Self-image

Not to be confused with Self-awareness, Self-concept, Self-consciousness, or Self-perception.

A person's self image is the mental picture, generally of a kind that is quite resistant to change, that depicts not only details that are potentially available to objective investigation by others (height, weight, hair color, gender, I.Q. score, etc.), but also items that have been learned by that person about himself or herself, either from personal experiences or by internalizing the judgments of others. A simple definition of a person's self image is their answer to this question - "What do you believe people think about you?" A more technical term for self image that is commonly used by social and cognitive psychologists is self-schema. Like any schema, self-schemas store information and influence the way we think and remember. For example, research indicates that information which refers to the self is preferentially encoded and recalled in memory tests, a phenomenon known as "Self-Referential Encoding" (Rogers et al. 1977).

As it is a relative objective measure, it is generally measured against crowd leaders, such as celebrities.

Poor self image

Poor self image may be the result of accumulated criticisms that the person collected as a child which have led to damaging his own view of themself. Children in particular are vulnerable to accepting negative judgments from authority figures because they have yet to develop competency in evaluating such reports.

What is not known to others

Some information about an individual is not directly available to others, and that information may be very pertinent to the formation of an accurate and well functioning self image. For instance, only the individual may know whether certain of his or her acts were malicious or benevolent in intent. Only individuals know whether in their internal experience they are masculine or feminine, good or bad and so on.

Individuals often form a negative self image as a result of physicalities affecting themselves, such as alcoholic parents or other unstable environments, and the use of drugs to unintentionally hurt themselves.

Residual self image

Residual self image is the concept that individuals tend to think of themselves as projecting a certain physical appearance. The term was popularized in fiction by the Matrix series, where persons who existed in a digitally created world would subconsciously maintain the physical appearance that they had become accustomed to projecting.

Self image of victimisation

Victims of abuse and manipulation often get trapped into a self image of victimisation. The psychological profile of victimisation includes a pervasive sense of helplessness, passivity, loss of control, pessimism, negative thinking, strong feelings of guilt, shame, self-blame and depression. This way of thinking can lead to hopelessness and despair.

See also

• Body image
• Face (self image)
• Figure rating scale
• List of basic self topics
• Positive mental attitude
• Self-concept
• Self-esteem
• Self (psychology)
• Self-schema

References

• Rogers, T.B., Kuiper, N.A., Kirker, W.S. (1977) Self-Reference and the Encoding of Personal Information, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 35, 677-688.