Synonyms
Definition
The self-concept is one’s full set of beliefs about oneself or self-knowledge. It includes beliefs about personal characteristics, such as traits, abilities, values, preferences, and opinions, as well as beliefs about one’s social identities, such as social roles, relationships, and social groups. It is, in essence, the beliefs one can draw on to answer the question, “Who am I?”
Introduction
People generally have little trouble understanding what is meant by “the self” and can recognize continuity in their subjective experiences and identities. But the self is actually quite difficult to define clearly (see Baumeister 1998). What exactly is “the self,” and how might it be studied empirically? Although these are important questions, the self-concept represents only one part of the self and is comparatively easy to define. The self-concept is one’s full set of beliefs about oneself or self-knowledge. The highly developed...
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
References
Baumeister, R. F. (1998). The self. In D. Gilbert, S. T. Fiske, & G. Lindzey (Eds.), Handbook of social psychology (4th ed., pp. 680–740). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Campbell, J. D., & Fehr, B. A. (1990). Self-esteem and perceptions of conveyed impressions: Is negative affectivity associated with greater realism? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58, 122–133.
Cooley, C. H. (1902). Human nature and the social order. New York: Scribner’s.
Festinger, L. (1954). A theory of social comparison processes. Human Relations, 7, 117–140.
Greenwald, A. G. (1980). The totalitarian ego: Fabrication and revision of personal history. American Psychologist, 35, 603–618.
Kihlstrom, J. F., & Cantor, N. (1984). Mental representations of the self. In Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 17, pp. 1–47). San Diego: Academic.
Markus, H. (1977). Self-schemata and processing information about the self. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 35, 63–78.
Markus, H. R., & Kitayama, S. (1991). Culture and the self: Implications for cognition, emotion and motivation. Psychological Review, 98, 224–253.
Markus, H., & Kunda, Z. (1986). Stability and malleability of the self-concept. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 858.
Marsh, H. W. (1987). The big-fish-little-pond effect on academic self-concept. Journal of Educational Psychology, 79, 280–295.
Marsh, H. W., & Craven, R. G. (2006). Reciprocal effects of self-concept and performance from a multidimensional perspective: Beyond seductive pleasure and unidimensional perspectives. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 35, 63–78.
Mead, G. H. (1934). Mind, self, and society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Sedikides, C. (1993). Assessment, enhancement, and verification determinants of the self-evaluation process. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65, 317–338.
Segal, Z. V. (1988). Appraisal of the self-schema construct in cognitive models of depression. Psychological Bulletin, 103, 147–162.
Shrauger, J. S., & Schoeneman, T. J. (1979). Symbolic interactionist view of self-concept: Through the looking glass darkly. Psychological Bulletin, 86, 549–573.
Swann, W. B. (1987). Identity negotiation: Where two roads meet. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53, 1038–1051.
Tajfel, H., & Turner, J. (1986). The social identity theory of intergroup behaviour. In S. Worchel & W. G. Austin (Eds.), The social psychology of intergroup relations (pp. 7–24). Chicago: Nelson-Hall.
Trope, Y. (1986). Self-enhancement and self-assessment in achievement behavior. In R. Sorrentino & E. T. Higgins (Eds.), Handbook of motivation and cognition (Vol. 2, pp. 350–368). New York: Guilford.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Section Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this entry
Cite this entry
Jordan, C.H. (2018). Self-Concept Content. In: Zeigler-Hill, V., Shackelford, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_1160-1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_1160-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-28099-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-28099-8
eBook Packages: Springer Reference Behavioral Science and PsychologyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences