Ask who you are at 5, 15 and 50: three answers. What builds a self?

The self and how it starts

• The self is your sense of who you are; your self-concept is your set of beliefs about yourself.
• Lewis (1990): the self develops in two steps.
• Existential self: first, in infancy. The baby realises it exists, separate from others, and that its actions affect the world.
• Categorical self: next, the child describes itself in categories: age, gender, size, skills ("I'm 3", "I'm a boy"). Later come inner qualities like "shy".

Rogers: three parts of the self-concept

• Rogers (1959) said the self-concept has three parts.
• Self-image: how you see yourself, e.g. "I'm sporty, I'm a bit shy".
• Self-esteem: how much you value yourself; high or low self-worth.
• Ideal self: the person you would like to be.
• The closer your self-image is to your ideal self, the higher your self-esteem. (More on this in the humanistic theory.)

Erikson: eight stages of identity

• Erikson (1959): identity develops across the whole life in eight stages. Each has a crisis (a conflict) to resolve.

• Resolving a crisis well builds a strength; failing leaves a problem that can carry into later stages.

Baumeister: believing in free will

• Free will: the idea that we choose our own actions. Determinism: behaviour is caused by things outside our control (genes, upbringing).
• Baumeister (2008) argued that believing in free will matters, whether or not it exists. It helps people take responsibility, control impulses and act morally.
• When belief in free will is weakened, people become more likely to cheat, act aggressively and help less.

What has to be in place before a person can start to grow?

Growing towards your potential

• Humanistic psychologists see people as having free will and a drive to grow.
• Self-actualisation: becoming the best person you can be, reaching your full potential.
• Congruence (Rogers, 1959): your self-image and ideal self closely match. You feel worthwhile: high self-esteem.
• Incongruence: a big gap between them. It brings anxiety and low self-esteem, and blocks self-actualisation.

Rogers: positive regard

• Rogers (1951): everyone needs positive regard: love, warmth and acceptance from others.
• Unconditional positive regard: being valued whatever you do, e.g. "I love you even when you fail."
• Conditional positive regard: being valued only when you meet others' expectations.
• Conditions of worth: the rules you come to believe you must meet to be worthy, e.g. "I'm only lovable if I get top grades."

Maslow's hierarchy of needs

• Maslow (1943) arranged human needs in five levels.

• Lower needs must be largely met before a person is motivated by higher ones.

Self-esteem and personality, the humanistic view

• Self-esteem develops from the regard you receive. Unconditional positive regard leads to congruence and high self-esteem. Conditions of worth lead to incongruence and low self-esteem.
• Personality develops as you meet your needs and move up the hierarchy. A person with unconditional positive regard becomes a fully functioning person: open, confident and growing.

Same grades, very different self-esteem. Where does the gap come from?

What shapes self-esteem?

• Self-esteem is how much you value yourself.
• Internal influences come from within you, e.g. temperament, the emotional style you are born with.
• External influences come from outside you: your experiences, e.g. how others treat you, successes and failures, and relationships.
• The two work together: how you react to an experience depends partly on your temperament.

Temperament: an internal influence

• Temperament is a person's inborn, biologically based way of reacting: how active, emotional, adaptable and sociable they are.
• It shows early in babies and stays fairly stable.
• Psychologists described easy, difficult and slow-to-warm-up babies.
• Temperament affects how others respond: a calm, smiley baby may get warmer responses than a fussy one, which then feeds into self-esteem.

Experience: an external influence

• Family: unconditional positive regard builds self-esteem; constant criticism lowers it.
• Success and failure at school, sport or hobbies.
• Comparison with friends and others, including on social media.
• Feedback from teachers, coaches and peers.
• Relationships, including with pets, which may offer unconditional acceptance.

Can a questionnaire capture who you are in sixteen numbers?

Types or traits?

• Personality is a person's lasting pattern of thinking, feeling and behaving.
• Personality types put people into categories: you are one type or another, e.g. Type A (competitive, impatient) or Type B (relaxed).
• Traits are dimensions: everyone has some amount of each, e.g. a score from very shy to very outgoing.
• Trait theory describes personality as a person's scores on a set of traits.

Personality scales

• A personality scale is a questionnaire that measures where you sit on a trait.
• You rate statements, e.g. "I enjoy meeting new people": strongly agree to strongly disagree.
• Each answer is scored and the scores are added up for each trait.
• Scoring is standardised, so results can be compared with other people's.
• Most scales are self-report: you describe yourself.

Allport's three kinds of trait

• Allport (1936) found thousands of words in English that describe people, and grouped traits into three kinds.
• Cardinal trait: one trait that dominates a person's whole life. Rare; most people don't have one.
• Central traits: a handful of main traits that describe a person, e.g. honest, friendly, organised.
• Secondary traits: shown only in some situations, e.g. impatient in queues, nervous before speeches.

Cattell's 16PF

• Cattell (1946) used a statistical method called factor analysis to reduce the long list of trait words to 16 personality factors (16PF).
• Each factor is a scale between two opposites, e.g. reserved to warm, relaxed to tense.
• The 16PF questionnaire gives a profile: one score on each of the 16 scales.
• It is used in research, careers advice and job selection.

Big ideas

• Lewis: existential self (I exist) then categorical self (I'm a…). Rogers: self-image, self-esteem and ideal self.
• Erikson: identity develops through eight stages, each with a crisis, from trust v mistrust to integrity v despair.
• Baumeister: believing in free will helps people behave responsibly; Vohs and Schooler (2008) found that weakening that belief increased cheating. Key question: what makes you who you are?
• Rogers: unconditional positive regard leads to congruence and high self-esteem; conditional positive regard creates conditions of worth, incongruence and low self-esteem.
• Maslow: needs form a hierarchy from physiological to self-actualisation; lower needs come first.
• Humanistic theory is positive and useful in therapy, but its concepts are hard to measure and may reflect Western values. Key question: what makes you who you are?
• Self-esteem is shaped by internal influences (temperament, which is inborn and fairly stable) and external influences (experiences).
• Van Houtte and Jarvis (1995) found pet owners had more autonomy, and higher self-esteem mainly at around 11, but a natural experiment can't prove cause.
• Key question: what makes you who you are? Both what you are born with and what happens to you.
• Personality can be measured with scales (questionnaires scoring traits as dimensions) or by sorting people into types (categories).
• Allport: cardinal, central and secondary traits. Cattell: factor analysis gave 16 personality factors, measured by the 16PF.
• Trait theory is reliable and useful, but self-report can be biased and it ignores situations. Key question: what makes you who you are?