A Class Divided - Essay

According to the book, Looking Out, Looking In, self-concept is the relatively stable set of perceptions that we hold of ourselves. Quite simply, it is who we think we are and how we view ourselves as a whole; physically and emotionally, as well as the values, roles, talents, likes, dislikes, etc. that give us a sense of who we are. Our age, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, physical abilities/disabilities, culture, ethnicity, and gender are the factors that form the foundation of who we are, and they therefore establish the base of our self-concept. As stated by Looking Out, Looking In, our self-concept is also largely shaped by others through reflected appraisal; which is how we believe others see us, and through social comparison; which is how we compare with others. Reflected appraisal forms our views of ourselves and provides evidence that these views are correct, while social comparison does this by allowing us to measure ourselves compared to others. These are essential to building our self-concept because a person, for instance, cannot consider himself to be smart unless people have told him either directly or indirectly that he is smart (reflected appraisal), or unless he is comparatively smarter than the people around him (social comparison). Through these two processes of reflected appraisal and social comparison, this person will then have a self-concept of his intelligence; this is a key way of how we form a self-concept of all of our attributes and characteristics. In the beginning of the film, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, the main character, Ricky Bobby, has the self-concept that he is the greatest racecar driver on the Earth. This is apparent because after one of the NASCAR races that he won, he drove his car to the middle of the track in the grass and used his car to write, “I’m #1,” in big letters so that everyone at the track could see it. Additionally, during an interview that was televised on national television, he