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 have no single definition since different personality theories have different views on
how to define it. However, the commonly accepted definition of 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.
Personality is the conglomeration of the following components: physical self, intelligence, character
traits, attitudes, habits, interest, personal discipline, moral values, principles and philosophies of life.

Determinants of Personality

Personality refers to the total person in his/her overt and covert behavior. The determinants of factors
of personality are as follows:

• Environmental Factors of Personality. The surroundings of an individual compose the

environmental factors of personality. This includes the neighborhood a person lives in, his school,
college, university and workplace. Moreover, it also counts the social circle the individual has. Friends,
parents, colleagues, co-workers and bosses, everybody plays a role as the determinants of personality.

• Biological Factors of Personality. This further includes:

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, etc. Most of the physical structures change from time to time, and so does
the personality. With exercises, cosmetics and surgeries, many physical features are changed, and
therefore, the personality of the individual also evolves; and

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. The situational factors can be commonly observed when a person behaves contrastingly and
exhibits different traits and characteristics.

• Cultural Factors. Culture is traditionally considered as the major determinants of an individual’s

personality. The culture largely determinants what a person is and what a person will learn. The culture
within a person is brought up, is very important determinant of behavior of a person. Culture is complex
of these belief, values, and techniques for dealing with the environment which are shared among
contemporaries and transmitted by one generation to the next.

Personality Traits

Personality traits reflect people’s characteristic patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.
Personality traits imply consistency and stability—someone who scores high on a specific trait like
Extraversion is expected to be sociable in different situations and over time. Thus, trait psychology rests
on the idea that people differ from one another in terms of where they stand on a set of basic trait
dimensions that persist over time and across situations.

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. Each of the major traits from the Big Five can be divided into facets to
give a more fine-grained analysis of someone's personality. In addition, some trait theorists argue that
there are other traits that cannot be completely captured by the Five-Factor Model. Critics of the trait
concept argue that people do not act consistently from one situation to the next and that people are
very influenced by situational forces. Thus, one major debate in the field concerns the relative power of
people’s traits versus the situations in which they find themselves as predictors of their behavior.

The Five-Factor Model of Personality

Research that used the lexical approach showed that many of the personality descriptors found in the
dictionary do indeed overlap. In other words, many of the words that we use to describe people are
synonyms. Thus, if we want to know what a person is like, we do not necessarily need to ask how
sociable they are, how friendly they are, and how gregarious they are. Instead, because sociable people
tend to be friendly and gregarious, we can summarize this personality dimension with a single term.
Someone who is sociable, friendly, and gregarious would typically be described as an “Extravert.” Once
we know she is an extravert, we can assume that she is sociable, friendly, and gregarious.

The most widely accepted system to emerge from this approach was “The Big Five” or “Five- Factor
Model” (Goldberg, 1990; McCrae & John, 1992; McCrae & Costa, 1987). The Big Five comprises five
major traits shown in the Figure 2 below. A way to remember these five is with the acronym OCEAN (O
is for Openness; C is for Conscientiousness; E is for Extraversion; A is for Agreeableness; N is for
Neuroticism). The table below provides descriptions of people who would score high and low on each of
these traits.
Table 1. 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 itnerpersonally sensitive.

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—a mental picture of who you are as a person. For example, beliefs such as "I
am a good friend" or "I am a kind person" are part of an overall self-concept.

Self-concept tends to be more malleable when people are younger and still going through the process of
self-discovery and identity formation. As people age, self-perceptions become much more detailed and
organized as people form a better idea of who they are and what is important to them.

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.

At its most basic, self-concept is a collection of beliefs one holds about oneself and the responses of
others. It embodies the answer to the question "Who am I
Philosophy

Philosophy is defined as the study of knowledge or wisdom from its Latin roots, philo (love) and sophia
(wisdom). This field is also considered as “The Queen of All Sciences” because every scientific discipline
has philosophical foundations.

Various thinkers for centuries tried to explain the natural causes of everything that exist specifically the
inquiry on the self preoccupied these philosophers in the history. The Greek philosophers were the ones
who seriously questioned myths and moved away from them in attempting to understand reality by
exercising the art of questioning that satisfies their curiosity, including the questions about self. The
following lecture will present the different philosophical perspectives and views about self.

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. In this method, Socrates did not lecture, he instead would ask questions and engage the person in
a discussion. He would begin by acting as if he did not know anything and would get the other person to
clarify their ideas and resolve logical inconsistencies (Price, 2000).

• The foundation of Socrates philosophy was the Delphic Oracle’s that command to “Know
Thyself”. Here, Socrates would like to emphasize that knowing or understanding oneself should be more
than the physical self, or the body.

• According to Socrates, self is dichotomous which means composed of two things: The physical
realm or the one that is changeable, temporal, and imperfect. The best example of the physical realm is
the physical world. The physical world is consisting of anything we sense – see, smell, feel, hear, and
taste. It is always changing and deteriorating. The ideal realm is the one that is imperfect and
unchanging, eternal, and immortal. This includes the intellectual essences of the universe like the
concept of beauty, truth, and goodness. Moreover, the ideal realm is also present in the physical world.
One may define someone as beautiful or truthful, but their definition is limited and imperfect for it is
always relative and subjective. It is only the ideal forms themselves that are perfect, unchanging, and
eternal.

• For Socrates, a human is composed of body and soul, the first belongs to the physical realm
because it changed, it is imperfect, and it dies, and the latter belongs to ideal realm for it survives the
death. Socrates also used the term soul to identify self.

• The self, according to Socrates is the immortal and unified entity that is consistent over time.
For example, a human being remains the same person during their childhood to adulthood given the
fact that they undergone developmental changes throughout their lifespan.
Plato

• A student of Socrates, who introduced the idea of a three- part soul/self that is composed of
reason, physical appetite and spirit or passion.

o 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.

o The physical Appetite is the basic biological needs of human being such as hunger, thirst, and
sexual desire.

o And the spirit or passion is the basic emotions of human being such as love, anger, ambition,
aggressiveness and empathy.

• These three elements of the self works in every individual inconsistently. According to Plato, it is
always the responsibility of the reason to organize, control, and reestablish harmonious

relationship between these three elements.

• Plato also illustrated his view of the soul/self in “Phaedrus” in his metaphor: the soul is like a
winged chariot drawn by two powerful horses: a white horse, representing Spirit, and a black horse,
embodying appetite. The charioteer is reason, whose task is to guide the chariot to the eternal realm by
controlling the two independent-minded horses. Those charioteers who are successful in setting a true
course and ensuring that the two steeds work together in harmonious unity achieve true wisdom and
banquet with the gods. However, those charioteers who are unable to control their horses and keep
their chariot on track are destined to experience personal, intellectual, and spiritual failure.

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.

• Like Plato, Augustine believed that the physical body is different from the immortal soul. Early in
his philosophical development he described body as “snare” or “cage” of the soul and said that the body
is a “slave” of the soul he even characterized that “the soul makes war with the body”. Later on he came
to view the body as “spouse” of the soul, with both attached to one another by a “natural appetite.” He
concluded, “That the body is united with the soul, so that man may be entire and complete, is a fact we
recognize on the evidence of our own nature.”
• According to St. Augustine, the human nature is composed of two realms:

1. God as the source of all reality and truth. Through mystical experience, man is capable of
knowing eternal truths. This is made possible through the existence of the one eternal truth which is
God. He further added that without God as the source of all truth, man could never understand eternal
truth. This relationship with God means that those who know most about God will come closest to
understanding the true nature of the world.

2. The sinfulness of man. The cause of sin or evil is an act of mans’ freewill. Moral goodness can
only be achieved through the grace of God.

• He also stated that real happiness can only be found in God. For God is love and he created
humans for them to also love. Problems arise because of the objects humans choose to love. Disordered
love results when man loves the wrong things which he believes will give him happiness. Furthermore,
he said that if man loves God first and everything else to a lesser degree, then all will fall 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. The essence of
existing as a human identity is the possibility of being aware of our selves: being self-conscious in this
way is integral to having a personal identity. Conversely, it would be impossible to be self-conscious if
we did not have a personal identity of which to be conscious. In other words, the essence of self is being
a thinking thing.

• The self is a dynamic entity that engages in metal operations – thinking, reasoning, and
perceiving processes. In addition to this, self-identity is dependent on the awareness in engaging with
those mental operations.

• He declared that the essential self or the self as the thinking entity is radically different from the
physical body. The thinking self or soul is a non-material, immortal, conscious being, independent of the
physical laws of the universe while the physical body is a material, mortal, non-thinking entity, fully
governed by the physical laws of nature.

• He also maintained that the soul and the body are independent of one another and each can
exist and function without the other. In cases in which people are sleeping or comatose, their bodies
continue to function even though their minds are not thinking, much like the mechanisms of a clock.
• He identified the physical self as part of nature, governed by the physical laws of the universe,
and available to scientific analysis and experimentation, and the conscious self (mind, soul) is a part of
the spiritual realm, independent of the physical laws of the universe, governed only by the laws of
reason and God’s will. And because it exists outside of the natural world of cause-and-effect, the
conscious self is able to exercise free will in the choices it makes.

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 the same identity in different times and
different places.

• Although Locke and Descartes believed that a person or the self is a thinking intelligent being
who has the abilities to reflect and to reason, Locke was not convinced with the assumptions of Plato,
St. Augustine and Descartes that the individual self necessarily exists in a single soul or substance. For
Locke, personal identity and the soul or substance in which the personal identity is situated are two very
different things. 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.

• Hume considered that the self does not exist because all of the experiences that a person may
have are just perceptions and this includes the perception of self. None of these perceptions resemble
a unified and permanent self-identity that exists over time.

• He further added that there are instances that an individual is limited in experiencing their
perception like in sleeping. Similarly, when someone died all empirical senses end and according to him,
it makes no sense to believe that self exists in other forms. As an empiricist, Hume provide an honest
description and analysis of his own experience, within which there is no self to be found.

• Hume explained that the self that is being experienced by an individual is nothing but a kind of
fictional self. Human created an imaginary creature which is not real. “Fictional self” is created to unify
the mental events and introduce order into an individual lives, but this “self” has no real existence.

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.

• The conscious self is governed by reality principle. Here, the self is rational, practical, and
appropriate to the social environment. The conscious self has the task of controlling the constant
pressures of the unconscious self, as its primitive impulses continually seek for immediate discharge.

• The unconscious self is governed by pleasure principle. It is the self that is aggressive,
destructive, unrealistic and instinctual. Both of Freud’s self needs immediate gratification and reduction
of tensions to optimal levels and the goal of every individual is to make unconscious conscious.

• Freud proposed how mind works, he called this as provinces or structures of the mind. By
illustrating the tip of the iceberg which according to him represents conscious awareness which
characterizes the person in dealing with the external world. The observable behavior, however, is
further controlled by the workings of the subconscious/unconscious mind.

• Subconscious serves as the repository of past experiences, repressed memories, fantasies, and
urges. 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. Morality of actions is largely dependent on childhood upbringing particularly
on rewards and punishments.

• 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
behaior is directed towards destruction in the form of aggression and violence, such are the
manifestations of thanatos.

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.

• Additionally, 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.
• Transcendental apperception happens when people do not experience self directly, instead as a
unity of all impressions that are organized by the mind through perceptions. Kant concluded that all
objects of knowledge, which includes the self, are phenomenal. That the true nature of things is
altogether unknown and unknowable (Price, 2000).

• For Kant, the kingdom of God is within man. God is manifested in people’s lives therefore it is
man’s duty to move towards perfection. Kant emphasized that people should always see duty as a divine
command (Price, 2000).

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

• The behavior of the self can be attributed to the neuropharmacological states, the neural
activity in specialized anatomical areas.

• Neurophilosopy was coined by Patricia Churchland, the modern scientific inquiry looks into the
application of neurology to age-old problems in philosophy. The philosophy of neuroscience is the study
of the philosophy of science, neuroscience, and psychology. It aims to explore the relevance of
neurolinguistic experiments/studies to the philosophy of the mind.

• 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.

• Paul Churchland is one of the many philosophers and psychologists that viewed the self from a
materialistic point of view, contending that in the final analysis mental states are identical with,
reducible to, or explainable in terms of physical brain states. This assumption was made due to the
physiological processes of the body that directly affecting the mental state of the person. The advent of
sophisticated technology and scientific research gives hope to understand the connection between the
physical body and the mind/brain relationship that integrated in the self.

• Being an eliminative materialist, he believes that there is a need to develop a new vocabulary
and conceptual framework that is grounded in neuroscience. This new framework will be a more
accurate reflection of the human mind and self.
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.

• Developed the concept of self-subject and contended that perceptions occur existentially. Thus,
the consciousness, the world, and the human body are all interconnected as they mutually perceive the
world.

• According to him, the world and the sense of self are emergent phenomena in the ongoing
process of man’s becoming.

• Phenomenology provides a direct description of the human experience which serves to guide
man’s conscious actions. He further added that, the world is a field of perception, and human
consciousness assigns meaning to the world. Thus man cannot separate himself from his perceptions of
the world.

• Perception is not purely the result of sensations nor it is purely interpretations. Rather
consciousness is a process that includes sensing as well as interpreting/reasoning.
Sociology and Anthropology

Sociology and Anthropology are two interrelated disciplines that contributes to the understanding of
self. Sociology presents the self as a product of modern society. It is the science that studies the
development, structure, interaction, and collective behavior of human being. On the other hand,
Anthropology is the study of humanity. This broad field takes an interdisciplinary approach to looking at
human culture, both past and present. The following set of sociologists and anthropologist offered their
views about self.

George Herbert Mead and the Social Self

• Mead is an American philosopher, sociologist, and psychologist. He is regarded as one of the

founders of social psychology and the American sociological tradition in general. Mead is well-known for
his theory of self.

• He postulated that, the self represents the sum total of people’s conscious perception of their
identity as distinct from others. Mead argued that the self like the mind is social emergent. This means
that individual selves are the products of social interaction and not logical or biological in nature.

• He claimed that the self is something which undergoes development because it is not present
instantly at birth. The self arises in the process of social experience and activity as a result of their
relations to the said process as a whole and to other individuals within that process. In other words, one
cannot experience their self alone, they need other people to experience their self.

• The social emergence of self is developed due to the three forms of inter-subjective activity, the
language, play, and the game.

• He proposed the stages of self formation:

1. Preparatory Stage. Mead believed that the self did not exist at birth. Instead, the self develops
over time. Its development is dependent on social interaction and social experience. At this stage,
children’s behaviors are primarily based on imitation. It was observed that children imitate the
behaviors of those around them. At this stage, knowing and understanding the symbols are important
for this will constitute their way of communicating with others throughout their lives.

2. The Play Stage. Skills at knowing and understanding the symbols of communication is important
for this constitutes the basis of socialization. Through communication, social relationship are formed.
Now children begin to role play and pretend to be other people. Role-taking in the play stage is the
process of mentally assuming the process of another person to see how this person might behave or
respond in a given situation (Schefer, 2012). The play stage is significant in the development of the self.
It is at this stage where child widens his perspective and realizes that he is not alone and that there are
others around him whose presence he has to consider.

3. The Game Stage. Here, the child is about eight or nine years of age and now does more than
just role-take. The child begins to consider several tasks and various types of relationships
simultaneously. Through the learnings that were gained in stage two, the child now begins to see not
only his own perspective but at the same time the perspective of others. In this final stage of self
development, the child now has the ability to respond not just to one but several members of his social
environment.

• Generalized other the person realizes that people in society have cultural norms, beliefs and
values which are incorporated into each self. This realization forms basis of how the person evaluate
themselves.

• The self, according to Mead is not merely a passive reflection of the generalized other. The
responses of the individual to the social world are also active, it means that a person decides what they
will do in reference to the attitude of others but not mechanically determined by such attitudinal
structures. Here, Mead identified the two phases of self:

1. the phase which reflects the attitude of the generalized other or the “me”; and

2. the phase that responds to the attitude of generalized other or the “I”.

• In Mead’s words, the "me" is the social self, and the "I" is a response to the "me". Mead defines
the "me" as "a conventional, habitual individual and the “I” as the “novel reply” of the individual to the
generalized other.

• Generally, Meads theory sees the self as a perspective that comes out of interactions, and he
sees the meanings of symbols, social objects, and the self as emerging from negotiated interactions.

The Self as a product of modern society among other constructions Georg Simmel

• Simmel was a German sociologist, philosopher, and critic. He was intensely interested in the
ways in which modern, objective culture impacts the individual’s subjective experiences.

• In contrast to Mead, Simmel proposed that there is something called human nature that is
innate to the individual. This human nature is intrinsic to the individual like the natural inclination to
religious impulse or the gender differences. He also added that most of our social interactions are
individual motivations.

• Simmel as a social thinker made a distinction between subjective and objective culture. The
individual or subjective culture refers to the ability to embrace, use, and feel culture.

• Objective culture is made up of elements that become separated from the individual or group’s
control and identified as separate objects.

• There are interrelated forces in modern society that tend to increase objective culture according
to Simmel. These are urbanizations, money, and the configuration of one’s social network.

• Urbanization is the process that moves people from country to city living. This result to the
concentration of population in one place brought about by industrialization. This paved way to the
organization of labor or increased division of labor, which demands specializations wherein this creates
more objective culture.
• Simmel also stressed that the consumption of products has an individuating and trivializing
effect because this enables the person to create self out of things. By consumption, an individual able to
purchase things that can easily personalized or express the self. People used commodities to create self-
concept and self-image. Simmel also said that products used in the modernity to express and produced
the self is also changing. It becomes more and more separated from subjectivity (subjective culture) due
to division of labor and market economy. Many products are easily replaced, subjected to the dynamics
of fashion and diversification of markets which leads to inappropriate sign use.

• Money creates a universal value system wherein every commodity can be understood. Money
also increases individual freedom by pursuing diverse activities and by increasing the options for self-
expression. Money also makes the individual to be less attached to the commodities because the
individual tends to understand and experience their possession less in terms of their intrinsic qualities
and more of their objective and abstract worth. Additionally, money also discouraged intimate ties with
people. Money comes to stand in the place of almost everything – and this includes relationship! Money
further discourages intimate ties by encouraging a culture of calculation.

• Because of urbanization, Simmel observed that social networks also changed. Group affiliations
in urban is definitely different from rural settings wherein the relationship are strongly influenced by
family. An individual tends to seek membership to the same group which makes the family as basic
socialization structure. This natural inclination to join groups is called by Simmel as organic motivation
and the grouping is called primary group. This group is based on ties of affection and personal loyalty
endure over long periods of time, and involve multiple aspects of a person’s life.

• On the other hand, in the modern urban settings, group membership is due to rational
motivation or membership due to freedom of choice. This characterized the secondary group which is
goal and utilitarian oriented, with a narrow range of activities, over limited time spans. As a result, it is
more likely that an individual will develop unique personalities. Moreover, Simmel said that a complex
web of group affiliations produces role conflicts and blasé attitude. Role conflict is a situation that
demands a person of two or more roles that clash with one another. Blasé attitude is an attitude of
absolute boredom and lack of concern. This is the inability or limited ability to provide emotional
investment to other people.

The Self and Person in the Contemporary Anthropology

• The four subfields of anthropology – Archeology, Biological Anthropology, Linguistics, and

Cultural Anthropology, suggest that human beings are similar and different in varying ways and
tendencies. For example, people have the same need for food and water, but they have different means
on how to satisfy them. These similarities and differences make life so interesting. As one learn
facts/information that make them similar to the other, they will also discover that they have different
characteristics the define them. This knowledge aims to highlight the uniqueness of each person and
making them value life and existence even more. The subfields of Anthropology are as follows:

o Archeology. Focus on the study of the past and how it may have contributed to the present
ways of how people conduct their daily lives. Archeologists have so far discovered the unique ways in
which human beings adapted to the changes in their environment in order for them to survive. Among
their discoveries around the world is the species, homo sapiens did not become extinct because of their
ability to think, use tools and learn from experience. In relating to the contemporary society, people still
aim for survival, for their basic needs to be fulfilled and to live legacy to their society.

o Biological Anthropology. Focus on how the human body adapts to the different earth
environments. Among the activities of Anthropologists are identification of probable causes of diseases,
physical mutation, and death, evolution, and comparison of dead and living primates. They are
interested in explaining how the biological characteristics of human being affects their way of living.
Accordingly, human beings at present still share the same biological strengths and vulnerabilities. Like
eating balanced nutrients and minerals that are beneficial to all human beings while being exposed to a
virus in a pandemic might cause negative implications to many.

o Linguistic Anthropology. Focused on using language as means to discover a group’s manner of

social interaction and their worldview. Anthropologists in this field want to discover how language is
used to create and share meanings, to form ideas and concepts and to promote social change.
Furthermore, they also study how language and modes of communication changes over time.

o Cultural Anthropology. Focused in knowing what makes one group’s manner of living forms an
essential part of the member’s personal and societal identity. This encompasses the principles of Theory
of Cultural Determinism which suggests that the human nature is determined by the kind of culture he is
born and grew up in. Cultural diversities are manifested in different ways and different levels of dept.
The following are the ways in which culture may manifest itself in people:

Symbols. These are the words, gestures, pictures or objects that have recognized or accepted
meaning in a particular culture. Example: colors have similar meaning across all cultures.

Heroes. These are persons from the past or present who have characteristics that are important
in culture. They may be real of work of fictions. Example: Fiction – Thor, Captain America; Real – Jose
Rizal, Apolinario Mabini.

Rituals. These are activities participated by a group of people for the fulfilment of desired
objectives and are concerned to be socially essential. Example: Wedding, fiesta, Christmas celebration,
graduation, etc.

Values. These are considered to be the core of every culture. These are unconscious, neither
discuss or observed, and can only be inferred from the way people act and react to situations. Example:
hospitality, respect for elders etc.

• The field of Anthropology offers another way by which a person can view themselves. As self is
formed or determined by the past and present condition, by biological characteristics, the
communication and language use, and the lifestyle we choose to live.
The Self Embedded in the Culture Clifford Geertz

• Clifford Geertz was an Anthropology Professor at the University of Chicago. He studied different
cultures and explored on the conception of the self in his writings entitled, “The Impact of the Concept
of Culture on the Concept of Man” (1966) in his fieldwork at Java, Bali and Morrocco.

• The analysis of Geertz (1966) in his cultural study about the description of self in Bali is that the
Balinese person is extremely concerned not to present anything individual (distinguishing him or her
from others) in social life but to enact exclusively a culturally prescribed role or mask. In one instance,
Geertz (1973) gave an example of the stage fright that pervades persons in Bali because they must not
be publicly recognizable as individual selves and actors points precisely to the fact that agency or an
ability to act in one’s own account is an integral ability of human beings—an ability which continually
threatens the culturally established norm of nonindividuality

Psychology

• The cognitive aspect of the self is known as self-concept. Self-concept is defined as self-
knowledge, a cognitive structure that includes beliefs about personality traits, physical characteristics,
abilities, values, goals, and roles, as well as the knowledge that an individual exist as individuals. As
humans grow and develop, self-concept becomes abstract and more complex.

• According to the psychologist Dr. Bruce A. Bracken in 1992, there are six specific domains that
are related to self-concept these are:

1) the social domain or the ability of the person to interact with others;

2) the competence domain or the ability to meet the basic needs;

3) the affect domain or the awareness of the emotional states;

4) the physical domain or the feelings about looks, health, physical condition, and overall
appearance;

5) academic domain or the success or failure in the school; and

6) family domain or how well one function within the family unit.
William James and the Me-Self and I-Self

• William James is a well-known figure in Psychology who is considered as the founder of

functionalism. He brought prominence to U.S. psychology through the publication of The Principles of
Psychology (1890) that made him more influential than his contemporaries in the field.

• James made a clear distinction between ways of approaching the self – the knower (the pure or
the I – Self) and the known (the objective or the Me – Self). The function of the knower (I-Self) according
to James must be the agent of experience. While the known (Me-Self) have three different but
interrelated aspects of empirical self (known today as self- concept): the Me viewed as material, the Me
viewed as social, and the Me viewed as spiritual in nature.

• The material self is consists of everything an individual call uniquely as their own, such as the
body, family, home or style of dress. On the other hand, social self refers to the recognition an individual
get from other people. Lastly, spiritual self refers to the individual inner or subjective being.

Carl Rogers : Real and Ideal Self

• Carl Rogers is best known as the founder of client- centered therapy and considered as one of
the prominent humanistic or existential theorists in personality. His therapy aimed to make the person
achieve balance between their self- concept (real-self) and ideal self.

• The real self includes all those aspects of one's identity that are perceived in awareness. These
are the things that are known to oneself like the attributes that an individual possesses.

• The ideal self is defined as one’s view of self as one wishes to be. This contains all the aspirations
or wishes of an individual for themselves.

• A wide gap between the ideal self and the self-concept indicates incongruence and an unhealthy
personality. Psychologically healthy individuals perceive little discrepancy between their self-concept
and what they ideally would like to be.

Real and Ideal Self

• According to Multiple Selves Theory, there are different aspects of the self exist in an individual.
From here, we can say that self is a whole consist of parts, and these parts manifest themselves when
need arise.

• Gregg Henriques proposed the Tripartite Model of Human Consciousness, wherein he described
that self is consist of three related, but also separable domains these are the experimental self, private
self, and public self.
o The experiential self or the theater of consciousness is a domain of self that defined as felt
experience of being. This includes the felt consistency of being across periods of time. It is tightly
associated with the memory. This is a part of self that disappears the moment that an individual enter
deep sleep and comes back when they wake up.

o The private self consciousness system or the narrator/interpreter is a portion of self that
verbally narrates what is happening and tries to make sense of what is going on. The moment that you
read this part, there is somewhat like a “voice” speaking in your head trying to understand what this
concept is all about.

o Lastly, the public self or Persona, the domain of self that an individual shows to the public, and
this interacts on how others see an individual. Henriques’ Tripartite Model attempts to capture the key
domains of consciousness, both within the self and between others.

• Unified being is essentially connected to consciousness, awareness, and agency. A well-adjusted

person is able to accept and understood the success and failure that they experienced. They are those
kinds of person who continually adjust, adapt, evolve and survive as an individual with integrated,
unified, multiple selves.

Donald Winnicott: True versus False Self

• Donald Winnicott was a pediatrician in London who studied Psychoanalysis with Melanie Klein, a
renowned personality theorist and one of the pioneers in object relations and development of
personality in childhood.

• According to him, false self is an alternative personality used to protect an individual’s true
identity or one’s ability to “hide” the real self. The false self is activated to maintain social relationship as
anticipation of the demands of others. Compliance with the external rules or following societal norms is
a good example of this. false self can be a healthy self if it is perceived as functional for the person and
for the society and being compliant without the feeling of betrayal of true self. On the other hand,
unhealthy false self happens when an individual feels forced compliance in any situation.

• On the contrary, true self has a sense of integrity and connected wholeness that is rooted in
early infancy. The baby

creates experiences of a sense of reality and sense of life worth living. Winnicott claimed that true self
can be achieved by good parenting that is not necessarily a perfect parenting.
The Self as Proactive and Agentic Albert Bandura

• Albert Bandura is a psychologist and Professor Emeritus of Social Science in Psychology at

Stanford University. He is known for his theory of social learning by means of modeling. He is famous for
his proposed concept of self- efficacy.

• His personality theory, The Social Cognitive Theory asserts that a person is both proactive and
agentic, which means that we have the capacity to exercise control over our life. This theory emphasized
that human beings are proactive, self-regulating, self-reflective, and self- organizing.

• Self as proactive means an individual have control in any situation by making things happen.
They act as agent in doing or making themselves as they are. Agency is a defining feature of modern
selfhood. Agents assume some degree of ownership and control over things, both internally (I control
my own thoughts) and externally (I make things happen in the environment). The ability of an individual
to pursue their goals in life is an example of agentic approach to self.

• According to Bandura (1989), self-efficacy beliefs determine how people feel, think, motivate
themselves and

behave. Such beliefs produce these diverse effects through four major processes. They include
cognitive, motivational, affective and selection processes. A strong sense of efficacy enhances human
accomplishment and personal well-being in many ways.

• In contrast Bandura (1989) said that people who doubt their capabilities shy away from difficult
tasks which they view as personal threats. They have low aspirations and weak commitment to the goals
they choose to pursue. When faced with difficult tasks, they dwell on their personal deficiencies, on the
obstacles they will encounter, and all kinds of adverse outcomes rather than concentrate on how to
perform successfully. They fall easy victim to stress and depression.
Western and Oriental/Eastern Thought

Cultural differences and environment creates different perceptions of the self. The most common
distinction between people and cultures is the Eastern-Western distinction. Eastern are known as the
Asian countries, and Western represents the Europe and Northen America. It must be noted that
countries who are geographically closer to each other my share commonalities, but factors that may
create diffrences must be considered.

Individualistic versus Collective Self

Understanding individualism and collectivism could help in the understanding of the cross-cultural
values of a person. Not every culture is at one end or the other of the spectrum, but the majority tend to
favor one over the other in everyday life.

Individualistic Self

• Individualism is not the idea that individuals should live like isolated entity, nor the idea that
they should never get or give help from others, nor the idea that an individual never owes anything to
other people.

• Individualism is the idea that the fundamental unit of the human species that thinks, lives, and
acts toward goals is the individual. This means that we can form our own independent judgments, act on
our own thoughts, and disagree with others.

• Each adult individual can consider what is in his own best interests. Each can act on his own
private motivations and values and can judge other people as good people to form relationships with, or
as bad people to be avoided. Each can decide whether to cooperate with others to solve problems. Each
can choose to think for himself about the conclusions that the majority of others in a group come to,
accepting or rejecting their conclusions as indicated by his own thought.

• Example of the description would include an individual identifies primarily with self, with the
needs of the individual being satisfied before those of the group. Looking after and taking care of
ourselves, being self-sufficient, guarantees the well-being of the group. Independence and self-reliance
are greatly stressed and valued.

• In general, people tend to distance themselves psychologically and emotionally from each other.
One may choose to join groups, but group membership is not essential to one’s identity or success.
Individualist characteristics are often associated with men and people in urban settings.

• Western cultures are known to be individualistic.

Collective Self

• Collectivism is the idea that the fundamental unit of the human species that thinks, lives, and
acts toward goals is not the individual, but some group. In different variants, this group may be the
family, the city, the economic class, the society, the nation, the race, or the whole human species. The
group exists as a super-organism separate from individuals: A group may make its own decisions, acts
apart from the actions of individuals, and has its own interests apart from those of the individuals that
compose it.

• Under collectivism, individuals are analogous to ants in the protection of their queen ant. The
individual ant doesn’t have minds of their own, and generally cannot disagree with the hive. Any ant
that acts in a way contrary to the interests of the group is a malfunctioning ant. If an ant does not follow
the certain pattern of how they protect their queen, it will be entirely unable to support itself, find other
ants that support other queen ant and will surely die in short order. If the malfunctioning ant stays
within the group, it will be a threat to the line appropriate to protecting the queen ant.

• Examples of the collectivist thinking is when our identity is in large part, a function of our
membership and role in a group, e.g., the family or work team. The survival and success of the group
ensures the well-being of the individual, so that by considering the needs and feelings of others, one
protects oneself. Harmony and the interdependence of group members are stressed and valued. Group
members are relatively close psychologically and emotionally, but distant toward non-group members.
Collectivist characteristics are often associated with women and people in rural settings.

• Asian countries are known to be collective in nature.

The Social Construction of the Self in Western Thought

• Self has been an area of interest by French and English philosophers, and evident in the ideas of
Greek philosophers like Socrates and Plato.

• Descartes in 17th century emphasized the self in his dictum “I think therefore I am” which claims
that cognitive basis of the person’s thoughts is proof for the existence of the self.

• Kant believed that the self is capable of actions that entitles it to have rights as an autonomous
agent.

• Here are some qualities imparted to the Western subjective self. It sketches some features on
subjectivity and ways of thinking of western persons. This provides an impressionistic profile through
the use of a few strokes characterizing some ways of being and thinking of many western persons.

o Western self as analytic. Since analytic and inductive modes of thinking were prominent for
person in western cultures, to see objects as divisible combinations of yet smaller objects. Real things
are not only visualized but immaterial things like thoughts, ideas and memories would be given
emphasis.

o Western self as monotheistic. Monotheism can be known as the rigid consequence of the
doctrine of normal human being. It is like forcing the concentration of supernatural capabilities.

o Western self as individualistic. The emphasis on individualism has direct and indirect effects on
both the presentation of self (in public ways) and the experience of the self (in private awareness).

o Western Self as materialistic and rationalistic. The western accentuation of rational, scientific
approach to reality has tended to define spiritual and immaterial phenomena as potentially
superstitious and dangerous. In any society, belief system is stratified and composed of a hierarchy of
interrelated, causal-explanatory models.

The Self as Embedded in Relationships and through Spiritual Development in Confucian Thought

• Confucius was born in the period of the Zhou Dynasty in 551 BCE in the state of Lu. He grew up
poor although he was descended from scholarly family.

• Confucius philosophy is known as humanistic social philosophy which focusses on human beings
and the society in general.

• Confucianism is centered on ren which can be manifested through the li (propriety), xiao
(filiality), and yi (rightness). For Confucius, ren reflects the person’s own understanding of humanity. It is
found within each person and can be realized in one’s personal life and relationship. Ren guides human
actions that makes life worth living which can be realized through li, xiao, and yi:

o Li the propriety. Rules of propriety should be followed to guide human actions. These rules are
the customs, ceremonies, and traditions that forms the basis of li. According to Confucius, “to master
oneself and return to propriety is humanity” (Koller, 2007). Self mastery involves self development. Self
mastery is characterized by self-control and the will to redirect impulses to change these to socially
accepted expression of human nature. Li conforms to the norms of humanity, thus one must fulfill their
duties and responsibilities in this five (5) relationships: father and son, ruler and subject, older and
younger brothers, husband and wife, friend and friend.

o Xiao the filiality. This is the virtue of reverence and respect for the family. Parents should be
revered for the life they and given. Children show respect to their parents by exerting efforts to take
care of themselves. Reverence for parents and family is further demonstrated by bringing honor to the
family, making something of himself and to earn respect of other. If, however, the person is having
difficulty giving his family the honor that they deserved, he should just do this best to not disgrace the
family. Relationship that exist in the family reflect hoe the person relates to others in the community.
The family is the reflection of the person. How the person interacts socially and the values they emulate
can all be traced back to their family environment. This forms the bases of the person’s moral and social
virtues (Koller, 2007).
o Yi the rightness. The right way of behaving which is unconditional and absolute. Right is right,
and what is not right is wrong. Actions must be performed and carried out because they are right
actions. Confucius emphasized that actions should be performed because they are right and not for
selfish benefits that they provide.