Thus, in understanding the modern person, researchers ought to look into his/her primary group, which could echo a lot regarding his morals, values and motivations – specifically the individual’s self-concept.
Cooley’s main theoretical factors
Integrating these types of concepts of looking-glass personal and primary organizations, the main assumptive point of Cooley is determined. As explicated earlier, his main assumptive point in performing the looking-glass experiment was to prove that in the conception in the self-concept, both society plus the individual happen to be actively involved in influencing the individual’s motives, actions and behavior. Therefore in just as much as the contemporary society is influential to the specific, the individual even offers his/her personal mental develop as to just how s/he desires himself/herself being. Combining equally private and public selves, the individual undergoes a process of affirmation as well as modification, where the individual retains characteristics and behavior that are reflective of both community and private selves. However , modification occurs the moment this condition can be not met, and the person could alter his/her actions and patterns by possibly subsisting to his/her open public self, or perhaps assuming tendencies and action corresponding to his/her exclusive self. On the larger range or macro perspective, Cooley’s research opened the way for scientifically determining how society impact on the individual; actually determining how a public do it yourself influences their view of himself/herself is usually scientifically challenging to determine. Hence, Cooley became the pioneer in performing this kind of scientific endeavor, where quantitative means were employed to prove his psycho-sociological theory.
Effects of Cooley’s ideas upon later theorizing
After Cooley’s experiment, the same experiment was conducted by Arthur Beaman et. ing., wherein they sought to affirm Cooley’s findings in his looking-glass research. However , what made this research different from Cooley’s was that the researchers used two varieties of manipulation, called the self-awareness manipulation and individuation manipulation. These are somewhat similar to Cooley’s public and private selves, and if anything, this kind of experiment was conducted in order to validate and affirm Cooley’s findings about this sociological trend. While there will be minor differences in socio-demographic qualities and their relationship to the experiment’s variables, the experiment carried out largely backed Cooley’s primary assumptions, which usually he created after his own looking-glass experiment.