INTRODUCTION TO

SELF-UNDERSTANDING
• Understanding oneself is essential to understand behaviors and
beliefs that affects ourselves and others specifically in becoming
effective and successful person in life, work, and relationship.
Moreover, self-understanding
• (1) provides a sense of purpose;
• (2) leads to healthier relationships;
• (3) helps harness your natural strength; and (4) promotes
confidence.
PERSONALITY
• The etymological derivative of personality comes from the word “persona”, the
theatrical masks worn by Romans in Greek and Latin drama. Personality also comes
from the two Latin words “per” and “sonare”, which literally means “to sound
through”.
• personality is that it is a relatively permanent traits and unique characteristics that
give both consistency and individuality to a person’s behavior (Roberts & Mroczek,
2008).
• Personality plays a key role in affecting how people shape their lives. It involves the
complex relationship of people with their environment, how they cope and adjust
through life, and how they respond to demands of physical and social challenges.
• Personality is the overall pattern or integration of a person’s structure, modes of
behavior, attitudes, aptitudes, interests, intellectual abilities, and many other
distinguishable personality traits.
DETERMINANTS OF PERSONALITY
• Environmental Factors of Personality. The surroundings of an individual compose the
environmental factors of personality
• Biological Factors of Personality.
1) hereditary factors or genetic make-up of the person that inherited from their parents. This
describes the tendency of the person to appear and behave the way their parents are;
2) physical features include the overall physical structure of a person: height, weight, color,
sex, beauty and body language
3) brain. The preliminary results from the electrical stimulation of the brain (ESB) research
gives indication that better understanding of human personality and behavior might come from
the study of the brain.
• Situational Factors of Personality. Although these factors do not literally create and
shape up an individual’s personality, situational factors do alter a person’s behavior and
response from time to time.
• Cultural Factors. Culture is traditionally considered as the major determinants of an
individual’s personality.
PERSONALITY TRAITS

The most widely used system of traits is called the Five-Factor

Model. This system includes five broad traits that can be
remembered with the acronym OCEAN: Openness,
Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and
Neuroticism.
DESCRIPTIONS OF PERSONALITY TRAITS
Big 5 Trait Definition

Openness The tendency to appreciate new art, ideas, values,

feelings, and behaviors.

Conscientiousness The tendency to be careful, on-time for

appointments, to follow rules, and to be hard working

Extraversion The tendency to be talkative, sociable, and to enjoy

others; the tendency to have a dominant style.
Agreeableness The tendency to agree and go along with others
rather than to assert one owns opinions and choices.
Neurotism The tendency to be frequently experience negative
emotions such as anger, worry, and sadness, as well
as being interpersonally sensitive.
EXAMPLE BEHAVIORS FOR THOSE SCORING LOW AND
HIGH FOR THE BIG 5 TRAITS
Big 5 Trait Example Behavior for LOW Scorers Example Behavior for HIGH Scorers

Openness Prefers not to be exposed to alternative Enjoys seeing people with new types
moral systems; narrow interest; of haircuts and body piercing; curious;
inartistic; not analytical; down-to-earth imaginative; untraditional
Conscientiousness Prefers spur-of-the-moment action to Never late for a date; organized;
planning; unreliable; hedonistic; hardworking; neat, persevering;
careless; lax punctual; self-disciplined
Extraversion Preferring a quiet evening reading to a Being the life of the party’ active;
loud party; sober; aloof; unenthusiastic optimistic; fun-loving; affectionate
Agreeableness Quickly and confidently asserts own Agrees with other about political
rights; irritable; manipulative; opinions; good-natured; forgiving;
uncooperative; rude gullible; helpful; forgiving
Neurotism Not getting irritated by small Constantly worrying about little things;
annoyances; calm, unemotional; hardy; insecure; hypochondrical; feeling
secure; self-satisfied inadequate
WHO AM I?
Understanding of who you are as a person is called self-concept
and understanding what your motives are when you act is called
self-understanding.

In definition, self-concept is generally thought of as our individual

perceptions of our behavior, abilities, and unique characteristics
For example, beliefs such as "I am a good friend" or "I am a kind
person" are part of an overall self-concept.—a mental picture of
who you are as a person.
ACCORDING TO THE BOOK ESSENTIAL SOCIAL
PSYCHOLOGY BY RICHARD CRISP AND RHIANNON
TURNER:
• The individual self consists of attributes and personality traits that
differentiate us from other individuals. Examples include
introversion or extroversion.
• The relational self is defined by our relationships with significant
others. Examples include siblings, friends, and spouses.
• The collective self reflects our membership in social groups.
Examples include British, Republican, African-American, or gay.
THE SELF ACCORDING TO
PHILOSOPHY
 SOCRATES
• A philosopher from Athens, Greece and said to have the
greatest influence on European thought.
• According to the history he was not able to write any of his teachings
and life’s account instead, he is known from the writings of his student
Plato who became one of the greatest philosophers of his time. Socrates
had a unique style of asking questions called Socratic Method. Socratic
Method or dialectic method involves the search for the correct/proper
definition of a thing.
• Socrates' influence was reflected in his famous statement which he fully
lived by, "the unexamined life is not worth living.“
• Every man is composed of body and soul, Body- imperfect and
impermanent; Soul- perfect and permanent.
 PLATO
• Athenian Philosopher
• Student of Socrates and mentor of Aristotle
• Plato’s real name is Aristocles
• A student of Socrates, who introduced the idea of a three part
soul/self.
a. The Reason enables human to think deeply, make wise choices
and achieve a true understanding of eternal truths. Plato also called this
as divine essence.
b. The physical Appetite is the basic biological needs of human
being such as hunger, thirst, and sexual desire.
c.The spirit or passion is the basic emotions of human being such
as love, anger, ambition, aggressiveness and empathy
 ST. AUGUSTINE
• He is considered as the last of the great ancient philosophers whose
ideas were greatly Platonic. In melding philosophy and religious beliefs
together, Augustine has been characterized as Christianity’s first theologian.
• *According to St. Augustine, the human nature is composed of two realms.
a. God as the source of all reality and truth.
b. The sinfulness of man.

THE ROLE OF LOVE

1. Love of physical objects lead to the sin of greed
2. Love for the other people is not lasting and excessive love for them is the sin of jealousy
3. Love for the self leads to the sin of pride.
4. Love for God is the supreme virtue and through loving god can man find real happiness.
• All things are worthy of love but must be love properly. St. Augustine contends that if the
man loves God first and everything else to lesser degree then all will fall to into its rightful
place.
RENE DESCARTES

• A French philosopher, mathematician, and considered the founder of modern

philosophy.
• Descartes, famous principle the “cogito, ergo sum—“I think, therefore I exist”
established his philosophical views on “true knowledge” and concept of self.
• He explained that in order to gain true knowledge, one must doubt
everything even own existence. Doubting makes someone aware that they are
thinking being thus, they exist.
JOHN LOCKE
• An English philosopher and physician and famous in his concept of “Tabula Rasa”
or Blank Slate that assumes the nurture side of human development.
• The self, according to Locke is consciousness. In his essay entitled On Personal
Identity (from his most famous work, Essay Concerning Human Understanding) he
discussed the reflective analysis of how an individual may experience the self in everyday living. He provided the
following key points:
1. To discover the nature of personal identity, it is important to find out what it means to be a person.
2. A person is a thinking, intelligent being who has the abilities to reason and to reflect.
3. A person is also someone who considers themself to be the same thing in different times and different places.
4. Consciousness as being aware that we are thinking— always accompanies thinking and is an essential part of
the thinking process’
5. Consciousness makes possible our belief that we are same identity in different times and different places.
• States that “ Nothing Exists In The Mind That Was Not First In The Senses ”
• *The bottom line of his theory on self is that self is not tied to any particular body or substance. It only exists in
other times and places because of the memory of those experiences
DAVID HUME
• He was a Scottish philosopher and also an empiricist.
• His claim about self is quite controversial because he assumed that there is no
self! In his essay entitled, “On Personal Identity” (1739) he said that, if we
carefully examine the contents of [our] experience, we find that there are only
two distinct entities, "impressions" and "ideas".
• Impressions are the basic sensations of our experience, the elemental data of
our minds: pain, pleasure, heat, cold, happiness, grief, fear, exhilaration, and so
on.
• On the other hand, ideas are copies of impressions that include thoughts and
images that are built up from our primary impressions through a variety of
relationships, but because they are derivative copies of impressions, they are
once removed from reality
SIGMUND FREUD

• A well-known Australian psychologist and considered as the Father and

Founder of Psychoanalysis. His influence in Psychology and therapy is
dominant and popular in the 20th to 21st century.
• The dualistic view of self by Freud involves the *conscious self and unconscious self.
• According to Freud, there are two kinds of instinct that drive individual behavior – the eros
or the life instinct and the thanatos of the death instinct. The energy of eros is called libido
and includes urges necessary for individual and species survival like thrist, hunger, and sex.in
cases that human behavior is directed towards destruction in the form of aggression and
violence, such are the manifestations of thanatos.
• The three levels of the mind are:
1.Id. This is primarily based on the pleasure principle.
It demands immediate satisfaction and is not
hindered by societal expectations.
2. Ego. The structure that is primarily based on the
reality principle. This mediates between the
impulses of the id and restraints of the
superego.
3. Superego. This is primarily dependent on
learning the difference between right and wrong,
thus it is called moral principle.
GILBERT RYLE
• A British analytical philosopher. He was an important figure in the
field of Linguistic Analysis which focused on the solving of
philosophical puzzles through an analysis of language.
• According to Ryle, the self is best understood as a pattern of behavior, the
tendency or disposition for a person to behave in a certain way in certain
circumstances.
• He opposed the notable ideas of the previous philosophers and even claimed
that those were results of confused conceptual thinking he termed, category
mistake.
• The category mistake happens when we speak about the self as something
independent of the physical body: a purely mental entity existing in time but
not space.
IMMANUEL KANT
• A German Philosopher who made great contribution to the fields of
metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics. Kant is widely regarded as the greatest
philosopher of the modern period.
• Kant maintained that an individual self makes the experience of the world
comprehensible because it is responsible for synthesizing the discreet data of sense
experience into a meaningful whole.
• It is the self that makes consciousness for the person to make sense of everything. It is the
one that help every individual gain insight and knowledge. If the self failed to do this
synthesizing function, there would be a chaotic and insignificant collection of sensations.
• The self is the product of reason, a regulative principle because the self regulates experience
by making unified experience possible and unlike Hume, Kant’s self is not the object of
consciousness, but it makes the consciousness understandable and unique.
PAUL AND PATRICIA CHURCHLAND
• An American philosopher interested in the fields of philosophy of mind,
philosophy of science, cognitive neurobiology, epistemology, and
perception.
• Churchlands’ central argument is that the concepts and theoretical vocabulary
that people use to think about the selves— using such terms as belief, desire,
fear, sensation, pain, joy— actually misrepresent the reality of minds and
selves. He claims that the self is a product of brain activity.
• Patricia Churchland claimed that man’s brain is responsible for the identity
known as self. The biochemical properties of the brain according to this
philosophy of neuroscience is really responsible for man’s thoughts, feelings,
and behavior.
MAURICE MERLEAU-PONTY
• A French philosopher and phenomenologist.
• He took a very different approach to the self and the mind/body
“problem.” According to him, the division between the “mind” and
the “body” is a product of confused thinking. The self is
experienced as a unity in which the mental and physical are
seamlessly woven together. This unity is the primary experience of
selves and begin to doubt it when an individual use their minds to
concoct abstract notions of a separate mind and body.
THANK YOU!!!