Self-perception in psychology: problems and ways to solve them

Self-perception is our idea of ourselves. It concerns both external data and behavior. By assessing how we perceive ourselves in different situations and the reactions we experience to what is happening around us, we draw conclusions about the emotions we experience, as well as about our character and abilities. All this subsequently determines self-esteem and shapes our self-perception.

In this article, prepared by the editors of the site people for people, we will touch on basic concepts and terminology, and also try to find out the determining factors that influence the formation of our self-esteem.

The influence of the environment on a person’s self-perception

A person's self-perception largely depends on his environment. When meeting new people, we certainly evaluate them and form some kind of opinion. In turn, people also evaluate us. This process is commonly called interpersonal perception in psychology. However, when communicating with another person, we not only evaluate the interlocutor, but also compare him with ourselves, and ourselves with him.

The criteria for analysis are the following data:

Physical features. We evaluate a person’s height, physique and subconsciously compare his parameters with our own. The same applies to facial features. These three components make up our self-esteem and idea of external attractiveness.
Appearance. How a person is dressed, what accessories and jewelry he wears is of great importance to us. In this regard, we also make sure to draw parallels with ourselves. Often clothing becomes a reason to evaluate oneself, one’s success, social status and financial situation.
Manners and behavior of a person. This list includes criteria such as gestures, facial expressions, posture and gait. In addition, we evaluate the manner of communication. We compare the behavior of another person with our own, we think about how we ourselves would act in a similar situation.
Personal qualities. Through a person’s conversations, we learn about his views on life, and his inner world opens up before us. This is also a reason for comparison, since this is how we decide whether a person is close to us. In other words, is he like us?
Capabilities. We can evaluate a person's physical, mental and creative abilities. For example, we may notice that our colleague is doing better at some work in the office. At the same time, having gone with him to a corporate event and further evaluating ourselves and our colleague, we can proudly note that we dance or sing karaoke much better than him.

Self-perception and interpersonal perception are thus closely related. Therefore, how we perceive ourselves from the outside depends largely on our environment.

A person's self-esteem depends on his environment. We may feel quite comfortable at our usual place of work, where we are surrounded by familiar people, but then suddenly the situation changes. For example, we are offered a promotion and we move to a new office. Employees there earn many times more than our former colleagues and can afford more expensive clothes and personal items. This makes us feel inadequate.

In addition, we may find it difficult to cope with a new job, so our perception of our own abilities may change significantly for the worse. All this, despite apparent career success, can lead to a decrease in self-esteem, and, as a result, even to depression. - This is what psychology says about self-perception.

Developing Self Awareness

Determination - what is it in psychology

Different scientists have different views on the problem of improving this quality. For example, V.M. Bekhterev believed that self-awareness in a child is formed even earlier than consciousness. S. L. Rubinstein was convinced that self-awareness develops in the process of mastering speech and making the first attempts to act independently. Simply put, the onset occurs at the age of 2-3 years.

Self-knowledge begins with the child understanding the boundaries of his body. The stage begins in one year. We can assume that from this age self-awareness begins to form. A one-year-old child demonstrates independence in manipulating objects. A little later, self-recognition appears - this is the ability to understand that the reflection in the mirror is oneself.

Self-knowledge - studying your thoughts

Around the age of three, a child learns to use the pronoun “I”. He can also give himself the simplest characteristic – “good”.

Subsequently, the intellect is actively formed, thanks to which the ability to evaluate (first other people, then oneself) is acquired. Self-esteem still depends on the opinions of adults. A preschooler learns to be aware of himself in time.

The following neoplasms are typical for primary school age:

Self-esteem tends to become more relevant and differentiated. A boy or girl distinguishes between his physical and mental traits, evaluates his own abilities based on the results of others.
At the end of primary school age, the child increasingly describes characteristic behavior and can refer to thoughts and feelings characteristic of his inner world.
Assessments acquire stability, objectivity, and begin to have not only an affective, but also a rational component.

In adolescence, self-awareness gradually becomes the same as in adults. This period is characterized by a large number of neoplasms, in particular the following:

Two new forms of self-awareness gradually emerge: a sense of maturity and a self-concept. The teenager begins to feel like an adult.
Interest in one’s own inner world, which leads to the complication of the processes of self-knowledge. Simply put, during adolescence, a person begins to explore himself.
Self-esteem is generally low and unstable, but can be excessively high (as a compensation mechanism). One of the reasons for this is the attitude of adults as if they were a child, although the person no longer feels like one.

Important ! The process of forming self-awareness is not limited to adolescence. This is an endless process that continues until the end of life.

How we evaluate ourselves based on our personality traits

How do we perceive ourselves , and what does this depend on? – the question is not simple. In the same environment, people with the same social status but different personalities can feel completely different. This happens because a person’s self-perception depends not only on the environment, but also on the characteristics of his personality.

A real assessment of ourselves and our place in life does not always coincide with our desires, and also often runs counter to other people’s opinions of us. This is the main problem with self-perception - it is very subjective.

*For example, the discrepancy between our self-image and ideal expectations can either drive us into depression or, on the contrary, force us to work on ourselves. Which path we choose will depend on the characteristics of our personality. Optimists will certainly prefer to improve themselves, but pessimists will be confident in advance of their failure.

self-esteem and the characteristics of his personality will also shape his idea of ideals. Some people are unhappy with their appearance. In an effort to fix it, they go under the knife of a plastic surgeon. That being said, it is likely that most other people would find them attractive without surgery.

Errors in our self-perception

The fallacy of our self-perception was proven by an experiment conducted by Unilever, which produces Dove soap. He clearly demonstrated how people sometimes underestimate their external characteristics. The essence of the study was as follows:

People who agreed to participate in the experiment were invited to the studio, where the artist was sitting behind a screen. He did not see those who came to him, and they, in turn, did not see him.
The participants in the experiment described their appearance to the artist and, based on this story, the man drew their portrait.
Then the appearance of the subjects was described to the artist by other people who had previously met them as part of the experiment.
In accordance with how they characterized the subjects, the artist drew a second portrait.
At the end of the experiment, the portraits were compared with each other.

*Curiously, it turned out that the portrait that was drawn according to the descriptions of other people looked more attractive than the one that the artist created in accordance with the subjects’ ideas about themselves. Often people tend to use negative characteristics when describing their own appearance. For example, they said they had a sunken chin, a full face, or a massive forehead. Others, when looking at them, saw completely different features: a cute narrow chin, a pretty and open face, a noble high forehead. Observers also often noted those details that the subjects forgot to mention when describing themselves: a sweet smile, beautiful eyes, etc.

Self-assessment in most cases turns out to be wrong. In practice, it turns out that we are more beautiful than we think. We often tend to underestimate not only our appearance, but also our abilities, and also not notice our positive personal qualities. This negative self-perception prevents us from enjoying life and getting from it what we truly deserve. You can establish contact with the outside world by consciously changing your opinion about yourself for the better and forming an objective self-esteem.

Positive self-perception

Positive self-perception seems to many people to be a manifestation of selfishness. They think that when a person considers himself beautiful, smart or has a great sense of humor, this means that he is superior to others, but this is far from the case.

Perceiving yourself positively does not mean putting yourself above others, it means being able to realistically assess your abilities and see your strengths. After all, if you win a school beauty pageant, you have the right to consider yourself attractive, right? You can also be quite proud of your intelligence if you occupy a prestigious position that you received thanks to your abilities. Well, if everyone you know constantly laughs at your jokes, then the conclusion that you have a good sense of humor seems quite logical.

People with low self-esteem tend to overlook their strengths and focus on their weaknesses. This leads to them becoming insecure and starting to think that everyone around them is looking at them with judgment. Feeling discomfort and awkwardness in any situation, such people usually behave awkwardly and unnaturally. All this leads to the fact that others can really begin to perceive them as losers.

How to learn to perceive yourself positively?

How to change self-perception ? Today there are many different techniques that allow you to gain self-confidence. The first step to improving your self-esteem can be to make a list of your positive qualities. This will allow you to focus on the strengths of your personality and start a process of self-perception that has a positive vector.

If you are having difficulty finding your strengths, the following questions may help:

Remember what you have achieved in life?
What challenges did you face and how did you overcome them?
What have you learned so far?
What do people around you value in you?
What negative qualities do you lack?

*Every person has virtues, and when we find them in ourselves, we gain confidence, as well as rational independence from the opinions of others. This makes it much easier for us to live, communicate with people, achieve success in our careers and build personal relationships.

A positive self-perception of an individual changes our attitude not only towards ourselves, but also towards others. When a person stops being afraid of people and fearing criticism from them, his hostility goes away. In other words, he becomes kinder.

People with high self-esteem smile more often, they are open to communication, and they are also in a hurry to share their experiences and help those in need. They want to give others the opportunity to gain similar freedom and become happy. In an effort to improve the lives of others, they may also engage in charity work. Agree, with the advent of each new such person, our world becomes much better!

Although we owe a lot of research to the theory of cognitive dissonance, there is a theory that more simply explains the same phenomena. How do we form ideas about the attitudes of people around us? We observe their behavior in specific situations and then attribute it either to people's personality traits or attitudes, or to external circumstances. If we are present when the parents force little Susie to ask for forgiveness and the girl finally says “Sorry,” we explain this by the situation, and not by the fact that the child regrets some of his actions. If Susie asks for forgiveness without apparent coercion, we attribute it to her.

Self-perception theory , proposed by Daryl Bem in 1972, assumes that when we observe our own behavior, we make similar conclusions. When our attitudes are weak or ambiguous, we find ourselves in the position of someone watching us from the outside. We identify the attitudes of others by carefully observing their behavior in situations where they have the opportunity to act as they want. We evaluate our own attitudes in the same way. By listening to my own speech, I receive information about my attitudes; By watching my actions, I receive signals about how strong my beliefs are. What has been said is primarily true in relation to situations in which it is difficult for me to explain my actions by the pressure of circumstances. The actions we perform of our own free will tell us who we really are.

A similar explanation of emotions was proposed a century ago by William James, who believed that we judge our emotions by observing our bodies and our behavior. Imagine a woman who sees a growling bear in the forest. She freezes, her heart begins to beat faster, adrenaline rushes into her blood, and she flees. Reflecting on what happened to her, the woman realizes that she was scared. In any college where I have to lecture, I wake up in the dark and can’t go back to sleep. Realizing that I am suffering from insomnia, I conclude that I am worried.

<Emotions intensify with the free manifestation of their external signs. The maximum possible suppression of all possible external manifestations, on the contrary, extinguishes our emotions. Charles Darwin

Read also: How to develop self-esteem

, On the Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals, 1897>

You may be, like me at first, skeptical about the self-perception effect. At the same time, experimental study of different facial expressions should convince you that such an effect really exists. Subjects who had electrodes attached to their faces and were asked by James Laird to frown (“tighten those muscles,” “pull those eyebrows together”) reported feeling angry (Laird, 1974, 1984; Duclos et al., 1989). It's more interesting to try to replicate Laird's other experiment, namely the one in which he asked subjects to smile: their mood improved and they found the caricatures funnier. When a person sees his or her reflection in a mirror and pays close attention to facial expressions, the self-perception effect is enhanced (Kleinke et al., 1998).

According to German psychologist Fritz Strack and his colleagues, people who clench a fountain pen with their teeth (in this case, working the muscles “responsible” for smiling) find cartoons funnier than people squeezing a pen with their lips (in this case, working muscles that are incompatible with smiling). ( Source

:Strack et al., 1988)

This phenomenon is familiar to all of us. If, at the moment when we are irritated, the phone rings or someone comes, our behavior becomes sympathetic and polite: “Well, how are you?” - “Everything is fine, thank you.” How are you? ʼʼ — ʼʼYes, it seems okay... ʼʼ If the feelings we experience are not very strong, such friendliness can radically change the entire attitude: it is difficult to smile and feel irritated at the same time. It is possible that when Miss Universe dazzles us with her smile, she just wants to lift her own mood. Rodgers and Hammerstein believe that you can get rid of the feeling of fear if you start “whisting a happy tune”. Actions can “trigger” emotions.

(- I don’t sing because I’m happy. I’m happy because I sing.)

Self-perception in action

Sometimes the effect of self-perception manifests itself in subsequent behavior. People who have been forced to act casual and talkative (during interviews) are subsequently able to demonstrate greater openness and sociability (Schlenker et al., 1994; Tice, 1992). Act like a sociable person and you can become more sociable.

Even your gait can affect your well-being. When you finish reading this chapter, stand up and walk around for a minute with small, mincing steps, looking at your feet. This is a great way to make yourself depressed. “Sit all day in a mournful pose, sighing and answering all questions in a gloomy voice, and you will become even sadder,” wrote William James (James, 1890, p. Posted on ref. 463). Want to feel better? Walk for a minute with long strides, swinging your arms and looking forward. Participants in an experiment conducted by Sarah Sodgrass succeeded (Snodgrass, 1986). And you?

<I can observe myself and my actions as if we were talking about someone else. Anne Frank

, Diary of a Little Girl, 1947>

If external manifestations of emotions influence the emotions themselves, is it possible, by copying others, to understand what they feel? The results of an experiment conducted by Katherine Burns Vaughan and John Lanzetta suggest an affirmative answer (Katherine Burns Vaughan & Lanzetta, 1981). Participants in this experiment, students at Dartmouth College, had to observe a person receiving electric shocks. Some observers were asked to show pain on their face at the moment of impact. If Freud and other psychologists are right, and if the expression of emotions does lead to release from them, the outward manifestation of pain should “relieve the soul” (Cacioppo et al., 1991). In fact, the observers who showed pain on their faces sweated more intensely with each electric shock than the other observers, and their pulse rate was higher. It is obvious that these observers, by imitating the other person's emotions, felt greater empathy for him. Moral: If you want to understand how another person feels, let your face, like a mirror, reflect their expression.

Natural imitation and “emotional infection”. By synchronizing their postures and movements, just as participants did in an experiment conducted by Frank Bernieri and his colleagues and recorded on videotape, people feel greater mutual harmony

You don't need to make any special efforts for this. By observing others' faces, postures, and voices, we naturally and unconsciously imitate their reactions step by step (Hatfield et al., 1992). We synchronize our movements, postures and intonations with their movements, postures and intonations, which helps us “tune into the wave of their emotions”. This also contributes to “emotional contagion” and helps to understand why communication with happy people improves your mood, and with unhappy people worsens it (Module A).

Facial expression also influences our attitudes. This was proven by Gary Wells and Richard Petty by conducting an extraordinary experiment, the participants of which were students at the University of Alberta [Alberta is a province in Canada. — Note. translation

], ʼʼtested the operation of the headphonesʼʼ: they listened to an editorial from a newspaper, which was read by a radio announcer, and had to nod affirmatively or shake their heads negatively. Who agreed more than others with the content of the article? Those who nodded affirmatively. Why? Wells and Petty concluded that agreement (positive thoughts) is compatible with vertical head movements and incompatible with horizontal head movements. Test this for yourself by listening to someone else. When do you feel more in agreement with the speaker? When do you nod your head or when do you shake it?

An even more fun experiment was conducted by John Cacioppo and his colleagues (Cacioppo et al., 1993). They asked subjects to evaluate Chinese characters while raising their hands up (as if bringing food to their mouth) or lowering them down (as if pushing someone or something away from them). What movements do you think generated the highest ratings? Of course, the first. (Try lifting the table by placing your palms facing up under the tabletop, and then pressing down on it with your palms. Which of these movements made you feel more positive? Perhaps it is this phenomenon, that movements affect feelings, that explains why do people feel better at parties where they have to hold a plate of appetizers or a glass in their hands?) Students at the University of Würzburg - participants in an experiment conducted by Roland Neumann and Fritz Struck - had to quickly recognize different words as negative or positive (Neumann & Strack, 2000). Each student responded to words by pressing the left or right buttons (using two fingers of one hand). At the same time, the second hand either rose up (the muscles of approach worked), or fell down and moved to the side. Have you already guessed what the result was? Students classified positive words faster if the second hand activated a positive muscle response of “approaching”.

Overjustification and intrinsic motivation

Remember the underjustification effect: the smallest incentive that can get people to do something is usually the most effective way to get them to commit to doing it in the future. One possible explanation for this phenomenon is offered by the theory of cognitive dissonance: if external stimulation is not enough to justify our behavior, we reduce the dissonance by finding justifications within ourselves.

Self-perception theory offers another interpretation: people explain their behavior by noticing the conditions under which it occurs. Imagine listening to a speaker advocating for higher tuition after being paid $20 to speak. Without a doubt, his words will seem less sincere to you than they would seem if you thought that he was expressing this opinion disinterestedly. Perhaps we draw similar conclusions when we observe ourselves.

<Action, not contemplation, is the best path to self-knowledge. Goethe

(1749-1832)>

Self-perception theorists go even a little further. Contrary to the idea that rewards always increase motivation, they suggest that unnecessary rewards sometimes have a hidden cost. Rewards that people receive for doing something they already enjoy doing can lead them to attribute their actions to the reward, which can undermine their self-perception that they behave the way they do because it suits their own desires. . Results from experiments conducted at the University of Rochester by Edward Deci and Richard Ryan (Deci & Ryan, 1991, 1997), at Stanford University by Mark Lepper and David Green (Lepper & Green, 1979), and at the University of Colorado by Ann Boggiano and her colleagues (Boggiano et al. ., 1985, 1987) support the existence of this overjustification effect . Pay people to play puzzles, and they will become less interested in them than those who are not paid to do so. Promise children a reward for something they already enjoy doing (for example, playing with “magic markers”), and they will turn play into work (see Figure 4.3).

Rice. 4.3. When people do something they enjoy without any reward or coercion, they attribute their actions to their addiction to the activity. Rewards that “come from outside” therefore undermine internal motivation, which makes people attribute their behavior to it.

A folk tale perfectly illustrates the effect of overjustification. The boys started noisy games every day on the street where a lonely old man lived. The noise annoyed the old man, and one day, calling the children to him, he told them that he loved cheerful children's voices and would pay each of them 50 cents if they played near his house tomorrow. The next day the boys came running and made more noise than usual. The old man “paid for their services” and promised to pay the next day. The children didn’t have to wait long, their screams did too, and the old man gave them money again: but this time for 25 cents. The next day turned out to be less fruitful for the boys: the old man paid them only 15 cents, warning them that he was running out of money. “Tomorrow I can only pay you 10 cents, but I beg you to come,” he said. The disappointed children replied that they would not come again. Ten cents, they decided, was not enough money to be worth playing near his house all day.

As self-perception theory suggests, unexpected rewards do not reduce intrinsic interest because they do not prevent people from attributing their actions to their own motivations (Bradley & Mannell, 1984; Tang & Hall, 1994). (In this case, an analogy is appropriate with the heroine of a fairy tale, who learns that the woodcutter with whom she is in love is in fact a prince.) And if praise for a job well done gives us confidence in our own competence and success, the result can be real strengthening internal motivation. The right approach to rewards can also help creativity flourish (Eisenberger et al., 1999).

The overjustification effect occurs when someone offers an unnecessary reward in advance for the express purpose of controlling behavior. In this situation, it is important what kind of reward we are talking about. Rewards and praise that inform people of their achievements (making them proud of themselves: “I'm doing great!”) increase intrinsic motivation. Rewards designed to control people and make them believe that they are responsible for their efforts (“I did it for the money”) reduce the intrinsic appeal of otherwise enjoyable activities (Rosenfeld et al., 1980; Sansone, 1986).

What can be done to ensure that people enjoy those activities that are devoid of internal attractiveness for them? For young Maria, her first piano lessons can be frustrating. At heart, Tommy may not have any inclination for the subjects studied in the fifth grade. And Sandra, perhaps, is not at all delighted with the first telephone calls ahead of her with offers of certain products. In such situations, the parent, teacher, or manager may have to resort to some kind of external stimulation to encourage the desired action (Boggiano & Ruble, 1985; Workman & Williams, 1980). Having received consent from the person to perform the actions you desire, offer him some internal motive that justifies him in your own eyes: “It doesn’t surprise me at all that trading by phone is successful: you talk to people so well!”

If we offer students justification enough to just complete their assignments, and use rewards and epithets that help students feel competent, we can make their learning more enjoyable and their desire for independent learning stronger. When there are too many reasons to justify certain actions, as happens, for example, in a classroom where the rules of behavior are dictated by a teacher who uses rewards to control children, the child's desire to master knowledge may decrease (Deci & Ryan, 1985, 1991 ). Until a reading club opened at our library and it became known that a party would be organized for those who read at least 10 books in three months, my youngest son “swallowed” 6 or 8 library books in a week. Only three weeks have passed since the opening of the club, and during our weekly visits to the library he has already begun to select no more than two books for himself. Why? ʼʼHave you forgotten that you only need to read 10 books?ʼʼ