Mirror Mirror on the Wall...



Rouge Test at 17.5 months 

An early test of self-recognition and awareness of oneself is the rouge test. Performed in front of a mirror, a child would have a spot of rouge make-up surreptitiously  placed on their forehead and the reactions based on the child's response to the mirror image would be assessed. It is successfully accomplished by most children by the age of 18 months.  And by god, once we did spot who was in the mirror looking out at us - we couldn't get enough it seems.

 

From clothes shops, shoe shops, sunglasses shops, and a bookies amongst others, some recent places that I have come into contact with this obvious necessity of a fixture include;

 

Starbucks! I'm looking at myself as I ordered a Starbucks the other day. Scruffy, half asleep and surrounded by coffee slurping smugatude...no escape!

 

In a TV store. I catch a glimpse of myself while I ponder which big electric b**tard to buy. While beside me kids jump about in front of an EIGHT FOOT MIRROR sporting 3D glasses, screaming at their parents who look at one other with an undertone of hatred in their eyes, ''Why God, Why us?''

 



@DoucheBag said,
''Ride-by Selfie...lol''

A bank! I mean what the fook? Yes, this is what it looks like to be broke. Haha, no they don't take bank bags full of buttons! ''Hey, I'm financially set for life as long as I die next Tuesday, you reflective son of a ...!''

 

I mean mirrors in phone shops? ''Yes, I think that this phone adequately portrays me as a bell-end, I'll take it''...just before you take a quick selfie and post it on Twitter along with some hoot of a line...Oh the hilarity.

 

In a deli shop! Right beside where you can heat up those heart-attack inducing lumps of dirt, while viewing the look of shame on your face as the microwave pings...and proceeding with a rubberneckers view of your own probable ''Oohh-face'' as scalding hot slop rolls from your chin.  

 

Discount Tuesdays: for those with room temperature I.Q's

What next, fruit and veg shops...''What would I look like eating this banana?'' Newsflash s***head, nobody knows where to look when you're eating a banana, so get over it.
 

Or petrol stations? Just in case you inadvertently go up in a ball of flames, well then at least you can have a front row view to your own smouldering crispy finale. ''20 on number 7 and some after-sun please''.

 

Years ago my grandmother used to come in from a night out and the first thing she would do is check how she looked in the mirror. Or I guess how she looked all those previous hours. I mean she was a great woman and everything, but sure by that stage there was no real point on fixing a stray hair. But nonetheless she did it and surprisingly not once was she presented with a 'There's Something about Mary' scenario.  





'Please leave the hotel room as you would like to find it'
Merle began first on tackling that unnecessary partition wall



Obviously we have the other side of the coin as with everything. Mirrors make a room feel more spacious...and all that Feng shui nonsense. Places such as barbers, fair enough, you're gonna have to wear this 10 euro haircut for the next few weeks...best to have a look at the butchery as it unfolds. Mirror shops, I suppose. Gyms, to inflate ego's or deflate self esteem, either-or.  



Maybe some people just got one too many ''Kick Me's'' posted on their back and you know, they have to check themselves every so often.

Le Moi. Now available in 42"

And then there's the addition of the 'Black mirrors'. Those omnipresent gadgets that allow you to view yourself on a continual basis; the screens of gadgets, TVs, mobile phones, computers through which we interact with the world. But that's for another days ramblings.

Jacques Lacan's Mirror Stage (1936) was described as a founding act that lead to the formation of the ego and the perception of the Subject. The baby's discovery of self is an intellectual act that involves the translation of an image into an idea - the idea of 'Me' or 'Self', or is it 'Selfie'?

Either way, it seems that in present times the "méconnaissance'' of the subject is truly no longer a concern.

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''Let us be grateful to the mirror for revealing to us our appearance only''
                                                                                                ~ Samuel Butler

Self Monitoring

Self-monitoring is the ability and desire to regulate one's public expressiveness to fit the clues and/or requirements of the situation. In any setting, people are generally motivated to behave appropriately (Michener et al., 1986).

High self-monitors (HSMs) easily blend into social situations, knowing what to do or say with each person. They appear more friendly and less anxious to observers, are sensitive to social cues, and are likely to vary their behaviour from situation to situation. High self-monitors read non-verbal behaviour better, and will change their behaviour to suit the situation as they perceive it. They are more concerned with acting appropriately than being true to themselves.

They are more flexible and responsive to their environment than low self-monitors are. For example, high self-monitors can be expected to demonstrate greater flexibility in adapting their leadership style to changing situations, using a variety of conflict-resolution techniques (Robbins, 1993: 714).

High self-monitors describe themselves as flexible, adaptive, and shrewd. They tend to use situational factors to explain their behaviour. They have many friends, but are not very close with most of them. They have different friends for different activities. Friendship loss is not a difficulty, as there are other friends to take the place of any that are lost.                 

High self-monitors are more likely to be successful in managerial positions where individuals are required to play multiple, and even contradicting roles. Thus, the high self-monitor is capable of putting on different "faces" for different audiences. Examples of occupations or positions that might require high self-monitoring would include HR manager, CEO, organizational development specialist or marketing and sales director (Robbins, 1993: 108).

They are often more effective than low self-monitors in jobs that require boundary spanning (communicating and interacting with different groups of people who, because of contrasting goals, training, or skills "speak different languages"). Since they can readily adjust their actions to the norms, expectations, and style of each group, high self-monitors are more successful in dealing with them than are low self-monitors, and this improves performance. Boundary-spanning roles are very important in most organizations, so assigning high self-monitoring people to such positions may yield substantial benefits.


Low self-monitors (LSMs), on the other hand, act themselves - regardless of the situation. They rarely conform to the norms of the social setting. LSMs are less sensitive to social cues, and less likely to change their behaviour from one situation to another. Low self-monitors tend to display their true dispositions and attitudes in every situation. Low self-monitors' actions usually reflect their inner feelings and attitudes and thus they are less likely to change or adjust in a new context (Greenberg & Baron, 1990, pp. 204-206).

They prefer to be seen as they really are, and they behave so as to express internal attitudes and dispositions. Their attitudes are more accessible, so LSMs have a greater consistency between their attitudes and their behaviour. LSMs are more likely to show effects of fatigue and moods than HSMs. They have few friends, but these friends are quite close to them. They have the same friends for all of their activities. They select friends with similar attitudes. Friendship loss is difficult, because there are so few that each will be missed quite a bit, and the loss will affect most if not all activities. They tend to have steady, and more intimate relationships, and they care about their partner's personality.

Low self-monitoring, for those guilty of it, may not always be about being oblivious in social situations. It's about freedom of speech. Low self-monitors may see no reason to hold themselves back or sugar-coat the truth - to say anything other than what they're thinking, and acting in ways that doesn't reflect who they are is not something they like.

Example

Have you ever been to a club and seen some people dancing with wild abandon whilst others shuffle about nonchalantly? The wild dancers are low self-monitors, whilst the shufflers are probably high self-monitors.

So what?

Using it

 

Appeal to high self-monitors by telling them that they will look good and get social approval for what you want them to do. In advertising, high self-monitors respond more to image-based ads that promise to make them look good, whilst low self-monitors respond better to product-based ads and prefer high quality goods.

Findings also indicate that attitudes towards littering is partially mediated by the relationship between self-monitoring  (Ojedokun and Balogun, 2013).

So which side do you fall on? Find out here: Self Monitoring Scale developed by Mark Snyder in 1974.
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Snyder, M. (1974). Self Monitoring of expressive behaviour. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 30, 526-537.
Snyder, M. & Gangestad, S. (1986). On the nature of self-monitoring: Matters of assessment, matters of validity, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 1, 125-139.