Question 2 Essay

I'm exploring the statement that our self concept relies heavily on the feedback we receive from others. self-concept is a combination of the way we feel about and see ourselves, and a big part of boosting our self-concept is getting compliments from others. For example, if somebody changed their hairstyle and it received compliments from friends they would feel confident about themselves, whereas if it got negative feedback the person would most likely regret the decision depending on how high their self concept already is. if we receive negative feedback for showing our core self, the gap between our core and public self will increase and there is more chance we will adapt our public self to make us more appealing to others.

Dimbleby and Burton have a theory that we rely on the actions of, compare ourselves to, and identify with others. This ties in with the statement as we value other people highly and the reactions we receive from others can create a self-fulfilling prophecy. A self-fulfilling prophecy occurs when we are told something so much that we start to believe it and act it out. When this happens it means other people have influenced the way we act and this shows that we rely heavily on other people's opinions. As well as this, Cooley's Looking Glass Theory (1992) states that other people validate our behaviour and how we feel about ourselves depends entirely on the reactions of others. This is a similar theory to Dimbleby and Burton as both of theories support the idea that the opinions of others are important to us. A good example of this is that teenagers generally tend to dress similarly to the way their friends dress or copy popular styles and this suggests that they are doing this to fit in and be liked, rather than because they just like the style.

The Johari window is a model of identity, and shows the different versions of ourself and who sees them. There are 4 sections: open, blind, hidden and unknown, and these are all either known or unknown by us and others. Our open self is seen by everybody and our hidden self is aspects of our personality that we hide from others. This means we change the way we are depending on who we're with as we all have things that we want to keep private and we want to show ourselves in a good light when with others so we only reveal certain parts of our personality. For example, I change the way I act with different people as I want people to like me and accept me into their groups. This theory is good evidence that we rely on others opinions as we make changes to our identity to gain acceptance.

Another theory which supports this idea is the dissonance theory. It states that we have to try and protect ourselves from the opinions of others so we don't damage our self-concept. This is direct evidence that people affect what we think about ourselves. We disclose different amounts of information to different people and adapt the things we say in order to get approval from them. When I talk to people who are interested in pop music I would discuss the pop music I liked as I know it will get good feedback, whereas if I was talking to someone who liked rock music I would disclose different information and only discuss the rock music I liked.

When we receive negative feedback it affects our self-concept so we adopt different methods to prevent this. These are called "self-maintenance strategies" and these were discovered by Gergen and Gergen. We use methods such as commenting on our appearance in order to provoke a positive response and changing our behaviour to conform to the norms of society. This shows that we highly value what others think of us and will do certain actions to fit in with groups and be valued.

Body Modifications

Body modification is all to do with altering our bodies to get closer to reaching our ideal self. People of all ages have an idea of what they aspire to be and what their ideal self looks like, meaning that we all go through various procedures to reach our goal of being our version of 'perfect'. It is especially important to teenagers and young adults as this seems to be the time when most people get a clear idea of who they want to be and what they are willing to go through. I think with younger people body modifications (such as makeup for girls) are a way for them to try and be in control of ourselves. This is because at a young age we abide by our parents beliefs so once we have reached the age where we develop our own we want to break away from our parents and show independence. Each person has their own ideologies but as teenagers there are usually more generalised groups that we want to fit in to and theses all have specific styles. There are aspects of independence associated with body modifications as well as aspects of fitting in and being accepted.
I think a lot of teenagers modify their bodies for themselves to raise their self-esteem and make them feel more confident within themselves, but the ideal self they have created usually stems from our subconscious need to fit in with others. I personally tell myself the way my style is all for personal reasons and I'm doing it for myself not others, but there is also an aspect of society giving me ideas about how 'perfect' women should be which influences my choices subconsciously. I take a lot of my inspiration about how I want to look from people around me and the opinions of my peers rather than media. For me personally, I value my figure as one of the things that I want to become 'perfect' so working on reaching my ideal body is one my more important forms of body modification.
For others piercings and tattoos are a more obvious form of body modification. It is generally suggested, especially by older people, that people only get these as a sign of rebellion but I think it is more personal to each person rather than a way of rebelling. Teenagers can form groups because of these modifications as there are some subcultures that are more likely to get tattoos or piercings, but nowadays they're more popular with everybody so I think it is a personal decision. I personally would like to get tattoos as they are a way of representing different aspects of myself and showing off my identity, but someone like my mum hates them and doesn't see the reason people would get them so I think it all comes down to personal choice. I don't want to get tattoos to rebel against my mum's beliefs so the idea that they're all for rebellion is wrong in my opinion. I think they are more about representation as tattoos are specific to each person who gets them and they usually have meaning behind them.

Response to Quote

"Perhaps I'm getting too old to understand but it seems to me that most young people today go out of their way to look ridiculous. Perhaps they just don't like themselves. How else can you explain the tattoos and body piercings? Why else would they dress in the style of convicts, hardened criminals or extras from a horror film? As for music, the most popular types seem to celebrate negative or anti-social behaviour: violence, drug abuse, suicide, self harm and anti-materialism. Is it all the fault of the older generation for bringing up youths who just reject society's values"

This quote is showing a negative approach towards youth culture and the subcultures which have become popular. I'd assume the writer of this comment is an adult as they are talking about how they don't understand the trends that 'young people' follow which would suggest that they're older. They state that people go out of their way to look ridiculous which shows a negative view towards the culture but I think this statement can be true for any style, not just youth culture. For example there were a range of subcultures around in previous decades that aren't present now and all of these had styles that could be considered ridiculous so it isn't just youth culture that is responsible for this. They begin to question why teenagers