Allport ( 1937 ) : A Self Enhancement Theory

The NHS define self-esteem as being the opinion each individual has of themselves. NHS, (2015). It is the self-image and self –respect of an individual’s perception of themselves. Roshahl.c, (2008). This assignment is going to discuss the six factors that affect self-esteem. These factors are the growth promoting climate, the looking glass self, self-actualisation, ego identity, social identity and finally, the constructing of self-concept. Maslow stated that people are motivated to achieve certain needs. When one need is fulfilled a person seeks to fulfil the

Humans have a fundamental tendency to seek positive information of themselves, namely engage in self-enhancing (Sedikides, 1993; Swann, Pelham, & Krull, 1989). However, individuals are also motivated to seek the subjective truth of themselves, namely engage in self-verifying. (Sedikides, 1993; Swann et al., 1989). Simultaneously, individuals struggle and deject to seek objective and accurate truth of themselves, namely engage in self-assessing (Sedikides, 1993). Self-assessment can occur through the process of self-awareness, where individuals become conscious about their behavior and thoughts and regulate according to their internal standards and values (Huggon, 2014).

People are created uniquely and different one to another, which results in character and personality differences. The needs of socialising and workplace purposes, such as career development and organisation effectiveness have ‘forced’ people to be more aware and understand their potentials through self-analysis. It requires people to assess themselves as an object in particular event or experience, which enables people to gain self-awareness (De Janasz, Wood, Gottschalk, Dowd, and Schneider, 2007, p.8). Self-awareness is the ability of an individual in assessing others’ evaluations of self and incorporate those evaluations in one self-evaluation, which then would help determine his

Self-Esteem can be harmful and make people very self centered, but others lack confidence and need a boost of self-esteem. Self-esteem is a very important factor in various reasons that happens in people’s daily life. With no type of thought people don’t think or take self-esteem with importance without realizing that self-esteem is a huge thing that us humans depend for our daily activities. Some shifts that have happened toward self- esteem over the past few decades were the fact that many people don’t really get an effect of having a boost of self-esteem in order for them to reach success. Therefore, self-esteem is not important in the success of individuals but it is important in their well being and psychological health.

The concept of self esteem is widespread in life. When it comes to academics and extracurricular actives people associate high self esteem is necessary for success. Society makes promoting self esteem an important goal. With that in mind, it is surprising that only recently scientific literature began providing insight into the nature of development of self esteem.

Humans are judgmental creatures. One of our most significant philosophy is “not judging a book by its cover”, which examines our habit to judge. We did not purposely develop this questionable characteristic; we seem to have been with this evolutionary trait. We judge everything as a survival instinct to protect ourselves; the perception we create from our personal opinions determine whether we believe something is friendly or foe. As with everything, we judge ourselves, and we tend to be our biggest critic. We constantly judge ourselves, but why? People have referred to this type of judgement as self-esteem. Self-esteem is measured by how positive we view ourselves: the more positive our perception of our self, the higher our self-esteem and

Finally, the specific attribute of someone we praise contributes to their internal motivation as well. A study performed either praised students for their intelligence or their effort. Children praised for intelligence cared less about learning and had less task persistence and performance. Those who were praised for their effort cared more about learning, and showed more motivation. This experiment showed that praise for intelligence has more negative outcomes than positive (Mueller and Dweck, 1998). Another study tested if both criticism and praise on ones traits contributed to contingent worth. Participants were given one of three types of praise or criticism. Those receiving person-focused praise or criticism were more negative and helpless which created a sense of contingent self-worth and vulnerability (Kamins and Dweck, 1999).

Bettering oneself is excellent and much-needed for a happy and successful life. However, if people constantly compare themselves to others, the betterment they have achieved is counteracted. No longer is the change for the individual person, but it is a change to mold into the conformity of society. Seeking change to please oneself and seeking change to please others are two different ideologies.

The self-concept is how we think about and evaluate ourselves. To be aware of oneself is to have a concept of oneself.Positive reinforcement refers to positive events or consequences that follow a behavior and strengthen it (Zastrow Kirst-Ashman, 2010, p.169). Successful positive reinforcement results in a behavior occurring more frequently in the future. It can make learning fun, increase participation and cooperation, and help children learn valuable skills. Because of their mobility, children need constant supervision. Their interest in exploration, falling down, and getting into dangerous situations are all constant possibilities (Zastrow Kirst-Ashman, 2010, p.67). Baumeister provides the following self-concept definition the individuals belief about himself or herself, including the persons attributes and who and what the self is (Baumeister, 1999). Its psychological development due to self-evaluation, but its also social development due to the benchmark we judge others by. References Baumeister, R. F. (Ed.) (1999). The Self in Social Psychology. Philadelphia, PA Psychology Press (Taylor Francis). Zastrow, C. H., Kirst-Ashman, K. K. (2010). Understanding Human Behavior and the Social Environment (8th ed.). Mason, OH Cengage Learning Foundations of Human Development Worksheet BSHS/325 Version 1 PAGE MERGEFORMAT 3 Y, i-qN3 (f4Av2l_j-OQ ev)Ur-@V4EjzNp

With a positive start in self-concept, individuals will hold an advantage over their peers as they will not be as susceptible to

Silvia, P., & Duval, T. (2001). Objective self-awareness theory: Recent progress and enduring problems. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 5, 230-241

How do you view yourself? How do you think others view you? These questions are central to the idea of self- concept how you perceive yourself and how you believe others perceive you impacts your thoughts and ideas your actions and reactions. Your-self concept developed over years through your social interactions with your fellow man. It is what you believe to be your strength and weaknesses. Years of self- evaluation and comparisons to your peers helped to paint the internal picture you feel describe your best.

The authors found that self-esteem can be increased via classic conditioning. Consequently, they found that low self-esteem can be raised by applying basic learning principles (Baccus, Baldwin, & Packer, 2004). Their findings support the theory that self-acceptance is influenced by positive feedback from other people. These findings may initiate an effort to research possible methods to increase self-esteem as a means of ridding society of the various social ills that are thought to be caused by low self-esteem. Therefore, future research should also include the effect of the conditioning task on various aspects of social behavior. This in turn, will help determine the amount of influence, if any, that self-esteem has on behavior. The results also suggest that implicit low self-esteem is not permanent and can be modified (Baccus, Baldwin, & Packer, 2004). This provides hope that individuals suffering from implicit low self-esteem can find relief by receiving treatment to increase their self-esteem in an effort to experience a greater sense of well being. This potentially could lead to a method for treating depression.

The ‘better-than-average’ (or BTAE) effect states that certain individuals would evaluate themselves more positively than the average person. Within this, there is argument to suggest that there are both positive and negative implications linked to this theory. The concept of ‘self’ plays a large role in discovering whether these factors affect the individual, whereas social comparison is also a great aspect in understanding how the better-than-average effect can include itself into everyday society, therefore creating an unrealistic divide between different groups.

If one has poor self-concept and sees oneself as unworthy then they will present themselves this way, which will result in a negative response from people. If one feels good about oneself, they will present themselves as worthy, which will result in a more positive response from people. The perceptions, beliefs and attitudes that steam from self-concept, will affect one's social surroundings. One will either come out of a situation with a positive or negative concept of these surroundings. Poor communication can cause one to have a poor perception of oneself. One's emotional state, dislikes, likes values and body image are affected by the opinions of others and can render one to have an inferior and insecure self-concept.