Our self-concept is also formed through our interactions with others and their reactions to us. The concept of the looking glass self explains that we see ourselves reflected in other people’s reactions to us and then form our self-concept based on how we believe other people see us (Cooley, 1902). This reflective process of building our self-concept is based on what other people have actually said, such as “You’re a good listener,” and other people’s actions, such as coming to you for advice. These thoughts evoke emotional responses that feed into our self-concept. For example, you may think, “I’m glad that people can count on me to listen to their problems.”
this is a pretty interesting topic to me because to be fully honest, none of us truly know who we are. You might have a really strong understanding of your personal beliefs, the things you like and dislike, maybe strong self awareness of how you act, but at the very root of it all, it’s hard to define exactly who we are. Subsequently, it’s even harder for another person to define who they think you are. Even if you do have strong self awareness, if somehow you could play a recording of the internal thoughts of everyone you’ve ever talked to in relation to what they thought about you, you’d probably be really surprised by what you heard. That’s simply because of the fact that no one’s ideologies are identical and no one has lived exactly the same life, and everyone’s opinions are going to change based on the life they’ve lived. So when you internalized something that someone else thought about you, that thought could’ve been polar opposite to what someone else thought about you, and therefore we are left in an infinite paradox of what is true about ourselves and who exactly we are.