The Material Self

GE 1 - UNDERSTANDING THE
SELF KESSY IVY D. CRUZ
Objectives
• Determine the factors that contribute to one’s
material / economic self
• Understand the importance of self-value and self-
worth
• Analyze and evaluate one’s material and
economic behavior that contributes to one’s sense of
self.
Activity

Make a
meme out
of the
picture.
 Question

What do your
possessions say
about you?
Material things:
Extension of identity
• Many people perceive material things as the
extension of their identities.
• Some people think that acquiring material things
is the key in improving their identity.
• They assume that their participation in the
consumption of goods and services represent their
material self as their participation furnishes them a
status and role in society.
I shop, therefore i am
• Identities can be reflected on the possessions that
people have.
• As Tuan (1998) argues, “our fragile sense of self
needs support, and this we get by having and
possessing things because, to a large degree, we are
what we have and possess.”
Material Self
according to William James
“A man’s self is the sum total of all that he can call his, not
only his body and psychic powers, but his clothes and his
house, his wife and children, his ancestors and friends, his
reputation and works, his lands, and yacht and bank
account. All these things give him the same emotions. If
they wax and prosper, he feels triumphant; if they dwindle
and die away, he feels cast down, - not necessarily in the
same degree for each thing, but in much the same way for
all.”
Two subclasses of Material Self
Bodily Self
• Composed of the intimate
parts of the person which
include body’s aspects
• physical (arms, head,etc)
• emotional (feelings,
desires etc)
• psychological
(intelligence, cognition
etc)
• and moral (values, beliefs
etc).
Extracorporeal Self
• Also known as the
extended self. It includes
• the people of great
significance to us (family),
• possessions (house, car,
clothes)
• places that matter to us,
• products of our labor (job,
handworks etc).
In other words…
• The material self is constituted by our bodies,
clothes, immediate family and home.
• It is to these things ,according to James, that we are
most deeply affected because of our investments of
self within these things.
• The more we invest of ourselves in these objects,
the more attached we inevitably we are to them.
Body
• The innermost part of our material self
• Intentionally we are investing in our body to make
sure that the body functions well and good
• We buy food to nourish and sustain it, vitamins
to supplement its performance, cosmetics that
will enhance, etc.
Did you know…
there are certain people • We do have preferential
who get parts of their attachment or intimate closeness
body insured? to certain body parts because of
David Beckham’s its value to us.
legs – $70M
Cristiano Ronaldo’s
legs – $144M
Jennifer Lopez’s butt
– $300M.
Clothes
• Influenced by the “Philosophy of Dress” by Hermann Lotze,
James believed that clothing is an essential part of the
material self.
• “Anytime we bring an object into the surface of our body, we invest
in that object into the consciousness of our personal existence taking
in its contours our own and making it part of the self” – Lotze
(Microcosmus)
• The fabric and style of the clothes we wear bring
sensations to the body, to which we are directly affected
through our attitudes and behaviors.
Family
• What they do or become affects us.
• When an immediate family member dies, a part of our self-
dies too.
• When their lives are in success, we feel their victories as is it
was our own.
• In their failures, we are also put to shame or guilt.
• When they are in disadvantaged situation, there is an urge
within us to help like a voluntary instinct of saving one’s
self from danger.
• We see our family as the nearest replica of self
Home
• home is where the heart is.
• Our experience inside the home were recorded and
marked on particular parts and things in our home.
• As the old cliché goes, “if only walls can speak,” thus the
home is an extension of the self because, in it we can
directly connect our self.
How much do we value
our self?
Self-worth vs Self-value
• Self-worth is defined by Merriam-Webster as “a
feeling that you are a good person who deserves to
be treated with respect”.
• Self-value is “more behavioral than emotional, more
about how you act toward what you value, including
yourself, than how you feel about yourself compared
to others” (Stosny, 2014).
Self-worth
• The self-worth theory posits that an individual’s main
priority in life is to find self-acceptance and that self-
acceptance is often found through achievement
(Covington & Beery, 1976).
• In turn, achievement is often found through
competition with others.
• competing with others can help us feel like we have
impressive achievements under our belt, which then makes us
feel proud of ourselves and enhances our acceptance of
ourselves
Five of the top factors
that people use to measure and compare their own
self-worth to the worth of others:
Appearance
• whether measured by the
number on the scale, the
size of clothing worn, or
the kind of attention
received by others;
Net worth
• This can mean income,
material possessions,
financial assets, or all of
the above;
Who you know/your social circle
• Some people judge their own value and the value of others
by their status and what important and influential people
they know;
What you do/your career
• we often judge others
by what they do; for
example, a stockbroker
is often considered
more successful and
valuable than a janitor
or a teacher;
What you achieve
• As noted earlier, we
frequently use
achievements to
determine someone’s
worth (whether it’s our
own worth or someone
else’s), such as success
in business, scores on
the SATs, or placement
in a marathon or other
athletic challenge
(Morin, 2017).
Self-
& Consumer
Identity
Culture
Self as consumer
• Consumer researchers have recognized for a long
time that people consume in ways that are consistent
with their sense of self (Levy 1959; Sirgy 1982)
• Consumers use possessions and brands to create
their self-identities and communicate these selves to
others and to themselves
Self as consumer
• Previous studies have emphasized the significance of
self-concept and consumer preference, as purchases
made by consumers were directly influenced by the
image individuals had of themselves (Onkivist&
Shaw, 1987).
Self-image congruity
• Sirgy (1982) defined self-image congruity (also
often referred to as product-image congruity) as the
process of consumers purchasing products/brands
that they perceived as possessing symbolic images
similar to the image they hold of themselves.
‘I’: consumer’s identity
• ‘I’ is the consumer's self-concept or self-
dentity.
• This ‘I’ includes both ‘sans possessions' self
and the extended self
Six Components
• Although the • a. their bodies
concept of ‘I’ can • b. their values and
include virtually character
everything a person
ever come to own and • c. their successes and
live with, a systematic competence
list would include six • d. their social roles
components: • e. their traits
• f. their possessions.
• If a person had to invest a lot of resources (money,
time, energy) finding and selecting a product, then to
psychologically justify that kind of investment,
people tend to view that product as part of their
extended self.
• For this reason, more expensive purchases, and
purchases for which they have saved for a long time
are more likely to become part of the extended self.
How products relate to self
• Products thus can relate to one’s self in two ways:
a. by being instrumental to enhancing their self sans
possessions’ and; b. by becoming a valued possession.
• As to the second role, product possessions become part of
self by six mechanisms described above: by self-based
choice, by investment in acquisition, by investment in use,
by bonding during use, as collections, and as memory
markers.
Let’s reflect:
How do you see yourself?
Are your possessions extensions of your self?
How would your possessions describe you as a
person?
We buy things necessary for our survival
and development as a person, but we
also need to guard ourselves so as not
to easily fall into the consumer culture.
We should be more conscious and
critical of the things that we buy as
not to
confuse this with materialism.
Remember…
Material blessings are fruits of our labor
and success.

All we possess may change, vanish, and be

rotten but the authentic self will remain.
Remember…