THE SELF, PERCEPTION, AND COMM

THE SELF, PERCEPTION, AND COMM

1. COMM AND THE SELF

   • SELF-CONCEPT DEFINED
     • The self-concept is a set of relatively stable perceptions that each of us holds about ourselves.
       • Ex: My name is Steph. I am 17, and I am from Vietnam.
     • Self-esteem: our evaluations of self-worth.
       • Ex: Being religious, tall, or athletic.
   • COMM & DEVELOPMENT OF THE SELF
     • Reflected appraisal: how we develop an image of ourselves from the way we think others view us.
     • Significant others: people whose opinions we especially value.
   • SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECY & COMM
     • Self-fullfilling prophecy occurs when a person's expectation of an outcome, and subsequent behavior, makes the outcome more likely to occur than would otherwise have been true.
       • Your own expectations influence your own behavior. Ex: job interview.
       • One person's expectations govern another's action

2. The thing that bothers me from this chapter is how our self-esteem is shaped by others, which leads to lots of problems of low self-esteem.

3. CULTURE & THE SELF-CONCEPT

   • Language is the most obvious feature of a culture.
   • Culture also affects the way people see themselves.
     • The culture difference affects the level of comfort or anxiety that people feel when communicating.

4. SELF-CONCEPT & COMMUNICATION WITH OTHERS

   • One's communication style affects one's behavior, others' responses, and the perceptions of events.
   • However, some of our communication style is a function of our innate personality- a relatively consistent set of traits each of us exhibits across a variety of situations.

5. PERCEIVING OTHERS

   • STEPS IN PERCEPTION PROCESS: Selection, Organization, and Interpretation.
   • Narratives, Perception, and Communication
     • Narratives are the personal stories that we and others create to make sense of our personal world narratives.
   • COMMON PERCEPTUAL TENDENCIES
     • We make snap judgments. Ex: stereotyping: exaggersated beliefs associated with a categorizing system.
     • We often judge ourselves more charitably than we judge others. (self-serving bias)
     • We pay moreattention to negative impressions than positive ones.
     • We are influenced by what is most obvious.
     • We cling to first impressions, even if wrong.
     • We tend to assume that others are similar to us.
   • PERCEPTION IN MEDIATED COMM
     • Perception differences make comm challenging btw people from the same or different cultures.
     • EMPATHY, PERCEPTION & COMM
       • Empathy is the ability to re-cresate another person's perspective, to experience the world from the other's point of view.
       • Perception checking is a tool for helping us understand others accurately instead of assumin gthat our first interpretation is correct.

6. COMM & IDENTITY MANAGEMENT

   • Public and Private Selves.
     • The perceived self is a reflection of the self-concept.
     • The presenting self is a public image- the way we want to appear to others.
     • Face is the word to describe the presenting self.
     • Facework: describe the verbal and nonverbal ways we act to maintain our own presenting image and the images to others.
   • CHARACTERISTICS OF IDENTITY MANAGEMENT
     • We have multiples identities.
     • Identity management is collaborative.
     • Identity Managemnt can be conscious or unconscious.
     • People differ in their degree of identity management.
   • We manage identities to make others comfortable, and to accomplish personal goals.
   • IDENTITY MANAGEMENT IN MEDIATED COMM
     • CMC can serve as a tool for impression management at leat as well as face to face comm.
     • CMC gives us more control over managing identities than we have in face to face comm.
     • CMC allows strangers to change their age, history, personality, appearance, and other matters that would be impossible to hide in person.
   • IDENTITY MANAGEMENT AND HONESTY
     • Identity management can be dishonest. However, managing identities does not make you a liar. We have to choose the best role for each situation.

7. What surprised me in the reading is people actually have multiple identities depending on the situation. I have always known that we can change our tone depending on the person we are talking to. However, I have never learned that we have different identities.

8. I want to find out more about how social media controls out identities.