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In 1902, Charles Horton Cooley established "the looking glass self" in his book Human Nature and the Order. It can be defined as a mirror of how we believe we appear in front of others or how others perceive and perceive us. Cooley coined the phrase to describe the process of socialization.

Looking glass self

The looking-glass self is a concept that outlines how people form their sense of self-based on how they believe others see them. People utilize social interaction as a kind of "mirror," measuring their worth, values, and behavior based on the evaluations they receive from others.

Looking glass self-definition

The looking-glass self is the mechanism through which people judge themselves depending on how others see them.

Looking glass self-theory

Charles Horton Cooley was the first to introduce the idea of a looking-glass self. Self-perceptions, according to Cooley, are founded on reflected assessments of how others see us, that is, our impressions of others' opinions of us, which are dependent on how others see us.

It asserts that a person's self emerges from interpersonal interactions in society and other people's perspectives. The word refers to people who shape their identities based on how others perceive them, leading them to reinforce other people's perceptions of themselves. People shape themselves based on how others perceive them, affirming other people's perceptions of them.

The looking-glass self is made up of three primary elements:

Step One:

We imagine how others see our personality and look.
Attractive/unattractive, heavy/light, friendly/hostile

Step two:

We picture how other people will react to the first-step appearance.
What do we suppose people think of us?

Step three:

In step two, we form a self-concept based on how we believe we are appraised.
If we are positively appraised, we have a positive self-concept.
If we are negatively appraised, we develop a negative self-concept.

"The mind is mental" because "the human mind is social," Cooley remarked in hypothesizing the framework for the looking glass self. In other words, human social interaction directly influences brain ability.

Humans begin to define themselves as children within the context of their socialization. The youngster learns that crying is a symbol that will elicit a response from his or her parents, not only when they require essentials like food but also when they want their attention.

Expand Your Knowledge

Looking glass self-sociology

Socialization is the method that helps human beings to learn the skills that are essential for human behavior or action as a part of society. It is the most potent learning process a person can go through.

Humans require social interactions to learn their culture and thrive, unlike other living animals whose behavior is biologically determined.

Although cultural diversity can be seen in complete social groups' acts, customs, and behaviors, the most fundamental representation of culture is seen at the individual level. Only until an individual has been socialized by his or her parents, family, extended family, and extensive social networks can this expression occur.

In practice, the process might look like this:

For the first time, someone meets a bunch of new coworkers.
This person believes she can show people her expertise and skill.
The individual pays attention to her new coworkers' body language, word choices, and reactions to the discourse during this engagement.
The individual's conviction will bolster her professionalism if these coworkers provide good feedback, such as maintaining eye contact or providing a strong handshake.
On the other hand, if the colleagues provide negative feedback, such as turning away or leaving the conversation fast, the individual may begin to doubt their professionalism.

The concept of the looking-glass self explains:

It is important to note that Cooley does not consider this a one-way internalization of other people's perceptions. Instead, we take an active role in influencing how others view, judge, and feel about us. Cooley places a strong emphasis on our role in shaping our self-image. He emphasizes three points:

First, the individual's active part in understanding others' perceived responses. That implies we have no idea - and will never know - how we appear to others.
- We can only know how we conceive ourselves to appear.

For example: If you go to a karaoke baron on a Friday night, you will run into a slew of people who believe they are tuneful, intelligent, and soulful, even if all they appear to you is like nails dragging down a chalkboard.

So, our views of other people's opinions can be extremely wrong.

This is true for the second and third levels as well: we have no way of knowing how others perceive us or how they feel about us. Instead, we rely on our imagination: either imagining how people may react in the mirror or witnessing their reactions and attempting to deduce their inner ruminations from them.

This indicates that people shape our self-image, but only through the mediation of our thinking.

Second, Cooley emphasizes the individual's use of the looking glass self selectively.
- We aren't continuously engaged with this concept, which is why it doesn't forecast or explain constant, crushing insecurity on the part of every single person in a society like some pound-shop Black Mirror episode.
- In some situations, we are more concerned about how others perceive us than in others.

For example, I might be less self-conscious on a date with someone I'm fascinated with if I'm going incognito across a city, I've never visited before.

Our ability to care more about some things than others is no exception, and our self-image is no exception.

Finally, Cooley claims that we employ the looking-glass self to control and manage other people's responses and evaluations.

We may utilize that knowledge to mold our impressions since we are aware that people are observing us, reacting to us, and judging us, he claims.

For example,

Type 1: A person might brag to their friends about how much alcohol he drank last weekend, recounting every shot, bottle, and glass in painstaking (and tedious) detail. Hoping to impress their peers and earn respect and street cred.

Type 2: The employees are less likely to tell their boss about any incident in detail, and they might even go to great lengths to conceal it. This is done by increasing the privacy settings on their social media profiles, untagging themselves from incriminating photos, and making every effort to appear like normal people on Monday morning.

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