Self Concept
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Involves at least four separate but inter-related aspects:

social                     e.g. very friendly

emotional             e.g. very cold

intellectual           e.g. above average

physical                e.g. Sheldon in 1950s classified people as:

 - but heavily criticised.  Nevertheless people treat other according to stereotypes and then in tune behave as they are treated.  Body shape is therefore important to self image.    In addition, physically attractive people are rated higher on favourable personality traits, are more popular, are more likely to be let off alleged misbehaviours

In addition - an ideal self - what we would want to be

Self concept is the cognitive part of self-perception; self-esteem is the affective dimension (how we feel about ourselves).

Our feelings about self-worth and self esteem grow in large part from our perceptions of where we see ourselves in relation to significant others whose skills, abilities and talents are similar to our own.

Coopersmith showed that people usually assess their success in terms of:

power                     the ability to influence and control others

significance          the acceptance, attention and affection of others

virtue                      adherence to certain moral and ethical standards

competence         successful performance in meeting demands for achievement

positive feedback tends to raise self-esteem and negative feedback tends to lower it

positive self esteem is more likely to elicit positive feedback

people who think well of themselves tend to think well of others: people who have a negative view of themselves have a negative view of others (Wylie,1978)

Other Notes in this Category

1. Attitudes
2. Attitudes and Behaviour
3. Attribution
4. Conformity
5. Crowds and Territoriality
6. Goffman - Symbolic Interactionist
7. Impression Formation
8. Inference Model
9. Intuition model
10. Is there a conformity personality?
11. Obedience
12. Persuasion
13. Prejudice
14. Self Concept
15. Self-attribution processes
16. Social Influence
17. Stereotypes and Stereotyping
18. The Primacy-Recency effect
19. Zimbardo

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