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Concept of the Self

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I am having trouble understanding these concepts, although it seems relatively easy, I am still having some difficulty. I know about Rogers concept of the "self", but I am not sure if that applies to the "social" world??--I have to prepare a presentation, and I am having brain-block, and struggling where to start. Can you please answer the following in personal terms, for better understanding?

Please help with the following:

Examine the concept of "the self." As a part of your examination, be sure to address the following items:

a. Define the concept of "the self" in the social world.
b. Apply the concepts of "the self" to your own life, including self-concept, self-esteem, and self-efficacy.
c. Describe at least two social experiences or events that have impacted your own personal development.

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Solution Summary

By addressing the questions and through supplementary resources, this solution examines the concept of "the self."

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Let's take a closer look. I also attached two articles, one of which some of this response is drawn.

RESPONSE:

1. Examine the concept of "the self." As a part of your examination, be sure to address the following items:

a. Define the concept of "the self" in the social world.

In social Psychology Mead of the Chicago school dealt with the concept of the self and how it was socially constructed. Mead reports: "The growth of the self arises out of a partial disintegration, - the appearance of the different interests in the forum of reflection, the reconstruction of the social world, and the consequent appearance of the new self that answers to the new object" (http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/us/mead3.htm). Mead looked on the "self as an acting organism, not a passive receptacle that simply receives and responds to stimuli" (Wallace and Wolf, p, 197, as cited in http://uregina.ca/~gingrich/mead.htm), as Durkheim and Parsons may have thought. People are not merely media that can be put into action by appropriate stimuli, but that "we are thoughtful and reflective creatures whose identities and actions arise as a result of our interactions with others" (Farganis, p. 145, as cited in http://uregina.ca/~gingrich/mead.htm).

The looking glass self is another way to define the social self. Created by Charles Horton Cooley in 1902 (McIntyre, 2006), the looking-glass self is a sociological concept that a person's self grows out of society's interpersonal interactions and the perceptions of others. Cooley clarified it in writing that society is an interweaving and interworking of mental selves. The term "looking glass self" was first used by Cooley in his work, Human Nature and the Social Order in 1902. A social self of this sort might be called the reflected or looking glass self:

"Each to each a looking-glass reflects the other that doth pass.' As we see our face, figure, and dress in the glass, and are interested in them because they are ours, and pleased or otherwise with them according as they do or do not answer to what we should like them to be; so in imagination we perceive in another's mind some thought of our appearance, manners, aims, deeds, character, friends, and so on, and are variously affected by it" (Cooley, 1902). (Also see the attached file: What is self concept.docx for more detail).

The looking-glass self three major components and is unique to humans (Shaffer, 2005). For example, according McIntyre, the looking-glass self a person views her or himself through others' perceptions in society and in turn gains identity. Identity, or self, is the result of the concept in which we learn to see ourselves as others do. In other words, ...

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