The self concept has become a major social psychological Fockers because it helps organize our thinking and guide our social behavior. But what the theramin our self concept, studies of please point to genetic influences on personality and self concept, but social experience also plays a part. Among these influences are the following. The roles we play, the social identities will form the comparisons we make with others, our successes and failures, how other people judge us and the surrounding culture will now see every one of them separately. As we enact a new role, such as college student, parent or salesperson, we initially feel self conscious. Gradually, however, what became his play acting in the theater of life is absorbed into our sense of self.
For example, while playing our roles We may support something we haven't really talked much about having me to pitch on behalf of our organization. We then justified our words by believing more strongly in it. Pearl clean becomes reality. How do we decide if we are reaching smart or short? One we ease through social comparisons. Others around us help to define the standard by which we define ourselves is resharper.
Smart or dumb, tall or short? We compare ourselves with them and consider how we differ. Social comparison explains why students tend to have a higher academic self concept if they attend a high school with monthly average students, and how that self concept can be threatened. After graduation when a student who excelled in an average high school goes on to an academically selective University. The big fish is no longer in a small pond. Much of life revolves around social comparisons.
We feel handsome when others seem homely, smart when others seem dull, and caring when others in Cowles, when weakness appears performance, we cannot resist implicitly comparing ourselves we may therefore privately seek some pleasure in appears failure, especially when it happens to someone we envy and when we don't feel vulnerable to such misfortune ourselves. Social comparison can also diminish our satisfaction. When we experience an increase in affluence, status, or achievement. We compare airport, we raise the standards by which we evaluate our teams. When climbing the ladder of success. We tend to look up not down, we compare ourselves with others doing even better.
When facing competition. We often protect our shaky self concept by proceeding and a competitor is advantage, for example, call of steamers believes that their competitors had better coaching and more practice.