LOOKING-GLASS SELF
Charles Cooley was a
sociologist who was born in 1864. He attended the University of Michigan, while
he got his undergraduate degree in engineering. He returned later to study
sociology. In 1918, he served as the president of the American Sociological
Association. Cooley is most famous for his theory of the looking-glass
self.
What
Is the Looking-Glass Self?
The
concept of the looking-glass self can be understood through three main concepts
that all relate to how we create our self-image.
The term looking glass
self was created by American sociologist Charles
Horton Cooley in 1902, and introduced into his
work Human Nature and the Social Order.
It is described as our reflection of
how we think we appear to others. To further explain would be how oneself
imagines how others view him/her.
An example would be one's mother
would view their child as flawless, while another person would think
differently. Cooley takes into account three steps when using "the looking
glass self".
Step one is how one imagines one
looks to other people.
Step two is how one imagines the
judgment of others based on how one thinks they view them.
Step three is how one thinks of how
the person views them based on their previous judgments.
THREE
MAIN
He,
looking-glass self comprises three main components that are unique to humans .
- Ø We
imagine how we must appear to others in a social situation.
- Ø We
imagine and react to what we feel their judgment of that appearance must be.
- Ø We
develop our sense of self and respond through these perceived judgments of
others.
The
result is that individuals will change their behavior based on what they feel
other people think about them, even if not necessarily true.
In
this way, social interaction acts as
a "mirror" or a "looking-glass," since one's sense
of self and self esteem is built off of others.
For example, an individual may walk into a job
interview with confidence and attempt to display this confidence. A person in
this situation most often examines the reactions of the interviewers to see if
they are positively or negatively reacting to it. If the individual notices
positive reactions, such as nodding heads or smiles, this might further develop
the individual's sense of self-confidence. If the individual notices negative
reactions, such as a lack of interest, this confidence in self often becomes
shaken and reformed in order to better oneself, even if the perceived judgments
were not necessarily true.
Reference
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Looking-glass_self
