The Development of Self
One important part of socialization is the development of a self-concept. It begins at birth and continues dramatic development through the school years, with slight modifications throughout the adult years.
Your sense of self represents your conscious experience of having a separate and unique identity and is the sum total of your perceptions and beliefs about yourself. It is the most central aspect of your personality.
It is crucial to note that your self-concept is based heavily on your social construction of reality, meaning others have an influence on your perception of your self-worth and definition.
George Herbert Mead argued that the Self emerged out of social interactions as a result of countless symbolic interactions with other human beings.
To Mead, play and playful interactions lay the foundation of becoming human and gaining our sense of self. Knowing that, you can imagine how troubling it would be for children kept in isolation to play and therefore gain experiences to come to know their self!
Charles Cooley, a well- known symbolic interactional theoristclaims society is composed of ever-present interactions among individuals who share symbols and their meanings, proposed a theory that attempts to explain our development of self known as: The Looking-Glass Self.
The Looking-Glass Self is the theory that our sense of self results from the reflection of who we think we see by observing the treatment and behaviors of others towards us.
The metaphor used in this concept is a mirror--we see ourselves reflected in the actions and behaviors of those around us (like we see ourselves in a mirror).
The Looking-Glass Self has three distinct steps to it:
1. We imagine how we appear to others
2. We imagine and interpret their judgement of us
3. We react positively or negatively to that perceived judgement while developing a self-concept
You might watch how others react to you and how they might judge you, but not everyone in your life is equal in their potency of evaluation and how you respond to them.
For example, make a list of the 10 closest people to you in your life. Once you've made the list, put a star beside the three with whom you feel the closest bond; those whom you value their opinion the most. These top 10 and top three represent your significant others.
Significant others are people in your life whose opinions are important and regularly considered during interactions.
Strangers you see on campus and in the grocery store do not have the same importance as roommates, close friends, and parents.
And not all significant others are valued equally. Your best friend's opinion of your Halloween costume probably means more than your younger sibling's opinion.
Here is an example of how Cooley’s theory of self-concept works:
Imagine you're about to go meet a boy/girl that you like. Most likely, you're going to spend a great deal of time in front of a mirror making sure you look your best. Once you're happy with the way you look; "Wow…I look great!" You hear the doorbell ring and you go to answer it. It is your date.
As soon as the person lays eyes on your appearance, the date gives you a puzzled and unpleasant look. You immediately become self-conscious because you perceive the date's observation of you very differently than your own observation of yourself.
This is how the Looking-Glass Self works.
Ultimately, you do this multiple times each and every day. You imagine how you look/appear to others, you interpret their observations to you and you make a judgment about yourself based on those observations. If you receive a disproportionate amount of poor reactions, it could lead to a poor self-image.
George Herbert Meade has another theory of self-development. As far as our self-concept is concerned, we learn early on that we must perform to a certain level if we are to receive the much desired approval from others.
As children grow up and enter adolescence, they begin to develop their abstract reasoning skills. Eventually they develop the ability to sympathize with others.
This theory is called Taking the Role of the Other or Role-Taking.
Role-Taking is when children put themselves in someone else's shoes, understand how he/she feels, and anticipate how he/she will act.
When you imagine what an average person would do in a situation you take on the perspective of what Meade called the "generalized other." The Generalized Other are classes of people with whom a person interacts on the basis of generalized roles rather than individualized characteristics.
Mead also believed that role playing as children, teaches you to take on the role of others. Children are constantly trying to imitate what their parents or significant others are doing.
For example, a little boy might pretend to shave in front of a mirror because he sees his father doing it. Children also imitate generalized others, like police officers or teachers, and pretend to perform their perception of the role.
Children imitate others because they have not developed a sense of self or independence yet. Meade points out that as children age, they begin to understand that they are unique individuals. They start making choices rather than simply imitating others. Eventually, children realize that as they take on specific roles, there are expectations associated with specific roles. Thus, the sense of self has been developed.
As you grow into a young adult, you prepare for more significant roles. You may focus heavily on your athletic talents and grades so you can attend college on a scholarship. You might join the Junior ROTC so you can become a military officer. You might volunteer for The Peace Corps or some other service mission. In all of these cases, you can develop a sense of self through the roles that you engage in.
