George Mead's theory of social self and individual self-efficacy

¶ … Professor Mead, whatever makes up consciousness has social origin. Inner consciousness has been organized socially through importation of the outer world. Other people's consciousness proceeds self-consciousness. The 'I' is not possible to immediately appear within consciousness and there is no way it can be conscious of itself. Appearing self as 'I', forms the memory image of the self that acts towards himself and is the similar self that acts towards the rest of selves.

Whatever stuff that ends up forming 'me' is the induced experience by such action of the 'I'. The consciousness of 'me' is of the similar character like the one which comes up from the other's action upon him, G.H. Mead, (1912). Meaning that as the individual come to find himself act with reference to himself when acting towards others, he becomes a subject to himself instead of object, and just when he is affected by social conduct of his own similarly to his being affected by the others, makes him to be an object to social conduct of his own.

Professor Mead analyses social self by calling attention of the people to the fact that a constant factor of awareness exist in whatever we say, do or think, based on our consciousness. It is kind of our activities inner response. Such inner observer should not be mistaken with the 'I' or our action implied object. Mead says that the observer who goes with our self-conduct tends not to be the real 'I' that is answerable for the conduct within 'propria persona' but instead it is made response to the conduct of his own. Such individual response to the stimulation of his own is because an individual is not capable of hearing himself speaking failing to assume the attitude in a measure that he was capable of assuming in any case it was addressed in the similar words by another, G.H. Mead,(1913).

Self-efficacy

People tend to be highly inclined on taking a task when they are certain that they are capable of succeeding. Generally people do not go for tasks where they have low self-efficacy but rather to task where they have high self-efficacy. Individuals with self-efficacy, significantly more than their actual ability, they most of the time overestimate their task completion ability, and might result to difficulties. The fact that I chose to take part in football but not other games was because I could do better in football, where self-efficacy is high, as compared to other games. In any case I could decide to take another game where self-efficacy was lower than my ability, this could have made me not to expand and grow my skills. Since optimum level of self-efficacy tends to be slightly more than ability, this made me to tackle challenging tasks and achieve valuable experience. From high self-efficacy, more effort was applied as well as longer persistence, Schwarzer, R. (Ed.). (1992.

Self-esteem

It is a term used by psychologists to reflect overall evaluation about a person or his own worth appraisal. What makes up self-esteem are beliefs like I can know myself to be competent or worthy, as well as emotion like shame, pride and triumph. Application of self-esteem can be specifically to a given dimension like the way I believed that I was good painter and I was happy about this. It can also be to global extent like I believed that I was a good person and I felt good generally about myself. The significance of self-esteem is that it is based on ourselves, sense of our personal value and the way we are. Therefore it has effect on the way we are and act as well as our relations everyone else. There is no anything in the manner of our feeling, thinking and acting escapes self-esteem's influence, Branden, N. (1969).

Social experience that affected my life experience was during some point of my teenage when I had difficulties in making friends or had no peers which were facilitated by confined environment that I was staying in. I felt like I was depressed all the time since I felt that there was something I was lacking. However this one was realized not before long by my parents who decided to change my living environment. Another social experience was when I got a small accident and I was forced to limp for some duration before I was to recover fully at the same time I was to attend my classes. My self-esteem as well as self-concept went down since I found it hard to always walk and be with my friends all the time for I felt like I was not belonging to those groups anymore.

It is noted that mental health problem might arise due to lack of peers or friends. Kids who have withdrawn and even individuals portrays arising level of sadness as well as higher levels depressive feelings. When they establish friendship, resilience is being promoted and guard kids who are at risk of internalizing problems like feeling anxious and depressed. Because of such isolation, serious consequences can be caused that might change somebody's life negatively over a long-term. It is also realized that as time goes exponentially the problem develops into larger and is established into adolescence and into adulthood of an individual. Because of this there can be inability to understand social norms as well as enjoyment of life generally.

Conclusion

For one to get back self-esteem, self-concept as well as self-efficacy, in any case he or she withdrew from people, he or she start practicing his hobby out side the house and at the event of this there will be groups and individuals who are like-minded interest and are always open to find new members. Most of our generation undergoes different social experiences that end up affecting their life and it is assumed that it was that person's character. However if not realized it might ends up to be the person's behavior.

Work Cited

Branden, N. (1969). The psychology of self-esteem. New York: Bantam.

G.H. Mead, (1912) "The Mechanism of Social Consciousness," Journal of Philosophy, IX, 401.

G.H. Mead,(1913) "The Social Self," Journal of Philosophy, X, 374-75.

Schwarzer, R. (Ed.). (1992). Self-efficacy: Thought control of action. Washington, DC: Hemisphere.

Shavelson, R.J., Hubner, J.J., & Stanton, G.C. (1976). Self-concept: Validation of construct interpretations. Review of Educational Research, 46, 407-441.

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