Some may believe that love is physical, that love is nothing but a physical response to another whom the agent feels physically attracted to. However, the action of loving encompasses a broad range of behavior including caring, listening, attending to, preferring to other, and so on. As a consequence of seeing ourselves from the perspectives of others, our self-concepts will come to correspond at least partially to other people’s views of us. The self-concept is how we see ourselves. The social (or accorded) self—is how other people actually see the individual; and the reflected (or perceived) self—is how the individual believes others see him or her. The data obtained consistently supports the principle of reflected appraisals. To further highlight this illustration, students were asked to rate themselves in terms of four self-concept components: intelligent, physically attractive, self-confident, and likeable. They also asked other members of the individual’s group to rate him or her on these characteristics. Since ten groups participated, and each group rated each individual on four traits, forty comparisons were possible. In thirty-five out of forty comparisons, those rating themselves high were more likely than those rating themselves low to be rated higher by the group. #RandolphHarris 1 of 9

Individuals change as they grow. Research also shows a strong and consistent association between the reflected self and the self-concept—what we believe others think of us and our self-concepts. If the individual believes others think well of him or her, then that individual tends to think well of oneself. People are affected by their environments and the way they are treated. There is a consistent, though imperfect, relationship between the social self (what others actually think of us) and the reflected self. More often than not, people’s views of what others think of them are accurate; but in many cases they also misread the attitude of the other toward themselves. God has all the power and wisdom to defend you, all the mercy to pardon you, and all the grace to enrich you, all the righteousness to clothe you, all the goodness to supply you, and all the happiness to crown you. Therefore, our words, like our deeds, should be filled with faith and hope and charity. Without work in the natural science, we should never know human beings as they really are. In no other activity can one come so close to direct perception and clear thought, or realize so fully the errors of the sense, the mistakes of the intellect, the weakness and greatness of human character. #RandolphHarris 2 of 9

Two individuals may respond very differently to the same situation because they are different people. And part of that difference is a matter of genetic inheritance. What we believe others think of us (reflected self) is more closely related to our self-concept than what they actually think of us (social self). It was predicted that those who rated themselves high were more likely than those who rated themselves low to believe that other rated them high was supported in forty out of forty comparisons. Through socialization, an individual learns what he or she needs to know in order to survive and live in society. The research unequivocally supports the basic ideas regarding the importance of taking the role of the other in shaping the self-concept, seeing ourselves through the eyes of other rational people, when we form our view of oneself. However, these is general, it is imprecise and may be in need of refinement. For example, although it is true that we tend to see ourselves as others see us, one question is: which others? There are many other people with whom we interact, and since they inevitably view us from different perspectives, we obviously cannot accept all of their views of us. Second, which self-concept components? Since there are many self-concepts components, we may accept a person’s judgment of certain of our characteristics, but not of other characteristics. Third: why? Since we internalize other people’s attitudes toward us in come circumstances but not in others, the question is: what motivational factors contribute to such differential effects? Research has shed light on each of these questions. #RandolphHarris 3 of 9

It can be troublesome when one cannot filter out unwanted sensation. Sometimes we have to wade through competing sensations and sort them out, we may also have to compete with our own expectations, assumptions, prejudices, or personal needs. Whether the attitudes of other people toward us affect our self-concept depends in part on how significant they are to us. The question with valuation is: what makes some people highly significant to us, others less so? Two foundations of interpersonal significance will be considered: valuation and credibility. It is reasonable to expect that the opinions of those people who matter most to us—whose opinion we care about greatly—should have a stronger effect on out self-concepts than the views of those to whom we are indifferent. In an investigation, respondent were asked how much they cared about what certain people in their role-sets thought of them. The results showed that the relationship between what the child believed his or her mother thought of one and what one thought of oneself was very strong if that individual cared very much about the mother’s opinion of oneself, but much weaker if one cared little. The same proved to be true with regard to fathers, teachers, classmates, siblings, and friends. #RandolphHarris 4 of 9

We see (or perceive) what we want or need to perceive, and our nervous system can come to act as if the other sensation did not exist. This phenomenon is called perceptual vigilance: being on guard, or ready, to concentrate on certain kinds of stimuli and filtering out those that we do not want or need to receive. And the process works in the interpersonal area too. The impact of the other’s opinion of us also depends on the degree of faith, trust, or confidence that we repose in the person’s judgment.  The concept of credibility, although overlapping with that of valuation, is not identical with it. We may be eager to be liked by our classmates, even if we have little respect for their judgment. The results in our study showed that with regard to parents, teachers, and best friends, the relationship between the reflected self and the self-concept was stronger if the child had high faith in the other person’s knowledge of the self than if one had low faith. #RandolphHarris 5 of 9

In the area of human relations, we find generalizations going on all the time. And while we can sit back and say it is unscientific or silly, nonetheless it goes no and it is the cause for a lot of serious conflicts between people. That is why expertise is an important basis of credibility. For instance, when two ways of changing boys’ attitudes toward their masculinity, in a high credibility situation, the director of the project told the subjects he would test them by means of an objective measure of their mannishness. In the low credibility situation, the tester was introduced as a high school student whose work represented part of a study in social perception. Not only was the subject more likely to accept the expert’s judgment of his male prowess than the high school student’s, but he tended to accept the expert’s assessment even if it deviated from his own. Similarly, it was shown that when a bogus speech expert evaluated an individual’s oral reading ability, the individual readily changed his mind about his skill in this area. #RandolphHarris 6 of 9

Obscenity is a permanent element of human social life and corresponds to a deep need of the human mind, or, for all we know to the contrary, of mind generally. It is not confined to any nation or any stage of culture, low or high, savage or civilized. It definitely exists and is recognized among the peoples we often call primitive and it is joyfully manifested by the greatest people of genius among the higher races. Credibility is also influenced by our attribution of motives to others. Whether we will accept the other person’s expressed judgment of us depends on whether we consider him or her sincere or false. In a study, half of the subjects were told that the interviewer was simply practicing a set of interviewing techniques, whereas the other half were told that the main task of the interviewer was to be as honest as possible. Although both groups of subjects were treated identically, the self-esteem of the first group was less influenced than the group led to believe that the investigator was sincere, uncalculated and attuned to them as individuals. #RandolphHarris 7 of 9

Another basis of credibility is the assumed consensus of other people’s attitudes towards us. Some dissensus, of course, is inevitable, since every other person sees us from a somewhat different perspective. What, then, is the effect of such consensus or dissensus among others on our self-attitudes? In an ingenious experiment, the investigators attempted to change the subject’s views of two self-concept components—one on which consensus was believed to be high, the other on which consensus was believed to be low. If low, the self-concept component proved easy to change, but if high, it was much more difficult to change. The idea that we see ourselves as others see us is thus a generalization in evident need of refinement. The degree to which it is true depends on how much the judgment of the other is valued and trusted. Certain broader implications of this fact may be suggested. For example, if individuals neither value not trust the judgments of fake news practitioners toward them, but do value and trust the judgments of their close friends and good family members, then wide spread prejudice will not necessarily damage self-esteem of people being targeted. #RandolphHarris 8 of 9

 Heavenly Father, thank you for sending us your Spirit, you open the way to eternal life. May our sharing in this gift increase our love and make our faith grow stronger. Send your Spirit to cleanse our lives, please. May we live in ways that are pleasing to you, and may you bring us eternal life. God, you are our solace in the face of daily life. We pray that you will guide our hearts away from the darkness and fear and into the light. Our souls long for the fullness of life, which will be revealed to us. Give us permission to enjoy what we are doing. Thank you, God, for teaching us that the greatest thing a human being can do is really love another human being. And we do not take the risk of loving because we know the odds are not fair. To make a thing of shared joy takes two people, both of whom are willing to give themselves to that common construction or creation. Each knows that at any moment either one of them can ruin it. Each knows that neither one of can make it make it beautiful, or good, or joyous alone, but alone either can make it bad, destructive, unhappy. God, thank you for guiding us to live virtuously. #RandolphHarris 9 of 9