RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SELF-CONCEPT AND ANXIETY LEVELS OF HIGHER SECONDARY STUDENTS

Self-concept affects student's personality. It has three components – ideal-self, self-image and self-esteem which make a student's personality either positive or negative. When there is difference between self-image and ideal-self, the student experiences anxiety. Anxiety is the state of uneasiness of mind which generates psychological and physiological disturbances that make the self-esteem of student low. That's why anxiety is inversely proportionate to self-concept. The students having average, good and very good self-concept are always less anxious, well-adjusted in school and society. Those students who have below average self-concept are more anxious and less adjusted in school and society. The present study enquires the relationship between self-concept and anxiety. It further studies the effects of different dialectics of location, gender and stream of study on self-concept of higher secondary students for promoting the academic growth of students. A sample of 800 students was chosen from different schools of Varanasi division. Using simple statistical tools such as correlation of co-efficient and t-test were used to find out the relationship between self-concept and anxiety and to understand the nature of self-concept. The study concludes that high level of anxiety adversely affected a student's self-concept and usually the student's of the region have high self concept and it is not affected by location, gender and stream of the study. INTRODUCTION: Self-concept is knowledge of self. Knowledge of self refers to knowledge of one's abilities, weaknesses, strengths and attitudes etc. That affects individual's personality (Roger 1959) and adjustment. It makes one's personality either positive or negative. A person who has positive self-concept has higher adjustment level. Otherwise he faces many types of adjustment problems in educational, social, vocational domains Engel, M. (1959). SelfRELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SELF-CONCEPT . International Journal Of Creative Research Thoughts, Volume 3, Issue 9, September, 2015 Page 2 concept develops in social settings under the influence of important people in our lives, with whom we interact in family, society and school (Pastorino and Doyle-Portillo, 2013). In early childhood one's self-concept is based upon concrete things as one's height, weight, skin colour, hair style etc e.g. as a six years old girl says I am fair. It shows that she gives more importance to her physical appearance. In later stages of development, Selfconcept becomes more abstract and social e.g. one says that I am an honest person as honesty is an abstract and social trait (Lewis, 1990). Self-concept is dynamic in nature and life-long process; it is influenced by one’s present experiences of life as well as it includes past experiences and future expectations of life. As one grows through different stages of development, one develops an intrapersonal world including attitudes, feelings, traits, interests and expectations that form a unique frame of personality and one behaves according to one's self-concept in society (Crisp, R. j and Turner, R. N. 2007). Self-concept consists of (i) Self-imageIt is an individual perception. It depends upon the interaction of different people of lives with whom he interact i.e. parents, neighbors, friends and media. All these factors affect the image of person e.g. a young girl who has wheatish color may have a self-image in which she believes she has black color. This may have developed in the girl as a result of the perception of her parents and relatives. Generally, children describe themselves more on the basis of physical traits as I am tall, I am beautiful, and I am fair whereas adult people define themselves more on the basis of their social roles. (ii) Ideal self – It is the self that we want to be. It is dynamic in nature and it always affects self-image and self-esteem of an individual. The view of the ideal self needs to be realistic and obtainable otherwise the person may feel anxiety which may lead to alterations in self concept. Hence, a difference may exist between a person’s ideal-self and real experience. This is known as state of incongruence. A state of congruence exists when a person’s ideal-self and real experiences are very similar (Rogers, C. 1959). (iii) Self esteem – It is how one values oneself. One frames a positive or negative view of oneself on the basis of one's evaluation. Positive view is related to high self esteem. Negative view is related to low self esteem. High self esteem lead to confidence, selfacceptance, and optimism in behavior of individual. However if an individual has low selfesteem of himself; he will always have a feeling of pessimism, lack of confidence and sadness (Miller and Ross, 1975). All these three aspects are important in understanding the behaviour of one’s (Carl, Roger.1959). Sometimes there is a conflict between the different components of self resulting in anxiety. To maintain good mental health there should be compatibility among the self esteem, ideal self and self-image. There are many causal factors or independent variables of self-concept. Anxiety is one of them; it is a predominant variable. It usually persists in the behaviour of nearly all the students with varied extend. It is a common belief that self-concept and anxiety are not complementary but contradictory variables. Anxiety is a reaction over stress in general. It is uneasiness of mind which is experienced by all people in all stages of development. Anxiety is a psychological and physiological state that creates feelings of fear, worry, uneasiness and dread due to presence or absence of stress. Sometimes anxiety helps students to cope up with a demanding situation. Excessive anxiety is bad as it becomes an anxiety disorder (K, R. 2012). According to a recent epidemiological study, the lifetime prevalence of any anxiety disorder is 28.8% (Kessler, et al. 2005). As anxiety is a psychological or physiological state it has both physical and psychological symptoms. The physical symptoms of anxiety are tremors, restlessness, fearful facial expression, palpitation, sweating, tachycardia, hyperventilation, RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SELF-CONCEPT . International Journal Of Creative Research Thoughts, Volume 3, Issue 9, September, 2015 Page 3 diarrhoea, construction in the chest, dyspnoea. As well as generates many psychological symptoms i.e. concentration, negative thoughts, hyper arousal, an inability to relax and tolerate noise, etc. Generally as anxiety plays negative role in a student's personality development; it creates many problems in teaching learning situation. Often students feel problems of poor concentration, negative thoughts, restlessness, stress and palpitation etc. These problems are barrier in personal, academic and professional growth, so a positive self concept should be developed in students to minimize anxiety. A positive self concept plays major role to cope up with anxiety. It has important role in a student's happiness and success. Students with positive self concept have self confidence, willingness to take risks and set goals they can achieve. Thus we can conclude that those who have positive self concept can face situation full of anxiety better than those with a negative selfconcept (Bergen, D.J 2014, Singh, Sushila.2006, and Singh, Poonam.2010). Teacher and Parents should create safe, secure and congenial atmosphere for the development of positive self-concept and also provides personal, educational and vocational guidance for positive development of student. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLE“Relationship between self-concept and anxiety levels of higher secondary students". OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDYThe present investigations are led by the following objectives: 1. To investigate the relationship between self-concept and anxiety of higher secondary students. 2. To investigate the relationship between self-concept and anxiety of the science students. 3. To investigate the relationship between self-concept and anxiety of the arts students. 4. To study the difference between self-concept score of arts and science students. 5. To study the difference between self-concept score of urban arts and urban science students. 6. To study the difference between self-concept score of rural arts and rural science students 7. To study the difference between self-concept score of urban arts and rural arts students. 8. To study the difference between self-concept score of urban science and rural science students. 9. To study the difference between self-concept score of boys and girls student. 10. To study the difference between self-concept score of urban and rural students HYPOTHESES: The following null hypotheses were formulated and tested to make suitable generalization. 1. There exists no significant relationship between self-concept and anxiety of higher secondary students. 2. There exists no significant relationship between self-concept and anxiety of the science students. 3. There exists no significant relationship between self-concept and anxiety of the arts students. 4. There is no significant difference between self-concept score of arts and science students. RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SELF-CONCEPT . International Journal Of Creative Research Thoughts, Volume 3, Issue 9, September, 2015 Page 4 5. There is no significant difference between self-concept score of urban arts and urban science students. 6. There is no significant difference between self-concept score of rural arts and rural science students. 7. There is no significant difference between self-concept score of urban arts and rural arts students. 8. There is no significant difference between self-concept score of urban science and rural science students. 9. There is no significant difference between self-concept score of boys and girls students. 10. There is no significant difference between self-concept score of urban and rural students. DELIMITATIONS