Christopher Tucciarone Writing Assignment 2 Psy216 Fall 2021

1. A person’s self-awareness is their ability to reflect on who and how they are. Self-awareness

allows people to look at themselves from both the inside and outside as an objective being. Self-

awareness takes different forms when it is internal or external, known as either private or public

respectively. Private self-awareness consists of introspecting on how you feel about certain

people, places, situations, and what you believe in. Meanwhile, public self-awareness concerns

cognizance of one’s state of being. Public self-awareness can take the place of being mindful of

your physical appearance, behavior, and manner of communication in public and social

situations. Self-concept is how you perceive the contents of self-awareness. Self-concept is

formed from self-awareness and allows you to evaluate your private and public self-awareness

with descriptions such as good, bad, or mediocre.

2. There is no question that high self-esteem is necessary for optimal mental health; individuals

with low self-esteem are often much more needing of social acceptance. Often people with low

self-esteem look to others for validation. Such a consistent need for external validation sets

people with low self-esteem back in life and breeds codependence in all types of relationships.

Codependency is a very toxic, and inevitably leads people to have low self-regard which further

validates their low self-esteem. People who have low self-esteem are more unhappy and

pessimistic, which oft leads to people stay stagnant in life because they don’t believe they are

capable or worthy of elevating their lives and circumstances. Furthermore, they are a lot more

likely to have hardships in life and miss out on opportunities for growth due to their negative

view of themselves. Hence, high self-esteem is imperative for one’s mental health and in order to

foster opportunities of growth and happiness in life.