UNDERSTANDING THE SELF PRE-LIMENARIES
UNIT 1: SOCIAL, ENVIRONMENTAL AND OTHER LIFE
FACTORS (S.E.L.F.)
An Overview of the Self/ Identity
 One of the most interesting topics that
people talk about everyday
 Composes both the I – as an actor and the
Me – as the object
Issues on Understanding the Self
The most prevalent among the issue on self, are the
issues on:
Nature vs. Nurture
 self is both a product of nature and nurture
NATURE
 Biological science explains that our traits are
passed on to humanity from one generation
to another, these traits served as a blueprint
of our self and make us predispose to
certain self-expressions
 Self is being studied structurally and
functionally
 Genetics contributed so much information
about the descriptions of the self
o Primarily deals with the study of
heredity as a process, as well as on
the characterization of organisms
NURTURE
 Social science: self should be principally
viewed as an outcome of various nurturing
factors in the context of one’s social life
 Field of social science stresses how group
life (formal and informal) affects individuals’
behavior and attitude
 emphasized on the impact of various social
institutions to the self-construal of an
individual
Self vs. Identity
SELF - the person that someone normally or truly
is… or the entire person of an individual”.
IDENTITY - “the qualities, beliefs, etc., that make a
particular person or group different from others…
or the distinguishing character or personality of an
individual”
Page |1
Uni vs. Multi Dimensionalities
UNIDIMENSIONALITY
 Emotional
 Social
 Intellectual
 Spiritual
 Physical Appearance – Refers to how we
physically present our self to other people.
 can also refer to measuring a single ability,
attribute, construct, or skill
MULTIDIMENSIONALITY
1. Social Factor of the Self
 Refers to the influences of significant
people in a person’s life.
 Strong foundations of one’s being
 The characteristics that we acquired from
the influences of the social groups where
we interact with during the growing up
years are integrated to form our identity, or
our uniqueness and similarities with others.
o Family
o Peer Groups
o Organizations
o And other significant people in a
person’s life (e.g., teacher, role-
model, relatives, etc.)
2. Environmental Factor of the Self
 Broadly includes the physical and
communal elements present in our
everyday surrounding and invariably dealt
with by individuals in a specific geographic
region or area.
 This is not only about the physical
properties of the surrounding (i.e., climate
and temperature, forms of land, etc.) but
this factor principally includes the larger
society or community and the expectations
and norms operating in that particular
locality or place.
3. Hereditary Factor of the Self
 Heredity is a biological process by which
certain traits and characteristics are passed
on from one generation to another
o A non-negotiable factor; relatively
fixed and permanent
 Ex. Physical Attributes (e.g., height,
complexion, color of eyes, etc.), Some
UNDERSTANDING THE SELF PRE-LIMENARIES
Cognitive Traits (e.g., I.Q), and some other
Personal Characteristics
4. Person-Volition Factor of the Self
 Most controversial factor of the Self or
Identity
 Refers to the inclination of a person to form
and construct a specific identity, which will
set him apart or unique compared with
others
 Such factor emanates from within the
mentality of an individual
 Can also be brought about why the
aggregated social-life experiences
 Social scientist may refer to this type of a
person as deviant and non-conformist;
some of the people of this type turned in to
trend-setters, discoverers and inventors
What Science Says About the Self
The Science of the Self
 Science has been lexically defined:
o “the intellectual and practical
activity encompassing the
systematic study of the structure
and behavior of the physical and
natural world through observation
and experiment.”
 Two-fold scientific approaches to study
self:
1. Physical sciences – focuses on biological
factors that make up the human body, the
underlying growth and maturational
mechanisms of people, and environmental
influences that contribute to human
development
2. Social sciences – concerned with institutions,
society and interpersonal relationships of
people living within society
Biological Science
 Science has made sufficient advances in
explaining human beings in biological
context
o Tenets of Aristotle and his scientific
approach to the study of human
experience
o Natural selection within the
evolutionary theory of Charles
Darwin
Page |2
 Genetics has been studies extensively by
scientist and doctors on how genes from
both parents contribute to the
characteristics of their offspring
 The study of the human body from a
physical perspective has paved the way for a
fuller understanding of the self, as
consciousness deemed to be a fundamental
core of the self, is influenced by inner
dynamics and environment
Biological Science
Breakthroughs in the understand of the self has
resulted in the emergence of new scientific fields of
study:
1. Neurophilosophy
 Attributed to Paul and Patricia Churchland
o Further argued that philosophical
notions of free will, common sense
and conscientiousness, we must be
able to explain it in the context of
neuroscience as advances in this
field seemingly converge with how
people think, feel and behave
 Concerned with the association of the brain
and the mind;
 in order to understand the workings of the
human mind, we must first understand the
brain, its functions and wave activity
 In the context of the self, our
consciousness, worldviews, beliefs, and
other human attributes are distinctly
connected to our brain physiology and
functioning.
2. Psychoneuroimmunology
 Draws its assumption from how or immune
system functions, similar to the shaping of
self
 In the context of our immune system, our
human bodies “reject” foreign matter that
can harm our bodies and build up on the
existing molecules, leading to a healthy
bodily system;
o sometimes foreign matters that
enter in our system can he helpful
for our body maintenance and thus,
becomes a permanent fixture within
the body
 In discovering our self, we are likely to
imbibe external experiences that are seen
to be helpful to us and reject those that we
UNDERSTANDING THE SELF PRE-LIMENARIES
do not like or those we do not derive
pleasure from
Social Sciences
 Concerned with human functioning in the
context of society and social institutions
1. Psychology
 One of the most popular social science
 the study of human behavior
 development of the so-called science of self
is significantly rooted from various
psychological theories and principles
 psychological theories: self has been used as
a predicate of several psychological
constructs
o ex. Self-awareness, self-construal,
self-esteem, self-efficacy, self-
regulation, etc.
 usage of the term indicates not only an
acceptance of its existence but also signify
its importance in characterizing human
psychological and personal attribute
2. Sociology
 Study of collective behavior of people
within society and focuses on social
problems encountered by people
 Does not see the individual on his own, but
rather, how social institutions and his social
relationships within society create an
impact on his thoughts, feelings and
behaviors
 Provides tools for understanding human
experience and how society shapes the
person and vice versa
3. Anthropology
 Science of human beings; the study of
human beings and their ancestors through
time and space and in relation to physical
character, environmental and social
relations and culture
 In context of studying self: provides lens of
the developmental advancements’ society
has made and how it has impacted
generations who existed within that society
4. Political Science
 Concerned with participation of individuals
in establishing a government and making
political choices
 Not about political affiliations but rather,
the factors involved in how one arrives at
this political choices and behavior
Page |3
 In studying self: how an individual
participates in government, his ideologies
and advocacies are significant contributors
to his selfhood
5. Economics
 Concerned chiefly with description and
analysis of the production, distribution and
consumption of goof and services
 Shapes our self through valuation of
products and services that society has to
offer
o Nature of goods, how we
manufacture them, how we share in
its consumption, our state of
finances and purchasing power, and
its equitable distribution to society
shapes
 Our economic activities have shaped our
value system and sense of self
UNIT 2: PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVE OF THE SELF
The Self from Various Philosophical Perspectives
SOCRATES (470 – 399 BC)
 Was more concerned with the problem of
the self.
 First philosopher who engaged in a
systematic questioning about the self.
 Affirms that “the unexamined life is not
worth living”.
 The worst thing that can happen to a person
is “to live but die inside.”
 Know thyself principle; he killed himself
because of the accusations that he was
brainwashing the young, the state doesn’t
want that the people become critical thinkers
because they might revolt; he was given a
choice of being killed or being banished, he
chose the latter
 The acknowledgement of ignorance is a step
to knowledge
PLATO (428 – 348 BC)
 Man is a dual nature of body and soul.
 Three components of the soul: (Republic)
1. Rational soul – the person himself,
the one that controls the black and
white horse
2. Spirited soul – refers to the energy,
strength and courage (represented
by white horse)
UNDERSTANDING THE SELF PRE-LIMENARIES
3. Appetitive soul – parts of the human
that is driven by desire; represented
by the gut in biology (represented
by the black horse)
 A student of Socrates; allegory of the
charioteer: the two horses of the man are the
representations of the soul
ST. AUGUSTINE (354-430 BC)
 Infused Socratic view with doctrine of
Christianity.
 Man is a bifurcated nature.
 The goal of every human person is to attain
communion and bliss with the Divine by
living his life on earth in virtue
 Everything that a man does is for the glory of
the Lord; purpose of the man is to do what is
good and what God wants;
ST. THOMAS AQUINAS (1225 – 1274 BC)
 Man is composed of two parts: Matter and
Form
o Matter (hyle) - Common stuff that
makes up everything; tangible part
of man
o Form (morphe) - The essence of a
substance of thing
RENE DESCARTES
 Father of Modern Philosophy
o Human person as having body and a
mind; he introduced that the mind
over matter
 The Meditations of First Philosophy (claims
that there is so much that we should doubt)
 The only thing that one cannot doubt is the
existence of self. (Cogito ergo sum – I think
therefore I am)
 Self is a combination of two distinct entities:
o The cogito (thing that thinks)
o Extenza (extension of the mind)
 Body is nothing else but a machine that is
attached to the mind.
DAVID HUME
 The self is not an entity over and beyond the
physical body.
 Empiricism - knowledge can only be
possible if it is sensed and experienced.
Page |4
 Self is a bundle of impressions and ideas.
 An empiricist, he only believes things that can
be observed;
IMMANUEL KANT
 Describes the apparatus of the mind.
 Self is an actively engaged intelligence in
man that synthesizes all knowledge and
experience.
 Self is dependent on the use of mental
faculties
GILBERT RYLE
 Behaviors that a person manifests in his day-
to-day life.
 Self is not an entity one can locate and
analyze but simply the convenient name
that people use to refer to all the behaviors
that people make.
MERLEAU-PONTY
 Mind and body are intertwined that they
cannot be separated from one another.
 All experience is embodied.
 The living body, his thoughts, emotions, and
experiences are all one.
THE SELF, SOCIETY, AND CULTURE
What is self?
 Separate – self is distinct from other selves.
It is always unique and has its own identity.
 Self-contained and Independent – self in
itself can exist. It does not require any other
self for it to exist; complete already
 Consistent – it has a personality that is
enduring and therefore can be expected to
persist for quite some time.
 Unitary – it is the center of all experiences
and thoughts that run through a certain
person.
 Private – Each person sorts out information,
feelings and emotions, and thought
processes within the self. This whole
process is never accessible to anyone but
the self.
UNDERSTANDING THE SELF PRE-LIMENARIES
Social Constructionist Perspective
 “Social constructionists argue for a merged
view of the person and their social context
where the boundaries of one cannot easily
be separated from the boundaries of the
other” (Stevens, 1996)
 Self is always in participation with social life
and its identity subjected to influences here
and there.
The Self and Culture
Marcel Mauss (French anthropologist)
 Every self has two faces
Nature
1. Personne – social concepts of what it
means to be who he is.
2. Moi – person’s sense of who he is; body,
identity & biological givenness.
The Self and the Development of the Social World
George Herbert Mead & Lev Vygotsky
Page |5
The Emergence of Self as A Product of
Environment
Nature Vs. Nurture
(Behavioral Genetics)
 The nature versus nurture debate is one of
the oldest issues in psychology.
 The debate centers on the relative
contributions of genetic inheritance and
environmental factors to human
development. ... genetic traits handed down
from parents influence the individual
differences that make each person unique.
 The influence of our inherited
characteristics on our personality, physical
growth, intellectual growth and social
interactions

 Language Acquisition and interaction with

others; the way we process information is
normally a form of an internal dialogue in
our head.

Self in Families

 The kind of family that we are born in and

the resources available to us (human,
spiritual, economic) will certainly affect us
and the kind of development that we will
have as we go through life.

Gender and the Self

 Gender is one of those loci of the self that is

subject to alteration, change, and
development.
 Gender partly determines how we see
ourselves in the world.
- Liam Moore and Riley De Waters
Nurture
 -The influence of the environment on
personality, physical growth, intellectual
growth and social interactions
UNDERSTANDING THE SELF PRE-LIMENARIES Page |6
Theories of Socialization & The Emergence of a IVAN PAVLOV (Classical Conditioning)
Social Self
Case of Isabelle: Extreme Case of Isolation  Ivan Petrovich Pavlov was a Russian
physiologist known primarily for his work in
 Isabelle was discovered living in a darkened classical conditioning.
room with her deaf-mute mother as her only  Classical Conditioning in Humans. The
contact. influence of classical conditioning can be
 When Isabelle was discovered she was seen in responses such as phobias, disgust,
almost seven years old and had no sense of nausea, anger, and sexual arousal. A familiar
language. example is conditioned nausea, in which the
 She had been deprived of learning how to sight or smell of a particular food causes
speak because of her mother being both nausea because it caused stomach upset in
deaf and mute. the past.
 As a result, when authorities found her they
believed that she was also deaf and mute
like her mother, because she could only
make noises.
 This was proven wrong when she started to
speak after receiving intense training.
 When Isabelle was initially tested, at almost
seven years old, her mental age concluded
to be at about 19 months old.
 Within two months of being trained,
Isabelle was putting together logical
sentences.
 Within a year she was already learning how
to read.
 While her IQ score was extremely low when
she was found; at almost nine years old she
was completely caught up with her peers B.F. Skinner (Operant Conditioning)
and had a normal IQ.
 Isabelle's case was far more successful  Burrhus Frederic Skinner, commonly known
because she was discovered before the time as B. F. Skinner, was an American
of when puberty occurs. Therefore, she still psychologist, behaviorist, author, inventor,
had time in her critical period to make up for and social philosopher.
lost learning.  Operant conditioning is learning that occurs
based on the consequences of behavior and
Theories of Nature Vs. Nurture can involve the learning of new actions.
Operant conditioning occurs when a dog
John Watson (Behaviorism) rolls over on command because it has been
praised for doing so in the past, when a
 “Give me a dozen healthy infants, well- schoolroom bully threatens his classmates
formed, and my own specified world to because doing so allows him to get his way,
bring them up in and I’ll guarantee to take and when a child gets good grades because
any one at random and train him to become her parents threaten to punish her if she
any type of specialist I might select— doesn’t. In operant conditioning the
doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief and, organism learns from the consequences of
yes, even beggar-man and thief, regardless its own actions.
of his talents, penchants, tendencies,
abilities, vocations, and race of his
ancestors. (1930)”
UNDERSTANDING THE SELF PRE-LIMENARIES Page |7