"The self-concept is a factual description of how you perceive yourself. If your perception is distorted, this description may not be an accurate depiction of you, but it IS an accurate statement of what you believe about yourself." Show
Also read: 20 Steps to Better Self-EsteemWe all have a sense of self. Whether that sense of self is positive or negative is based upon our experiences in life and our perceptions and assessment of ourself. If our self assessment was always accurate, I would have no need to write this article. However, the problem is that our perception of ourself is often distorted. Previous experiences can distort this perception. For instance, a person growing up in a perfectionistic family may view herself as always falling short of the expectations of the family. As a result, no matter how successful she might be, she thinks of herself as a failure. Or a boy who is constantly picked on by his older brothers: "How stupid!" or "What a dork!" He may come to believe these labels about himself. Unfortunately, people who believe certain labels will often live up, or live down, to those labels. The labels can create a self-fulfilling prophecy of expectation. He expects himself to be stupid so he never tries to prove otherwise. WHAT IS SELF-CONCEPT?The self-concept is a factual description of how you perceive yourself. If your perception is distorted, this description may not be an accurate depiction of you, but it IS an accurate statement of what you believe about yourself. The self-concept is derived from self-esteem and self-efficacy. If a person has low self-esteem, the self-concept may be skewed in the direction of a negative description. Some aspects of the self-concept may be purely statements of fact such as "I have a college education" or "I don't dance" without any evaluation of whether it is good or bad. In fact, people with a good self-esteem and self-efficacy are often able to recognize their limitations without a judgment attached. For instance, "I don't have a good sense of direction" can be just a statement of fact without feeling good or bad about it. WHAT IS SELF-ESTEEM?Self-esteem is the regard or respect that a person has for oneself. A person with positive feelings regarding the self is said to have high self-esteem. However, self-esteem can refer to very specific areas as well as a general feeling about the self. For instance, a person may have low self-esteem regarding physical attractiveness and high self-esteem about ability to do a job well. WHAT IS SELF-EFFICACY?Self-efficacy is a person's belief in their ability to accomplish some specific goal or task. It generally corresponds to the level of competence an individual feels. Competence can vary from one situation to another. For instance, a person might feel quite capable competing in a particular sport but may not feel competent speaking in front of a group. As a result, overall self-efficacy may not be completely accurate as it is assessing an individual's general feelings of competence across a variety of situations or tasks. WHAT ARE THE CHARACTERISTICS OF LOW SELF-ESTEEM? 1) Feelings of unhappiness. 2) Feelings of anxiety. 3) Feelings of inferiority or superiority. Some people with low self-esteem may present an air of superiority. However, this may be a way of covering how they truly feel about themselves. Or, individuals who have low self-esteem but are perfectionists due to their concern about what others may think of them may appear to others as thinking themselves superior. However, don't make the common mistake and assume that all feelings of superiority are due to low self-esteem. There is another category of people who actually feel they are superior to others, intellectually, financially, or spiritually. However, this group is not the focus of this article. One way to make the distinction is that people who have low self-esteem and feelings of superiority will often have other characteristics of low self-esteem such as unhappiness or anxiety. 4) Impatience or irritation with self or others. 5) Externally oriented goals. 6) Negativity. WHAT ARE CHARACTERISTICS OF HIGH SELF-ESTEEM?To clearly define the characteristics of high self-esteem, I need to make the distinction between an artificially inflated self-esteem and true self-esteem. An artificially inflated self-esteem is an effort to appear to have high self-esteem. However, such individuals don't typically show the following characteristics of people with high self-esteem. Individuals with low self-esteem may have some of the following qualities as well but those with high self-esteem have these characteristics in abundance and with consistency. 1) Responsibility. 2) Goal commitment. 3) Genuineness. 4) Forgiving. 5) Internal values. 6) Positivity. 7) Self-improvement. WHAT ARE THE CHARACTERISTICS OF LOW SELF-EFFICACY? 1)
Fear of risks. 2) Fear of uncertainty. 3) Feelings of failure. 4)
Impression management. WHAT ARE THE CHARACTERISTICS OF HIGH SELF-EFFICACY? 1) Self-confidence. 2) Accurate self-evaluation. 3) Willingness to take risks. 4) Sense of accomplishment. HOW CAN SOMEONE HAVE A GOOD SENSE OF SELF-EFFICACY BUT LOW SELF-ESTEEM?Self-efficacy and self-esteem are similar concepts but they are not the same thing. They do tend to correspond so that a person who is low in one is more likely to be low in the other. But it is also possible to have low self-esteem and yet have high self-efficacy. In fact, since I work with a lot of perfectionists I see this combination frequently. Therefore, someone may tend to be overly-critical and negative about himself and yet see himself as quite capable in certain areas. For instance, he might see himself as uninteresting and unlikeable but see himself as a competent architect. This occurs frequently with perfectionists because they are often competent at tasks with clear guidelines but feel uncertain in situations without clear "rules" such as relationships. HOW CAN SELF-ESTEEM BE IMPROVED? 1) Eliminate negative
self-talk. 2) Recognize strengths. 3) Recognize self-worth. 4) Accept mistakes. 5) Accept rejection. HOW CAN SELF-EFFICACY BE IMPROVED? 1) Develop skill set. 2) Modeling. 3) Focus on specifics. 4) Reinforcement. DON'T MISTAKE POSITIVE THINKING FOR CHANGING THINKING.A common error that people make when trying to increase self-esteem or self-efficacy is what I call the "Saturday Night Live" phenomenon. Most people are acquainted with Al Franken's rendition of Stuart Smalley's self-improvement statements: "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me!" The problem with this type of positive thinking is that it is not believable, therefore it cannot change the self-esteem. My challenge as a therapist working with people with low self-esteem is to develop believable statements. Otherwise my clients are likely to respond with "You're just saying that because you are my therapist." If I make a statement that is believable they are more likely to accept it and use it. And, very simply, a believable statement is one that is true. So the challenge for you in improving your self-esteem is to develop believable statements. Telling yourself "I'm wonderful in every way" is not likely to help. However, you are more likely to change self-esteem if you are able to identify particular strengths such as "I'm a person who is willing to learn about myself and make improvements" or "I have courage because I am facing something that is very difficult for me" or "I am persistent. Even though happiness has eluded me I keep trying." Notice with these statements there are specifics attached to them. They are not general and overly positive. Instead, the statements are realistic with specific reasons why they are true. To change self-esteem, it is necessary to create these types of statements. So, how is this done? STEPS TO CREATE BELIEVABLE STATEMENTS1) Write a negative statement you use to describe yourself. Try to be as fully descriptive as possible with the statement. 2) Identify what is true and what is false about the statement. People will often have difficulty with this step because they don't fully expand the statement. As a result the statement may appear to be true on the surface when it is actually false. Such statements are false because they are implying more that what is actually being stated. So, for example, if you write "I'm fat" you might argue "That statement is true. According to the standards of obesity, I am fat." However, more is being implied by the statement. If this statement affects how you feel about yourself, then your full statement is probably something like "I'm fat and I'm undesirable because I'm fat" or "I'm fat which means I'm weak-willed" or "I'm fat and worthless." As you can see, when the full statement is written out, then it is possible to identify what is true or false about the statement. For example, many people are fat and yet are still desirable. In fact, when I ask people "Have you ever known an overweight woman who is so confident and engaging that she attracts men like flies to honey?" most people respond "Yes, I have." Therefore, we have just demonstrated that being fat doesn't in and of itself cause a person to not be desirable so the idea that being fat makes you undesirable is false. However, the belief that you are not desirable because you are fat is likely to cause you to be undesirable because that belief affects how you relate to others. 3) Re-write your statement using facts. Once you have determine what is false, leave that part out of your statement and add in what is true. Also, it is best to not use negative labels because of what they imply. Instead of using the word "fat" use "overweight" or instead of "stupid" use "lack knowledge." Instead of saying "I'm fat (and all that implies)" you can say "I may be overweight but I present myself well." Or, "I might lack knowledge about that subject but I'm still an intelligent person." 4) Evaluate the statement. A well-written statement should be something with which you can agree or believe, and yet, it makes you feel good about yourself. Once you have evaluated the statement you can use it as an affirmation to help improve your feelings about yourself. The more frequently you use the affirmation, the more quickly you will come to see yourself that way. And the more believable the affirmation, the more likely you are to use it. Copyright © 2011 by Excel At Life, LLC. What are the three elements of selfThey are: Locus of control: the extent to which you feel that your own actions influence the results you achieve. Neuroticism: how well you handle negative emotions such as anxiety and anger. Generalized self-efficacy: your confidence to perform well in a variety of situations.
How is selfWhat is self-evaluation? Simply put, self-evaluation is the ability to examine yourself to find out how much progress you have made. It requires employees to monitor their own abilities and evaluate strengths and weaknesses. It puts employees largely in charge of their own development.
Which best defines core self evaluation?Core self-evaluation (CSE) represents the fundamental appraisals individuals make about their self-worth and capabilities. It represents stable personality construct, including individual subconsciousness and evaluation of one's own abilities and self-control [28].
What is the core self evaluation scale?Core Self Evaluation Scale.
This is a 12-item scale and in this study a 5-point Likert format ranging from 1 (disagree strongly) to 5 (agree strongly) was used. The CSES measures a single factor that is the communality of self-esteem, locus of control, generalized self-efficacy, and emotional stability.
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