Self

“Children are not just given a self by their parents or culture; rather, they construct selves. As children develop, their self-understanding changes.”(Santrock, 2014)

Self-Understanding

Middle and Late Childhood

Children’s self-evaluation becomes more complex during middle and late childhood. Five key changes characterize the increased complexity.(Santrock, 2014)

Psychological characteristics and traits. In middle and late childhood, especially from 8 to 11 years of age, children increasingly describe themselves with psychological characteristics and traits in contrast to the more concrete self-descriptions of younger children. Older children are more likely to describe themselves as popular, nice, helpful, mean, smart, and dumb. Older children also are less likely than younger children to overestimate their abilities or cite only virtuous aspects of themselves. Rather, they now have the cognitive capabilities to realize that they can be both nice and mean, smart as well as dumb.

Social descriptions. In middle and late childhood, children begin to include social aspects such as references to social groups in their self-descriptions. For example, a child might describe herself as a Girl Scout, as a Catholic, or as someone who has two close friends.

Social comparison. Children’s self-understanding in middle and late childhood includes increasing reference to social comparison. At this point in development, children are more likely to distinguish themselves from others in comparative rather than in absolute terms. That is, elementary-school- age children are likely to think about what they can do in comparison with others. If they feel that they fall short of others, they are likely to evaluate themselves negatively.

Real self and ideal self. In middle and late childhood, children begin to distinguish between their real and ideal selves. This involves differentiating their actual competencies from those they aspire to have and think are the most important. This discrepancy also can lead to negative self-evaluations.

Realistic. In middle and late childhood, children’s self-evaluations become more realistic. This may occur because of increased social comparison and perspective taking.

(Harter, 2006, 2012; Livesly & Bromley, 1973; Santrock, 2014)

Adolescence

The development of self-understanding in adolescence is complex and involves a number of aspects of the self: (Santrock, 2014)

Abstract and idealistic. Many adolescents begin to think in more abstract and idealistic ways. When asked to describe themselves, adolescents are more likely than children to use abstract and idealistic labels. Consider 14-year-old Laurie’s abstract description of herself: “I am a human being. I am indecisive. I don’t know who I am.” Also consider her idealistic description of herself: “I am a naturally sensitive person who really cares about people’s feelings. I think I’m pretty good looking.” Not all adolescents describe themselves in idealistic ways, but most adolescents distinguish between the real self and the ideal self.

Self-consciousness. Adolescents are more likely than children to be self-conscious about and preoccupied with their self-understanding. This self-consciousness and self- preoccupation reflect adolescent egocentrism.

Contradictions within the self. As adolescents begin to differentiate their concept of the self into multiple roles in different relationship contexts, they sense potential contradictions between their differentiated selves.

The fluctuating self. The adolescent’s self-understanding fluctuates across situations and across time. The adolescent’s self continues to be characterized by instability until the adolescent constructs a more unified theory of self, usually not until late adolescence or emerging adulthood.

Real and ideal selves. The adolescent’s emerging ability to construct ideal selves in addition to actual ones can be perplexing and agonizing to the adolescent. In one view, an important aspect of the ideal or imagined self is the possible self—what individuals might become, what they would like to become, and what they are afraid of becoming. The attributes of future positive selves (getting into a good college, being admired, having a successful career) can direct future positive states. And the attributes of future negative selves (being unemployed, being lonely, not getting into a good college) can identify what is to be avoided.

Social comparison. The tendency to compare themselves with others continues to increase during the adolescent years. However, when asked whether they engage in social comparison, most adolescents deny it because they are aware that it is somewhat socially undesirable to do so. That is, they think that acknowledging their social comparison motives will endanger their popularity. An individual’s beliefs about how he or she is viewed by others is referred to as the looking glass self.

Self-integration. In late adolescence and emerging adulthood, self- understanding becomes more integrative as the disparate parts of the self are more systematically pieced together. Older adolescents are more likely to detect inconsistencies in their earlier self-descriptions as they attempt to construct a general theory of self and an integrated sense of identity.

(Harter, 2006, 2012; Markus & Kitayama, 2010, 2012; Santrock, 2014)

Understanding Others

Middle and Late Childhood

“In middle and late childhood, children show an increase in perspective taking. In Robert Selman’s view (1980), at about 6 to 8 years of age, children begin to understand that others may have a different perspective because some people have more access to information than others do. Then, he says, in the next several years, children become aware that each individual is aware of the other’s perspective and that putting one- self in another person’s place is a way of judging the other person’s intentions, purposes, and actions.” (Selman,1980)

It is believed that perspective taking plays a crucial role in deciding whether children will acquire prosocial or antisocial attitudes and behaviors. Regarding prosocial behavior, contemplating another's perspective boosts children's likelihood of understanding and empathizing with troubled or in need individuals.

"A recent study found that in emotionally reactive children, good perspective-taking skills were associated with the ability to regain a neutral emotional state after being emotionally aroused. Over a two-year period, children who improved their perspective-taking skills reduced their emotional reactivity in this study." (Bengtsson & Arvidsson, 2011)

During middle and late childhood, children develop a greater degree of skepticism towards some sources of information on psychological features.

"In one study, for example, 10- to 11-year-olds were more likely than 6- to 7-year-olds to reject other children's self-reports that they were smart and honest. The more psychologically sophisticated 10- to 11-year-olds demonstrated a better understanding that others' self-reports are likely to focus on socially desirable tendencies when compared to the 6- to 7-year-olds." (Heyman & Legare, 2005)

Adolescent

To become a competent adolescent, one must not only comprehend oneself, but also comprehend others. Perspective taking, perceiving others characteristics, and social cognitive monitoring are crucial parts of adolescent development pertaining to comprehending others.

Perspective Taking

Girls in sixth to eighth grade engaged in more social perspective taking than boys, and females also experienced more empathetic distress, or taking on their friend's distress as their own, than boys. (Smith, 2009; Smith & Rose, 2011)

In regards to racism and sexism, adolescents in ninth to twelfth grade held a naive social perspective on differences between vulnerable and less susceptible social groups. In this study, 12th graders had a more nuanced concept of social justice than ninth graders. (Rubenstein, 2012)

One year later, among middle school pupils, a lower degree of perspective taking was associated with an increase in relational aggression (harming someone through techniques such as spreading cruel stories). (Batanova & Loukas, 2011)

Social Cognitive Monitoring

Adolescents monitor their social world more closely than children did as part of their increased awareness of themselves and others. On a daily basis, adolescents engage in a variety of social cognitive monitoring activities. "I'd like to get to know this guy better, but he's not very open," an adolescent might think. Maybe I can talk to some of the other students about how he is." Another adolescent may examine incoming information about a club or clique to see if it matches her perceptions of the club or clique. Another adolescent may question or paraphrase what someone has just said about her feelings to ensure that she has correctly understood them. The ability of adolescents to monitor their social cognition could be an important aspect of their social maturity. (Flavell, 1979)

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Self-Esteem

The global evaluative dimension of the self; also called self-worth or self-image. (Santrock, 2014)

The quality of parent-child interaction in infancy and early childhood lays the groundwork for self-esteem. As a result, if children have low self-esteem in middle and late childhood, they may have experienced neglect or abuse in their parent-child relationships earlier in development. Children with high self-esteem are more likely to have a secure attachment to their parents and parents who provide sensitive care.

(Thompson, 2011, 2013a, b, c, d)

Gender Differences in Self-Esteem

Girls' self-esteem dropped faster than boys' during adolescence. Male adolescents had higher self-esteem than female adolescents, according to the study.

One explanation for this gender difference holds that the drop in self-esteem is driven by a negative body image and that girls tend to have more negative body images during pubertal change than boys do.

Another explanation emphasizes the greater interest that adolescent girls take in social relationships and society’s failure to reward that interest.

(Impett & others, 2008)

Self-Esteem in Social Context

There are only moderate connections between school achievement and self-esteem, and these correlations do not imply that strong self-esteem leads to improved school success.

(Baumeister & others, 2003)

“Efforts to increase students’ self-esteem have not always led to improved school performance” (Davies & Brember, 1999).

Children with high self-esteem are more proactive, but this can have both positive and negative results. Children with high self-esteem are prone to both prosocial and anti-social behavior.

"They are more inclined to defend victims against bullies than youngsters with poor self-esteem, but they are also more likely to be bullies themselves." (Bushman & others, 2003, 2009).

Researchers have also discovered strong associations between self-esteem and happiness. High self-esteem appears to increase happiness. Many studies have found that people with low self-esteem report feeling more signs of depression than people with high self-esteem. Suicide attempts and anorexia nervosa have also been linked to low self-esteem.

(Orth & others, 2008, 2009; Brockmeyer & others, 2012; Kleiman & Riskand, 2013; Birkeland & others, 2012).

"One study discovered that low self-esteem in childhood was associated with depression in adolescence and early adulthood. According to a recent study, adolescents with low self-esteem had lower levels of life satisfaction at the age of 30." (Orth & others, 2008; Birkeland & others, 2012).

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Increasing Children’s Self-Esteem

A current problem is that too many of today's children and adolescents develop inflated self-esteem as a result of receiving meaningless praise while growing up. Too frequently, they receive accolades for inadequate or even bad performance. They may struggle to manage rivalry and criticism.

(Graham, 2005; Stipek, 2005)

Identifying the domains of competence important to the child

Harter (1999) argues that intervention must occur at the level of the causes of self-esteem if the individual’s self-esteem is to improve significantly. (Harter, 1999)

Children have the highest self-esteem when they demonstrate competence in critical fields. Hence, children should be educated to recognize and value their areas of expertise.

Providing emotional support and social approval

Emotional support and social approval have a significant impact on children's self-esteem. Some children with low self-esteem come from dysfunctional families or were victims of abuse or neglect settings which lacked any emotional support.

• Emotional support and social approval can be found through formal programs such as Big Brothers & Big Sisters.
  

• The informal encouragement of a teacher, coach, or other influential adult can provide support.
  

• Peer acceptance becomes increasingly significant during adolescence, yet both adult and peer support continue to have a significant impact on self-esteem.

Praising achievement

Accomplishment might boost children's self-esteem. The straightforward instruction of practical skills to children frequently leads to higher academic performance and self-esteem. Children's self-esteem increases when they are aware of the tasks necessary to reach their goals and have experience executing these or similar jobs.

Encouraging coping

"Self-esteem is also often increased when children face a problem and try to cope with it, rather than avoid it" (Compas, 2004).

If coping rather than avoidance prevails, children frequently approach challenges with realism, candor, and non-defensiveness. This results in positive self-evaluation, which leads to the self-generated approval that boosts self-esteem. Low self-esteem has the opposite effect: negative self-evaluations lead to denial, deceit, and avoidance, which result in self-generated condemnation.

Citation for Self section