Social Media and Self Perception

PSY221-05

Research Paper

How social media affects our self- perception.

       Social Perception theory states:” 'When people are unsure about their feelings and motivations, they will use their own behavior to infer what they feel”. This means that sometime people don’t exactly know how they feel and to figure it out they usually use their own behavior to guess their own feelings. It determines our behavior. We don’t use our social perception theory all the time however you will be surprised this this happens very often.  For example, if we think we are inadequate at a specific moment, then we act that exact way. It illustrates that we are what we do.

    The theory was created between late 1960’s and early 1970’s by psychologist Daryl Bem.    According to Bem we usually interpret our own actions the way we interpret others and most of the time our actions are socially influenced. Bem conducted an experiment involving subjects listening to a recording of a man describing peg-turning task. He divided subjects into two groups.  First group was told that he paid $1 for his testimonial and second group was told that he paid $20. The $1 group believed that he enjoyed the task more than how much the $20 group believed he enjoyed. Conclusions of two correlated to the feelings that the actors themselves expressed. Since participants were able to guess correctly how the actors felt, Bem came to a conclusion that the actors must have arrived at the way they felt from observing their own behavior as well.  

    Numbers of studies have confirmed that self-perception theory affects us in many unexpected contexts. However, self-perception theory helps in therapy or persuasion related contexts. For instance, if he therapists will apply the self-perception theory it will help to change an attitude in behavior. An example would be when this theory was used towards teens perform community service, it positively altered their self-image. This means that these teens are less likely to experience an early pregnancy or engage themselves onto risky inappropriate behavior.            

    Nowadays perception is everything especially in the world of social media.  We all have an ideal self in our minds in terms of perception.  Research states that you real self is what you are –your personality and your characteristics, meanwhile your ideal self is what you feel you should be due to environmental influences. A lot of people consider their social media to be representation of who they are, hence through this interaction the real and ideal selves intersect. People focus in their social life instead of focusing on the reality. That’s how social media is destroying our self-perception, to be more exact our self-esteem. It increases people’s level of stress and negatively affect person’s sense of self. Study shows that people with lower self-esteem cared more about what others had posted about them on social media and were more likely to remove certain posts to ensure their profile remained a reflection of the image they wanted to portray. According to a study that was made in 2013 by the University of Salford in UK, 50% of the participants said that social media makes their lives worse which means that it causes low self-esteem. And that’s why such a social comparison is detrimental to perceptions about self. Thus, I read an article about negative social comparison on Facebook.  The study investigated the current Facebook use and self-perception through social comparison. A survey among 231 adults (age 18–25) shows that Facebook use was related to greater degree of negative social comparison, which was in turn related negatively to self-perceived social competence and physical attractiveness. Diener (1995) said that: “Negative self-perceptions predict depressive symptoms, whereas more positive self-perceptions are strongly and positively related to subjective well-being”. Experimental research has also shown that viewing the Facebook profile of a peer who is physically attractive or has a successful career can have a negative impact on self-perceived attractiveness and self-perceived career success according to Haferkamp &

Kramer (2011). Perceiving the self as doing worse than others leads to less favorable self-perceptions.  Furthermore, people who use social media more intensely, are more inclined to believe that others are having better lives than they are (Chou & Edge, 2012). Experimental research also showed that viewing social media profile of a peer who is physically attractive or has a successful career can have a negative impact on self-perceived attractiveness and self-perceived career success.

     Current study also shows that social media use is related to more negative self-perception through negative social comparison. These negative relationships were strongest among those emerging adults who were unhappier. Negative self-perceptions are negatively related to well-being (Diener& Diener, 1995; Orth et al. 2008).