Self-identity
We all have various perceptions, feelings, and beliefs about who we are and what we are like. Many sociologists and psychologists have expressed interest in how the individual develops and modifies a sense of self because of social interaction. The work of sociologists Charles Horion Cooley and Ceorge Herbert Mead, pioneers of the inter-actionist approach, has been especially useful in furthering our understanding of these important issues.
In the early 1900s, Charles Horion Cooley advanced the belief that we learn who we are by interacting with others. Our view of ourselves, then, comes not only from direct contemplation of our personal qualities, but also from our impressions of how others perceive us. Cooley used the phrase looking-glass self to emphasize that the self is the product of our social interactions with other people.
The process of developing a self-identity has three phases. First, we imagine how we appear to others—to relatives, friends, even strangers on the street. Then we imagine how others perceive us (attractive, intelligent, shy, strange, etc.). Finally, we develop some sort of feeling about ourselves, such as respect or shame, as a result of these impressions (Cooley, 1902:152).
A critical but subtle aspect of Cooley's looking-glass sell is that the self results from an individual's "imagination" of how others view him or her. As a result, we can develop self-identities based on incorrect perceptions of how others see us. A student may react strongly to a teacher's critic ism and decide (wrongly) that the instructor views the student as stupid. This can easily be converted into a negative self-identity through the following process: (1) the teacher criticized me; (2) the teacher must think that I'm stupid; (3) I am stupid. Yet self-identities are also subject to change. I f the student above received an "A" at the end of the course, the person might no longer feel stupid.
SOCIALIZATION
All researchers would agree that both biological inheritance and the processes of socialization play a role in human development. There is no consensus, however, regarding the relative importance of these factors, which has led to what is called the nature versus nurture (or heredity versus environment) debate. We can more easily contrast the impact of heredity and environment if we examine situations in which one factor operates almost entirely without the other.
The socialization process continues throughout all stages of the human life cycle. In cultures less complex than our own, stages of development are marked by specific ceremonies. Many societies have definite rites of passage that dramatize and validate changes in a person's status. For example, a young Aborigine woman in Australia will be honored at a ceremony at the time of her first menstruation. During these festivities, her first unborn daughter is betrothed to a grown man. Hence the expression is heard that "there is no such thing as an unmarried woman". For the Aborigines, there is a sharp dividing line between childhood and the responsibilities of adult life.
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