Self concept in simple words means what you think of your self. Your views and perceptions about yourself are termed as self concept. How you think about your self affects your behavior to a great extent. When you have a positive view of self, you are confident, have high self esteem and resulting to a positive self concept. On the other hand, when you are low in love of self, and don't have a positive opinion of self. Criticize and judge yourself a lot, blame your self and have high degree of self doubt, all these contribute to a negative self concept. The seven reasons given here are my views based on famous theories or schools of psychology. Let us examine these seven reasons for negative self concept.

Sigmund Freud, the father of psychodynamic theories stated that humans are driven mainly by the sexual drive (also called libido) and the aggressive drive. Freud explained that the libido mainly consisted of the id, ego and the superego. The id works on the pleasure principle that demands the immediate gratification of all impulses and engages in primary process thinking commonly known as wish fulfillment. Parts of the id spills into the ego which tries to gratify the ids' demands in a socially accepted way, it works on the reality principal and engages in secondary process thinking. The superego is the storehouse of rules and regulations a person learns from his/her parents and society. They are the absolute moral standards.

When the person is dominated mainly by the superego, the ego tries constantly to find a balance between the ongoing conflicts between the id and the superego. One side a person wants to fulfill their desires and on the other side has moral and social obligations. Since the superego is dominating, it pressurizes the individual to comply, if the individual fails to comply, he/she faces a lot of guilt. This guilt often leads to a negative self concept.

Next view is that of Abraham Maslow. Abraham Maslow gave a hierarchy of needs. Needs low in the hierarchy must be met before needs higher in the hierarchy can be satisfied. At the base of this hierarchy deep roots are observed pertaining to the need of belongingness, love, security, and basic needs like hunger, thirst, warmth. Above those lie aesthetic needs like beauty and order, cognitive needs like to know, to be aware, and esteem needs like to achieve, be competent. At the tip of this hierarchy stands self actualization.

Generally people satisfy their basic and lower order needs like food and shelter, safety and security, but they do not fulfill their need for love and belongingness. They lack these needs and thus, stun their personal growth. The lack of these needs often lead to frustration and thus lead to a negative self concept.

Erick Erickson gave a series of psychosocial developmental stages. At each stage individuals are faced with conflict or crises. How they deal with the crises can have an effect on their development. When dealt with positively can lead to a positive concept and if not dealt with can lead to a negative self concept. Let us see some of these crises, at infancy one falls in the crises of trust versus mistrust, at the early childhood one falls in the crises of autonomy versus shame or doubt, between the ages of three to five one falls in the crises of initiative versus guilt, between the ages of six to puberty one falls in the crises of industry versus inferiority, at adolescence one falls in the crises of identity versus confusion, at early adulthood one falls in the crises of intimacy versus isolation, at late adulthood one falls in the crises of generativity versus stagnation, and finally at old age one falls in the crises of integrity versus despair.

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