Charles Horton Cooley was a social psychologist whose studies were greatly related to the communicative experience and how it affects behavior. His adage to the self-concept issue was significant:
Each to each a looking-glass
Reflects the other that doth pass.
And so the social self does not exist prior to social interaction, selves arise in process of communication, and what self arises depends on what is being communicated. Relative to the topic with mother, the relationship overwhelms the content, and we are extremely sensitive to the approval and disapproval of others. Another social psychologist, George H. Mead summarized Cooley’s theory that pertains to the communicative behavior experience:
By placing both phases of this social process in the same consciousness, by regarding the self as the ideas entertained by others of the self, and the other as the ideas entertained of him by the self, the action of the others upon the self and of the self upon the others becomes simply the interaction of ideas upon each other within mind.
Looking at his interpersonal relationship with another person, who affects his life, is his Coach. Having suffered serious injuries that kept him out of action for eight months, and needed two surgeries, he was obviously concerned about his happiness in his sport, and the views of an important subject in all of this: the Coach. There is an intimidating presence between the two, as the Coach has the power to take him out of the game he loves, diminish his scholarship, or rate him in the self-reinforcing cycle. It is all affirmed through the Coach, and having gone through heartbreaking injuries, that he played through his first season, and resulted in the two surgeries in the early middle parts of the year, he felt intense pressure to recuperate quickly for his love of the game, and also the pressure of the Coach’s will to have him back to his best. The situation strained the communication between the two parties and the communication coordination dwindled from greater to lesser emphasis. To an extent where, the Coach knew he wasn’t at his best, and he knew the Coach wasn’t satisfied, he felt almost alone, a sense of involuntary aloneness. The Coach, although not a great friend, is someone who has a big influence on his life. Relating to Cooley, and this topic, we come to be as others want or see us as. And he got involved in a vicious cycle of negativity, as he was affected by the Coach’s lesser view of him. He came to be pessimistic and unlike his true self, his performance dwindled, because the self that was arising was the one that came from the communicative experience with the other- the Coach.
Emotions surfaced that contributed to the communicative behavior state. He found himself very angry and frustrated a lot, due to his situation. Although they were automatic and involuntary his facial expressions were consistently communicative of anger and sadness. But I understand that they provided an automatic program to the response to his environment of poor play, and surrounded by his peer players, and coaches. Due to his facial expressions of stern brows, and unhappy faces, the Coach received facial feedback. And, so he in return produced similar emotions in return, that functioned within the interpersonal system of the Coach’s individual lack of receptivity to the situation.
He then found himself producing certain negative aspects to his self in behavior with others. He would have dramatic realization issues, as he produced deliberate efforts that would highlight characterizations of him. Every so often he would accentuate his injury to others, on a constant basis, because he wanted others to understand his pain and frustration, when really, this just added to the vicious cycle he was going through at the time. Instead of forgetting, and looking forward, he consistently thought about the injuries – the negatives. This affected his relationships with others, as they did not know how to deal with regular negativity and frustration and pessimism. He became involved in a gloomy self-fulfilling prophecy. His pessimism, and his Coach’s self-reinforcing cycle issue created it, and so when he interacted with others the coordinated state was at odds with both parties. He felt ignorance from others simply because they could not show the understanding he craved, and so this results in rejection feelings, and non-synchrony. And whenever he found himself talking with others, because the issue was on his mind it constantly arose, and so a self-imposed prophecy also transpired.
John Bowlby’s theory of attachment and imprinting relates wholly to the subject. Bowlby’s attachment theory definitively applies to the insecure attachment my subject felt with his Coach, through anxiety and narrow communication. He felt insecure, and uncomfortable even talking or looking at Coach, and this simply added to the consistent anxiety. This also applies to his relationship with mother. On one sense, he has security attachment of wholeness, and love, and parental guidance. But in contrast he also has elements of insecure attachment, due to the non-validation from the negative aspect of mother’s self-reinforcing cycle to son.
Bowlby’s imprinting theory allows us to understand how we derive our attachment forms. In our early interpersonal experiences in terms of how we form attachment to our mother become imprinted on us, and become the ways we create attachment relationships with others. Whether it is with mother, or others such as Coach. How we handle and have communicative coordination with others is affected in this early phase, as this attachment is the result of evolution and natural selection. We try to get as much proximity to the caregiver-mother- as we can.
The real interpersonal events in Bowlby’s four focuses of this attachment, relates to mother and son. What can and cannot be communicated between he as infant and mother affects the development of his growth in communication coordination. When as a boy, I know that mother did not tolerate certain behaviors and actions. I realize that he wet the bed regularly as a youngster and occasionally his mother would get mad, but not in an abusive sense at all. But she provided enough to give off signals in her communication, which affected him early on. These signals automatically affected him early in his life, and the attachment he felt with mother became insecure at certain times, because of upsetting mother, and realizing what mother would and would not tolerate. As shown, that later in his life when he wants to discuss situations that he feels at whole with such as his sport, mother’s non-validation here, goes way back to the imprinting earlier in their communicative experiences.
Relating back to Cooley’s citation of how the individual is “of his own”, but also a part of his “untrained consciousness”, recounts to the social, and personal communication and behaviors we are constantly involved within. Now, as an adult- a young, ever learning one- I can see how by looking at myself externally, from an outsider’s point of view in this study, “I” is “he”, “his”, and “him” in various situations of communicative behavior and interactions, I can learn more about others and myself. I now appreciate the relationship and communicative interactions with my mother and Coach, and friends, in a profound, and more insightful form. I understand that imagining what others think, and imagining what others think I imagine of them and the situation, creates confusion, anxiety, and uncomfortable communication and behavior. But that is the beauty of life, and how mundane it would be without subconscious, and various thoughts and imaginations. I am so thankful for the experience of learning more and more into the subject, and can, hopefully, produce more positivism and knowledge into my relationships, interactions, and more importantly, in myself.
SOURCES
Charles Horton Cooley: "Social and Individual Aspects of Mind." New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, (1909).
Cooley: “Human Nature and the Social Order”, (1902).
WWW: http://www2.pfeiffer.edu/~lridener/DSS/Cooley/COOLWRK.HTML
Cooley, Human Nature and the Social Order, 1902
From Coser, 1977:305-307.
http://www2.pfeiffer.edu/~lridener/DSS/Cooley/COOLWRK.HTML