SELF-CONCEPT

The self is the central concept used to represent the individual in sociological social psychology. The importance of the self reflects the influence of symbolic interactionism in sociology. In the last twenty years social psychologists trained in psychology also have developed a strong interest in the self as their emphasis has shifted from behaviorism to cognitive theories (Baumeister, 1998).

STABLE SELF-CONCEPTS

The social psychological conception of the self is based on the idea that people are reflexive, responding to themselves just as they respond to other "objects." Since reflexive thinking requires language, it is assumed that infants and nonhuman animals lack a self-concept. However, there is some evidence that chimpanzees are aware of what they look like, since they notice markings on their faces (Gallup 1977). This self-recognition suggests that some animals and prelinguistic humans have a rudimentary sense of self but that it lacks meaning or content.

Some sociologists, particularly those with a philosophical and qualitative orientation, view the self as a process involving people's internal conversations. Those with a more positivistic and quantitative orientation emphasize more stable aspects of the self. From their point of view, the self-concept refers to all the ways in which people describe themselves. These linguistic descriptions refer to the way people think they are, no to their actual personal characteristics.

People describe themselves in many different ways. One way to find out about the content of the self-concept is to ask respondents to answer the question "Who am I?" Studies of responses to this question reveal that people often think of themselves in terms of their roles (or role identities). For example, people often describe themselves on the basis of their sex, age, race, and occupation. Stryker (1968) suggests that these and other roles are organized in a hierarchy according to their salience for a person. The salience of a role is based in part on the extent to which adequate performance of that role affects relationships with "significant others." Salience is also a function of how distinctive a role is (McGuire and Padawer-Singer 1976). For example, a female is more likely to mention her gender in describing herself if she is in a group of males.

People also describe themselves in terms of personal attributes, such as "lazy," "smart," and "attractive." In contrast to roles—which usually are described with nouns—these self-concepts are more likely to be defined by adjectives. They often reflect individuals' conceptions of their abilities or performance in different roles. For example, on a questionnaire children can be asked, "How smart in school do you think you are, among the smartest, above average, average, or below average?" Respondents sometimes try to be objective in answering this type of question and to place themselves according to the criteria they think the researcher is using. Sometimes they report more subjective feelings about where they stand in accordance with their own standards. For example, professional athletes may be dissatisfied with their level of play even if they think they are better than most people. Other personal attributes involve self-attributed traits such as "aggressive" or "nice." Also included here are the ways in which people characterize their beliefs and attitudes. For example, people may conceive of themselves as prejudiced or not independently of whether they are prejudiced by an objective standard.

While individuals think of themselves in terms of specific roles and specific evaluations of their personal attributes, they also have a more general opinion of themselves (Gecas and Burke, 1995). This global evaluation Brown, 1993 called self-esteem and is measured by statements such as "I feel I do not have much to be proud of" and "At times I think I am no good at all" (Rosenberg 1965). The global nature of self-esteem is indicated by the tendency of individuals to describe themselves as consistently positive or negative on different personal attributes. However, self-esteem also has different dimensions, such as self-efficacy and self-worth (Gecas 1982). Self-esteem, like depression and anxiety, usually is considered an aspect of mental health. Research using longitudinal data has shown that self-esteem affects and is affected by depression among adolescents (Rosenberg et al. 1989).

There is considerable evidence that people are motivated to enhance their self-esteem. For example, respondents tend to give inflated evaluations of themselves on anonymous questionnaires. In addition, subjects in experiments are more likely to explain their successes in terms of internal attributes, such as effort and ability, while attributing their failures to external factors, such as task difficulty (Bradley 1978).

SITUATIONAL SELF-IMAGES

Some self-statements are more temporary than those described above, involving the roles or personal attributes people use to describe themselves in particular situations. For example, a woman may think of herself as a "teacher" when she is talking to her students and as "foolish" when she has made a mistake. If repeated, these situational images may become stable as people come to believe them. Emotions also can be considered temporary self-concepts if one thinks of them as statements about how people say they feel rather than as a physiological process. Thinking about emotions in this way leads to the examination of how emotions are affected by social processes.

Some scholars focus on the presentation of situational self-images to others (Goffman 1959). Borrowing language from the theater, they view behavior as a performance displayed in front of an audience, a form of self-presentation or impression management. This approach presents a challenge to those who attempt to measure self-concepts, since it suggests that responses on questionnaires reflect self-presentation rather than privately held beliefs. Researchers try to minimize this problem by using carefully worded questions and guaranteeing anonymity.

Situational self-images often are studied in laboratory experiments. For example, subjects may be asked to respond after receiving false feedback about themselves. To determine whether a self-description involves impression management, the privacy of subjects' responses may be manipulated. When behavior in front of an audience is different from behavior performed in private, this suggests that the behavior reflects impression management rather than privately held beliefs. This type of research also can tell researchers something about how behavior is affected by subjects' awareness that they are being studied. Some behaviors in experimental settings have been shown to result from subjects doing what they think is expected of them (Orne 1962).

Self-presentation behavior is particularly likely to occur when people have done something that is apt to gain disapproval from an audience. When people find themselves in these "predicaments," they are embarrassed and engage in various forms of "facework" to avoid a negative image. Frequently, people give excuses and justifications in an attempt to explain their behavior and avoid condemnation from others. Research shows that subjects are more likely to use self-presentation tactics when they are dependent on the audience for rewards. An important role of self-presentation in conformity, altruism, aggression, and other behaviors has been demonstrated. For example, self-presentation processes are important in explaining the behavior of bullies and the tendency for people to retaliate when attacked (Tedeschi and Felson 1994).

DEVELOPMENT OF SELF-APPRAISALS

Three processes have been used to explain why people have favorable or unfavorable opinions about themselves: (1) attribution, (2) comparison, and (3) reflected appraisal. The first two processes have been emphasized by psychological social psychologists, while the third has been the focus of sociological social psychologists, particularly those sympathetic toward symbolic interactionism.

According to attribution theory, people learn about themselves and others in similar ways. Individuals base judgments about themselves on observations of their own behavior just as they base judgments about others on their observations of those people's behavior (Bem 1972). These judgments are socially influenced, since beliefs about the association of behaviors and personal attributes are learned from others. In judging their abilities, for example, people rely in part on observations of their performances on tasks they believe reflect those abilities. Thus, children who get high grades tend to attribute more ability to themselves. Individuals are likely to attribute a high level of ability to themselves when there is a consistent pattern of success (Kelley 1967).

When people view their behavior as being caused by external forces, they treat it as uninformative about themselves. However, when they view their behavior as being internally caused, there is likely to be some change in their self-appraisals. For example, research shows that external rewards sometimes can reduce the motivation of children to do things they have enjoyed in the past, such as playing with magic markers (Deci and Ryan 1980). If they are rewarded for playing with magic markers, they tend to lose interest when they are no longer rewarded because they attribute their behavior to the reward rather than to their intrinsic motivation. The external reward can decrease their interest in the behavior because it affects their judgments about why they did it. More generally, there is evidence that people's behaviors can affect their attitudes, just as their attitudes can affect their behaviors (Liska et al. 1984). For example, a person may decide that she likes an activity because she observes herself voluntarily engaging in that activity.

Comparison processes are also important factors in the development of self-appraisals. They affect the standards people use in evaluating their behavior. For example, students may think a B is a good grade or a poor grade depending on the standard they use. Standards are a function of two types of comparisons. A temporal comparison is a comparison of present performance and past performance. People are likely to judge their recent performances more harshly if they have been successful in the past. A social comparison is a comparison of one's own behavior to the behavior of others. The more successful the others are, the higher the standard is and the more negative the self-appraisal is. Thus, subjects are more negative in describing themselves when there is another person with very positive qualities present than they are when that person has negative qualities (Morse and Gergen 1970). This implies that self-appraisals tend to be more favorable if one is a "big fish in a small pond." For example, research shows that high school students tend to have more negative self-appraisals of their academic ability if their schoolmates are bright (Felson and Reed 1986). However, sometimes the performance of others has a positive effect on self-appraisal. This occurs when people "borrow status" from successful others with whom they are associated and "bask in reflected glory" (Cialdini et al. 1976).

Festinger (1954) suggested that social comparison processes result from the desire to gain accurate appraisals of one's abilities and to find out whether one's opinions are correct. When objective information is not available, people compare themselves to others. Further, Festinger suggested that people usually choose similar others for comparison because the behavior of those persons provides the most information. Some research has examined the hypothesis that people evaluate their abilities by comparing themselves to others who are similar to themselves on attributes (other than ability) that are related to performance. For example, comparisons with people who have engaged in a similar effort will be the most informative. Similarly, if a boy believes that gender is related to athletic performance, he will compare himself to other boys in order to decide how much athletic ability he has.

According to the reflected appraisal process, people come to see themselves as others see them, or at least as they think others see them. This notion of the "looking-glass self" focuses on how individuals think they appear to others (Cooley 1902). According to Mead (1934), this helps explain the initial formation of self in young children. Mead suggested that when children roleplay, they respond to themselves when they play the role of others. This role-taking process leads them to see themselves as objects. Later, the appraisals of significant others shape the specific content of people's self-concepts. The appraisals of others are accurately perceived and then are incorporated into the self-concept. Significant others may have special expertise or may be parents or close friends, but those who influence one aspect of the self-concept do not necessarily influence other aspects.

Experimental research suggests that subjects' self-appraisals are affected by the false feedback they receive from others. Survey research—which examines correlations between self-appraisals, the appraisals of significant others, and a person's perception of those appraisals—suggests that the appraisals of significant others are not perceived very accurately (Schrauger and Schoeneman 1979). Apparently, rules of politeness limit the amount of open communication—particularly criticism—making it difficult for people to find out what others think of them (Felson 1980). When feedback is given, it tends to involve specific comments about behavior rather than global evaluations. When praise is given, it often is not believed. As a result, people usually have only vague, general impressions of what others think of them and self-appraisals tend to be idiosyncratic and idealized (Felson 1989). While others are in some agreement about a person, that person does not share in the consensus. In addition, ambiguous feedback allows people to think more favorably about themselves and thus protect their self-esteem.

This discussion also applies to global self-esteem. Educators and parents may overemphasize the importance of praise in the development of self-esteem in children. While there is evidence that parents' praise and other supportive behavior affects the self-esteem of children (Felson and Zielinski 1989), successful performance in activities that children value may be more important.

There are other processes that increase the correspondence between people's appraisals of themselves and the appraisals of others. First, in some instances, people have access to the same information others have. For example, children's self-appraisals of their ability and their friends' appraisals of them correspond, because both are affected by the children's grades. Second, some other people can influence self-concepts if they have control over formal evaluations. For example, evidence shows that teachers influence self-concepts because they assign grades, but that is usually the extent of their influence in this area.

The discussion above has focused on the inter-personal environment. Social-demographic characteristics also affect self-appraisal. Social class, for example, has been shown to affect the self-esteem of adults but not that of children (Rosenberg and Pearlin 1978). Blacks and whites, by contrast, have similar levels of self-esteem (Porter and Washington, 1993; Wylie, 1979). A key element here appears to be whether people associate with others who are like themselves. The self-esteem of minority group members is likely to be lower in more heterogeneous settings where invidious comparisons are made and where members of higher-status groups may act in prejudicial ways.

CONSEQUENCES OF SELF-CONCEPTS

The way individuals think of themselves has an important impact on how they behave. Thus, people who think of themselves in terms of particular role identities tend to act in ways that are consistent with those identities. For example, a man who identifies himself as a father will engage in the behaviors he associates with being a father. These roles provide links between the individual and society. Individuals are plugged into the social structure through the roles that are mapped onto selves. In other words, role performance reflects the way people think about themselves. Of course, people vary in terms of the importance they attach to different roles. When people must decide between roles, they tend to choose the role more salient to them (Stryker 1968). For example, the choice between doing work and playing with children on a Sunday afternoon may reflect the relative salience of family and occupational roles.

Success and failure frequently are attributed to variations in self-confidence. Self-appraisals and performance are certainly correlated, but this does not necessarily mean that the former causes the latter. Longitudinal studies, which attempt to disentangle these causal relationships, suggest that students' global self-esteem does not affect their academic performance. However, there is evidence that specific self-appraisals of ability affect performance. Longitudinal analyses of high school students suggest that self-appraisals of academic ability have an effect on grades (Felson 1984). Self-appraisals of ability affect performance through two processes: effort and test anxiety. Those who are self-confident about their ability are likely to work harder because they think effort will bring success. In addition, they are less anxious when they are tested, and so nervousness does not interfere with their performance. However, the effect of self-appraisal on performance probably is not as strong as people think. The effect of grades on self-appraisal is much stronger, suggesting that success is more likely to lead to self-confidence than self-confidence is to lead to success.

Causal interpretation has been problematic in the study of the effects of self-concept on other behaviors as well. While self-esteem and various self-appraisals have been shown to correlate with behavior, it is difficult to show that the self-concepts cause the behaviors. Relatively few studies have attempted to sort out these relationships. Exceptions include longitudinal studies that suggest that low self-esteem increases delinquency among adolescents (e.g., Kaplan 1980; Rosenberg et al. 1989). In general, criminologists today are more likely to attribute criminal behavior to low self-control than to low self-esteem.

An interesting experimental method for examining the effects of self-concept on behavior has been suggested by Duval and Wicklund (1972). They suggest that since much human behavior is automatic or habitual, people do not always think about themselves before they engage in a behavior. These authors argue that self-concepts affect behavior when attention is directed toward the self rather than toward the environment, a condition they call "objective self-awareness." Objective self-awareness is likely to occur when people are in unfamiliar surroundings, when there are disruptions in social interaction, and when people find themselves in a minority. Mirrors are commonly used in experiments to create objective self-awareness. These studies show that subjects are more likely to engage in behavior that is consistent with their self-standards when they are facing a mirror (e.g., Beaman et al. 1979). In addition, there are individual differences: Some people are more chronically focused on themselves as objects. The behavior of such people is more likely to be consistent with their self-appraisals and internalized standards.

A number of researchers have examined the role of self-concepts in resisting change. For example, research suggests that people are motivated to reaffirm self-concepts when they are challenged (Swann 1984). Markus (1977) considers the generalizations people make about themselves as "selfschemas" that affect the way they process information. Self-schemas usually refer to personality traits (e.g., "independent" and "generous") that people attribute to themselves on the basis of past actions. Once formed, they affect the information people attend to and remember and how quickly they process it. For example, people are more likely to learn and recall information that is associated with their self-schemas. In other words, self-schemas act like filters, guiding the processing of incoming information. Thus, self-schemas have a conservative function because they lead people to focus on information that is consistent with their views of themselves.

SUMMARY

The determinants and consequences of the self have become central concerns for both sociologically and psychologically trained social psychologists. Self-concepts depend on the way individuals think they are viewed by others, on individuals' observations of their behavior, and on the standards individuals use to judge that behavior. These judgments in turn depend on the performance (for comparison) and appraisals of others. Self-concepts have consequences in that they affect which roles are performed and how successfully they are performed. They also affect conformity and deviance and the management of impressions. Finally, they are important in their own right as indicators of mental health.

references

Baumeister, Roy 1998 "The Self." In D. T. Gilbert, S. T. Fiske & G. Lindzey, eds., Handbook of Social Psychology, 4th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Beaman, A. L., B. Klentz, E. Diener, and S. Svanum 1979 "Objective Self-Awareness and Transgression in Children: A Field Study." Journal of Personality and SocialPsychology 37:1835–1846.

Bem, Daryl 1972 "Self-Perception Theory." In L. Berkowitz, ed., Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, vol. 6. New York: Academic Press.

Bradley, G. W. 1978 "Self-Serving Biases in the Attribution Process: A Reexamination of the Fact or Fiction Question." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 36:56–71.

Brown, J. D. 1993 "Self-esteem and Self-evaluation: Feeling is Believing." In J. Suls, ed., PsychologicalPerspectives on the Self. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Cialdini, R. B., R. J. Borden, A. Thorne, M. R. Walker, S. Freeman, and L. R. Sloan 1976 "Basking in Reflected Glory: Three (Football) Field Studies." Journal ofPersonality and Social Psychology 34:366–374.

Cooley, Charles H. 1902 Human Nature and the SocialOrder. New York: Scribner's.

Deci, E. L., and R. M. Ryan 1980 "The Empirical Exploration of Intrinsic Motivational Processes." In L. Berkowitz, ed., Advances in Experimental Social psychology, vol. 13. New York: Academic Press.

Duval, S., and R. A. Wicklund 1972 A Theory of ObjectiveSelf-Awareness. New York: Academic Press.

Felson, Richard B. 1980 "Communication Barriers and the Reflected Appraisal Process." Social PsychologyQuarterly, 43:223–233.

Felson, Richard B. 1984 "The Effects of Self-appraisals of Ability on Academic Performance." Journal ofPeronality and Social Psychology 47:944–952.

—— 1989 "Parents and the Reflected Appraisal Process: A Longitudinal Analysis." Journal of Personalityand Social Psychology 56:965–971.

——, and Mark Reed 1986 "The Effect of Parents on the Self-Appraisals of Children." Social PsychologyQuarterly, 49:302–308.

——, and Mary Zielinski. 1989 "Children's Self-Esteem and Parental Support." Journal of Marriage andthe Family 51:727–735.

Festinger, Leon 1954 "A Theory of Social Comparison Processes." Human Relations 7:117–140.

Gallup, G. G., Jr. 1977 "Self-Recognition in Primates: A Comparative Approach to the Bidirectional Properties of Consciousness." American Psychologist 32:329–338.

Gecas, Viktor 1982 "The Self-Concept." Annual Reviewof Sociology 8:1–33.

Gecas, Viktor, and Peter J. Burke 1995 "Self and Identity." In K. S. Cook, G. A. Fine and J. S. House, eds., Sociological Perspectives on Social Psychology Needham Heights, Mass.: Allyn & Bacon.

Goffman, Erving 1959 The Presentation of Self in EverydayLife. New York: Doubleday.

Kaplan, Howard B. 1980 Deviant Behavior in Defense ofSelf. New York: Academic Press.

Kelley, H. H. 1967 "Attribution Theory in Social Psychology." In D. Levine, ed., Nebraska Symposium onMotivation. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

Liska, A., R. Felson, M. Chamlin, and W. Baccaglini 1984 "Estimating Attitude-Behavior Relations within a Theoretical Specification." Social Psychology Quarterly 47:15–23.

Markus, H. 1977 "Self-Schemata and Processing Information about the Self." Journal of Personality andSocial Psychology 35:63–78.

McGuire, William J., and A. Padawer-Singer 1976 "Trait Salience in the Spontaneous Self-Concept." Journalof Personality and Social Psychology 33:743–754.

Mead, G. H. 1934 Mind, Self and Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Morse, S., and K. J. Gergen 1970 "Social Comparison, Self-Consistency, and the Concept of Self." Journal ofPersonality and Social Psychology 16:148–156.

Orne, Martin T. 1962 "On the Social Psychology of the Psychological Experiment: With Particular Reference to Demand Characteristics and Their Implications." American Psychologist 17:776–783.

Porter, J. R., and R. E. Washington 1993 "Minority Identity and Self-esteem." Annual Review of Sociology 19:139–161.

Rosenberg, M. 1965 Society and the Adolescent Self-Image. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.

——, and Leonard Pearlin 1979 "Social Class and Self-Esteem among Children and Adults." AmericanJournal of Sociology 84:53–87.

——, Carmi Schooler, and Carrie Schoenback 1989 "Self-Esteem and Adolescent Problems." AmericanSociological Review 54:1004–1018.

Schrauger, J. S., and T. J. Schoeneman 1979 Symbolic Interactionist View of Self: Through the Looking Glass Darkly. Psychological Bulletin, 86:549–573.

Stryker, Sheldon 1968 "Identity Salience and Role Performance: The Relevance of Symbolic Interaction Theory for Family Research." Journal of Marriage andthe Family 30:558–564.

Swann, W. B. 1984 "Self-Verification: Bringing Social Reality into Harmony with the Self." In J. Suls and A. G. Greenwald, eds., Psychological Perspective on theSelf, vol. 2. Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum.

Tedeschi, James T. and Richard B. Felson 1994 Violence,Aggression, & Coercive Actions. Washington, D.C.: APA Books.

Wylie, Ruth 1979 The Self-Concept: Revised Edition, vol. 2: Theory and Research on Selected Topics. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

Richard B. Felson