The Self and Self-Concept
What Is the Self?
Psychologists use the term self-concept to describe how a person understands who they are. Self-concept is not fixed at birth — it develops gradually through childhood as children learn to separate themselves from the world around them and then build up ideas about their own characteristics, abilities and worth. Understanding how self-concept forms also helps psychologists explain why some people feel confident and settled, while others struggle with low self-worth.
Lewis (1990) argued self-concept develops in two stages: first the child realises it exists as a separate being (the existential self), then it starts to describe itself using observable categories such as age and gender (the categorical self).
Lewis (1990): Existential and Categorical Self
The existential self is the earliest part of self-concept to develop. A baby gradually notices that it is a distinct being — separate from its mother, other people and the objects around it. This is often shown through the baby recognising it can cause things to happen, such as knocking over a toy, and realising that this action belongs to it and not to anyone else.
Once a child understands it exists separately, it starts to build the categorical self. This usually develops from around age two, when children begin describing themselves using labels — “I am a girl”, “I am tall”, “I am four”. As children grow older, categories become more detailed, moving beyond size and gender to include skills such as being ‘good at football’ or ‘good at reading’.
Lewis’s theory suggests self-concept builds in a fixed sequence: a child cannot sort itself into categories until it first understands that it is a separate ‘self’ to be categorised. This makes the existential self a necessary foundation for every later stage of self-concept, including the more detailed self-image Rogers described in older children and adults.
Rogers’s Components of Self-Concept
Carl Rogers (1959) built on this idea by identifying separate parts of self-concept in older children and adults. Self-image is how a person views themselves — for example, seeing themselves as shy, sporty, or hard-working. Self-image builds on the categorical self Lewis described, but includes more abstract qualities — personality traits, roles and social relationships — rather than just physical or observable labels. This is not always accurate; a person’s self-image can differ from how others actually see them.
Self-esteem is how much a person values themselves. High self-esteem means someone generally feels positive about who they are; low self-esteem means someone doubts their own worth. Rogers also described the ideal self — the person someone would like to become, shaped by their goals and values.
Rogers argued that psychological health depends on how closely a person’s self-image matches their ideal self. A close match is congruence; a large gap is incongruence, which Rogers linked to low self-esteem and difficulty reaching self-actualisation.
Congruence and Incongruence
When someone’s self-image is close to their ideal self, they experience congruence. This person feels they are broadly living up to what they want to be, which supports high self-esteem and wellbeing.
When there is a large gap between how someone sees themselves and who they want to be, they experience incongruence. Rogers believed a large or lasting mismatch could cause anxiety, low self-worth and prevent a person from reaching their full potential.
Rogers used the term self-actualisation for the process of growing towards one’s ideal self and fulfilling one’s true potential. He believed everyone has a natural drive towards self-actualisation, but incongruence between self-image and ideal self can block this growth.
Internal and External Influences on Self-Esteem
Self-esteem is not shaped by one single cause. Psychologists separate influences into internal and external factors. Temperament is an internal influence — the innate personality traits a person is born with, such as being naturally calm, anxious or sociable, which can affect how confident they feel from an early age. Twin studies are sometimes used to argue that certain personality tendencies, and therefore certain patterns of self-esteem, may be partly inherited rather than purely learned.
Experience is an external influence — the events and relationships a person lives through, including praise or criticism from parents and teachers, friendships, successes and failures. Positive experiences, such as consistent encouragement, tend to build higher self-esteem, while repeated criticism or failure can lower it.
Temperament (internal, innate) and experience (external, learned) work together to shape self-esteem — this reflects the wider nature versus nurture debate in psychology.
A child with a naturally anxious temperament (nature) who also experiences repeated criticism (nurture) may develop particularly low self-esteem, because the two influences reinforce each other. In contrast, a naturally confident temperament combined with supportive experiences can produce especially high self-esteem. This shows why psychologists rarely treat nature and nurture as separate, competing explanations.