The Self
I came across this article on the 30th March in The New Paper, and think it will be interesting so I decided to blog about it. Self and social perception of us is crucial; it will affect our self esteem as we are very mindful about other approval of us.
The article is about this particular lady who wanted to known as Ms Elsie that spent more than $700k on aesthetic treatments on her face, body, hips and legs. The reasons she gave were ugly is scary and it gives her confidence, she have to compete with younger women, she do not want to lose her rich hubby. From her answer, we can roughly generalize what how important is her image to her.
Ms Elsie said that “it’s about keeping your husband, lifestyle, even a social competition of sorts with younger women”. She also added that “her husband is constantly surrounded by beautiful women – actress, models, and pretty young thing”.
From this we can see that Ms Elsie usually see herself using the upward social comparison. Upward social comparison involves comparing with someone who is better off than you are. In Ms Elsie scenario, she compare herself to the younger women, hence she went for aesthetic treatment to keep herself look young and beautiful.
Ms Elsie not only concern about how she see herself, but also how other look at her. In the article, Ms Elsie quote that “it’s about how you carry yourself, what you look.” She frequently need to accompany her husband to function, thus she feel that self-presentation to the public is very important, and also maintaining the positive image she had portrayed. Self-presentation is the deliberate control of our public behavior to create a certain impression.
5 comments:
Would having her husband back or gaining additional beauty be considered as an extrinsic reward, thus leading to overjustification effect? If Ms elsie had wanted to keep her husband around, there might be other ways of doing so (i.e probably showing her husband she is unique and different from other ladies- not by aesthetics.)
Wah... eat porridge..
Maybe its the husband who wants her to do all that ah...
If really he is surrounded by so many other girls then I think he simply spend $2000 buy a girl a pendant to make her happy he would lei.. (might be doin behind her back)
"Darling I give you some pocket money (*700K!) you go for treatment okay?? Cheep Cheep only"
Then the newspaper probably caught hint of this and wrote a story pointing towards the lady..
Aiyo... the media.. who knows? >_<
One of the most important lessons I learned during army was “Don’t compare”, because if we compare with each other, it will only make us feel worse, because there is always a “higher mountain” then yourself. Certainly, comparing with someone better than us might motivate us to improve ourselves, but it can also hurt our self-esteem if we fail to improve. In my opinion, our greatest enemy is ourselves; we need to compare with ourselves (the past self and the present self), not others.
HAHA the action of this female highlighted in your blog post makes me want to laugh.
She needs to understand that once comparison occurs (esp with regards to looks and beauty) it is never ending just like a vicious cycle.
Fact is perception of beauty changes from time to time, just like fashion.
Actually, I think the reason that she wants to do all this is because the husband is rich. She doesn't want to lose the wonderful 'tai tai' life. So her behaviour is externally attributed. Just like this example in the textbook about a young girl marrying an old but rich man. Most people will think she's doing it for the money, not for love.
I think it's the same with this woman. :p
Post a Comment