Self-verification theory

In Jon by George Saunders, the omnipresent corporate establishment forces an identity upon the characters, causing tension between their true and artificial selves. The protagonist Jon exists in a commercial community that uses teenagers as test dummies for its brands. Their world is prefabricated and they are taught via commercials for different trademarks, with slogans as their source of knowledge. The very militant and impersonal nature of the society throws the reader off balance, yet the…

According to the oxford dictionary, the definition of success is "the attainment of popularity or profit."(“Success”, 1989). The meaning of success varies for different individuals. Success could mean getting education, raising a family, accomplishing a life goal, or simply gaining wealth. This definition is one of the many definitions of success as different individuals have their different perspectives about success. For instance, success for a poor homeless person could just mean to have…

“Self Portrait in a Convex Mirror” by John Ashbery is a work of convoluted reflections engaging Renaissance painter Parmigiano, his painting “Self Portrait in a Convex Mirror”, Ashbery himself, and the soul. The poem’s source of inspiration is a physical piece of art, suggesting the poem belongs in the ekphrasis tradition. Immediate tension arises as the painting and the poem belong to vastly different traditions. The technique of ekphrasis in a postmodern tradition has challenged scholars as it…

early memories, and a love for adventure and new discoveries, lie beneath the colors of new experience. Identity as a whole in continuous and changing, however that underlying element of constancy beneath the changing surface keeps our perception of self deeply rooted in where we originate. Initial memories formed from our environment act as the first layer of color on our canvas, blending into subsequent hues, influencing the new colors and experiences of the oeuvre. As in Wilde’s depiction…

Emotional: i. Beginning: I was still immature and excited for childhood. I was ignorant to the adult life and was scared of death. The last thing I wanted to do was grow up. I was also very scared of the idea of sexual activity. ii. Middle: I was self-conscious and was very aware of my bodily changes and hated the way I looked. I wanted to be like the models seen on TV and have the perfect skin. I was also very concerned about the thoughts my peers had of me. iii. Late: I grew…

dialectic of the life and death struggle elaborates on a social phenomenon commonly observed in communal life and throughout history. The life and death struggle is a fight for recognition experienced by individuals in a state of desire. In this state, self-consciousness becomes more aware of the external world and views the other as an object - an external reality. The complication here is that recognition, by nature, is reciprocal. Therefore, not all external realities provide the same…

these deficits, allowing adolescents to fully focus on more stimulating material. The tests used to observe the relationship between media multitasking and executive function may have skewed results due to self-reports that were measured. Whereas, individuals may have focused more on their self-schema about their ability to focus attention, and were more likely to report larger numbers when remarking on their executive function problems (Baumgartner et. al., 2014). The cross-sectional design of…

“Natalie Blake was crazy busy with self-invention. She lost God so smoothly and painlessly she had to wonder what she’d ever meant by the word. She found politics and literature, music, cinema… She put her faith in these things, and she couldn’t understand why” (247). Religion often comes…

larger toll on the individual than previously thought. In her book, Turkle makes a balanced argument that technology’s ubiquity and permanence in the 21st-century American society, frails the self and our individuality. Throughout the book,…

Once the reader reaches the end of the article, it is apparent that recognizing and understanding sexual identity and the role parents play in their child’s sense of self. The article was well-written and has an important message for parents of LGB teens and counselors who handle this particular subset of family counseling. The article, when taken as a whole, is very convincing and the information is relevant to current…