Reaction Paper: The Diverse Social Self and Self-Verification and Self-Enhancement (PSY 138)
Understanding the foundation of the social self, premise of self-verification and self-enhancement are crucial to the development and framework of the human psyche. This response paper will analyze the basic social self, the way humans perceive their own image and the importance of self-verification and self-enhancement (Swann et al., 1989). Once people have a good understanding of the different aspects in their personalities and self-awareness, they can apply positive upward or downward momentum of self-verification and self-enhancement to daily activities; this will build self-esteem and can serve as a solid foundation in living a good life.
The Diverse Social Self
The human psyche is diverse in nature. Social psychologists view the three parts that make up the social self as the individual self, relational self, and collective self (Gilovich et al., 2013). These categories make up the framework of how humans see themselves as individuals, how they are in relationships, and how they fit into society. Several important factors in the social self are self-esteem and self-worth. The effects of self-verification and self-enhancement on positive self-esteem and negative vs. positive self-worth can be further analyzed by Swann, Pelham, and Krull in their 1989 study.
Comparison of the Social Self
Upon review of the required material, it is apparent that there are theories of social
According to a 1993 study in the longitudinal consistency and change in self-esteem form early adolescence to early childhood by Block and Robbins, between the ages of 14 and 23 exists the potential for great changes in how the self-concept develops and is shaped. The study also concluded that more males increased their sense of self-esteem during this time than did females. After people approach the age of 30, most self-concepts remain relatively stable without significant conscious effort (Adler, Rosenfeld, Proctor 63). A realistic self-concept should change over time as it reflects the reality of current circumstances and previous experiences. The tendency, however, is to resist those changes and instead seek out others than confirm the self-concept. The powerful effect that
Community is a congregation of human beings where they share the same symbols and experiences as well as language (Grady, 1994). Individuals, objects and spaces are all tied into one by the community. Community does not depend on a certain location or area, it depends on the unity of the individuals who live there (Grady, 1994). The community provides familiarity with daily interactions among individuals and creates a sense of belonging. A sense of belonging in a community provides the comfort and safety required to discover and utilize one’s gifts (Grady, 1994). The foundation of self-esteem and self-acceptance starts with a sense of belonging in the community (Grady, 1994). When an individual has a sense of belonging within the community, they feel included. Inclusion is allowing all individuals to participate in natural environments regarding their differences (Grady, 1994). Feeling included in the community is important, especially to those who have a disability. The health profession, occupational therapy, strives for inclusion in the community for people who have disabilities and those who do not. The sense of belonging is important to an individual’s self-esteem, specifically those who have a disability, and is used in the health field of occupational therapy.
Humans are judgmental creatures. One of our most significant philosophy is “not judging a book by its cover”, which examines our habit to judge. We did not purposely develop this questionable characteristic; we seem to have been with this evolutionary trait. We judge everything as a survival instinct to protect ourselves; the perception we create from our personal opinions determine whether we believe something is friendly or foe. As with everything, we judge ourselves, and we tend to be our biggest critic. We constantly judge ourselves, but why? People have referred to this type of judgement as self-esteem. Self-esteem is measured by how positive we view ourselves: the more positive our perception of our self, the higher our self-esteem and
The authors found that self-esteem can be increased via classic conditioning. Consequently, they found that low self-esteem can be raised by applying basic learning principles (Baccus, Baldwin, & Packer, 2004). Their findings support the theory that self-acceptance is influenced by positive feedback from other people. These findings may initiate an effort to research possible methods to increase self-esteem as a means of ridding society of the various social ills that are thought to be caused by low self-esteem. Therefore, future research should also include the effect of the conditioning task on various aspects of social behavior. This in turn, will help determine the amount of influence, if any, that self-esteem has on behavior. The results also suggest that implicit low self-esteem is not permanent and can be modified (Baccus, Baldwin, & Packer, 2004). This provides hope that individuals suffering from implicit low self-esteem can find relief by receiving treatment to increase their self-esteem in an effort to experience a greater sense of well being. This potentially could lead to a method for treating depression.
The social constructionist perspective suggest that our interactions in society shape our interpretation of self-worth. The textbook states “To understand human behavior, the social perspective focuses on how people construct meaning, a sense of self, and a social world through their interactions with each other”. Instead of one objective reality this perspective observes several subjective realities. Some social constructionists focus on the human capacity to have a conversation with oneself to find awareness of themselves. This is known as the looking-glass self, which can be explained as “I am what I think you think I am.”
The main point of Baldwin et al.’s theoretical analysis was to discover how an individual’s sense of self is affected by many components, including personal experiences. The mental association between these two factors was proposed because self-prospection and close relationships are tied to how individuals view themselves. We sometimes see ourselves as who we’re with, and how they treat us translates to how we see ourselves.
Who are you? Who am I? These philosophical questions often get brought up and debated over by most philosophers from the past and today. Teens go through this process of who am I and what is my purpose in life? To find these purposes we affiliate ourselves with different groups such as our friend groups, extracurricular activities and peer academics. I would identity myself as being a female. I’m a part of international club and I’m a cashier at the café. We identify ourselves with the groups we choose to be a part of. Being a part of these groups help us feel like we belong and that we have some sort of place in this big world. Since most people go through this identity issue, researches have researched how we identify ourselves socially. They came up with a theory called social identity theory.
Humans are created to socially interact with other beings, and without even realizing it, they analyze others. While humans analyze their external environment, they often turn it around and examine themselves. This can be impacted by objects in the external world and the individual may become self-aware. Self-awareness involves analyzing one’s internal beliefs and values, and deciding if the behavior demonstrates these values. Analyzing one’s self cane have a positive or negative impact on the individual; either the person will be satisfied or dissatisfied with how their values and behavior align. If they are satisfied, this can influence the individual to think pleasantly of themselves and have a high self-esteem. If they are dissatisfied with what they see, it can influence or motivate them to change something about themselves. This research paper will highlight the importance of the self-awareness theory and how it can be used to have a positive influence on humans.
Social theory refers to the utilization of dynamic and frequently complex theoretical structures to depict, clarify, and break down the social world. A great social theory uncovers things that generally stay covered up. It likewise makes expectations about future activities, movements. Therefore, when all is said in done, the bid of social theory gets from the way that it removes the center from the person, which is the manner by which most people take a look at world, and centers it on the general public itself and the social forces that influence our daily lives. This sociological insight looks past the supposition that social structures and patterns are absolutely irregular, and attempts to give more noteworthy understanding and meaning to human existence. From this perception of social theory, the author Charles Lemert defines social theory in a way that the readers can have a main takeaway from the book.
In the past, individual’s identities were often assigned to them by the hegemonic culture, largely based on their conceptualization of sameness. The hegemonic culture dominated identity discourse by drawing distinct boundaries between racial and cultural groups, separating and defining them. Modern discourse however, has seen individuals taking the power of assigning identity signifiers for themselves often in periods of great social change. While times of resistance are often the most easily recalled examples of this, subtle trends in society a tremendous impact, often without the conscience knowledge of the society. In the past two decades, Western Culture has been witness to a radical transformation in identification processes.
All over the world, there are some people experiencing social and emotional problems due to their low self-esteem. Self-esteem is the way that every individual feel or value his/her own self. In the last few decades, the way people approached self-esteem has changed. In the beginning, parents would praise their kids for everything they do by telling them what a great of a job they are doing and in sports, everyone would get a trophy even without keeping the score. However, when people started to realize they were wrong, coaches started to give trophies to the best improved or the best effort and parents kept praising their kids because that's their job, but they praised them for the effort that they made they started to focus on praising them
In part one of the Theorist, Theories and Theorizing by George Ritzer and Barry Smart shows how the Handbook of Social Theory utilized in the field that it is exhibit correspondingly to different situation. As for my own analysis, theory and theorizing goes hand in hand together that gives more interesting elements on the field of assorted studies. As well as we give credits to various gifted Theorist mentioned in introductory part that their works, contributions, analysis, superb intelligence and good studies are very useful. However, utilization of many Theories encountered conflict and in contrast manner that societies changing overtime, the world from nineteenth-century to twenty first-century is very much different, very demanding especially in cross-cultural differences and the existence of network society . Therefore, the brilliant works of multiple theorist might not applicable from one situation to another on the course of the field though it serves as background knowledge and the role of theory is always symbolic.
Sociological theories are important in understanding how the society operates. In addition, the theories help one understand how people in society relate with each other. The theories have helped understand various social issues in the society and made it easy to develop solutions to the problems. There are different theories that are used to explain how the society operates and how people interact with each other. Examples of the theories include functionalism theories and conflict theory, and interactionism theory. The theories have helped examine different institutions in society and how they operate. The theories named above impact families in many different ways.
Have you ever thought about why we feel about ourselves the way we do? Do you hate yourself or are you confident about who you are? Either way you feel about yourself, this all comes from your self-concept. According to Steven McCornack’s Reflect and Relate “self-concept is your overall perception of who you are.” My self-concept is constantly changing due to confidence boosts or if I become depressed and sad; these factors also influence my self-esteem. My self-concept helps determine how well I am able to communicate with others. “Some psychologists and sociologist have advanced theories that suggest we learn who we are through four basic meaning: our communication with other individuals, our association with groups, roles we assume, and our self-labels” (Beebe 35).
Many people try to pretend to be someone else only because they aren’t happy with their self. Moreover, many people commit suicide because of not feeling accepted. In order to be genuinely happy in life one must understand that they have the potential for self-directed growth. In other words accepting one’s own flaws and being more self aware can help one move forward and become what they are capable of becoming. With Person-Centered Therapy humans are generally capable of self-direction and understanding thyself. Also, it is viewed upon humans to be able to make constructive changes. Self-esteem plays a huge part in one’s life. It can either make or break one. This paper will address the presenting problems, the application of theory and