UNDERSTANDING THE SELF PRELIM EXAM REVIEWER
INTRODUCTION TO SELF
WAYS OF KNOWING ONESELF
 Be aware of your strengths and weaknesses, likes
and dislikes
 Observe and be aware of your moods, reactions
and responses to what is happening around you
o Become aware of how these moods and
emotions affect your state of mind
 Examine how you interact with others
 Observe how your environment affects you
THE IMPORTANCE OF KNOWING ONESELF
 Lead to a clearer understanding of who you are,
what you are capable of and what you want in life
 Help you to extend understanding towards other
peoples’ varied personalities
 Eliminate confusions and other doubts about your
identity and gender preferences
 Establish self-control to resist bad
habits/influences and cultivate good ones
 Help you to resist to social pressure which brings
no good to you
 Develop tolerance and understanding of others
 Make you happier when you can express yourself
 Bring less inner conflict because your external
actions are in line with your inner feelings and
values.
UNDERSTANDING SELF FROM VARIED
PERSPECTIVES
Philosophical View
 Philosophy comes from the Greek words for “love and
wisdom”
 “Self” is understood in some aspect as the unified
being essentially linked to consciousness and
awareness of making rational choices.
PHILOSOPHERS
1) Socrates
 “The unexamined life is not worth living”
 Human life is supposed to be for one to achieve
personal and spiritual growth
 Examining our life, one will arrive a better
understanding of the behavior which reflect on
how one sees himself/herself
 Experiences whether good or bad, one should
find time to think why it happens
 Socratic method of knowing oneself: One
has to ask questions to find out how to act by
learning the essence of a thing by which to live
wisely
 Examining our life relates to Philosophy as it
connotes that taking time to study our
Behavior and look for means of improving
undesirable one
 Socrates: Know Yourself
 The key to understanding the Socrates’ concept
of the self is through the philosopher’s take on
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the “SOUL” but this should not be viewed
from the vantage point of Christianity since the
ancient Greeks lived long before the existence
of Christianity. Frederick Copleston, a famous
historian of philosophy believes that when
Socrates speaks of the soul, the philosopher
refers to a “thinking and willing subject”.
With this conception, it is safe to assume that
the soul for Socrates is the intellectual and
moral personality of humans. So, when
Socrates said that the soul is the essence of the
human person, he meant that it is the essence
of human to think and will. For this reason,
the soul or the self is the responsible agent in
knowing and acting rightly or wrongly.

Althea J. Santillan
2) Plato
 Believed the ideal that was most important was
“moral goodness” which he called the good
 One recognizes the Idea of “Goodness” which
Expresses the will to influence one’s behavior.
 One should think of a factor that influences
your desirable and undesirable behavior which
is part of the self and reflect such
 Man was omniscient or all-knowing before he
came to be born into this world
 With his separation from the paradise of truth
and knowledge and his long Exile on earth, he
forgot most of the knowledge he got
 Plato: The Ideal Self, the Perfect Self

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DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SOCRATES AND PLATO’S
VIEW OF SELF
One primary difference between these two philosophers is
that while Socrates rarely spoke about the soul of the human
being, Plato gave a lot of importance to the soul of the
human being than its body. Socrates also had a keen interest
in knowledge and value theories.
3) Immanuel Kant
 Man is the only creatures who governs and
directs himself and his actions who sets up
ends for himself and his purpose who freely
orders mean for the attainment of his aims
 This rule is a plain dictum of reason and
justice: Respect others as you would Respect
yourself
 A person should not be used as a tool,
instrument or device to accomplish another’s
private ends
 Thus, all men are persons gifted with the same
basic rights and should treat each other as
equals
 Kant: Respect for Self
 According to him, we all have an inner and an
outer self which together form our
consciousness. The inner self is comprised of
our psychological state and our rational
intellect. The outer self includes our sense and
the physical world. According to Kant,
representation occurs through our senses.
 As Kant realized, the ways in which we must
represent ourselves to ourselves have import
not only for epistemology, but for our view of
persons and of our own immortality, and for
moral philosophy as well. Kant's theory of self-
consciousness is also shown to have
implications for contemporary discussions of
the problem of other minds, functionalism, and
the problem of indexical self-reference.
4) Rene Descartes
 States that “Self” is a thinking entity distinct
from the body
 He claims that there is so much that we should
doubt. In fact, he says that since much of what
we think and believe are not infallible, they
may turn out to be false
 He thought that the only thing that one cannot
doubt is the existence of the self
 His first famous principle was “Cognito, ergo
sum” which means “I think, therefore I am”
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  His view that the body is nothing else but a
machine that is attached to the mind. Human
person has it but it is not what makes a man a
man
 If at all that is the mind. He says, “but What
then am I? A thinking thing.
 What is a thinking thing?
o it is a thing that doubts, understands
(conceives), affirms, denies, wills,
refuses and that and imagine
 Descartes: I Think, Therefore I am
5) John Locke
 He holds that personal identity (self) is a
matter of psychological continuity
 Personal identity is founded on consciousness
(memory) and not on the substance of either
the soul and body
 Personal Identity is the concept about oneself
that evolves over the course of an individual’s
life
 It may include aspects of life that man has no
control over such as where he grew up or the
color of his skin, as well as the choices he
makes, like how he Spends his time and what
he believes
 John Locke: Personal Identity
 John Locke speaks of personal identity and
survival of consciousness after death. A
criterion of personal identity through time is
given. Such a criterion specifies, insofar as that
is possible, the necessary and sufficient
conditions for the survival of persons. John
Locke holds that personal identity is a matter
of psychological continuity. He considered
personal identity (or the self) to be founded on
consciousness (viz. memory), and not on the
substance of either the soul or the body.
 Personal identity theory is the philosophical
confrontation with the ultimate questions of
our own existence, such as who are we, and is
there a life after death? This sort of analysis of
personal identity provides a set of necessary
and sufficient conditions for the identity of the
person over time. In the modern philosophy of
mind, this concept of personal identity is
sometimes referred to as the diachronic
problem of personal identity. The synchronic
problem is grounded in the question of what
features or traits characterize a given person at
one time.
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6) David Hume: Self is the Bundle Theory of
Mind
 He is skeptical about the existence of “self”
Whether there is simple or unified self over
time
 There has no “clear and intelligible” idea of self
 There is no single impression of the self exists
 The impression of self would remain constant
over time
 Hume suggests that the self is just a bundle of
perceptions, like links in a chain. To look for a
unifying self beyond those perceptions is like
looking for a chain apart from the links that
constitute it. Hume argues that our concept of
the self is a result of our natural habit of
attributing unified existence to any collection
of associated parts. This belief is natural, but
there is no logical support for it.
 To Hume, the self is “that to which our several
impressions and ideas are supposed to have a
reference… If any impression gives rise to the
idea of self, that impression must continue
invariably the same through the whole course
of our lives, since self is supposed to exist after
that manner.
 Hume thinks that since it is impossible to
locate the suitable impression which could give
rise to the idea of the self, we must conclude
that there is no such an idea. The self (perhaps
we can equate it to the mind) does not have a
continuous existence.
THE CHRISTIAN OR BIBLICAL VIEW OF SELF
Genesis 1:24-28
 God created man in His image; in the divine image He
created him; male and female He created them. God
blessed them, saying “Be fertile and multiply”; fill the
earth and subdue it”. Have domination over the fish of
the sea, the birds in the air and all living things that
move on the earth
According to the Holy writ, man, following his redemption
by the Savior from eternal bondage, now shares in the
infinite merits of his redeemer and has become not only the
inheritor of the new earth but also the heir of heavenly
kingdom
Thus, it is appropriate to think of the “SELF” as the multi-
bejeweled crown of creation.
7) Augustine: Love and Justice as the Foundation
of the Individual Self
 He believed that virtuous life is a dynamism of
love
 Loving God means loving one’s fellowmen
fellow men and loving one’s fellowmen
fellow men denotes never doing any harm to
another
 As the golden principle of justice states “doing
unto others as you would have them do unto
you”
 Augustine's sense of self is his relation to God,
both in his recognition of God's love and his
response to it—achieved through self-
presentation, then self-realization. Augustine
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 believed one could not achieve inner peace
without finding God's love.
 As Augustine constructs a view of God that
would come to dominate Western thinking, he
also creates a new concept of individual
identity: the idea of the self. This identity is
achieved through a twofold process: self-
presentation, which leads to self-realization.
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL VIEW OF SELF
1) Sigmund Freud
 Asserts that human psyche (personality) Is
structured into three parts: Id (internal desires),
Ego (reality) and Superego (conscience)
THREE COMPONENTS OF PERSONALITY
 Individuals’ feelings thoughts and behaviors
are the result of the interaction of the id, the
2) Erik Homburger Erikson
ego, and the superego.
 The Id operates largely according to the
pleasure principal where by its two main
goals are seeking of pleasure and the
avoidance of pain.
 The Ego is aware of reality and operates the
reality principal, it recognizes what is real
and the behaviors have consciences and it
controls higher mental process of reasoning
and problem solving
 The Superego contains our values and
social morals. They come from the rules of
right and wrong from our childhood that
our parents taught us.
FREUD’S PSYCHOSEXUAL STAGES OF
DEVELOPMENT
 ORAL (0-2) – infant achieves gratification
through oral activities such as feeding, thumb
sucking and babbling.
 ANAL (2-3) – the child learns to respond to
some of the demands of society (such as bowel
and bladder control)
 PHALLIC (3-7) – the child learns to realize
the differences between males and females and
becomes aware of sexuality.
 LATENCY (7-11) – the child continues his or
her development but sexual urges are relatively
quiet.
 GENITAL (11-adult) – the growing adolescent
shakes off old dependencies and learns to deal
maturely with the opposite sex.
 Father of Psychosocial Development
 His theory, Post-Freudian Theory
 Coined the term identity crises (a turning point
in one’s life that may either strengthen or weaken
one’s personality.)
 A world fame Psychoanalyst, Anthropologist,
Psychohistorian and a Medical School Professor.
Yet he had no college degree of any kind.
 Intended his theory of personality to extend rather
than repudiate Freud’s Psychoanalysis and to offer
a new “way of looking things”.
 The post-Freudian theory of Erik Erikson
acts as an extension to the infantile
developmental stages of Freud incorporating
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stages of adolescence, adulthood, and old age.
The suggestion of Erikson is that contributing to
the formation of personality is a psychosocial
struggle during each stage. This struggle takes the
form of an identity crisis from adolescence on,
acting as a turning point in one’s life that can
either weaken or strengthen one’s personality.
Erikson’s post-Freudian theory is an
extension of psychoanalysis, one that Erikson
believes that in time Freud himself may have
covered. Although Erikson’s lifecycle approach to
personality makes use of Freudian theory as the
foundation, several differences exist between
Freud and Erikson. Erikson places more emphasis
on both historical and social influences in addition
to his elaboration of psychosexual stages beyond
childhood. Like those of other personality
theorists, Erik Erikson’s post-Freudian theory is a
reflection of his personal background including a
lifelong search for his identity, experiences with a
variety of cultures, extensive travels, and the arts.

Althea J. Santillan
3) Jean Piaget
 Piaget’s theory is based on the idea that the
developing child builds cognitive structures
(networked concepts for understanding and
responding to physical experiences within his
or her environment)
 Jean Piaget formulated four stages of
intellectual cognitive development and the
process by which children progress through
them.
 During all development stages, the child
experiences his or her environment using what
ever mental maps he or she has consulted so
far.

Althea J. Santillan
 THE FOUR PARTS OF SELF-CONCEPT

4) William James
 William James is a pioneering American BASIC CONCEPTS
psychologist and philosopher. He was trained  William James (1890)
as medical doctor. He came from a rich family o I – self as knower, experiencer, present tense,
while his father is an eccentric theologian. He
storyteller
divides experiences into “healthy-minded” and
o Me – self as known, experienced, past tense,
“sick-minded”, according to the personality of
story
the subject, which tints the content of the
experience itself. Me – Self Concept
 “The greatest revolution of our generation is
Components of Me:
the discovery that human beings, by changing
the inner attitudes of their minds, can  Physical – awareness of appearance
change the outer aspect of their lives.”  Social – awareness others’ perception
 “Believe that life is worth living and your belief  Spiritual – awareness of qualities, attributes
will help create the fact.”

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Actual Self
 There is no one actual self.
 Consumers have various role identities – mother,
wife, working woman, volunteer, etc.
 One of these roles in dominant in specific situations.
This particular role affects the behavior (dressing
style, talking, way they conduct, etc.)
 The amalgam of individuals roles makes up the
individual self.
TRUE SELF VS. FALSE SELF
 Harter: adolescents distinguish between “true” and
“false” selves.
 More likely to display false behavior in romantic or
dating situations and with classmates, and least likely
to display it with close friends. Self with parents is in
between the other two.
 Why do they engage in false behavior?
o To impress others;
o To try out new behaviors or roles;
o Because others don’t understand or don’t like
the true self.
Albert Bandura – The Self as Proactive and Agentic
WAYS TO BE PROACTIVE
 Understand what it means to be proactive
 Know when you need to make a decision and follow
through with your choice
 Take responsibility for your actions
 Develop an internal locus of control
 Learn how to self-advocate
 Develop strategies to engage with your surroundings
 Build self-confidence
 Take responsibility for risk-taking
SIGN OF PROACTIVE PEOPLE
 Self-awareness – the understanding that you do
have a choice between stimulus and response. If
someone insults you, you can choose not to become
angry. If you are offered a donut, you can choose not
to eat it.
 Conscience – the ability to consult your inner
compass to decide what is right for you. You can make
decisions based on unchanging principles, regardless
of what is socially favored at the moment.
 Creative Imagination – the ability to visualize
alternative responses. By using your imagination, you
can mentally generate and evaluate different options.
 Independent Will – you have the freedom to
choose your own unique response. You aren’t forced
to conform to what others expect from you.
AN AGENTIC PERSPECTIVE
 An Agentic Perspective emerges on Bandura’s Socio
Cognitive view of personality
 He viewed people as AGENTS, or originators of
experience
 Bandura conceived HUMAN AGENCY as the ability to
act and make things happen.
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