Self-body image: An association of social competence and self-consciousness in adolescents

Pages: 363-367
Santosh Meena, Anu Raj Singh, and Divya Gupta (Department Psychology, Banasthali Vidyapith, Vanasthali, Rajasthan)

The struggle of an adolescent is for identity formation. As it is the period of physical, cognitive, social, emotional and interpersonal changes. They face various problems due to these changes and become very self-conscious. They are often pre-occupied with their looks and what other thinks about them. They have fear that due to their physical appearance people will dislike them, or peers will reject them, it becomes a major source of stress among them. In this study, focus is on adolescence as they deal with these issues a lot. An understanding of development, maintenance and enhancement of social competence is useful in determining how to help and protect adolescence from negative influences and assist them in reaching their optimal potential. Keeping this in mind objective of the study is to examine the effect of social competence and self-consciousness on self-body image of adolescents. A sample of 189 female students of Banasthali University was taken, in the age range of 17-19 years. Sampling was done by random sampling technique. Standardized psychological tools were employed in the study. 2×2 Factorial design was used. Data was analyzed by ANOVA. Results of the study show that social competence and self-consciousness significantly affect self-body image of adolescents.