Self-Concept: Who You Think You Are

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For most of us, our name (or nickname) is an important element in our cognitions, or thoughts about ourselves.

Who are you? You may describe yourself to others as a college student, a Latino male, a white female, a heterosexual, a biology major, an uncle, a parent, or a friend. But who you are involves much more. Your awareness and understanding of who you are—as interpreted and influenced by your thoughts, actions, abilities, values, goals, and ideals, as discussed in chapter 1, we focused on cognitions about other people, places, media, and so on. But cognitions about self matter too.

Your self-concept powerfully shapes your communication with others. It can affect what you think of other people because your perception of others is related to how you view yourself (Edwards, 1990). If attributes like honesty and wit are important to you, you will consider them important traits in other people. If you think that swearing makes you appear cheap and vulgar, you will likely think the same of others when they use foul language. When you interact with others, your self-concept comes into play as well. It can affect how apprehensive you get in certain communication situations (McCroskey, 1997), whether you’re even willing to interact with others (Cegala, 1981), and how you approach someone with a request (timidly or confidently). People whose self-concept includes pride in their ability to communicate well often place themselves in situations where they can use their skills most effectively. Barbara Walters and Conan O’Brien didn’t become TV-show hosts by accident! Similarly, people whose self-concept contains a less favorable view of their communication skills may shy away from opportunities where such skills (or lack of them) would be in the spotlight—such as seeking out a romantic partner or a new friendship.

So while your self-concept strongly influences how and when you communicate with others, the reverse is also true: when you interact with other people, you get impressions from them that reveal how they evaluate you as a person and as a communicator. This information gets woven into your self-concept. In fact, many researchers believe that social interaction is key to developing one’s self-concept. Why? When you communicate with others, you receive evidence that you can then use to develop, confirm, or change your self-concept. Direct evidence comes in the form of compliments, insults, support, or negative remarks. For example, if a professor you admire tells you that you have great potential as a manager because you possess excellent leadership skills, you would probably incorporate this information into your self-concept. Indirect evidence that influences your self-concept might be revealed through innuendo, gossip, subtle nonverbal cues, or a lack of communication. For instance, if you ask a friend to evaluate your promise as a contestant on American Idol and he changes the subject, you might get the impression that you might not be as talented a singer as you’d hoped.

Other people with whom you interact also influence your self-concept. We all tend to compare ourselves to others as we develop ideas about ourselves. Explained by social comparison theory (Bishop, 2000; Festinger, 1954), this tendency can influence how we think about ourselves and what we’re willing to do to close the unavoidable gap created by such comparison. For example, if you make a lot less money than all your friends, you may feel as though you are poor. But given the same income in a circle of less fortunate friends, you might consider yourself well-off. Images in the media—including those conveying ideas about beauty, wealth, and happiness—can affect your self-concept in a similar way. Body-image issues and eating disorders, for example, have been linked to individuals’ perceptions of beauty and health formed from images of perfection exhibited in the media (Bishop, 2000; Hendriks, 2002).

Clearly, our self-concept exerts a powerful influence on our lives, our relationships, and our communication. Struggles with self-concept—the way we see ourselves—are closely related to the way we feel about ourselves. Let’s look at how these feelings relate to communication.