Knowing Oneself – Characteristics, Habits and Experiences
Self-Esteem
Self-esteem is an assessment of one’s value that could be either positive or negative. Positive self-esteem makes them feel good and appreciated, depends on what is you and others aim for and negative self-esteem makes a person feel upset, and socially rejected. Accomplishing what we are told to do will have a positive impact about our self-concept by thinking great about oneself and gain high self-esteem. It does not mean that one is superior than someone else, but know themselves that they are worthy enough (Diener & Lucas 2017, as cited by Aling 2021).
Self-esteem could often time change in according to the moment we are currently in. It is how you see things in the near future which is an attribute every individual could have.
It is evaluated in two ways that are explicitly and implicitly and both showed majority of individual has their own ideal selves. This is called the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, a famous explicit self-report measurement of an individual’s self-esteem (Stangor et al., as cited by Aling 2021).
If achieved a high score on the scale, then it indicates high self-esteem.
Self-Efficacy
Efficacy could affect how someone acts and feels, this lets people to fix problems and accomplish what they really want to happen. You have confidence on what you can do to reach something important for you. If the chances for good outcomes are in your favor, you will think that it is possible.
E.g., you want to receive high grades, so for you, it is bound to come into reality.
Albert Badura, who is a professor and psychology, has his insights regarding how self-efficacy is affected:
· Performance Experiences –there is a chance of getting what you achieved before again;
· Vicarious Performances – knowing others achieved their own tasks, it will happen to you also;
· Verbal Persuasion – the person encouraging you can make you achieve things you are wishing for; more closeness equals more increase in your self-efficacy;
· Imaginal Performances – visualizing yourself doing it can make it come true; and
· The Affective States & Physical Sensations – your current feeling and physical condition will affect your self-efficacy. Negative feeling and negative physical state leads to negative outcome. As for positive ones, its outcome would be positive.
Self and Identity
Psychologist Dan McAdam said that there are ways on reflecting for self-improvement, delivering us to these three categories:
Self as Social Actor – portrayal of different roles and how we behave based on who we are interacting with;
Self as Motivated Agent – acting in according to their importance. This is about what they planned for their future; and
Self as Autobiographical Author – they write their own story, or basically an author of their own life. They would reflect about the past, what are their current state, and what will happen to them in the near future.
Judgment and Decision Making
People should consider what they are going are going to do. Sadly, we all do not always do. (Jhangiani 2020, as cited by Aling 2021). Most people have more trust in what they think will happen than what it should be. It is often unfair whenever we insert our data that came from our own decisions.
E.g., there are six different universities, and you passed at each course at every university. It is up to you to think about it. Now, use the Six Steps on How to Make a Rational Decision that came from Bazerman and Moore in 2013, as told by Jhangiani:
Define the Problem (choose the course you wanted);
Identify the criteria necessary to judge the multiple options (think about the place it is at, buildings within the campus, achievements, etc.);
Weight the criteria (categorize on how they are significant to you)
Generate alternatives (universities that let you in)
Rate each alternative on each criterion (assess each university based on their given criteria); and
Compute the optimal decision.
Source/s