept has two components: (a) the existential self, and, (b) the categorical self.
The existential self is in fact the self characterized in the above lines. It represents the most elementary awareness of one’s existence. It refers to the individual – an infant to start with – being aware that he/she exists and is alive as a separate and distinct entity or human being, standing apart from any other. This awareness of self as a separate identity, is at the core of the individual’s capacity to distinguish between “me” and “not me”, and to know that “I” am “me” and not, for example, the ‘other” whom the infant will soon enough come to know as mummy or daddy or sister or brother.
To have self-concept is to be self-conscious. Only a ‘fully’ conscious mind can be fully self-conscious, but this capacity grows with age, though it is frequently lost in some to the influence of alcohol, other drugs and certain diseases or illnesses. Thus, for an infant: to be self-conscious, and therefore to have self-concept, is to know, for example, that the feeling of discomfort or contentment that I am feeling right now is not only a true feeling but my own feeling as well, and not another’s. It is to know that the sense of fear or exhilaration that I am enduring or having is my sense; or that the unfamiliar faces all around are indeed unfamiliar to me and around me; or that the playful other who’s alone with me right here is playing with none other than me – and that it is I who’s experiencing all this playfulness in return.
McLeod characterizes the categorical self as follows: “Having realized that he or she exists as a separate experiencing being, the child next becomes aware that he or she is also an object in the world. Just as other objects including people have properties that can be experienced (big, small, red, smooth and so on) so the child is becoming aware of him or her self as an object which can be experienced and which has properties. The self too can be put into categories such as age, gender, size or skill.”
The Mosby’s Medical Dictionary (2009) defines self-concept as “the composite of ideas, feelings, and attitudes that a person has about his or her own identity, worth, capabilities, and limitations. Such factors as the values and opinions of others, especially in the formative years of early childhood, play an important part in the development of the self-concept.” On the other hand, the American Heritage Medical Dictionary (2007) sees it as “An individual's assessment of his or her status on a single trait or on many human dimensions using societal or personal norms as criteria” (for both definitions, click here). These definitions certainly allude to self-concept as more consciously grasped later in life.
David Demo (1992: 309) argues that self-concept is not static, but changes over time: “…the content and structure of self concept change with each stage of self-development, and with each stage there is evidence of both stability and malleability from one context to another.” It is, in other words, “situationally variable” (Demo, 1992: 306). He insists that:
“to understand self-concept we must conceptualize it as a moving baseline with fluctuations across situations…and life stages. This involves recognizing that the self-concept is simultaneously a complex structure and a process, that it is stable, but that it is also dynamic” (Demo, 1992: 304).
Reckless (1967, 1973) suggests that self-concept is an internal quality in the individual, and (in Williams’ words) argues that “those individuals with a strong and favourable self-concept were [are] best insulated against the drives and pulls towards criminality. A favourable self-concept might be illustrated by saying that the individuals view themselves in a positive way: as having values to live up to; as being law-abiding; and as having an idea of being of use and value to society and those in it” (Williams, 1997: 372).
Self-concept is thus the springboard of self-esteem, the latter trending high or low in tandem with the former.
