UNDERSTANDING THE SELF

PHILOSOPHERS

 Pre-Socratics

 Thales, Parmenides, Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Empedocles

Concerned of what the world is really made up of. Explained the changes they observed around them.

 Homer and Hesiod

Nature of change

and the unity of the world amidst its diversity

Socrates

- The first philosopher engaged in systematic questioning of self,

- bearer of truth and wisdom during his time.

- He thought that the worst thing happen to anyone is to live but die inside.

- A man is composed of body and soul.

 Plato

 Three component of the soul:

 rational soul- reasoning and intellectual

 spirited soul- emotion

 appetitive soul- desires and needs

 Augustine

 Introduce the newfound doctrine of Christianity

 Believed that a man is a bifurcated nature,

 body is bound to die on earth but soul will live with God

 Thomas Aquinas

 A man is composed of two parts:

 Matter- common stuff that makes up everything in the universe

 Form- essence of substance or thing

 Soul animates the body which makes us human.

 Rene Descartes

 Father of modern philosophy

  The Meditations of First Philosophy, a person having body and mind

 Existence of self is the only thing a person couldn’t doubt

 Cogito ergo sum (I think therefore I exist)

 David Hume

 The man learns only through senses and experiences.

 The self is a collection or combination of different experiences and impressions

 Empiricism- is the school of thought that espouses the idea that knowledge can only be
possible if it is sensed and experiencing

Impressions and idea

Imannuel Kant

-organizing principle regulates the relationship of all the impression

-apparatus of mind are ideas that cannot find in the world.

-you cannot organize other selves without knowing your own existence

-self does not define the personality but also the seat of knowledge acquisition for all human being.

 Gilbert Ryle

 What important is the behaviour's a person manifest day to day

 Self is not an entity one can locate analyse but simply the convenient name that people
use to refer to all the behaviour's that people make.

 Merleau-Ponty

 Mind and body are so intertwined that cannot be separated from one another.

 Body is the opening towards the existence to the world.

 The body, thoughts, emotion and experiences are all one.

Lesson 2 The Self, Society and Culture

What is the Self?

Contemporary literature, and even common sense , is commonly defined by the following
characteristics;

Separate

 It is meant that the self is distinct from other selves

 The self is always unique and has its own identity

 One cannot be another person

Self-contained and Independent

Itself it can exist

Its distinctness allows it to be self-contained with its own thoughts, characteristics, and volition.

It does not require any other self for it to exist

Consistency

It has a personality that is enduring and therefore can be expected to persist for quite some time

Allow it to be studied, described, and measured

Particular self s trait, characteristics and tendencies and potentials are more or less the same

Self is unitary

 It is the center of all experiences and thought that run through a certain person

 Like the chief command post in an individual where all processes, emotions and thoughts
converge

 Self is private

each person sorts out information, feelings and emotions and thought processes within the self.

it is isolated from external word. It lives within its own world

 Social Constructionist's

 argue for merged view of the person and their social context where the boundaries of one
cannot be separated from the boundaries of the other (Stevens 1996).

 Self should not be seen as a static entity that stays constant through and through , rather the
self has to be seen as something that is unceasing flux, in a constant struggle with external
reality and is malleable in its dealings with society .

 The self is always in participation with social life and its identity subjected to influences here and
there.

 Self is truly multifaceted

 Ourselves play a different roles , act in different ways depending on our circumstances .

The Self and Culture

 Marcel Mauss

 Every self has two faces: personne and moi

 Moi- refers to a persons sense of who he is, his body, and his basic identity, his biological
givenness
  Personne- composed of social concepts of what it means to be who he is

 -much to do with what it means to live in a particular institution, a particular family, a particular
religion, a particular nationality, and how to behave given expectations and influences form
others

The self and the Development of the Social World

 Language as both a publicity shared and privately utilized symbol system in the site where the
individual and the social make and remake each other (Schwartz,White and Lutz 1993)

 Mead and Vygotsky

- human persons develop is with the use of language acquisition and interaction with others

-the way that we process information is normally a form of an internal dialogue in our head

 They both treat the human mind as something that is made constituted through language as
experienced in the external world as encountered in a dialogs with others.

Self in Families

- human learn the way of living and therefore their selfhood by being in a family

- It is what a family initiates a person to become that serves as the basis for this person’s progress

 Without family, biologically and sociologically , a person may not even survive or become a
human person

Gender and the Self

 Our gender partly determines how we see ourselves in the world

 Has to be personally discovered and asserted and not dictated by culture and the society

Lesson 3:
The Self as Cognitive Construct

• The Johari Window is the psychological model developed by Joseph Luft and Harrington
Ingham, that talks about the relationship and mutual understanding between the group
members. ... Hidden Self: This quadrant of the Johari window shows the state of an individual
known to him but not known to the others. The Johari window is a technique that helps people
better understand their relationship with themselves and others.

Abstraction

• Self is the sense of personal identity and of who

we are as individuals (Jhangiani and Tarry 2014)

 • William James (1890) was one of the earliest psychologist to study the self and conceptualized
the self as having two aspects- the I and me. The “I” is the thinking, acting, and feeling self
(Gleitman, Gross and Reisberg 2011; hogg and vaughan 2010)

• The me on the other hand, is the physical characteristics as well as psychological capabilities
that makes who you are

Carl Rogers

• Carl Rogers (1959) theory of personality also used the same terms the “I” as the one who acts

• and decides while me is what you think or feel about yourself as an object

Self-identity

• The self is an individual person as the object of his or her own reflective consciousness.

• Identity is composed of personal characteristics, social roles, and responsibilities, as well as

affiliations that define who one is.

Self Concept?

• Is what basically comes to your mind when you are about who you are

• the recognition of one's potential and qualities as an individual, especially in relation to social
context.

• Self, identity and Self-concept are not fixed in one time frame

• For example, when you are asked about who you are, you can say “I was a varsity player in 5 th
Grade which pertains to the past,

• “ a college student” which may be the present, and a “future politician” which is the future

• They are not fixed for life nor are they ever-changing at every moment.
• Think of a malleable metal, strong and hard but can be bent and molded into other shapes.
Think about water. It can take any shape of the container, but at its core, it is still the same
element.

• Carl Roger captured this idea in his concept of self-schema of our organized system or collection
of knowledge about who we are.

• The schema is not limited to example above. It may also include interest, work, course, age,
name and physical characteristics among others. As you grow and adapt to the changes around
you, they also change. But they are not passive receivers. They actively shape and affect how
you see, think and feel about things

• For example, when someone states your first name even if they are not talking about you, your
attention is drawn to them. If you have the provincial language and you hear someone using it, it
catches your attention. If you consider yourself a book-lover, a bookstore may always entice you
out of all the other stores in a mall.

• Theories generally see the self and identity as mental contracts, created and recreated in memory.
Current researches point to the frontal lobe of the brain as
the specific area in the brain associated with the processes
concerning the self.

• Several psychologist, especially during the fields earlier development, followed this trend of
thought, looking deeper into the mind of the person to
theorize about the self, identity, self concept and in turn ones personality. The influential of
them is Sigmund Freud. Basically, Freud saw the self, its mental processes, and ones behaviour
as the results of the interaction between the Id, the Ego, and the Superego

• Freud saw the self, its mental processes, and ones behaviour as the results of the interaction
between the Id, the Ego, and the Superego

• Id- desires and needs/ the instinctual, biological component

• Superego- the social component of our personality, and conscience

• Ego- balance between the Id and the Super ego, reality, psychological component of the
personality that is represented by our conscious decision-making process.
 • This is not Nature vs. nurture

• But instead a nature-and-nurture perspective

Under the theory of symbolic interactionism, G.H. Mead (1934) argued that the self is created and
developed through human interaction.

Symbolic interactionism is a micro-level theory that focuses on the relationships among individuals
within a society. Communication—the exchange of meaning through language and symbols—is believed
to be the way in which people make sense of their social worlds.

reasons why self and identity are social products

• 1. We do not create ourselves out of nothing.

• 2. Whether we like to admit it or not, We actually need others to affirm and reinforce who we
think we are

• 3. What We think is important to us may also have been influenced by what is important in our
social or historical context.

• Social interaction and group affiliation, therefore are vital factors in creating our self concept
especially in the aspect of providing us with our social identity or our perception of who we are
based on our membership to certain groups

• When we are aware of our self concept; this is also called self-awareness

What is Self-Esteem?

“The way we feel about ourselves”

Carver and Scheier (1981) – identified two types of self that we can be aware of

1. The private self or your internal standards and private thoughts and feelings, and

2. the public self or your public image commonly geared toward having a good presentation of
yourself to others

Self awareness also presents us with at least three other self-schema:

Actual- self is who you are at the moment

Ideal- self is who like to be

Ought- self is who you think you should be

• Student interested in basketball but is also academically challenged in most of your subject.

• Your ideal self -might be to practice and more play with the varsity team

• Ought- to pass your subjects as a responsible student.

• One has to find a solution to such discrepancies to avoid agitation, dejection, or other negative
emotions. In some instances, all three may be in line with one another.

• Self-awareness may be positive or negative depending on the circumstance's and our next
course of action.

• Self-awareness can keep you from doing something dangerous; it can help remind you that is an
exam tomorrow in one of your subjects when you are about to spend time playing computer
games with your cousins, among others. In instances, self-awareness can be too much that we
are concerned about being observed and criticized by others. Also known as self-consciousness

• At other times, especially with large crowds, we may experience DE individuation or the loss of
individual self awareness and individual accountability in groups

• A lot of people will attune themselves with the emotions of their group and because the large
crowd also provides some kind of anonymity, we may lessen our self-control and act in ways
that we will not do when we are alone. A common example is a mass demonstration erupting
into a riot

• Our group identity and self-awareness also has a great impact on our self-esteem.

• It is defined as our own positive or negative perception or evaluation of ourselves

• Affects our self-esteem is through Social comparison.

• According to the social comparison theory we learn about ourselves, the appropriateness of our
behaviours, as well as our social status by comparing aspects of ourselves with other people

• Downward social comparison- we create a positive self-concept by comparing ourselves with

those who are worse off than us, by having the advantage, we can raise our self-esteem.
• Upward social comparison- which is comparing ourselves with those who are better off than us,
while it can be a form of motivation for some, a lot who do this actually felt lower-self-esteem as
they highlight more of their weakness or inequities.

• Social comparison also entails what is called self-evaluation maintenance theory, which states
that we can feel threatened when someone out-performs us, especially when that person is
close to us.

• In this case we usually act In three ways

• First, we distance ourselves from that person or redefine our relationship with them

• Some will result to the silent treatment, change of friends, while some may redefine by being
closer to that person, hoping that some association may give him a certain kind of
acknowledgement also
• Second, we may also also reconsider the importance of the aspect or skill in which you were
outperformed.

• Lastly-we my also strengthen our resolve to improve that certain aspect of ourselves

• Achieving your goal through hard work may increase your self-esteem.

• Narcissism- is a trait characterized by overly high self-esteem, self-admiration, and self-

centeredness. They are often charismatic, because of how they take care of their image

• Taking care of that image includes their interpersonal relationship thus they will try to look for
better patterns, better acquaintances, as well as people who will appreciate them a lot. This
makes them a bad romantic partner or friend since they engage in relationship only to serve
themselves

• Rosenberg scale tests and measurements for self-esteem

• Try to be honest and objective about what you feel and see about yourself

• The only source of a persons healthy perspective of herself

• People with high self-esteem are commonly described as outgoing, adventurous, and adaptable
in a lot of situations. They are also dismiss other activities that do not conform to their self-
concept or boost their self-esteem.

• They may also be bullies and experiment on abusive behaviors with drugs, alcohol and sex