These schematic traits assist in forming your self concept and processing self-relevant information. In this concept, Cooley theorized that we form our self-concept by observing how others think of us. Both Cooley and Mead make good arguments, but there is one problem. Often, how we think a person perceives us is not consistent with how the other person actually perceives the individual. Recently, social psychologists have developed some new ideas on how we form our self-concept.
Many people feel that a person comes to know themselves through introspection.
Introspection, defined as a method of looking inward at one s own thoughts and feelings, can come in many forms such as meditation, hypnosis, and other methods of bringing out the inner self. The argument for the validity of introspection makes the question of how we do we come to know ourselves seem moot. It states that no one can know ourselves better than the individual can know themselves, simple as that. We know what we think because we think it. However some social psychologists feel that introspection does not effectively assist in the forming of the self-concept.