and standards of living experienced by pop-culture icons such as the Kardashians? To what extent do programs like theirs create expectations in you that are likely unattainable?3 When texting or messaging friends, many of us now use a personal emoji, often a caricature or somewhat goofy cartoon of ourselves. Typically, while the one each of us creates may resemble us, and we may even make it lightly mocking, we also usually make it more physically pleasing—as if it represents our “better self.”
If you haven’t done so, download the Bitmoji app and create one to represent you. Explain the ways in which this selected public image represents an extension of yourself and what you hope it communicates to others.30
4. Consider how you feel after spending time on social media. Do you ever suffer from FOMO (fear of missing out) after seeing your friends failed to include you at a party? In general, do you feel better or worse once you log off? To what do you attribute these feelings?
Factors Affecting Self-Concept and Outlook
People we value influence the picture we have of ourselves and the way we behave. How you see yourself is affected by how you look at others, how others actually look at you, and how you imagine or perceive that others look at you. We become different selves as we move from one set of conditions to another. The words we use, the attitudes we display, and the appearances we present change as we vary the people we interact with, the masks we wear, and the roles we perform.
Resilience and Grit
Are you an optimist or a pessimist? When it comes to thinking about the self and who we want to be today, some of us categorize ourselves as optimists and others as pessimists.
If we are an optimist and suffer a defeat, we view it as a temporary setback brought about by circumstances, bad luck, or other people. Optimists are resilient and gritty; they do not view defeat as a result of some insurmountable innate inability. Psychologist Albert Bandura tells us that an optimistic belief in our own possibilities and competence endows us with feelings of self-efficacy. (Note: We are speaking about optimism, not unrealistic optimism based on overconfidence.) When we have strong feelings of self-efficacy, we are more persistent, less anxious, and less depressed. We don’t dwell on our inadequacy when something goes wrong; instead, we seek a solution. If we are persistent, we are apt to accomplish more. And as we do so, our belief in ourselves grows.31
Unlike optimists, pessimists lack resilience and believe that bad events are their own fault, will last, and will undermine whatever they do. Rather than believe they can control their own destiny, pessimists believe that outside forces determine their fate. In effect, pessimists “can’t because they think they can’t,” while optimists “can because they think they can.” Psychologist Martin Seligman tells this story:
We tested the swim team at the University of California at Berkeley to find out which swimmers were optimists and which were pessimists. To test the effects of attitude, we had the coach “defeat” each one: After a swimmer finished a heat, the coach told him his time—but it wasn’t his real time. The coach had falsified it, making it significantly slower. The optimists responded by swimming their next heat faster; the pessimists went slower on their next heat.32
Developing Self-Understanding
Clues to self-understanding come to you continually as you engage with others in physical and digital environments. To understand yourself, you need to be open to information that others give you. Just as we tend to categorize ourselves and others, they do the same for us. For better or worse, the categorization process is a basic part of interpersonal communication.
We classify people according to their roles, their status, their material possessions, their personality traits, their physical and vocal qualities, their skills and accomplishments, the number of “likes” they receive, and the number of followers they have. Which of these are most important to you? Which do you imagine are most important to the significant people in your life? How do others help shape your image of yourself? How do they enhance or belittle your sense of self?
Ethics and Communication
Combatting Stigma, Stereotypes, and Prejudice
We define stigma as extreme disapproval resulting from prejudice and stereotypes that leads to discrimination and the promotion of shame in those targeted.
How might stigma attached to the elderly, the physically disabled, and those suffering from mental illnesses affect them? What messages do we send older, physically challenged, and mentally ill individuals regarding assessments of their worth and abilities? Stigma and negative preconceptions are among the significant barriers people in these groups have to combat.
Our society is both age-conscious (people classify us and treat us certain ways because of how old or young we appear to be) and age-obsessed (many people fixate on looking and acting youthful).
The Chinese, in contrast, respect age. As part of a cultural exchange program, the Chinese sent experienced scholars in their 50s and 60s to the United States and expressed offense when the United States, in return, sent young adults to China.33 In Arab cultures, the proverb “A house without an elderly person is like an orchard without a well” expresses their view of aging. Contrast this with the U.S. practice of segregating elderly people from the rest of society by encouraging them to live in retirement communities and nursing homes. Because the elderly often assimilate society’s devalued appraisals of them, unfortunately, many suffer from lower self-esteem.34
We also have stereotyped and discriminated against those who are physically challenged or mentally ill. Although there has been some improvement, many persist in predicting negative outcomes when relating to people believed to be disabled, partly because they are seen as dependent, potentially unstable, and more easily offended than the able-bodied. Employers also worry about the costs of accommodating them.35
To combat discrimination and change the way people respond, develop a checklist of suggestions for combatting ageism and stigmas attached to being physically or mentally challenged.36
Expectations Matter: The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
A self-fulfilling prophecy occurs when an individual’s expectation of an event helps create the very conditions that permit the event to happen (Figure 3.4). In other words, your predictions can cause you to behave in ways that increase the likelihood of an occurrence. For example, have you ever anticipated botching a job interview and then did so? Have you ever assumed that you wouldn’t like someone, and you turned out to be right? Did it occur to you that you might have acted in a way that caused your prediction to come true?
Figure 3.4
The Pygmalion Effect
Perhaps the most widely known example of the self-fulfilling prophecy is the Pygmalion effect. The term comes from the Greek myth of Pygmalion, a sculptor, who falls in love with a beautiful statue
