THE

THEORETICAL
VIEWS
 TRIANGGULAR THEORY OF LOVE
Robert Sternberg

The theory:

✓ Provides a comprehensive basis for understanding aspects of love that underlies close
relationships
✓ Explains the topic of ‘love’ in an interpersonal relationship
✓ An attempt to fulfill personalized stories of love

Love:

 A complex whole that appears to derive in part from genetically transmitted instincts and
drives I larger part from socially learned role modeling
 A subjective feeling that changes and evolves
 The difficulty in studying it comes from its enormous complexity itself.

Components:

 Comprise of Intimacy, Passion, and Decision/Commitment

 Varies depending on the importance, commonality and dependence and involvement in
the relationship
 IMPORTANCE: functions as a basis to determine whether the relationship is short term
or long term
 COMMONALITY: speaks of the variability and appearance of a component in a
relationship
 DEPENDENCE: this is about the amount of physiological involvement in a relationship

INTIMACY – feelings of closeness, connectedness, and bondedness

experienced in a loving relationship
- Feelings that give rise to the experience of warmth
- “emotional investment”
PASSION – drives that lead to romance, physical attraction, and social
consummation.
- Includes sources of motivational and other forms of arousal that leads
to the experience of passion in a loving relationship
- Refers to motivation for being in a romantic relationship (motivational
involvement)
DECISION/COMMITMENT – (1) short term – decision to love the other; (2)
commitment to maintain the love
- Includes the cognitive elements that are involved in decision-making
about the existence of and potential long-term commitment to a loving
relationship
- The cognitive choice to be in a relationship and stay with it
Composition of Components:

COMPONENTS OF LOVE COMPOSITION

- Desire to promote welfare of the loved one
- Experience happiness with loved one
- Having regards for loved one
Intimacy - Being able to count to one another in times
of need
- Mutual understanding
- Sharing one’s self and possession
- Receipt of emotional support from loved
one
 - Intimate communication
- Valuing loved one in one’s life
- State of intense longing for union with
the other
- Other needs: self-esteem, succorance,
nurturance, affiliation, dominance,
submission, self-actualization
- Physiological and psychological
Passion arousal
- Certainly be highly and reciprocally
interactive with intimacy
- May be aroused by intimacy
- Dominated by sexuality
-
- The presence of decision or
commitment does not imply one
another
- Essential for getting through the hard
Decision/Commitment time
- Decision is not always the one that
promotes involvement or arousal but
one which has considerable control

Geometry:
1. Area of the Triangle – measures the amount of love
- The larger the triangle, the greater the experience of love
- Amount of love – absolute strength of the components
2. Shape of the Triangle – states the balance of love
- Type of love – ratio of the components; strength of components
relative to each other
-
Multiple Triangles:
▪ Love does not only involve a single triangle
▪ Actual and Ideal Triangles

▪ Real vs. Ideal Triangles = based on experience on previous relationship

= “comparison level”

▪ Self vs. Other Triangles = one can conceptualize the degree of match or mismatch
between partner’s triangles
= involvement – differ in area and shape

▪ Self-Perceived vs. Other Perceived Triangles = the other may not perceive one’s levels
of components in the same way these levels are perceived by the self.

▪ Overlapping Area = satisfaction in a relationship

▪ Greater Discrepancy from Ideal Triangle = relationship is in serious jeopardy
 Kinds of Love:

BEST FOUND
KINDS COMPONENTS CHARACTERISTICS DESCRIPTIONS
IN:
decision or
intimacy passion commitment
no personal absence of components casual
Non-Love
relationships of love interactions
➢ refers to set of feelings
true friendships = that can be truly regard
Liking x bond, warmth and as true friendship friendship
closeness ➢ "emotionally close but
does not turn one on"
➢ results from experiencing
passionate arousal in the
absence of intimacy and
Infatuated decision/commitment "limerence"
Love or x high degree of ➢ can arise or love at
Infatuation psychophysiological instantaneously and can first sight
arousal, manifested dissipate as quickly
in somatic under right
symptoms circumstance
➢ emanates from the
decision that one loves arranged
no mutual
another and has marriage or
Empty Love x involvement and
commitment in that said stagnant
physical attraction
love relationships
➢ deterioration of stronger love
➢ liking with element of
arousal brought about
bonded by physical attraction
emotionally and and its concomitants
Romantic Love x x
physically through ➢lovers are not only
passionate arousal physically drawn but are
emotionally bonded to
each other
➢ personal relation built
with someone to share
life with no physical or
life -long friendship
Companionate sexual desire
x x physical attraction marriages
Love ➢ long-term committed
has died down
friendship that
frequently occurs in
marriage
whirlwind ➢ associated with
courtship and Hollywood
Fatuous Love x x marriage ➢ couple meets on Day X, divorce
relationship gets engage in 2 weeks
termination risks and marries next month
➢ complete presence of
Consummate harder to maintain components
x x x
Love than to attain ➢ what everyone is
striving for
 STAGES OF GRIEF
Elizabeth Kubler-Ross
Stage:
✓ different experiences with adjusting to loss
✓ each stage contains an emotional or cognitive response which allows the person to
adjust and cope with the loss
✓ describe the emotional states seriously ill people commonly experienced and the
adaptive mechanisms used to make sense of and live with accruable conditions
✓ part of framework that makes up the learning to live with what one lost
✓ tools to help us frame and identify what we may be feeling

The Stages:

❖ Denial
 The conscious or unconscious refusal to accept the fact at hand
 An initial response to shock and disbelief
 Allows time and space to process the experience
 People mentally distance themselves from the situation and believes that the
changes are not really happening
 The world becomes meaningless and overwhelming and life makes no sense
 Together with shock, this helps in coping and making survival possible as well as
pacing the feeling of grief
 Living in the “preferable reality” rather than in “actual reality”

❖ Anger
 Where an individual externalizes the pain of loss by blaming or lashing out on
oneself or others
 This serves to give a temporary sense of purpose
 The more the anger is felt, the more it will dissipate and the possibility of healing
 A connection to others that is made to make one feel better than nothing
 A necessary and natural response

❖ Bargaining
 A stage of false hope
 An attempt to negotiate with powers at hand in order to reach a compromise
 Expression of hope that somehow the event may be reverse
 Take the form of a temporary truce
 “if only” and “what if” statements
 Accompanied by guilt

❖ Depression
◆ “dress rehearsal” for the aftermath of the event
◆ A commonly accepted form of grief
◆ The feeling of emptiness while living in the reality that something or someone is
lost
◆ Presence of full emotion impact of the event
◆ Acceptance that the event cannot be changed
◆ Not a sign of mental illness but a response to great loss
◆ Often seen as unnatural: a state to be fixed, something to snap out of.

❖ Acceptance
 Not to be understood in the sense that an event happened and its “okay” but
rather having the view of being okay
 Being emotionally detached from the situation and comes to reality
  Individual has already assimilated the reality of loss and is ready to move forward
 accepting the reality that our loved one is physically gone and recognizing that
this new reality is the permanent reality
 emotions are beginning to stabilize
 coming to the terms of the new reality that the thing or person you lost is never
coming back
 a time of adjustments and readjustments
 there are still bad days, but are outnumbered by the good ones
 it is understanding that the person or thing lost cannot be replaced but you
decide to move, grow, and evolve in the new reality

Symptoms of Grief:
1. crying 10. anxiety
2. headaches 11. frustration
3. difficulty in sleeping 12. guilt
4. questioning the purpose of life 13. fatigue
5. questioning spiritual belief 14. anger
6. feelings of detachment 15. loss of appetite
7. isolation 16. aches and pains
8. abnormal behavior 17. stress
9. worry
 THEORY OF IMMATURE CHARACTERISTICS

David Elkind

Hurried Child:
 Phenomena that he believes children and teenagers are instead being pushed to
become miniature adults.
Characteristics of Teenage Thinking:
▪ Imaginary Audience – self-conscious nature of adolescents
- that teens are constantly being observed and judged.
▪ Personal Fable – self-centeredness of teens
- states this also helps explain the risk-taking behaviours exhibited by
many teenagers, a belief that the teen is invulnerable
▪ Apparent Hypocrisy - helps distinguish between supposed bad motives by
teenagers and intellectual immaturity.

Elkind’s Six Immature Characteristics of Adolescent Thought

•1) Idealism and Criticalness:

 Convinced they know better than adults; consistently find fault in parents/adult figures

•2) Argumentativeness:
 Constantly looking for opportunities to test out their reasoning

•3) Indecisiveness:
 Lack effective choosing strategies

•4) Apparent Hypocrisy:

 Do not recognize the difference between expressing an ideal and making the sacrifices
necessary to live up to it

•5) Self-Consciousness:
 includes imaginary audience and personal fable

•6) Specialness and Invulnerability:

 belief that one is special, their experiences are unique, and they are not subject to the
rules that govern the rest of the world
 ADULT DEVELOPMENT THEORY

Roger Gould

Theory:
✓ charts inner stages of consciousness in which the adult gives up a various illusions
and myths held over from childhood
✓ process – freeing oneself from childhood and establishing a sense of personal
identity
Psychological Growth:
▪ takes place between two opposing pulls
▪ (1) need to grow and adapt
▪ (2) need to preserve safety and illusion of safety
Psychological Growth:
▪ If the action is not taken when there is a situation in which the inner or outer reality
demands action
Adult Development:
❖ Gradual replacement of child’s sense of safety (illusion) with actual grown-up safety
anchored in mature decisions
❖ A continuation of the separation-individuation process with a distinctive phase pattern
that is tied to the age-related demands of life cycle
Adulthood:
❖ A time of “dismantling” the protective devices that gave us the illusion of safety as
children
❖ Discrete period of development
Transformations - Series of sequential, age-related stages
➢ Leaving the Parents’ World (16-22)
➢ Getting into the Adult World (22-28)
➢ Questioning and Reexamination (28-34)
➢ Midlife Decade (35-45)
➢ Reconciliation and Mellowing (43-50)
➢ Stability and acceptance (50 and over)
Identity – begins between ages 16 and 22 when people are challenging the false assumption 1.
False Assumptions:
1. We’ll always live with our parents and be their child
2. They’ll always be there to help when we cannot do something on our own
3. Life is simple and controllable
4. There is no real death or evil in the world

Life Stages in Adult Development:

Age Description Suggestions

22-27 Age of Exploration

• New possibilities (new career, leaving
home, maybe new marriage)
• Emergence as their own person –
defining themselves as an adult.
• Tremendous hope for the future –
idealistic.
• May appear confident, but usually not so
sure of themselves inside.
• Affirm and praise when doing things right
(even routine stuff)
• Provide lots of support and affirmation as

28-35 Age of Permanency
• Often new home, babies, working
toward another degree
• Most overworked, guilt-ridden group.
36-39 Age of False Euphoria
• Feeling of mastery and competence.
• Have finished degree, had the babies,
built the home and so on
• A sense of I can do anything!
40-55 Age of Mid-Life Crisis and then Age of
Acceptance
• “Is this all there is?” Re-assess life
accomplishments.
• Many start over.
• Re-commitment to beliefs and values.
• Come to terms with who they are.
• A period that may be stressful for some,
freedom for others, constraints for
some.
• Search for immortality.
50-60 Age of Mellow and Ambivalence
• Been there before, done that.
• Wealth of knowledge and experience,
Countdown to retirement.
• Some do not want to change because
they plan to leave soon.
they grow and work to improve.
• Look for ways to scaffold tasks, provide
short cuts, flip charts.
• “Chunk” or “bullet” information.
• Create collaboration to share and lighten the
load.
• If possible, connect to other work they may
be pursuing.
• Use talents, gifts, enthusiasm and support.
• Show appreciation/recognition.
• Use energy to re-access and reflect on what
is important; focus on things most valued.
• Identify what they value and believe is
important – use as a frame for new
strategies.
• Show appreciation/recognition. Affirm their
contributions.
• Create sense of developing something
permanent for those who will follow.
• Acknowledge their experience and
knowledge.
• Appeal to the need of their experience and
input.
• Create sense of developing something
permanent for those who will follow – to
“pass it on” – use LF framework to do so;
scaffold and model
 ECOLOGOCAL SYSTEM THEORY
Urie Bronfenbrenner

Theory:
✓ Defines complex ‘layers’ of environment
✓ Child’s development within the context of system of relationships that form his/her
environment
✓ Renamed as “Bioecological Systems Theory” to emphasize that a child’s own biology is
a primary environment fueling the development
✓ Also used in articulating process of human socialization and has been one key to
understand education
Structure:
❖ Microsystem
- Layer closest to a child
- Contains the structure which the child has direct contact
- Encompasses the relationships and interactions a child has with
intermediate surroundings
- Sample: family, school, neighborhood, child care
- Relationship has a Bidirectional Influences
- (1) away from the child; and (2) towards the child
- Bidirectional Influences – strongest and have greatest impact in this
layer
- Patterns of activities, roles, and interpersonal relations experienced by
developing person in a given face-to-face setting with particular
physical and material features
❖ Mesosystem
- Provides the connection between structures of child’s microsystem
- Linkages and processes taking place between two or more settings
containing the developing person
❖ Exosystem
- Defined ;larger social system in which the child does not function
directly
- Impact child’s development by interacting with some structures in
microsystem
- Samples: parent workplace, community-based family resources
- Linkage taking place between two or more settings that do not
ordinarily contain the developing person but in which the events occur
that influence process
❖ Macrosystem
- Outermost layer in child’s environment
- Comprise of cultural values, customs, and laws
- Effect of larger principles have cascading influence throughout the
interaction I all other layers
- Overarching pattern of microsystem, mesosystem, and exosytem
- Societal blueprint for a particular culture, subculture, or other broader
social context
❖ Chronosystem
- Encompasses dimension of time related to child’s environment
- Elements can be external or internal
- External : timing of a parent’s death
- Internal : Physiological changes occur in the presence of maturity
- Description of evolution, development pr stream of development of
external systems in time
- “change, development, history, time, course of one’s life:
-
 SOCIAL INTEGRATION THEORY (Types of Suicide)
Emile Durkheim

Durkheim:
- Sought to understand how negative meanings and emotions were produced in
individuals and groups during times of dramatic social change and how such changes
made some groups more vulnerable than others to self-destruction.
- provided a multifaceted theoretical scheme that privileged social explanations and
dismissed, in strongly polemical terms, other popular lay and scientific explanations,
such as mental illness, imitation, climate, and temperature
- Argued that several structural issues can give us a better understanding of the
psychological factors linked to suicide.
Suicide:
 is commonly conceived as a positive, violent action involving some muscular energy
 It may happen that a purely negative attitude or mere abstention will have the same
consequence.
 Refusal to take food is as suicidal as self-destruction by a dagger or fire-arm.
 Cannot be explained adequately by psychological factors alone. Instead, he argued that
several structural issues can give us a better understanding of the psychological factors
linked to suicide
 any death which is the immediate or eventual result of a positive (e.g., shooting oneself)
or negative (e.g., refusing to eat) act accomplished by the victim himself
 varies inversely with the degree of integration of the religious, domestic, and political
groups of which the individual forms a part; in short, as a society weakens or
"disintegrates
Theory:
✓ Has had a major influence on those who study and attempt to prevent suicide but, as
noted within major gerontological textbooks, very little of his work has informed the
service delivery arena of aging.
Factors:

• two structural factors affected suicide rates

• two kinds of extra-social causes sufficiently general to have an influence on the
suicide rate.
1. level of regulation - within the individual psychological constitution there might exist
an inclination, normal or pathological, varying from country to country, which directly
leads people to commit suicide.
2. level of integration - the nature of the external physical environment (climate,
temperature, etc.) might indirectly have the same effect
Social Integration:
 sense of belonging and inclusion (love, care and concern) that can flow or not from
social ties
 serves as the core insight that has dominated, and continues to dominate, sociological
thinking and analysis
 a touchstone theme, often been called as social isolation, social cohesion, or social
support
 can be understood as a social organization based on collective solidarity and collective
consciousness.
 stems from people’s participation in the division of labor
 Little Integration – people tend to be self-focused and disconnected from others
- Result to a feeling that no one cares whether he lives or dies
  High Integration – people may willingly give their own life in the attempt to benefit the
life/lives of others
- People enjoy stable, durable, and cohesive social ties
- Individuals are supportive, particularly in times of crisis, that reduces the
vulnerability to suicide
 Integration - refers to the inclusion of units forming a higher-level entity.
- Subordinated units are presented by social groups and individuals
- Principal Interest are societies and social groups
- These units become incorporated through interaction b attuning and
harmonizing values and behavioral patterns
 Collective Solidarity and Consciousness – rely on social regulations and norms as
well as enforcement to according to these norms
- In traditional and agricultural societies, it relies on high similarities
between people
- With close, kin-based relationships, it is the strong homogeneity in values,
interests, and behavior
 Collective Cohesion - in the pre-modern times, results in mechanical solidarity
Social Regulation:
 Development of a sense of fatalism and hopelessness
 Low Social Regulation – result in feeling of normlessness and rootlessness that can lead
to anomic suicide
 High or Low Regulation can be a caused of suicide rates increase
 Over and under regulation can produce suicide
Types of Suicide:

SUICIDE CHARACTERISTICS DEFINITION SIMILARITIES

Regulation Integration
High Low High Low
- High integration Both represent
- Imposed by society situations where
Altruistic for social purposes care and concern
x
Suicide - Self-inflicted death = deviate from
obligatory altruistic moderate levels
suicide
- Occurring when there
is low integration
Egoistic
X - Being unhappy for
Suicide
seeing that nothing is
real in the world
- Society’s influence is
lacking in the
Anomic basically individual
x
Suicide passions, thus
leaving them without
a check-rein
Represent the
- Deriving from increases risk that
excessive regulation comes from social
- Persons futures structures with
pitilessly blocked and under or over
passions violently regulated systems
Fatalistic
x chocked by excessive
Suicide
discipline
- There is no hope for
positive change
- Living under high
dictatorship
 DRAMATURGICAL THEORY
Erving Goffman

✓ The idea that life is like a never ending play in which people are actors and viewed
social interaction as a theater
✓ A theory that interprets individual behavior as the dramatic projections of a chosen
self
✓ Emphasizes expressiveness as the main component of interactions
✓ A “fully two-sided view of human interaction”
✓ Different from other sociological theory because it does not examine the cause of human
behavior but the context of it.

✓ COMPONENTS:
▪ Front Stage – where most time of one’s life is spend
- Where actions are observed by others as one deliver his lis
lines and perform
- Any place where one act infront of others
▪ Back Stage – private areas where one can be his real self
- Place where there is no need to act
- A pratice room for preparation for returning to front stage to
deliver the impression management
- Where acting when one is relaxed and unobserved occurs
▪ OffStage – also known as the outside region
- comprise of things that are not covered by front and back
- the shift of reference from performance to another
- the place where individuals are not involved in the performance

✓ IMPRESSION MANAGEMENT - a conscious decision on individual’s part to reveal

certain aspects of self and conceal others
- term coined by Goffman that refers to our desire to
manipulate other’s impression of us
- it is a tool to look appealing or presentable in front
of others.
- involves the concealment of data in a “dramatic”
struggle with those others who wish to penetrate one's
“mask.”
✓PRESENTATIAON OF THE SELF:
In presentation of the self, the following are what we do or what we are under the
dramatugical approach or theory

▪ Situated Identities – the self that can be identified with the role one is currently
playing
- Define an individual in reference to the role he is laying at a given time
▪ Acounts – statements that people provide to explain a behavior that was
unanticipated or improper
➢ Excuses – attempt to lesen responsibility
➢ Justification – attempt to suggest that the behavior had some positive
outcome
▪ Self-enhancement – any attempt to inflate credentials or statuses
▪ Ingratiation - Any attempt to alter situtation through flattery, agreeing with others
through your true beliefs, do favors, falsely present yourself to others in favorable
light.
▪ Self-awareness – focusing one’s attention on the self that is done in the private
self (back stage) in wchich attitudes cannot be perceived by others.
▪ Self-monitoring – becoming more attuned to the reactions of others and
adjuxting our behavior accoringly
➢ High self monitors
➢ Low self monitors
▪ Self Disclosure – means by which we can regulate what others know about us.
 CUSTOMS AND MORAL LAWS
William Sumner

Mores:
 A set of moral norms or customs derived from generally accepted practices
 derive from the established practices of a society rather than its written laws.
 informal rules that are not written, but, when violated, result in severe punishments and
social sanction upon the individuals, such as social and religious exclusions,.
 refer to norms that are widely observed and have great moral significance.

Folkway:
 A custom or belief common to members of a society or culture.
 Folkways are informal rules and norms that, while not offensive to violate, are expected
to be followed
 to refer to norms for more routine or casual interaction
 includes ideas about appropriate greetings and proper dress in different situations
 STAGES OF FAITH DEVELOPMENT
James Fowler

Theory:
✓ was pioneered originally in the 1970s (Fowler, 1974) and 1980s (Fowler, 1981)
✓ a framework for understanding the evolution of how human beings conceptualize God, or
a Higher Being, and how the influence of that Higher Being has an impact on core
values, beliefs, and meanings in their personal lives and in their relationships with others
✓ contains a framework and ideas which have generated a good deal of response from
those interested in religion
Faith:
❖ Almost synonymous with meaning-making.
❖ It is a way to see oneself in relation to others in a background of shared meaning and
purpose
❖ Like other aspects of cognition, may progress from a quite simple, self-centered one-
sided perspective to a more complex, altruistic, and multisided view.
❖ A developmental process; as a person has more experience trying to reconcile religion
with daily life, the person’s faith may reach higher levels.
❖ Gives humans a reason for living their daily lives, a way of understanding the past, and a
hope for the future (e.g., a Biblical world view).
❖ Is seen as a holistic orientation, and is concerned with the individual’s relatedness to the
universal

The Stages:

Primal or Intuitive-
Undifferentiated Projective Faith
Faith

Individual- Synthetic-
Reflective Faith Conventional
Faith

Conjunctive Universalizing
Faith Faith
STAGE AGE CHARACTERISTICS

 built on trust vs. mistrust concept trusting

infancy to  attachment creates faith to another person
Stage 0
3  first pre-images of God God's image is similar to the image of
parents

 magical, illogical, imaginative

 fantasies about the power of God
 fantasy and reality are the same
 pre-language disposition of trust forms in the mutuality of one's
Stage 1 3 to 7 relationships with parents and other caregivers
 Highly imitative stage where children can be powerfully and
permanently influenced by examples, moods, actions and stories of
the visible faith of primally related adults
 comes with the development of language and imagination

 involved in the process of learning to recognize, interpret, and

manage strong feelings and impulses
 the cosmic pattern of God’s rule
or control of the universe—along the lines of simple fairness
and moral reciprocity
 The child believes that goodness is rewarded and badness is
6 to 12
punished.
Stage 2 (school
 begins to wane with the discovery that ours is not a “quick-
children)
payoff universe”; that is, evil or bad persons do not necessarily
suffer for their transgressions, at least in the short run
 Transition to this stage happens as the child becomes more
capable of concrete operational thinking
 Can use logic to justify thoughts, but not yet able to think
abstractly

 youth construct the ultimate environment in terms of the

personal
 youths develop attachments to beliefs, values, and elements
of personal style that link them in con-forming (forming with)
relations with the most significant others among their peers,
family, and other nonfamily adults
 one’s ideology or worldview is lived and asserted; only
gradually does it become a matter of critical and reflective
articulation
Stage 3 12+  Nonintellectual acceptance of religious values in context of
interpersonal relationships
 Coordinates an individual’s involvements in a complex social
world
 Transition often comes when children notice contradictions in
stories leading to questions/reflection
 Transition often comes when children notice contradictions in
stories leading to questions/reflection.
 characterized by conformity and acceptance of belief with little
questioning of such belief
  a shift from believing because others do and instead
developing spiritual beliefs of their own
 Can be a time of deep though, anxiety and soul-searching
 Transition often comes with “leaving home” – emotionally,
physically or both – causing us to examine self, background &
values
 Understand and accept a higher level of commitment to ideals
and responsibilities
Late Teen  Intellectual detachment from values of culture and from
Stage 4 to Early approval of significant other people
Adult  Active commitment to life goal and lifestyle that differs from
that of many other people
 one must develop the ability to reflect critically on the values,
beliefs, and commitments one subscribed to as part of
constructing the previous stage, the synthetic-conventional
 one must struggle with developing a self-identity and self-worth
capable of independent judgment in relation to the individuals,
institutions, and worldview that anchored one’s sense of being
up until that time

 Includes the beginning of understanding of paradoxes and

transcendent realities behind the symbols and a greater
openness to the divine.
 characteristic of a reflective adult thinker who recognizes that
truths of all kinds can be approached from multiple
perspectives and that faith must balance and maintain the
Stage 5 30+
tensions between those multiple perspectives
 express a principled interest in and openness to truths of other
cultural and religious traditions, and believe that dialogue with
those different others may lead to deepened understandings
and new insights into their own traditions and beliefs
 Characterized by a willingness to accept contradictions

 Put own personal welfare aside and be willing to sacrifice own

life in order to enunciate universal values
 one is concerned about creation and being as a whole,
Stage 6 Adult regardless of nationality, social class, gender, age, race,
political ideology, and religious tradition
 the self is drawn out of its own self-limits into a groundedness
and participation in one’s understanding of the Holy
 STAGES OF MORAL DEVELOPMENT
Lawrence Kohlberg

Theory:
✓ children form ways of thinking through their experiences which include understandings of
moral concepts such as justice, rights, equality and human welfare
✓ identified six stages of moral reasoning grouped into three major levels
Levels:
❖ Each level represented a fundamental shift in the social-moral perspective of the
individual
❖ Pre-conventional Morality - a person's moral judgments are characterized by a
concrete, individual perspective.
- Individuals don’t have a personal code of morality
- Moral code is shaped by standards of adults
❖ Conventional Morality – individuals have a basic understanding of conventional
morality, and reason with an understanding that norms and conventions are necessary
to uphold society.
- Individuals tend to be self-identified with these rules, and uphold them
consistently, viewing morality as acting in accordance with what society
defines as right
- Beginning of internalizing the moral standards of valued adult role model
❖ Post Conventional Morality - is characterized by reasoning based on principles, using
a "prior to society" perspective.
- Individuals’ reason based on the principles which underlie rules and
norms, but reject a uniform application of a rule or norm.
The Stages:

Stages Characteristic Description

Pre-Conventional
Level:
1 – Obedience and Rules are fixed and ▪ Heteronomous orientation focuses on
Punishment absolute avoiding breaking rules that are backed
by punishment, obedience for its own
sake and avoiding the physical
consequences of an action to persons
and property.
2 – Individualism Reciprocity is of the ▪ There is the early emergence of moral
and Exchange Form reciprocity. The Stage 2 orientation
focuses on the instrumental, pragmatic
value of an action
▪ one follows the rules only when it is to
someone's immediate interests
▪ here is an understanding that
everybody has his(her) own interest to
pursue and these conflict, so that right
is relative
Conventional
Level:
3 – Interpersonal “good boy-good girl” ▪ Focused on living up to social
Relationships orientation expectations and roles.
▪ emphasis on conformity, being "nice,"
and consideration of how choices
influence relationships
▪ individuals are aware of shared
feelings, agreements, and expectations
which take primacy over individual
 interests
▪ they define what is right in terms of
what is expected by people close to
one's self, and in terms of the
stereotypic roles that define being good
4 – Maintaining “member of society” ▪ People begin to consider society as a
Social Order perspective whole when making judgments.
▪ The focus is on maintaining law and
order by following the rules, doing one’s
duty and respecting authority.
▪ It marks the shift from defining what is
right in terms of local norms and role
expectations to defining right in terms of
the laws and norms established by the
larger social system
▪ one is moral by fulfilling the actual
duties defining one's social
responsibilities.

Post-Conventional
Level:
5 – Social Contract Knowledge that ▪ People begin to account for the differing
and Individual Rights rules are for the values, opinions and beliefs of other
greater good but will people.
work against a ▪ Rules of law are important for
particular individual maintaining a society, but members of
the society should agree upon these
standards
▪ has received substantial empirical
support
Universal Principles Having own set of ▪ Based upon universal ethical principles
moral guidelines and abstract reasoning.
▪ People follow these internalized
principles of justice, even if they conflict
with laws and rules.
▪ remains as a theoretical endpoint which
rationally follows from the preceding 5
stages
▪ entails reasoning rooted in the ethical
fairness principles from which moral
laws would be devised
 PSYCHOSOCIAL THEORY OF DEVELOPMENT
Sigmund Freud

Theory:

✓ known as theory of libidinal development, is one of the earliest theories explaining how
personality develops in human beings.
✓ is an integral part of the psychodynamic personality theory proposed by Freud
✓ proposes that mishaps during different stages, especially during the early childhood, play an
important role in the etiology of psychological problems including mental disorders

Concept of Sexuality:

❖ sex is the most important life instinct in an individual.

❖ sex instinct is centered around a number of bodily needs that give rise to erotic wishes
❖ Erogenous Zone is a part of the skin or mucous membrane that is extremely sensitive to
irritation and which when manipulated in a certain way removes the irritation and produces
pleasurable feelings and experiences. The lips and mouth, anal region, and the sex organs are
examples of erogenous zones.

The Stages:

Each stage of psychosexual development is defined in terms of the mode of reaction of a particular zone
of the body

1. Oral Stage - the mouth works as the principal region of dynamic activity. Hence this stage is
called oral stage
- lasts up to eighteen months from the birth of a child
- Sucking involves both tactual stimulation of mouth as well as swallowing
- The need of the infant in seeking pleasure is adequately met with by sucking the
breast of the mother as the erotic drive is localized in the mouth
- Personality traits: sarcasm and argumentativeness
2. Anal Stage - when the child is around one and a half years old and ends when she is three years
of age.
- by deriving pleasure around the eliminative functions
- there is pleasurable sensation of excretion and later there is erotic stimulation of the
anal mucosa through retention of feces
o Personality traits: ego development; Compulsive neatness
1. ANAL EXPULSIVE PHASE overlaps with the closing stages of oral period. The mode of
deriving pleasure for the child is the expulsion of feces. The expulsion of the feces
removes discomfort and produces a feeling of relief
2. ANAL RETENTION PERIOD, the child is expected to accede to the demands of toilet
training. The child has to learn to derive pleasure from retention than expulsion
3. Phallic Stage in which the sex organs become the leading erogenous zones
- Begins when the child becomes three years old and continues until the child is five
years.
- rudiments of sex can be seen in the child
- Urination is an important activity as it helps the child to consolidate its gender identity
- development sexual feelings associated with the functioning of genital organs come into
focus
- the mucous membrane of the mouth, anus and external genitalia become the focus of
child’s erotic life depending on the stage of development
1. OEDIPUS COMPLEX consists of a sexual attachment for the parent of the opposite sex
and a hostile feeling for the parent of the same sex
- The boy wants to possess his mother and remove his father
- a boy has incestuous craving for the mother and a growing resentment toward the
father
 - fear of castration helps a child to resolve his Oedipus complex,
- Castration anxiety induces a repression of the sexual desire for the mother and hostility
toward the father
- also helps to bring about identification with his father
2. ELECTRA COMPLEX - girl wants to possess her father and displace the mother
- a girl child exchanges her love object, the mother, for a new object, the father
- resolves her incestuous attachment for her father by recognizing the realistic
barriers that prevent her from gratifying her sexual desire for the father
4. Latency Period - where the sexual urges are held in a state of repression.
- sexual urges are hidden during this stage
- sexual urges are diverted into recreational, academic and social pursuits
- child learns to behave in society and acquires her ideals
- sense of competence is the diversion of Child’s energy
- a child’s sexual urges are subordinated to the intellectual pursuits
- sense of competency and industry, competency feelings and industriousness
5. Genital Stage - This stage begins with the onset of adolescence
- sexual feelings reappear with new intensity and in more mature form
- self-love of the child gets channelized into genuine heterosexual relationships
- Sexual attraction, socialization, group activities, vocational planning and preparations for
marrying and raising a family begin to manifest
- person becomes transformed from a pleasure seeking, self-loving infant into a reality oriented,
socialized adult
- Principal biological function of the genital stage is that of reproduction.

Fixation

 the persistent attachment of the sexual instinct to a particular phase of pre-genitial

development
 an happen in any of the psychosexual developmental stages except the last one
 adversely affects personality development
 behavioral manifestations of fixation vary according to the stage of psychosexual development
in which fixation takes place.


Anal character is characterized by traits like excessive devotion to details, and unevenness of character
leading to easy anger outbursts.

Psychosexual Energy, or libido, was described as the driving force behind behavior
 PERSONALITY THEORY
Carl Jung

Theory:
✓ Divides the psyche into three parts.
✓ Ego, personal unconscious, collective unconscious
Levels of Psyche :
 Ego/Conscious Images - is not the whole personality but must be completed by the more
comprehensive self, the center of the personality is largely unconscious In a psychologically
healthy person
- takes a secondary position to the unconscious
- plays a relatively small role in analytic psychology
- identified with the conscious mind
 Personal Unconscious - embraces all repressed, forgotten, or subliminally perceived
experiences from one particular individual
- is similar to Freud’s view of the unconscious and the preconscious
combined
- Complex – is a pattern of suppressed thoughts and feelings that cluster --
constellate -- around a theme provided by some archetype
 Collective Unconscious - "psychic inheritance."
- It is the reservoir of our experiences as a species, a kind of knowledge we
are all born with.
- It influences all of our experiences and behaviors, most especially the
emotional ones, but we only know about it indirectly, by looking at those
influences.
- Includes those elements that we have never experienced individually but
which have come down to us from our ancestors
Archetypes:
 contents of the collective unconscious
 dominants, imagos, mythological or primordial images, and a few other names,
 Unlearned tendency to experience things in a certain way.
 "organizing principle" and a black hole in space

ARCHETYPES SYMBOL DESCRIPTION

Family
Archetypes:
Mother archetype ▪ Primordial Mother or It stands to reason that we are "built" in a way
“earth mother” that reflects that evolutionary environment. It
(Mythology) speaks of the built-in ability to recognize a
▪ Eve and Mary certain relationship - mothering
(Western)
▪ Church, forest,
nation, ocean
Father ▪ Guide or authority
figure
Family It represents the idea of blood relationship and
ties that run deeper than those based on
conscious reasons
Child ▪ Children, infants,
small creatures
Character
Archetypes:
Hero The mana personality and the defeater of evil
dragons. Represents the ego and is engaged
in fighting the shadow.
 Maiden Represents purity, innocence, and naivete
Wise Old Man Animus Reveals to the hero the nature of collective
unconscious
Archetype through which you communicate
with the collective unconscious generally, and it
Syzgy: “bisexuality in nature” is important to get into touch with it. It is also
the archetype that is responsible for much of
our love life
Anima ▪ Young girl Female aspect of the collective unconscious of
(spontaneous and men. It is likely associated with deep
intuitive) emotionality and force of life itself.
▪ Witch or Mother
Earth
Animus ▪ Wise old man The male aspect present in the collective
▪ Sorcerer unconscious of women. Represents the
▪ Number of Males tendency to be logical, rationalistic, and
argumentative
Other:
Mana ▪ Corn A more spiritual demand which are symbolize
▪ Fish by phallic symbols that is said to be referring to
sex. Just as the connection between the penis
and strength, between semen and seed,
between fertilization and fertility are understood
by most cultures.
Shadow Sex and Life Instincts Derives from pre-human, animal past, and
Dark side of the Ego when the concerns are limited to survival and
Amoral and Innocent reproduction. It is in the absence of self-
▪ Snakes, dragons, consciousness. Storage of the evil man is
monsters, demons capable of.
Persona ▪ Mask Represents the public image or the mask one
puts on before showing oneself in the outside
world.
Animal Archetype ▪ Horse Represents humanity’s relationship with the
animal world
Trickster ▪ Clown Its role is to hamper the hero’s progress and to
▪ Magician generally make trouble
Difficult
Archetypes:
Original Man and ▪ Adam Represents the need to comprehend the
God universe, to give a meaning to all that happens,
to see it all as having some purpose and
direction.
Hermaphrodite Represents the union of the opposites
Self ▪ Circle Ultimate unity of the personality. An archetype
▪ Cross that represents the transcendence of all
▪ Mandala opposites

▪ MANDALA is a drawing that is used in meditation because it tends to draw your focus
back to the center, and it can be as simple as a geometric figure or as complicated as a
stained glass window

The Dynamics of The Psyche:

1. Principle Of Opposites - the opposition that creates the power (or libido) of the psyche.
- It is like the two poles of a battery, or the splitting of an atom. It is the
contrast that gives energy, so that a strong contrast gives strong energy,
and a weak contrast gives weak energy.
2. Principle Of Equivalence - energy created from the opposition is "given" to both sides
equally
 3. Principle Of Entropy - is the tendency for oppositions to come together, and so for
energy to decrease, over a person’s lifetime
Transcendence: the process of rising above the opposites and seeing both sides of who we
are. As we get older, most of us come to be more comfortable with our different facets. We are a
bit less naively idealistic and recognize that we are all mixtures of good and bad. We are less
threatened by the opposite sex within us and become more androgynous. Even physically, in
old age, men and women become more alike.
Mechanism is the idea that things work in through cause and effect: One thing leads to another
which leads to another, and so on, so that the past determines the present. It is linked with
determinism and with the natural sciences
Teleology is the idea that we are lead on by our ideas about a future state, by things like
purposes, meanings, values, and so on. It is linked with free will and has become rather rare. It
is still common among moral, legal, and religious philosophers, and, of course, among
personality theorists.
Synchronicity is the occurrence of two events that are not linked causally, nor linked
teleologically, yet are meaningfully related.
Personality Typology: Extroversion and Introversion
 Introverts are people who prefer their internal world of thoughts, feelings, fantasies,
dreams, and so on
 Extroverts prefer the external world of things and people and activities.
The functions:
1. Sensing means what it says: getting information by means of the senses. A sensing
person is good at looking and listening and generally getting to know the world. Jung
called this one of the irrational functions, meaning that it involved perception rather than
judging of information.
2. Thinking means evaluating information or ideas rationally, logically. Jung called this a
rational function, meaning that it involves decision making or judging, rather than simple
intake of information.
3. Intuiting is a kind of perception that works outside of the usual conscious processes. It
is irrational or perceptual, like sensing, but comes from the complex integration of large
amounts of information, rather than simple seeing or hearing. Jung said it was like
seeing around corners.
4. Feeling, like thinking, is a matter of evaluating information, this time by weighing one’s
overall, emotional response. Jung calls it rational, obviously not in the usual sense of the
word.
Different Proportions of Functions:
1. Superior Function, which we prefer and which is best developed in us
2. Secondary Function, which we are aware of and use in support of our superior
function,
3. Tertiary Function, which is only slightly less developed but not terribly conscious, and
an inferior function, which is poorly developed and so unconscious that we might deny its
existence in ourselves
Dynamics of Personality:
Adaptation to the outside world involves the forward flow of psychic energy called
progression while adaptation to the inner world relies on a backward flow of psychic
energy is called regression. Progression inclines a person to react consistently to a
given set of environmental conditions, whereas regression is a necessary backward step
in the successful attainment of a goal
 BIRTH THEORY
Alfred Adler

Theory:
✓ motivating force behind all our behavior and experience
✓ striving for perfection - is the desire we all have to fulfill our potentials, to come closer
and closer to our ideal. It is, as many of you will already see, very similar to the more
popular idea of self-actualization
✓ refer to the desire to be better, it also contains the idea that we want to be better than
others, rather than better in our own right
✓ aggression drive - referring to the reaction we have when other drives, such as our
need to eat, be sexually satisfied, get things done, or be loved, are frustrated. It might be
better called the assertiveness drive, since we tend to think of aggression as physical
and negative.
✓ refer to basic motivation was compensation, or striving to overcome
✓ masculine protest: He noted something pretty obvious in his culture (and by no means
absent from our own): Boys were held in higher esteem than girls. Boys wanted, often
desperately, to be thought of as strong, aggressive, in control

Social Interest:
 Gemeinschaftsgefuhl or "community feeling"
 It is based on an innate disposition, but it has to be nurtured to survive.
 very definition of mental ill-health: All failures – neurotics, psychotics, criminals,
drunkards, problem children, suicides, perverts, and prostitutes – are failures because
they are lacking in social interest

Inferiority:
 "pulled" towards fulfillment, perfection, self-actualization
 the fact that each of us has weaker, as well as stronger, parts of our anatomy or
physiology
 Compensation. - make up for their deficiencies in some way

Psychological Types:
1. Ruling Type - from childhood on, characterized by a tendency to be rather aggressive
and dominant over others. Their energy – the strength of their striving after personal
power – is so great that they tend to push over anything or anybody who gets in their
way. The most energetic of them are bullies and sadists; somewhat less energetic ones
hurt others by hurting themselves, and include alcoholics, drug addicts, and suicides
2. Leaning Type - sensitive people who have developed a shell around themselves which
protects them, but they must rely on others to carry them through life's difficulties. They
have low energy levels and so become dependent. When overwhelmed, they develop
what we typically think of as neurotic symptoms: phobias, obsessions and compulsions,
general anxiety, hysteria, amnesias, and so on, depending on individual details of their
lifestyle.
3. Avoiding Type - have the lowest levels of energy and only survive by essentially
avoiding life – especially other people. When pushed to the limits, they tend to become
psychotic, retreating finally into their own personal worlds
4. Socially Useful Type - is the healthy person, one who has both social interest and
energy. Note that without energy, you can't really have social interest, since you wouldn't
be able to actually do anything for anyone
Childhood:
1. Overburdened - The first is one we've spoken of several times: organ inferiorities, as
well as early childhood diseases
2. Pampering. Many children are taught, by the actions of others that they can take without
giving. Their wishes are everyone else's commands.
3. Neglect. - A child who is neglected or abused learns what the pampered child learns,
but learns it in a far more direct manner: They learn inferiority because they are told and
shown every day that they are of no value; They learn selfishness because they are
taught to trust no one

Birth Order:
 Only Child is more likely than others to be pampered, with all the ill results we've
discussed. After all, the parents of the only child have put all their eggs in one basket, so
to speak, and are more likely to take special care – sometimes anxiety-filled care – of
their pride and joy. If the parents are abusive, on the other hand, the only child will have
to bear that abuse alone.
 The First Child begins life as an only child, with all the attention to him- or herself.
Sadly, just as things are getting comfortable, the second child arrives and "dethrones"
the first. At first, the child may battle for his or her lost position. He or she might try acting
like the baby – after all, it seems to work for the baby! – Only to be rebuffed and told to
grow up. Some become disobedient and rebellious, others sullen and withdrawn. Adler
believes that first children are more likely than any other to become problem children.
More positively, first children are often precocious. They tend to be relatively solitary and
more conservative than the other children in the family.
 The Second Child is in a very different situation: He or she has the first child as a sort of
"pace-setter," and tends to become quite competitive, constantly trying to surpass the
older child. They often succeed, but many feel as if the race is never done, and they tend
to dream of constant running without getting anywhere. Other "middle" children will tend
to be similar to the second child, although each may focus on a different "competitor."
 The Youngest Child is likely to be the most pampered in a family with more than one
child. After all, he or she is the only one who is never dethroned! And so youngest
children are the second most likely source of problem children, just behind first children.
On the other hand, the youngest may also feel incredible inferiority, with everyone older
and "therefore" superior. But, with all those "pace-setters" ahead, the youngest can also
be driven to exceed all of them
 THEORY OF IDENTITY STATUSES
James Marcia

Crisis
❖ refers to the adolescent’s period of engagement in choosing among meaningful alternatives;
Commitment
❖ Refers to the degree of personal investment the individual exhibits.”

Identity Statuses:

 May occur in many domains such as school, relationships, and values.

 don’t necessarily occur in a linear fashion, but can change in response to environmental crises
 Identity Foreclosure Status - when an individual has committed to an identity absent of identity
exploration
- may result from parental expectations or those of other social authorities
- a commitment to an identity without a crisis
- involves committing to an identity prematurely without exploration or choice
- occurs when parents hand down their tradition and commitments and the
adolescent does not make a conscious choice
- feeling of resentment for not being able to choose for one self
 Identity Diffusion Status - when an individual has neither experienced a period of identity
exploration nor made an identity commitment
- May experience non-discriminatory changes in occupational choice
- Low commitment to a particular identity
- May occur between ages 12 to 18 and even beyond
- Adolescent in this status find himself unable to commit to a particular identity
- Adolescent may not think of an identity until a crisis is experienced
 Identity Moratorium Status - status can be described as a period in which an individual is
actively exploring different identities, but has not made a commitment to one.
- In the midst of crisis, searching for identity to adopt
- A stage of active exploration and a low commitment to a particular identity
- An interesting, exciting, and dangerous stage
- Occur at any point during early to late adolescence
- Adolescents may come into conflict with parents and authority figure as they
explore identity
 Identity Achievement Identity - said to be achieved when the adolescent has undergone a crisis
(exploration) and now made a commitment to a particular identity.
- Conceptualized as the achieved status
- The completion of a moratorium status
- Individual has explored aspects of particular identity before adopting it
- Individual has high degree of commitment and an equal high degree of
exploration with regard to the identity

Might Have Had

Status In Crisis Have had Crisis No crisis
Crisis
Moratorium x
Achievement x
Foreclosure x
Diffusion x
 LOOKING GLASS SELF THEORY
Charles Horton Cooley

Theory:
✓ Process whereby an individual develops his identity or self-concept.
✓ the individual comes to know or define himself through the process of internalizing his
perceptions of how he thinks others, especially significant others, around him perceive
him
✓ individual’s conception of the responses of others toward him, rather than the actual
responses of others, which is the essential element in the process of self-development
Stages:
i. We imagine how we seem or appear to others.
ii. We imagine how others judged us based on our perceptions of their reactions to our
presentation of self.
iii. How we interpret feelings gives us feelings about our selves

“I,”
➢ then, is not all of the mind, but a peculiarly central, vigorous, and well-knit portion of it,
not separate from the rest but gradually merging into it, and yet having a certain practical
distinctness, so that a man generally shows clearly enough by his language and
behavior what his “I” is as distinguished from thoughts he does not appropriate
Self-Idea :
three principal elements:
1. the imagination of our appearance to the other person;
2. the imagination of his judgment of that appearance, and
3. some sort of self-feeling, such as pride or mortification.
COMPARISON with a looking-glass hardly suggests the second element, the imagined
judgment, which is quite essential.
 SOCIAL SELF THEORY
George Herbert Mead

Theory:
✓ Each person participates in the social process and develops a self by taking others into
account
✓ The ultimate product each individual experience is the Unique Human being
✓ shaped by his overall view of socialization as a lifelong process

Self:
➢ represents the sum total of people’s conscious perception of their identity as distinct from
others
➢ is the social product rising from relations with other people
➢ has a character which is different from that of the physiological organism proper
➢ 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

The Stages:
1. Imitation: In this stage, children copy behavior of adults without understanding it. A little
boy might ‘help’ his parents vacuum clean the floor by pushing a toy vacuum cleaner or
even a stick around the room.
2. Play stage: A child plays, sometimes at being a mother or a teacher, at times a Post
man, a police man etc. In this stage, responses are not organized. A child thus
internalizes the attitudes of others who are significant to him through enacting the roles
of others
3. Game Stage: As a child matures, he also learns to respond to ‘Generalized Others’.
The individual just does not identifies the roles of his significant others (family) but also
determines other. He gains a Social Identity

Two Facets of Self:

the concept of social self in differentiating that the portion of the self that develops
through the internalization of the attitudes of others from that portion which never
becomes completely predictable
▪ ‘Me’
 The part of the Self that is an organization of the internalized attitude of others.
 Represents the conventional part of self.
 An Objective part of self.
▪ ‘I’
 The acting part of Self.
 Represents the self in so far as it is free, has initiative, novelty and uniqueness.
 the Subjective part of self
 THOMAS THEOREM
William Isaac Thomas

“if men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences”

Theory:
➢ Means that the outcome of a situation depends upon an individual’s perception of it,
and not on the situation itself.
➢ Influenced by several other sociological theories
➢ Provides an explanation for the norms and values that society strictly adheres to
➢ Instances here are: superstitions, actions based on religious beliefs, recognizing a
leader in the crowd, and panicking to baseless humor
➢ Argues that individuals make decisions based on the interpretation of situation,
whether the interpretation is real or not
➢ Also called as “definition of the situation”

Interpretation:
 Causes the action
 Not objective but are affected by subjective perceptions of situations
 May or may not be accurate

Definition of Situation:
 The means people use to determine what is expected of them
 Determine the behavior in a given situation

Example:
How a person who firmly believes in the existence of and power of supernatural forces
such as witchcraft is much more likely to suffer from illness or injuries that they believe could be
brought by practitioners of the said arts or practices.
 THE MATERIAL SELF
William James

Material Self:
 refers to tangible objects, people, or places that carry the designation my or
mine.
 Two subclasses of the material self can be distinguished: The bodily self and
the extracorporeal (beyond the body) self
 it is our psychological ownership of physical entities comprise the material self
 is the physical substance of who we are
 our possessions constitute our material self
 encompasses our immediate families

‘‘Our father and mother, our wife and babes, are bone of our bone and
flesh of our flesh. When they die, a part of our very selves is gone’’

‘‘The parts of our wealth most intimately ours are those which are
saturated with our labor. There are few men who would not feel
personally annihilated if a lifelong constructions of their own hands or
brains—say an entomological collection or an extensive work in
manuscript—were suddenly swept away’’

Constituents of The Self:

Bodily Self
Material Self
Empirical Self /
Extracorporeal Me
Social Self

Spiritual Self

Pure Ego
 SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST
Herbert Spencer

According to Spencer, just as biological organisms become more differentiated as they grow
and mature, so do small-scale, homogeneous communities become increasingly complex
and diverse as a result of population growth.
Spencer argued that the role of government should be restricted solely to policing, while all
other matters, including education, social welfare, and economic activities, should be left to
the workings of the private sector. According to Spencer, government regulations interfere with
the laws of human evolution which, if left unhampered, ensure the “survival of the fittest”
Using evolutionary theory as a means to understand the world in which he lived

The Survival:
Those who don’t survive, that is, succeed, are merely fulfilling their evolutionary destiny. To
the extent that women and people of color are less “successful” than white males, their “failure”
is deemed a product of their innate inferiority. Spencer ignored that both “success” and
“failure” hinge not only on individual aptitude and effort, but also on institutional and cultural
dynamics that sustain a less than level playing field.
➢ Implies that the strong will succeed and the weak shall perish.
➢ Fittest will rule the weaker
➢ Applied to capitalism and political power

Natural Selection:
 cooperating with a tendency to variation and inheritance of variations
 THEORY OF SCOIAL CLASS
Max Weber

He argued that social class was based on a person’s market position which is basically how
much money or wealth they have and their bargaining power to get this
Power and Status - making up a full picture of a person’s position in society.
Status refers to how people are thought of and regarded in society
Power has been viewed as the chance of a man or of a number of men to realize their own will
in a communal action even against the resistance of others who are participating in the action

Social stratification
1. economic class
2. social status
3. political power (party)

 economic -represented by income and the goods and services which an

individual possesses
 social - represented by the prestige and honor he enjoys
 Political - represented by the power he exercises

Economic power is not identical with power because mere economic power and especially
naked money power is by no means a recognized basis of social honor
Stand (status group) - refer to such groups as junkers, industrialists, and German civil servants
Class - refers to any group of people who have the same typical chance for a supply of goods,
external living conditions, and personal life experiences, insofar as this chance is determined by
the power to dispose of goods or skills for the sake of income in a given economic order
Status Stratification consists of the division of society into distinct communities, separated by
social distance and mutual exclusiveness.
 STRAIN THEORY
Robert Merton

Theory:
✓ Explain the rising crime rates experienced in the USA at that time
✓ Become popular with Contemporary sociologist
✓ the combination of the pressure to be materially successful and the lack of legitimate
opportunities to achieve that success.
✓ explain White Collar Crime – white collar criminals (those who commit fraud at work, for
example) might be those who are committed to achieving material success, but have
had their opportunities for promotion blocked by lack of opportunities – possible through
class, gender or ethnic bias, or possible just by the simple fact that the higher up the
career ladder you go, the more competition for promotion there is.
The American Dream

• Encouraged individuals to pursue goal of success which was largely measured in terms
of the acquisition of wealth and material possessions
• Pursue the goal in legitimate means
Anomie:
 Imbalance between cultural goals and institutionalised means
 Produced by imbalanced society
 ere is a strain or tension between the goals and means which produce
unsatisfied aspirations.
 the combination of the pressure to be materially successful and the lack of
legitimate opportunities to achieve that success.
Strain:
 Occurs when individuals are faced with a gap between their goals (usually
finances/money related) and their current status

Five Ways To Adapt:

1. Conformity: pursing cultural goals through socially approved means.

2. Innovation: using socially unapproved or unconventional means to obtain culturally approved

goals. Example: dealing drugs or stealing to achieve financial security.

3. Ritualism: using the same socially approved means to achieve less elusive goals (more
modest and humble).

4. Retreatism: to reject both the cultural goals and the means to obtain it, then find a way to
escape it.

5. Rebellion: to reject the cultural goals and means, then work to replace them.
 EXCHANGE THEORY
George Homans and Peter Blau

Theory:

✓ is a social psychological and sociological perspective that explains social exchange and
stability as a process of negotiated exchanges between parties.
✓ theory posits that human relationships are formed by the use of a subjective cost-benefit
analyses and the comparison of alternatives
George Homans:

❖ He defined social exchange as the exchange of activity, tangible or intangible and more
or less rewarding or costly, between at least two people
❖ Three Propositions:
1. Success Propositions – person is rewarded for his actions, he tends to
repeat the action
2. Stimulus Proposition – the more often a particular stimuli has resulted in a
reward in the past, the more likely it is that a person will respond to it
3. Deprivation – the more often in the recent past a person has received a
particular reward, the less valuable any further unit of that reward
becomes
Peter Blau:

❖ focused on economic and utilitarian perspective

❖ based on a central premise: that the exchange of social and material resources is a
fundamental form of human interaction.
Propositions:

• The desire for social rewards leads men to enter into exchange relationships with
one another.
• Reciprocal social exchange creates trust and social bonds between men.
• Unilateral services create power and status differences.
• Power differences make organizations possible.
• The fair exercise of power evokes social approval and the unfair exercise of
power evokes social disapproval.
• If subordinates collectively agree that their superior exercises power generously,
they will legitimate his power.
• Legitimate power is required for stable organization.
• If subordinates collectively experience unfair exercise of power, an opposition
movement will develop.

Social Exchange:
➢ Face-to-face interactions (microstructures) → economic systems, political institutions
(macrostructures).
➢ Larger structures are composed of microstructures.
➢ Interactions are shaped by a reciprocal exchange of rewards:
1. Social actors engage in activities as a means of obtaining desired goals;
2. All social activities entails some cost to the actor – time, energy, resources;
3. Social actors seek to economize their activities as much as possible, by
keeping costs below rewards.
➢ Microstructures – regulatory rules of dominance, power, legitimate control, and task
division
Rewards:
 Sources of positive reinforcement including pleasures, satisfactions, gratifications (a
continuum from concrete to symbolic).
 Social rewards:
o Personal attraction
o Social acceptance
o Social approval
o Instrumental services
o Respect / prestige
o Compliance / power

Expectations in Social Exchange:

• General expectations – associated with role, occupation, formed by social norms what
person ought to receive.
• Particular expectations – associated with rewards received from particular person.
• Comparative expectations– rewards of a relationship minus costs of maintaining the
relationship

Costs and Resources:

▪ Costs = punishments or lost rewards
– Investment = time and effort devoted to developing skills which will be used to
reward others
– Direct costs = resource given to another in exchange for something else
– Opportunity = loss of rewards which would have been available elsewhere
▪ Resources = anything that can be transmitted through interpersonal behavior, including
commodities, material, or symbolic matter.
 THE HIERARCHY OF NEEDS
Abraham Maslow

Theory:
✓ Divided into two
✓ Deficiency and Growth Needs
The Hierarchy:
1. Physiological Needs – the basic needs that of body craves food, liquid, sleep, oxygen,
sex, freedom of movement, and a moderate temperature.
2. Safety needs - protection from elements, security, order, law, limits, stability, and
freedom from fear.
- The need to be out of danger
- Operates in the physiological level
3. Social Needs - Gratification is a matter of degree rather than an either-or
accomplishment.
- Combines the twin urges to give and receive love.
- Belongingness, affection and love, - from work group, family, friends,
romantic relationships.
4. Esteem Needs - achievement, mastery, independence, status, dominance, prestige,
self-respect, and respect from others.
- is the result of competence or mastery of tasks.
- The attention and recognition that come from others.
5. Self-Actualization Needs - stated that human motivation is based on people seeking
fulfillment and change through personal growth
- refers to the need for personal growth that is present throughout a
person’s life
- a continual process of becoming rather than a perfect state one reaches
of a 'happy ever after’
- 'It refers to the person’s desire for self-fulfillment, namely, to the tendency
for him to become actualized in what he is potentially
- “the desire to become more and more what one is, to become everything
that one is capable of becoming”
 THE
DIGITAL SELF
 Identity Online
✓ can be anything from a social media profile or a forum account to a video game
character or even a shopping cart
✓ it can either be a social identity associated with an online community, or just a simple
account or data that’s associated with online services.
✓ Any bit of information (no matter how small) that can be found about an individual on the
Internet.
✓ s not the same as your real-world identity because the characteristics you represent
online differ from the characteristics you represent in the physical world
✓ reflects kinds of interaction that often differ from your real-world interactions.
✓ he sum of your characteristics and interactions

Selective Self – Impression Online

Online dating
 a form of social network service, provides a contemporary alternative to finding
friends, sexual and romantic partners
Online Self-Presentation
 is a selective process because of the slowed temporal dynamics of computer-
mediated communication (CMC), and the editable nature of text and photographs
in CMC
 is embodied as a profile when an individual engages in online dating
Selective Self
 Individual has more control over his or her first impression than he or she would
have in a face-to-face encounter
Selective Self Presentation

 The process of creating a digital artefact which is a carefully chosen

representation or expression of one’s real world self

Impression Management Online

Self‐monitoring
 Individuals differ in the extent to which they monitor (regulate, control, and observe) the
selves they display in interpersonal relationships and social situations
Machiavellianism
 People who are manipulative and willing to fabricate impressions of themselves are
known as Machiavellian, or “high Mach”
Affinity‐seeking
 Regardless of how aware individuals are of the impressions they are making and how
skilled they are at creating desired impression by employing various self‐presentation
tactics, impression management itself can be traced back to individuals' inherent need to
be accepted and included
 based on the notion that individuals want others to like them, which is one of the most
basic, and possibly even most defining, characteristics of human beings
 Boundaries of Self Online
Cyberspace
 is psychological space; an extension of our individual and collective minds.

Dimensions of Cyberpsychology Architecture:

1. Identity (the presentation of self);
2. Social (interpersonal relationships and groups)
3. Interactive (interface and human/computer interaction)
4. Text (long and short forms of text communication)
5. Sensory (activation of some or all of the five senses)
6. Reality (true-to-life and imaginative features)
7. Temporal (the experience and use of time)
8. Physical (the role of the physical body and physical environment).
“Personal Life” or “Personal Space”
 barrier to hide their private-self behind it

Public vs. Private Self Online

Public Self - is the view of oneself by others as conveyed through public information, public action and
interaction with others. The public self generally depends on the public for definition, but is also an
individual's view of how he or she fits in and actions taken while in public.

- the perspective other people view an individual as portrayed in public information, interaction
with others and public action
- relies on the public for definition but it’s also the individual’s perspective of the way he/she
appears and steps taken when in public

Private self - is the information regarding to a person which he/she has difficulties to express publicly

- is the only one aware of true feelings and self-worth

- includes personal emotions and morals that are hidden to others

Personal vs. Public Self vs. Social Identity Online

Social identity refers to the set of characteristics by which a person is definitively recognizable
or known by the society in which they live. These are characteristics that are attributed to the
individual by others (the society). These characteristics serve as markers that indicate what that
person is, in the eyes of others (their society). At the same time, this means that these
characteristics put that person in the same group as other individuals who share the same
attributes. Examples of social identities include being a father, mother, student, physician,
lawyer, evangelical, homeless person, Catholic, etc.
“Social identity is a person’s sense of who they are based on their group membership(s)”

Gender and Sexuality Online

Sex – biological state that corresponds to what we call ‘man’ or ‘woman’
Gender – social understanding of how sex should be experienced and how sex manifests in
behaviour, personality, preferences, capabilities, and so forth.
- System of classification that valued male-gendered things more than female-related
things
Sexuality – an individual expression and understanding of desire