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    The Looking-Glass Self

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    Kharl Castillo
    Charles Cooley first introduced the concept of the looking-glass self in 1902 to describe how people form self-images based on their perceptions and interpretations of others' judgments. While individuals' self-images are influenced by others, this only occurs through their own cognitive processing and interpretations, which can be inaccurate. Cooley argued that primary groups like family are most influential in shaping one's looking-glass self and understanding of how to evaluate and control the responses of others. However, debates continue around the extent to which social forces versus inherent qualities shape self-image, and what frameworks best explain this dynamic interaction.

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    The Looking-Glass Self

    Uploaded by

    Kharl Castillo
    112 views1 page
    Charles Cooley first introduced the concept of the looking-glass self in 1902 to describe how people form self-images based on their perceptions and interpretations of others' judgments. While individuals' self-images are influenced by others, this only occurs through their own cognitive processing and interpretations, which can be inaccurate. Cooley argued that primary groups like family are most influential in shaping one's looking-glass self and understanding of how to evaluate and control the responses of others. However, debates continue around the extent to which social forces versus inherent qualities shape self-image, and what frameworks best explain this dynamic interaction.

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    The looking-glass self

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    Charles Cooley first introduced the concept of the looking-glass self in 1902 to describe how people form self-images based on their perceptions and interpretations of others' judgments. While individuals' self-images are influenced by others, this only occurs through their own cognitive processing and interpretations, which can be inaccurate. Cooley argued that primary groups like family are most influential in shaping one's looking-glass self and understanding of how to evaluate and control the responses of others. However, debates continue around the extent to which social forces versus inherent qualities shape self-image, and what frameworks best explain this dynamic interaction.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    112 views1 page

    The Looking-Glass Self

    Uploaded by

    Kharl Castillo
    Charles Cooley first introduced the concept of the looking-glass self in 1902 to describe how people form self-images based on their perceptions and interpretations of others' judgments. While individuals' self-images are influenced by others, this only occurs through their own cognitive processing and interpretations, which can be inaccurate. Cooley argued that primary groups like family are most influential in shaping one's looking-glass self and understanding of how to evaluate and control the responses of others. However, debates continue around the extent to which social forces versus inherent qualities shape self-image, and what frameworks best explain this dynamic interaction.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
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    The looking-glass self was first introduced by Charles Cooley (1902).

    People may have a self-image


    that is formed by their interactions with others, or even no self at all. Cooley argued that the dynamic
    of self-creation is similar to a mirror. One's perceptions of others' judgments can be highly inaccurate.
    While individuals' self-image are shaped by others, this only happens through the mediation of their
    minds. People use the looking-glass self to control and evaluate the responses of others (Squirrell,
    2020).

    In the early 1900s, Thomas Cooley argued that the self-creation dynamic is similar to that of a mirror.
    In imagination we perceive in another's mind some thought of our appearance, manner, aims, deeds,
    character, friends, and so on, and are variously affected by it.

    People's self-image is shaped by others, but this only happens through the mediation of their own
    minds. One's perceptions of others' judgments can be highly inaccurate - for example, on a dance
    floor, many people who see themselves as "good" dancers may be perceived as "bad" dancers, but
    will nonetheless react as if they are good dancers.
    The eye-gouging effect refers to the individual's selective application of looking-glass self - i.e. the way
    they filter their self out among a large group of people.

    To summarize, the relationship and alignment between the perceived and actual responses of others
    is heavily dependent on context, and people generally select whose responses do and do not matter
    to them.
    According to Cooley, people learn to use the “looking-glass” — and thus learn who the self is —
    through primary groups such as the family. Primary groups are “characterized by intimate face-to-face
    association and cooperation (McIntyre, 1998).
    They are primary in several senses but chiefly in that they are fundamental in forming the social
    nature and ideals of individuals. The result of intimate association, psychologically, is a certain fusion
    of individualities in a common whole, so that one’s very self, for many purposes at least, is the
    common life and purpose of the group” (Cooley, 1998).
    That is to say that Cooley believed that primary groups were strong agents of socialization and that in
    primary groups, people learn to read what others are thinking and to discover what happens when
    they adjust their behavior according to what they are thinking (McIntyre, 1998).
    However, there remain two main controversies in how sociologists investigate self-image that the
    looking-glass self addresses (Squirrell, 2020):

    1. To what extent is the self-image shaped by society and circumstances, and to what extent is
    the self a reflection of one’s essential qualities?
    2. What frameworks can be used to understand how the environment shapes the self?

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