Self-concept is basically how somebody perceives himself or herself. Self-concept is formed in many way, such as how somebody dresses, how they interact with other people, how they talk, basically everything a person does whether is be social or non-social forms their self-concept. Self-concept also goes deeper than that. Not just interacting can form self-concept but also how other people treat you and interact with you. If somebody puts you down constantly you are more likely to act differently around that person or even change your whole appearance or attitude to try and change that persons opinion of you. When this happens you have a different view of yourself and the self-concept is then changed, most likely not for the better in this case.
I would probably characterize my self-concept as “”a strong one. I’m not saying that I don’t doubt myself from time to time, I think everybody does that, but for the most part I know who I am and who I’m not. There is things that it try to hide from other people for sake of embarrassment, but I try really hard not to let it bother me and for the most part it doesn’t but there are times when the thought of somebody thinking of me differently or in a slightly negative way scares me, so I go into a “protective” mode and hide things. It’s not hiding things that are objects or possessions, just certain things about me that I don’t think other people would like, for instance my weight. I truly believe that there is a lot of people out there that may think I’m “fat”, “overweight” or something like that, and these labels most of the time make me do things differently, like for instance it will make me change what I’m wearing. I’ll wear clothes that are probably a little baggier so it will cover it up, stuff like that. I mentioned before that I believe that I have a strong self-concept. The reason I say that I do is that not many things can get me into a bad mood. I’m a very “happy person”. I like to joke around a lot, make other people laugh, I like interacting with other people playing sports on teams where teamwork is very key and not communication with the teammates can hurt the team. Things like that make me say what I said about my self-concept.
There are things that I need to work on with interacting. If I’m in a situation with a lot of people that I don’t know or don’t know that well, I have a hard time starting a conversation. This I know is a step back in my communication skills and would definitely broadcast to other people that I’m either shy, don’t like talking, stuff like that. I’m sure it does. Also, talking in front of large crowds or in front of classes makes me nervous. I’m not sure why, but I have ideas why I get nervous. The line of work that I’m in I have to interact all the time with people that I’ve never met before, but for some reason when I stand up in front of the audience I’m stuttering, pausing and generally nervous. There are times where I know inside of me that I could stand up and give an awesome speech, or presentation, but when the time comes I either don’t volunteer to go up or when I’m up in front all my motivation just disappears.
All in all I would have to rate my self-concept fairly high for the reasons I’ve mentioned previously. After writing this paper I’ve uncovered things about my self-concept that I wouldn’t have noticed unless I was more or less examining it and “dissecting” it.” Another thing that I’ve noticed is that a lot of things contribute to self-concept and how delicate it really is. Self-concept is something that though out our life will keep changing over and over, maybe not dramatically, but in some way or another it will and we don’t really have too much control over it.