charles horton cooley gave the concept of looking glass self.
charles horton cooley gave the concept of looking glass self.
who gave the concept of looking glass self?
charles horton cooley
looking glass self is a sociological term that was introduced by a man named charles horton cooley. this term makes a connection between the reactions of a group and the reactions of an individual. cooley is saying that a person's opinion of oneself is determined by the opinions of those around them. the group around the person acts as a mirror for them and shows a reflection of how they should view themselves. according to this, if the group thinks an individual is "odd" the individual will view themselves as "odd". this relates to identity control theory in many ways, in fact this idea allowed the identity control theory to be formed. in identity control theory, the individuals feelings arise from the reactions of the group around them. if these two ideas are looked at collectively, an individual would view themselves exactly how the group did and then their feelings would be brought out by whether their current view of self matched their previous view of self. for example, if an individual originally viewed themselves as more of a scholar than an athlete, but the group around them started to view them as an athlete more than an individual their view of themselves would turn to more of an athlete according to looking glass self. but, following identity control theory this individuals input would not match their output which would have the potential to induce negative feelings. this can also be seen in the reverse because if the principle of looking glass self caused the output of an individual to match their input, positive emotions would be brought out. with that being said, the idea of looking glass self has the ability to manipulate the emotional responses of individuals in regards to identity control theory.
identity control theory
it has been argued that the looking glass self conceptualization of the social self is critically incomplete in that it overlooks the divergent roles of ingroups and outgroups in self-definition. that is, it has been demonstrated that while individuals will converge upon the attitudes and behaviours of ingroup members, they will also diverge from the attitudes and behaviours of outgroup members. the neglect of the latter scenario is attributed to the looking glass approaches’ implicit focus on ingroup member appraisals. this alternative perspective is derived from the self-categorization theory analysis of social influence. indeed, it is further argued that the looking glass self metaphor fails to reflect the fact that influence derives from the self-categorization of other individuals as part of the self. in other words, people are not shaped by the reflections from ‘others’, but rather are shaped by the creation of a collective social identity that contrasts ‘us’ "against" relevant ‘others’. therefore, the concept of self-identity may be considered an example of a social construction.
looking-glass self