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• Looking glass self

Three main components

There are three main components of the looking-glass self (Yeung, et al. 2003).

1. We imagine how we must appear to others.
2. We imagine and react to what we feel their judgment of that appearance must be.
3. We develop our self through the judgments of others.

First of the Proposed Changes

Three main components

1. An individual imagines how they will appear to others. (Cooley didn't say that we perceive how others judge us; rather, we imagine their perceptions and judgements)

• The individual imagines the judgment that others may be making regarding their appearance.
• The individual develops a self-image in relation to their reflection. The self-image that is developed is in direct relation to the critique and judgments of the individual from others.

2. The individual creates sense of self-awareness after the critiques and judgments. This creates an “image” or “self” that we maintain and change during our entire lives.

3. The individual develops his/her own subjective reality, in which we view ourselves as the central actor and those around us the actors through which the self is being reflected and defined.

""An important point for us to see is that Cooley didn't say that we actually perceive how others see and judge us; rather, we imagine their perceptions and judgements." (pp. 318)

Allan, K. (2012). Explorations in Classical Sociological Theory: Seeing the Social World. New York: SAGE Publications.

Yeung, King-To, and Martin, John Levi. "The Looking Glass Self: An Empirical Test and Elaboration." Social Forces 81, no. 3 (2003)

Cooley, Charles H. (1902). Human Nature and the Social Order. New York: Scribner's

~ I didn't put any citations in the work because I'm new and the reason why I chose to edit this particular part of the page is because I thought that the three components needed to be a little more defined and expanded.

Second of the Proposed Changes

W.E. Burghardt DuBois

Double Consciousness

Double Consciousness is a term first coined by W. E. B. Du Bois in his book, “The Souls of Black People” (1903). It occurs when an individual has more than one social identity, usually from westernization of culture, leading to difficulty in developing a sense of self.Individuals in a suppressed group see themselves in their social group (African, Muslim) but also see themselves as “American” or “Canadian” leading them into a conflict of self identity. Cooley states that individuals derive their sense of self from how they imagine others perceive and judge them but the imagination is not based completely off of speculation, rather we look at cultural images, scripts (ways to behave), and expectations. Du Bois argues that Africans internalize the cultural images produced by the dominant western cultures in relation to their group-specific culture. The conflict between the dominant images and their traditional cultural images begin to produce contradictory thoughts in the individual. Du Bois insinuates that if a group is both economically and politically oppressed, they will be culturally oppressed. He states that there is a specific method in which double consciousness occurs; (1) label and define the group as a problem and as a troubled group; (2) emphasize the groups stereotypes and shortcomings (this is usually done by the media); (3) define them as a intrinsic group. After the three methodologies are followed the assumptions and misrepresentation, the group is taken for granted and negative attributes are placed upon the group.

Third of the Proposed Changes

The halloween candy study (formatting afterwards)

Studies

Although Cooley's looking glass self was coined in 1902, recent studies have explored the concept. In 1979 a study conducted and released by Arthur L Beaman, Edward Diener, and Soren Svanum explored the looking-glass self's effect on children. It explored the self-reflection and individuation of children when posed with tasks. In 1998 a study was conducted in the Journal of Family Psychology; it measured the validity of the looking glass self as it pertained to symbolic interactionism of familial bonds.

1979 Halloween Study

Synopsis

There were two separate methods used during the experiment; the first being on that focused on self-reflection and the second being on that focused on individuation. In the first method, the participants were 363 children who went tick-or-treating in 18 different homes in Seattle, Washington from 5:00 PM to 8:00 PM. The second method had 349 children spread throughout 13 homes from 5:00 PM to 8:00. The children were not to be with parent and were to have only a mask or painted face in order to not duplicate results. The houses all had the same layout; near the front door there was a room with a low table, approximately 5 feet or 1.5 meters long; on the table was a large bowl of wrapped candy bars than were replenished throughout the evening; behind the table was a large mirror angled at 90° so that the child would always see themselves reaching for the candy. (pp.1837) Behind the backdrop in the room was the observer, looking through a peephole to collect all the data. I should be noted that if a child were to come to the door with a parent, in large groups or if another group interrupts the primary focus group when they are attempting to be stimulated the results were thrown out.

Procedure

The First Method

A female experimenter greeted each child at the door. An assistant would come with her to record data. Each time she would greet the child amicably and comment on their costume. The woman then said, "You (or each of you) may take one of the candies. I have to go back to my work in another room." This was to ensure the child would know to only take one candy, as to not be confused when he/she got there. If a child did not know what to do the experimenter would repeat the same instructions and exit into another room. The assistant then took relevant data on the number of children who entered as well as their estimated age, gender, and the number of candies taken. It was also noted that because the experimenters knew that there may or may not have been a mirror in each of the houses and because the greeter would know if the child was individuated or not; experimental bias could have been present.

The Second Method

The same form of greeting as was done in the first method was performed. But instead of providing their name and address the children were required to present their name and age. This was repeated in order to individuate the children further. The children would enter the candy room one at a time; the room was arranged in a way that the bowl of candy would not be visible by the child approaching it, visible to the greeter or to the other children. The study stated that this was necessary as a precondition for self-awareness when the child was later confronted by the mirror. Self-awareness was manipulated again by the presence of a mirror; the same randomization procedures were used similar to those in the first study. They were also told only to take one candy. But in the second method there was an additional condition added; that being a no standard condition for both the mirror and no mirror condition. Each child was simply told that, “the candies are in the living room, go help yourself”. This was to observe the common trick or treating practices of children. All four conditions were used in the houses in repetition throughout various times in the time frame. Instead of only choosing smaller pieces of candy the candy bowl had various sizes of individually-wrapped caramel and other candies present. This was to allow for a more sensitive measure because the size of the child’s hand would not limit the amount of candy taken.

Self-Awareness Manipulation

This was the first of the two methods conducted. Half of the randomly chosen houses from 5:00 – 6:30 PM presented the mirrors in order to conduct the self-awareness study while after 6:30 PM the other homes that conducted the individuation study presented the mirrors. A mirror was placed on a 90° angle behind the table with the candy on it so the children would see themselves in the mirror when the took candy; after the mirror was removed the children who went in were labeled as anonymous.

Individuation Manipulation

There was a concern leading up to the study that the mirror presented in the self-awareness study would have no effect on costumed children. The child may be focused on their costume when they look in the mirror, not themselves. Thus the problem of making more anonymous self-aware was presented. To get past this, the greeter would ask the child their name and where he/she lives. She would repeat this question and then continue on with the procedure of the experiment. The children were assigned ‘individuated’ or ‘anonymous’ labels in all the houses throughout both methods.

Results of the First Method

Of the 363 children, only 70 (19.3%) took more than one piece of candy. Children who arrived alone transgressed less (10.3%) compared to children who arrived in groups who transgressed (20.4%) of the time. (pp. 1838) The study also noted that because of the various conditions presented, children who arrived alone had too small of a sample size. So the analysis of the self-awareness and individuation in method 1 were interpreted between 324 children.

Self-Awareness and Individuation Comparison

The results added up and showed that children with not mirror (28.5%) significantly took more candy than those children with a mirror present (14.4%). The results showed that children who were individuated (Asked name and where they lived) were much less likely to take more candy than those children who didn’t. In the individuated condition with no mirror 37.7% of children transgressed and took more than 1 candy compared to 8.9% in the individuated mirror condition. There was an interesting outlier; in the anonymous no mirror condition 19.1% transgressed while in the anonymous mirror condition 19.6% transgressed. Deindividuation not only predicted lower stealing rates in children in who arrived alone but also found that groups on anonymous children in either condition stole more. But anonymous groups had similar percentages similar to that of individuated children, that being 19.4%. It can be noted that in the no mirror condition, children who were anonymous stole less than those who were individuated.

Age

The age groups recorded were as follows; 1-4; 5-8; 9-12; 13 and older. Analysis of the age in relation to the data showed a significant effect; stealing percentages were 6.5%, 9.7%, 23.6% and 41.9% respectively. But the data of transgression in age should be evaluated cautiously; there may be a greater sense of self-selection in older children than younger ones. But the greatest comparison to age would be that of self-awareness; it produced its largest transgression amongst older children. Self-awareness decreased the transgression rate by 55% in teenagers, 15% in adolescence and it was nearly non-visible in younger children. The decrease is because of the presence of the mirror, when the teenagers saw themselves in it they individuated themselves even after they met the experimenter at the door.

Sex

The study obtained the sex of 326 of the children; due to various costumes the remaining 37 children’s sex could not be obtained. There were 190 boys and 136 girls. Boys were shown to have transgressed more, 24.2%, compared to the girls 10.3%. The condition of having a mirror was also examined for either sex; boys stealing decreased from 35.8% with no mirror to 15.6% with a mirror; whereas girls stealing rates dropped from 13.2% with no mirror to 8.4% with a mirror.

Results of the Second Method

Self-Awareness and Individuation Comparison

The effects of self-awareness and individuation more or less mirror those effects in the first method. Of the 349 children studied, 156 or 44.7% took more than one piece of candy. The effectiveness of only telling the children to take one candy was prevalent; 21.8% to the 66.5% in the no standard condition. The mirror also proved to make children take less; 55.6% with no mirror to 35.4% with a mirror.

'Age

Self-awareness affected the older children when the standard had been made but it was not present in younger children. These results mimic those of method 1. The presence of a mirror reduced number of candy taken in the two eldest categories of children than when no mirror was present but these decreases did not reach any difference that would be present statistically.

Sex

Overall, males were marginally more likely to take more candy than females; that being 49% for males versus 39.7% of females. But the examination of the standard testing conditions shows that males transgressed more, 28.7% compared to the 13% of those in the first method. Similar results of self-awareness; the male transgressors ranged from 46.8% to 11.3%. Females had a non-significant reduction.