Personality or Self Concept... Which comes first?

Its the chicken and the egg situation all over again!! 

I believe that your self concept affects your personality because personality is only the make up you apply on the outside. Self concept is what's inside.. People who may come across as shy may actually have something else hidden in their past that stops them from speaking out. Maybe a relative always put them down as a child? Maybe they were bullied at school? And therefore this has had a big impact on their self esteem and then onto their self concept. 

Personality is something that is constantly changing with your surroundings.  For example people who are married to a dominant partner will not really have a say in many things even though if before they got married they were very out going. This is their self concept that has deteriorated because their personality has been forcefully changed. This is the worst thing to do to a person as they will not be able to stnad on their own two feet and eventually become dependent.


Personality: the visible aspect of one's character (Dictionary.com)

Self concept stems deep down into the individual persons beliefs and how they put them into use in the real world. 

In my opinion it is the self concept that makes a personality... Everyone is different in how they apply their self concept and their personality at different times. For example the clothes people wear could play a factor in that persons self esteem at this times, where as another time, it could be like talking to another person, this is what is known as a multiple personality (Solomon,Bamossy,Askegaard & Hogg, 2010) where people act in different ways at difference times and around different people.

This is known as 'self esteem advertising', there are many factors other than clothing that can affect the way a person presents themselves, for example younger people who smoke may possible think that they look good smoking at a young age, or that it boosts their image within their social peer group. This is a big problem in the world today as this type of peer pressure can lead into different avenues which are extremely dangerous; from taking drugs to committing crimes.

Peer pressure also comes into this scenario as Solomon points out, 'teenagers who are members of high-status groups have a higher self-esteem than their excluded classmates.' (P144, Solomon et al, 2010). This  statement is very true yet it is extremely simple, for people to understand. 

Jack Canfield is an American motivational speaker who hold events across the globe, in the video link below he speaks about positive thinking altering ones self-esteem. One comment that he made which I found very interesting was although being made redundant is a bad thing, but the end of one job holds a promise of a new beginning. When I first him this comment it made me stop and think that everything happens for a reason... Some spiritualists say that our lives are written, others disagree. Hearing this comment makes inclines me to believe the fact that our lives are written even more than previously. 

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7hBoa75YRs)

However, there are two big influences of self-esteem, this is the real self and the ideal self. The real self is our real appraisal of the qualities we have or in some cases do not, where as the ideal self asks the questions: could i earn more money? Or Am I worthy of that position? (Solomon et al 2010). This shows that many people doubt may doubt themselves and their skills at crucial times in their careers that could potentially affect the rest of their lives. This is where Jack Canfield's work comes in again telling people that positive things will happen if you have a positive outlook on life. 

Reference List:

Solomon M R, Bamossy G, Askgaard S, Hogg M, 2010, Consumer behavior a european perspective, 4th ed, Harlow, Pearson's Education LTD