The self

The self is the totality of a person's conscious experiences, ideas, thoughts and feelings about himself or herself. It includes:

• personal identity: what makes you unique (your name, traits, abilities);
• social identity: the groups you belong to (religion, region, gender).

The self is both subject and object: as subject, it is the knower ('I think'); as object, it is the thing known ('this is me').

Kinds of self:

• Biological self: based on bodily needs (hunger, thirst).
• Personal self: focused on oneself: personal freedom, achievement, responsibility.
• Social (or relational) self: focused on relations with others: family, cooperation, belonging.

Three key ideas:

• Self-concept: the way we see ourselves, our ideas about our abilities and qualities.
• Self-esteem: our value judgement about ourselves: how much we like and respect ourselves. By 6–7 years, children form self-esteem in four areas: academic competence, social competence, physical/athletic competence, and physical appearance.
• Self-efficacy: belief that we can succeed in a task. It comes from Albert Bandura's social learning theory. High self-efficacy makes people try harder and persist.

Self-regulation means controlling our own behaviour. Self-control is learning to delay gratification: waiting for a bigger reward instead of grabbing a small one now. Techniques:

• self-observation: watching your own behaviour;
• self-instruction: telling yourself what to do;
• self-reinforcement: rewarding yourself for good behaviour.

Culture and self: the Western self has fixed boundaries between self and others (individualistic). The Indian self has shifting boundaries: at times it expands to include family and community (collectivistic).