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Self Concept Essay

705 Words3 Pages

Self is also associated with notions self-concept, self-esteem and identity. Self-concept emerges from us, as a product of our self-reflexive activity. Rosenberg (1979 cited in Stets & Bruke, 2003) defined self-concept as the sum of the thoughts, feelings, imaginations about who we are. Further Epstein (1973 cited in Gecas, 2011) defines self-concept as a theory individual holds about self after experimenting, functioning and interacting with the world. Self-concepts are the mental constructs of the object of self, “me” which includes the cognitive, attitude and evaluative judgments about the desires, wishes, inferences, and how others act towards ones’ self (Oyserman et.al, 2012). Self-esteem is the evaluation, we make for our self. When we …show more content…

Self is multiple. Self-concepts are mental constructs a person holds after interacting with the world. Self-esteem is the evaluation a person makes for him/herself. Self-esteem will impact the formation of self-concepts while self-concepts together will form the self. Next, I will review the literature on the notion of identity and its relationship with the self.
Identity
Similar to the notion of the self, identity is plurivocal. Therefore, I would indicate few arguments brought forward by previous researchers for the notion of identity. I have demonstrated in the previous section, that self emerges through a reflexive interaction within the complex and differentiated society. Consequently self becomes very complex, multiple as well as differentiated (Stets & Burke, 2003). Furthermore, since people can hold different roles and positions in the society, many different selves can emerge.
This idea of different selves which emerge through different roles and positions is rooted in the notion of identity. Identity can be identified as the inner meanings, roles, traits, characteristics, social relationships, positional designations one holds in the society and simply idenity is the definitions about “who you are” (Baumeister, 2003; Stets & Burke, 2003; Gecas, 2011; Stryker, 2011; Oyserman et.al, …show more content…

Both theories recognize individual hold multiple identities and identities have cognitive, behavioral and emotional outcomes based on the group or the role. The theories further demonstrates the two components of identity, set of self-categorizations that provides identity and the content of the identity in terms of meanings and expectations (Stets & Burke,

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