9/13/2020 THE SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE OF THE SELF: THE SELF AS A PRODUCT OF SOCIETY – IamRolex
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REFLECTIONS
THE SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE OF THE
SELF: THE SELF AS A PRODUCT OF SOCIETY
Posted by ROLEX on SEPTEMBER 6, 2018SEPTEMBER 9, 2018
MY REFLECTION ON THE SELF AS A PRODUCT OF SOCIETY
Nowadays, self-identity is important for an individual to understand the self within him. The basic
idea about self development is that, “The self is not present at birth, rather, it develops while growing
through social experiences”. There are theories and concepts describing how self develops for us to
understand the self and others.
(h ps://iamrolex.wordpress.com/2018/09/06/the-sociological-
perspective-of-the-self-the-self-as-a-product-of-society/cooley/)
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9/13/2020 THE SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE OF THE SELF: THE SELF AS A PRODUCT OF SOCIETY – IamRolex
(h ps://iamrolex.wordpress.com/2018/09/06/the-sociological-
perspective-of-the-self-the-self-as-a-product-of-society/mead/)
According to the theory of Mead and Cooley, the self is not dependent on biological predisposition;
rather, it is a product of social interaction. It means that; relating to the basic idea, self is not present at
birth or it doesn’t comes from our parents or ancestor’s trait. But it is a product of social interaction. Base
on my experience, my father has short tempered as well as my brother, but I, I can manage my temper
and stay calm. I think I developed this trait through interaction with people with good temper like my
friends around me. Another idea from Cooley, about the looking glass. For example, base on my
experience, I’m always with my parents before and I have viewed myself as a mirror of them. Like being
good, being wise, and determined to live a life are some traits I like the most that they have.
Next is the theory of the social self. The I and the me. “I” is the response to “me”, which is the
active side of the self that represent the spontaneous and unique traits of an individual. While the “me”
is the social self. Me is the internalization of roles which derive from such symbolic processes as
linguistic interaction. The I and the me have dynamic relationship with one another and once it has
reunited, the self can a ain its full development. So, I can say that the “I” is my response to the the social
side of myself which is the “me”. For example, from socialization, i learned that the a itude that I must
apply to one environment should be strong, therefor the “I” of myself will respond to allow myself to
show the a itude that I must show. It is clear that the relationship of these two will result in the
development of the self.
Another concept according to Gerry Lanuza about our modern society that we have freedom in
choosing our self-identity. While in the postmodern societies, our self-identity continuously change due
to the demands of multitude of social context, new information technologies, and globalization. It means
that we can freely choose what identity we want to have for self-cultivation but there are some problems
that may arise. For instance, the limitation of close interaction if we choose not to socialize because that’s
the identity we developed. Another concept from a sociologist Jean Baudrillard, individual achieve self-
identity through prestige symbols and we consume goods that will give us a feeling of goodness instead
of choosing our needs. It’s one of the major problem about self-identity in our postmodern society
because we tend to compare the social class we have from other people just to feel good. We keep on
finding more because we can never be satisfied in life. In my opinion, this is the reason why many
people are doing crime just to afford something they want. Also, I’ve noticed that in today’s world, most
of the dreams of many people are; to have prestige car, house, million dollar or in short to become rich.
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But we definitely forgot what’s the real reason of our
life. Unfortunately, most of us forgot who really we are
as a human being because they were blinded by golds.
Searching for self-identity is indeed challenging, we
maybe have a choice but can we really choose the right
one?
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