The Looking Glass and Self Reflection, Essay Example

Charles Horton Cooley’s Looking Glass theory relates to my perception of self, and I see this in my every day life while interacting with friends, family, co-workers and strangers. If not for fear of judgment, we would not indulge in popular culture such as current trends in fashion and technology. For example, I am athletic and pursued sports in high school. I saw myself through the eyes of teammates and spectators, and this lead to increased desire to win and challenge myself in order to live up to expectations of those around me. Another example is in my interactions with strangers. If not for repeated contact with others throughout my daily life, I would not bother with looking a certain way. It is important to me to properly present myself based on the people I will be around, meaning that if I am to be in public as opposed to sitting at home, I want to dress nicely. This refers to having a positive instead of a negative reaction from those around me about the way I look. I think that this example is unique in that a lot of this is based on conjecture and not actually based on reality of how others see me. Other examples of self reflection include how my parents and siblings treat me. I am a middle child and have a lot of family support, so this attention has given me fairly high confidence. In relation to this, my interactions with my friends also gives me a high amount of confidence because we reflect each other in our interests, activities and likes. Lastly, I see myself in others’ judgments on my academic ability. I do well in academics however, I feel that I can always do better. I think that this relates to the looking glass self because no matter what, there will always be others who perform better or at a higher level, and it is hard not to compare yourself in these situations.

These examples describe how I collectively see myself based on how others interact with me, and the effect it ultimately has on me is that of increased pressure to succeed and limit the amount of negative judgment from those around me. By subscribing to this type of behavior and reflection, it is easy to care too much about how others judge or see you.