170
READING PASSAGE 5
Young children's sense of identity
A
A sense of self develops in young children by degrees. The process can usefully be thought of in terms of the
gradual emergence of two somewhat separate features: the self as a subject, and the self as an object. William
James introduced the distinction in 1892, and contemporaries of his, such as Charles Cooley, added to the
developing debate. Ever since then psychologists have continued building on the theory.
B
According
to James, a child's first step on the road to self-understanding can be seen as the recognition that he
or she exists. This is an aspect of the self that he labelled 'self-as-subject', and he gave it various elements.
These included an awareness of one's own agency (i.e. one's power to act), and an awareness of
one's distinctiveness from other people. These features graduallyemerge as infants explore their world
and interact with caregivers. Cooley (1902) suggested that a sense of the self-as-subject was primarily
concerned with being able to exercise power. He proposed that the earliest examples of this are an infant's
attempts to control physical objects, such as toys or his or her own limbs. This is followed by attempts
to affect the behaviour of other people. For example, infants learn that when they cry or smile someone
responds to them.
C
Another powerful source of information for infants about the effects they can have
on the world around them is
provided when others mimic them. Many parents spend a lot of time, particularly in the early months, copying
their infant's vocalizations and expressions. In addition, young children enjoy looking in mirrors, where the
movements they can see are dependent upon their own movements.
This is not to say that infants recognize the reflection as their own image (a later development). However,
Lewis and Brooks-Gunn (1979) suggest that infants' developing understanding that the movements they see in
the mirror are contingent on their own, leads to a growing awareness that they are distinct from other
people. This is because they, and only they, can change the reflection in the mirror.
D
This understanding that children gain of themselves as active agents continues to develop
in their attempts to
co-operate with others in play. Dunn (1988) points out that it is in such day-to-day relationships and
interactions that the child's understanding of his- or herself emerges. Empirical investigations of the self-as-
subject in young children are, however, rather scarce because of difficulties of communication: even if young
infants can reflect on their experience, they certainly cannot express this aspect of the self directly.
E
Once children have acquired a certain level of self-awareness, they begin to place themselves in a
whole series of categories, which together play such an important part in
defining them uniquely as
'themselves'. This second step in the development of a full sense of self is what James called the 'self-as-
object'. This has been seen by many to be the aspect of the self which is most influenced by social elements,
since it is made up of social roles (such as student, brother, colleague) and characteristics which derive their
meaning from comparison or interaction with other people (such as trustworthiness, shyness, sporting ability).
F
Cooley and other researchers suggested a close connection between a person's own understanding of their
identity and other people's understanding of it. Cooley believed that people build up their sense of identity
from the reactions of others to them, and from the view they believe others have of them.
He called the self-as-
object the 'looking-glass self', since people come to see themselves as they are reflected in others. Mead (1934)
went even further, and saw the self and the social world as inextricably bound together: 'The self is essentially
a social structure, and it arises in social experience ... it is impossible to conceive of a self arising outside of
social experience.'
G
Lewis and Brooks-Gunn argued that an important developmental milestone is reached when children become
able to recognize themselves visually without the support of seeing contingent movement. This recognition
occurs around their second birthday. In one experiment, Lewis and Brooks-Gunn (1979) dabbed
some red
powder on the noses of children who were playing in front of a mirror, and then observed how often they
171
touched their noses. The psychologists reasoned that if the children knew what they usually looked like, they
would be surprised by the unusual red mark and would start touching it. On the other hand, they found
that children of 15 to 18 months are generally not able to recognize themselves unless other cues such as
movement are present.
H
Finally, perhaps the most graphic expressions of self-awareness in general can be seen in the displays of rage
which are most common from 18 months to 3 years of age. In a longitudinal study of groups of three or four
children, Bronson (1975) found that the intensity of the frustration and anger in their
disagreements increased
sharply between the ages of 1 and 2 years. Often, the children's disagreements involved a struggle over a toy
that none of them had played with before or after the tug-of-war: the children seemed to be disputing
ownership rather than wanting to play with it. Although it may be less marked in other societies, the link
between the sense of 'self' and of 'ownership' is a notable feature of childhood in Western societies
