Self-Concept Behind the Word Self - Research Paper Example

SELF IS A COLLECTION OF ATTRIBUTIONS AND PERSONALITY CHARATERSITICS Introduction Self is the core of one's conscious existence. This is incomplete without awareness of self concept. The concept of self concept is that the individual has of himself as material, social, pious or moral being. One has a self concept only when he is able to recognize himself as a distinct human being thus a self concept would be impossible without cognition or the capacity to think. The valid context in understanding the self concept is through the understanding of 'I and Me'. What this means is simply that what are the factors that reflect a person's identity. 'I' is a resolute term defining a person efficacy that to what extent does he thinks himself to be regarded important and similarly the 'Me' factor is that how that person is known by the Society or friends. Other behaviorists state that the self comprises of two attributes the 'I' and 'me'. The 'I' is referred to as in response to the outside world and 'me' reflects more of the social life1. It can be easily be observed that people do lie in between the two assumptions and that people are aware that they will have self-control problems, but the fact is that they cannot rely upon their judgments as they feel themselves to be more prone to faulty predictions. Through this ideology we can say that behavioral verification is rather limited. Next we come to the identity. As a person is known by the social group he must have an identity. Cooley shaped the term identity as something which is created by the influence of others that is others play an important part in shaping one's identity. Identity is made by more and more interaction with others and it is dynamic in nature as people have different perspectives of citing things and thereby they shape the identity dynamically2. At times the identity is self-controlled but in that case the interaction level is low. This is not is as identity is not yet shaped. People keep on thinking for ways of improving their identity and the core points are that how can they shape themselves in front of others and based on these judgments they shape their identity but later it is the interaction that shapes the true identity. We can say that esteem is a person's pride and this means how the person has evolved. For this we can refer to the symbolic interactionism. How a person's PAST has been greatly influences how approach to thinking and the fact in which social gathering has he been living is also termed important3. In this succession Herbert Blumer pointed that this interaction is due to a set of social processes acting upon a person as every society has different perspective about different things for instance cow is sacred for Hindus and therefore not an eatable for them whereas for Muslims it is an animal that has a higher degree of appreciation when it comes to their sacred sacrifice ritual. Authoritarian personality trait Authoritarian personality means strictly commanding and at times obsessive. For such individuals establishing and conforming to authority is the core purpose of life4. People falling under such category want more adherences through a hierarchy and thus maintain a chain of command and often have hostile conflicts with people who do not tend to follow the ordered command set. These attributes of the authoritarian trait are reflected by Theodore Adorno. Locus of Control The next important terminology, which comes into consideration while describing self control and other related activities, is the Locus of Control. Locus of control means that what the person considers being within his control and what is influenced by outside forces. In general terms, Locus of control is defined as an individual's general anticipation of the product of an event as being either within or beyond her or his personal control and understanding5. The two definite types are external locus of control and the internal locus of control. On one hand, an individual is said to have an external locus of control personality trait if he tends to perceive an event outside his circle of control, and more passively qualifies the outcomes of the event a mere existence of chance, luck, mostly probing upon the authority of others that is others were more powerful, or as impulsive because of immense background complexity. In contrast the other set of persons is those with the internal locus of control, a person underlying this attributed personality trait is contingent to believe that the event is reliant upon his own behavior, this means that he undertakes more responsibility and has a feel of everything around him. Psychologists say that there is sufficient evidence that locus of control is a elementary and stable personality trait with apparent behavioral consequences. Understanding the self awareness core is important as it relates more to the self control principle that how people find themselves in different situations. Assume that a person has self-control problems and possibly due to this the preferences change over time, the query that arises sums up to what extent is that person aware of his own future self-control problems. Taking this into account researches have shown that there are two extreme assumptions to be present while considering self control problems. Due to these facts assumptions are that the people are more intricate and self aware of their future thus they can predict their actions for future control6. On the other hand it is said that people are not that popular believers and thus have limited control on their actions on thereby they can be called as nave and are more prone to wrong predictions for future behavior. The proof about the affirmative impact of locus of control internality on personal performance is notable. As the theory says, people with internal locus of control tend to be more successful labor market participants, business unit managers and even small-firm entrepreneurs as they feel the need for change due to the fact that their belief is surely everything is hampered or influenced by their decisions than their external counterparts. The Biological Theory There are two other fundamental types discussed by the biological theory that is the extroverts and the introverts. The extroverts are outgoing personalities who are not selfish and are more leaned towards the outside world whereas the introverts are those who think of themselves only and it can be said that this attribute matches the condition of external locus of control to some extent when something negative happens. Personality or 'self' Personality is a compilation of emotional and behavioral patterns exclusive to a person that is steady over time. One more aspect to be understood in lieu of the cognition for self is spirituality. Spirituality can be described in various ways but the most common definitions are that spirituality endows with logic of meaning and purpose in life and includes a belief that the soul starts of in another realm or it is reincarnated after a person's death7. These beliefs include supernatural beings or powers, such as a God or a hierarchy of gods, angels and demons, this is for different religions. Thus we can say that the supernatural world at times comes closer and at times gets farther away to the real world scenarios as per beliefs of different persons. As of a spiritual standpoint, the main purpose of human life is to grow spiritually. The point in spiritual life is that the extent of spirituality depends upon the fact that the how much adherence has the person given to the spiritual values during his life time. The exact details for these beliefs diverge greatly. The detailed aspects or forms of spirituality that give sense and reason are different for different people. And it is the trait set of a person that makes divergence in this spiritual life. To elaborate more we have the '5 factor model' which states that a better personality comprises of agreeableness, extroversion, openness, neuroticism and conscientiousness (awareness of self). Personality is dependent upon friends or the society we are living as it has a great influence on our lives. The decisions made by a person are pretty much influenced by other factors which the "personality theory" does not signify. From here we concede that self is influenced by the environment and the ingroups as assumed by the "social identity theory". However we can say that a group's influence on personality is so strong that he makes decision within the bounds of the group thus at times negates the truce also. Conclusion Self concept is the main key behind the word self. People who have a fair idea about self concept tend get more from the world and have the ability to maintain their self efficacy and esteem. It is due to the esteem factor that Maslow put the "self-esteem" at the top of his pyramid. However this is not the case as the fundamental for striving is need and based on need a person should be able to judge his level. People with adequate awareness of their personality and "internal locus of control" go farthest and with an authoritarian style become strong and dignified leaders. However it is evident that social mobility is possible as a person is free to move in this agile world and with this in mind he can shape anew identity or classify himself in another group. The past tells us that people have been thriving hard in order to attain greater esteem as it brings in more motivation and passion to go beyond. Raising esteem is done by improving upon self-efficacy and by discriminating against the odd groups. Bibliography 1. Ahadi, S.A., and Rothbart, M.K., (1994) the developing structure of temperament and personality from infancy to adulthood. Hills dale, NJ:Erlbaum 2. Ainslie, George. (1975). "Specious Reward: A Behavioral Theory of Impulsiveness and Impulse Control." Psychological Bulletin 82(4): 463-496. 3. Ariely, Daniel, and Klaus Wertenbroch. (2001). "Procrastination, Deadlines, and Performance: Using Public Commitments to Regulate One's Behavior." Psychological Science. 4. Gordon C & Gergen K J (1968) The Self in Social Interaction London John Wiley and Sons Inc 5. Gough B. & McFadden M. (2001) Critical Social Psychology An Introduction Hampshire Palgrave 6. Looking Glass Self. Cooley (1902). 7. Rotter, (1966) Locus of Control. 8. Symbolic Interactionism. Blumer H. (1934) 9. William James (1907) The 'I' and the 'Me' Read More