ANALYSIS OF "THE SOCIOLOGICALLY EXAMINED LIFE" (part 14)

Regulating Ourselves

by

Charles Lamson

Fester's brother (continued from last article) might have taken offense at the joke. Fortunately, he laughed with the rest of them. How come? Why did he not go berzerk? He must have developed some ability that allowed him to regulate his behavior, so as to be a safe and useful participant in social life. If people do not become self-regulating in this way, they can cause a lot of trouble.

Language and self-awareness are prerequisites to being self-regulating. But they are not enough. We must develop several other distinctly human characteristics

First, we must become attached to the meanings we gather to ourselves. We become attached to them, because they provide a sense of coherence and continuity. You are, today, your mother's son or daughter, just as you were yesterday. This knowledge, along with knowledge of your other identities, keeps you sane by allowing you to be comfortably sure of who and what you are, from one day to the next.

It is even better if you are attached to some identities, because you and others value those identities highly. If this is true, these valued identities will be a source of self-esteem. This is another reason you might be attached to them. Perhaps too, the more self-esteem you might have staked on a particular identity, the more firmly you will be attached to it.

What does this have to do with self-regulation? If you are attached to your identities, you will try to act in ways that uphold them. If you think of yourself as, for example, an honest person, and then have a chance to cheat on a test, you might decide not to cheat, so as to be able to continue to see yourself as an honest person. If you think of yourself as a good student, and this conception is important to you, you will tend to do things that good students do: read, think, ask questions, attend class, complete assignments on time, and so on. These behaviors say to you, and to others, that you are indeed a good student.

If we are attached to certain ideas about ourselves, we will tend to do things that affirm, rather than contradict those ideas. We will try to behave in ways that lead others to see us as we would like to see ourselves. For instance, if "friendly person" is an important identity for someone, s/he will probably repress impulses to grouch at people, or to remain aloof, so as to discrepant feedback from others: "You grouch. You are not very friendly." The identity, whatever it might be, and as long as we care about embracing it, becomes a device for regulating our own behavior.

Being self-regulating also depends on learning criteria for evaluation. Generally, we want to feel good about ourselves, so we will try to do things that we attest to our competence and morality. What these things are, depends on the culture, the situation, and the identity the person is claiming. For example, a man might learn that when dealing with children, a good man is patient, kind, and generous. If he can exhibit these qualities, he will be able to evaluate himself highly, and thus maintain self-esteem.

Not all criteria for self-evaluation are so benign in U.S. culture. A man might also learn that a real man is powerful, aggressive, competitive, and in control. He may thus feel compelled to try to exhibit these qualities, so as to feel good about himself as a man. If he goes too far, his behavior is likely to cause harm to others.

Fortunately, Fester's brother seemed to think of himself, as the kind of man, who was strong enough to take a little teasing, and enjoy a joke at his own expense. If he had seen himself as the kind of man, whose strength lay in using violence to punish anyone, who affronted his dignity, the situation might have turned out badly.

You can see why it is necessary to be careful about the criteria for self-evaluation that we teach children, and why we should critically examine the criteria we apply to ourselves. The danger, otherwise, is that we will come to stake our feelings of competence and worth on being good at things that produce bad results for others.

We should be glad that, for most people, being a good person means being honest, kind, generous, compassionate, and peaceful. Having learned these criteria for self-evaluation, people are nicer and easier to get along with. To put it another way, most people avoid doing things that are dishonest, cruel, selfish, callous, and violent, so as to avoid seeing themselves as rotten. This makes people self-regulating in a useful way. If people learn to seek self-esteem by treating others well, then they are more likely to behave like decent human beings.

*SOURCE: THE SOCIOLOGICALLY EXAMINED LIFE, 2ND EDITION, 2001, MICHAEL SCHWALBE, PGS. 67-68*

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