Self-Concept and Identity

Self-concept is the internal answer set a person builds to the question "who am I?" It's built from self-schemas, expressed through a set of individual identities, and constantly evaluated against who a person wants to be and who they think they should be — a process that shapes self-esteem, motivation, and how a person responds to failure.

Key Takeaways

• Self-concept (the full internal answer to "who am I?") is built partly from self-schemas (Hazel Markus) — self-given labels that carry a set of qualities. Identity refers to the individual components of self-concept, and a person can enact different identities in different social situations.

• Gender identity involves two independent dimensions (masculinity and femininity, not one continuum), producing androgynous (high on both) and undifferentiated (low on both) categories; gender schema theory (Sandra Bem) holds that gender identity's components are culturally and socially transmitted.

• Ethnic identity (shared ancestry, cultural heritage, language) and nationality (political borders, shared history/media/symbols) are two additional identity types, alongside categories like age, class, religion, and sexual orientation.

• The hierarchy of salience (Sheldon Stryker) determines which identity a person enacts in a given situation, based on factors like invested work, rewards/gratification, and associated self-esteem.

• Self-discrepancy theory (E. Tory Higgins) holds that self-esteem depends on how closely a person's actual self, ideal self, and ought self align; low self-esteem is linked to self-criticism, poor handling of criticism, and giving up under frustration.

• Self-efficacy (Albert Bandura) is belief in one's own ability to succeed and varies by activity; too much produces overconfidence, while a collapse in self-efficacy can produce learned helplessness (Martin Seligman), a possible model for clinical depression.

• Locus of control (Julian Rotter) describes whether a person attributes life outcomes to themselves (internal) or to luck/outside forces (external).

Self-Concept and Self-Schema

Self-concept is a person's own internal list of answers to the question "who am I?" A major part of how people build and classify that self-concept comes from self-schemas — a concept introduced by psychologist Hazel Markus — which are self-given labels that carry a set of qualities with them. Describing yourself as an "athlete," for example, carries with it qualities like youth and physical fitness, even if those qualities aren't explicitly stated.

Identity refers to the individual components of a person's self-concept — for example, religious affiliation or sexual orientation. A person can take on a different identity depending on the social situation they're in; someone might emphasize their identity as a "student" in one setting and their identity as a "sibling" in another.

Types of Identity

Gender Identity

Gender identity is a person's appraisal of themselves in terms of masculinity and femininity. Masculinity and femininity were initially thought to be two extremes on a single continuum — meaning more of one required less of the other. They're now understood to be two separate dimensions, since individuals can score high on scales of both masculinity and femininity at the same time.

• Androgyny describes the state of being simultaneously masculine and feminine.

• Undifferentiated describes achieving low scores on both scales.

Gender identity is usually well defined by around age three, though it can change over time. Gender schema theory, developed by psychologist Sandra Bem, holds that the key components of gender identity are transmitted through cultural and societal means.

MCAT Callout — Two dimensions, not one continuum: don't treat masculinity and femininity as opposite ends of a single scale. A person can score high on both (androgynous) or low on both (undifferentiated) — a classic outdated-model trap on passage-based questions.

Ethnic and National Identity

Ethnic identity is tied to one's ethnic group, whose members typically share a common ancestry, cultural heritage, and language. Nationality is an identity based on political borders, resulting from a shared history, media, cuisine, and national symbols. Symbols play a large role in both of these identities.

Other Types of Identity and the Hierarchy of Salience

People also compare themselves to others in terms of age, class, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, and more. Many factors determine which identity gets enacted in a given situation — a process governed by what's known as the hierarchy of salience, a concept from Sheldon Stryker's identity theory. The idea is that a person lets the situation dictate which identity holds the most importance at any given moment. The more important, or prominent, an identity is in that moment, the more a person conforms to the role expectations attached to it.

Salience — how important an identity is at a given moment — is determined by factors including:

• The amount of work invested in the identity.

• The rewards or gratification associated with the identity.

• The amount of self-esteem tied to the identity.

Self-Evaluation

Self-Discrepancy Theory and Self-Esteem

Self-discrepancy theory, developed by psychologist E. Tory Higgins, holds that each person carries three versions of themselves:

• Actual self: a person's self-concept, or the way they see themselves as they currently are.

• Ideal self: the person they would like to be.

• Ought self: their representation of the way others think they should be.

The closer these three versions of self are to one another, the higher a person's self-esteem tends to be.

MCAT Callout — Telling the three selves apart: actual self is who you think you are right now; ideal self is who you want to be; ought self is who you think other people expect you to be. A vignette describing someone who feels they're falling short of their own personal goals is describing an actual-ideal discrepancy. One describing someone who feels they're disappointing their family's expectations is describing an actual-ought discrepancy.

People with low self-esteem tend to be more critical of themselves. They take criticism from others poorly and tend to believe that people will only accept them if they're successful. They're also more likely to use drugs, be pessimistic, and give up when facing frustration.

Self-Efficacy and Overconfidence

Self-efficacy, a concept developed by psychologist Albert Bandura, is a person's own belief in their ability to succeed. Self-efficacy isn't a single global trait — it can vary between activities, so a person might feel entirely comfortable doing one thing while feeling powerless doing another. Higher self-efficacy for a given task produces higher motivation to pursue it.

Overconfidence occurs when self-efficacy becomes too high, leading a person to take on tasks they aren't actually ready for. This can lead to frustration, humiliation, or sometimes injury. The opposite pattern holds as well: self-efficacy can also become depressed beyond the point of recovery.

Learned Helplessness

That collapse in self-efficacy connects directly to learned helplessness, a phenomenon first identified by psychologist Martin Seligman. In one of the studies that established the concept, dogs exposed to repeated, uncontrollable shocks eventually gave up trying to escape entirely — even when later given a clear, easy way to avoid the shock. Having learned that nothing they did changed the outcome, they lost all motivation to try.

Learned helplessness is the phenomenon of losing all motivation to escape a negative situation, and it's considered a possible model for clinical depression.

Locus of Control

Locus of control, a concept developed by psychologist Julian Rotter, describes the way a person characterizes the influences in their life.

• Internal locus of control: viewing yourself as the one controlling your own outcomes.

• External locus of control: viewing life events as caused by luck or outside influence.

Why Self-Concept and Identity Matters for the MCAT

Self-concept and identity questions tend to test whether a reader can correctly map a described scenario to the right construct:

• Self-concept vs. identity. Self-concept is the whole internal answer set to "who am I?"; identity is one individual component of it (e.g., "runner," "Catholic," "Canadian"). Don't treat the two terms as interchangeable.

• The two-dimension gender identity model. Masculinity and femininity are independent dimensions, not opposite ends of one scale — a person can be androgynous (high on both) or undifferentiated (low on both).

• Self-discrepancy matching. Identify which pair of selves (actual-ideal or actual-ought) a described discrepancy involves, since the theory ties different discrepancies to different self-esteem and emotional consequences.

• Self-efficacy, overconfidence, and learned helplessness as a spectrum. Well-calibrated high self-efficacy, overconfidence (efficacy too high relative to ability), and learned helplessness (efficacy collapsed beyond recovery) describe different points along the same underlying belief-in-ability construct — a frequent source of passage-based questions describing a character's response to success or repeated failure.

• Locus of control identification. A passage describing someone attributing an outcome to their own effort versus to luck or other people is testing internal versus external locus of control.

Common MCAT Mistakes

• Treating self-concept and identity as interchangeable terms, rather than self-concept being the full internal answer set and identity being one individual component of it.

• Assuming masculinity and femininity sit on one continuum, rather than recognizing them as two independent dimensions — a mistake that leads to misreading androgynous or undifferentiated scenarios.

• Mixing up actual-ideal and actual-ought discrepancies in self-discrepancy theory, rather than checking whether the described gap is against the person's own goals (ideal) or against others' expectations (ought).

• Treating overconfidence and learned helplessness as unrelated phenomena, rather than recognizing both as self-efficacy miscalibrated in opposite directions — too high versus collapsed beyond recovery.

MCAT-Style Concept Check

Question: A college student describes herself as a "musician" in one context and a "daughter" in another, adjusting which identity she emphasizes based on the situation she's in. According to Sheldon Stryker's identity theory, what determines which identity becomes most prominent in a given moment?

• A) The person's overall self-esteem score, independent of situation

• B) The hierarchy of salience, shaped by factors like invested work, rewards, and self-esteem tied to that identity

• C) Whichever identity was formed earliest in development

• D) The degree of masculinity or femininity associated with the identity

Answer: B

Explanation: Stryker's hierarchy of salience holds that situational factors — including the work invested in an identity, the rewards or gratification it provides, and the self-esteem attached to it — determine which identity becomes most prominent at a given moment, and the person conforms more closely to that identity's role expectations as a result. Overall self-esteem (A) is one input among several, not the sole determinant. Developmental order (C) isn't part of the theory. Masculinity/femininity (D) describes gender identity specifically, not the general mechanism governing which identity is enacted.

FAQ

What's the difference between self-concept and identity?

Self-concept is the full internal answer set to "who am I?" Identity refers to one individual component of that self-concept, such as religious affiliation or sexual orientation. A person can emphasize different identities in different social situations.

Are masculinity and femininity opposite ends of the same scale?

No. They're understood as two independent dimensions, not one continuum. A person can score high on both (androgynous) or low on both (undifferentiated).

What's the difference between actual, ideal, and ought selves?

The actual self is how a person currently sees themselves. The ideal self is who they'd like to be. The ought self is their sense of who others think they should be. The closer these three align, the higher a person's self-esteem tends to be.

How is overconfidence related to learned helplessness?

Both stem from miscalibrated self-efficacy, just in opposite directions. Overconfidence happens when self-efficacy becomes too high relative to actual ability. Learned helplessness happens when self-efficacy collapses beyond the point of recovery, following repeated experiences of uncontrollable outcomes.