Feelings Self Concept And How They Relate

Essay, Research Paper

Feelings and self-concept are a part of everything that we do. Ourfeelings directly influence our self-concept. By learning about our feelingswe can learn about our self-concept. Feelings are your thoughts on all events that happen to you. They arewhat you think of that event. It is whether you feel happy, scared, angry,sorrowful etc. over what happens. The four basic feelings are joy, sorrow,anger and fear. Feelings are always present. Feelings are expressed in many ways. A facial expression is an easyway to tell how a person feels. Depending on how expressive a person is, itwill likely mean that a person is happy. The tone of a person s voice andhow they are talking will also help you to tell how a person is feeling. If aperson is talking slow, they are likely bored, but if the are talking rapidlyand running words together, this could mean that they are excited. Feelings, as described by Richard Kalish can not be felt without firstgoing through five steps. First you must perceive the event. Perception is theprocess of organizing what you sense and then interpreting it. Perceptioninvolves being aware of objects, qualities and relationships. Once youperceive something, you then learn it. Learning is done by copying what yousee. For example, if an infant is always hearing people talk, they try to copythem by making sounds which sound like what the person says. When anadult tells there child that they are dad or mom, the child learns to say dad ormom because they heard it from their parents. The more they hear it themore easily it is to copy. Next is the process of knowing. Knowing comesautomatically with learning. Remembering is the step after learning. If youhave learned nothing than you can remember nothing. But on the other handif you remember nothing than this devalues learning. The last step isthinking. Thinking is imagining the future and trying to make sense of thepast. Criticizing, creating and solving all require thinking in order to find anoutcome. Perceiving, learning, knowing, remembering and thinking are allinterdependent. Without one, all of the rest could not happen. You could notfeel emotions without first using any one of these steps. Many people have trouble expressing their feelings. If a person ishurting someone through their actions, and the person who is being hurtdoesn t say how they feel about what is happening to them, it will continue.The problem will continue usually until the person tells their feelings. Thenif the person who is hurting the other cares enough or thinks that it is a goodreason, they will stop. Your feelings are very closely related to your self-concept. Yourself-concept is how you feel about yourself. It is your perception and imageof yourself. It is what you think your abilities are, what your effects onothers are, your physical appearance, your general adequacy and your health. A person s self-concept influences almost everything. It determineshow they dress, how the relate to people, how they act in certain situationsand there enthusiasm. Self-concept is a hard thing to change. If you are consistently getting

marks like 70% in school, than that would be your standard. Yourself-concept says that you are a 70 s student. If you get a good mark like a95% on a test, you might blame it on an outside force, like luck. You don tthink that your competency actually got you the mark. On the other hand, it is possible to change your self-concept. A changecan occur through the aging process, a change in your physical appearance,a change in your role, or through a change of health. Another way that yourself-concept can be changed is through the thoughts of others, especially thepeople that are close to you. If someone s feelings about you change, thiscan effect your self-concept. It will have an even greater effect if the changeof opinion is for the better. The other way for our self concept to change is ifour own perception of our behavior, accomplishments, successes andfailures, interactions with others, status and influence changes. Your self-concept can easily be misinterpreted. For Example, someonewho is popular might always make insulting jokes about other people. Whenthat person makes jokes about his/her friends, after a while they might startto resent that person. The person making the jokes may still think that theyare popular, but they are actually just destroying their relationships withothers, becoming less popular, maybe even unpopular. This interview with Jeff ____ shows how your feelings can influenceyour self-concept. Question: How would you describe what feelings are? Jeff: They are your opinions. Question: Have you ever or do you now have low self-concept? If so, what did or do you feel like? Jeff: No. Question: What do you think is the major cause of low self-concept? Why? Jeff: Peer Pressure. People always pressure other people to do stuff that they don t always want to do. If they can t live up to what there friends are telling them to do then they might think that they are not good enough, therefore causing low self-concept. Question: Have you ever talked to someone that you are sure had low self-concept? What did they act and talk like? Jeff: Yes. They talked slowly and like they were bored. They acted the same as anyone else, accept that the person wasn t that eager to do anything. Question: How do you think feelings relate to self-concept? Jeff: If you feel bad about yourself then you have low self-concept, but if you feel good about yourself then you have high self-concept. Question: What is your general attitude like? Jeff: Things happen cause they happen and there s nothing you can do about it. Question: Do you think that your attitude directly effects your self-concept? Jeff: Yes because when someone says something bad to me, my attitude prevents it from effecting my self-concept. We can easily relate our feelings with our self-concept. Without ouremotions, there would be nothing to think about. We would not have toassess a situation to see what we think about it. Life would have no valuewithout thoughts. Bibliography Interview with Jeffrey Pihach. Thursday March 25, 1999. The Psychology of Human Behavior, Richard A. Kalish:Brooks/Cole Publishing Company; Monterey California, 1983. Surviving Adolescence, Peter Bruggen and Charles O Brian: Faberand Faber; Boston, 1986.