The Self as

Cognitive Construct
Lesson 3
As mentioned earlier, there are various definitions of the "self" and other
similar or interchangeable concepts in psychology. William James was
one of the earliest psychologists to study the self and conceptualized the
self as having two aspects - the "I" and the "me". The "I" is the thinking,
acting, and feeling self. The "me" on the other hand, is the physical
characteristics as well as psychological capabilities that makes who you
are.
 Other concepts similar to self are identity and self concept.

Self Identity - is composed of personal characteristics, social roles,

and responsibilities, as well as affiliations that define who one is.
Self concept - is what basically comes to your mind when you are
asked about who you are.
Self identify and self concept are not fixed in one time frame.
They are not also fixed for life nor are they
ever-changing at every moment.

Basically, Sigmund Freud saw the self, it's mental processes,

and one's behavior as the results of the interaction
between the 'Id', 'ego', and the 'superego'.
 Id - the impulsive part of your personality
that is driven by pleasure and
repulsed by pain.

Ego - the conscious part of your personality

that mediates between the id and the
superego and makes decisions.

Superego - the judgmental and

morally correct part of your personality.
Under the theory of symbolic interactionism, G.H. Mead argued that the self is created and
developed through human interaction.

There are three reasons why self and identity are social products.

1. We do not create ourselves out of nothing. Society helped in creating the foundations of
who we are and even if we make our choices, we will still operate in our social and
historical contexts in one way or the other.
2. Whether we like to admit it or not, we actually need others to
affirm and reinforce who we think we are. We also need them
as reference points about our identity.

3. What we think is important to us may also have

been influenced by what is important in our social or
historical context.
Social interaction and group affiliation, therefore, are
vital factors in creating our self-concept especially
in the aspect of providing us with our social identity
or our perception of who we are based on our membership
to certain groups.
When we are aware of our self concepts; this is also called self awareness.

There are two types of self that we can be aware of:

1. The private self or your internal standards and private
thoughts and feelings.
2. The public self or your public image commonly geared toward having a good
presentation of yourself to others.
Self-awareness also present us with at least three other self schema:

• Actual self - is who you are at the moment

• Ideal self - is who you like to be
•Ought self - is who you think you should be
 Self-awareness may be positive or negative depending on the
circumstances and our next course of action. Self awareness
can keep you from doing something dangerous;
can be too much that we are concerned about being
observed and criticized by others, also known as self-consciousness.
Our group identity and elf-awareness also has a great
impact on our self-esteem, one of the common concepts
associated with the "self". It is defined as our own
positive and negative perception or evaluation of ourselves.

One of the ways in which our social relationship affects our

self-esteem is through social comparison. According to the social
comparison theory, we learn about ourselves, the appropriateness
of our behaviors, as well as our social status by comparing
aspects of ourselves with other people.
Downward social comparison - The common type of comparing
ourselves with others. We create a positive self-concept by
comparing ourselves with those who are worse off than us.

Upward social comparison - comparing ourselves with those

who are better off than us.
Self comparison also entails what is called self-evaluation
maintenance theory, which states that we can feel
threatened when someone out-performs us, especially
when that person is close to us.

However, in the attempt to increase or maintain self-esteem,

some people become narcissistic.
Narcissism - a trait characterized by overly high self-esteem,
self admiration, and self-centeredness.
People with high self-esteem are commonly
described as outgoing, adventurous,
and adaptable in a lot of situations.
They also initiate activities and building
relationships with people.