B. DEVELOPMENT AND
CHARACTERISTICS
OF THE SELF
The self is not something that you are born with, but which you create and develop as you grow. In this section we will read about the development and characteristics of the self in infancy, early childhood, middle childhood and adolescence.
2B.1 SELF DURING INFANCY
At birth we are not aware of our unique existence. Does that surprise you? This means that the infant does not realise that she/he is separate
and distinct from the world outside – she/he has no self-awareness or self-understanding or self-recognition. By each of these terms we mean the mental representation (a mental picture) of the self. The infant brings her/his hand in front of her/his face and looks at it but does not ‘realise’ that the hand belongs to her/him and that she/he is separate from other people and things she/he sees around her. The sense of self emerges gradually during infancy and self-image recognition happens around 18 months of age. One interesting experiment which has been carried out with infants in the age range 14-24 months is described below. You can try it out too.
ACTIVITIY 1
Put a dot of red lipstick/colour on the cheek of the infant and then place the infant in front of the mirror. If the infant has an awareness of the self, she/he will touch her own cheek after looking at the red spot on the face in the mirror. If the infant does not have self'awareness, she/he will touch the reflection in the mirror, or just play with the reflection in the mirror as if it is another infant.
Towards the latter half of the second year, infants begin to use the personal pronouns – I, me and mine. They use these pronouns to indicate possession of persons or objects – “my toy” or “my mother”; to describe themselves or actions they are doing or their experiences – “me eating”. Infants also begin to recognise themselves in photographs at this time.
2B.2 Self during early childhood
Since children are able to talk quite fluently by the time they are 3 years old, we need not rely only on self-recognition to know young children’s selfunderstanding. We can use verbal means by involving them in conversations about themselves. Researchers have found that the following are the five main characteristics of young children’s understanding of themselves.
1. They use physical descriptions of their self or material possessions to differentiate themselves from others – they may use descriptive words like ‘tall’, or ‘big’ or refer to the clothes they wear or the toys or objects they have. Their self-descriptions are in absolute terms – this means they do not see themselves in comparison with others. To give an example, instead of saying, “I am taller than Kiran”, the child will say, “I am tall.”
2. They describe themselves in terms of things they can do. For example, in terms of their play activities – “I can ride a cycle”; “I can make a house”; “I can count”. Thus, their self understanding contains active descriptions of themselves.
3. Their self descriptions are in concrete terms – i.e., they define themselves in terms of things they can do or what is visible to them – “I have a television.”
4. They often overestimate themselves. Thus, a child may say, “I am never scared” or “I know all the poems”, but may not remember them completely.
5. Young children are also unable to recognise that they can possess different attributes – that they can be ‘good’ and ‘bad’, ‘mean’ and ‘nice’ at different points in time. The following is a brief interaction between an adult and Radha, a girl aged 3 years 8 months, which reveals the child’s perception of herself.
