26th October 2023

Self-Psychology

Perceptions of self

We’re all familiar with the Ancient Greek aphorism: ‘Know thyself ’. How could we embark upon this Sisyphean task? A good start might be learning the core concepts of self-psychology, which – surprise, surprise – happen to be on the curriculum for the Paper A exam.

Let’s begin by understanding three key concepts in self-psychology: self-concept, self-esteem, and self-image. There is a varying degree of conceptual overlap between these terms, so it is important to identify the distinguishing elements.

Self-concept

What do we think of ourselves?

Self-concept is a cognitive construct that refers to an individual’s beliefs and perceptions about themselves in relation to their personality traits, values, experiences, and abilities. It includes both the positive and negative aspects of the self; for example, one may hold the self-concept of being ‘An intelligent but lazy person’ (don’t worry, we’ve all been called out here!). Our self-concept is developmentally malleable and is heavily influenced by the way we relate to our environment and the people inhabiting it.

Self-esteem

How do we feel about ourselves?

Self-esteem closely relates to the self-concept described above. Specifically, it refers to our evaluation or appraisal of our self-concept. It reflects an individual’s sense of self-worth and can be influenced by many factors, including relationships, competency levels, social comparison, and feedback from others. In simple terms, self-esteem in relation to self-concept can be understood with the following question: ‘How do I feel about the way I think of myself ’?’. If we take the earlier example of the self-concept ‘I’m an intelligent, but lazy person’, we may have the judgement: ‘I am proud of being an intelligent person despite my lazy tendencies’. Alternatively, we might think: ‘Though I am intelligent, I am lazy, and that makes me sad’. Unsurprisingly, the former appraisal would correlate to higher self-esteem, and the latter appraisal would correlate to lower self-esteem.

Self-image

How do we see ourselves?

Self-image refers to the mental picture we hold in relation to our self-perception, typically in reference to our physical appearance, personality traits and social roles. It can be influenced by both self-concept and self-esteem (internal factors) or feedback from others (external factors). Self-image may sound theoretically similar to self-concept, but a key difference is that self-image is a perception of the self that is concrete and measurable, whereas self-concept is a broader, more encompassing, and abstract perception of the self.

Self-recognition

When do we realise that we exist as objective entities in the world, as separate beings from others? Social psychology can help us answer this fundamental question on the development of self-recognition and self-awareness.

The mirror test

Self-recognition typically starts developing at around 15 months of age and is a feature present in most infants by 2 years of age. We know this from a simple yet clever behavioural study conducted in 1970 by evolutionary psychologist Gordon Gallup, known as the ‘mirror test’. It is also referred to as the ‘rouge test’, the ‘mark test’ or the ‘touching the dot’ experiment. In this test, infants were surreptitiously marked with a circle of red dye on their foreheads. These infants were then placed in front of a mirror. If the infant touched the red mark on their forehead upon looking in the mirror, this indicated that the infant possessed self-recognition; they identified the mark as belonging to themselves. A lack of self-recognition was identified in infants who, instead of touching their forehead, touched the red mark on their reflection in the mirror.

Interestingly, several animals have passed the ‘mirror test’, including killer whales, chimpanzees, ants and even the humble pigeon, though dogs, cats, and monkeys don’t seem to fare too well with the mirror test!

More recent studies have highlighted significant cultural variations that exist from the mirror test. For example, when the mirror test was conducted in Kenyan children aged 18-72 months, only 2.4% of children demonstrated self-oriented behaviours towards the mark. This mirror test outcome in Kenyan children persisted across a broader age span, which suggests that this was not simply a developmental delay but, rather, a cross-cultural behaviour

variation. In other words, a negative mirror test does not necessarily correlate to a lack of self-recognition in children living in non-Western countries.

A pre-requisite for the development of self-recognition in infants is the development of ‘Object permanence’, i.e., the understanding that objects continue to exist beyond one’s perception of them. Object permanence is achieved in the sensorimotor stage outlined in Jean Piaget’s ‘stages of cognitive development’ model.

References

• Broesch, T., Callaghan, T., and Rochat, P. (2010). Cultural Variations in Children’s Mirror Self-Recognition. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 42(6).
• Gallup, G. (1970). Chimpanzees: Self-recognition. Science, 167, 86–87
• Kilroy, E. (2021). Self-Recognition. Encyclopedia of Autism Spectrum Disorders. 4163-4167.