More identity theories

Self-concept is a key term that describes how we see ourselves.

Kuhn and McPartland (1954) are two theorists that divided this idea into two parts, which are social roles and personality traits. These theorists stated that as we move from children to adults, we are defined more by our social roles rather than our personality traits. For example, when we are children, we are unique as we are seen for our personalities, such as being happy cheery children, but then as we grow into teenage years we tend to slide more into social roles such as clicks and groups at school and college. As we progressively get older, our self concept develops once again in social roles as we enter workplaces and are fending more for ourselves.
Other theorists have has the same idea, and then added that modern society will emphasize our 'physical attributes', because now a days a persons image is way more important than their personality traits.

Rogers (1961) theory of 'Self-image' shows how we see ourselves, and this is contradicted against his idea of our 'Ideal self', which is what we would aim or like to be. The third concept that this theory is split into is 'Self esteem' which is how we feel about the gap between 'Self image' and 'ideal self'. For example, a persons self image may be quite worthless and useless, although their ideal self may be a confident and happy person who doesnt really care. This would mean that their self esteem is quite low and so they start to hate themselves as they cant physically be the person they wish to be.

Rogers also identifies the idea of identity through concentric circles.

This idea of concentric circles means that as we proceed further out of the core self, we move further than our true identities and tend to put on a mask, a fake identity to hide our true appearance. According to Rogers, the levels of superficiality increase as we move out of the core self to the private and public selves.

Identity and the influences

Identity 

• Cultural practices 
• Talent
• Physicality
• Age
• Family
• Nationality 
• Personality 
• Name
• Fear
• Gender/sex
• Likes
• Religion
• Ambitions 

Influences: 

• media, 
• society, 
• religion, 
• friends/family, 
• education, 
• politics, 
• personal experiences, 
• geographical location.  

These are also known as - Agents of socialization

Key Comms Concepts

Communication- A way to interact with each other. You need a message, a destination and a sender.

Culture- A way of life, someones lifestyle, background etc..

Identity- Who you are.

Values- A measure of importance.

Context- The situation.

Code- How you conduct yourself. The means in which something is communicated.

Representation- Something that stands for something else. Image, how someone's portrayed.

Some identity theories...

Cooleys looking glass theory (1992) suggests that we see ourselves in other peoples eyes and try to fulfil their expectations of us. For example, when we meet people for the first time, we try to act and look the best we can in order to impress them.

Cognitive dissonance is when your positive view of yourself is contradicted by other people. Theorists suggest certain ways in which an individual may cope, which Gergen and Gergen call self-maintenence strategies:

• Belittle the evidence
• Associate others who think like you do
• Turn the negative into positive
• Disbelieve
• Form a low opinion of the other person
• Self-handicap or opt-out.

An example of this is when someone forms an instant judgment of you, and makes their opinion perfectly clear. As a way to cope with this, someone may say that other things/people are worse, say there are many other people like you, make positive points against their judgment, simply ignore and not retaliate to the person, think of the other person as lower than them as they have not been polite, or give up and loose all self esteem.

The Pygmalion Effect or Self-fulfilling Prophecy suggests that we adapt our behaviour to fulfil the expectations of others. For example, non-smokers who hang around with a group that do smoke may alter their behaviour to 'fit in' with the crowd and be seen as an equal.

Brown and Levison suggest the concept of positive face needs, in that we consistenly seek the approval of others in our interactions through a number of different strategies:

• Paying attention
• Seeking agreement (true topics)
• Pretend agreement (white lies, hedging)
• Use humour
• Use appropriate dress terms compliments

For example, we try to make people like us and have a positive judgment on us by using techniques such as jokes and compliments, along with topics that both parties can relate on. We basically try and make the other person feel better about themselves in order to trust us.