SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE

-our concept of who we are is developed as we interact with other people and learn from them.

3 Aspects
1) Symbolic Interactionism
George Herbert Mead
-the study of patterns of communication, interpretation (of certain actions) and
adjustment between individuals.
-mind and the self are the products of communication process

2 Sides of the Self: Me and I (they have a Didactic relationship)

Me: socialized aspect of the individual; represents learned behaviors, attitudes and
expectations of others and of society
I: the present and future of the self; the individual’s identity based on response to the
me.

Mead: The Stages of the Self

1) The Preparatory Stage
-children imitate significant others (parents or grandparents or guardians) to learn
meaning behind symbols, gestures and language
-Self present? NO
-Children imitates action of others
-ex) when adults laugh and smile, child laughs and smiles

2) The Play Stage

-role-taking stage
-where children mentally assume the perspective of another and respond from that
viewpoint
-Self present? DEVELOPING
-child takes role of a single other, as if they were the other
-ex) child first takes role of doctor, then patient

3) The Game Stage

-children are now aware of their position in relationship to the other numerous social
positions in society
-Self present? YES
-child considers roles of 2 or more others
-ex) in game of hide and seek, child takes into account the roles of both hider and
seeker
 2) Looking Glass Self
Charles Horton Cooley
-a person’s self grows out of society’s interpersonal interactions and the perceptions of
others.

3 Main Components
1) We imagine how we must appear to others
2) We imagine how other people judge the appearance that we think we present
3) If we think If our evaluation is favorable, the self-concept is ENHANCED; if not
favorable, self-concept is DIMINISHED
-our self-image is shaped by others, but only through the mediation of our own mind
(other people would suggest about what we should do but it’s up to us to act is it’s what
we do in life)

3) Dramaturgical Model of Self

Erving Goffman
-all the world is a stage
-during our everyday life, we spend most of our lives on the Front Stage, where we get
to deliver our lines and perform
-sometimes, we are allowed to retreat to the Back Stages of life (we don’t have to act,
we can be ourselves, we can also practice and prepare for our return to the front stage)
-everyone is consciously playing a role to give a good performance

ANTHROPOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE
Anthropology
-study of humans, human behavior and societies, past and present
-not just study of how man and society evolved, but in explaining and understanding the holistic
aspects of man’s experiences that makes man human
-personality was considered to be resulting from the internalization of culture (culture is unique
to us and personality may be influenced by these)
-Culture: projection of personality
 1) Social-Cultural
-study how humans in various places live and make sense of the world around them
2) Linguistic
-explore the varied methods of communication people use around the globe
3) Biological/Physical
-how humans adapt to various environments, the causes of disease, early death, and
how humans evolved from animals
4) Archeology
-analyzes human culture by studying things what people have, particularly from the past

People Involved:
1) Marcel Mauss
-person as cultural category/cultural model
(kasi tao ang nagpapakita ng kultura and they make it rich)
-person is a self-conscious agent that was constituted socially and psychologically

2) Brian Morris
-the self is not an entity but a PROCESS that orchestrates an individual’s personal experience
as a result of which he or she becomes self-aware and self-reflective about her or his place in
the surrounding world
Concept of Self: an individual’s mental representation of their own person
Concept of Other: mental representation of other persons
The most crucial form of interaction and exchange takes place between the SELF AND THEIR
CULTURAL ENVIRONMENT as mediated in social practices
(crucial and interaction bet self and cultural envi kasi it’s where we are brought up; culture of
place would be passed to us from gen-to-gen; social practices that they’re doing, we do it too.)

3) Cognitive Anthropologists
-refer to cognitive schemata and cultural models that are shared by members of a society and
internalized into the self
-people have no choices but to accommodate diverging cultural identifications within a relatively
stable and coherent self. (uso na rin kasi ngayon intercultural marriages and globalization)

4) Leon Festinger
Cognitive Dissonance
-tension in our mind
1. cognition conflict
2. behavior conflicts with attitudes or beliefs
3. how to reduce tension/dissonance in our self?
Reject belief
Change the behavior
Deny the evidence
Rationalize (reason out)
Ex) Smoker says that smoking is not fatal but experts say otherwise through data. There
are 2 beliefs here. Either smoker follows his belief or the doctors’. They can do any of
the 4 options above.
-people attempt to preserve a consistent and stable sense of self that’s why we reject beliefs or
change behavior, etc.

5) Katherine Ewing
The Illusion of Wholeness
-individual selves continuously modify themselves into new selves as response to internal and
external stimuli
-people change as we grow older or as response to change; there is no holistic self
-the experience of personal continuity and wholeness by self is illusory