Self-concept forms out of how we imagine others perceive us.
Cooley's 1902 formulation: we imagine how we appear to others, imagine their judgement, and feel accordingly. The judgement we respond to is our imagined version of it, which is why the correction rarely arrives.
In practice
- A new manager forms a view of themselves from the reactions of people who are performing deference.
- An adolescent's self-image is built from an imagined judgement that the judges never actually made.
- Further reading
- Wikipedia
- Subject
- Sociology & Culture
- Essay
- How societies hold together, sort people, and change