Self Concepts: Beliefs, Values and Attitudes

Self-concept is the belief about him/herself that how he/she does role play in a society.  It can be understood when a person is communicating. This is a lifelong process that gradually changes and increases by the process of communication.  It is very important to build a relationship to other’s people in society. A person can build up his self concept by the motivation and the feedback provided.  Self-concept is a belief that leads to a better understood about self.  It is a perception that shows or impacts inter-personal communication. It can be determined by the self awareness of an individual. Emotions, feelings, appearance, social traits, friendly behavior are directly or indirectly related to self concept.

If you have the answer to the question, “Who am I?” it can be said that you have a self concept about yourself. Self concept is praised by the family, their socio-economic and education background. It is also influenced by the culture where you were born and grown up. Media is one of the influencing tools that shape the self concept of people these days. How the teachers teach in the class also may be a good feedback to change the self concept of a student. Self concept of a person is affected by significant role of the instructor that he/she gets understand him/herself. As a person grows older, his increase in the thinking level of his concept makes him/her mature. Which political party do you like? Do you like congress or re-public?  You are influenced by either one or both or none. All in all, my self-concept is influenced by my culture, religion, feedback of teachers and my family background and media.

For effective communication, he/she needs to know and identify his/her values, beliefs and attitudes. Both belief and value guide our action and behavior to form an attitude. The people who follow Buddhism differ to the people who follow Christian because of their beliefs and values. Belief is our concept that we think it is true or the things we hold to be true whereas values are ideas which we prefer as important things.  Values govern the way we communicate to others in society. Our attitude can be determined by our values and belief that we follow.

            The process of communication is regulated by our beliefs, values and attitudes because they are linked together. If we can prejudge ourselves then only we can influence our perception through communication in our society. For example, beliefs are necessary to understand the culture and if we learn the culture, it is easy to know the people. Our belief and values have great impact on our feelings and decision making. Values are more reliable than belief and attitude. Belief is the personal knowledge that we think to be true, but may not be true others. Attitude is the behavior of feelings that can be shown and understand while a person acts and communicates. Attitude is our self concept that helps to evaluate like, dislike and express of our opinion. What I believe may not be believable to the other people. Things I value may not be valuables in others point of view. what exactly are your beliefs and values? 

Since the value are ideal, long lasting and guides our behavior. For example, my family is very important to me and I have their photo hanging on the wall.  Nowadays, people from abroad know the value of education, so they give more emphasis on time for learning and communicating. My beliefs are my convictions and confidence.  Being Hindu, I like to wear artifacts that reflect Hinduism. Similarly, Christian people like to wear the bracelets and chain made with the images of Jesus Christ. I was not supposed to eat beef, but I started to eat it when I came to the U.S. I think it does not matter to eat chicken or beef or pork to me, but it can be a big thing to others.  People evaluate me by my attitude. It evaluates the dispositions about me, other people, places, concepts and objects. I have been changing my attitude. I used to get angry very often.  When I knew the fact that my anger is bad for me, I started to smile. I do not want to show my angriness when I speak in public. I spend time talking to myself to be positive.(A GOOD PRACTICE) I am changing my attitude to change some of the belief and values that I have to change.  Therefore, we communicate verbally or non-verbally with each other with the use of self-concept that is regulated by our beliefs, values and attitudes.