Chapter Discussion Questions #3 - Chapters 4 & 5 1. (Ch. 4) what does Charles Cooley mean by the phrase “the looking-glass self?” Charles Cooley believes meaning of the looking-glass self that we shape or definite ourselves by social interaction with others. For example, if people around us can encourage us all the time, we are able to live positively and do our jobs happily because social evaluation and appraisals of us really affect and lead us become the people who they assess and evaluate. In addition, self-development needs to four stages, including preparatory stage, the play stage, taking the role the significant other, and the game stage. Preparatory stage starts to work when we are children. Children are interesting imitating others …show more content…
Impression management is a processing that we work hard to manipulate the impressions of everyone we meet. Meanwhile, Goffman compare this social life with a theater, as if each person enacts different, but each one desires to get out of the masses and attracts audiences. This approach is called dramaturgy. It reminds me that person want to be a dazzling point when he or she encounters the people who he or she loves. And then people should show their best gestures to their favorites people in order to leave perfects impressions. Also, impression management apply to students, especially, each smart student strive for a good impression to professors at the beginning of new semester. In conclusion, we should understand the importance of impression management; indeed, we had better to know how to manage our social setting, appearance, and manner of interaction. After all, social life just likes a theater and we have to work hard to emerge …show more content…
First of all, specialization demonstrates that different kinds of people has various skills and experience, so we should arrange and organized individual right depending on the each person is able to work. For instance, Olympics game has many categories games, but a running player may not be good at basketball. Secondly, technical competence is a selection of official position, which should depend on merit and qualification. For this character, the career system should be complete and every election is not decided by personal relation and connection such as president election. Thirdly, hierarchy structure is balance system and it is not like traditional system that low ranks have to obey upper ranks. In hierarchy system, different rank can have diverse right to make decisions because only one rank is not able to control and organize the whole system. For example, workers in Apple Inc, they have their own duty and work. Some of them may design model and others may produce model. Hierarchy structure really makes organizations more high efficiency. Fourthly, rule and regulations can help system more standard. Generally, upper ranks have some right to propose and decide the rule such as laws and lower ranks must follow laws. If a good law was created, all citizens can
In the 20th century the social psychologist Charles H. Cooley developed this idea of a looking glass. Basically, this idea of a looking-glass is that people derive value from what others think instead of what you think about yourself. The three fundamental points of this idea are: how one’s image appears to others, how one imagines the judgment of appearances, and how one develops the “self” through the other’s judgments. Mai-Anh Tran’s decision to undergo cosmetic surgery may have been her own decision, but it was guided by how others viewed her.
In unit one of Interactions, the authors Ann Moseley and Jeanette Harris showed a number of readings about the idea of the self. The self-concept is an important matter because people change with age constantly and their thoughts change as well. There are many factors that can affect any individual’s thought of self-concept such as growing up, life experiences, friends and family, and meeting new people. Moreover, a number of readings in unit one by different authors showing their experiences and struggles with self-concept such as ethnicities, economy status, and self-esteem issue. I have had similar experiences with several authors, which are, “Zero” by Paul Logan, “Living in two worlds” by Marcus Mabry, and “The Jacket” by Gary Soto.
Self-development has great importance in society because it allows to an individual to further and improve aspects of themselves in order to obtain a better understanding of themself and adapt better in the world that we live in. With this, one can find and make the necessary changes in order to improve aspects of their lives bringing them closer to success and their goal. The self-development of an individual, through the analysis of Marilyn Monroe’s life, shows its major impact in the furtherance of one’s life.
Many people in life, present themselves to society in a manner in which they want to be seen. Maybe an employee wants to be seen as a hard working person, so when the supervisor is around, they might act busy. Or sometimes, when a person wants to be accepted, they present certain attributes to make them look good. Erving Goffman believed that “we present a certain self or face when in the presence of others”. He called these actions the key concepts of dramaturgy. The movie Grown Ups provides many examples of these key concepts.
Cooley believed that everyone we came in contact with throughout our life time can influence our perception of self. However, Mead thought otherwise, he believed that only certain people can have an influence on us during certain stages of our life time. Mead argued that infants and children are not usually influenced by anyone at all. They live in a world of their own and focus on things within that world. Children do not have the ability to understand people’s perception of them, they do not care what others may think or say about them, to them, other person’s perception does not
One of the key ideas to Goffman is his idea of impression management. Through interaction with others in society, an impression of ones self is given off to others. This is automatic and inevitable. The way one perceives you is through this social interaction. This means that through messages that are given off, whether intended or unintended, they are the judgments by which people will hold their opinion of you (Layder 1998:172-175).
What makes us human is the ability to recognize the good in other people and in turn recognize the good in ourselves. There is a saying that whatever you think about another person is just a reflection of what you think about yourself; it is like looking into a mirror. Paintings can act like mirrors as well; we can gaze into a painting and see the good of the subject being portrayed and in turn we can identify the same attributes within ourselves allowing us to relate to the subject matter. Both Rembrandt and Vermeer were able to capture intersubjectivity in their paintings. In The Return of the Prodigal Son (Fig. 1) and Aristotle (Fig. 2) by Rembrandt and The Milk Maid (Fig. 3) and Woman Weighing Pearls (Fig. 4) by Vermeer there is an autonomy that can be recognized in the painting as well as within us.
Charles Horton Cooley used the term looking-glass self to mean a person’s self-image based on how they think others see them (Macionis, page 108; Cooley, 1964, original 1902). This theory is fairly straightforward. How a person views himself is based on how he thinks other people see him. I have done and will do throughout my life. If I think the people at school think that I am quiet, then I will view myself as a quiet person. If I think my friends at church think I am a good listener, then I will view myself as a good listener. The danger of the looking-glass self is that it can greatly harm a person’s self-esteem. It can also give people a false sense of pride and make people have large egos.
Adopted into sociology by Erving Goffman, he developed most terms and the idea behind dramaturgical analysis in his 1959 book The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. This book lays out the process of human social interaction, sometimes called "impression management". Goffman makes the distinction between "front stage" and "back stage" behavior. “Front stage" actions are visible to the audience and are part of the performance. We change our hair color, eye color, complextion. Wearing make-up, the way our hair is styled, the clothes we wear. The demeanor we present to the world to the. All of these things lead to an outward appearance of what we want others to think we are. People engage in "back stage" behaviors when no audience is present. We whine and moan about the customers we deal with. Hair goes un-styled, make is wiped off. Clothing is comfortable and unrestricting. When a person conducts themselves in certain way not consistent with social expectations, it is often done secretly if this ...
Impression management is a social phenomenon that occurs in our daily life both consciously and unconsciously. “It is the act of presenting a favorable public image of oneself so that others will form positive judgments.” (Newman 184) Our first impressions of a person are always based on physical appearance and we compare them to the norms of our society. We can all admit to the initial meeting of a person and first noticing their age, gender, race, or other ascribed characteristics. Our cultural norms are ideas such that fat is “ugly” which are very different across societies and time. Also, impression management is an idea of how individuals interact in different social situations. “Sociologists refer to dramaturgy as the study of social interactions as theater, in which people (“actors”) project images (“play roles”) in front of others (“the audience”).” (Newman 169) This is our human need for acceptance and way of managing the impressions we give others and perform what we think people want to see. Our social life is governed by this concept but it only works with effective front-stage and back-stage separation. Our front-stage is the visible part of ourselves that we allow others to see unlike our hidden back-stage self.
Erving Goffman uses a dramaturgical perspective in his discussion of impression management. Goffman’s analysis of the social world primarily centres around studies of the self and relationship to one’s identity created within a society. Through dramaturgy, Goffman uses the metaphor of performance theatre to convey the nature of human social interaction, drawing from the renowned quote “All the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players” from Shakespeare’s ‘As You Like It.’ Much of our exploration of Goffman’s theories lies within the premise that individuals engage in impression management, and achieve a successful or unsuccessful performance. Impression management refers to the ways in which individuals attempt to control the impression that others have of them stemming from a basic human desire to be viewed by others in a favourable light. Goffman argues that our impressions are managed through a dramaturgical process whereby social life is played out like actors performing on a stage and our actions are dictated by the roles that we are playing in particular situations. In a social situation, the stage is where the encounter takes place, the actors are the people involved in the interaction, and the script is the set of social norms in which the actors must abide by. Just as plays have a front stage and back stage, this also applies in day-to-day interactions. Goffman’s theory of the front and back stage builds on Mead’s argument of the phases of the self. The front stage consists of all the public and social encounters with other people. It is similar to the ‘me’ which Mead talks about, as it involves public encounters as well as how others perceive you. Meanwhile the back stage, like the ‘I’, is the time spent with oneself reflecting on the interactions. Therefore, according to Goffman’s dramaturgical
Advantage of hieratical organisation Employees know their objectives clear in their job task and carry out efficiently. Beside that, every staff specialised their job. For example: engine designers responsible for designer and develop engine. HR staff responsible recruits and select people. Divide of labour and specialization can be applied so that it increase the working efficient and reduce operation cost.
A highly esteemed childhood development philosopher, Erik Erikson believed that the personality of a child develops in a series of stages, and in each stage children experienced crucial events that affected ones development. These events either impacted that child’s development in a good or poor way. Relationships are pivotal in all of Erikson’s stages as it can start to form ones personality, which helps one grow in the future. In Erik Erikson’s fourth stage, competence, children develop self-confidence by interacting with peers and people. Likewise, Alice undergoes this stage in Through the Looking Glass. Alice develops these skills as she socializes with the many characters in the story, leading her and giving her lessons to help her on
“I am who I think others think I am”. Charles Horton Cooley created the looking glass self, stating that people grow from their perceptions of other people. There are three steps to his concept: imagining how we appear to others; are we funny or dull? What do people really think about me? The next step is imagining the judgment other people think of us; do they like us funny or dull? The third step is developing the self-concept or feeling about the situation. Dramaturgy is when you feel like your life is a drama or play. In this, we have an idea of what how we want others to think of us as. We put on a performance or a presentation self to the people we want to think we are similar. Conformity is what we do every day; we are meant to go to wake up, go to school, then make dinner and go to bed. We go along with whatever group we feel we want to belong to or already belong to. The true definition is “behavior in accordance with socially accepted conventions or standards”. Conformity could be even
Organizational structure within an organization is a critical component of the day to day operations of a business. An organization benefits from organizational structure as a result of all it encompasses. It is used to define how tasks are divided, grouped and coordinated. Six elements should be addressed during the design of the organization’s structure: work specialization, departmentalization, chain of command, spans of control, centralization and decentralization. These components are a direct reflection of the organization’s culture, power and politics.