Each to each a looking-glass
Reflects the other that doth pass (Cooley [1909] 1983:184; Emerson, 1904).
For Cooley ([1909] 1983), the looking-glass self is a reflective process that develops the self based on our interpretations and on our internalization of the reactions of others ([1909] 1983). In this process, Cooley believed there are three principal elements, shown in Figure 4.1: (1) We imagine how we appear to others, (2) others judge our appearance and respond to us, and (3) we react to that feedback. We experience feelings such as pride or shame based on what we imagine this judgment of others means, and respond based on our interpretation. Moreover, throughout this process, we actively try to manipulate other people’s view of us to serve our needs and interests. This is one of the many ways we learn to be boys or girls—the image we see reflected back to us lets us know whether we have behaved in socially acceptable ways according to gender expectations in our social setting. The issue of gender socialization in particular is discussed in Chapter 9. Of course, this does not mean our interpretation of the other person’s response is correct, but our interpretation does determine how we respond.
Thinking Sociologically
Think about a recent conversation you had with someone you don’t know well. What might be several interpretations of that interaction?
▼ Figure 4.1 The Looking-Glass-Self Process of Self-Development
Our self is influenced by the many “others” with whom we interact, and our interpretations of their reactions feed into our self-concept. Recall that the isolated children failed to develop this sense of self precisely because they lacked interaction with others, and the kidnapped girls had negative socialization experiences during captivity.
Taking the looking-glass-self idea a step further, Mead explained that individuals take others into account by imagining themselves in the position of that other, a process called role-taking. When children play mommy and daddy, doctor and patient, or firefighter, they are imagining themselves in another’s shoes. Role-taking allows humans to view themselves from the standpoint of others. This requires mentally stepping out of our own experience to imagine how others experience and view the social world. Through role-taking, we begin to see who we are from the standpoint of others. In short, role-taking allows humans to view themselves as objects, as though they were looking at themselves through the eyes of another person. For some individuals, role-taking helps develop empathy for others—the bullied student, the homeless person on the street, the person with a disability. For Mead, role-taking is a prerequisite for the development of our sense of self.
The Sociology in Our Social World above describes a situation experienced by Brent Staples, an African American journalist. It illustrates the relationship between our development of self through the looking-glass self and role-taking, and stereotypes. Many stereotypes—rigid images of members of a particular group—surround young African American males in the United States. Think about the human cost of stereotypes and their effect on the socialization process as you read the essay. If one’s sense of self is profoundly influenced by how we see others respond (the looking-glass self) and one’s ability to role-take by imagining oneself in another’s shoes, how might the identity of a young African American boy be affected by news reports and public images of Black males?
Sociology in Our Social World
Black Men and Public Space
By Brent Staples
My first victim was a woman—White, well dressed, probably in her early 20s. I came upon her late one evening on a deserted street in Hyde Park, a relatively affluent neighborhood in an otherwise mean, impoverished section of Chicago. As I swung onto the avenue behind her . . . she cast back a worried glance. To her, the youngish black man—broad, 6 feet 2 inches with a beard and billowing hair, both hands shoved into the pockets of a bulky military jacket—seemed menacingly close. After a few more glimpses, she picked up her pace and was running in earnest. Within seconds, she disappeared into a cross street.
That was more than a decade ago. I was 22 years old, a graduate student newly arrived at the University of Chicago. It was in the echo of that terrified woman’s footfalls that I first began to know the unwieldy inheritance I’d come into. . . . It was clear that she thought herself the quarry of a mugger, a rapist, or worse. Suffering a bout of insomnia, however, I was stalking sleep, not defenseless wayfarers. . . . I was surprised, embarrassed, and dismayed all at once. Her flight . . . made it clear that I was indistinguishable from the muggers who occasionally seeped into the area from the surrounding ghetto. . . . And I soon gathered that being perceived as dangerous is a hazard in itself. I only needed to make an errant move after being pulled over by a policeman. Where fear and weapons meet—and they often do in urban America—there is always the possibility of death.
In that first year, my first away from my hometown, I was to become thoroughly familiar with the language of fear. At dark, shadowy intersections, I could cross in front of a car stopped at a traffic light and elicit the thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk of the driver—Black, White, male, or female—hammering down the door locks. On less traveled streets after dark, I grew accustomed to but never comfortable with people crossing to the other side of the street rather than pass me.
After dark, on the warrenlike streets of Brooklyn where I live, I often see women who fear the worst from me. They seem to have set their faces on neutral, and with their purse straps strung across their chests bandolier-style, they forge ahead as though bracing themselves against being tackled. I understand, of course, that . . . women are particularly vulnerable to street violence, and young Black males are drastically overrepresented among the perpetrators of that violence. Yet these truths are no solace against the kind of alienation that comes of being ever the suspect.
Over the years, I learned to smother the rage I felt at so often being taken for a criminal. Not to do so would surely have led to madness. I now take precautions to make myself less threatening. I move about with care, particularly late in the evening. . . . And on late-evening constitutionals, I employ what has proved to be excellent tension-reducing measures: I whistle melodies from Beethoven and Vivaldi and the more popular classical composers. Even steely New Yorkers hunching toward nighttime destinations seem to relax, and occasionally they even join in the tune. Virtually everybody seems to sense that a mugger wouldn’t be warbling bright, sunny selections from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. It is my equivalent of the cowbell that hikers wear when they know they are in bear country.
Source: Staples (2001). Reprinted with permission from Brent Staples.
Thinking Sociologically
Brent Staples goes out of his way to reassure others that he is harmless. How might one’s sense of self be influenced by being perceived as dangerous and untrustworthy? How might such stereotypes affect one’s physical and mental well-being?
Mead ([1934] 1962) also argued that role-taking is possible because humans have a unique ability to use and respond to symbols. Symbols, first described in Chapter 2, are actions or objects that represent something else and therefore have meaning beyond their own existence. Language and gestures are examples, for they carry specific meaning for members of a culture. Symbols such as language allow us to give names to objects in the environment and to infuse those objects with meanings. Once the person learns to symbolically recognize objects in the environment, the self can be seen as one of those objects. This starts with possessing a name that