The self In a Social World
Growing up, I used to shy in front of people due to the lack of esteem and courage to face people. I always feel like people can see through me and know what I am feeling. Sometimes compared to others who have a good body physique and considered attractive than others, including myself, I usually think intimated and inferior and often feel less of myself. Many are the times I do somethings to have that attention to myself. At home and within my social life, I blame people even for the wrong things I have caused. For example, at one time back home, I broke a window, but I still had to blame my brother as the reason he made me break the window. However, with the classwork, I have discovered it is a social psychology issue caused by social cognition where one feels inferior and always compares themselves with others.
Social cognition theory explains and enhances the understanding of the central social psychological topics such as attitudes, personal attributions, self-identity, perceptions, prejudice, and ideology (Augoustinos et al., 2014). It shows how humans are responding to various conditions while addressing multiple issues people go through, such as stereotyping, prejudice, and intergroup relations (Augoustinos et al., 2014). Some people find comfort in doing things in groups and often judge others and feel inferior when comparing themselves to others. One always minds other people’s opinions while doing something. For example, with an experiment where participants were presented with people labelled with stereotypes, adjectives show that participants recalled twice as many stereotypic attributes. The study confirms and proves that people are affected and controlled by self-schema, whereby mostly they tend to concentrate on the negative aspects of a person rather than the good deeds. For example, my lack of confidence and self-esteem in front of people was a result of the spotlight effect and illusions transparency. Where one feels that people are paying attention to who they are, and whatever fears one has because they think that the others can see and tell them. However, the self-cognition helps one develop a sense of organizing thoughts, feelings and actions. It enables one to be able to control their behavior and understand their weakness and use them to get courage. By allowing us to remember the past and appreciate the present, thus enjoying the situation and the events, we find ourselves instead of reflecting negatively and comparing ourselves with others. The concepts help one in understanding themselves and manage their reputation and relationships with others.
Reference
Augoustinos, M., Walker, I., & Donaghue, N. (2014). Social cognition: An integrated introduction. Sage.