Life Orientation Grade 10: Factors that influence self-awareness and self-esteem, including the media

Introduction

• Various factors may influence your self-awareness and self-esteem, including the media.
• These factors shape you and guide you into forming who you are and what you want to be.
• They influence your thought process, how you think of yourself and how you cope with society’s demands.
• Important linked influences include cultural norms and values, attitudes and choices, cultural expectations, practices and traditions, family versus friends, and challenging situations such as depression, grief, loss, trauma and crisis.

Factors that influence self-awareness and self-esteem,

Relationships

• Relationships are the biggest influences on self-awareness and self-esteem.
• The people in your life affect how much you like yourself and how well you know yourself.
• Relationships may build confidence when they are supportive, respectful and encouraging.
• Relationships may lower confidence when they are critical, rejecting or hurtful.

Example

• A learner who is supported by family and friends may feel secure, accepted and confident.
• A learner who is often rejected or criticised may begin to feel unimportant or not good enough.

Friends

• Friends are integral to influencing the lives of young people.
• Friends may help build self-esteem when they accept you, encourage you and support your actions.
• Friends may weaken self-esteem when they pressure you, influence you negatively or make you feel that you must fit in.
• Friends can influence the way you think, the choices you make and whether you act like a follower or a leader.

Example

• A learner may feel stronger and more confident when friends encourage hard work and good choices.
• A learner may feel pressured to copy others even when they do not understand why.

Family and important people

• Family, friends and other important people influence how much you like yourself and how well you know yourself.
• They influence self-esteem through support for your actions, criticism given and negative comments towards you.
• Approval may build confidence.
• Harsh criticism may lower confidence.

Example

• Positive comments about your effort may help you feel capable.
• Negative comments about what you are wearing or how you look may make you feel insecure.

What people say about you

• What people say about you influences self-esteem.
• Positive words can motivate you and help you feel valued.
• Negative words can hurt your confidence and make you doubt yourself.
• Repeated negative comments can shape the way you think about yourself.

Example

• If a teacher praises your improvement, you may feel encouraged to keep trying.
• If people keep calling you weak or incapable, you may begin to believe them.

What happens in your life

• That which happens in your life influences self-esteem and self-awareness.
• Life experiences may build confidence or weaken it.
• Positive experiences may make you feel capable and motivated.
• Negative experiences may make you feel hurt, discouraged or confused.
• Important linked experiences include depression, grief, loss, trauma and crisis.

Example

• Doing well in a task may build confidence.
• Going through grief or trauma may make a learner feel emotionally weak or uncertain.

How you respond and cope with challenges

• Self-esteem is influenced by how you respond and cope with the challenges in your life.
• Two learners may face the same challenge but react differently.
• A learner who copes well may become stronger and more resilient.
• A learner who avoids challenges or gives up may begin to feel inadequate.
• Counterproductive coping techniques, such as using alcohol and drugs, damage growth and self-worth.

Example

• A learner who seeks support during exam stress may grow in confidence.
• A learner who runs away from problems may feel more powerless over time.

How you respond to achievements and disappointments

• Self-esteem is influenced by how you embrace or respond to your achievements and disappointments.
• Success may build confidence when you recognise effort and progress.
• Disappointment may lower confidence when you think one setback defines you.
• Healthy learners learn from both achievement and disappointment.

Example

• A learner who passes a difficult test may feel proud and motivated.
• A learner who fails once should improve instead of deciding they are worthless.

Popularity and peer approval

• Your assessment of what your friends think of you, or how much they like you, affects self-esteem.
• This means some learners judge their worth by popularity.
• Depending on popularity can make self-esteem unstable.
• If peer approval becomes too important, learners may lose confidence when excluded.

Example

• A learner may feel confident when accepted by a group.
• The same learner may feel rejected when left out of social activities.

Cultural norms, values, expectations, practices and traditions

• Cultural norms and values influence individual behaviour.
• Cultural expectations, practices and traditions may shape the way learners dress, behave and make choices.
• These influences can help shape identity and values.
• They can also create pressure when learners feel they must follow others instead of understanding themselves.

Example

• A learner may feel pressured to dress or act in a certain way because of cultural expectations.
• A learner may also develop strong values and identity through positive cultural guidance.

Religion and culture

• Religion and culture play a big role in the lives of everyone.
• These influences shape values, beliefs and choices.
• As learners grow older, they should allow experiences to shape them and not remain in a static state.
• Healthy growth means being rooted in values but also being open to growth and understanding.

Example

• A learner may follow the teachings of their religion and still grow into a more accepting and understanding person.

The media

• The media is one of the biggest influences on self-awareness and self-esteem.
• Learners are constantly exposed to various media platforms.
• Each platform plays a huge role in shaping self-esteem and self-awareness.
• Media influences how learners think about beauty, popularity, success and identity.
• It can affect how learners feel about what they see on TV and on the internet.

Media comparison

• The media can cause people to make comparisons to others.
• It can cause learners to say “should” a lot, for example “I should look like that” or “I should live like that.”
• Constant comparison can be detrimental to self-esteem.
• Learners may start feeling that they are not good enough.

Example

• A learner may compare their clothes, body or lifestyle to people online and feel inferior.

Social media and self-validation

• Social media can be a mixed blessing because it allows people to connect to others.
• It can also become a trap for self-validation.
• Some learners start depending on likes, comments and attention to feel accepted.
• This weakens self-esteem because self-worth begins to depend on others.

Example

• A learner may feel good only when a post gets many likes and feel unimportant when it does not.

Idealised images and unrealistic standards

• Media often presents idealised images of beauty, fashion and lifestyle.
• These images may not be realistic.
• Learners who compare themselves to such images may feel unworthy or dissatisfied with themselves.
• This can affect both self-awareness and self-esteem.

Example

• A learner may feel that they are not attractive enough because they do not look like influencers or celebrities.

Positive influence of the media

• The media is not always negative.
• It can also spread useful information and positive messages.
• It can influence people to act responsibly and help others.
• During a pandemic, the media influenced behaviour around wearing masks, sanitising, social distancing and avoiding gatherings.
• It also showed examples of people helping those in need during hard lockdown.

Example

• Media reports on health and safety can help learners think more carefully about their choices.

Follower or leader

• A learner must ask whether they are a follower or a leader.
• Following others without understanding why shows weak self-awareness.
• A leader thinks independently and acts according to values and good judgement.
• Self-esteem becomes stronger when a learner is not controlled by the herd.

Example

• A learner who refuses unsafe behaviour even when friends encourage it is showing leadership.

Why these factors matter

• These factors matter because they influence how learners think of themselves.
• They affect confidence, self-worth, behaviour, choices and the ability to cope with society’s demands.
• When learners understand these influences, they can protect their self-esteem better and make wiser choices.
• They can also become more disciplined, responsible and open-minded.

Important exam points

• Relationships and the media are the biggest influences on self-awareness and self-esteem.
• Use the exact factors in your answers:
  • what people say about you
  • that which happens in your life
  • how you respond and cope with challenges
  • how you respond to achievements and disappointments
  • what your friends think of you
  • how popular you think you are
  • how you are treated by family, friends and important people
  • the media.
• In media questions, show both negative and positive influence.
• In explanatory questions, do not only list the factor. Explain how it affects the learner.
• In scenario questions, link the factor directly to the learner’s thoughts, feelings or behaviour.

Common mistakes

• Listing factors without explaining them.
• Leaving out relationships or media.
• Writing only negative effects of media.
• Ignoring cultural norms, values, practices and traditions.
• Giving vague answers like “friends influence you” without saying how.
• Confusing self-awareness with self-esteem.

Practice questions

State four factors that influence self-awareness and self-esteem.

Explain how relationships may influence self-awareness and self-esteem.

Explain how friends may affect a learner’s self-esteem.

Explain how what people say about you may influence self-esteem.

Explain how life experiences may affect the way a learner sees themselves.

Explain how popularity may influence self-esteem.

Discuss how cultural norms and values may influence a learner’s self-awareness.

Explain how the media may influence self-awareness and self-esteem.

State one positive and one negative influence of social media.

Explain the meaning of social media as a trap for self-validation.

Memo points

Question 1: State four factors that influence self-awareness and self-esteem.
Any four of the following, with understanding of how they affect the learner:

What people say about you can build or damage confidence. Positive words make a learner feel valued, while negative remarks can make the learner doubt themselves.

What happens in your life affects how you see yourself. Good experiences can make a learner feel capable, while painful experiences can weaken self-esteem.

How you respond and cope with challenges matters because learners who cope well usually become stronger, while learners who give up too easily may feel helpless.

How you respond to achievements and disappointments shapes self-esteem. A learner who learns from disappointment grows, while one who sees failure as the end may lose confidence.

What your friends think of you affects how accepted and valued you feel.

How popular you think you are can influence self-esteem because some learners judge their worth by peer approval.

How you are treated by family, friends and important people influences how much you like yourself. Support can build confidence, while criticism and negative comments can lower it.

The media shapes ideas about beauty, success and what is normal, so it strongly affects self-awareness and self-esteem.

Question 2: Explain how relationships may influence self-awareness and self-esteem.

Relationships influence how much a learner likes themselves and how well they understand themselves. When the people around a learner are supportive, respectful and encouraging, the learner usually feels valued and more confident.

Relationships can also damage self-esteem when they are full of criticism, rejection or hurtful behaviour. In that case, a learner may begin to feel that they are not good enough or that their feelings do not matter.

Question 3: Explain how friends may affect a learner’s self-esteem.

Friends are very important in the lives of young people, so their opinions and behaviour can strongly affect self-esteem. Supportive friends can encourage a learner, help them feel accepted and give them confidence to try new things.

Friends can also lower self-esteem when they pressure a learner to fit in, laugh at them, or make them feel that popularity is more important than character. A learner may then begin to judge their worth by peer approval instead of by their real value.

Question 4: Explain how what people say about you may influence self-esteem.

What people say about you can affect the way you think about yourself. Positive comments can make a learner feel recognised, appreciated and motivated to improve.

Negative comments can make a learner feel ashamed, insecure or not good enough. If those negative comments happen often, the learner may begin to believe them, which weakens self-esteem.

Question 5: Explain how life experiences may affect the way a learner sees themselves.

Life experiences shape how a learner sees their abilities and worth. Positive experiences, such as success, support and achievement, can build confidence and help a learner feel capable.

Negative experiences, such as grief, loss, trauma, crisis or repeated disappointment, can weaken self-esteem and make a learner feel emotionally hurt or uncertain. These experiences can also affect self-awareness because they influence how the learner thinks and feels about themselves.

Question 6: Explain how popularity may influence self-esteem.

Some learners judge their value by what they think their friends think of them, or by how popular they believe they are. When they feel accepted, they may feel more confident.

The problem is that popularity changes quickly. If a learner depends on popularity for confidence, their self-esteem becomes unstable. Being left out or ignored may then make them feel rejected or worthless.

Question 7: Discuss how cultural norms and values may influence a learner’s self-awareness.

Cultural norms and values influence behaviour, dress, attitudes, choices and identity. They help learners understand what their family or community sees as right, acceptable or important.

This can strengthen self-awareness because culture helps shape beliefs and values. However, it can also create pressure if learners begin to follow expectations without truly understanding themselves. In that case, they may become followers instead of making thoughtful choices based on who they really are.

Question 8: Explain how the media may influence self-awareness and self-esteem.

The media plays a huge role in shaping self-awareness and self-esteem because learners are constantly exposed to different media platforms. These platforms influence how learners think about beauty, success, popularity and identity.

The media often causes comparison. Learners may begin to compare their appearance, lifestyle or achievements to what they see online or on television. This can make them feel they are not good enough. The media can therefore shape both how learners see themselves and how much they value themselves.

Question 9: State one positive and one negative influence of social media.

Positive influence: Social media allows people to connect with others and can spread useful information, awareness and positive messages.

Negative influence: Social media can become a trap for self-validation, where learners depend on likes, comments and approval to feel worthy, which harms self-esteem.

Question 10: Explain the meaning of social media as a trap for self-validation.

Social media becomes a trap for self-validation when a learner starts depending on attention, likes, comments and followers to feel good about themselves.

This is dangerous because the learner’s self-worth becomes controlled by the reactions of other people instead of by a healthy inner sense of value. As a result, they may feel confident only when others approve of them.

Quick recap

Relationships and the media are the biggest influences on self-awareness and self-esteem.

Important factors include what people say about you, what happens in your life, how you cope with challenges, how you respond to success and disappointment, popularity, treatment by family and friends, and the media.

Cultural norms, values, expectations, practices and traditions also influence how learners think about themselves and how they make choices.

The media can be harmful because it causes comparison and self-validation pressure, but it can also help by spreading useful information and positive messages.