At the end of the lesson, you are expected to:

• Comprehend what culture means to the self as part of the society.

• Analyze the socio-anthropological constructs of the self.
• Recognize and appreciate differences in cultural behaviors of the self,
particularly from the Western and Eastern contexts.

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 Do you remember Tarzan, the little boy who was left alone in the forest?
Growing up, Tarzan never had an interaction with any other human being: only apes
and other animals. He grew up strangely like apes unlike any human. His interaction with
animals made him just like one of them.
The story of Tarzan would illustrate the concepts of nature and nurture that shapes the
self. Tarzan basically was born as a human being (nature) following the heredity principle of
consistency. However, he never experienced being taken care of by his biological parents,
hence, was fostered by apes. As he grew up, he was able to shape his self and has adapted
some actions and behaviors from the apes. That explains the concept of nurture
(environment).

As stated in the illustration above, the difference between Nature and Nurture is
relatively clear. The nature versus nurture debate involves the extent to which particular
aspects of behavior are a product of either inherited (i.e., genetic) or acquired (i.e., learned)
influences (McLeod, 2018).
➢ Nature is what we think of as pre-wiring and is influenced by genetic inheritance
and other biological factors.
➢ Nurture is generally taken as the influence of external factors after conception,
e.g., the product of exposure, life experiences and learning on an individual.

However, in discussing the Self from the Sociological perspective, the focus shall be
on the concept of Nurture.

“Culture is not just an ornament of human existence but – the principal basis of its
specificity – an essential condition for it” - Clifford Geertz

Culture is that complex whole which includes

knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other
capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of
society.
The origin of the Latin word cultura is clear. It is a derivative of the verb colo (infinitive
colere), meaning “to tend,” “to cultivate,” and “to till,” among other things (Tucker, 1931). It
can take objects such as ager,
hence agricultura, whose literal meaning is “field tilling.” Another possible object of the verb
colo is animus (“character”). In that case, the expression would refer to the cultivation of
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 the human character. Consequently, the Latin noun cultura
can be associated with education and refinement.
Singelis, Bond, Sharkey, and Lai (1999) described
two types of culture: residing inside individuals and outside
them. The first type is what Triandis (1972) called
subjective culture or what Hofstede (2001) referred to as
software of the human mind: beliefs, values, and
internalized interaction patterns. The second type consists
of the man-made environment and can include everything
that people have created, including institutions and art.
SUBJECTIVE or NON-MATERIAL CULTURE
Subjective culture is viewed as something invisible that resides in people’s minds. This
is inclusive of the intangible human creations that include beliefs, values, norms and
symbols.
OBJECTIVE or MATERIAL CULTURE
Objective culture can be conceptualized as created by individuals
and residing outside them. Art objects, clothing, work instruments, and
residential constructions are examples of visible cultural artifacts that
have an objective existence. It consists of human technology – all the
things that people make and use.
Non-material culture could also manifest in the material culture. Institutions, such as
marriage systems, and laws (including inheritance systems, taboos, etc.), and political or
religious bodies, are instances of invisible elements of objective culture.
For an instance, the value of “conservatism” (an example of non-material culture) may
manifest in a person’s clothing.

French Anthropologist, Marcel Mauss, claimed that the self has two faces:
• the Moi which refers to a person’s sense of who he is, his body, and his basic identity
as well as his biological givenness; and
• the Personne which is composed of the social concepts of what it means to be who
he is.

MOI

PERSONNE
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 How we see ourselves shapes our lives, and is shaped by our cultural context. No two
people have or will ever see themselves or build their sense of identity in the same way,
since no two people have identical experiences in life. The cultural structures around an
individual, however, may affect how they see themselves, how they translate their
experiences into their identity and how they communicate with others.
Culture is the meeting point of anthropology and sociology in our self-understanding,
digging deep into how we see ourselves, in light of the diverse cultural influences that we
have been exposed to.
According to developmental psychologist Catherine Raeff (2010), culture can
influence how you, your coworkers, and the families you serve view:
• Relationships: Culture influences how you enter into and maintain relationships. For
example, relationships may be seen as voluntary or as duty-based. This influences
how adults encourage children to form relationships: Do they choose whom to play
with or are children encouraged to play in certain ways to promote group welfare?
• Personality traits: Culture influences whether and how you value traits like humility,
self-esteem, politeness, and assertiveness. Culture also influences how you perceive
hardship and how you feel about relying on others.
• Achievement: Culture influences how you define success and whether you value
certain types of individual and group achievements.
• Expressing emotions: Culture influences how and whether you consider feelings
public or private.

MEAD’S THEORY OF THE SELF

The connection of the emergence of the self and its

development as a member of the society became an interesting
study for George Herbert Mead.

He expounded that since the individual belongs to a

certain social group / social structure that follow a certain social
order, the individual bases his sense of self through the lens of
the society (Palean et. al, 2018). In his Theory of Self, he
claimed that “the individual sees himself as the focus of
everything until such time that the self emerges because of the
influence of those who play a prominent role in their self-
development” (Palean et. al, 2019 p. 28).

He believed that people develop self-images through interactions with other people.
He argued that the self, which is the part of a person's personality consisting of self-
awareness and self-image, is a product of social experience.
Mead theorized that the self has two parts: a self-awareness and a self-image. It is
interesting to note that Mead's theory of the self is completely social. He doesn't allow room
for any kind of biological development of the self or personality.

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 CASE ON POINT: The Feral Child “Genie”

Genie was born to deranged parents. Her father was

extremely intolerant of loud noises and didn't want children, but
he and his wife ended up having babies. Lots of them. Most of
them died from child neglect. Genie was one of few who
survived.
Because of her father's sensitivity to noise and lack of
care for others, Genie spent the first 13 years of her life
strapped to a potty or a chair in a homemade straightjacket. If
she made any noise whatsoever, her dad would beat her with a
baseball bat. She was never spoken to. She was a true, feral
child.

Genie had no development of the self. Even though her body had aged biologically,
her ‘self’ had not developed, because this is something that emerges through social
interaction.
According to Mead, the self, the part of one's personality composed of self-awareness
and self-image, emerges through social interaction.
Mead made several assumptions in proposing this idea:
1)that the self develops only through social interaction;
2) that social interaction involves the exchange of symbols;
3) that understanding symbols involves being able to take the role of another.

Mead’s Development Stages of the Self

GENERALIZED
OTHER

GAMES "Many" others in

"Many" situations
PLAY "Many" others in
"One" situation The individual is
IMITATION "One" Other in able to imagine
"One" Situation The child learns to how he or she is
viewed by one or
understand
"No One" interactions many others.
The child begins to involving different
take on the role
The child engages people with a
that one other
with imitation variety of
person might have
because he has purposes
still no ability to
take role of the
other

Mead believed that there is a specific path of development that all people go through.
During the preparatory stage, children are only capable of imitation: they have no ability to
imagine how others see things. They copy the actions of people with whom they regularly
interact, such as their mothers and fathers. This is followed by the play stage, during which
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children begin to take on the role that one other person might have. Thus, children might try
on a parent’s point of view by acting out “grownup” behavior, like playing “dress up” and
acting out the “mom” role, or talking on a toy telephone the way they see their father do.
Meanwhile, during the game stage, children learn to consider several roles at the
same time and how those roles interact with each other. They learn to understand
interactions involving different people with a variety of purposes. For example, a child at this
stage is likely to be aware of the different responsibilities of people in a restaurant who
together make for a smooth dining experience (someone seats you, another takes your
order, someone else cooks the food, while yet another clears away dirty dishes). Finally,
children develop, understand, and learn the idea of the generalized other, the common
behavioral expectations of general society. By this stage of development, an individual is
able to imagine how he or she is viewed by one or many others—and thus, from a
sociological perspective, to have a “self” (Mead 1934; Mead 1964 as cited by Introduction to
Sociology, n.d.).
VYGOTSKY’S SOCIOCULTURAL THEORY
Lev Vygotsky believed that social interaction plays a critical
role in children's learning. Through such social interactions,
children go through a continuous process of learning (Cherry,
2020).
His theory talks about development, social interaction,
language and culture. This explains mainly that socialization
influences human learning processes. As a consequence of
socialization, it seeks to describe consciousness or perception.
Which means people speak to their friends or adults for the sake
of conversation (Sincero, n.d.).

The Zone of Proximal Development

According to Vygotsky, this "is the distance between the actual development level as
determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as
determined through problem-solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more
capable peers." Essentially, it includes all of the knowledge and skills that a person cannot
yet understand or perform on their own, but is capable of learning with guidance. As children
are allowed to stretch their skills and knowledge, often by observing someone who is slightly
more advanced than they are, they are able to progressively extend this zone of proximal
development.

In ABS-CBN’s soap opera entitled: The Blood Sisters launched in 2018, the story
revolved on the lives of triplets who got separated at birth. Erika, a simple meek girl but
feisty and aggressive when provoked; Carrie, a socialite, cool person with calm
personality; and Agatha, a cold-hearted and gold-digger who wants to become rich and
powerful.
How did these three women become terribly different in terms of personality
when they all came in the same set of biological parents?
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 More than his givenness (personality, tendencies, and propensities among others),
one’s social group is believed to be in active participation in the shaping of the self.
The Family played a very significant role in the early stage of socialization. They
instilled in us the ideas of “ought and ought nots” in our limited minds as children which in
turn would affect our behavior as well as our decision making later in life.
The impact of family, for instance, is still deemed as a given in understanding the self.
Aside from the genes, the kind of family born and raised into as well as the resources
available (affective, economic, spiritual) play a vital role in the development of the self. In
becoming a fully realized human being, one enters system of relationships and first of which
is the Family.

Gender is a term that refers to social or cultural distinctions associated with being
woman, man, or neither that may or may not correspond to one’s biological sex. Gender is
one of those loci of the self that is subject to alteration, change, and development.
Sometimes, the society forces people a particular identity based on gender which may limit
one’s expression and orientation.
For example, in the Philippine Setting:

➢ Husbands are expected to provide for the family; and wives are expected to take
care of the kids and do household chores.
➢ Color blue is for boys and color pink is for girls.
These are all social constructions but affects the development of the self. It is
therefore important to five one the leeway to find, express and live his identity.
The social construction of gender is a theory in feminism and sociology about the
manifestation of cultural origins, mechanisms, and corollaries of gender perception and
expression in the context of interpersonal and group social interaction.

Self-construction is a form of cultural activity (Raeff (2006) as cited by Palean et. al,
2018). As a cultural activity, it is important to understand about the concept of cultural
relativism.
Cultural relativism refers to not judging a culture to our own standards of what is right
or wrong, strange or normal. Instead, we should try to understand cultural practices of other
groups in its own cultural context. This relativism should be evident in the construction of self
from both Western and Eastern cultures.

Key Differences of Eastern and Western Thoughts

The Eastern and Western cultures are distinct from each other. The Western culture is
that of individualism while the Eastern culture is more of the collectivism. Individualism
focuses on “I” and collectivism focuses on “we.” Eastern culture entails the participation of
the other members of the society while Western culture tries to find the meaning of life here
and now with self at the center as it is already given and part of the divine.

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 WESTERN THOUGHT
Care Giving Everyone is supposed to take
care of him – or herself and
his or her immediate family
only
EASTERN THOUGHT
Peaple are born into
extended families or clans
which protect them in
exchange for loyalty

Communication Speaking one’s mind is Harmony should always be

healthy maintained

Consciousness “I” consciousness “We” consciousness

Education Purpose of Education is Purpose of education is

learning how to learn learning how to do

Group Identity Right of privacy Stress on belonging

Language Languages in which the word Languages in which the word

“I” is indispensable “I” is avoided

Opinion Personal opinion expected: Opinions and votes are

one person one vote predetermined by in-group

Others Others are classified as Others are classified as in-

individuals group or out-group

Task Orientation Task prevails over Relationship prevails over

relationship task

Transgression Transgression of norms Transgression of norms

leads to guilt feelings leads to shame feelings

The Self as Reflected in the Collectivist Teachings of Confucius

"The identity and self-concept of an individual is
interwoven with the identity and status of his/her community or
culture, sharing its prides as well as its failures." - Confucius

From the teaching of Confucius, he highlighted the

importance of indulging the self with the other members of the
society. This is because the symbiosis of selfhood and
otherness in the Confucian concept of self as a complex
mechanism of spiritual growth (Tu, 1985 as cited by Palean et.
al, 2018). Confucianism therefore is a social philosophy that
delineate the very core of human relationships, with the end
goal of spiritual growth.

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The Five Great Relationships of Confucianism
According to Confucius, the smooth functioning of government and society rested on
five key relationships:
1.Between ruler and the subject;

2. Between father and the son;

3. Between husband and the wife;
4. Between older brother and younger brother; and
5. Between an older friend and a younger friend.
The ruler, for example, is expected to be kind and generous to his subjects, while his
subjects, in return, were expected to be loyal to the ruler. Likewise, fathers were taught to be
kind to their sons, while sons were taught to be obedient and dutiful to their fathers. In
marriage, a husband was expected to be good to his wife, while a wife was supposed to be
submissive to her husband. Elders, whether brothers or friends, were expected to be
considerate towards their juniors, who in turn were expected to be respectful of their elders.

The most important of these relationships, and the one on which all others depended,
was the bond between parents and children. For Confucius, a smoothly functioning family –
one in which children show proper respect for their parents, relatives, and ancestors – was a
model for the Eastern culture particularly the Chinese society. In effect, the nation was like a
gigantic family. Just as a son was expected to be loyal to his father, so a citizen was
expected to be loyal to the ruler. If families were in harmony, society and government would
also function properly.
As an ancient Chinese poem, quoted in the
Confucian book, the Doctrine of the Mean, put it:
When wives and children and their sires
(fathers) are one,
‘Tis like the harp and lute in unison.
When brothers live in concord and at peace,
The strain of harmony shall never cease.
The lamp of happy union lights the home,
And bright days follow when the children
come.
Reverence for one’s ancestors was an
important part of the Confucianism since the dead
were considered just as much a part of the family as
the living. The Chinese were expected to honor their
ancestors by worshipping them at home altars and by remembering them on special family
occasions. The Chinese believed that paying this kind of respect to ancestors would allow
them to rest peacefully in the afterworld and to become kindly spirits. Failing to do so might
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make them demons instead. As Confucius told his followers: “To serve those now dead as if
they were living is the highest achievement of true filial piety (family devotion).”
These five relationships were considered building blocks of social order. This further
ensures the harmony in society and maintaining certain “proper attitude” or the Yi were
expected to adopt in these relationships.
As we ritualize and achieve human relationships, we grow spiritually, according to
Confucius. This self-cultivation includes a complex process within the spirit of filiality,
fellowship, friendship, discipleship and loyalty (Tu, 1985 as cited by Palean et. al, 2018).

Based on the Social Constructionist perspective, the self is a product of the society.
The development of the self is embedded in one’s culture, and the self can generate, alter,
and restore it for his own purpose and benefit. The social behavior of the self indeed can be
explained by the sociological and anthropological perspectives as the self is greatly
influenced by a person’s cultural background, whether the s/he comes from the East or the
West. Hence, culture is an indispensable part of the self. As Geertz (1973) explained,
“Culture is not just an ornament of human existence but the principal basis of its specificity –
an essential condition for it.”

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