Page 46 - Essentials of Human Communication

The Self in Human Communication 25

his chapter looks at the ways in which you perceive yourself, the ways others perceive you,
Tand the ways you perceive others. First, we explore the nature of the self and a special
form of communication known as self-disclosure and the nature of perception. With this as a
background, we then explain how we perceive (form impressions of) others, how they per-
ceive us, and how we manage the impressions that we communicate to others.

The Self in Human Communication

Who you are and how you see yourself influence not only the way you communicate but also
how you respond to the communications of others. This first section explores the self: the
self-concept and how it develops; self-awareness and ways to increase it; self-esteem and ways
to enhance it; and self-disclosure, or communication that reveals who you are.

Self-COnCept
Your self-concept is your image of who you are. It’s how you perceive yourself: your feelings Watch the Video
“Sarah’s Blog” at
and thoughts about your strengths and weaknesses, your abilities and limitations. Self-concept MyCommunicationLab
develops from the image that others have of you, comparisons between yourself and others,
your cultural experiences, and your evaluation of your own thoughts and behaviors (Figure 2.1).
Others’ Images of You If you want to see how your hair looks, you’ll probably look in a
mirror. But what if you want to see how friendly or how assertive you are? According to the
concept of the looking-glass self (Cooley, 1922), you’d look at the image of yourself that oth-
ers reveal to you through the way they communicate with you.
Of course, you would not look to just anyone.
Rather, you would look to those who are most signifi-
cant in your life, such as your friends, family members,
and romantic partners. If these significant persons
think highly of you, you will see a positive self-image
reflected in their behaviors; if they think little of you,
you will see a more negative image. Your Self-
Others’ Images Interpretations
Comparisons with Others Another way you de- How do significant and Self-Evaluations
velop self-concept is by comparing yourself with oth- others see me? How do I evaluate my own
ers, most often with your peers (Festinger, 1954). For feelings and behaviors?
example, after an exam, you probably want to know
how you performed relative to the other students in
your class. This gives you a clearer idea of how effec- Self-Concept
tively you performed. If you play on a baseball team,
it’s important to know your batting average in com-
parison to those of your teammates. You gain a differ-
ent perspective when you see yourself in comparison Social Comparisons Cultural Teachings
How do I compare to
How do I fulfill the
to your peers. my peers? teachings of my culture?
For good or ill, social media have provided us with
the tools (all very easy to use) to compare ourselves to
others, perhaps to estimate our individual worth or
make us feel superior. Here are just a half-dozen ways
social media enables people to find out how they stand.
● Search engine reports. Type in your name on
Google, Bing, or Yahoo, for example, and you’ll see fIgure 2.1
the number of websites on which your name (and the Sources of Self-Concept
others that are similarly named) appears. Type in a The four contributors to how you see yourself. As you read about self-concept,
colleague’s name and you get a number of websites consider the influence of each factor throughout your life. Which factor influ-
on which his or her name appears which, you’re enced you most as a preteen? Which influences you most now? Which will influ-
hoping, is fewer than yours. ence you most in 25 or 30 years?