2 charles horton cooley and the looking

1. Journal Entry 2: 27th Sept 2015
Charles Horton Cooley and The Looking-Glass Self
Charles Horton Cooley and his theory of the looking-glass self is a social
psychological concept which states that a person’s self and personality is shaped by
the society. When a person interacts with others, their personality grows and shapes
them to be who they are today. However, the personality we possess depends on the
view of ourselves based on others impressions and contemplations of how they
perceive us. In other words, how we see ourselves does not only come from who we
really are but from how we believe others see us. In the eyes of others, we have our
own personality impression which leads us to shaping our self-concepts based on our
understanding of how other people perceive us. We form our self-image, self-concept
and personality as a reflection on responses and evaluations of those around us in our
environment.
According to Charles Horton Cooley’s theory, this process of perceiving
ourselves through the eyes of others has three main steps. The first one is where we
imagine how we appear to other people. The assumptions made can be correct or
wrong as it is plainly imagination with no firm or strong evidences and answers. For
example, I believe that I am a cheerful person because I feel happy and treat people
warmly. The next one is imagining what judgements and perceptions other people
make of us based on the appearance we show. In such imagination, I believe that there
are people who find me cheerful and people who might find my personality annoying.
The third one is where we imagine how the person feels about us based on the
judgement made of us. From the previous example, even if I am a cheerful person,
some might that this is extremely annoying especially when others are in a foul mood
yet I am still trying to act happy around them. My impression to these people might
be labelled as unwelcomed instead of the loved and belonged that I was hoping for.
The final outcome and result from all of this leads to myself changing my cheerful
personality due to the fear of being judged by others because I did not want to seem
annoying instead of cheerful.
Change has always been a part of my life. From changing schools to changing
classes to changing groups of friends I mix with. The impression I give off to people
undergoes constant change because of the additional thoughts and believes I have of
other people’s perception on myself. I have never been in the popular or wanted group
in my primary life. I was one of the neglected and lonely people so I had very few
friends. One of the reasons was because I was afraid to speak up due to my shy nature
and I only liked to stick to the same person as a friend. Never did I enjoy talking in
big crowds or have constantly changing friends so I came of as someone who is quiet
and silent most of the time. In my primary school life, there was this girl who actually
hated me, for a reason which I am still unsure of. I never had her talk about her dislike
towards me upfront but her dislike towards myself was obvious and that made me
believe that she hated me for who I was. Ever since then, I have always been insecure
about people around me. Do they hate me? Would they hate me? I always have
reasons for people to dislike me but no reasons for them to like me. Every time
someone gave me the cold shoulder, I would wonder if I made them mad cause them

2. to dislike me. Little did I know, they were not mad at me nor did they dislike me, all
these personal insecurities were actually determined by how I believed others thought
about myself. Which perfectly shows Charles Horton Cooley’s Looking Glass Self-
concept.
Growing up insecure turned out to me one of my biggest weakness and weak
spot of mine during high school. There was a drastic introvert to extrovert change of
mine after I left primary school to high school. I felt that I needed a change after all
those shy and quiet years, but the changes I made still had me insecure and fearful of
rejection by my classmates and friends. I always pictured myself as someone who is
constantly disliked despite the amount of new friends which I have made over the
span of 5 years in high school. Such imaginations and picturing did me no good
because the amount of insecurities I had bottled up soon increased. Every time
someone distant themselves from me, it felt as if they were fed up of sticking with me
or being my friend. It made me feel worried, unwanted, neglected and lonely because
everyone I came across seemed to be that way and no matter how I believed that I
have tried to change and improve my personality, it never worked, I never changed,
their perspective of me never changed. My viewpoint of others perspective of me had
me constantly feeling down because sometimes it seems as if they enjoyed my
presence but most of the time, it felt like they were trying to distance themselves from
me. Stressed, tensed and insecure was how I feel because my newly found group of
friends were friends with each other since primary school but I was someone whom
they’ve just met for a year, why would they consider me as a close friend? My
opinion and viewpoint of myself by looking at myself from the eyes of others has
made me doubt my personality and caused me to think that I had a problem with my
personality.
Even if I tried to convince myself that I had a good and likable personality, I
still went back to square one- thinking that other people had different perceptions,
thoughts and opinions of myself. But ever since one incident, I felt that I might have
been overthinking things too much. There was one point in life where I thought that
everyone had their own friends and did not need me to be part of their lives. Seeing
them being overly friendly with them and distant towards myself made me feel left
out and neglected. I thought that it might be because of my pushy attitude. At that
time, I was part of my uniform group’s marching squad so I had to be strict and pushy
with the team so that we can achieve our best in our upcoming competitions. But later
on, I realized that I might have gone too far and this attitude of mine might have
affected our friendship so I took a step back and tried to imagine what they were
going through and felt when I was in commander, marching team leader, mode. After
thinking it through, I thought that they started to distant themselves from me because
of my attitude back then. I was quite frustrated at that point of time because I thought
that they would be able to separate feelings between work and friendship so they
should not have any bad feelings towards myself. In order to make myself “likable”
again, I toned down. I started to shape and change my personality in order for my
friends to change their perception about my “attitude”. I was not aware that I was
constantly trying to picture and act like a perfect friend in a wrong way

3. I stopped talking as much to them in fear that I might say something wrong
and distant myself so that I would not continue to be disliked by them and that our
friendship would return to how it was previously. However, nothing changed,
everything remained the same. Things seemed to go downhill after experiencing all
this. It felt as if everyone I knew was talking behind my back, secretly hating and
disliking me. I had a very weak self-image and believed that in order to be happy,
other people’s opinions matter most, even if my mind told me that this is just an
illusion and my own opinion is the most important. I self-esteem soon dropped very
low but as I was at the verge of breaking down, I talked to my best friend and he told
me to not overthink too much, maybe they are just planning something. At that time I
was confused, why would they want to anything for me when they disliked me. But
disliking and hating me was only my own perception because none of them had that
sort of impression of myself, everything was in my imagination. They planned for a
birthday surprise for me and I was in deed very surprised. I had no expectations of
this happening because I used to think that the “me” in their eyes was a nobody. This
negativity changed me and shaped me into becoming someone I didn’t know myself
as. I thought that they were the cold ones, but in fact, I was the one who turned cold
first and it was all because of me imagining their perception of myself.
Looking back at all the internal drama I caused myself in the past, I cannot say
that I would not overthink in the future, but I might be able to prevent it by telling
myself to stay positive. As long as if there is positivity in my mind, I will not start
imagining that everyone has a dislike towards myself and make assumptions on their
perception of myself. When this imagination comes to an end, I would not have an
unconscious negative change in personality. It is said that the world I create and
believe to be in my mind is the world I live in. As long as if positivity keeps me up, as
long as I believe that others do see me as who I believe I am, in a good way, I would
be able to shape myself into a better person instead of someone who continues to
mope around in sadness or depression.
Up until today, I might still constantly doubt myself and believe that I could
be disliked by others. Although there still are cases where I feel unwanted, ignored
and disliked, but once I look at it from a different perspective, I feel that other people
will not put any hatred on myself unless I have done it to them in the first place.
Looking at things from a mere positive point of view clearly shows a difference in
myself thinking about me from other people’s perspective, evaluations and opinions.