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THE SELF FROM THE DIFFERENT SCIENTIFIC DISCIPLINES

Anthropological Perspective of the Self

Anthropology
The Self and the Person in Contemporary Anthropology
I. Anthropology and Its Subdisciplines
The academic discipline of anthropology, or “four-field” anthropology, studies
human species and its immediate ancestors includes four main sub disciplines or
subfields - sociocultural, archeological, biological, and linguistic anthropology.
Each subdiscipline studies adaptation, the process which organisms cope with
the environmental. Anthropology is a systematic exploration of human biological
and cultural diversity.

The Subdisciplines of Anthropology

1. Cultural Anthropology
Cultural anthropology is the study of human society and culture which describes,
analyzes, interprets, and explains social and cultural similarities and differences. It
explores the diversity of the present and the past. Ethnography and ethnology
are two different activities which can study and interpret cultural diversity.

Ethnography requires fieldwork to collect data, often descriptive and specific to

group. On the other hand, ethnology uses data collected by a series of research,
usually synthetic and comparative.

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2. Archeological Anthropology
Archeological anthropology reconstructs, describes, and interprets human
behavior and cultural patterns through material remains. These materials remain
such as plant, animal and ancient garbage provides stories about utilization and
actions.

3. Biological, or Physical Anthropology

Biological, or Physical Anthropology focuses on these special interest, human
evolution as revealed by the fossil, human genetics, human growth and
development, human biological plasticity and the biology, evolution, behavior
and social life of monkeys, apes, and other nonhuman primates.

4. Linguistic Anthropology
Linguistic anthropology studies language in its social and cultural context across
space and over time. Universal features of language are analyzed and
association between language and culture are evaluated. It also studies how
speech changes in social situations and over time.

The Self Embedded in the Culture

Culture refers to customary behavior and beliefs that are passed on through
enculturation (Kottak, 2008), wherein enculturation is the social process which
culture is learned and transmitted. Culture is a social process that is learned and
passes from generation to the next. Culture depends on images, which have a
specific significance and incentive for individuals who share a culture. Cultural
traditions take regular marvels, including organic desires, and transforming them
specifically headings. Everybody is cultured. Social orders are coordinated and
designed through predominant monetary powers, social examples, key images
and core values. Cultural mean of adjustment has been urgent in human
evolution. Cultures oblige people, yet the activities of people can change
cultures.

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Culture defined: Culture is shared, symbolic, natural, learned, integrated,

encompassing, and maladaptive and adaptive. Csordas (1999) elaborated that
the human body is not essential for anthropological study, but the paradigm of
embodiment can be explored in the understanding culture and the self. The body
is not an object to be studied in relation to culture but is to be considered as the
subject of culture, or in other words as the existential ground of culture. On the
other hand, Geertz (1973) described culture as "a system of inherited conceptions
expressed in symbolic forms by means of which men communicate, perpetuate,
and develop their knowledge about and attitudes toward life.” The interpretation
of the symbols in each culture is essential which gives meaning to one’s action.
Each culture has its own symbols and has its own meaning; one must need to
comprehend those meanings keeping in mind the end goal to understand the
culture. One must disconnect the components of culture, discover the
relationship among those components, and portray the entire framework in some
broad way.

Theory of Cultural Determinism

Cultural determinism is a term used to describe the concept that culture
determines economic and political arrangements. It is an idea which has recurred
in many cultures over human history, from ancient civilizations through the
present.

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There are a number of theories of social development that describe culture as the
factor that determines all of the others. One of the most famous is Marx's theory
of economic determinism, namely that an individual or class’ role in the means of
production determines outlook and cultural roles. The idea of cultural determinism
is extremely common: numerous societies have believed that their habits, ideas
and customs were what determined the shape of their political and economic
arrangements and were the source of their uniqueness above all else. This can be
seen in adherence to national epics, particular religious customs and focus on
the importance of language as the determiner of national identity.

Cultural determinism is not limited to one part of the political spectrum or to any
one of the social sciences, but is instead a paradigm used by a variety of writers
and thinkers.

Examples of Cultural Determinism

There was a prevalent belief among ancient Greeks believed that only those who
spoke their language could understand their thought and political arrangements,
others were called barbaroi from which the English word barbarian is derived. This
identification of culture and politics can be seen in the dual use of the word
nomos, which meant both law, and customs or practices. The English words
economics and astronomy have nomos as a root word and reflect this dual
meaning.
Niccolò Machiavelli, while he argued that political behavior was universal, also
pointed out that elements of culture, particularly religion, could produce
particular political arrangements which were advantageous to those that had
them.
Sociologist Max Weber wrote about the relationship between Protestantism and
capitalism, arguing that the cultural aspects of religion, including the Protestant
work ethic were crucial in the emergence of economic arrangements.
Romanticism had a large element of cultural determinism, drawn from writers
such as Goethe, Fichte, and Schlegel. In the context of Romanticism, the
geography molded individuals, and over time customs and culture related to that
geography arose, and these, being in harmony with the place of the society,
were better than arbitrarily imposed laws.
In media theory many writers take the position that political arrangements are
determined by the mass media images that people see, and that these, by
displacing other forms of culture, determine the economic and political
arrangements.

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In modern conservatism, individuals such as commentator Patrick Buchanan and

economist Robert Barro argue that cultural norms determine the behavior of
political arrangements.

Rites of Passage
People throughout the world have heightened emotions during times of major life
changes. These stressful changes may be physiological or social in nature. They
are usually connected with personal transitions between important stages that
occur during our lives. These transitions are generally emotionally charged--they
are life crises. Most cultures consider the important transitions to be birth, the onset
of puberty, marriage, life threatening illness or injury, and finally death.
Graduation from school, divorce, and retirement at the end of a work life are also
major transitions in modern large-scale societies.

During the early 20th century, the Belgian anthropologist, Arnold Van Gennep,
observed that all cultures have prescribed ways for an individual and society to
deal with this emotion charged situations. They have ritual ceremonies intended
to mark the transition from one phase of life to another. Van Gennep called these
ceremonies rites of passage click this icon to hear the preceding term
pronounced. In North America today, typical rites of passage are baptisms, bar
mitzvahs and confirmations, school graduation ceremonies, weddings, retirement
parties, and funerals. These intentionally ritualized ceremonies help the individuals
making the transition, as well their relatives and friends, pass through an
emotionally charged, tense time. Most rites of passage are religious ceremonies.
They not only mark the transition between an individual's life stages but they
reinforce the dominant religious views and values of a culture. In other words,
they reinforce the worldview.

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Sociological Perspective of the Self

Sociology
Sociology, or the study of how human society is established, its structure and how
it works, the people’s interaction with each other and the effects they have to
one another is an aspect in which we have to consider with regards to the
development of a person. It is also important to understand that the establishment
of the “Self” based on social structures could give us a better understanding of
who we are and provide reasons how our interactions can affect us as a person.

George Herbert Mead and the Social Self,

George Herbert Mead is an American Sociologist, he is considered as the Father
of American pragmatism, and one of the pioneers in the field of social psychology
because of his contributions on the development of the person relating to various
social factors. Mead rejected the idea of biological determination of the self
which proposes that an individual already has an established self from the
moment he is born. For him, the notion of a person with regards to who they are
develops from one’s social interaction with other people. He reiterated that the
process of establishing the self is through the construction and reconstruction of
the idea of who we are as a person during the process of social experience.

The “I” and the “Me”

Mead proposes that there are two components of the self which the person has,
these components are the “I” and the “Me”. The “Me” are the characteristics,
behavior, and or actions done by a person that follows the “generalized others”
that person interacts with, while the “I” 16 is the reaction of the individual to the
attitude of others, as well as the manifestation of the individuality of the person.
Simply speaking, According to Mead the concept the “I” is one’s response to the
established attitude, and behavior that a person assumes in reference to their
social interactions while the “Me” are the attitudes, and behavior of the person
with reference to their social environment.

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Mead’s Three Role-playing Stages of Self Development

Mead proposed that there are three stages in which a person has to go through
for one to develop one’s self. These stages are the Preparation/Language Stage,
Play stage, and Game stage.
The Preparatory Stage (Birth – 2 years Old) – According to Mead, during this stage
the infant simply imitates the actions and behaviors of the people that the infant
interacts with. Because the child is only mimicking what he or she observes from
his or her environment their actions are only the reflection of what they can
remember without any intention or meaning behind their actions or behavior.
The Play Stage (2 – 6 years old) – for the Play stage, it is the time where children
begin to interact with other with which certain rules apply, these rules often time
does not adhere to any set or standards but rather are rules that are set by the
children themselves. Also, this is the stage where the child practices real life
situations through pretend play and is the onset of self- consciousness. The
development of the self in this stage occurs through the preliminary experiences
that serves as practice for the child.
The Game Stage (6-9 years old) – The final stage of self-development according
to Mead where are characterized by the ability of the children to recognize the
rules of the game and be able to identify their roles and the roles of the others
that is playing with them. With this, the child at this stage learns the implications of
their actions as well as the understanding or taking into account how one can
take into account the viewpoint of the society on the attitudes and actions.
With the idea of Mead with regards to the establishment of the sense of self,
socialization is a lifetime endeavor, and the people one interacts with will change
throughout a person’s life, as such, considering the social environment one
belongs to along with the changes on the 17 person’s development, may it be at
school, home, or work, the interactions and experiences the person acquires from
those people and situations helps define a more concrete identity and sense of
self. That idea of “Self” may be based on the general attitudes and behaviors of
other people or the individuality of the person that manifests as a response to
those attitudes and behaviors of others.

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Cooley: The Looking-Glass Self

The looking-glass self describes the process wherein individuals base their sense of
self on how they believe others view them. Using social interaction as a type of
“mirror,” people use the judgments they receive from others to measure their own
worth, values, and behavior. According to Self, Symbols, & Society, Cooley’s
theory is notable because it suggests that self-concept is built not in solitude, but
rather within social settings. In this way, society and individuals are not separate,
but rather two complementary aspects of the same phenomenon

Core Assumptions
According to Society in Focus, the process of discovering the looking-glass self
occurs in three steps:
1. An individual in a social situation imagines how they appear to others.
2. That individual imagines others’ judgment of that appearance.
3. The individual develops feelings about and responds to those perceived
judgments.
In practice, the process might look like this:
Someone meets a group of new work colleagues for the first time. This individual
believes she can easily demonstrate professionalism and competence to others.
During this interaction with her new co-workers, the individual pays attention to
her colleagues’ body language, word choices, and reactions to the
conversation. If these coworkers provide positive feedback, such as maintaining
eye contact or offering a firm handshake, the individual’s belief in her own
professionalism will be upheld. However, if the colleagues provide negative
feedback, such as looking away or leaving the conversation quickly, the
individual might question how professional they truly are.
The process of the looking-glass self is further complicated by the context of each
interaction and the nature of the people involved. Not all feedback carries the
same weight, for instance. People may take the responses from those whom they
trust more seriously than those of strangers. Signals may be misinterpreted. People
also usually take their own value systems into consideration when thinking through
any changes to their behavior or views of self.
Ultimately, the process of the looking-glass self is one of alignment. People
constantly seek to create consistency between their internal and external worlds
and, therefore, continue to perceive, adjust, and strive for equilibrium throughout
their lives.

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Ervin Goffman: Presentation of the Self

Erving Goffman's The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, published in 1959,
provides a detailed description and analysis of process and meaning in mundane
interaction. Goffman, as a product of the Chicago School, writes from a symbolic
interactionist perspective, emphasizing a qualitative analysis of the component
parts of the interactive process. Through a micro-sociological analysis and focus
on unconventional subject matter, Goffman explores the details of individual
identity, group relations, the impact of environment, and the movement and
interactive meaning of information. His perspective, though limited in scope,
provides new insight into the nature of social interaction and the psychology of
the individual.
Goffman employs a "dramaturgical approach" in his study, concerning himself
with the mode of presentation employed by the actor and its meaning in the
broader social context (1959, 240). Interaction is viewed as a "performance,"
shaped by environment and audience, constructed to provide others with
"impressions" that are consonant with the desired goals of the actor (17). The
performance exists regardless of the mental state of the individual, as persona is
often imputed to the individual in spite of his or her lack of faith in -- or even
ignorance of -- the performance. Goffman uses the example of the doctor who
is forced to give a placebo to a patient, fully aware of its impotence, as a result
of the desire of the patient for more extensive treatment (18). In this way, the
individual develops identity or persona as a function of interaction with others,
through an exchange of information that allows for more specific definitions of
identity and behavior.
The process of establishing social identity, then, becomes closely allied to the
concept of the "front," which is described as "that part of the individual's
performance which regularly functions in a general and fixed fashion to define
the situation for those who observe the performance" (22). The front acts as a
vehicle of standardization, allowing for others to understand the individual on the
basis of projected character traits that have normative meanings. As a "collective
representation," the front establishes proper "setting," "appearance," and
"manner" for the social role assumed by the actor, uniting interactive behavior
with the personal front (27). The actor, in order to present a compelling front, is
forced to both fill the duties of the social role and communicate the activities and
characteristics of the role to other people in a consistent manner.

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Psychological Perspective of the Self

Psychology
Psychology has various ways of understanding a person and the therapist way of
helping people understand themselves. Self by definition is a reference by an
individual to the same individual person. Having its own or single character as a
person, referring to the person as same individual. The psychology of studying self
is about either the cognitive and affective representation of one's identity or the
subject of experience. The earliest formulation of the self in modern psychology
forms the distinction between the self as I, the person knower, and the self as Me,
the person that is known.

“The Self and It Selves”

William James, a psychologist, has introduced in his document The Principles of
Psychology (1890) a numerous concepts and distinction of self. For James, his
main concepts of self are the “me-self” and the “I-self”. The “me-self” is the
phenomenal self, the experienced self or the self as known. It is the self that has
experience the phenomena and who had known the situation. The “I-self” is the
self-thought or the self-knower. James had claimed that the understanding of Self
can be separated into three categories: “
1. Its constituents;
2. The feeling and emotions they arouse – Self-feelings;
3. The actions to which they prompt – Self-seeking and self-preservation
(James, 1890, p162).
Also, James wrote sub-categories of self,
1. the material self;
2. the social self; and
3. the spiritual self.
The Material Self is constituted by our bodies, clothes, immediate family, and
home. It is in this that we attached more deeply into and therefore we are most
affected by because of the investment we give to these things. The Social Self is
based on our interactions with society and the reaction of people towards us. It is
our social self that thought to have multiple divergence or different version of
ourselves. It varies as to how we present ourselves to a particular social group. The
most intimate self, the spiritual self. It is the most intimate because it is more

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satisfying for the person that they have the ability to argue and discriminate one’s
moral sensibility, conscience and indomitable will.

Concept of Self

Carl Rogers had come up with his conception of self through the intervention he
used for his client, the Person-centered therapy. It is a non-directive intervention
because it believes that all people have the potential to solve their own
problems. Rogers believe that people must be fully honest with themselves in
order to have personal discovery on oneself. In this concept of self, he had
come up with three sides of a triangle.
a. The Perceived Self (Self-worth - how the person sees self & others sees them)
b. The Real Self (Self Image - How the person really is)
c. The Ideal Self (How the person would like to be

Concept of Unified and Multiple Self

As DanielCW (2016) wrote in his article “Psychoanalysis vs Postmodern
Psychology” he has emphasized how Freud perceived person as a unified beings
and Gergens concept of multiple “selves.”
In Freud’s concept, he argued that mind is divided into three connected but
distinct parts. The Id, Ego and Super Ego. Id as the center of primitive, animalistic
impulses (sex, food & comfort) following the pleasure principle. Superego as the
center for ethical imperative. The one that reminds the self of what is right of
wrong following morality principle. And the Ego as the moderator between these
two which was driven by rationality principle. And then also, Freud has stated two
important division of mind, the conscious and unconscious. Conscious are the

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thoughts that we are aware of. And Unconscious as thoughts that we are not
aware of. (DanielCW, 2016)
Although, Freud has argued that self has multiple parts, he still believed that
ultimately, we are a Unified beings (Atleast, when we are healthy). Ego remains
at the helm of mind, guiding the Id and Superego and staying at the center. Thus,
Gergen argued that having a flexible sense of self allows for multiple “selves”. That
it is up to the the self to define himself as warm or cold, dominant, or submissive,
sexy, or plain.
According to Kenneth Gergen, proponent of Postmodern Psychology, the
individual has many potential selves. He carries within him the capacity to identify
himself, whether warm or 24 25 cold, dominant, or submissive, sexy, or plain. How
we bring ourselves in every situation will help him get through for a day. Therefore,
maybe it is healthy to have many masks. Multiple selfhoods are part of what it
means to be human and forcing oneself to stick to one self-concept maybe
unhealthy.

True Self and Fake Self

True Self, as rooted from early infancy is called the simple being. The sense of self
based on spontaneous authentic experience and feeling of being alive, having
“real self”. Example, as a baby we react based on our sense of reality. The baby
reacted spontaneously based on our instinctual sense.
Fake Self is our defense facade. Overlaying or contradicting the original sense of
self. Problem would be we might build false set of relationship through concealing
a barren emptiness behind an independent-seeming façade.

Murray Bowen’s Family Systems Theory

Bowen family systems theory was developed by psychiatrist and researcher Dr
Murray Bowen (1913–90). It is a theory backed up by a growing body of empirical
research.1 In recent years Bowen’s concept of ‘differentiation of self’ — which
describes differing levels of maturity in relationships — has been shown by
researchers to be related to important areas of well-being, including marital
satisfaction, and the capacity to handle stress, make decisions and manage
social anxiety.

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Bowen was a US army physician during World War II who became interested in
psychiatry after seeing the varying effects of trauma on soldiers. Bowen’s theory
is invaluable for helping us to understand the variations in how different people
manage similarly stressful circumstances. He originally trained in Freud’s
psychoanalysis but departed from this theory as he observed that human
difficulties went beyond unresolved issues in the individual’s psyche and were,
rather, embedded in each person’s family system — the focus of this book on
relationship systems. In researching whole families at the US National Institute of
Mental Health in the late 1950s, Bowen noticed patterns of managing anxiety in
families that were like the instinctive ways other species dealt with threats in (or
to) their herds and packs. Bowen saw our personal and relationship problems as
coming from exaggerated responses to sensing a threat to family harmony and
that of other groups. For example, the reaction to a family disagreement can be
such an inflated pull for unity that there’s no tolerance for differences of opinion.
Or an upset in a child is responded to with such an intense effort to protect the
child that he or she consequently has no room to develop their own capacity to
soothe themself.
Bowen’s concept of ‘differentiation of self’ forms the basis of a systems
understanding of maturity. The concept of differentiation can be confusing but,
put simply, it refers to the ability to think as an individual while staying meaningfully
connected to others. It describes the varying capacity each person has to
balance their emotions and their intellect, and to balance their need to be
attached with their need to be a separate self. Bowen proposed that the best
way to grow a more solid self was in the relationships that make up our original
families; running away from difficult family members would only add to the
challenges in managing relationship upsets.
Bowen is unusual in the field of psychiatry in that he described himself as needing
to address the same self-management issues as those his patients were learning
to deal with. He didn’t think that any human was close to being completely
differentiated and is reported by close colleagues to have said that only on his
very best days might he appear to be in the upper to moderate range of
emotional maturity.
Bowen’s theory doesn’t focus on mental illness but on the challenges of being
human in the relationships which affect us all. It’s not an easy theory to grasp, as
it focuses on the big-picture patterns of a system rather than the narrower view of
what causes difficulties for one individual. These ideas invite us to see the world
through the lens of each family member rather than just from our own subjective
experience; they don’t allow room for simply seeing victims and villains in our
relationship networks. Seeing the system takes people beyond blame to seeing

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the relationship forces that set people on their different paths. This way of seeing
our life challenges avoids fault-finding and provides a unique path to maturing
throughout our adult lives.

Eight Interlocking Concepts of Family Systems Theory

Eight major theoretical concepts form the foundation of the Bowenian

approach. These concepts are interconnected, and a thorough
understanding of each may be necessary to understand the others.

These theoretical constructions include, in no particular order:

1. Differentiation of self, the core concept of Bowen’s approach, refers

to the manner in which a person is able to separate thoughts and
feelings, respond to anxiety, and cope with the variables of life while
pursuing personal goals. An individual with a high level of
differentiation may be better able to maintain individuality while still
maintaining emotional contact with the group. A person with a low
level of differentiation may experience emotional fusion, feeling
what the group feels, due to insufficient interpersonal boundaries
between members of the family. Highly differentiated people may
be more likely to achieve contentment through their own efforts,
while those with a less-developed self may seek validation from other
people.
2. An emotional triangle represents the smallest stable network of
human relationship systems (larger relationship systems can be
perceived as a network of interlocking triangles). A two-person dyad
may exist for a time but may become unstable as anxiety is
introduced. A three-person system, however, may provide more
resources toward managing and reducing overall anxiety within the
group. Despite the potential for increased stability, many triangles
establish their own rules and exist with two sides in harmony and one
side in conflict—a situation which may lead to difficulty. It is common

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for children to become triangulated within their parents’

relationship.
3. The family projection process, or the transmission of a parent’s
anxiety, relationship difficulties, and emotional concerns to the child
within the emotional triangle, may contribute to the development of
emotional issues and other concerns in the child. The parent(s) may
first focus anxiety or worry onto the child and, when the child reacts
to this by experiencing worry or anxiety in turn, may either try to “fix”
these concerns or seek professional help. However, this may often
have further negative impact as the child begins to be further
affected by the concern and may become dependent on the
parent to “fix” it. What typically leads to the most improvement in
the child is management, on the part of the parent(s), of their own
concerns.
4. The multigenerational transmission process, according to Bowen,
depicts the way that individuals seek out partners with a similar level
of differentiation, potentially leading certain behaviors and
conditions to be passed on through generations. A couple where
each partner has a low level of differentiation may have children
who have even lower levels of differentiation. These children may
eventually have children with even lower levels of differentiation.
When individuals increase their levels of differentiation, according to
Bowen, they may be able to break this pattern, achieve relief from
their symptoms of low differentiation, and prevent symptoms from
returning or occurring in other family members.
5. An emotional cutoff describes a situation where a person decides to
best manage emotional difficulties or other concerns within the
family system by emotionally distancing themselves from other
members of the family. Cutting emotional connections may serve as
an attempt to reduce tension and stress in the relationship and

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handle unresolved interpersonal issues, but the result is often an

increase in anxiety and tension, although the relationship may be
less fraught with readily apparent conflict. Bowen believed
emotional cutoff would lead people to place more importance on
new relationships, which would add stress to those relationships, in
turn.
6. Sibling position describes the tendency of the oldest, middle, and
youngest children to assume specific roles within the family due to
differences in expectation, parental discipline, and other factors. For
example, older children may be expected to act as miniature adults
within the family setting. These roles may be influenced by the sibling
position of parents and relatives.
7. The societal emotional process illustrates how principles affecting
the emotional system of the family also affect the emotional system
of society. Individuals in society may experience greater anxiety and
instability during periods of regression, and parallels can be noted
between societal and familial emotional function. Factors such as
overpopulation, the availability of natural resources, the health of
the economy, and so on can influence these regressive periods.
8. The nuclear family emotional process reflects Bowen’s belief that
the nuclear family tends to experience issues in four main areas:
intimate partner conflict, problematic behaviors or concerns in one
partner, emotional distance, and impaired functionality in children.
Anxiety may lead to fights, arguments, criticism, under- or over-
performance of responsibilities, and/or distancing behavior. Though
a person’s particular belief system and attitude toward relationships
may impact the development of issues according to relationship
patterns, Bowen held them to be primarily a result of the family
emotional system.

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Tory Higgin’s Self-Discrepancy Theory

It states that people have beliefs about and expectations for their actual and
potential selves that do not always match up with what they actually experience.
To understand this theory, we have to understand the different “selves” that make
up our self-concept, which are the actual, ideal, and ought selves. The actual
self consists of the attributes that you or someone else believes
you actually possess. The ideal self consists of the attributes that you or someone
else would like you to possess. The ought self consists of the attributes you or
someone else believes you should possess.

These different selves can conflict with each other in various combinations.
Discrepancies between the actual and ideal/ought selves can be motivating in
some ways and prompt people to act for self-improvement. For example, if your
ought self should volunteer more for the local animal shelter, then your actual self
may be more inclined to do so. Discrepancies between the ideal and ought
selves can be especially stressful. For example, many professional women who
are also mothers have an ideal view of self that includes professional success and
advancement. They may also have an ought self that includes a sense of duty
and obligation to be a full- time mother. The actual self may be someone who
does okay at both but doesn’t quite live up to the expectations of either. These
discrepancies do not just create cognitive unease—they also lead to emotional,
behavioral, and communicative changes.

When we compare the actual self to the expectations of ourselves and others,
we can see particular patterns of emotional and behavioral effects. When our
actual self doesn’t match up with our own ideals of self, we are not obtaining our
own desires and hopes, which can lead to feelings of dejection including
disappointment, dissatisfaction, and frustration. For example, if your ideal self has
no credit card debt and your actual self does, you may be frustrated with your
lack of financial discipline and be motivated to stick to your budget and pay off
your credit card bills.

When our actual self doesn’t match up with other people’s ideals for us, we may
not be obtaining significant others’ desires and hopes, which can lead to feelings
of dejection including shame, embarrassment, and concern for losing the
affection or approval of others. For example, if a significant other sees you as an
“A” student and you get a 2.8 GPA your first year of college, then you may be
embarrassed to share your grades with that person.

When our actual self doesn’t match up with what we think other people think we
should obtain, we are not living up to the ought self that we think others have
constructed for us, which can lead to feelings of agitation, feeling threatened,
and fearing potential punishment. For example, if your parents think you should

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follow in their footsteps and take over the family business, but your actual self
wants to go into the military, then you may be unsure of what to do and fear
being isolated from the family.

Finally, when our actual self doesn’t match up with what we think we should
obtain, we are not meeting what we see as our duties or obligations, which can
lead to feelings of agitation including guilt, weakness, and a feeling that we have
fallen short of our moral standard. For example, if your ought self should volunteer
more for the local animal shelter, then your actual self may be more inclined to
do so due to the guilt of reading about the increasing number of animals being
housed at the facility. The following is a review of the four potential discrepancies
between selves:

• Actual vs. own ideals. We have an overall feeling that we are not obtaining
our desires and hopes, which leads to feelings of disappointment,
dissatisfaction, and frustration.
• Actual vs. others’ ideals. We have an overall feeling that we are not
obtaining significant others’ desires and hopes for us, which leads to
feelings of shame and embarrassment.
• Actual vs. others’ ought. We have an overall feeling that we are not
meeting what others see as our duties and obligations, which leads to
feelings of agitation including fear of potential punishment.
• Actual vs. own ought. We have an overall feeling that we are not meeting
our duties and obligations, which can lead to a feeling that we have fallen
short of our own moral standards.

Winnicott: The True and False Self

Think about the last time someone advised you, “Just be yourself!” Have you
ever wondered, either philosophically or with some frustration, “What does
that really mean?”

People have all kinds of different personas. We’re always making little
adjustments to the way we present ourselves based on the people we’re
around. Maybe you find you rely pretty heavily on adjusting yourself to the
expectations of others—maybe to the point that “just be yourself” sounds
vague or confusing, or even a little scary.

Dr. Donald Winnicott, an incredibly influential pediatrician and psychoanalyst

who worked through the 1940’s into the 1970’s, explained his theory about the
True Self and the False Self in a paper he wrote in 1960. Among other
contributions you might have heard of, such as the ‘transitional object’ and
the importance of play, Dr. Winnicott expounded on the idea that people may

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develop a False Self to protect their inner, more vulnerable True Self—and that
they might even do it at a very young age, without even knowing it.

But how do we develop a False Self, especially if we aren’t even aware of

doing it? Winnicott highlights the importance of the ‘mother’ (to be
considered shorthand for the primary caretaker(s), regardless of gender).
Parents’ relationships with their children are extremely formative, and to
describe this highly attuned but still human parent, Winnicott coined the term
‘the good-enough mother’.

Winnicott describes babies as ‘spontaneous’, meaning they don’t think about

the way they act, they just do whatever they need to—which, if you’ve ever
been around a baby, tends to be a lot of needing help and reassurance.
Needing help and reassurance, Winnicott argues, is the essential stuff of our
True Selves, which our good-enough mom does her best to make sense of and
gratify. Nothing’s perfect, but if our parents are trying and are successful most
of the time, that response strengthens our belief that if we cry out, then
someone will hear us, understand us, and do their best to help us. This
strengthens our trust that our most basic and honest needs and desires are
okay—that we are relatable, and our feelings are manageable. A person with
this kind of reassurance grows up feeling confident enough to put their True
Self out there in the real world, living openly, according to their heart.

But in some cases, children start out having spontaneous desires and needs,
but their parent can’t respond sufficiently (maybe due to illness, or depression,
or the demand of others’ needs). The child will start to feel like their basic and
truest needs and desires are not acceptable or manageable. In a case like
this, the child will become what Winnicott calls compliant—that is, the child
will adjust their behavior, without even thinking consciously about it. This
conformity to their environment is the child’s attempt to protect themselves
from further inadequacy or disappointment—but it is a covering up of the
original, true desire. This is the birth of the False Self.

For example, in a situation where a kiddo cries out, “I want attention, I want to
be held!” and mom is more often unable to adequately respond, the kiddo
will adjust what they’re saying to the world, crying out instead, “I don’t need
anyone, I’m not lonely.” This, however, would be the False Self’s presentation,
and underneath it, the True Self will still be longing for that hug. The False Self’s
claim “I don’t need anyone” could even become so strong that the True Self’s
initial desire (“I want to be held!”) might slip out of the person’s awareness,
and get hidden away in their unconscious.

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Maybe you’ve noticed something important in this idea: Dr. Winnicott is

suggesting that our most basic sense of self isn’t just fostered on its own, but
within a relationship—namely, our earliest relationships with our parents and
family. This continues into our adulthood, and our sense of self could keep
adapting based on the relationships we make as we grow up, but where you
start is a crucial step in how you move forward.

People with active False Selves can, according to Winnicott, go on to live

perfectly successful lives, but lives that deep down feel unsatisfying or
“phony.” They can also be really accommodating to other people’s
expectations of them in the hopes of connecting, but could possibly come
across as performative or awkward, resulting in less authentic and less
satisfying relationships. Winnicott points out that having a very strong False Self
persona keeps people from acting according to their spontaneity and
creative impulses, leaving the person feeling unoriginal and empty, sometimes
with very little idea as to why they feel this way.

If relationships are what primarily form our sense of self, then equally they are
what can help us change it. A great way to untangle your False Self from your
True Self and regain confidence in your honest expressions is to visit with a
psychotherapist. Therapy is a space in which you can go back to basics,
explore your true feelings and desires openly, while being listened to and
understood by a therapist who wants to help you feel free to be who you truly
are. With help, “just be yourself” might not feel like such muddy advice—you
might just have a better understanding of who you are and what you want
and have more faith in the world’s ability to accept you.

Bandura: Social Cognitive Theory

Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) started as the Social Learning Theory (SLT) in the
1960s by Albert Bandura. It developed into the SCT in 1986 and posits that learning
occurs in a social context with a dynamic and reciprocal interaction of the
person, environment, and behavior. The unique feature of SCT is the emphasis on
social influence and its emphasis on external and internal social
reinforcement. SCT considers the unique way in which individuals acquire and
maintain behavior, while also considering the social environment in which
individuals perform the behavior. The theory takes into account a person's past
experiences, which factor into whether behavioral action will occur. These past
experiences influences reinforcements, expectations, and expectancies, all of
which shape whether a person will engage in a specific behavior and the reasons
why a person engages in that behavior.

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Many theories of behavior used in health promotion do not consider

maintenance of behavior, but rather focus on initiating behavior. This is
unfortunate as maintenance of behavior, and not just initiation of behavior, is the
true goal in public health. The goal of SCT is to explain how people regulate their
behavior through control and reinforcement to achieve goal-directed behavior
that can be maintained over time. The first five constructs were developed as part
of the SLT; the construct of self-efficacy was added when the theory evolved into
SCT.

1. Reciprocal Determinism - This is the central concept of SCT. This refers to the
dynamic and reciprocal interaction of person (individual with a set of
learned experiences), environment (external social context), and behavior
(responses to stimuli to achieve goals).
2. Behavioral Capability - This refers to a person's actual ability to perform a
behavior through essential knowledge and skills. In order to successfully
perform a behavior, a person must know what to do and how to do it.
People learn from the consequences of their behavior, which also affects
the environment in which they live.
3. Observational Learning - This asserts that people can witness and observe
a behavior conducted by others, and then reproduce those actions. This is
often exhibited through "modeling" of behaviors. If individuals see
successful demonstration of a behavior, they can also complete the
behavior successfully.
4. Reinforcements - This refers to the internal or external responses to a person's
behavior that affect the likelihood of continuing or discontinuing the
behavior. Reinforcements can be self-initiated or in the environment, and
reinforcements can be positive or negative. This is the construct of SCT that
most closely ties to the reciprocal relationship between behavior and
environment.
5. Expectations - This refers to the anticipated consequences of a person's
behavior. Outcome expectations can be health-related or not health-
related. People anticipate the consequences of their actions before
engaging in the behavior, and these anticipated consequences can
influence successful completion of the behavior. Expectations derive
largely from previous experience. While expectancies also derive from
previous experience, expectancies focus on the value that is placed on the
outcome and are subjective to the individual.
6. Self-efficacy - This refers to the level of a person's confidence in his or her
ability to successfully perform a behavior. Self-efficacy is unique to SCT
although other theories have added this construct at later dates, such as
the Theory of Planned Behavior. Self-efficacy is influenced by a person's
specific capabilities and other individual factors, as well as by
environmental factors (barriers and facilitators).

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Bibliography

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Mead, G. (1972). Mind, self and society from the standpoint of a social behaviorist.
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Csordas, T. (1999). Self and person. In bode (Ed.),Psychological Anthropology (pp.

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Geertz, C. (1973). The Impact of the Concept of Culture and Concept of Man. In
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Geertz, C. (1973). Person, time and conduct in Bali. In the interpretation of

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Hater, S. (1996). Historical roots of contemporary issues involving the self-concept.

In Bracken (Ed.),Handbook of self-concept: Developmental, social and clinical
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