Self Help

All the various beliefs and images that go into our self-concepts have one thing in common: None was with us at birth. To be sure, everyone is born with concrete physical characteristics and undiscovered capacities. But no one is born knowing she is male or female, black or white; nor does anyone come into the world already thinking she is stupid or smart, pretty or ugly, shy or outgoing, strong or weak, lovable or unlovable, generally inadequate or basically okay.

As far as ideas and impressions of herself are concerned, the newborn can be said to begin life with a “blank slate.” Just as she later learns that she is a girl, that her hair is black, that her name is Susie Brown and that she is the daughter of John and Mary Brown, so, too, she learns to think of herself as stupid or smart, pretty or ugly, shy or outgoing, strong or weak, lovable or unlovable, generally inadequate or basically okay.

Many of the basic ideas we have about ourselves were acquired prior to adulthood, and from two main sources: how others treated us and what they told us about ourselves. In early infancy, nonverbal communication played the most crucial role: Depending on how much affection, food, touching and physical warmth was received, for example, we as infants obtained general impressions about whether we were loved and worthy. Then with the development of language capacity we began to translate these general impressions into specific words within our minds, and what others told us about ourselves started to have as much impact on our developing self-concepts as how they treated us.

People are deeply influenced by the attitudes of others toward the self and over the course of time, we come to view ourselves essentially as we are viewed by others. As we grew up and learned basic ideas about who we are and what we’re about, each of us also learned strong ideas about who we should be and what we should be like. Whereas our ideas about who we actually are make up the self-concept or perceived or “as is” self, our ideas about who we should be form our ideal self. Typically, we constantly compare our perceived self to our ideal self, and the wider the gap between the two the lower our level of self esteem.

None of the ideal standards by which we judge ourselves was with us at birth. We had to be taught to believe we should be a certain way, and the specific ideals and standards by which we judge ourselves will vary from culture to culture, and even from individual to individual within the same culture.