I Am: Self Analysis

After completing the "I Am" activity, I feel that my self-perception is fairly accurate. Using James' definitions of "self", I feel that my spiritual self is often times overridden by my material and social self. Adding to this, I feel that I become consumed with worrying about the material things that I own and my social standing, which sometimes prevents me from expressing my spiritual self. Further, I believe that if I begin to value my spiritual self higher than my material and social self, I will start to show what I really believe in and what I truly stand for as a person, rather than using material items and popular beliefs to fit into society. Referring to Maslow's self-awareness levels on page thirty-one of the text, I feel that I

Moreover, I feel that as progressed into adulthood, I have added many desirable qualities to my identity. In other words, I feel like my avowed identity is constantly changing for the better, especially since I have come to college. On the other hand, I feel that my ascribed identity has been assigned to me based off of the way that I portray myself to others, and especially formed by the way I portray myself to my peers, given that I am surrounded by them for multiple hours of each day. Honestly, I feel that these identities have positive relationships with my communication habits and tendencies. Explaining this further, I feel that as my identities continue to develop positively as an adult, my bad habits and tendencies will decrease, which is always a good

Two stereotypes that I have made in my life are that Asians are smarter than average people and that "rednecks" are not nearly as smart as average people. My word choice in these stereotypes shape my beliefs of the targeted groups by making assumptions about people that I have never met. Wording such as "redneck" shapes my belief in a way that makes me think that everyone that is from a rural area is uneducated and not as "bright" as average individuals, when in reality, this isn't the case whatsoever. When these words shape my belief system about these groups, in reality, I am the one who seems to be uneducated. The words used in these stereotypes negatively effect my belief system. In reference to chapter three, it may not be the words that I use that effect communication with these groups, but the way that they interpret the words that are used. As stated on page sixty-seven of the text, using these words may cause members of these groups to become defensive, which then creates a hostile communication environment. Basically, these stereotypes would impact communication with these groups very negatively rather than positively, which is never a good