Accepting Myself: Negotiating Self-Esteem and Conformity in Light of Sociological Theories

For as long as I can remember I have struggled internally with fitting in among my peers. I have felt emotionally inferior to others, and have always wanted to be recognized for being good at something. My first memories of feeling inferior started in kindergarten. Thinking back to my childhood, I realize two things, first that I have always felt awkward in social situations, especially among children my own age, and secondly, that I craved attention. I wanted to be as smart and as pretty as the blond girl in kindergarten. I wanted to be as artistic as the two Asian girls in my first and second grade classes. I wanted to be popular and be friends with the in-crowd in fifth and sixth grade. This need to fit in and be recognized continued to influence me as I grew older. As a child, it seemed I wanted more than anything to be noticed and admired by both my parents and my teachers. I wanted to be the one in the class who got recognition from the teacher for being intelligent or artistic. I would compare myself to those children who were good at the things that I was not good at, and as a result suffered from low self-esteem, and a poor perception of myself. I want to explore where this need to be recognized and fit in came from and what was going on in my life to cause me to have a low self-esteem and need recognition from others to feel good about myself. I realize now what I truly wanted was social acceptance. I Environment is crucial to ensuring that children grow up to have high self-esteems and positive perceptions of themselves. Children in fact need a proper, positive, loving environment to grow and develop into stable adults. There are many stories of the neglected child who struggles emotionally and mentally from not receiving the love and attention of parents and relatives. As a result of not having a stable environment, children will begin to either lash out angrily or become withdrawn, creating an invisible shell between their internal world and the world around them. We know that environment has a huge effect on the emergence of self and the way a child develops and perceives herself. The self is a "person's conscious recognition that he or she is a distinct individual who is part of a larger society" (Thompson & Hickey, p. 93). The nature/nurture debate has reached a compromise in sociobiology. Sociobiologists acknowledge that both heredity and environment affect an individual. A child may inherit certain talents, strengths and weaknesses but it is her environment and life experiences that has the power to shape her perception of herself, or her self-esteem. From a very young age children learn that they can seek the approval of others to gain physical or emotional rewards. This is the beginning of the realization that children can in fact manipulate their environment through the choices they make. Without knowing it, children are taking part in what the Rational Choice Theory seeks to explore. This theory assumes that "people are rational and base their actions on what they perceive to be the most effective means to their goals" (Wallace & Wolf, p. 303). Children also learn that the process of social exchange is very important to getting what they want. Social Exchange theorists, "conceptualize social interaction as an exchange of tangible or intangible goods and services, ranging from food, and shelter to social approval and sympathy" (Wallace & Wolf, p.304, boldface added). After learning this as children, we continue to manipulate our environment in many ways. For example, children learn if they do something that is rewarded, they can easily manipulate the situation by continuing their positive behavior, to get desired rewards. This is what Homans, a social exchange theorist was explaining with his, success proposition. This can be explained in the following way: "For all actions taken by persons, the more often a particular action of a person is rewarded, the more likely the person is to perform that action" (Wallace & Wolf, p. …