Concepts within the Self-Concept: A Developmental Study on Differentiation

Abstract

In this study, the self-concept is considered to be composed of of several distinct concepts; the actual self and various “possible selves”. These concepts of the self can be studied from the person’s own point of view and from the person’s fantasies of the points of view of others. The purpose of this study is to examine the developmental course of such concepts in children. Two mutually exclusive assumptions concerning the degree of differentiation between the different selfconcepts can be made. These concepts either depend on growing cognitive abilities and will develop and become differentiated in a developmental correspondence with these abilities, or they are present in a rudimentary differentiated form from birth and obtain their contents through individual experiences. Both assumptions were tested for the actual and the ideal self. For this purpose, 204 children (age range from 6- to 16-years) were presented by a Repertory Grid procedure to assess their own and “others’ supposed” actual and ideal self concepts. The data indicate that younger children are able to differentiate between both concepts almost as well as older children when the assessment is adapted to their own age level. No age effects were found, except for the differentiation between the “others” supposed real and ideal self-concepts. These findings suggest that from the age of six onward, life-events rather than cognitive abilities play a major role in the degree of differentiation between the several concepts of self.