A person initially has several systems, and through them he exercises control over his actions, which allows him to correctly assess his own strengths and take on solving only those problems that he can cope with. Self-esteem and the level of a person’s aspirations refer precisely to such mechanisms, thanks to which an individual is able to evaluate the correctness of the choice of goal and understand whether he can cope with this task. The level of aspiration also indicates the persistence with which a person will pursue his goal.
What is self-esteem and level of aspirations
Self-esteem is a complex of components that includes experience, skills, capabilities, a subject, and an idea of the importance of one’s own person.
The level of aspirations is the degree of choice of goals and objectives that a particular subject plans to achieve.
Both terms are related concepts that influence each other.
As everyone goes through life's journey, they begin to evaluate their skills and capabilities, compare themselves with the people around them, and try to realize their own plans. The ability to realistically assess one’s own strengths allows the subject to improve, strive to complete a given task, satisfy one’s curiosity, and choose the appropriate behavior for a specific situation.
The level of self-esteem affects self-esteem and helps you find your place in society.
There are two types:
- Adequate - a real attitude towards one’s own qualities, based on the real state of affairs.
- Inadequate, which is divided into underestimated (worries about any reason) and overestimated (the desire to dominate in everything).
Psychologists also divide the level of aspirations into two types: adequate and inadequate. It is not surprising that subjects who have an inadequate assessment of their own importance often have a high level of aspirations.
Self-esteem is too low
Scientists who are well versed in the field of psychology have long identified specific signs of low self-esteem:
Great timidity and caution in action. One cannot expect straightforwardness and firmness in answers from a person with an inferiority complex. There is a regular fear of hurting the feelings of others; he most often fusses and mumbles, but never expresses his point of view.- Excessive demands. People with strong complexes try to carefully achieve perfection in everything, meticulously evaluating not only their own, but also those of others. This behavior very often leads to the fact that even those closest to them begin to avoid them.
- Trying to earn approval. Numerous experiments have revealed that an insecure person is very dependent on the opinions of the people around him. For him, disapproving glances and conversations from the outside are considered not only a problem, but a whole tragedy, which subsequently leads to the emergence of new complexes and signs of inferiority.
- In this case, the aspirations are too low. Self-awareness plays a major role in this case and forces the individual to rush in the opposite direction from his real desires and capabilities. Such a person simply cannot adequately assess his abilities and skills; very often he continues to remain “at his beck and call,” even when he actually deserves a higher position in his career.
- Excessive love for constant complaints. In this case, it does not matter how justified a person’s suffering is, the main thing is that the world around him knows that he is unhappy, sick, dissatisfied and irritated.
- Special appearance. At the same time, there is an indecisive and shuffling gait, a head pulled into the shoulders and a quickly running gaze, in which one can read guilt and some kind of premonition of bad things.
- Such a person strives to fulfill the wishes or instructions of others. Not trusting his own judgment, a complex individual easily and easily succumbs to influence from the outside, and can also with great joy shift all his responsibility for actions onto another person. If a person, under someone else’s pressure, does something illegal or bad, then he is relieved to first of all think that everything that happens around is not his fault.
Classification
In psychology, there are 2 types of level of aspiration (LA), which are divided into 2 types.
Kinds:
- Private - refers to the desire to be successful in a specific area of life (professional activity, sports career, personal life).
- Social - refers to all spheres of life.
Types:
- Adequate - when goals correspond to capabilities.
- Inadequate, which is divided into 2 subtypes:
- Understated. Example: a brilliant student does not apply to a prestigious university, fearing failure during admission.
- Overpriced. Example: a child who does not know a subject well is sure that he deserves a high mark, without taking any action to obtain it.
What characterizes the concept
According to a number of well-known psychologists who study the concept as a psychological category, PM is characterized by the individual’s desire to achieve success in all aspects of his own life (personal relationships, significance in the eyes of others, professional activity, material well-being).
The basis for an adequate level of aspiration is setting achievable goals and objectives, and the ability to soberly assess one’s own capabilities.
UE is characterized by the following concepts:
- the degree of difficulty of the goal;
- determination of further tasks;
- feeling of self-worth.
What can a low level of aspirations or constant failures lead to?
The human psyche is designed in such a way that it needs systematic development to function fully. It is necessary to move forward and achieve your goals. This is exactly what modern society demands from a person. You must always be successful, rise up.
It is worth noting that when a person fails, the damage to his self-esteem is always much greater than with comparable success. And the general mood and emotions depend on the self-esteem and level of aspirations of the individual. With frequent failures, frustration may occur. It can be expressed in threatening behavior towards oneself or others around them.
Falling into frustration often causes a change in character and contributes to manifestations of lethargy, lack of initiative and an inferiority complex. If this condition lasts for a long time, it can cause neurosis, as well as various psychological problems.
In fact, the level of aspiration depends on self-esteem very indirectly. However, they are still interconnected. Thus, with a constant decrease in self-esteem, the level of aspirations may unexpectedly increase. As a rule, this occurs during the transition from high self-esteem to adequate self-esteem. In this case, the person most likely wants to make up for his failures, or reduce disappointment from possible losses.
The connection between self-esteem and the level of individual aspirations
Both components have a huge influence on each other. Having an inflated or underestimated view of one's own worth can lead to setting inappropriate goals in the future.
A real assessment of one’s own strengths and capabilities contributes to the development of an adequate management program.
The dependence of concepts has a rather complex mechanism: a gradual decrease in self-esteem can first reduce aspirations, but when it reaches the limit, it sharply increases. A person, tired of constant failure in his activities and lack of confidence in his own abilities, suddenly sets himself high goals.
Heightened self-esteem
A person with high self-esteem:
- feels his own importance, superiority over others;
- idealizes one’s own external features and character;
- ignores failures;
- passes off failure as success;
- blames others for his own failure;
- can't stand criticism.
Features of frustration
Frustration is a traumatic mental state that occurs in a person when he cannot do something or thinks that he cannot achieve his own desires and goals.
At the same time, very often the cause of this condition is too high, or, conversely, low self-esteem, as well as inflated claims. In this case, you can solve the problem only by completely getting rid of your complexes, regaining confidence in your abilities and a sober view of the things around you.
In the life of a modern person there is a constant struggle: for a place in the sun, for one’s family, as well as a normal attitude, success at work - such factors can be listed for a very long time. By correctly setting all your priorities in life and goals, and getting rid of difficulties with your own self-esteem, you can gain a new positive character trait - self-esteem.
Private and general level
It is also possible to distinguish between a particular and a general indicator of the development of self-esteem in an individual. Partial claims relate to achieving one’s goal in the field of activity (music, sports, cinema) or in human terms (the need to take the right place in family, friendly or industrial relationships, as well as in the team). The basis of this claim is one’s own self-esteem in a certain area.
Claims can also be general; they will relate immediately to many areas of a person’s life and, above all, to those in which his moral and intellectual manifestations are involved. Such an indicator will be very closely associated with a person’s self-esteem indicator, and will be formed under the influence of subjective experiences of success or failure of one’s goal.
How to determine your own UE?
To determine your own level of aspirations, you can use the method of psychologist Schwartzlander.
Method-based testing is often used during recruitment. A person is given a table measuring 10x3. 10 cells horizontally and 3 cells height.
The subject must name the number of squares that he can fill with pluses in 10 seconds. He writes his answer in the upper right cell of the first table.
For example, the subject plans to give 20 plus signs.
The time is noted, the person completes the task. After stopping the stopwatch, the number of plus signs actually placed is counted. This value is entered in the lower-right cell of the table.
The test subject is given 3 attempts, with each attempt the testing time is reduced.
Evaluation of test results
First, let's calculate the final level using the formula:
UP = [UP (2) – UD (1) ] + [UP (3) – UD (2) ] + [UP (4) – UD (3) ]
Where UP - Levels of aspiration in tests 1,2,3, and UD, respectively, levels of achievement in these tests.
Compare the result with this data
≥ 5 – unrealistically high level of aspirations; 3–4.99 – high level of aspirations (within the norm); 1–2.99 – moderate level of aspirations (within the norm); -1.49–0.99 – low level of aspirations; ≤ -1.50 – unrealistically low level of aspirations
And remember, self-esteem is not equal to the level of aspirations, but the more adequate the self-esteem is, the more adequate the level of aspirations will be. In other words, a person with an unrealistically inflated PM will take on the most ambitious projects and undertakings and most often fail in them.
Self-assessment of personal qualities
The way a subject feels about himself and his place among other individuals has a huge impact on behavior and mood. There are no strict criteria for assessing personal qualities; therefore, determining the level of personal self-esteem is an arbitrary, creative process.
SELF-CONCEPT (SELF-IMAGE, SELF-ESTEEM) IN SCHOOL AND ADOLESCENCE Article
SELF-CONCEPT (SELF-IMAGE, SELF-ESTEEM) IN SCHOOL AND ADOLESCENCE
The “self-concept” of an individual is the result of a long process of development, which begins from the moment of birth of a child and continues throughout the individual’s life. During this process, an individual's self-awareness goes through a number of stages. One of the most developed theories of the stage development of the “I-concept” was proposed by the American psychologist Gordon Allport.
The first stage is feeling your body. The baby does not recognize himself as a separate entity, so he does not distinguish between what is “mine” and what is “not mine.” However, during the first year of life, infants begin to become aware of many sensations that come from muscles, tendons, ligaments, and internal senses. These repeated sensations form the bodily self. As a result, infants begin to distinguish themselves from other objects.
The second stage is a sense of self-identity, when the child recognizes himself as a certain and most important person. The most significant starting point for the emergence of a sense of integrity and continuity of the “I” over time is the child’s own name. At 2-3 years old, having learned his name, the child begins to understand that he remains the same person, despite all the changes in his growth and in his interaction with the outside world.
The third stage is the formation of self-esteem. Self-esteem initially manifests itself as the feeling of pride a child feels when he accomplishes something on his own. Thus, self-esteem depends on the child’s successful completion of some task. Later, at the age of four or five, self-esteem takes on a competitive tone and is expressed in the admiring exclamation of “I beat you!” when the child wins a game. Peer recognition also becomes an important source of new self-esteem throughout childhood.
At the fourth stage, the boundaries of the self are expanded. By the age of 4-6 years, the child begins to realize that he owns not only his own physical body, but also significant elements of the world around him, including people. During this period, children learn to comprehend the meaning of “mine.”
At the fifth stage, at the age of 5-6 years, the image of “I” begins to form. This is the time when the child begins to learn what parents, relatives, teachers and other people expect from him, how they want him to be. It is during this period that the child begins to understand the difference between “I am good” and “I am bad.” The goals and aspirations of an individual begin to reflect the expectations of significant others.
The sixth stage (between 6 and 12 years) is characterized by conscious, rational self-control. An individual at this stage uses abstract reasoning and applies logic to solve everyday problems. The child does not yet trust himself enough to be morally independent. Rather, he dogmatically believes that his family, peer group, religion, teachers, and others are always right. This stage of self development reflects strong conformity, moral and social obedience.
At the seventh stage, in adolescence and adolescence, the formation of the “I-concept”, a holistic sense of “I” (setting long-term goals, persistence in finding ways to solve the intended problems, the feeling that life has meaning) occurs. This is the essence of this stage. However, even in adulthood, this desire develops, because a new stage of the search for self-identity, a new self-awareness, is unfolding.
The eighth stage in the formation of the “I-concept” is associated with a person’s unique ability to self-knowledge and self-esteem.
An empirical study of the functional elements of the self-concept, namely the self-image and self-esteem, made it possible to identify not only the actual mechanisms that ensure the effectiveness of solving age-related problems (learning and development of interaction styles), but also the mechanisms that cause deficiencies specific to each age group, i.e. that is, what remains unformed by the next age stage, creating difficulties for the subsequent development of self-awareness.
In younger schoolchildren, the overgeneralization of self-esteem influences the nature of behavior and the system of attitude towards the educational process. It is necessary to work on developing the objectivity of self-assessment and such aspects of the self-image as the internal picture of health, perception of one’s appearance, intellectual capabilities, decisiveness of behavior and confidence in one’s actions.
For younger adolescents, this is instability and situational self-esteem, dissatisfaction with one’s self-image, especially in relation to one’s body and authority among peers, which is a determining factor in the background state of anxiety and fears: self-expression, interaction with others, testing one’s intellectual capabilities. In general, the “problem area” for younger adolescents is their unpreparedness for constructive and independent behavior in learning and communication situations.
In older adolescents, there is inadequacy and lack of differentiation of self-esteem, difficulties in accepting personal responsibility for their behavior, along with manifestations of defense mechanisms in the form of anxiety and aggressive reactions. At this age stage, work on the formation of coping strategies is necessary. In adolescence, the formation of personality is directly related to awareness of oneself as an individual. A. N. Leontiev emphasized that the problem of a person’s self-awareness does not boil down to a person’s knowledge of himself; self-awareness is awareness of oneself in the system of social relations.
The specificity of self-knowledge in adolescence is that it is carried out in the process of comparing oneself with others, both with real peers and with reference models. Models—ideals and role models that embody the demands that a teenager places on a person—acquire considerable importance. The development of self-esteem and self-concept is based on reflection, which realizes the teenager’s desire to understand himself and meet accepted requirements.
I am the concentration of a teenager. Self-concept is a person’s system of ideas about himself, including awareness of his physical, intellectual, characterological, social and other properties; self-esteem; subjective perception of external factors influencing one’s own personality. The self-concept performs the function of interpreting a person’s experience, is a source of expectations and contributes to the achievement of internal consistency of the individual. By self-concept, X. Remschmidt understands an organized system of views, attitudes and motives that form the basis of personality and determine its uniqueness, self-identity and immutability.
It is important for a teenager to understand not only what he is like, who he is, but also what he is capable of, i.e. how significant and valuable its features are. A young man can evaluate his qualities and abilities independently, but only as a result of assessment from the outside, through the prism of the opinions of others. Evaluating yourself and your characteristics depends on the existing value system, which is formed primarily thanks to family and peers.
The development of self-esteem is accompanied by experiences that often take the form of internal conflicts in which a teenager’s self-confidence and self-doubt collide. Teenagers react sharply to their successes and failures, constantly going to extremes: from admiring their abilities and talents to experiencing their own “insignificance” and “worthlessness.” Lack of self-confidence can lead a teenager to false forms of self-affirmation - protest behavior, violation of norms and rules, antics, bravado, designed to demonstrate to others the teenager's maturity and independence, as well as increased vulnerability, touchiness, and rudeness. The development of self-esteem in adolescence is associated with self-knowledge and the formation of individual self-awareness. Two types of communication act as a psychological mechanism for the development of self-esteem and self-concept: “I - Other” communication, in which the formation of self-esteem is based on correlating oneself with others and highlighting similarities and differences, and “I-I” autocommunication. Self-observation and self-perception form the basis for the development of the self-concept in early adolescence, allowing one to establish the similarity of the “I” with others and highlight one’s dissimilarity and uniqueness, difference from others. In autocommunication, introspection and self-awareness become a mechanism for recognizing oneself as a subject with one’s own motives, interests and meanings, achieving integrity and unity of external and internal being. In the dispositional theory of personality, self-esteem is viewed as a level structure, in which the lower level consists of unconscious attitudes/well-being; middle level - awareness and self-esteem of individual properties and qualities that make up a relatively holistic image of the “I”; the third level involves the inclusion of self-esteem in the general system of value orientations of the individual, highlighting meaning, life goals and means of achieving them
During adolescence, one can observe a transition to a value-based level of self-esteem. Self-esteem becomes increasingly differentiated in relation to different social contexts - a phenomenon reflected in the well-known metaphor “social chameleon”. The most important task in the development of adolescence is the formation of personal identity (E. Erikson). The solution to this problem is directly reflected in the patterns of development of the self-concept and self-esteem of adolescents - the processes of differentiation of self-esteem in various social contexts are complemented by the processes of integration of multiple “Selves”, the formation of a stable and sustainable self-esteem. Differentiation and integration act in integral unity, determining the development of a teenager’s personality. The general pattern of self-esteem formation is the increasing stability of self-esteem and its differentiation depending on the social context of interaction and cooperation.
A study of the connection between the level of aspirations of adolescents, their self-confidence or self-doubt and the characteristics of their self-esteem found that depending on the nature of self-esteem (its adequacy, stability), a schoolchild develops self-confidence, uncertainty or self-confidence, i.e. certain character traits. At the same time, self-esteem, which has become a character trait, is not limited to one activity, but extends to other types of activity. In a study by E. I. Savonko and M. S. Neimark, adolescents were asked to solve arithmetic problems arranged in order of increasing difficulty. It was found that, in general, among adolescents, students who focused on self-esteem predominated. With age, the number of adolescents with a predominant orientation toward self-esteem increases and the number of those who focus primarily on the assessment of other people—teachers—decreases.
A significant factor in the formation of a teenager’s personality is the assessment of him by the people around him. While the importance of assessments of a teenager's qualities by adults - parents and teachers - remains important, the assessments of peers play an increasingly important role, in communication with whom self-esteem is intensively formed. The type of family upbringing and the characteristics of the parental position influence the formation of self-esteem in adolescence. However, the connection between a disharmonious type of upbringing and a variant of self-esteem violation is not linear - a violation of the type of family upbringing can lead to various, alternative options for the development of self-esteem. At the same time, a study of the connection between adolescents’ perception of the parental position and their self-esteem made it possible to establish that the nature of self-esteem is determined by various parameters of the parental position. Parents' emotional acceptance of adolescents (goodwill, interest, ambivalence, distance, hostility) turns out to be closely related to adolescents' self-esteem. At the same time, such parameters of the parental position as directiveness and autonomy are less significant for the self-esteem of adolescents. Both mother and father are equally significant figures in determining the nature of a teenager’s self-esteem. Different sensitivity of self-esteem has been revealed in relation to different social contexts (family, educational, peer groups). Low emotional acceptance, ambivalence or rejection of a teenager by at least one parent leads to a decrease in adolescents’ self-esteem, and the most sensitive contexts are communication and interaction with loved ones (parents) and social adults (teachers).
