everywomanshero
Master Don Juan
- Joined
- May 2, 2005
- Messages
- 1,814
- Reaction score
- 36
Scanning through a few posts, I see the various versions of reality that people on this site experience. The funny thing is we literally create our own realities. The self-talk and thoughts in our head cause people to react to us in certain ways, and the way we perceive things biases us to see whatever we expected to see in the first place.
One of the most basic ways I can explain this is called Symbolic Interactionism, which has three core principles
1.That we Construct our own social realities by assinging meaning to things. We act toward people & situations on the basis of the meanings we assign to them. For example, if one assigns meaning to looks such as "hot girls are *****y", then he will change his actions accordingly. However, if the guy next to him thinks "hot chicks are playful and want to banter", his actions will be far different. The differing maps of the social universe in their minds literally creates a different reality for these two men.
3. Thinking & taking the role of the other, our interpretations of symbols are modified by our own thinking processes. Basically, the inner conversations one has with himself changes how he interprets things. Additionally, our ability to see the world from another's perspective is interesting. If we have a skewed meaning assigned to other's viewpoints, then we will continue to assume that's how others really view things. Posts that rant and rave about "women only want a man's money" and so on are suffering from this mental ill. The good news is that this is fixable through Participant observer thinking. P.O. thinking basically means going into a sitation with a naive mind (suspend preconceptions & second guessing for a time) and trying to understand the world from the other person's viewpoint. This isn't about right or wrong, accurate or inaccurate, it's merely about trying to understand how the other person views the universe. In so doing, one can gain a more realistic understanding of how other's think & increase his own acuracy when taking the role of the other.
Two additional considerations:
1) The self is not understood chiefly from introspection but from seeing oneself from the standpoint of others. So there is a clash of the I (how one feels this very second) with the me (how one believes he appears to others). The I can be negatively influenced by factors such as depression and the ME can be negatively influenced by a skewed view of society or subgroups of society. If both of these are skewed negatively, one has little chance of gaining a positive self-image and may come to belief that women, ethnic groups, economic groups see him as "evil" or "bad" resulting in bitter posts on sosuave and withdrawl from entire segments of society.
2) The socializing effect of other's expectations. The generalized other is a set of information carried in one's head regarding the general attitude/expectations of the social group. These assumed values are used to assign meaning to behaviors & determine how one should behave himself. If one believes that aproaching women is unacceptable to society (a false belief), then he will suffer from guilt when trying to do so. he best solution is not to ignore the guilt, but to come tounderstand why the belief that led to the guilt was erronous in the first place.
Have to run so no wrap up, but hopefully this is useful. Addios.
One of the most basic ways I can explain this is called Symbolic Interactionism, which has three core principles
1.That we Construct our own social realities by assinging meaning to things. We act toward people & situations on the basis of the meanings we assign to them. For example, if one assigns meaning to looks such as "hot girls are *****y", then he will change his actions accordingly. However, if the guy next to him thinks "hot chicks are playful and want to banter", his actions will be far different. The differing maps of the social universe in their minds literally creates a different reality for these two men.
3. Thinking & taking the role of the other, our interpretations of symbols are modified by our own thinking processes. Basically, the inner conversations one has with himself changes how he interprets things. Additionally, our ability to see the world from another's perspective is interesting. If we have a skewed meaning assigned to other's viewpoints, then we will continue to assume that's how others really view things. Posts that rant and rave about "women only want a man's money" and so on are suffering from this mental ill. The good news is that this is fixable through Participant observer thinking. P.O. thinking basically means going into a sitation with a naive mind (suspend preconceptions & second guessing for a time) and trying to understand the world from the other person's viewpoint. This isn't about right or wrong, accurate or inaccurate, it's merely about trying to understand how the other person views the universe. In so doing, one can gain a more realistic understanding of how other's think & increase his own acuracy when taking the role of the other.
Two additional considerations:
1) The self is not understood chiefly from introspection but from seeing oneself from the standpoint of others. So there is a clash of the I (how one feels this very second) with the me (how one believes he appears to others). The I can be negatively influenced by factors such as depression and the ME can be negatively influenced by a skewed view of society or subgroups of society. If both of these are skewed negatively, one has little chance of gaining a positive self-image and may come to belief that women, ethnic groups, economic groups see him as "evil" or "bad" resulting in bitter posts on sosuave and withdrawl from entire segments of society.
2) The socializing effect of other's expectations. The generalized other is a set of information carried in one's head regarding the general attitude/expectations of the social group. These assumed values are used to assign meaning to behaviors & determine how one should behave himself. If one believes that aproaching women is unacceptable to society (a false belief), then he will suffer from guilt when trying to do so. he best solution is not to ignore the guilt, but to come tounderstand why the belief that led to the guilt was erronous in the first place.
Have to run so no wrap up, but hopefully this is useful. Addios.
