dr. Rick curry here and we are going to examine the Looking Glass self communication theory now the Looking Glass self is a concept created by American sociologist Charles Cooley all the way back in 1902 and it examines this concept of the self are who you are as a person and how that image is shaped by our interactions with other people in their perceptions of us now the idea of one's self is a very complex thing how we view ourselves is a combination of internal and external factors it's easy to see how people may do us differently based off of their relationships your friends may be you as very happy-go-lucky individuals while your brother or sister may look at you as this superhero who can do no wrong and our axes well they probably think of us as very sad angry people and in professional settings the colleagues that you work with have your own ideas and images of the type of person that you are now that image is crafted and created in that professional Center being a student also is an integral part of your personal identity how you view yourself and that part of your identity is shaped by the perceptions of both your professor as well as other students in the class Cooley suggests the Looking Glass self is a three step process step one we ask ourselves how do I appear to other people both their family our friends and maybe even how do we appear to random people on the street step two we have through the question what must other people think of me do we come across as funny and shy kind caring and compassionate maybe we come across this standoffish or a little bit awkward or send a message that we really just don't care and third we develop feelings about ourselves based on our impressions of their evaluations and observations of us now hang in there because this is where it gets a little bit confusing one critical aspect of this theory is that coolly believe we aren't actually being influenced by the opinions of others but instead what we're being influenced by is what we imagine the opinions of those people to be now these perceptions could be both correct or incorrect and that can be dangerous as we develop our self identities based off of those perceptions of how other people are seeing us what we think someone thinks of us in actuality may not be true so let's look at how this might actually play out in one's life let's say you go out on a date with someone that you're interested in and you're having a really good time that you're also having a hard time in judging what that other person is thinking about you you go home and you are excited to hear from that person but then nothing now your self-confidence is probably going to take a hit and you'll probably even feel a little bit bad about yourself as you try to figure out well why didn't this person like me but you see this is the danger of the looking-glass theory because in actuality this person really did like you they simply are waiting for you to pick up the phone and call in and so now you know that the looking at myself tells us that our identity our self-concept how we view ourselves as people is not just made up of how other people see us but how we think other people see us that is the looking-glass