CHAPTER 1

DEFINING THE SELF: PERSONAL AND DEVELOPMENTAL PERSPECTIVES ON SELF AN

LESSON 3
THE SELF AS COGNITIVE CONSTRUCT
Objectives
On successful completion of this lesson, the students are expected to:
Analyze the effects of various factors identified in psychology in the formation of the self.
Create your own definition of the self based on the definitions from psychology.
Evaluate the different ideas in psychology about the self.

As discussed in the previous unit, every field of study have their own research,
definition, and conceptualization of self and identity. The trend of the lessons seems to
define the concept of the self from a larger context down to the individual. However, it
must be pointed out the modern researches acknowledge the contributions of each field
and this is not some sort of a nurture vs. nature, society/culture vs. individual/brain,
other social sciences vs. psychology debate. Psychology may focus on the individual
and cognitive functions, but it does not discount the context and other possible factors
that affect the individual.

SELF AS COGNITIVE CONSTRUCT

There are various definitions of the self and other similar or interchangeable
concepts in psychology. Simply put, the self in psychology is the sense of personal
identity and of who we are as individuals.
William James as one of the earliest psychologists to study the self, he
conceptualized the self as having two aspects: the “I” and “Me”.
 “I” is the thinking, acting and feeling self.
 “Me” is the physical characteristics as well as psychological capabilities that
make who you are.
 Carl Rogers used the same terms,
 “I” as the one who acts and decides.
 “Me” is what you think or feel about yourself as an object.
Other concepts similar to self are identity and self-concept.
 Identity is composed of one’s personal characteristics, social roles and
responsibilities.
 Self-concept is basically what comes to your mind when you are asked about
who you are.
Carl Rogers captures this idea in his concept of self-schema or our own
organized system or collection of knowledge about who we are. It may include your
interest, work, course, age, name, and physical characteristics, among others. And as
you grow and adapt to the changes around you, they also change, but they are not
passive receivers, they actively shape and affect how you see, think, and feel about
things.
Theories generally see the self and identity as mental constructs. Current
researches point to the frontal lobe of the brain as the specific area of the brain
associated with processes concerning the self. Sigmund Freud saw the self, its mental
processes and one’s behavior as the results of the interaction between the structures of
personality. As in the abovementioned definitions of the self, social interaction always
has a part to play in who we think we are.
Under the theory of symbolic interactionism, 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.
2. Whether we like to admit it or not, we actually need others to affirm and
reinforce who we think we are.
3. What we think as important to us may also have been influenced by what is
important in our social or historical context.

Social interaction and group affiliation are vital factors in creating our self-concept
especially in the aspect of providing us with or social identity. However, there are times
when we are aware of our self-concepts, also called self-awareness. Carver and
Scheier identified two types of self that we can be aware of:

 The Private Self – your internal standards and private thoughts and feelings.
 Public Self – your public image commonly geared toward having a good
representation of yourself to others.
 Self-awareness also presents us with at least three other self-schema:
 Actual Self - who you are at the moment.
 Ideal Self - who you like to be
 Ought Self - who we think we should be

Self-awareness may be positive or negative depending on the circumstances and

our next course of action. It can keep you doing something dangerous. In other
instances, self-awareness can be too much that we are concerned about being
observed and criticized by others, also known as self-consciousness.
At other times, we may experience deindividuation or the loss of individual self-
awareness and individual accountability in groups. A lot of people will attune themselves
with the emotions of their group and because the large crowd also provides some kind
of anonymity.
Our group identity and self-awareness also has a great impact on our self-
esteem. Self-esteem is our own positive or negative perception or evaluation of
ourselves. One of the ways in which our social relationships affects our self-esteem is
through social comparison.
1. Downward Social Comparison –comparing ourselves with those people
who are worse off than us.
2. Upward Social Comparison – comparing ourselves with those people who
are better off than us.

Social comparison entails what is called self-evaluation maintenance theory

which states that we can feel threatened when someone out-performs us. In this case,
we react in three ways:

 We distance ourselves from the person or redefine our relationship with them.
 We may reconsider the importance of the aspect or skill in which you were
out- performed.
 We may also strengthen or resolve to improve that certain aspect of ourselves.

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

become narcissistic. Narcissism is a trait characterized by overly high self-esteem, self-
admiration and self-centeredness. Sometimes, there is a thin line between high self-
esteem and narcissism and there are a lot of test and measurements for self-esteem but
the issue is that the result can be affected by the desire of the person to portray herself
in a positive or advantageous way.