Understanding yourself REVIEWER

1. Exercises more control over their own lives - individualism

2. Self-sufficiency and uniqueness - individualism
3. Immanuel Kant sees the self as a subject, an organizing principle that actively interprets, constructs, and
gives meaning to sensory experiences.
4. Erving Goffman suggests that we are social actors, adjusting ourselves depending on our audience.
5. For David Hume there is no such thing as the self and that it is nothing but a collection of different
perceptions.
6. Id, Ego and Superego are the three personality structures according to Freud.
Id – Pleasure
Ego – Comprise
Superego – Specific/ direct no
7. Language Stage, Play Stage and Game Stage are the three stages of self-development according to Mead
(in order).
 Language Stage -
 Play Stage -
 Game Stage -
8. According to Plato, the soul comprises three dissimilar elements which are the reason, spirit and appetite.
9. Among the three personality structures, ego should be the strongest according to Freud.
10. Group membership – collectivism
11. According to Mead, I is the side of the self which is spontaneous and creative.
12. I-Thou and I-it are the two basic attitudes men are capable of according to Buber.
13. Among the three elements of the soul mentioned by Plato, reason should govern the other two.
14. Sigmund Freud is the Father of the Psychoanalytic Theory.
15. The two kinds of self-according to Kant are Empirical and Transcendental.
o Empirical –
o Transcendental -
16. For John Locke, the self is born with a blank slate.
17. Conscious, subconscious and unconscious are the three levels of personality according to Freud.
18. According to Harter, middle later childhood is the stage wherein we describe the self in terms of trait-like
constructs.
19. Among the three levels of personality, unconscious has the most impact on one's personality according to
Freud.
20. Ramon Reyes sees the Filipino self as dependent on others and as relational in nature.
21. Rene Descartes considers the self as a "thinking machine".
22. Emerging Adulthood is considered as the age of possibilities.
23. Personal goals over group goals - individualism
24. For Socrates, man can live truly happy lives by morality.
25. Psychology came from two Greek words which are psyche and logos
 “psyche” which means soul/mind and “logos” which means “study”
26. For Martin Buber, man becomes whole not in relation to himself but only through a relation to another
self.
27. Among the three stages mentioned by Mead, it is during the game stage that we learn to take into
consideration the rules set by society.
28. Idea and Real are the two types of self-according to Rogers.
ANTHROPOLOGY
 study of people past and present
 Focuses on understanding human condition in its cultural aspect. Concerned with
understanding how human

DEFINITION OF SELF IN MODERN ANTHROPOLOGY

o Unit but unitary

o Prof. Katherine Ewing described self as encompassing “physical organism, possessing
psychological functioning and social attributes.”

2 ASPECTS OF THE SELF (Joseph LeDoux)

o Explicit – Self that you are consciously aware of

o Implicit – Self that is not immediately available to the consciousness
o “The self is not static, it is added to and subtracted from genetic maturation, learning,
forgetting, stress, ageing, and disease.”
o Self-representation (Culturally shaped “self”)
 Ewing (1989) asserted that “self is illusory.” People construct a series of self-representation
that are based on selected-on-selected cultural concepts of person and selected ‘chains’ of
personal memories.

THE SELF EMBEDDED TO CULTURE

 The ways of how the self is developed are bound to cultural differences
 The principles of how the mind works cannot be conceived of as universal, but that is as
varied as the culture and traditions that people practice all over the world (Cultural
Anthropologists). The self is culturally shaped and infinitely variable.

DISTINGUISHED TWO WAYS OF HOW THE SELF IS CONSTRUCTED (CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGIST)

 Independent Construct (Individualistic Culture)

 Internal Attributes – values and skills
 Interdependent Construct (Collectivist Culture)
 The essential connection between individual to other people.

Catherine Raeff (2010) believed that culture can influence how you view: relationship, personality traits,
achievement, and expressing emotions.

THE SELF FROM VARIOUS PERSPECTIVES: PSYCHOLOGY

PSYCHOLOGY

 Comes from the words “psyche” which means soul/mind and “logos” which means “study”

 It is the scientific study of how people behave, think, and feel.

DEVELOPING A SENSE OF SELF
HARTER’S SELF-DEVELOPMENT CONCEPT The development of self-concept according to Harter is as
follows:

EARLY CHILDHOOD

- The child describes the “self” in terms of concrete, observable characteristics, such as physical
attributes, material possessions, behaviors, and preferences

MIDDLE TO LATER CHILDHOOD

- The child is described in terms of trait-like constructs (e.g. smart, honest, friendly, shy)

ADOLESCENCE

- The emergence of more abstract self-definitions, such as inner thoughts, emotions, attitudes,
and motives

EMERGING ADULTHOOD

- The age of possibilities. Has a vision of a “possible self”.

SIGMUND FREUD

 A physician considered as the Father of the Psychoanalytic Theory (theory which asserts
that unconscious thoughts and childhood experiences are important in the development of
personality).

Levels of Personality

Conscious

 Plays a relatively minor role and includes those mental elements in awareness at any given point in
time

Preconscious/Subconscious

 Contains all elements that are not conscious but can become conscious either quite readily or with
some difficulty

Unconscious

 Contains all drives, urges, or instincts that are beyond our awareness but that nevertheless motivate
most of our words, feelings, and actions.
Personality Structures

o ID - Motivated entirely by the pleasure principle

- “I want to do that now”
o Ego - Motivated by the reality principle
- “Maybe we can compromise”
o SUPEREGO - Motivated by the morality principle
- “It’s not right to do that”

REAL VS IDEAL SELF (CARL ROGERS)

 Rogers' personality theory is basically focusing on the notion of self or self-concept.

 Self-concept includes all those aspects of one’s being and one’s experiences that are perceived in
awareness by the individual.

 Experiences that are inconsistent with their self-concept usually are either denied or distorted.

REAL VS IDEAL SELF (CARL ROGERS)

REAL SELF - How we see ourselves It’s the self that feels most true to what and who we really are. It may
not be perfect, but it’s the part of us that feels most real

IDEAL SELF - One’s view of self as one wishes to be Contains attributes, usually positive, that people
aspire to possess

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.