Who Do You Think You Are?

You are who you think other people think you are!

This is probably one of the most well known phases in Social Psychology, if not the most confusing.

The phase refers to our image of ourselves, and is sometime referred to as “the looking glass self”. If you were to look into a mirror you would see an exact representation of yourself. Of course when you look into the mirror you interpret what you see. Your attention is drawn to all the little things you are not happy with, the little pimple, maybe a grey hair. Or maybe you might think your shoulders or biceps look great after a couple of months of weight lifting, a little vain perhaps. The point is your impression of yourself is not the exact representation presented in the mirror.

The same process happens when you meet people face-to-face. You project an image of yourself onto the other person. Like a mirror you read back your own impression of yourself. Without the other person doing anything much, you interpret reactions and non-reactions as confirmation of your own impression of yourself. For example if you think “most people like me” every time someone says “hello” you might read that as “they are saying hello because they like me”.

Also the process is dynamic. People react to the image you project. To use the example above, if you truly believe in the phase “most people like me” people are actually more likely to like you. People sub-consciously read your projected image and react accordingly. Psychologists have included this interaction process into a theory of personality, the Social Learning perspective of personality. In other words we learn our personality. All the thousands of interactions over a lifetime contribute to the formation of our personality.

So how does this help with fitness and health? Our image of ourselves is one of the key determinates of our health and fitness. People with positive self images seem able to look at themselves in the mirror and make a realistic assessment of themselves and decide to make changes without too much emotional distress. People with positive self images, often don’t have as fixed image of themselves; they view themselves as changeable. After all this is process of personal growth. So how do we develop a positive self image?

Over the next few weeks I will write various suggestions on how to develop a self image that is primed for personal growth. However the first step is to take some positive action, it doesn’t have to be anything big, in fact I am going to suggest something small, the smaller the better. As an example it might be eating a piece of fruit or a vegetable for morning tea. Then start describing yourself as a person who eats fruit and vegetables for morning tea. Over the next few weeks this blog will present some of the theories developed by well known sports psychologists on how anyone can build a more positive self image.