The Self according

to Psychology
Jennyfer B. Salazar, RPm
Lesson 4:GED 101
What is psychology?
 What Is Psychology?

Psychology is the study of mind and behavior. It encompasses the

biological influences, social pressures, and environmental factors that
affect how people think, act, and feel.
Gaining a richer and deeper understanding of psychology can help
people achieve insights into their own actions as well as a better
understanding of other people.
 The Self as Cognitive Construction

As humans grow and develop, self-concept becomes abstract and more

complex.
• According to the psychologist Dr. Bruce A. Bracken in 1992, there are
six specific domains that are related to self-concept these are:
1) the social domain or the ability of the person to interact with others;
2) the competence domain or the ability to meet the basic needs;
3) the affect domain or the awareness of the emotional states;
4) the physical domain or the feelings about looks, health, physical
condition, and overall appearance;
5) academic domain or the success or failure in the school; and
6) family domain or how well one function within the family unit.
Psychological Perspective of
the Self
William James and the Me-Self and I-Self
• William James is a well-known figure in
Psychology who is considered as the founder of
functionalism.

• James made a clear distinction between ways of

approaching the self – the knower (the pure or the I
– Self) and the known (the objective or the Me –
Self). The function of the knower (I-Self) according
to James must be the agent of experience.

While the known (Me-Self) have three different but

interrelated aspects of empirical self (known today
as selfconcept):

the Me viewed as material, the Me viewed as social,

and the Me viewed as spiritual in nature.
● The material self is consists of everything an individual
call uniquely as their own, such as the body, family, home
or style of dress.
● On the other hand, social self refers to the recognition an
individual get from other people.
● Lastly, spiritual self refers to the individual inner or
subjective being.
Real and Ideal Self • Carl Rogers is best known as the founder of
client-centered therapy and considered as one of the
prominent humanistic or existential theorists in
personality. His therapy aimed to make the person
achieve balance between their selfconcept
(real-self) and ideal self.

• The real self includes all those aspects of one's

identity that are perceived in awareness. These are
the things that are known to oneself like the
attributes that an individual possesses. The ideal
self is defined as one’s view of self as one wishes to
be. This contains all the aspirations or wishes of an
individual for themselves.
• 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.
Multiple versus Unified Self

• According to Multiple Selves Theory, there are different aspects of the self
exist in an individual. From here, we can say that self is a whole consist of
parts, and these parts manifest themselves when need arise.
• Gregg Henriques proposed the Tripartite Model of Human Consciousness,
wherein he described that self is consist of three related, but also separable
domains these are the experimental self, private self, and public self.
o The experiential self or the theater of consciousness is a domain of self that defined as felt
experience of being. This includes the felt consistency of being across periods of time. It is
tightly associated with the memory. This is a part of self that disappears the moment that an
individual enter deep sleep and comes back when they wake up.
o The private self consciousness system or the narrator/interpreter is a portion of self that
verbally narrates what is happening and tries to make sense of what is going on. The moment
that you read this part, there is somewhat like a “voice” speaking in your head trying to
understand what this concept is all about.
o Lastly, the public self or Persona, the domain of self that an individual shows to the public,
and this interacts on how others see an individual. Henriques’ Tripartite Model attempts to
capture the key domains of consciousness, both within the self and between others.
• Unified being is essentially connected to consciousness,
awareness, and agency. A well-adjusted person is able to accept and
understood the success and failure that they experienced. They are
those kinds of person who continually adjust, adapt, evolve and
survive as an individual with integrated, unified, multiple selves.
True versus False Self • Donald Winnicott was a pediatrician in London who
studied Psychoanalysis with Melanie Klein, a renowned
personality theorist and one of the pioneers in object
relations and development of personality in childhood.
• According to him,false self is an alternative personality
used to protect an individual’s true identity or one’s ability
to“hide” the real self. The false self is activated to maintain
social relationship as anticipation of the demands of others.
Compliance with the external rules or following societal
norms is a good example of this. false self can be a healthy
self if it is perceived as functional for the person and for
the society and being compliant without the feeling of
betrayal of true self. On the other hand, unhealthy false self
happens when an individual feels forced compliance in any
situation.
• On the contrary, true self has a sense of integrity and connected wholeness
that is rooted in early infancy. The baby creates experiences of a sense of
reality and sense of life worth living. Winnicott claimed that true self can be
achieved by good parenting that is not necessarily a perfect parenting.
The Self as Proactive and Agentic
Albert Bandura
• Albert Bandura is a psychologist and Professor
Emeritus of Social Science in Psychology at Stanford
University. He is known for his theory of social learning
by means of modeling. He is famous for his proposed
concept of self efficacy.

• His personality theory, The Social Cognitive Theory

asserts that a person is both proactive and agentic, which
means that we have the capacity to exercise control over
our life. This theory emphasized that human beings are
proactive, self-regulating, self-reflective, and self
organizing.

Vicarious learning
• Self as proactive means an individual have control in any situation by making things happen.
They act as agent in doing or making themselves as they are. Agency is a defining feature of
modern selfhood. Agents assume some degree of ownership and control over things, both
internally (I control my own thoughts) and externally (I make things happen in the environment).
The ability of an individual to pursue their goals in life is an example of agentic approach to self.

• According to Bandura (1989), self-efficacy beliefs determine how people feel, think, motivate
themselves and behave. Such beliefs produce these diverse effects through four major processes.
They include cognitive, motivational, affective and selection processes. A strong sense of efficacy
enhances human accomplishment and personal well-being in many ways.

• In contrast Bandura (1989) said that people who doubt their capabilities shy away from difficult
tasks which they view as personal threats. They have low aspirations and weak commitment to the
goals they choose to pursue. When faced with difficult tasks, they dwell on their personal
deficiencies, on the obstacles they will encounter, and all kinds of adverse outcomes rather than
concentrate on how to perform successfully. They fall easy victim to stress and depression.
The End