The Self, Identity, Emotion, and Personality

The Self

  • Self: all the characteristics of a person. Adolescents have a stronger sense of self and uniqueness compared to children.
  • An adolescent’s developing sense of self and uniqueness, whether real or imagined, serves as a motivating force.

Self-Understanding and Understanding Others

  • Self-understanding is not entirely internal but is a social cognitive construction.
  • Self-understanding: an individual’s cognitive representation of the self, including the substance and content of self-conceptions.

Self-Understanding in Adolescence

  • Dimensions of adolescents’ self-understanding:
    • Abstraction and idealism
    • Differentiation
    • The fluctuating self
    • Contradictions within the self
    • Real versus ideal, true versus false selves
    • Possible self: what individuals might become, what they would like to become, and what they are afraid of becoming
    • Social comparison
    • Self-consciousness
    • Self-protection
    • The unconscious self
    • Not yet a coherent, integrated self

Self-Understanding in Emerging Adulthood and Early Adulthood

  • Self-understanding becomes more integrative in emerging adulthood.
  • Gisela Labouvie-Vief: self-development involves increased self-reflection and decisions about a specific worldview.
    • Includes developing self-awareness and reflection on possible selves.
    • Self-awareness: awareness of psychological makeup

Self-Understanding and Social Contexts

  • Adolescents' self-understanding can vary across relationships and social roles.
  • Multiple selves of ethnically diverse youth reflect experiences in navigating family, peers, school, and community.
  • Difficulty moving between worlds can lead to alienation and other problems.

Perceiving Others’ Traits

  • Teenagers develop a more sophisticated understanding of others as complex beings with public and private faces.
  • Perspective taking: the ability to assume other people’s perspective and understand their thoughts and feelings
  • Social cognitive monitoring becomes increasingly important.

Self-Esteem and Self-Concept

  • Susan Harter distinguishes between self-esteem and self-concept.
    • Self-esteem: the global evaluative dimension of the self; also referred to as self-worth or self-image.
    • Self-concept: domain-specific evaluations of the self.
  • Investigators sometimes use the terms interchangeably or do not precisely define them.

Measuring Self-Esteem and Self-Concept

  • Harter developed the Self-Perception Profile for Adolescents to measure self-esteem.
    • Assesses eight domains: scholastic competence, athletic competence, social acceptance, physical appearance, behavioral conduct, close friendship, romantic appeal, and job competence, plus global self-worth.
  • Some experts suggest using multiple methods to measure self-esteem.
    • Including self-reporting, ratings by others, and observations of behavior in various settings.

Behavioral Indicators of Self-Esteem

  • Positive Indicators:
    • Giving directives or commands
    • Using appropriate voice quality
    • Expressing opinions
    • Sitting with others during social activities
    • Working cooperatively in a group
    • Maintaining eye contact during conversation
    • Initiating friendly contact with others
    • Maintaining comfortable space between self and others
    • Speaking fluently with little hesitation
  • Negative Indicators:
    • Putting down others by teasing, name-calling, or gossiping
    • Using dramatic or out-of-context gestures
    • Engaging in inappropriate touching or avoiding physical contact
    • Giving excuses for failures
    • Bragging excessively about achievements, skills, appearance
    • Verbally putting self down; self-deprecation
    • Speaking too loudly, abruptly, or in a dogmatic tone

Self-Esteem: Perception and Reality

  • Self-esteem reflects perceptions that may not always match reality.
  • Narcissism: a self-centered and self-concerned approach toward others.
    • Lack of awareness contributes to adjustment problems.
    • Narcissistic adolescents were more aggressive when shamed in one study.
    • Vulnerable narcissism: excessive self-absorption, introversion, and insecurity.
    • Grandiose narcissism: exaggerated sense of superiority, extroversion, and domineering behavior.
    • It is controversial whether recent generations of adolescents (