External image

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In

positively or negatively.

Definition

An external image is the totality of all perceptions, feelings, and judgments that third parties make about an individual. These interpersonal perceptions are automatically linked to earlier experiences with the person being observed and with the feelings arising from these interactions and evaluations. The image that others have of a person shapes their expectations of this person, and significantly affects their mutual social interaction.

External image and self image

A person's external image, or more precisely, how this image is communicated to the individual, and how others react to the individual as a result of his or her external image, significantly affects the person's

.

The external image is always different from an individual's self-image. From the two perspectives and the differences between them, or more accurately, the inferences that the two parties draw for themselves, social interactions evolve, influenced by the parties' own selves.

In group dynamics

Conscious handling of images about each other plays an important part in

"awareness exercises", a person is trained to detect previously unconscious expectations of third parties, and with communication exercises, they are trained to reconcile their own and others' images and expectations of each other.

In psychotherapy

.

References

• Antons, Klaus (2011). Praxis der Gruppendynamik: Übungen und Techniken [Practice of group dynamics: Exercises and techniques] (in German) (9 ed.). Göttingen: Hogrefe Verlag GmbH & Co. KG.
  ISBN 978-3-8017-2354-5
  .

See also

• Constructivism
• Othering