THE 'SELF' IN HUMAN COMMUNICATION
The self-concept and how it develops self-awareness,
self-esteem and ways to enhance self-disclosure,
1.SELF-CONCEPT
Your self-concept is your image of who you are.
It’s how you perceive yourself: your feelings and thoughts about your strengths
and weaknesses, your abilities and limitations. Self-concept develops from the
images that others have of you, comparisons between yourself and others, your
cultural experiences, and your evaluation of your own thoughts and
behaviors
1.Others’ Images of You
If you want to see how your hair looks, you probably look in a
mirror. But you wanted to see how friendly or how assertive you are? you’d look
at the image of yourself that others reveal to you through the way they
communicate The self is perhaps the most important element in any form of
communication of who you are.
2.Comparisons with Others
Another way you develop self-concept is by comparing yourself with
others, most often with your peers
For example, after an exam, you probably want to know how you performed
relative to the other students in your class. This gives you a clearer idea of
how effectively you performed.
3.Cultural Teachings
4. Self-Interpretations and Self-Evaluations
you believe that lying is wrong. If you then lie and you view it
as a lie you will probably evaluate this behavior in terms of your
internalized beliefs about lying (lying is On the other hand, let’s
say that you pull someone out of a burning building at great personal risk. You
will probably evaluate this behavior positively; you’ll feel good about this
behavior and, as a result, about yourself.
2.
SELF-AWARENESS
Self-awareness—your knowledge
of who you are; of your behaviors, your strengths and limitations, your
emotions and behaviors, your individuality—is basic to all communication. One
tool that is commonly used for this examination of self-awareness is called the Johari
window.
Johari Window: A diagram called the Johari Window (above) provides
a useful way to graphically visualize the process of self-disclosure. The
four quadrants of panes represent the different ways information can be
seen and observed, both by oneself and by others. The open pane includes what everyone
can see: your physical looks, occupation, economic and social situation, as
well as what you say and write. The hidden pane includes information about
yourself that you have not revealed to others: secrets, hopes, fantasies.
The blind pane is what others see in you that you cannot see: shortcoming,
talents, faults. Finally, the unknown pane includes information that nobody yet
knows: untapped potential, undiscovered interests.
Four Selves
The Johari window shows different aspects or versions of the self.
The four aspects are the open self, blind self, hidden self, and
unknown self.
Open self. This self represents all the information, behaviors, attitudes,
and feelings about yourself
that you know and that others also know. Such knowledge could
include everything from your name, skin color, sex, and age to your religion
and political beliefs.
Blind self.
This
self represents knowledge about you that others have but you don’t. Blind
self
might include your habit of finishing other people’s sentences or
your way of rubbing your nose when
you become anxious. A large blind self indicates low
self-awareness.
Unknown self.
The unknown self represents those parts of
yourself that neither you nor others know. This is information that is buried
in your subconscious. for example, learn of your obsession with money, your
fear of criticism
.
Hidden self. This self represents all the knowledge
you have of yourself but keep secret from
others.
for example, your fantasies, embarrassing experiences, and any
attitudes
or beliefs of which you may be ashamed.
Growing in Self-Awareness
SELF-AWARENESS is so important in communication, try to increase
awareness of your own needs, desires, habits, beliefs, and attitudes. We can do
this in various ways.
Listen to others. Others are constantly giving you the very feedback you need to
increase self-awareness.
Increase your open self. Revealing yourself to others will help increase your
self-awareness.
Seek information about yourself. Encourage people to reveal
what they know about you.
Dialogue with yourself. No one knows you better than you know yourself.
Ask yourself self awareness questions: What are my short-term and long-term goals?
What are my strengths and weaknesses?
3. SELF-ESTEEM
Self-esteem is a measure of how valuable you think you are; people with high
self-esteem think very highly of themselves, whereas people with low
self-esteem view themselves negatively. Here are five suggestions for
increasing self-esteem.
1.Attack Self-Destructive Beliefs: Challenge beliefs you
have about yourself that are unproductive or that make it more difficult for
you to achieve your goals.
2.Self-destructive beliefs set unrealistically high standards and therefore
almost always lead to failure.
3.Seek Out Nourishing People: Most important, nourishing
people reward us, they stroke us, they make us feel good about ourselves.
4. Work on Projects That Will Result in Success: Select
projects that will result in success. Each success will help build self-esteem.
5.Remind Yourself of Your Successes: Some people have a tendency
to focus, sometimes too much, on their failures, their missed opportunities,
their social mistakes. Recall these successes both intellectually and
emotionally
6.Secure Affirmation: The word affirmation is
used to refer to positive statements about you, statements asserting that
something good or positive is true of you.
4.SELF-DISCLOSURE
Self-disclosure is a type of communication in which you take information
from your hidden self and move it to the open self.
Factors Influencing Self-Disclosure
Among the most important factors are who you are, your
culture,
your gender, your listeners, and your topic and channel. Self-Disclosure
Dangers
Among the dangers of self-disclosure are:
Personal risks.
Relationship risks.
Professional risks.
Comments
Post a Comment