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It is not about what you think of yourself. It is not about what others think of you. It is about what you think others think of you. |
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Cooley, Erikson, Freud, and Mead, developed theories about how the self is developed.
GEORGE HERBERT MEAD
Mead proposed that the self is composed of the "I" and the "me."
- "I" - the spontaneous, self-interested, impulsive, un-socialized self
- "me" - the socialized self that is conscious of social norms, values, and expectations
Mead believed that the "I" was never completely under the control of the "me."
Mead said that the self is developed in stages through a process called role-taking.
Stages of Role-taking
- Imitation stage- the preparatory stage, in which a child imitates roles
- Play stage - child begins to formulate role expectations
- Game stage - child learns to flexibly apply general rules and role expectations
- Generalized Other
CHARLES HORTON COOLEY
The self develops through the process of symbolically-interpreted interaction with others.
Cooley described this process as one in which a self-concept derived from a social "mirror" in which we can observe how others react to us. He called this the looking-glass self.Basically, the looking-glass self involves three steps.
- Imagining our own appearance - We imagine how we appear to others
- Interpreting others’ reactions - We imagine how others judge our appearance.
- Developing a self-concept - We develop some sort of self-feeling such as pride or shame on the basis of what we perceive others’ judgments to be.
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It is not about what you think of yourself. It is not about what others think of you. It is about what you think others think of you. |
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SIGMUND FREUD
Freud described the self in three parts, the id, ego, and superego.
- Id - biological instincts
- Superego - internal censor created by socialization
- Ego - the part of the self that acts in the world (mediates conflict between the id and superego)
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How could an understanding of the looking
glass self be useful to
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