SOCIOLOGICAL AND ANTHROPOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE
1st Semester AY: ’22- ’23
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SELF
 Sociological – scientific study
of human groups or of
society.
 Anthropology – study of
human being, their society
and development
o Cultural Anthropology –
cultural aspect of human
life
SELF: SOCIOLOGY
 Arises from social
interactions:
o Observing
o Interacting with
o Responding to others
o Internalizing opinions and
feelings.
 Gradually develops
throughout life while
interacting with others.
 Emerges through social
experience of interaction
with others, environment,
among others.
 Self cannot exist without
society
o To emerge and develop
 Does not have a fixed mode
of existing
o Continually changes
through interactions
 Mead and Vygotsky
o The way that human
person develop is with the
use of language acquisition
TRANSCRIBED BY: JULIENNE HAU
and interaction with
others
 Processing information
is normally a form of an
internal dialogue
 Mead
o Me – Social Self
o I – response to Me
o Individuals constantly
adjust to the society
because of the “need to fit
in” as an acceptable
member of the community
 Surrounded by various
patterns and structure of
social relations
o Language and culture
o Normative rules of
behavior
 Social constructionist
perspective:
o Self should not be seen as
static entity that stays
constant through and
through
o Self has to be seen as:
 In unceasing flux,
 In a constant struggle
with external reality
 Malleable in dealings
with society
o Self is always in
participation with social
life and its identity
subjected to influences
o There will always be
patterns of behavior and
 being that emerge among
different persons
 Differences of
individuality
 Adapting to society also
become an important
member of the community:
o Contributor in the overall
social cohesion of society
o Helped in the progress
 Self also maintains a set of
direct and indirect
relationship which may occur
simultaneously
o Not confined to one
instance
o Navigates through relating
with others.
 Conflict experienced by self
o Becomes different things
depending on the
demands of the different
social structure.
 Looking-glass self-theory
o Charles Cooley
o View ourselves as we think
others view us
o Three steps:
 Imagine how we appear
to others
 Imagine how others
judge our appearance
 Develop feelings about
and response to these
judgements
o Actively engaged in
defining our self-image
using past experiences
o We are influenced by our
own imagination or
perceptions on how other
sees us
SELF: ANTHROPOLOGY
 Culture
o Second nature to the self
and conditions of
existence in the world
o Contextualizing life by
providing with an anchor
and point of reference and
at the same time guide on
how to live
o While culture forms the
basis of a person’s identity,
identity rarely remains
constant and the same
 Marcel Mauss
o Two faces:
 Moi – Person’s
basic identity
 Personne – what
it means to live
to be who he is.
 To live and
behave
 Stratigraphic Approach
o Stacking independent
models one after the other
without interrelating them
o No integration
 Reductionism
o Attempt to interpret all
observations by reducing
them to a single level of
analysis
 Egocentric
o Natural tendency to view
everything in the world in
relation to oneself
  Sociocentric
o Natural tendency to view
everything within the
world in relation to one’s
group and so be group
centered.
Cultural Relativism – idea of person
should be understood based on
culture
 Ethnocentrism
o One’s culture is supreme
to that of others
 Xenocentrism
o Other’s culture is superior
to one’s culture
 Globalized World
o Interactions and exchange
of culture
o Encounter and gain
experience
o Dominant cultured end up
imposing themselves on
others
 Cost of other cultures
losing their identity