Chapter 1: Lesson 2

The Self on a Socio-Anthropological Perspective

“Most of the images of reality on which we base our actions

are really based on vicarious experience.”
- Albert Bandura

SCHEDULE: Week 3, Week 4, & Week 5

LEARNING OBJECTIVES of the Course:

a. Understand the different representations and conceptualizations of the self from
various philosophical perspectives.
b. The students should be able to compare and contrast these perspectives and see
how it has affected their life principle.

After this Lesson, STUDENTS MUST BE ABLE TO:

a. Comprehend what culture means to the self as part of the society.
b. Analyze the socio-anthropological constructs of the self.
c. Recognize and appreciate differences in cultural behaviors of the self, particularly
from the Western and Eastern contexts.

THE STORY OF TARZAN:

• Little boy named Tarzan was left alone in the forest.
• Growing up, he never had an interaction with any other human being: only apes and
other animals
• Tarzan grew up strangely like apes unlike any human.
• Tarzan became an animal, in effect.
• His interaction with animals made him just like one of them.

What concept of the self can you formulate from the story of Tarzan?

The story of Tarzan would illustrate the concepts of nature and nurture that shapes
the self. Tarzan basically was born as a human being (nature) following the heredity principle
of consistency. However, he never experienced being taken care of by his biological parents,
hence, was fostered by apes. As he grew up, he was able to shape his self and has adapted
some actions and behaviors from the apes. That explains the concept of nurture
(environment).
 Illustration: https://7esl.com/nature-vs-nurture/

As stated in the illustration above, the difference between Nature and Nurture is
relatively clear. The nature versus nurture debate involves the extent to which particular
aspects of behavior are a product of either inherited (i.e., genetic) or acquired (i.e., learned)
influences (McLeod, 2018).
➢ Nature is what we think of as pre-wiring and is influenced by genetic inheritance and
other biological factors.
➢ Nurture is generally taken as the influence of external factors after conception, e.g.,
the product of exposure, life experiences and learning on an individual.
However, in discussing the Self from the Sociological perspective, the focus shall be
on the concept of Nurture.

THE SELF AND CULTURE

French Anthropologist, Marcel Mauss, claimed that the self has two faces:
➢ the Moi which refers to a person’s sense of who he is, his body, and his basic
identity as well as his biological givenness; and
➢ the Personne which is composed of the social concepts of what it means to
be who he is.

Moi

Personne
 REFLECTIVE QUESTION
• How do you negotiate your self-identity in different social groups you are into?

How we see ourselves shapes our lives, and is shaped by our cultural context. No two
people have or will ever see themselves or build their sense of identity in the same way, since
no two people have identical experiences in life. The cultural structures around an individual,
however, may affect how they see themselves, how they translate their experiences into their
identity and how they communicate with others.

SELF AND CULTURE

Culture refers to the cumulative deposit of knowledge, experience, beliefs, values,

attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion, notions of time, roles, spatial relations, concepts of
the universe, and material objects and possessions acquired by a group of people in the
course of generations through individual and group striving ( people.tamu.edu, n.d). Culture
becomes an integral and inescapable part of our humanity, hence, shapes the development
of the self.

According to Sir Edward B. Tylor, culture is defined as “that of a complex whole which
includes knowledge, beliefs, arts, morals, laws, customs, and any other capabilities and habits
acquired by [humans] as a member of the society” (Popular Science Monthly, 1884 as cited by
Palean et. al 2018).

Culture is the meeting point of Sociology and Anthropology in terms of self-

understanding.

➢ Sociology is defined as the “scientific study of human life, social groups, whole
societies and human world whose subject matter is our own behavior as social beings
in relationship with many other people” (Giddens et. al, 2016 as cited by Palean et. al,
2018).
➢ Anthropology “is the inclusive study of the human race, its culture, and society and its
physical development” (Heacock, 2009 as cited by Palean et. al, 2018).

Culture helps define how individuals see themselves and how they relate to others.
Remember that individuals differ in many ways: language diversity, cultural diversity, gender
diversity, religious diversity, and economic diversity (Selmi, Gallagher, & Mora-Flores, 2015).
All of these aspects of diversity work together to form your sense of self.

Almost everything around us is a part of our culture: from the things that we use, to
the food that we eat; from the people we consider dear to the place we were raised in, are
all part of our culture, and all play a vital role in the development of the self.
 Types of Culture:

1. Material Culture refers to the physical objects, resources, and spaces that people use
to define their culture. These include homes, neighborhoods, cities, schools, churches,
synagogues, temples, offices, factories and plants, tools etc. All of these physical
aspects of a culture help to define its members' behaviors and perceptions. This can
be an extension of ourselves because of the attachment and/or value we put into.

2. Non-material Culture refers to the nonphysical ideas that people have about their
culture. For instance, the non‐material cultural concept of religion consists of a set of
ideas and beliefs about God, worship, morals, and ethics. These beliefs, then,
determine how the culture responds to its religious topics, issues, and events. Four of
the most important of these are symbols, language, values, and norms.

Material culture is considered more dynamic than the non-material culture. Material
culture changes from time to time because of modernization but non-material culture can
hardly be changed because the traditions has already been embedded from generation to
generation. However, this does not imply that non-material culture is permanent, it can still
change but it requires a strong force to convince the people to change the existing non-
material culture.

Culture varies from one place to another but the self is capable in morphing and fitting
itself into any circumstances it finds itself in. Social constructivists argue that the self is
malleable in its dealings with the society. For example, in the Philippines, Filipinos often
violate jaywalking rules. But when the same Filipino visits another country with strict traffic
rules, like Singapore, you will notice how suddenly law-abiding these Filipinos become.

According to developmental psychologist Catherine Raeff (2010), culture can

influence how you, your coworkers, and the families you serve view:

Relationships: Culture influences how you enter into and maintain relationships. For
example, relationships may be seen as voluntary or as duty-based. This influences how adults
encourage children to form relationships: Do they choose whom to play with or are children
encouraged to play in certain ways to promote group welfare?

Personality traits: Culture influences whether and how you value traits like humility,
self-esteem, politeness, and assertiveness. Culture also influences how you perceive hardship
and how you feel about relying on others.

Achievement: Culture influences how you define success and whether you value
certain types of individual and group achievements.

Expressing emotions: Culture influences how and whether you consider feelings
public or private.
The Self and the Development of the Social World

The connection of the emergence of the self and its

development as a member of the society became an
interesting study for George Herbert Mead.

He expounded that since the individual belongs to

certain social groups / social structure that follow a certain
social order, the individual bases his sense of self through
the lens of the society (Palean et. al, 2018). In Mead’s
Theory of self, he claimed that “the individual sees himself
as the focus of everything until such time that the self
emerges because of the influence of those who play a
George Herbert Mead prominent role in their self-development” (Palean et. al,
2019 p. 28).

He believed that people develop self-images through interactions with other people.
He argued that the self, which is the part of a person's personality consisting of self-
awareness and self-image, is a product of social experience.

Mead’s Development Stages of the Self

According to Mead, the self is developed with the presence of individuals and by
learning to interpret situations by “taking on the role of the other.”
This is done through stages:
➢ imitation (gestures, words),
➢ play (specific roles),
➢ games (multiple roles), and
➢ generalized other (role of the group).

GENERALIZED
PLAY GAMES OTHERS
IMITATION
“one” other in “many” others "many” others
"no one" in “one”
“one” situation in “many”
situation situations
The child
engages with The child begins The child learn
imitation to take on the to understand The individual is
because he still role that one interactions able to imagine
has no ability to other person involving how he or she is
take role of the might have. different people viewed by one
other. with a variety of or many others.
purposes.

Mead's Development Stages of the Self

 Mead believed that there is a specific path of development that all people go through.
During the preparatory stage, children are only capable of imitation: they have no ability to
imagine how others see things. They copy the actions of people with whom they regularly
interact, such as their mothers and fathers. This is followed by the play stage, during which
children begin to take on the role that one other person might have. Thus, children might try
on a parent’s point of view by acting out “grownup” behavior, like playing “dress up” and
acting out the “mom” role, or talking on a toy telephone the way they see their father do.
Meanwhile, during the game stage, children learn to consider several roles at the
same time and how those roles interact with each other. They learn to understand
interactions involving different people with a variety of purposes. For example, a child at this
stage is likely to be aware of the different responsibilities of people in a restaurant who
together make for a smooth dining experience (someone seats you, another takes your order,
someone else cooks the food, while yet another clears away dirty dishes). Finally, children
develop, understand, and learn the idea of the generalized other, the common behavioral
expectations of general society. By this stage of development, an individual is able to imagine
how he or she is viewed by one or many others—and thus, from a sociological perspective, to
have a “self” (Mead 1934; Mead 1964 as cited by Introduction to Sociology, n.d.).

Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory

Lev Vygotsky believed that social interaction plays a

critical role in children's learning. Through such social
interactions, children go through a continuous process of
learning (Cherry, 2020).

His theory talks about development, social interaction,

language and culture. This explains mainly that socialization
influences human learning processes. As a consequence of
socialization, it seeks to describe consciousness or perception.
Which means people speak to their friends or adults for the
Lev Vygotsky sake of conversation (Sincero, n.d.).

The Zone of Proximal Development.

According to Vygotsky, this "is the distance between the actual development level as
determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as
determined through problem-solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more
capable peers." Essentially, it includes all of the knowledge and skills that a person cannot yet
understand or perform on their own, but is capable of learning with guidance. As children are
allowed to stretch their skills and knowledge, often by observing someone who is slightly
more advanced than they are, they are able to progressively extend this zone of proximal
development.
SELF AND FAMILY

QUESTION:
• In ABS-CBN’s soap opera entitled: The Blood Sisters launched in 2018, the story revolves in the
lives of triplets who got separated at birth. Erika, a simple meek girl but feisty and aggressive
when provoked; Carrie, a socialite, cool person with calm personality; and Agatha, a cold-
hearted and gold-digger who wants to become rich and powerful.

How do these three women became terribly different in terms of personality when they all came in
the same set of biological parents?

More than his givenness (personality, tendencies, and propensities among others),
one’s social group is believed to be in active participation in the shaping of the self.

The Family played a very significant role in the early stage of socialization. They
instilled in us the ideas of “ought and ought nots” in our limited minds as children which in
turn would affect our behavior as well as our decision making later in life.

The impact of family, for instance, is still deemed as a given in understanding the self.
Aside from the genes, the kind of family born and raised into as well as the resources available
(affective, economic, spiritual) play a vital role in the development of the self. In becoming a
fully realized human being, one enters system of relationships and first of which is the Family.

SELF AND GENDER

Gender is a term that refers to social or cultural distinctions associated with being
woman, man, or neither that may or may not correspond to one’s biological sex. Gender is
one of those loci of the self that is subject to alteration, change, and development.
Sometimes, the society forces people a particular identity based on gender which may limit
one’s expression and orientation.

For example, in the Philippine Setting:

➢ Husbands are expected to provide for the family; and wives are expected to
take care of the kids and do household chores.
➢ Color blue is for boys and color pink is for girls.

These are all social constructions but affects the development of the self. It is
therefore important to five one the leeway to find, express and live his identity.

The social construction of gender is a theory in feminism and sociology about the
manifestation of cultural origins, mechanisms, and corollaries of gender perception and
expression in the context of interpersonal and group social interaction.
 Gender refers to the social construction of the differences between men and women.
It is not inborn but learned and acquired. Traditionally, the expectations, roles and
responsibilities assigned to men and women are dictated and influenced by the society and
culture where they belong. This has resulted to gender issues that impede the development
of their potentials and attainment of their self-growth. The gendered self is then shaped
within a particular context of time and space. It is greatly influenced by different socializing
factors like the family, school, religion and media.

Family

Gendered
Media Self School

Religion

Family

➢ socialization starts when baby is born, influential in formative years

➢ one is born with
➢ internalizes these norms
➢ to acquire status
➢ to plan corresponding roles

Socialization - the process by which an individual learns to conform to the norms of the
group.
School

➢ stereotyped roles are further confirmed in school through the roles, duties and
responsibilities assigned to students, teaching materials and the curriculum.
➢ when female students are not conscienticized, they internalize their “roles” that they
perpetuate the situation from one generation to the next.
Religion

➢ religious teachings depicting women as martyrs, self-sacrificing and conservative.

➢ reinforces the belief that “women’s place is in the home” & women’s primary
obligation is to be good mothers and wives which limits women’s right to shape their
destiny.
Media

➢ print media (newspapers, magazines, comics) and broadcast media (radio and TV).
➢ most effective socializing agent - subtle & often subconscious way plus long amount
of time people expose themselves to media
➢ stereotype images in advertising soup opera
Women:

1) as housewife who has to buy products to lighten her burden.

2) as loving mother and wife who serves her husband and children.

3) as a beautiful woman who has to attract the attention of men or hold her
husband’s attention

through the use of advertised products.

4) as sex objects whose body is used as a come-on for men to buy products.

Men:

1) courageous, principled, determined, and assertive.

2) also portrayed as violent, engaged in sports, professions, wars.

3) with camaraderie with other men.

THE SELF FROM THE EASTERN AND WESTERN THOUGHTS

Self-construction is a form of cultural activity (Raeff (2006) as cited by Palean et. al,
2018). As a cultural activity, it is important to understand about the concept of cultural
relativism.

Cultural relativism refers to not judging a culture to our own standards of what is right
or wrong, strange or normal. Instead, we should try to understand cultural practices of other
groups in its own cultural context. This relativism should be evident in the construction of self
from both Western and Eastern cultures.

Key Differences of Eastern and Western Thoughts

The Eastern and Western cultures are distinct from each other. The Western culture
is that of individualism while the Eastern culture is more of the collectivism. Individualism
focuses on “I” and collectivism focuses on “we.” Eastern culture entails the participation of
the other members of the society while Western culture tries to find the meaning of life here
and now with self at the center as it is already given and part of the divine.

Illustration by: https://foxhugh.com/multicultural/hofstede-index/hofstede-individualism-exercise/

The Self as Reflected in the Collectivist Teachings of Confucius

"The identity and self-concept of an individual is interwoven with the identity and status of
his/her community or culture, sharing its prides as well as its failures." -Confucius

From the teaching of Confucius, he highlighted the importance of indulging the self
with the other members of the society. This is because the symbiosis of selfhood and
otherness in the Confucian concept of self as a complex mechanism of spiritual growth (Tu,
1985 as cited by Palean et. al, 2018). Confucianism therefore is a social philosophy that
delineate the very core of human relationships, with the end goal of spiritual growth.

The Five Great Relationships of Confucianism

According to Confucius, the smooth functioning of government and society rested on

five key relationships:

1. Between ruler and the subject;

2. Between father and the son;
3. Between husband and the wife;
4. Between older brother and younger brother; and
5. Between an older friend and a younger friend.

The ruler, for example, is expected to be kind and generous to his subjects, while his
subjects, in return, were expected to be loyal to the ruler. Likewise, fathers were taught to be
kind to their sons, while sons were taught to be obedient and dutiful to their fathers. In
marriage, a husband was expected to be good to his wife, while a wife was supposed to be
submissive to her husband. Elders, whether brothers or friends, were expected to be
considerate towards their juniors, who in turn were expected to be respectful of their elders.

The most important of these relationships, and the one on which all others depended,
was the bond between parents and children. For Confucius, a smoothly functioning family –
one in which children show proper respect for their parents, relatives, and ancestors – was a
model for the Eastern culture particularly the Chinese society. In effect, the nation was like a
gigantic family. Just as a son was expected to be loyal to his father, so a citizen was expected
to be loyal to the ruler. If families were in harmony, society and government would also
function properly.

As an ancient Chinese poem, quoted in the Confucian book, the Doctrine of the Mean,
put it:

When wives and children and their sires (fathers) are one,
‘Tis like the harp and lute in unison.
When brothers live in concord and at peace,
The strain of harmony shall never cease.
The lamp of happy union lights the home,
And bright days follow when the children come.

Reverence for one’s ancestors was an important part of the Confucianism since the
dead were considered just as much a part of the family as the living. The Chinese were
expected to honor their ancestors by worshipping them at home altars and by remembering
them on special family occasions. The Chinese believed that paying this kind of respect to
ancestors would allow them to rest peacefully in the afterworld and to become kindly spirits.
Failing to do so might make them demons instead. As Confucius told his followers:
“To serve those now dead as if they were living is the highest achievement of true filial piety
(family devotion).”

These five relationships were considered building blocks of social order. This further
ensures the harmony in society and maintaining certain “proper attitude” or the Yi were
expected to adopt in these relationships.

As we ritualize and achieve human relationships, we grow spiritually, according to

Confucius. This self-cultivation includes a complex process within the spirit of filiality,
fellowship, friendship, discipleship and loyalty (Tu, 1985 as cited by Palean et. al, 2018).

Summary

Based on the Social Constructionist perspective, the self is a product of the society.
The development of the self is embedded in one’s culture, and the self can generate, alter,
and restore it for his own purpose and benefit. The social behavior of the self is indeed can
be explained by the sociological and anthropological perspectives as the self is greatly
influenced by a person’s cultural background, whether the s/he comes from the East or the
West. Hence, culture is an indispensable part of the self. As Geertz (1973) as cited by Palean
et. al (2018) explained, “Culture is not just an ornament of human existence but the principal
basis of its specificity – an essential condition for it.”