Social Perception And Social Reality

Components of Self-Concept

Discuss about the Social Perception and Social Reality.

Self-concept is the perception a person has about him or herself (Hattie 2014). The formation of self-concept is determined by a person’s environment and the people he live with. According to research self concept is a multi-dimensional construct that is includes the past self, present self as well as the future self (Swann Jr 2007). There exist three broad regions within self-concept. They include, the extant self-concept that indicate what we are like, the desired self-concept that indicates what we would like to be and the presenting self-concept that depict how we present our self to others. In general self-concept is the totality of complex dynamic and organised systems attitudes, beliefs and opinions that a person perceive to be true about personal existence (Hattie 2014). Self-concept impacts greatly on a persons behaviour.

Self-esteem is a person’s attitude and judgement toward self that comprise of emotional state and beliefs about self (Swann Jr 2007). Development of self-esteem in a person is influenced by that person’s life experience. Therefore it is important note that self esteem is not static and may change from time to time depending on environment and experiences in one’s life. There are different types of self-esteem. High self-esteemed people have a positive view of self and are always optimistic while people with low self-esteem perceive themselves negatively and have a low value for self.

For people to achieve goals and attain self-actualisation, they must have self-esteem that will help in facing live with optimism and confidence (Baumeister, ed 2013). High self-esteem is important for people to experience happiness, help manage stress as well as increase the chances to accept challenging task. According to (Swann Jr 2007) self-esteem greatly affects workplace behaviour, achievement of career goals and how we deal with people. Employees with high self-esteem trust their judgement and thinking therefore making better decisions. This enables development of work and interpersonal relationships leading to better contributions to work environment. On the other hand poor self-esteem leads to fear of change. This fear translates to unproductive behaviour at work like rebellion and defensiveness (Baumeister, ed 2013).

However, self-esteem can be enhanced at work by creating a culture that encourages feedback and acknowledgements. At the end of a project, managers or team leaders can conduct reflective session to discuss the success and challenges faced during the project. This opportunity should be used to acknowledge the efforts of each and every team member and reassure them that their contributions where very important for the success of the project. According to Swann Jr (2007) reassurance and positive feedback have been found to play an important part in boosting esteem and confidence.

Self-Esteem

According to Schwarzer (2014) self-efficacy is the believe in one’s ability to complete a task. The power a person has to competently handle challenges and the choices that the person might make are influenced by the believe a person has about his power in affecting situations. Self-efficacy affects all area of human life. Productivity at work to a large extent is affected by self-efficacy. If an employee has low self-efficacy, he risks performing his duties dismally because he believes that this is the best he can perform. On the other hand, too high self-efficacy may make a person to have unrealistic picture about his competence to perform a task leading to accepting task that are way beyond one’s capacity compromising the end result (Schwarzer 2014).

To improve and encourage positive self-efficacy at work place, workers should be encouraged to take part in task that they good at. The success achieved from this task will boost the employee confidence. In addition, the employer can encourage employees to take some challenging task to steer forward personal career development. Another way that self-efficacy can be enhanced in an organisation is by offering learning opportunities. According to Schwarzer (2014) allowing inexperienced employees to observe the experienced ones perform task, gives the inexperienced employees opportunity to learn the steps and then repeat what they have seen.

Self-monitoring refers to how people monitor their, expressive behaviour, self-presentation and nonverbal effective displays. It is the ability to pay close attention to social situation and change behaviour to fit the situation (Bono & Vey 2007). Self-monitoring is classified into two categories. The high self-monitors and the low self-monitors.

High self-monitors are people who monitor themselves closely and are very responsive to situational context and to social cues. High self-monitors always display images that seek to impress other people and get positive feedback. On the other hand low self-monitors are not concerned with situational appropriateness. They are uncompromising, insistent with others and aggressive.

According to Zacher and Gielnik (2012) locus of control is concerned with the likelihood of people believing that control for events outcome originates from within them or from external forces they cannot control. People with strong internal locus of control believe that events in their life are a result of their own action while those who have strong external locus of control believe that events in their life are due to other forces and not them. People who have strong internal locus of control have a greater likelihood of taking responsibility of their actions when results are bad as compared to those who have a strong external locus of control (Zacher & Gielnik 2012). On the other hand those who possess external locus of control tend to be better team players compared to those having internal locus control. Therefore in an organisation, people with external locus control seem to steer team work successfully while internal locus of control personalities are good at jobs that are less team oriented. This is because they face challenges when working in a team as they tend to be dictatorial as they work hand to influence the outcome. This attitude leads divisions within the organisation.

Self-Efficacy

Social perception studies the way people develop impressions and make conclusions about other people (Jussim 2012). Social perception has four main components. These are observation, attribution, integration and confirmation. Persisting motivation, cognitive load capacity and emotions of an individual are responsible for shaping social perception. According to Jussim (2012), observation is the source of raw data for social perception. Attribution conveys personality as the cause or source of behaviour during a situation while in integration people dispositions are integrated to develop impressions. Confirmation involves formation of impressions that are subjected to self-fulfilling prophecy threats and confirmation biases.

The perceiver: According to McGann and De Jaegher (2009), perceiver’s characteristics influence perception. These include;

Attitude: A perceiver’s attitude towards certain issues affects how the person makes decision about matters related to the issues he has an attitude.

Mood: A perceiver’s mood influences his perception of others. People think differently when happy and when sad. Positive mood enhances positive impression of other people while negative mood makes people to have unfavorable perception about other people (Mast 2010).

Motives: Individual’s unsatisfied motives or needs stimulates and influence perception. Personal insecurities get translated into perceptions that other people around have negative intentions even when the opposite is the case.

Self-concept: An individual with positive self-concept notices positive characteristics in others while an individual with negative self-concept notices the negative traits in other people.

Experiences: A perceiver’s past experience play an important role in shaping their perception in future when faced by stimuli similar to those experienced before. According to McGann and De Jaegher (2009), experience makes a person to hold similar perception of people who exhibit traits that have similarities to those experienced in the past.

The target: The targets characteristics affect what is perceived. The role played by the physical appearance of the target is great (McGann & De Jaegher 2009). For example it is easy to notice a target if he or she is very attractive or very unattractive. In addition, the size, motion, voice and other traits of the target influences the perception we have of the target. Nonverbal communication provides a lot of information regarding the target as the perceiver relies on the facial expression, posture, eye contact, and body movement to develop an impression about the target.

The situation: The perceiver’s impression about the target is also influenced by the situation that leads to the interaction between the perceiver and the target (McGann & De Jaegher 2009). Social perception is also affected by the strength of situational signal. Appropriate behaviour is signalled by the prevailing situation.

Self-Monitoring

According to Mast (2010) perceptual error is making judgemment about others eithe knowingly or unknowingly. There are two perceptual errors that are made or regular basis, this include, halo effect and stereotyping.
Halo effect: This is where our perception about a person is influenced by our overall impression of the person. According to Rosenzweig (2014), research shows that positive qualities of a person, physical appearance and attractiveness affect our judgment of other people’s character. This results to a generic positive or negative perception of the target. Halo effect affects performance when a supervisor uses a single characteristic to evaluate an employee. Therefore, halo effect can be advantageous if it is applied in favor of the target but if the perception developed is not favorable, it can have negative effect on the target, as the decision made by the perceiver will be negative.  

Stereotyping:  Stereotyping is making generalization either positive or negative about a category of people based on inaccurate believes and assumptions and applying these generalized assumptions on a single individual belonging to this category (Bar-Tal, et al 2013).  Stereotypes can be negative or positive.  According to Bar-Tal, et al (2013) stereotyping affects an individual’s performance at work either positively or negatively. For example, individuals belonging to a group stereotyped to be nonperformers may get discouraged and unmotivated at work due to negative comments received constantly leading poor work performance.

Perceptual errors can be reduced by ensuring that enough information is collected about the target to ensure the right decision is reached about who a person is in reality. This can be achieved if the perceiver makes conscience decision to not to let their expectations, attitudes and what is said about the group the target comes from to affect their thinking about the target.

Conclusion

A person’s perception about self is greatly influenced by their environment and determines how a person behaves. Self-concept is composed of four components that describe the different dimensions in which an individual views the self. Self-concept has great influence on a person’s performance both at personal level and at work. In addition, self-concept affects how a person perceives other people. For example, self-concept is responsible for a person’s attitude, mood and experience, which play a vital role on the perception a person may have on other people.

References

Bar-Tal, D., Graumann, C.F., Kruglanski, A.W. and Stroebe, W. eds., 2013. Stereotyping and prejudice: Changing conceptions. Springer Science & Business Media.

Baumeister, R.F. ed., 2013. Self-esteem: The puzzle of low self-regard. Springer Science & Business Media.

Bono, J.E. and Vey, M.A., 2007. Personality and emotional performance: Extraversion, neuroticism, and self-monitoring. Journal of occupational health psychology, 12(2), p.177.

Chen, J.C. and Silverthorne, C., 2008. The impact of locus of control on job stress, job performance and job satisfaction in Taiwan. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 29(7), pp.572-582.

Hattie, J., 2014. Self-concept. Psychology Press.

Jussim, L., 2012. Social perception and social reality: Why accuracy dominates bias and self-fulfilling prophecy. OUP USA.

Mast, M.S., 2010. Interpersonal behaviour and social perception in a hierarchy: The interpersonal power and behaviour model. European Review of Social Psychology, 21(1), pp.1-33.

McGann, M. and De Jaegher, H., 2009. Self–other contingencies: Enacting social perception. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, 8(4), pp.417-437.

Rosenzweig, P., 2014. The halo effect:… and the eight other business delusions that deceive managers. Simon and Schuster.

Schwarzer, R., 2014. Self-efficacy: Thought control of action. Taylor & Francis.

Swann Jr, W.B., Chang-Schneider, C. and Larsen McClarty, K., 2007. Do people’s self-views matter? Self-concept and self-esteem in everyday life. American Psychologist, 62(2), p.84.

Zacher, H. and Gielnik, M.M., 2012. Locus of control. In Encyclopedia of new venture management (pp. 313-315). Sage Publications.