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After reading this essay you will learn about:- 1. Meaning of Self 2. Concept of Self 3. Need for the Concept 4. Significance 5. Development and Formation 6. Acquisition of Language 7. Self and Social Behaviour 8. Self-Related Issues.
Essay on the Self
Essay Contents:
- Essay on the Meaning of Self
- Essay on the Concept of Self
- Essay on the Need for the Concept of Self
- Essay on the Significance of the Self
- Essay on the Development and Formation of the Self
- Essay on the Acquisition of Language in the Process of Self-Development
- Essay on the Self and Social Behaviour
- Essay on the Self-Related Issues
Essay # 1. Meaning of Self:
Different psychologists and sociologists have tended to look at the self in different ways. There are some writers who look at the self as a structural part of the total system of personality and as a differentiated system indicating the characteristic of a person as perceived by him. According to this view, the self emerges and grows as a result of learning, as part of the process of socialisation and becomes a structural part of the personality.
If such a view is strictly accepted, then it may suggest that after a certain time the self stops growing. Some leading psychologists like Allport Snygg & Combs; Sheriff and Cantril. use the term self and ego synonymously. According to these writers, there is no need to make a distinction between the self and ego.
On the other hand, there are some other writers like Murphy who try to make a distinction between the self and the ego. According to him the ‘self includes individual as known to the individual and the ‘ego’ refers to a group of activities connected with the enhancement and defence of self.
In this view the ‘self is used as a structural unit consisting of many attitudes,’ perceptions and beliefs of an individual relating to himself. The ‘ego’ on the other hand is perceived as another unit primarily involving instrumental activities connected with the development of the self, its enhancement, etc.
Ausubel makes a distinction preferring to restrict the term self to a cluster of perceptual and cognitive components, whereas the ‘ego’ is considered to be more inclusive, including in addition, effectively charged variables or components like values, attitudes and sentiments. Ausubel further proceeds to indicate that the ‘self’ and the ‘ego’ together constitute the personality.
We have, in the above paragraphs, given the reader some idea of the controversy and divergence of views in studying and understanding the self. Taking into account this controversy, Allport came out with the suggestion that both the terms mentioned be discarded and instead suggested the term ‘proprium’. But it may be seen that much of this controversy is not relevant to the interests of modern social psychologists.
Social psychologists today are primarily interested in studying and understanding the concept of self in relation to the issue of how an individual develops a sense of personal and social identity and individuality which in turn results in selective, consistent, stable and continuous behaviour.
More than this, in the light of the clinical evidence available and also evidence from experiments in social psychology, the social psychologist is interested in how failure to develop a proper ‘self can result in maladjusted behaviour and dysfunctional behaviour. This is the view of leading social psychologists like Newcomb, Secord and others.
In-spite of the variations, there are some points of agreement, the most important being that the ‘self’ is not innate and that it develops and evolves as a result of social interaction with varied individuals and agencies starting from infancy.
Here, it has been found that while novel or new interactions and interactions concerned with affective process and need gratification play a more crucial role in the development of the self, repetitive interactions or passive interactions do not appear to be very crucial. In psychoanalytic terms the’ self arises and grows in the process of ‘reality distinction’.
It is agreed that the formation of the self is not a case of the development of a unitary structure. It is a result of development marked by various stages characterised by different types of qualitative differences. It develops first as a distinct sense of one’s body and its parts from its surroundings.
It becomes progressively a more complex conceptual system, consisting of evaluative categories with associated traits or attributes. New acquisitions, qualities (e.g.., adolescence, old age, acquisition of new interpersonal roles and social status) continue to be incorporated in the system during the lifespan as observed by Murphy, Snugg and Combs and others.
We may now perhaps attempt an answer to the question-what is self? A review of the various studies and views on the concept of self appears to suggest that the best way of looking at the ‘self is to view it as a system of interrelated dynamic components which we may call as attitudes.
For our purpose here attitude may be satisfactorily defined as internal predisposition in an individual, acquired through experience, which makes him selectively respond to stimuli from the environment, experience certain emotional states or feelings in their presence and further be motivated or impelled by these predispositions to respond to or react in a particular manner.
In this context, some psychologists have even talked of ‘selves’ rather than a single ‘self to highlight the multi-dimensional and complex nature of the self. Among such writers was William James. More recently, certain other theorists from the angle of personality research and clinical psychology, like Murray, have also used concepts like ‘actual self, ‘ideal self, ‘moral self and so on.
But for the purpose of the discussion of the concept of ‘self in this article and also keeping in mind the more recent trends of thinking among contemporary social psychologists, we may use the term ‘self in a generic sense rather than talk of ‘selves’. In the light of the above the description of the self by Sheriff appears to be relevant.
According to Sheriff, ‘self is a developmental formulation in the psychological make-up of the individual consisting of inter-related attitudes that the individual has acquired in relation to his body and its parts, his capacities and to objects, persons, family, groups, social values, goals and institutions which define and regulate his relatedness to them in concrete situations and activities’.
The components or attitudes involved are usually strong in affective terms or intensity and are fairly specific in direction, and relate to people and issues indicating most favourable or un-favourable relations. They often reflect an individual’s deeply cherished inclinations, commitments and a high degree of involvement.
Needless to say, when such attitudes mediate or intervene in specific interactions or activities, the latter are likely to be influenced by the characteristics of these attitudes like direction and intensity, which results in consistency, stability and predictability of behaviour.
Under such conditions we may describe the behaviour as ‘involved’ behaviour. Human, social interactions show varying degrees of involvement. Tension-reduction interactions and habitual responses do not indicate much of a degree of involvement whereas unusual reactions or situations, complex situation or situations where one’s stakes are high tend to result in high degree of involvement.
The role and influence of the ‘self is directly related to the degree of involvement. Perhaps, one may describe it the other way also. When ‘self attitudes enter the picture this results in a high degree of involvement. Thus, the self attitudes provide the individualistic component in behaviour, particularly social behaviour.
The loss of individuality, loss of direction, ritualism and other forms of behaviour, is evident in certain clinical groups where it has been found that the ‘self formation has been faulty or inadequate and provides a strong evidence for understanding the importance of the self.
Essay # 2. Concept of Self:
The concept of self was also invoked to analyse and explain social behaviour. In the early days of psychology no clear-cut distinction was made between individual behaviour and social behaviour.
Dynamically oriented psychologists like Allport, Murray and Rogers who were pioneers in dealing with the concept of self did not make a distinction between individual behaviour in a non-social situation and in a social situation. In their view, every behavioural act is a total molar and meaningful act embedded in the subjective personality system or the self-system in a person.
According to the views of these psychologists, the individual was the centre of analysis. It was only subsequently with the emergence and development of the social learning theories, particularly of the stimulus response (S-R) hue, that concepts like self, personality etc. were relegated to the background in favour of concepts like drives, reinforcement, etc.
Very soon however, it was realised that terms like self, personality, ego, etc., cannot be permanently kept out in an examination and analysis of social behaviour, excepting at the cost of losing sight of obvious truth. It was against this background that the concept of self made a re-entry into social psychology, though, perhaps, in a changed form and with a changed meaning.
According to Rotter the term self has been employed in psychology with three different connotations:
(a) A wholistic gestalt view which emphasises internal and subjective experiences including self-evaluation. Here the term self means, an agency which is internal and which influences, mediates and moderates behaviour including social behaviour.
(b) A second view tends to hold all behaviour as a consequence of the dynamic processes and interactions among the different aspects of the self or personality. The typical example of such an approach is the classical psychoanalytic view of behaviour as resulting from the dynamic interactions among the forces of the id, the ego and the superego.
This type of view is also reflected in the self theories of Rogers, Lecky and many others. (These views employ concepts like self-consistency, self-congruence, self-ideal discrepancy, as primary motivating factors in human behaviour, social behaviour).
(c) A third view holds that the self itself is a force which motivates the organism and initiates action directed towards integration, actualization or expression. Classical Jungian views and even the Maslowian concept of self-actualization belong to this category.
According to this approach, motivation and goal direction of behaviour are entirely attributed to the ‘self as an internal entity in the individual life. Such a view probably is in agreement with the concept of self found in our own traditional Upanishads.
All these different conceptualizations of the self have been used in explaining social behaviour. While many of these approaches which have employed the concept of the self in explaining social behaviour, have been traditional, descriptive, and analytical, more recent theories and approaches which are inclined towards empirical and experimental studies of social behaviour have also employed the concept of self but with different meanings.
More than the concept of self as such, they use self-derived and self-related concepts like self-esteem, self-perception and objective self-awareness and many other terms.
Thus, the self-concept continues to occupy an important place in contemporary social psychology though in a form far different from the traditional views. The ‘self’ therefore has returned to centre stage of psychology after being discarded. The return has been very grand.
Essay # 3. Need for the Concept of Self:
Terms like soul, self and spirit have occupied a prominent place in the discussions and writings of the logicians, philosophers and students of religion. Religious texts are full of discussions about the nature of ‘self and ‘soul’.
The Upanishads and the Bhagavad-Gita deal extensively with the concept of self. But, in all these discussions the concept of self was mostly employed in a metaphysical sense and in the context of understanding the essential nature of man and his relationship with the ‘cosmic self or the ‘ultimate self etc. But even here some of the discussions, particularly in the Upanishadic texts looked at the self from a functional point of view.
The self was often described in such terms as ‘seer’, ‘doer’ etc. hinting at some of the problems which have been analysed and studied in relation to the self, in contemporary psychology.
Though some of the early psychologists like William James, Baldwin and also sociologists like Coolie and Mead took a very active interest in describing and analysing the term ‘self in terms of its development and functions, scientific psychology in its initial stages out of its obsession to imitate physics, chemistry and physiology shunned the use of the term ‘self particularly because of the phobia that it may lead psychology away from the objective method and result in subjective and speculative analysis.
William James analysed the self in terms of its elements or parts including bodily features, behavioural characteristics, abilities and skills, desires and aspirations and also social affiliations and arriving at certain skills of maintaining self-esteem. He also made reference to the self being influenced by what one feels about ‘others evaluation of oneself. James interesting formula for arriving at a person’s self-esteem was
Self-esteem = Success/Pretensions
Subsequently a number of psychologists who may be identified by various terms like personal psychologists, ideographic psychologists and many others as Calkins, Stem, and Allport have tried to reintroduce the concept of self in psychology particularly in clinical psychology and social psychology and of course in studying personality.
Why do we need a concept of self? One of the characteristics of human behaviour is that it is total, meaningful, stable and consistent except in case where a person is mentally disturbed. If we analyse behaviour into various units or elements, still there remains the significant problem of explaining and understanding the integration, stability and continuity, often over years, in human behaviour.
Apart from this, it is also seen that our behaviour is very often guided by both situational conditions and basic needs. A person who is feeling hungry does not eat anything and everything because he is hungry. He may like to eat the proper food at the proper place and at the proper time.
Similarly, in most of our activities we find certain basic stabilising influences and considerations of a psychological nature emerging from within the individual and influencing our actual behaviour. Phenomena like these necessitate a concept like ‘self, otherwise human behaviour can very often be a mess.
Fortunately, it is not so in many instances. Many instances of individual differences in behaviour are also explained by a concept like self Two or three people under the same situation behave differently.
One person is ready to fall at somebody’s feet and flatter him however worthless the latter may be to attain personal ends; whereas others refuse to bow down to mediocres. The lives of Socrates, Galileo and other people who were prepared to die rather than give up their convictions are standing examples.
Many of our social restraints are sustained because of the role played by the concept of ‘self. Thus it may be seen that the ‘self concept helps us to understand many characteristics of human behaviour like ‘totality’, ‘meaningfulness’, ‘stability’, ‘continuity’ and ‘individuality’ and also the bizarre nature of behaviour of those who are severely disturbed mentally and in whom the self is disturbed.
Essay # 4. Significance of the Self:
The wide ranging and crucial role of the self in the behaviour of the individual has come to be recognised increasingly. The influence of the ‘self on behaviour operates both consciously and unconsciously and is much more noticeable where motivated and need satisfying interactions are involved, and also in situations where there is a choice.
In the words of Shoben, in any case self involved behaviour seems close to impossible to explain on the basis of a tension reduction model, and postulation of self-involvement seems necessary to account for the pursuit of long-term goals, so typical of human motivation’.
While the role of self is more prominent in goal-directed activities, its role and influence extend to many other spheres of activity like perceiving, thinking, learning and other cognitive processes and of course in many complex activities like decision-making.
Needless to say, goal setting and even task performance are known to be influenced by the self Adjustive and coping behaviour of varied kinds are also influenced by the self There is considerable evidence from the clinical side for this.
Thus, choice of behaviour, consistency, integration, continuity and a number of attributes of human actions seem to be very much influenced by the self in the words of Sheriff, “in brief, the growing interest in a self-concept reflects the search for integrating concepts, particularly motivation, where empirical work has tended to be fragmentary”.
Studying motivation in isolation from personality has lead to a very strange situation. It has fallen short in providing an adequate account of human motivation. The self enters into the operation of human motives as a regulative factor. So too the self enters into other psychological processes.
Involvement of the self in these processes is reflected in the consistency and continuity of behaviour in a person. In fact self-involvement in particular aspects of the kaleidoscopic stimulus world is the basis for the experience of continuity in personal identity.
It is evident that continuity, integration, consistency and identity are the most crucial characteristics of social behaviour. Any attempt at prediction and control of social behaviour depends on an understanding of these processes for its success. The more complex the social interaction, the greater is the relevance of the above characteristics.
It is the self which gives an individuality to a person particularly in his social behaviour. Further, the behavioural processes, like perceiving, thinking and decision making form the foundations of social behaviour. Needless to say, long-term goal-setting is the most typical hallmark of social behaviour and the role of the self here is critical.
Essay # 5. Development and Formation of the Self:
The self, is entirely a product of learning and experience. Self-formation and development go hand in hand with the general psychological development and growth, including physical growth. The development of the self is again a very integral part of the process of socialisation.
One of the pioneering attempts to deal with the process of development and formation of self was that of the distinguished sociologist G H Mead. In his classical work, ‘Mind, Self and Society’, Mead made attempts to examine the process of the development of the self. This approach may be characterised as ‘dynamic interactional’.
The self, according to Mead, arises and develops as a result of social interaction. Every individual, as he grows, enters into a greater number and variety of interactions. As a result of these interactions, two types of perceptions arise in the individual about himself.
The first set is what he calls the T perceptions and the second the ‘Me’ perceptions. The student can perhaps guess the difference between these two types of perceptions. In the course of a series of interactions with the others and also as he grows and also as the variety of interactions expand, the child learns to look at itself from two angles, one from his own angle, as he perceives himself, i.e. himself as the subject.
These perceptions are known as “I” perceptions. At the same time, he also learns to look at himself through the eyes of others and other important persons whom Sullivan would describe as ‘significant adults’ i.e., the individual learns to look at himself as he believes others are looking at him. These are called “Me” perceptions.
Over a period of time and with repeated interactions we find the emergence of a generalized and integrated ‘I’ and also a generalized and integrated ‘Me’. Further integration takes place and ultimately form the generalized ‘Me’ and the generalized ‘I’ emerges as an integrated concept of ‘self.
The effectiveness of the individual depends on whether he or she, succeeds in reaching this stage, where the discrepancies between the generalized and the ‘I’ generalized ‘Me’ are minimal. Some writers would probably refer to the former as ‘subjective self and the latter as ‘objective self.
Here it may be noticed that even the objective self evolves out of subjective perceptions and understanding. Hence our understanding of ‘others perceptions of ourselves’ is invariably influenced to some extent or other by subjective elements.
It has been shown in this context that one of the most significant factors in the development of the self is interaction with other children or peer groups, where all are equal. Peer group relations are usually based on equality and reciprocity and this helps the child to arrive at a more valid and stable picture of himself.
The studies of Piaget have produced ample evidence to this effect. Another point that may be noted here is that while the formation of the ‘self is a continuous process, at the same time, there are some critical stages in human life which are crucial. This is because during these periods the individual is subject to critical bodily changes and also consequent social expectations.
Two such periods are, the transition from childhood to adulthood, or ‘adolescence’ and old age. The former corresponds to what Freud would call the ‘latency period’ or what Sullivan would describe as the ‘juvenile era’. The interaction between the subjective self or the ‘I’ and the objective self invariably results in a continuous process of evaluation of the both.
This process of development gets facilitated by another factor. The older child by virtue of his membership in the peer group gets an opportunity to validate the ‘I’ and ‘Me’. We may here make a reference to Sullivan’s concepts of ‘reflected appraisals’ and ‘consensual validations’.
According to Sullivan these two processes are very crucial in the formation of the self. The former involves evaluation by the individual of himself in retrospect, thinking back and the latter involves evaluation against outside criteria like reactions of others.
Such processes result in greater integration, consistency and continuity of behaviour. If the environment of the child does not permit the operation of such evaluative behaviour then the result is a defective, disturbed or distorted self.
While the above account gives a general schematic idea of the process of self-development or self-formation, it should be borne in mind that the actual pace and manner of development varies from group to group and individual to individual.
The earliest awareness of self finds expression through an experienced and expressed distinction of one’s own physical body from the surroundings and what has sometimes been referred to as the ‘Me’ and ‘not Me’. This may be described as what Murphy would refer to as the ‘perceptual stage’.
Thus the initial stage in the development of the self is a sense of physical identity of one’s own body as an entity independent of and separate from the environment. Perhaps, in reaching this stage there may not be much of individual or group differences unless there are marked variations in the early socialisation processes particularly weaning behaviour.
But, once the individual crosses this stage, a number of factors like the amount of interaction with others, the variety of interactions, the reactions of others like parents in terms of acceptance, rewarding, punishing, approving, criticising of these assume importance. The impact of such social interaction and reaction is very crucial to the development of self.
Essay # 6. Acquisition of Language in the Process of Self-Development:
A real milestone in the process of self-development is the acquisition of language, particularly spoken language. This achievement is very significant from the point of view of the development of the self during the later stages. Language serves as a very powerful tool in enabling the person to arrive at primary representations and conceptualizations.
The early ‘perceptual self-identity’ based on a distinction of one’s body from external reality gradually got modified and transformed into evaluative classifications and categorisation of one’s own body and its various parts, resulting in what is known as ‘body image’.
The ‘body image’ incorporates within it a number of attitudes favourable or unfavorable towards one’s own body as a result of verbal interaction and representation. Increased ability for verbal behaviour contributes to a greater degree of consistency and also generality. Language helps in abstraction and also the ‘living’ of a particular situation in its absence both retrospectively and prospectively.
A review by Sheriff and Sheriff of a number of studies has shown that consistency in competing with others, in cooperating with others, in expressing sympathy at another’s distress, in responsibility for self and others and in setting goals for one’s own performance, appear gradually as the child participates in social and cooperative forms of play in contrast to the earlier side by side or parallel play.
The process definitely is made possible to a considerable degree by verbal interaction. Gradually, apart from consistency, one also moves towards continuity as the time perspective expands and concern with the immediate perspective gives way to an extended view involving past, present and future. Once again verbal ability and verbal interactions are very important.
As described by Kurt Lewin, the life space expands in three dimensions, space, time and reality- irreality. The points of reference cease to be confined to the immediate present or the concrete here and now. This expansion of the life space also results in gradual expansion and differentiation of the self itself.
Essay # 7. Self and Social Behaviour:
The role of the self in the context of ‘individual behaviour’, in terms of integration, consistency and continuity and that the importance of the self for social behaviour has not been made very clear as seen in the case of the manic- depressives where at one phase the individual is highly excited, feels on top of the world and resulting in ideas of grandeur.
The other phase of depression shows the opposite features of self-deprecation, blaming oneself etc. McDougall’s theory of sentiments and his explanation of manic-depressive pathology on the basis of inadequate integration of self-assertion and self-submission may not be very acceptable today.
But, certainly his concept of self-regard was the forerunner of many later concepts and research. Another leading theorist of a later date, Cattell, employing more sophisticated and complex analysis of personality also postulated a concept ‘self-sentiment’.
More recently, another term, ‘self-esteem’ has come into existence and has been studied extensively, particularly in relation to different forms of social behaviour. People who can be classified into ‘low esteem group’, ‘high esteem group’ etc., have been compared to see whether there are significant differences in their social behaviour patterns and whether one could draw the social behaviour profile of such groups differing in the level of self-esteem.
Essentially, the term self-esteem refers to the way in which an individual evaluates himself in relation to others, on a number of criteria like achievement, success, capacity, etc. In brief, self-esteem may be described as the degree to which a person likes himself and rates himself as capable, satisfactory, etc.
How does a person evaluate himself or how does self-esteem develop?
Certainly this depends on one’s experiences of success or failure. A person who has met with only failures in his various experiences perhaps will have a low degree of self-esteem. But, here again, standards of comparison are derived from cultural and social roots.
According to Festinger’s Social Comparison Theory, people in general evolve their own implicit or explicit standards of comparison based on their observation of performance and behaviour and those whom they otherwise consider their peers or equals. A number of studies have demonstrated the role of such comparisons in evaluating oneself.
The norms and values held in a particular culture or society do also influence one’s self-esteem. Certainly, in a society which lays emphasis on individualism, achievement and success, the standards of comparison are likely to be higher. Similarly, in modern societies, individuals occupying higher social positions have been found to show a higher degree of self-esteem by Himmelweit.
The earlier trends in American societies was that individuals belonging to minority groups tended to be lower in self-esteem, but such trends have been shown to be disappearing as found by Lensing & Zagorun. Some studies like those of Fey, Riese and others have shown that people who are popular and liked tend to have a higher degree of self-esteem than people who are unpopular and not liked.
In their classical investigations Sears, Maccoby and Lewin suggested that the degree of self-esteem or self-approval-disapproval, to a large extent depends on how early an individual recognises the standards employed by others for approving or disapproving one’s conduct, action, achievement, etc.
Essay # 8. Self Related Issues:
(i) Self-Esteem:
Self-esteem assumes significance for understanding social behaviour in view of the fact that it has been shown to be an influential factor associated with different categories of social behaviour. A person’s willingness to interact with others, itself has been shown to be related to the degree of self-esteem.
On the other hand, sometimes individuals with low self-esteem may actually engage in compensatory arrogant and aggressive behaviour which can be obnoxious and irritating, particularly in small group situations. Apart from this, studies have also shown that the degree of ‘self-esteem’ is related to susceptibility to stress, rigidity, resistance to change, persuasion and different kinds of social behaviour.
An important characteristic of ‘self-esteem’ is that it is motivating. Very often people resort to defensive behaviour to maintain their self-esteem. This has been particularly pointed out in studies relating to behaviour where we attribute characteristics to others.
Investigations in the field of attribution behaviour, have pointed to the role of self-esteem in influencing ego defensive attribution behaviour as reported by Heider; Jones & Davis, Kelly and others. Thus we see that esteem as a characteristic process associated with self ‘formulation’ and ‘functioning’ is of significant importance in analysing and understanding social behaviour.
(ii) Reference Groups:
Our concept of self is very much related to the environment. The process of self-formation is very much influenced by the environment, events in the environment and other people. Thus an important factor here is the ‘reference group’ or groups. Reference group or groups as described by Sherif and Sherif are categories of people to whom people relate themselves psychologically.
These may be age groups, socio-economic groups, church affiliation groups, religious groups, interest groups etc. In complex differentiated societies the self concept has points of anchorage in different sub-groups.
When a person is asked to answer the question ‘who am ‘I’ the normal response starts with the name and identity in terms of social classification, identifying him and placing him in a particular category as reported by Kuhn & Mcfarland.
The psychological implications of this is that the self-image of an individual is influenced by the characteristics of the group to which he refers himself to, whether he belongs to that category or not. Thus, most people in modem society are influenced by so called middle-class values, whether they actually belong there or not.
The concept of reference groups therefore helps us to explain and account for many of the self-characteristics and identifying the people with whom an individual relates himself.
In the words of Sherif when the person locates himself within a set or group of people, the relative status of the group in the social organization and his own position within it serve as standards (anchors) for appraisals of performance by himself and others.
An effect of this anchoring on particular group standards is a resulting stabilisation of performance, self-confidence and various other behavioural characteristics. Allport, Sherif and Carter, Seigal and Seigel have reported that attitudes of a person tend to taper towards the attitudes of a group if that group also is a reference group.
Individual differences in importance or value attached to the various components of self-esteem are to a large extent traceable to reference groups. Thus in many instances attitude change or behaviour change becomes possible only if we can understand the reference groups or reference set of the individual. Reference group relations often involve high ego involvement and can result in resistance to change.
(iii) Self-Radius:
Closely related to the issue of ‘reference group’ or self-set is the ‘self- radius’. Reference groups play a central role in determining one’s behaviour and evaluation of one’s behaviour. But over and above the fact of reference, each one’s self extends a little beyond the reference group’s.
Thus, while self-esteem and also approval and disapproval of behaviour may be determined and influenced by one’s immediate reference group like family, peer groups, etc., at the same time self is also influenced by groups and issues and events a little more distant both in space and also psychologically.
Such influence, concern and involvement may be only personal and may not influence actual behaviour. Most of us are disturbed by acts of violence, discrimination and other forms of barbarity going on in different parts of the world. Thus when a large number of young people were mercilessly shot by the Chinese Communist regime, a few years ago when they were agitating for democratic rights, we were upset.
Many of us were disturbed by the famine conditions in Somalia, when we see the photographs in newspapers and magazines. Similarly, many of us feel happy and also share the sense of achievement, when somebody in a far off place achieves something great like landing on the moon or conquering the Mount Everest. This phenomenon of the extension of one’s self-involvement and concern varies from person to person in its extensity and distance.
Some people have a less extended involvement and some people a more extended involvement. Thus the psychological extent of one’s concern and sensitivity or involvement is known as ‘self-radius’. Some people are least disturbed or concerned about things and events which happen somewhere and do not have any immediate concern for them. Such people are more circumscribed in their lives.
The greater the self-radius, the more is the person’s concern and involvement with events and happenings further away. Great personalities like Buddha, Christ, and Mother Theresa were concerned about events and issues concerning entire humanity and their self-radius was very high. On the other hand people with narrow moral values and prejudices, who are dogmatic have a much shorter ‘self-radius’.
Another variation of this radius belongs to the time dimension. Some individuals are very proud of the ancient culture and heritage of the society than others whereas others are not. Some individuals are more bothered about events, things and remote happenings of both past and future, while others have more concern with things in the immediate present.
A child is more concerned and involved about events and things ‘here and now’ compared to an adult. The term self-radius then represents a person’s perspective varying from proximate to distant and also varying on the past, present, future continuum.
Thus people with global and universal outlook have a much longer self-radius than most of us. While an extended self-radius may not always influence our behaviour, it certainly has an emotional impact on us.
(iv) Self-Values:
Values are vectors or variables which influence our behaviour. Values are very close to our ‘selves’. While other variables like attitudes may not be very close to the self-concept, our values very often become part of our self-system.
Some psychologists even make a distinction between self-values and social values. Values have been shown to influence our personal behaviour, choice reactions, responses, etc. Honesty, openness, integrity, etc., are examples of personal values which become integral parts of one’s self-system.
(v) Self-Disclosure:
In recent years, psychologists who have been interested in dealing with personality problems and also concerned with bringing about changes in behaviour, values, motives and attitudes of others have found that many such changes become possible effectively only if an individual’s self-system is involved.
The concept of ‘self-disclosure’ has been brought into use in this context, by Rokeach while dealing with the problem of bringing about changes in values. Rokeach has developed a technique which uses the concept of self-disclosure.
This implies that a person who wishes to bring about value changes and attitude changes in others can achieve greater success by making himself open and disclosing himself. Such disclosure of oneself has been found to have greater impact on behaviour change, attitudes and values.