Exercise 2 solution

Cooley's three steps (Looking-glass self page, 1902), applied to the raised eyebrow:

1. Imagine how you appear: she pictures herself as someone giving a muddled, unconvincing presentation.
2. Imagine the other person's judgment: she decides the teacher thinks the work is poor.
3. Feel something in response: she feels embarrassment or shame, and so goes quiet.

Where it can go wrong: the page's idea rests on the judgment as imagined, not as actually held. The eyebrow may have meant interest, surprise at a good point, or nothing at all. Her behaviour follows her guess about the teacher's view, so a mistaken guess can change what she does and how she sees herself. Nothing in the idea says the guess is accurate. The example is my own, not the page's (check).

Mead's terms, in one sentence: the "me", the organised set of attitudes of others she has taken on (a presentation should look polished, teachers judge it), reads the eyebrow as disapproval, and the "I", her more spontaneous response, is what chooses to fall silent (or could have chosen to carry on). This is my application of the Mead page's definitions to the case (check); the page does not discuss this example.