Psychology is a rather difficult topic to write about because it involves lots of personal attitudes and opinions, and what is right for one person can turn out to be absolutely wrong for another. But, at the same time, this is quite an interesting topic because of several reasons. Firstly, psychological phenomena are typical of all people and it is exciting to learn the reasons or motivations according to which a person acts or thinks. Secondly, psychology is such a branch of science that helps a person to control his life by means of regulating his emotions and attitude towards different phenomena of the objective reality. Thirdly, and finally, knowledge in psychological processes provides you with the power of influencing people which is significant for any profession demanding certain leadership skills from the workers.
The notion of self-concept constitutes a sufficient part of human psychology because it is from what the personality begins. Self-concept is viewed as an organized, complex system of attitudes, beliefs, and opinions which a person learned during his or her life, and now considers to be true facts about his/her personal existence. Self-concept differs from self-esteem which is defined as feelings of personality’s worth and level of satisfaction concerning one’s self, or self-report which is usually looked at as what a person is eager and able to reveal (Adler, 2006).
The self-concept of every single person has certain features that are typical for self-concepts in general. They are the facts that self-concept is not given to a person at birth, it is developing in every personality during the early years of life and is constantly changing through his/her life according to the attitudes a person forms based on his/her experiences, feelings and emotions from perceiving the objective reality. The second point is that self-concept is always organized and tends to be more or less stable in the course of life. If not, then scientists say that this person lacks personality and is subject to all possible influences from the outer world. The third point concerns the dynamical character of self-concept, meaning that person’s self-identity changes according to the processes of the objective reality this person undergoes (Adler, 2006).
Speaking of my personality, I think that my self-concept is at a rather high level which helps me to easily communicate with people and make new acquaintances and friends with little effort. I usually perceive and process the information that I get from communication as one that can not harm me and my interests and a friendly-directed message. Some people are hostile to the surrounding world and it does not let them have successful communication with others because they look at them as rivals. This is the issue of having not enough confidence and a low self-concept level. Concerning the points that need to be improved regarding my self-concept, I would distinguish the following according to the above-mentioned theories: the organization of the self-concept can be better, as sometimes it happens that I am influenced by some people’s attitudes that I do not consider to be right but because of the lack of self-concept organization I hesitate about the correctness of my views and it influences badly my communication skills. My low level of self-esteem of mine affects negatively the communication skills I possess, so I am working hard on gaining more confidence and getting rid of shyness, which must allow me to reach success in interpersonal communication. What is also considered to be important is your behavior during the communication act, so I try to be a pleasant person to talk to, to be a careful listener, and to take part in the communication process.
Works Cited
Adler R. & Rosenberg L. (2006). Interplay: The Process of Interpersonal Communication, 10th Edition. New York: Oxford University Press.