How important are we to others’ opinion of us?The most common thing is to underestimate this relevance. In fact, while it sounds amazing, it seems that we have a mechanism that makes us adapt our behavior to the information of this variable. To delve a little de further into this topic, today we will talk about the theory of the sociometer.
This theory speaks of a psychological mechanism that helps us minimize the likelihood of rejection, and would also be closely linked to the self-regulation of our behavior in company or for others.
- This regulatory mechanism seems to respond to changes in relational value.
- Provides us with a framework to analyze phenomena such as self-esteem and sensitivity to rejection.
- As well as personality disorders and many reactions that people have towards others.
This psychological indicator can even provide valuable information about what happens when dysfunctional people self-regulate, this form of self-regulation further impairs your relationships with others, closely linked to self-esteem, this sociometer also affects and influences the regulation of our emotions.
Baumester and Leary developed the sociometer theory of self-esteem, which would then be developed by Gardner, Pickett and Brewer based on the idea that humans are virtually incapable of surviving and reproducing without maintaining a minimum of social relationships.
For this reason, it has developed a system that allows these relationships to be maintained successfully. This requires a system that monitors the relationships of others with respect to our behavior; in particular, reactions to our actions that can lead to our person’s social rejection.
This monitoring system alerts the individual to possible changes in their status of inclusion or reduction of social acceptance. This scanner to assess the state of our relationships is what motivates us to take actions that repair situations that could damage our relationships.
They also warn us of any behavior that could jeopardize our social ties, i. e. human beings have developed a psychological mechanism that monitors the indirect visual environment for evidence relevant to a person’s relational value in their environment.
According to sociometer theory, self-esteem is an indicator of the quality of our social relationships, when people maintain behaviors that lead them to be rejected by the group, their self-esteem suffers and decreases; if, on the other hand, positive emotion behaviors are maintained, it increases self-esteem. You could say, then, that self-esteem has an important emotional component.
Evolution, nature has provided us with an alert system that usually marks with pain the things that it wants to avoid us, in the same way, it is happy to mark the things that need to be repeated, when the needs of a person are not satisfied, aversive arise feelings.
Its purpose is for the organization to react and resolve the situation that is unpleasant or threatening to us, and this also applies in case of need of belonging, emotions serve to alert us to events that have considerable implications for our well-being. are adaptable.
This monitoring system seems to act separately from consciousness and does so until it is detected that the relational value is low or decreasing, that is when the individual must consciously consider the situation.
If the person has recently experienced rejection, they will be more sensitive to what other people think of them. In this case, you will devote more cognitive resources to reasoning about your social situations.
This theory, in fact, explains that self-esteem is an indicator and therefore makes no sense to act on it. Psychiatrist Pablo Malo proposed comparing this phenomenon to a car’s fuel meter:
“For a person with low self-esteem, wanting to increase it, per se, would be like wanting to manipulate a car’s fuel gauge to get more fuel. However, if we want to have more gas than there is in the car, do we have to fill the tank?
This leads us to think that self-esteem, in fact, is enhanced by the acquisition of social skills and the development of skills that facilitate our social adaptation, in this sense self-esteem seems to be strongly influenced by our adaptation to the environment. and the value we give to this adaptation.