Lesson 2 SOCIOLOGY Motivational Activity: What Makes You Beautiful? by One Direction (Song/Dance) Processing Questions: 1. How did you find the activity? 2. What is your understanding of being beautiful? 3. How did the song affect you? 4, What have you learned about the activity? Sociology is the systematic study of social behavior and human groups. It focuses primarily on the influence of social relationships upon people's attitudes and behavior and how societies are established and changed. As a sociological approach to self and identity, it begins with an assumption that there is a reciprocal relationship between the self and the society. This two mutually affects each other. The self influences the society through the actions of people, thus creating groups and organizations. The society in return influences the self through its shared language and meanings that enable the self to take the role of engaging in social interaction and make self-reflection. This process of reflectivity constitutes selfhood. What is the meaning of this? We need to understand our society in which the self is acting. In general, Sociologists are interested in understanding the nature of society or the social structure. How the society is being formed, developed and transformed. There are two approaches, (1) Situational Approach to self and the society sees society as always in the process of being created through the definitions and interpretations of actors in situations. This means that the individuals are free to define the situation in any way they care to. Thus, in this approach, the self is seen as undifferentiated, unstable and unorganized. On the other hand, (2) Structural Approach looks at society as stable, organized and durable. There are patterned regularities that characterize most human action. These patterned regularities have varied levels of analysis. By pooling several similar individuals, we can understand persons at certain type. Wlustration 1: A scientist who has a pattern of behavior of being logical, analytical, careful and experimentally inclined can be viewed in a larger social structure. Scientists, because of their background can be elected to higher positions in their scientific organizations. GECC 108- Understanding the Self ~Module F-18 This is a very good example of how a person may validate his conceptions about himself/herself. Further, this implies that the basis in understanding social structure may arise from the actions of individuals. SOCIOLOGICAL VIEWS OF THE SELF 1. The Self as a Product of Modern Society Among Others. * Ina Modern Society, life is full of possibilities and opportunities. The process of finding oneself is enforced upon all individuals - a process of continuous transformation. Self-identification becomes a reflexive project of each individual. Thus, the self is “DELOCALIZED” having a freedom to seek its own idertity. * Individuals have Increased Choices which makes possible new dimensions of self-development. * Globalization and Increased Mediated Experience are present which bring forth more unitary framework of experience and create deeper forms of fragmentation and levels of distance between individuals. Reflections: * Modern Society brings people to experience anxiety because they have troubles choosing between available options and having fears that they are not making the right choices. Individuals are given little guidance on what is the best option. The role of the family, religion and traditional authority has declined and the constant drive of change within modern institutions and social life makes everything uncertain and flexible. * There is a concern on the dehumanization of the self. x |. The Self in the Post-Modern View + The Self becomes “DIGITALIZED”. Social media becomes the platform of the cyber self. Therefore, the self is dynamic which has a story, a narrative, a text written and rewritten. It is continuously changing and updating. This is because of modernity where electronic mediated virtual interaction is part of daily life. Individuals try to avoid fixation and keep their options open for self- improvement * The self is found in the prestige symbols of goods consumed by People. The Post-modern person has become an insatiable consumer (Jean Baudrillard). GECC 108- Understanding the Self “Module |-19 Reflections: * Globalization produces diverse/multicultural identities. © The self is “DIGITALIZED” in cyberspace; thus deviating from the traditional concept of the self. Information technology dislocates the self. 3. The Self as a Necessary Fiction * The self is regarded as a symbolic and material weight, meaning an ideological force that inserts us into particular roles we may or may not have chosen in a social script we don’t control. «The self is the totality of individuals’ thoughts, feelings and actions. It is seen as metaphoric or just a representation of something that is abstract (Nietzche). Reflections: * Memory has a role in the concept of the self. 4, The Social Constructed Self * Social constructionism is a theory of knowledge in sociology and communication theory that examines the development of jointly- constructed understandings of the world that form the basis for shared assumptions about reality. An example of a social construction is the concept of self/self-identity. © The self/self-identity is acquired based on social roles that people partake. «Socialization has an important role in discovering and exploring the self. Socialization agents such as the family, school, church and society are active forces that shape a person. 5. Theory of the Self by George Herbert Mead * Mead supports the view that a person develops a sense of self through social interaction and not the biological preconditions * According to him, the self has Two Divisions: a. “I” is the Subjective element and the active side of the self represents the spontaneous and unique traits of the individual b. “Me” is the Objective element that represents the internalized attitudes and demands of other people and the individual’s awareness of those demands GECC 108: Understanding the Sel? “Wodule20 * Full development of self- attained is when the “I” and the “me” are united * The Self is not present at birth. It is only developed with social experience in which language, gestures, and objects are used to communicate meaningfully. © Role-taking is a process in which a person infers people’s intention or direction of action, which may lead him to understand the world from other’s perspective, since there is meaning in human actions. The person creates his own role and anticipates how others will look and respond. By performing his own role, the self continues to change along with his social experience. Three Stages of Development of Self (Mead): (1) Preparatory stage (from birth to 2) begins when we are born. Generally, children are only capable of imitation. They like to pretend to be someone else. They have no ability to imagine how others see things. They copy the actions of people with whom they regularly interact, such as their significant others. (2) Play stage (Age 2 to 6) is when children start to take on the role that one other person might have. Children might try on a parent’s point of view by acting out “grown up” behavior, like playing “dress up” and acting out the “mom” role, or talking on a toy telephone the way they see their mother do. (3) Game stage (Age 7 onwards) is when children learn to consider several roles other than being a child at play. They also interact with other children, with their parents and other significant figure. They learn to understand interactions involving different people with a variety of Purposes. For example, a child at this stage is likely to be aware of the different responsibilities of people in a restaurant who together make for a smooth event/party experience. They begin to have formalized games similar to the real life situations like “bahay-bahayan”. Finally, children develop, understand, and learn the idea of the generalized other, the common behavioral expectations of general society. By this stage of development, an individual is able to imagine how he or she is viewed by one or many others—and thus, from a sociological perspective, to have a “self” (Mead 1934; Mead 1964). LOOKING-GLASS SELF (Charles Horton Cooley) * This concept is helpful in understanding how a person views himself as he interacts with the social environment including family, school, peer groups, and mass media. GECC 108- Understanding the Self -Module [-un * This further states that part of how we see ourselves comes from our perception of how others see us, who serve as mirror of ourselves. + The process of discovering the looking-glass self occurs in three steps: a. An individual in a social situation imagines how they appear to others. b. That individual imagines others’ judgment of that appearance. c. The individual develops feelings about and responds to those perceived judgments. Ell SUMMARY Lesson 2 on Sociology focused on the study of the functioning of society and social relationships. The self and the society influenced each other. The concept of self can be validated by how others perceive a person which becomes a pattern of behavior. Therefore, the self may be viewed in terms of the “I and Me” relationship, delocalized, digitalized, and constructed. What could be the relevance of studying the society and its behavior? Through comparisons of behaviors, we can attempt to solve issues and gain a rational understanding of some of society's social problems and concerns. Sociological backgrounds can be studied and can be a basis for improving and developing a society. IV] OUTPUT PLAN © COMPOSE AN ESSAY WITH THE TITLE: 1. How Do I Negotiate my Self-identity in the Social Contexts | am in? (A Reflection Paper) 2. Listen to the song, “Beautiful” by Christina Aguilera and make a Reflection Paper Title: Beautiful A Reflection Paper GEC 108- Understanding the Seif -Module I