The Communication Playbook. Teri Kwal Gamble

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      The Importance of Self-Awareness

      The self is a social product—a composite of who we think we are, who other people think we are, and who we think others think we are. Some of us are more self-aware than others; this developed self-awareness (the ability to reflect on and monitor one’s own behavior) facilitates a fuller understanding of the self, including our attitudes, beliefs, and values, as well as our strengths and weaknesses.¹³

      The Nature of Self-Concept

      How we think about ourselves, or our self-concept (the consistent and organized image you form of yourself) is composed of two parts—self-image and self-esteem.

      Self-image is your mental picture of yourself. It is the kind of person you perceive yourself to be. Self-image includes the roles you see yourself performing, the categories you place yourself within, the words you use to describe or identify yourself, and your understanding of how others see you.

      Self-esteem, on the other hand, is a self-assessment of yourself. It is your evaluation of your ability and worth and indicates how well you like and value yourself. Self-esteem usually derives from your successes and failures, coloring your self-image with a predominantly positive or negative hue. By age 5, many of us already have developed a sense of our self-worth.¹⁴

      According to researcher Chris Mruk, self-esteem has five dimensions that affect your feelings about yourself and your communication with others:

      Self-concept significantly affects behavior, including what we think is possible, whom we choose to communicate with, and even whether we desire to communicate with anyone.

      How Self-Concept Develops

      How did your self-concept form? The day you recognized yourself as separate from your surroundings, life for you began to change. At that moment, your concept of self—that relatively stable set of perceptions you attribute to yourself—became your most important possession.

      Although you are not born with a self-concept, you definitely play a role in its construction.¹⁶ Even though you are constantly undergoing change, once built, the theory or picture you have of yourself is fairly stable and difficult to alter. Have you ever tried to revise your parents’ or friends’ opinions about themselves? Did you have any luck? Over time, our opinions about ourselves grow more and more resistant to change.

      A number of forces converge to create your self-concept. Among them are the ways in which others relate to you; how you experience and evaluate yourself; the roles you enact; the messages you absorb from popular and social media; the expectations you and others have for you; and the gender, cultural, and technological messages you internalize.

      To a large extent, your self-concept is shaped by your environment and by the people around you, including your parents, relatives, teachers, supervisors, friends, and coworkers. If those important to you have a good image of you, they probably make you feel accepted, valued, worthwhile, lovable, and significant. As a result, you are likely to develop a positive self-concept. In comparison, if those important to you have a poor image of you, it can make you feel left out, small, worthless, unloved, or insignificant. You, more than likely, will develop a negative self-concept as a consequence.

      The Connection Between Self-Concept and Behavior

      We are both cause and the controlling force of our perceptions. But what leads us to respond to what we experience as we do?

      Attribution Theory

      According to attribution theory, we like to be able to explain why things happen. We assign meaning to behavior, coming up with possible motives and causes. When we attribute behavior to something in the disposition of others, we assume their behavior to have an internal cause—it is caused by something about them and their characteristics. When we attribute it to something about the situation or environment, we identify an external cause—and ascribe it as being the result of something outside of the person.

      When we assume too often that the primary motivation for another’s behavior is in the person, and not the situation, we commit a fundamental attribution error. We overemphasize factors internal to the individual and discount the role played by the situation. For example, a friend disappoints us by failing to show up on time to a study group. We’re more likely to decide it’s because our friend is inconsiderate rather than to believe that external factors, like the bus running late, are the cause.

      It’s different, however, when we ascribe reasons for our own behavior. When offering reasons for why we behave as we do, we are more likely to overemphasize external factors and downplay internal ones. This tendency, known as the self-serving bias, functions to raise our own self-esteem. We take credit for the positive while denying culpability for the negative. When it comes to ourselves, we attribute any negatives to factors beyond our control.

      We also are prone to committing over-attribution errors—the attributing of everything a person does to a single or a few specific factors. For example, we might ascribe a person’s alcohol use, poor grades, lackluster job performance, and lack of interest in close relationships to a broken romance.¹⁷

      Quite simply, when it comes to interpreting the behavior of others and ourselves, we find behavior’s causes where we look for them.

      Self-Esteem

      A teacher praises a student for a job that wasn’t done very well, observing that “I didn’t want to hurt the student’s self-esteem.”¹⁸ Others challenge the merit of a “feel-good curriculum” bemoaning the fact that we walk around on eggshells not to hurt another’s self-esteem.¹⁹ Why is self-esteem so critical? How does it impact us?

      The Dark Side of Self-Esteem

      Might an overemphasis on reinforcing self-esteem, especially in individuals whose self-esteem is already high, lead to an increase in bullying and narcissism?

      Bullies are often among the most popular people.²⁰ This popularity can lead to self-appraisalsthat are unrealistically inflated.²¹ Typically, high self-esteem combined with a sense of arrogance and narcissistic tendencies contributes to bullying.²²