The psychologist’s turn on the “self”

Leonardo D. Buyan Jr. | GECC 108: Understanding the Self

Psychology at the Intersections
of Social Sciences, Natural
Sciences, and Education

• Psychology is the scientific study of the mind

and behavior.

• Psychologists are actively involved in studying

and understanding mental processes, brain
functions, and behavior.
The psychologist’s turn

• “What does it mean to be a human?”

• Where anthropology is interested in the individual as

a social creature, psychology is interested in the
internal cognition of the creature.

• ”What can make an effective self, a happy self, a

fulfilled self, a useful self? How does the self know
itself? What cognitive activities are involved in
forming the self?”
In the beginning…

• Some psychological approaches see the

individual as a mechanism – and a
mechanism is not, by itself motivated.

• The mechanistic approach is, however,

considered by behavioral psychologists
to be a valid a starting point despite its
inadequate description of human beings.
SIGMUND FREUD
Sigmund Freud:
id, ego, and super-ego

• Freud (1923) saw the cognitive processes of the

typical human as a melding of three types of self:
the ego, which represents the everyday thinking
we perform; the id, which is emotional, primal
and largely subliminal; and the super-ego, which
is the internalization of externally enforced
cultural rules.

• He believed that there was a continuing battle

between the id (what the physical person wants)
and the super-ego (what the intellectual person
believes is best), with the ego acting as a referee
and arbiter between them.
Freud: The self is like
an iceberg.

• Neuroses

• Freudian therapy is mostly a matter

of getting the client to recognize
their unconscious desires and then
helping them to integrate those
desires into their conscious
cognition.
JEROME BRUNER
Jerome Bruner: The
self is a continuing
narrative.
• Bruner (1986) saw the self as a product of a
continuing narrative, an autobiography that we
generate through a lifetime of experiences.

• For Bruner, there was no single, transcendent

ego, but nor was there any multiplicity of
selves.

• The me now is not the me of yesterday, and it

will not be the me of tomorrow; but there is a
continuity of memory between those selves
that gives them a single wholeness, or me-ness.
Bruner: Psychology should be in the business of
protecting the Narrative self and promoting it as
a responsible for itself.

• The single, continuous self is the basis of many different human social
systems, and the generally agreed measure of social acceptability for
a self is its continuity and unity.

• The aim should be to create self-acceptance, rather than Freud’s truce

between the id and the super-ego.
DANIEL
WEGNER
Daniel Wegner: The self is an attribution of intention.
Priority Consistency Exclusivity

• the feeling • the • there

of conscious should be
intention thinking at no
must the time intimation
occur very of the that the
soon after action action is
the act has should be caused by
happened related to an
the action external
agency
Wegner: The self is just
a cognitive reaction to
the body’s activity.

• Wegner (2002) argues contrary to

the notion that the cognitive self
controls the actions of the physical
self and claims that the illusion of
control stems from the idea that the
physical self is a machine under the
control of the brain and the brain is
under the conscious control of the
cognitive self.
 In summary…
• The psychological approach is concerned with
both the study of selfhood and with its
application to the cognitive wellness of the self.

• The theoretical approach to the nature of the

self determines the appropriate therapeutic
treatment to give.