THE SELF FROM SOCIOLOGICAL

PERSPECTIVES
WILLIE L. LACIDA JR., MAED, LPT
LEARNING OBJECTIVES

 Explain the relationship between and among the self, society and
culture
 Describe and discuss the different ways by which society and culture
shape the self
 Compare and contrast how the self can be influenced by the
different institutions in the society and
 Examine one’s self against the different views of self that were
discussed in class
 How do we human beings come
to understand ourselves and others
around us? Ourselves are
powerfully influenced by our
relationships with others. Since we
are part of the society, society
shapes us in many ways – from
our interactions, to our personal
development through to others’
perception of our bodies as a
reflection of self- worth.
We are social beings. We rely on one another for the survival
of humanity. That original connection makes our interactions
physiologically and psychologically important. So it’s not
surprising that how society perceives us affects us on many
levels (Live Life Get Active , 2020).
 Not only society gives how
information of how we perceive our
self and our connection to it,
however, the cultural systems
surrounding a person will influence
how they see themselves, how they
interpret their experiences into their
identity, and how they interact with
others around them. How we see
ourselves shapes our lives, and is
shaped by our cultural context.
WHAT IS THE
SELF?
Self is Separate By separate; it is meant
that the self is distinct from other selves.
The self is always unique and has its
own identity.
 Self- contained and
Independent Self in itself
can exist. Its distinctiveness
allows it to be self- contained
with its own thoughts,
characteristics and volition. It
does not require other self to
for it to exist.
Self is Consistent Self is consistent
because it has a personality that is
enduring and therefore can be
expected to persist for quite some
time. Its consistency allows it to be
studied, described and measured.
Consistency also means that a
particular self’s traits,
characteristics, tendencies, and
potentialities are more or less the
same.
 Self is Unitary The self is
unitary in that it is the center
of all experiences and
thoughts that run through
certain person. It is like the
chief of command post in an
individual where all
processes, emotions and
thoughts converge.
 Self is Private Self
being private suggests
that the self is isolated
from the external world.
It lives within its own
world
Social constructivism argue that self should not be seen as a
static entity that stays constant. There are possibilities that
self and external reality may clash. From this point of view,
self is always changing and dynamic, allowing external
influences to take part in its shaping. The self is a
continuously struggling with external environment and it’s
flexible in its dealings with society. The self is always in
participation with social life and its identity subjected to
influence here and there (Alata, et. al., 2018).
The Self and Culture

The self does not exist on an island but in the context of the society and culture
in which it lives. As such, there is a great deal of variability in terms of what the self-
concept is from culture to culture. First, culture includes all the beliefs, customs,
institutions, experience, values, attitudes, art, religion, etc. of a group of people.
Each culture establishes norms, or rules, for how its members should behave. For
instance, Western cultures view the self as independent or individualistic meaning
that individuals reject conformity, focus on individual traits and goals, and seek
personal achievement while Asian cultures are interdependent or collectivistic and
identify the self in a social context, believe in blending in, focus on group goals,
promote solidarity, and are against egotism (Daffin & Lane, 2019).
How we see ourselves shapes our
lives, and is shaped by our cultural
context. Self-perceptions influence,
among other things, how we think
about the world, our social
relationships, health and lifestyle
choices, community engagement,
political actions, and ultimately our
own and other people's well-being
(Vignoles, 2016).
According to Mauss, self has two
faces: personne and moi. Moi refers
to a person’s sense of who he is, his
body and his basic identity. Personne
is composed of the social concepts
of what it means to be who he is. It
has so much to do with what it
means to live in a particular
institution, a particular family, a
particular religion, and how he
behaves given expectations and
influences from others.
 In the Philippines, Filipinos
tend to consider their
territory as part of who they
are. This includes
considering their immediate
surroundings as part of
them, thus the perennial
“tapat ko, linis ko”.
 Language is another interesting
aspect of this social constructivism.
The Filipino language is incredibly
interesting like the way by which we
articulate our love is denoted by the
term, “mahal kita”. The Filipino
brand of this articulation of love,
unlike in English, does not specify
the subject and the object of love;
there is no specification of who
loves and who is loved.
 There is simply a word of love,
mahal, and the pronoun kita, which
is a second person pronoun that
refers to the speaker and the one
being talked to. If one finds himself
born and reared in a particular
culture, one tries to fit in a
particular mold. If a self is born into
a particular society or culture, the
self will have to adjust according to
its exposure.
Culture is related to the development
of our attitude. Our cultural values
influence how we approach living.
According to the behaviorist
definition of culture, it is the ultimate
system of social control where
people monitor their own standards
and behavior. Our cultural values
serve as the founding principles of
our life. They shape our thinking,
behavior, and personality.
The Self and the Development
of the Social World

Mead and Vygotsky

emphasized that one way for the
human persons to develop is
with the use of language
acquisition and interaction with
others.
 Vygotsky’s Theory of Cognitive
Development centered on the ideas that
social interaction and imaginative play are
large contributors to the process of
cognitive development in children. Vygotsky
believed that the social interactions that
children engaged in helped them to both
discover and create meaning from the
things that they discover. Given that
language is vital to human interactions,
Vygotsky believed that language was the
most important tool that human could utilize.
 More so, Mead (Cronk, n.d.) entails that individual selves are the
products of social interaction and not the (logical or biological)
preconditions of that interaction. Mead contrasts his social theory of the
self with individualistic theories of the self (that is, theories that
presuppose the priority of selves to social process). “The self is
something which has a development; it is not initially there, at birth, but
arises in the process of social experience and activity, that is, develops
in the given individual as a result of his relations to that process as a
whole and to other individuals within that process”.
 Self in Families As we begin to construct our identities in early
childhood, family plays a crucial role in our development.
Humans are not born knowing how to behave in society, we
have to learn many things from the environment around us as
we grow. For most of us, this learning starts with the family at
home. A family is a personal and basic requirement in
everyone’s life. Parents begin teaching their children as soon
as they're born. They may help them learn to walk and teach
them new words as they develop their vocabulary. Teaching
their children of appropriate behaviors needed to socialize other
people.
Gender and the Self

Another important aspect of self is gender. Gender is not something

we are born with, and not something we have, but something we do
(West and Zimmerman 1987) – something we perform (Butler 1990) as
cited by Eckert et. al (n.d). Imagine a small boy proudly following his
father. As he grows, he is doing everything he can to be like his father –
to be a man. The boy is creating a persona that embodies what he is
admiring in his adult male role model. The same is true of a small girl as
she puts on her mother’s high-heeled shoes, smears makeup on her
face and minces around the room. Chances are that when these
children are grown they will not perfectly patterned their behaviors to
their parents, but their childhood performances contain elements that
may well surface in their adult male and female behaviors.
 And this is where gender and
sex come together, as society
tries to match up ways of
behaving with biologically based
sex assignments.
 Eckert et. al (n.d) define sex as
a biological categorization based
primarily on reproductive
potential, whereas gender is the
social elaboration of biological
sex. Not surprisingly, social
norms for heterosexual coupling
and care of any resulting
children are closely intertwined
with gender.
 But that is far from the full story.
Gender builds on biological sex, but it
exaggerates biological difference,
and it carries biological difference into
domains in which it is completely
irrelevant. There is no biological
reason, for example, why women
should mince and men should
swagger, or why women should have
red toenails and men should not.
 But while we think of sex as
biological and gender as social, this
distinction is not clear-cut. People
tend to think of gender as the result
of nurture – as social and hence fluid
– while sex is the result of nature,
simply given by biology. However,
nature and nurture intertwine, and
there is no obvious point at which
sex leaves off and gender begins.
 Society and individual are made
mutually dependent and responsible
and mutually complementary. A
society gains a character and a
personality of its own, because of
the culture of its people.
 Culture is shared by the members of a
community. It is learned and passed from
the older generations to the newer ones.
Culture is a bond that ties the people of a
region or community together. It is that one
common bond, which brings the people of a
community together.
 The customs and traditions that the people of a
community follow, the festivals they celebrate, the
kind of clothing they wear, the food they eat, and
most importantly, the cultural values they adhere
to, bind them together.