GEC 1 UNDERSTANDING THE SELF

Social Constructionism
Social constructionism is a theory of knowledge in sociology and communication theory
that examines the development of jointly-constructed understandings of the world that
form the basis for shared assumptions about reality. The theory centers on the notion that
meanings are developed in coordination with others rather than separately within each
individual.

How Culture Affects the Self

Sir Edward B. Taylor, founder of cultural anthropology, classically defined culture as “that
complex whole which includes knowledge, beliefs, arts, morals, law, customs, and any
other capabilities and habits acquired by (a human) as a member of society.

According to developmental psychologist Catherine Raeff (2010), culture can influence how
you, your coworkers, and the families you serve view:
Relationships
Personality Traits
Achievements
Expressing Emotions

The Looking Glass Self Theory by Charles Cooley

According to sociologist Charles Horton Cooley, individuals develop their concept of self by
observing how they are perceived by others, a concept Cooley coined as the “looking-glass
self.”
The looking-glass self describes the process wherein individuals base their sense of self on
how they believe others view them. Using social interaction as a type of “mirror,” people
use the judgments they receive from others to measure their own worth, values, and
behaviour.

The Self as a Product of Modern Society (Sociological Perspective)

Your personal and social identity is never static, but this doesn’t mean you are constantly
revising who you are according to how you feel. Just because you adopt a new fashion style
or a ‘cooler’ way of talking doesn’t mean that your personal and social identity has
substantially changed. These are purely cosmetic or outer changes and more likely reflect
other aspects of yourself (your sub-personae), than to truly indicate a change in core self-
identity.

The Self as a Product of Modern Society (Sociological Perspective)

Real changes in personal identity emerge out of the creative interplay between social
circumstances and events and the way you as an individual respond to them. No matter
how assertive or dominant a personality you are, in the final instance your identity needs
to be grounded in social reality. Other people have to accept you as you yourself wish to
be accepted before your personal desire for change will have any bite or social validation.

Self in Society and Society in Self

No one can stand apart from the social world. Everyone is influenced by society and it
makes its indelible mark on us. It’s a great error to think that there is no such thing as
society or that we are separate, self-sufficient individuals. Everyone is influenced by family,
friends, education, ethnicity, work, class, gender, politics and history. At every point in our
lives we both rely on, and contribute to our social environment.
First, we are self-directing beings capable of independent thought and behaviour. We have
the knowledge and skills that allow us to deal with other people and situations in our own
terms. We are not completely trapped by our circumstances – unless we wish to be, or if
we refuse to fight against them.
Second, we are all unique individuals because we have all had a unique set of experiences.
Even if you were brought up in the same family, you experience the world in different ways
than your brothers or sisters.

The Emotional Self

Emotions and the motivations to which they give rise have frequently been denied any
important role in our day-to-day conduct by even the most sophisticated of social theorists.
Anthony Giddens, for example, is of the view that emotions and motives are not directly
involved in everyday human behaviour. Instead, what he calls ‘reflexive monitoring’ and
‘rationalization’ (reason giving and rational understanding) play the major roles. Motives
only play a part in ‘relatively unusual circumstances, situations which in some way break
the routine’ (Giddens 1984, p. 6).

The emotional or feeling side of our nature goes hand in hand with our reflective, intelligent
and calculating side. In most instances the different strands are mixed together in different
proportions. But in some instances one strand may predominate over the others, as in the
stuffy rule-bound bureaucrat or the child, open-mouthed and filled with wonderment. No
behaviour though, is completely empty of emotion, although its importance often goes
unrecognized or supressed.

III. Core and Satellite Needs of Self

Although loving and being loved by others are crucial, the love of self is no less important.
All three are interdependent.
Without the love of self the ability to give love to others is hampered.

III. Approval of Self and Others

If love in all its varieties is a key focus for other feelings and emotions, then the need for
approval closely mirrors it. Again there are close links between self-approval, approval by
others and approval of others.
The search for approval has its own challenges.
The constant searching for approval is based on the fear that the other’s love will be
withdrawn and that you will be left helpless and unloved.

Anthropological Perspective
The Filipino culture is an exuberant story that tells of the nation's journey through the
centuries. Customs reflect the people's faith, their oneness with others, their affinity with
nature, and their celebration of life.
The nation's charm is in the diversity in ways of life across the archipelago, the resplendent
colors of its folk arts and the cacophony of foreign influences that have found roots in the
Filipino languages, customs and traditions.

Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human
biology, and societies, in both the present and past, including past human species.
Anthropological Perspective
Filipino Identity: The Haunting Question
The deficiency of strength that Filipino national identity possesses and the insufficient
adherence that Filipino nationhood attracts lie in the failure of the state to mold the
population into an encompassing moral order in which people can distinctly imagine that
they belong together.

In the absence of a shared narrative of collective emancipation that successfully ties the
individual's private life to an authoritative center of civilization, we find two opposing
“nations” co-existing in the independent Philippine state: the state-owning oligarchy versus
the nation of the ordinary people.

Selfhood and Personality: The Psychology of Identity

Philosophy tries to answer the question ‘Who amI?’ from a general point of view of
metaphysics andepistemology. Psychology relates the samequestion to people with
thoughts and emotionswho are growing up and living in a specificplace, entertaining basic
values, relating to othermembers of society, and having to positionthemselves in it. As they
grow up, they becomecompetent members of their society by forming anindividual identity
recognized by others andthemselves.

A Deeper View on Sigmund Freud’s Theory of Personality & Defense Mechanisms

12 DEFENSE MECHANISM: SIGMUND FREUD
Compensation: Strengthen one to hide another.
Denial: Refuse to face negative behavior.
Displacement: take it out on someone else.
Identification: Attach to something positive.
Introjection: Conform feeling for approval.
Projection: See your faults & foibles in others.
Rationalization: Excuse and justify mistakes.
Reaction Formation: Pretend you are different.
Regression: Act much younger to feel better.
Repression: Putting things into darkness.
Ritual And Undoing: Override negative with habit.
Sublimation: Divert negative into acceptable.

Freud’s Topographical Model of the Mind

On the surface is consciousness, which consists of those thoughts that are the focus of our
attention now, and this is seen as the tip of the iceberg. The preconscious consists of all
which can be retrieved from memory. The third and most significant region is the
unconscious. Here lie the processes that are the real cause of most behaviour. Like an
iceberg, the most important part of the mind is the part you cannot see.

Superego
This wants to do the right thing, it is the moral conscience that takes on the role of a strict
Parent.

Ego
This is the voice of reason, negotiating with the id and superego.

Id
This strives for instant gratification, is childlike, impulsive, and hard to reason with.

Topographical model
Freud divided the mind into three levels of consciousness. The conscious mind forms only a
small part of the whole. Although it is completely unaware of the thoughts in the
unconscious mind, the latter still affect behavior.

Conscious Mind
This contains the ideas and emotions that people are aware of.

Preconscious Mind
This stores information such as childhood memories, which can be accessed through
psychoanalysis

Unconscious Mind
This hides most of a persons impulses, desires, and thoughts.

William James’ “Me-Self” and “I-Self”

(“Me”) corresponds to the self as an object of experience (self as object), while the latter
(“I”) reflects the self as a subject of experience (self
as subject) The “Me” is a separate individual a person refers to when talking about their
personal experiences. The “I” is the pure ego – it is what provides continuity between past,
present, and future, allowing us to view ourselves to have a consistent, individual identity,
one brought about by the stream of consciousness that James first defined (Hunt, 1920).

Although the “I” self cannot be further divided, the “Me” can be further broken down
into three sub-categories: a material, social, and spiritual self.
The material self consists of what belongs to a person, such as the body, family,
clothes, or money.
Finally, our spiritual self is who we are at our core, including our personality, values,
and conscience. Our spiritual self typically remains relatively stable throughout our
lifetime (Green, 1997).
The social self marks who you are in a specific social situation. We tend to change our
actions, thoughts, emotions, words, and mannerisms based on the current social
situation or the people with whom we are interacting.

Psychological Differentiation
Psychological differentiation is an important aspect of self-development. As Dr. Robert
Firestone writes in his book The Self-Under Siege: A Therapeutic Model for
Differentiation,“ In order for people to live their own own lives and fulfill their destinies,
they must differentiate from destructive environmental influences.”

So, you should ask yourself:

Whose life am I really living?
Am I basing my life on my own personal beliefs,
values and desires?

The Four Steps of Differentiation

 Breaking with destructive thoughts and attitudes towards ourselves that
we internalize based on painful early life experiences.
  Recognizing and changing negative personality traits in ourselves that
are an incorporation of the negative traits of our parents, caregivers, or
other influential figures.

 Looking into the psychological defenses we developed as an adaptation to

the pain and distress we experienced growing up.

 Developing our own values, ideals, and beliefs rather than automatically
accepting the beliefs that we grew up with or those of our culture.

Self-Concept and School Performance

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.

In psychology, the term self-esteem is used to describe a person's overall subjective sense
of personal worth or value—in other words, how much you appreciate andlike yourself.

According to Albert Bandura, self-efficacy is "the belief in one’s capabilities to organize and
execute the courses of action required to manage prospective situations."

Multiple vs. Unified Selves by David Lester

The unified self is a means of referring to the "composite" persona, or to the "self"
that contains all of the other personas that exist within a person's interactional style.
Multiple selves (or multiple personas) refer to the different ways that individuals
interact with the different situations and circumstances in their lives.

True vs. False Selves

This psychological theory of the True and the False Self is the work of one of the
twentieth century’s greatest thinkers, the English psychoanalyst and child psychiatrist
Donald Winnicott.
The healthy false self is described as one which allows someone to be functional in
society.
The unhealthy false self comes from the same origins as the healthy false self.
However, for our long-term well-being, the effects of the unhealthy false self are quite
different to those of its counterpart.

II. The Self in Western and Eastern Thought

An individualist is motivated by personal rewards and benefits. Individualist persons

set personal goals and objectives based onself. Individualistic workers are very
comfortable working with autonomy and not part of a team. he collectivist is motivated by
group goals. Long-term relationships are very important. Collectivistic persons easily
sacrifice individual benefit or praise to recognize and honor the team’s success. In fact,
being singled out and honored as an individual from the rest of the team may be
embarrassing to the collectivistic person.
II. The Western Thought (Cartesian)

Rene Descartes (1596-1650) is regarded as one of the founders of modern pistemology. In

his method, the first reality discovered is the thinking self. His view of the thinking self
("thinking thing") is that of a separate and individual self with a rational mind. He argues
that "an objective, ego-oriented world of meaning" allows the individual to be rational. His
view on an atomistic view of the self does not include a person's social, or relational,
nature.

II. The Eastern Thought (Confucius,

Buddha/Buddhism, Hinduism, and Taoism)
Confucius explained that there are six virtues and six accompanying failures:
First, there is the mere love of morality: that alone, without culture, degenerates into
fatuity.
Secondly, there is the mere love of knowledge; that alone, without culture, tends to
dilettantism.
Thirdly, there is the mere love of honesty: that alone, without culture, produces
heartlessness.
Fourthly, there is the mere love of uprightness: that alone, without culture, leads to
tyranny.
Fifthly, there is the mere love of courage: that alone, without culture, produces
recklessness.
Sixthly, there is the mere love of strength of character: that alone, without culture,
produces eccentricity. (The Analects of Confucius, XVII, p. 8

Buddha's doctrine is derived from "experience in the transformations of consciousness

and the stages of meditation," not from sense perception or logical operations.
The implications of Buddhism are to emphasize compassion for others and conduct
ourselves with restraint out of a sense of responsibility.

Hindus believe that an individual's action (Karma)? the bad or good actions that the
individual performed in a previous life? determines his or her caste.
Hinduism is concerned with the spiritual essence of the self.
This transcendence of self is seen as essential to spiritual liberation.

In Taoism, the relativity of opposites is present in other aspects of the universe, such as yin
and yang: yin is all that is feminine, gentle, dark, and meek; yang is all that is masculine,
forceful, light, and active. Yin and yang exist in a mutual relationship and reinforce each
other. Life arises from death and vice versa

In Taoism, self does not exist without the existence of the other; self as a separate identity
is supported by the "equal and opposite sensation of otherness" such as the dialectical
relationship between yin and yang (Watts, 1997,
MODULE 4

I. Biological Determinism

Biological determinism, also called biologism or biodeterminism, the idea that most
human characteristics, physical and mental, are determined at conception by hereditary
factors passed from parent to offspring. Although the theory has been scientifically
discredited, the idea that differences between people are based in biology still persists in
various forms

II How Culture Affects Body-Image and Self-Esteem

Body image is a multi-dimensional construct; however, the tools used to assess body image
in research often focus on body weight or shape. This can be limiting when trying to
understand body image and ethnicity, as people from different groups have different body
ideals. Concerns around body image may not always fall into the categories of body weight
and shape. For instance, some concerns may be around skin tone, hair texture or size and
shape of facial features.

Asia’s Beauty Standards

While the West has made conscious strides in highlighting the vicious, self-perpetuating
cycles that hamper body image and speak openly about dispelling beauty standards, Asia is
still coming around to acknowledging the need for body positivity. Taking a glance at how
media, pop culture and social media touch upon body image and body positivity in Asian
culture, you’ll notice the conversation is quite small. When it is spoken of, there lies a tinge
of aversion towards larger bodies’ and an invisible line of thinness or fatness that should
not be crossed. It’s easy to pick up on these cues with the way bodies are spoken
of, celebrated or chastised.

The Philippines
The Philippines tends to lend a stronger voice to body positive advocacy than most of their
Asian counterparts, even though it still needs more substantial body positive framework
like the rest of this region. However, there are still issues that needs attending.

Let’s Talk About the Media

A World Health Organisation survey found that nearly 40 per cent of women polled in
nations including China, Malaysia, the Philippines and South Korea said they regularly used
whitening products.
The multibillion-dollar skin-whitening market in China, Malaysia, the Philippines and South
Korea is rooted in unrealistic beauty ideals.
However, a push to embrace darker skin and more Asian-seeming features over
Eurocentric beauty standards is picking up in the region.

Western colonization has hindered Filipinos from developing a genuine cultural identity by
institutionalizing whiteness in the Filipino culture. Whiteness, a discursive practice that
reinforces the symbolical association of a white skin tone with superiority, distracts
Filipinos from recognizing cultural diversity and immobilizes Filipino women and
the working class from resisting oppression.
III. Why Understanding and Embracing Diversity is
Important
Because the cosmetics industry tends to set the standard of beauty in society, the lack of
representation of racial and/or ethnic minorities in the beauty industry can have
psychological impacts on minority consumers. These impacts are to the point
where their perceptions of beauty have been skewed to exclude themselves as a result of
not seeing themselves represented in advertisement campaigns and product releases by
major cosmetics companies. In this lack of representation, consumers’ self-perception, self-
esteem, and self-confidence can be negatively influenced.

II. Why Understanding and Embracing Diversity is

Important
Diversity is everywhere, but the focus and understanding of what diversity means varies
across countries and regions. Over the years, laws to promote diversity and discourage
discriminations has included women, minorities, people with disabilities, and the LGBTQIA+
community. In nature, every ecosystem requires a number of different
plants, animals, and organisms in order to grow and flourish. When it comes to surviving
and thriving, the earth and its creatures need diversity. If diversity is a necessary part of
nature, then it only makes sense that people need diversity in their communities. Diversity
inspires cultural growth and makes society richer. When a community has people of
different backgrounds, beliefs, and skills, each person is able to contribute their unique
story and gifts so as to make a greater whole.