Let's do a little practice first.
Describe yourself, but don't use the first person, use the third person. If you are surnamed Zhang, start like this: "Xiao Zhang is such a person..." It seems that you are introducing your good friend, Xiao Zhang, talking about Xiao Zhang's character, hobbies, and characteristics.
What you say is your self-concept.
Are you introverted or extroverted? Is it optimistic or pessimistic? Is it independent or dependent? Is it passionate or indifferent? Is it smart or stupid? Is it sensitive or not sensitive? Is it a reality or a fantasy? Is responsible or willful.....
What you said is your character.
The words character and personality are the same and different. The same is to refer to the individual of the person; the difference is: personality mainly refers to the difference between person and person, and personality refers to the whole person. The concept of self is the judgment of the upper class of your personality, the "sensitive person".
Do another little exercise.
Imagine you walk into a forest, imagine it realistically, imagine trees, grass, and flowers on the ground, and imagine you see an animal in the forest. What do you see? The animals you see reflect your self-image.
Self-image is the understanding of one's personality in the middle layer of personality: the self-concept is what you look like; the self-image is what you are in the middle layer; what characteristics or character do you see in the animal, and what character you are in the middle.
If you happen to be a biology student, or if you are not a biology student but know a lot about animals, don't use it. The animal character I am referring to refers to this animal character in fairy tale legends. For example, the real pig intelligence is not lower than other animals, but the legendary pig is stupid; the real fox may not be embarrassing, but in the legend it is embarrassing. If the first animal you see is a fox, it means that you are a fox.
The tiger is brave, majestic, and cheerful, but it is a bit lonely in the heart of the tiger.
The lion is majestic, dominant, and loving.
The wolf is fierce, cruel, and hateful.
The cow is powerful, gentle and kind, but it is also very embarrassing.
Sheep are more docile and kind, but they are also a bit embarrassing.
Dogs are loyal, emotional, brave, and love justice and order.
Are the animals you see cubs or adults? This reflects your psychological maturity at this time.
What are the characteristics of the animals you see, for example, the legs of the sheep are extra long, or the feathers of the birds are beautiful. This is your characteristic, you have long legs, good hair or good looks.
True self
Self-image and self-concept are the psychological portraits that people draw for themselves. Is this portrait accurate? This is also a problem. It is impossible to be completely accurate, and there will always be some deviations. The deviation is small, the deviation is large, and the impact on people is not good.
If self-image and self-concepts beautify themselves, they will hinder the development of the self. There is a middle school student IQ of about 125 points, which is high, but his self-image is "stupid bear", so his academic performance is not high. A very beautiful girl. Her self-concept is unattractive, so she does not dare to associate with the opposite sex, and her introverted shyness is melancholy.
There is a law in psychology, that is: what do you think you are, there will be a force that pushes you into something. You think you are stupid, even if you have a high IQ of 140, you will still be unable to solve simple problems. If you think you are a poor pity, then you will unconsciously find some bad things. It’s like you have a demon in an Arab lamp in your heart. You say to him: I am such a person, and he will immediately start to turn you into that look. He doesn't know how to be good or bad, only knows what you want to do, and he uses your self-image as an order.
This is part of the deeper personality. Therefore, we should not beautify or smear ourselves but should know ourselves accurately, that is, understand the true self.
True self in rheology
The true self is constantly changing, and there is no fixed form. Like a plant, it was still a young bud yesterday. Today, there are two leaves. The leaves will change from light yellow to green after tomorrow. After a few days, it will become a very vigorous plant, then bloom and result. And then die. What is the "real self" of this plant? It is him throughout the process.
When the plant was first unearthed, it was weak; when grown up, it was strong; after flowering, it was gorgeous. But we can't say that its "character" is gorgeous because it is not gorgeous when it is not blooming. Only inanimate things have a fixed form. For example, you can say that a piece of ore has a fixed "character", hard, gray, and so on.
The true self of man has no fixed character. So strictly speaking, when you say "I am...", you are wrong, the real self can not be said, it is wrong to say.