UNDERSTANDING THE SELF

(Reviewer)

Introduction to Self Understanding

Understanding oneself is essential to understand behaviors and beliefs that affects ourselves and others is
specifically in becoming effective and successful person in life, work, and relationship.

Self-understanding:
1. Provides a sense of purpose
2. leads to healthier relationships
3. Helps harness your natural strength
4. promote confidence

What is Self?
The etymological derivative of personality comes from the word “persona", the theatrical mask
worn by Romans in Greek and Latin drama. Personality also comes from the two Latin words “per” and
“sonare”, which literally means “ to sound through”.

Personality is a relatively permanent trait and unique characteristics that we both consistency and
individuality to a person's behavior (Roberts & Mroczek, 2008)

Determinants of Personality
The determinants of factors of personality are as follows:

A. Environmental Factors of Personality. The surroundings of an individual compose the

environmental factors of personality. This includes the neighborhood a person lives in, his school,
college, university, and workplace.

B. Biological Factors of Personality. This further includes:

1) hereditary factors or genetic make-up of the person that inherited from their parents. This
describes the tendency of the person to appear and behave the way their parents are
2) physical features include the overall physical structure of a person: height, weight, color, sex, beauty,
and body language, etc. Most of the physical structures change from time to time, and so does the
personality.
3) brain. The preliminary results from the electrical stimulation of the brain (ESB) research
gives indication that better understanding of human personality and behavior might come from the study
of the brain.

C. Situational Factors of Personality.

This alter a person’s behavior and response from time to time and can be commonly
observed when a person behaves contrastingly and exhibits different traits and characteristics.

D. Cultural Factors.
This is the major determinants of an individual’s personality. Culture is complex of these
belief, values, and techniques for dealing with the environment which are shared among
contemporaries and transmitted by one generation to the next.

Personality Traits
Personality traits reflect people’s characteristic patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.

Five-Factor Model
This system includes five broad traits that can be remembered with the acronym OCEAN:
Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism. (Goldberg, 1990; McCrae
& John, 1992; McCrae & Costa, 1987)

Big 5 Trait Definition

Openness The tendency to appreciate new art, ideas, values,
feelings, and behaviors.
Conscientiousness The tendency to be careful, on-time for
appointments, to follow rules, and to be
hardworking.
Extraversion The tendency to be talkative, sociable, and to
enjoy others; the tendency to have a dominant
style.
Agreeableness The tendency to agree and go along with others
rather than to assert one owns opinions and
choices.
Neuroticism The tendency to be frequently experience negative
emotions such as anger, worry, and sadness, as
well as being interpersonally sensitive.

Who am I?
Self-concept - understanding who you are and a mental picture of who you are as a
person.
Self-understanding - understanding what your motives are when you act.

Self-concept tends to be more malleable when people are younger and still going
through the process of self-discovery and identity formation. As people age,
self-perceptions become much more detailed and organized as people form a better
idea of who they are and what is important to them.
Self-concept is a collection of beliefs one holds about oneself and the responses of
others.

According to the book Essential Social Psychology by Richard Crisp and Rhiannon Turner:

 The individual self consists of attributes and personality traits that differentiate us
from other individuals.
 The relational self is defined by our relationships with significant others.
 The collective self reflects our membership in social groups.

The Self According to Philosophy

Philosophy
Philosophy is defined as the study of knowledge or wisdom from its Greek roots, philo (love) and
sophia (wisdom). This field is also considered as “The Queen of All Sciences” because every scientific
discipline has philosophical foundations.

Various thinkers for centuries tried to explain the natural causes of everything that exist
specifically the inquiry on the self-preoccupied these philosophers in the history. The Greek philosophers
were the ones who seriously questioned myths and moved away from them in attempting to understand
reality by exercising the art of questioning that satisfies their curiosity, including the questions about self.

Socrates
 Pre-Socratics, group of early Greek philosophers, most of whom were born before Socrates,
whose attention to questions about the origin and nature of the physical world has led to their
being called cosmologists or naturalists.
 Socrates was more concerned with another subject, the problem of the self.
 He was the first philosopher who ever engaged in systematic questioning about the self.
 To Socrates, and this has become his life-long mission, the true task of the philosopher is to know
oneself.

“The Unexamined life is not worth living.”

Socratic Method - the method of inquiry and instruction consisting of a series of questionings the object
of which is to elicit a clear and consistent expression of something supposed to be implicitly known by all
rational beings.

 According to Socrates, self is dichotomous which means composed of two things:

 The physical realm (BODY) or the one that is changeable, temporal, and imperfect.
 The ideal realm (SOUL) is the one that is imperfect and unchanging, eternal, and immortal.
 One may define someone as beautiful or truthful, but their definition is limited and imperfect for
it is always relative and subjective.

For Socrates, a human is composed of body and soul.

The self, according to Socrates is the immortal and unified entity that is consistent over time.

Plato
Three components of the soul:

 Reason or divine essence that enables human to think deeply, make wise choices and achieve a
true understanding of eternal truths.

 Appetite is the basic biological needs of human being

 Spirit is the basic emotions of human being such as love, anger, ambition, aggressiveness, and
empathy.

According to Plato, it is always the responsibility of the reason to organize, control, and
reestablish harmonious relationship between these three elements.

Rene Descartes
Father of Modern Philosophy

He is famous with the principle “cogito, ergo sum “I think, therefore I am”
established his philosophical views on “true knowledge” and concept of self.

The Self then for Descartes is also a combination of two distinct entities, the cogito, the thing that
thinks, which is the mind, and the extenza or extension of the mind which is the body.
  The essence of self is being a thinking thing.

 Self-identity is dependent on the awareness in engaging with those mental operations.

St. Augustine
The last of the great ancient philosophers whose ideas were greatly Platonic.
Augustine has been characterized as Christianity’s first theologian.

He concluded, “That the body is united with the soul, so that man may be entire and complete, is a fact
we recognize on the evidence of our own nature.”

According to St. Augustine, the human nature is composed of two realms:

1. God as the source of all reality and truth. Through mystical experience, man is
capable of knowing eternal truths.
2. The sinfulness of man. The cause of sin or evil is an act of mans’ freewill.

John Locke
An English philosopher and physician and famous in his concept of “Tabula Rasa” or Blank Slate that
assumes the nurture side of human development.

Tabula Rasa - the mind in its hypothetical primary blank or empty state before receiving outside
impressions.

The self, according to Locke is consciousness. In his essay entitled On Personal

Identity (from his most famous work, Essay Concerning Human Understanding) he
discussed the reflective analysis of how an individual may experience the self in
everyday living. He provided the following key points:

1.) To discover the nature of personal identity, it is important to find out what it means
to be a person.
2. ) A person is a thinking, intelligent being who has the abilities to reason and to reflect.
3.) A person is also someone who considers themself to be the same thing in different times and different
places.
4.) Consciousness as being aware that we are thinking — always accompanies thinking and is an essential
part of the thinking process.
5.) Consciousness makes possible our belief that we are the same identity in different times and different
places.

Sigmund Freud
Father of Psychoanalysis

The dualistic view of self by Freud involves the conscious self and unconscious self.
1.) The conscious self is governed by reality principle. The self is rational, practical, and appropriate to
the social environment. The conscious self has the task of controlling the constant pressures of the
unconscious self, as its primitive impulses continually seek for immediate discharge.
2.) The unconscious self is governed by pleasure principle. It is the self that is aggressive, destructive,
unrealistic, and instinctual. Both of Freud’s self needs immediate gratification and reduction of tensions
to optimal levels and the goal of every individual is to make unconscious conscious

The three provinces of the mind are:

1.) Id. (pleasure principle) It demands immediate satisfaction and

is not hindered by societal expectations.

2.) Ego. (Reality principle) This mediates between the impulses of

the id and restraints of the superego.

3.) Superego. (Moral principle) Morality of actions is largely

dependent on childhood upbringing particularly on rewards and
punishments.

Immanuel Kant
A German Philosopher who made great contribution to the fields of metaphysics, epistemology, and
ethics. Kant is widely regarded as the greatest philosopher of the modern period.

 It is the self that makes consciousness for the person to make sense of everything.
 “Respect others as you would respect yourself,”
 Kant argued that the sense called “Transcendental Apperception” is an essence of our
consciousness that provides basis for understanding and establishing the notion of “self” by
synthesizing one’s accumulation of experiences, intuition and imagination goes.

The Self from the Perspective of Sociology and Anthropology

Sociological Perspective of Self

What is Sociology?
Sociology is one of the disciplines in the social sciences which aims to discover the ways by
which the social surrounding/environment influences people’s thoughts, feelings, and behavior.

It presents the self as a product of modern society.

“Not only the self is entwined in the society; it owes society its existence in the most literal sense”
- Theodor Adorno

George Herbert Mead

Social Behaviorism is the approach he used to describe the power of the environment in shaping
human behavior.
- The self emerges from social experience. It is not part of the body and it does not exists at birth.

STAGES OF SELF-FORMATION
Preparatory Stage - Children imitate significant others to learn meaning behind symbols, gestures, and
language.
Play Stage - Children begin “role-taking” in which they mentally assume the perspective of another and
respond from that viewpoint.
Game Stage - Children are now aware of their position in the relationship to the other
numerous social positions in society.
-Taking into account the societal rules
Mead identified the two phases of self:

Me Self - the phase which reflects the attitude of the generalized other
- the "me" is the social self
- Mead defines the "me" as "a conventional, habitual individual”

I Self - the phase that responds to the attitude of generalized other or

the “I”.
- the "I" is a response to the "me”
- the “I” as the “novel reply” of the individual to the generalized other.

ANTHROPOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE OF THE SELF

WHAT IS ANTHROPOLOGY?

Anthropology is a field of the social sciences that focuses on the study of man.

The field looks into man’s physical/biological characteristics, his social relationships and the
influences of culture.

Subfields of Anthropology:
Archaeology (fossils and artifacts)
Linguistic Anthropology (language)
Biological Anthropology (genetics)
Cultural Anthropology (culture)

There is an old debate regarding the relative contributions of genetic inheritance and
environmental factors to human development.

NATURE
Refers to genetic inheritance which sets the individual potential

NURTURE
Refers to socio-cultural environment which influence the individual

CULTURE
described as a group of people’s way of life.

Theory of Cultural Determinism – human nature is determined by the ideas, meanings, beliefs,
and values learned as members of a society.
SYMBOLS
the words, gestures, pictures, or objects that have recognized or accepted meaning in a particular culture.

HEROES
persons from the past or present who have characteristics that are important in culture.

RITUALS
Activities participated by a group of people for the fulfilment of desired objectives and are concerned to
be socially essential.

VALUES
Considered to be the core of every culture.
These are unconscious, neither discuss or observed, and can only be inferred from the way people act and
react to situations.

THE SELF FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF PSYCHOLOGY

Psychological Self
WHAT IS PSYCHOLOGY?
Psychology is the scientific study of human behavior and mental processes.
It is concerned on:
 How individuals develop and mature at different life stages
 How the individual and his environment shape his personality
 How we think, behave and feel in certain situations
 Mental heath and mental illnesses
 Character strengths, coping, happiness and well-being

William James
He was an American philosopher and psychologists.
He also known as “ Father of American Psychology”.

William James believed that the self is made up of two parts:

1. ME Self - The object of experience.
-the self is an object or the self you can describe.
-perspective of other people
-3 components: material self, social self, and spiritual self
2. I Self - The subject of experience.
-refers to the self that knows who he or she is
-The subjective self that is aware of his/her actions
-describing yourself using your own perspective

Material Self - Individuals’ physical attributes and material possessions that contribute to one’s self-
image.
- Awareness of physical appearance

Social Self - To who a person is and how he or she acts in social situations.
- Awareness of others’ perceptions

Spiritual Self - Most intimate and important part of the self that includes the person’s purpose, core
values, conscience and moral behavior
 - Requires introspection

Carl Rogers
He proposed the personality theory known as the Person- Centered Theory.

He stated that the term self-concept is used to refer to how a person thinks about or perceives himself.

Two types of self-concept:

1. Real self-concept – consists of all the ideas, including the awareness of what one is and what one
can do.
- Who we actually are
2. Ideal self-concept – The person’s conception of what one should be or what one aspires to be
which includes one’s goals and ambitions in life.
- Who or what I want to be

Donnald Winnicot
He as an English pediatrician and psychoanalyst who studied child development.

Two aspects of self

1. True Self – has sense of integrity
- characterized by high level of awareness in the person of who he is, what is he capable
of, and is not afraid to let others know his weaknesses and imperfections.
2. False Self – it is the mask that hides the true person for the fear of the pain of rejection and
failure.
- False selves usually surface when the person is forced to comply with existing
social norms and standards.

Albert Bandura
The proponent of the personality theory known as The Social Learning Theory.
In this theory, the person is seen as (1) proactive and (2) agentic

Proactive- individual have control in any situation by making things happen

Agentic- individual act as an agent in doing or making themselves as they are.

The human agency according to Bandura is the essence of being human.

Human agency- a people can do exercise a measure of control over their lives.

THE SELF IN THE WESTERN AND ORIENTAL/EASTERN THOUGHT

1. Individualistic Self
Individualism is the idea that the fundamental unit of the human species that thinks, lives, and acts
toward goals is the individual.

Western cultures are known to be individualistic.

Eastern - Asian countries
Western- Europe

This means that we can form our own independent judgments, act on our own thoughts, and
disagree with others.
 Each can act on his own private motivations and values and can judge other people as good
people to form relationships with, or as bad people to be avoided

2. Collective Self
Collectivism is the idea that the fundamental unit of the human species that thinks, lives, and
acts toward goals is not the individual, but some group.

This group may be the family, the city, the economic class, the society, the nation, the race, or
the whole human species.

The group exists as a super-organism separate from individuals.

A group may make its own decisions, acts apart from the actions of individuals, and has its
own interests apart from those of the individuals that compose it.

Asian countries are known to be collective in nature.