Self-Concept and Self-Esteem
Author: W. Huitt 
Last Modified: May 1998 
http://chiron.valdosta.edu/whuitt/col/regsys/self.html

There are a variety of ways to think about the self. Two of the most widely used terms are self-concept and self-esteem. Self-concept generally refers to 

"the totality of a complex, organized, and dynamic system of learned beliefs, attitudes and opinions that each person holds to be true about his or her personal existence" (Purkey, 1988).

Self-esteem generally refers to how we feel about or how we value ourselves. Self-concept can also refer to the general idea we have of ourselves and self-esteem can refer to particular measures about components of self-concept. Some authors even use the two terms interchangeably. 

Franken (1994) states that 

"there is a great deal of research which shows that the self-concept is, perhaps, the basis for all motivated behavior. It is the self-concept that gives rise to possible selves, and it is possible selves that create the motivation for behavior" (p. 443).

Franken (1994) suggests that self-concept is related to self-esteem in that 

"people who have good self-esteem have a clearly differentiated self-concept.... When people know themselves they can maximize outcomes because they know what they can and cannot do" (p. 439).

It would seem, then, that one way to impact self-esteem is to obey the somewhat outworn cliche of "Know thyself." 

We develop and maintain our self-concept through the process of taking action and then reflecting on what we have done and what others tell us about what we have done. We reflect on what we have done and can do in comparison to our expectations and the expectations of others and to the characteristics and accomplishments of others (James, 1890; Brigham, 1986). That is, self-concept is not innate, but is developed by the individual through interaction with the environment and reflecting on that interaction. This dynamic aspect of self-concept (and, by corollary, self-esteem) is important because it indicates that it can be modified or changed. Franken (1994) states 

"there is a growing body of research which indicates that it is possible to change the self-concept. Self-change is not something that people can will but rather it depends on the process of self-reflection. Through self-reflection, people often come to view themselves in a new, more powerful way, and it is through this new, more powerful way of viewing the self that people can develop possible selves" (p. 443).

There are a several different components of self-concept: physical, academic, social, and transpersonal. The physical aspect of self-concept relates to that which is concrete: what we look like, our sex, height, weight, etc.; what kind of clothes we wear; what kind of car we drive; what kind of home we live in; and so forth. Our academic self-concept relates to how well we do in school or how well we learn. There are two levels: a general academic self-concept of how good we are overall and a set of specific content-related self-concepts that describe how good we are in math, science, language arts, social science, etc. The social self-concept describes how we relate to other people and the transpersonal self-concept describes how we relate to the supernatural or unknowns. 

Marsh (1992) showed that the relationship of self-concept to school achievement is very specific. General self-concept and non-academic aspects of self-concept are not related to academic work; general academic achievement measures are related moderately to academic success. Specific measures of subject-related self-concepts are highly related to success in that content area. 

Using linear discriminant analysis, Byrne (1990) showed that academic self-concept was more effective than was academic achievement in differentiating between low-track and high-track students. Hamachek (1995) also asserts that self-concept and school achievement and school achievement are related. The major issue is the direction of the relationship: does self-concept produce achievement or does achievement produce self-concept. Gage and Berliner (1992) state 

"the evidence is accumulating, however, to indicate that level of school success, particularly over many years, predicts level of regard of self and one's own ability (Bridgeman & Shipman, 1978; Kifer, 1975); whereas level of self-esteem does not predict level of school achievement. The implication is that teachers need to concentrate on the academic successes and failures of their students. It is the student's history of success and failure that gives them the information with which to assess themselves" (p. 159).

If academic achievement leads to self-concept/self-esteem, but self-concept is a better predictor of being a low-track or high-track student, it would appear that there is some intervening variable. James (1890) states that the intervening variable is personal expectations. His formula is: 

Self-esteem = Success / Pretensions. 

That is, increasing self-esteem results when success is improved relative to expectations. An interesting corollary to this equation is that success is limited by expectations and self-esteem: 

Success = Pretensions * Self-esteem. 

This equation states that success, especially the limits of one's success, can be improved by increasing expectations and/or self-esteem. However, as noted by Gage and Berliner (1992), the research on the relationship between self-esteem/self-concept and school achievement suggests that measures of general or even academic self-concept are not significantly related to school achievement. It is at the level of very specific subjects (e.g., reading, mathematics, science) that there is a relationship between self-concept/self-esteem and academic success. Given the above formula, this suggests that success in a particular subject area is not really changing one's self-concept (knowledge of one's self) or even self-esteem (one's subjective evaluation of one's value or worth), but rather is impacting one's expecation about future success based on one's past experience. 

Seligman's (1996) work on explanatory style suggests that the intervening variable connecting self-esteem and achievement is the student's level of "optimism" or the tendency to see the world as a benevolent (good things will probably happen) or malevolent (bad things will probably happen). Franken (1994) has developed a flow chart that provides a visual model of how some of the most important affect and conative (regulatory) variables are related to personal success (see handouts).

References 

Brigham, J. (1986). Social psychology. Boston: Little, Brown & Co. 
Byrne, B. (1990). Self-concept and academic achievement: Investigating their importance as discriminators of academic track membership in high school. Canadian Journal of Education, 15(2), 173-182. 
Franken, R. (1994). Human motivation (3rd ed.). Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole Publishing Co. 
Gage, N., & Berliner, D. (1992). Educational psychology (5th ed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 
Hamachek, D. (1995). Self-concept and school achievement: Interaction dynamics and a tool for assessing the self-concept component. Journal of Counseling & Development, 73(4), 419-425. 
James, W. (1890). Principles of psychology. New York: Henry Holt. 
Marsh, H. (1992 ). The content specificity of relations between academic self-concept and achievement: An extension of the Marsh/Shavelson model. ERIC NO: ED349315. 
Purkey, W. (1988). An overview of self-concept theory for counselors. ERIC Clearinghouse on Counseling and Personnel Services, Ann Arbor, Mich. (An ERIC/CAPS Digest: ED304630) 
Seligman, M. (1996) The optimistic child: How learned optimism protects children from depression. New York: Houghton Mifflin.