Self-Concept: Its Multifaceted, Hierarchical Structure

The construct, self-concept, has been evoked to explain overt behavior across a wide spectrum of situations, and the attainment of a positive self-concept has been posited as a desirable goal in personality and child development, in clinical treatments, and in education. Its importance notwithstanding, research and evaluations using self-concept have suffered from imprecise theoretical formulation of the construct and inadequate measurement instruments. In an attempt to remedy this situation, Shavelson, Hubner, and Stanton (1976) posited a multifaceted, hierarchical self-concept with facets becoming more distinct with age, and set forth criteria for evaluating adequate instrumentation. This paper brings together recent research on this model and instrumentation. Each of these hypotheses is supported, though the structure appears to be more complicated than originally proposed and the facets are so distinct by late adolescence that the hierarchy is necessarily very weak. Further empirical research and theoretical clarification are required on the nature of this hierarchy and how it relates to the different uses of the general-self construct.