Self-Perception: The I Am Project
Creating a nearly perfect version of an individual requires an integration of the individual’s perception of their self as well as others’ perceptions of them. In the “I am Project”, I sought to find out how Stephanie (my sister) and Emily (my coworker) perceived me compared to the perception I had of myself. I have always viewed myself to be confident, generous, and courageous. Likewise, Emily and Stephanie confirmed these traits as they both affirmed from their description of me. These perceptions of myself are a product of social interaction that I came to learn had begun as early as when I was about 6 to 7 years old. As outline in the course text, it is from social interaction that one’s character gets shaped either in conformity to their immediate environment’s definitions or their innate predispositions.
The courageous trait, for example, that Emily recognized to be my greatest strength, is a trait that was modelled in my childhood years by Mrs Jenifer, my elementary school class teacher. Mrs Jenifer emerged to be the significant other players in the development of my high self-esteem amidst intimidations against resilience. From this reflected appraisal, I now understand why Emily and Stephanie’s perceptions of a shy character in me fall on the far left where they regard me as least shy. The course text holds that having positive significant other individuals in one’s early stages of life have the power to model more positive traits as they foster one ’s self-esteem. However, for a trait such as attractiveness, it is not as a result of the influence of any significant other since it is natural and I have lived in recognition of it thus Emily and Stephanie’s expressions were not surprising.
Elements of perfectionism, seriousness, and being opinionated as revealed by the two participants are products of social comparison. These concepts are greatly attributed to my response to others’ perception of me. It is from my perception of inferiority to others that I regard to be superior that have contributed to the development of the seriousness, perfectionism, and the character of being opinionated as affirmed by Emily and Stephanie. Self-comparison, like significant others, has a direct impact on one’s self-esteem. By comparing myself to reference groups, I have also developed other traits such as enthusiasm which I once lacked but found in my classmates. Therefore, developing such traits has been stirred by the desire to be like such admirable characters.
Fearful and lonely descriptions as depicted in the participants’ configuration of my character are to some extent due to obsolete information, social expectations, and distorted feedback. On obsolete information, past failures in my social life as well as in school life have, to some extent, induced some aspect of fear in fields of unfamiliarity. Such expressions of fear as explained in the course texts are often aggravated by distorted feedback which is often expressed in critical expressions from overly negative and pessimistic individuals such as uncaring or inhumane teachers, excessively demanding peers, cynical parents, and overly expectant society. However, I have developed a resilience that downplays any form of negative energy from my immediate environment.
Finally, the responses from the two participants on their perceived knowledge of my identity in comparison to how I view myself reveal that a healthy self-concept is a flexible one. Flexibility in this context refers to my ability to adjust appropriately based on the context at hand, environment, and stage of life. It is, therefore, from one’s ability to exercise flexibility in their self-concept that aspects of self-clarification, reciprocity, self-validation, and impression formation are best modelled.