You’ve probably heard of the Nature vs. Nurture debate.
How much of who we are is due to our DNA?
And how much of who we are is based on our interactions with others?
We usually think of “nurturing” as positive—and intentional.
Or, to extend it to the topic of how we discover our “selves,” others intentionally nurture
us to become the unique individuals we are.
But this “intentionality” aspect is not always the case.
This video will focus on how our views of our “self” develop.
In other words, how do we learn the answer to the question, “Who are you?”
We’ll touch on Self-Awareness and then a brief discussion of a few approaches as to
what influences the development of the self-concept, before finally moving onto to the five factors
that Steven Beebe, Susan Beebe, and Mark Redmond highlight in their textbook, Interpersonal
Communication: Relating to Others.
And, I’ll be sprinkling in a few additional concepts along the way.
Notice that the concepts of self-concept and self-esteem are interwoven throughout our
discussion.
That’s because, along with learning about who we are and how we differ from others,
we also learn judgments of those characteristics.
It all begins with Self-Awareness, when we discover that we are individuals and not just
part of our surroundings.
We learn that our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are not always the same as others.
Even though infants have a little understanding that life exists outside of their bodies—realizing
that they are, indeed, separate entities from their mother—real self-awareness usually
happens about the age of five.
Private self-awareness, sometimes called subjective self-awareness, occurs when we become aware
of some aspect of ourselves—we look in a mirror and see our face—while public self-awareness
develops when we are aware of how others view us, when we realize that other people aren't
always thinking and feeling the same way we are.
You might be able to further break down public self-awareness into objective and symbolic
self-awareness.
Objective, in this case, means that we are the object of our thoughts and attention:
We pay attention to own thoughts.
And symbolic means that we use symbols—language, gestures, and so on—to turn our thoughts
into behaviors.
It’s one thing to think to yourself, “I need to present myself more professionally”
and another thing to carefully choose your words, attire, and behavior—symbols—as
a response to that thought.
Our ability to think about what we’re doing while we are doing it is called self-reflexiveness,
sometimes called “mindfulness.”
Think about all the self-observation and self-talk that goes on during a job interview.
You are aware of what you are doing and think about how others perceive you, give yourself
some silent advice, and adjust.
When you become over-aware of yourself and you feel like everyone is watching you, you
are experiencing self-consciousness.
Think again about that job interview: you can become so focused on yourself that you
feel uncomfortable and nervous.
This is natural and usually (as in the case of a job interview) temporary.
Self-awareness leads to the development of your Self-Concept: the collection of beliefs
that you have about yourself.
The underlying question is: What affects your view of who you are?
In other words, how does your self-concept develop?
There is no single best answer to this question.
Instead, there are a variety of approaches as to what influences the development of the
self-concept.
Many scientific studies have been conducted on this topic, like the AF5 Self-Concept questionnaire.
Developed and tested by José Fernando García and Gonzalo Musitu in Spain in 1999, it’s
been validated in other countries, including the United States.
They propose five factors: academic, social, emotional, family, and physical.
Lumen Learning’s open-source textbook, Introduction to Speech Communication, discusses multiple
factors as well relating to roles, interactions with others, comparisons to others, etc. (much
of which we will discuss more in this video).
They also call out social and family influences, culture, and the media as larger, more systemic
forces that contribute to our self-perception.
The online American women’s magazine, Bustle, suggests six factors: acne (which, of course,
is focused on physical appearance), perfectionism, unattainable beauty standards (again, physical
appearance), a messy desk (I think I’d group this with perfectionism), and self-deprecating
humor—when you make jokes at your own expense (I’d group this as well with perfectionism—as
I feel this is a way of coping with our inability to be perfect).
Bustle suggests one more factor: Social Media, which I’ll rephrase as “perceived popularity.”
Many of those on social media platforms are influenced by the number of “likes,” “shares,”
“followers,” “subscribers,” and “retweets.”
A lot of them?
You’re popular!
A lack of them—even birthday wishes—can kill your confidence.
And, of course, this fits into the other categories as people share what they consider to be “post-worthy”:
highlights of accomplishments, carefully curated pictures (including filters, air brushes,
and apps that can smooth out that acne and make you look perfect).
When we compare ourselves to others, it’s called Social Comparison.
So, I guess I can re-label this aspect Social Media Comparison.
But, for this video, this, I’m drawing heavily from Beebe, Beebe, and Redmond’s textbook,
Interpersonal Communication: Relating to Others, where they identify five main factors that
affect how you learn about yourself: Interactions with Others, Associations with Groups, Roles
you assume, the Labels you give yourself, and your Personality and Biology—yep, we
really are all different.
We will start with Interactions with Others, sometimes referred to as Interactions with
Individuals.
The most obvious example is how you learned your name.
We aren’t born knowing our names—in fact, many parents consider several names for their
newborns and don’t settle on one until after birth.
When my father was born, my grandparents had decided on Donald.
But the hospital put the wrong name on his birth certificate, and he was David from then
on.
We learn our names from interacting with others when they intentionally tell you your name,
“Your name is David,” or others keep calling you by your name and reward you when you respond.
Others give us feedback, intentionally or otherwise, on other aspects of ourselves.
If you say something amusing and others laugh, you learn that you can be funny.
If, in response to a failure, you hear, “You are such an idiot!”
you may doubt your intelligence.
Or you get a good grade on a math test and think that you, too, can become an engineer.
Of course, one such interaction doesn’t necessarily cement these beliefs about yourself.
It’s when you get the message often (frequency), you think the other person is truthful (credibility),
and/or it fits with other messages you’ve been exposed to (consistency) that it becomes
part of your view of who you are.
Before we move on, I would be remiss if I didn’t at least mention two theories that
can play a major role in this factor: Attachment Styles and the Looking-Glass Self.
I won’t go into detail here—you can find more about each of these theories later—but
Attachment Styles refers to our emotional relationships with our earliest caregivers—usually
our parents.
They contribute to our view of ourselves as secure, lovable, and valued individuals.
And the Looking-Glass Self refers to how we think others view us, which influences how
we view of ourselves.
But let’s stick with Beebe, Beebe, and Redmond and extend this Interaction with Others concept
to the next two factors: Association with Groups and the Roles you “play” with others.
ou are likely a member of many formal and informal groups, such as political, professional,
athletics, social groups, and so on.
If you identify yourself as part of, say, a governmental organization, you probably
view yourself as a leader, caring of others, motivated, etc.
And, particularly when you are with that group, you behave the way they expect you to.
Even when you are not in a meeting with that group, you probably present yourself to others
in a way that is consistent with a member of government.
But you don’t have to be known as a member of a group to have it shape your identity.
Think about members of self-help groups like Alcoholics Anonymous.
Or members of LGBT groups who help themselves and others become accepting and grow into
themselves as valued individuals.
That leads us to the Roles you play with others.
When I’m with my friends, I think of myself as a friend and behave accordingly.
When I’m with my mother, I think and behave as a daughter—in my case, the oldest child,
with all of the responsibilities that come along with it.
And my “mother” role (with all of the expectations of what good mothers do) comes
out when I’m with my children.
I’m also a female who grew up in the United States in the late 1900s (Hey, that’s not
too long ago and, yep, that’s me with the long hair).
While that may not sound like a role, it is: there are gender biases and expectations that
I’m supposed to adhere to.
I’m expected to be a good cook, wear make-up, clean house, do laundry—and I distinctly
remember my father instructing me that, when I played tennis with a boy, I needed to let
him win.
Oh, and, of course, “Boys will be boys,” “Men don’t cry,” and “It’s time
for you to take out the trash, honey.”
Where do we get these instructions?
It’s called Gender Socialization, which is the process by which we learn our culture’s
gender-related rules, norms, and expectations.
Yep!
Our culture—which, as you know, is more than ethnicity—surrounds us throughout our
lives, with parents, teachers, schools, and, of course, media influencing us.
Yep, thanks to the media, we see how successful people, good parents, gracious winners, and
so on are supposed to behave—and what happens when they don’t.
Oh, another theory to investigate later: Social Learning Theory.
But you can’t blame everything on those around us.
We are individuals and know that we can be and are different from others.
Our attitudes, beliefs, and values contribute to our view of ourselves: I like to think
of myself as kind, intelligent, nurturing, dependable, etc.
Of course, I may have gotten those labels from interacting with others and observing
the media, but I have adopted them as mine: These are my self-labels.
I’ve also gone through a variety of experiences.
One that has definitely shaped me is the years of competitive swimming.
My high school didn’t have a swim team and, by the time I convinced them to let me compete
for them, the “Girls” season was over.
So, I swam with—and quite often beat—the boys!
(My father couldn’t understand why!)
From that experience, I learned that I am a feminist who really can compete with males.
And this is where Bustle’s identification of self-deprecating humor as a contributing
factor to the development of our self-concept can come in into play.
If you are constantly making fun of yourself in conversations with others, “Heck!
What do I know?
I’m such an old fogey,” the frequency, credibility, and consistency factors may lead
you to label yourself as old and out-of-touch.
And we really are individuals with our own personalities and biological characteristics.
My parents had six children, and I’m the oldest.
Same source of DNA, right?
Shouldn’t all six of us be the same?
Of course not!
In addition to not all being the same sex or looking exactly the same physically (biology),
we all have vastly different personalities.
Personality can be defined in a variety of ways.
Beebe, Beebe and Redmond call it “a set of enduring characteristics and internal predispositions
for reacting to your environment.”
The American Psychological Association describes it as referring to “individual differences
in characteristic patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving.”
And the Oxford Dictionary says it is “the various aspects of a person’s character
that combine to make them different from other people.”
And all six of us have different personalities!
One of my brothers is a practical joker, I’m the studious one with a sense of humor.
And the rest of us?
Different!
In 1949, D.W.
Fiske developed a theory that there were five basic dimensions of personality, often called
the Big Five Personality Traits: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extroversion, Agreeableness,
and Neuroticism.
It’s not that there are only five distinct personalities, but that you can have any number
of combinations.
Think of these personality traits as a scale running from one to ten, with one being “not
at all” applicable and ten being “extremely” applicable.
If I were to rate myself on each of these personality traits, my personality would lean
more toward the conscientiousness and agreeableness traits.
With a newfound understanding of Self-Awareness and some ideas as to what influences our self-concept,
it should be easy to see how family, society, culture, and the media help us shape our views
of who we are.
And you likely understand that the question of whether Nature or Nurture is responsible
for how people turn out has no obvious answer.
But I still love to listen to those debates!