I think that how the self-concept is constructed needs further construction. There was not much discussion about interpersonal communication’s self, a topic that includes the looking-glass self-concept. One constructs a view of oneself through the numerous interactions within the course of an individual’s life, and the continuously knowledge that gets built up after each new experience. If parents and others tell one specific girl that she is beautiful continuously, praising her and spoiling her, that girl may deem herself as beautiful. This then raises her self-esteem and self-confidence in herself as a beautiful person, which should normally garner attention and thus influencing her daily behavior and attitude. This may include activities such as spending more time and money on herself with the reasoning that it is worth it. She may feel inadequate about other traits other than her beauty if the dialogues of her interpersonal relationships are solely centered on beauty rather than intellect, athleticism or other traits. Thus she may solely focus on keeping that beauty or enhancing it, feeling that this beauty is the one good trait that she has. There are many ways in which the relationships that one has affects how one sees oneself and also the world and thus behave within that reality.
I like what you brought up. I myself had not realized it was missing but I also feel that it is important to have a good understanding of how self image maybe affecting those around us. This would have a tremendous effect on communication with them. For instance those will extremely low self-esteem may be difficult to communicate with because they may be afraid of judgement during communication, or they may be irrational in their communication, always assuming the worst. On the other hand with your example, if a girl is socialized to know that she is and to be beautiful and nothing else, she may have little else to talk about. We tend to center around the things we are most comfortable with in our communications. This is mostly due to the fact that no one likes to go out of their knowledge bubble and be made to look like a fool infront of others. Therefore if you were to engage the beautiful girl, who has not been socialized and has not taken it upon herself to educate herself in other areas of knowledge outside of beauty products and fashion, in a conversation about bio-chemistry you will most likely strike out in your communication efforts.
ReplyDeleteI think this may go back to the nature-nurture type of thing. As in how much of our personality and thinking is a result of genetics as opposed to how socialization affects it. I'm pretty sure we went over this in greater detail in interpersonal comm course, but yes, we form a lot of our self concept based on how others respond to us and based on what ideal we think we need to measure up to. I can't remember if the book went over it, but a discussion of the private self versus the public self is also relevant to understanding this topic.
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