Lesson 4: The Self-According to Psychology

Psychology is a scientific study of mental processes and human behavior. It aims

to describe, analyze, predict, control human behavior in general. Self is an essential
construct in psychology because it fulfills the goals of the discipline in studying human
and the reason for their action. Many psychologists tried to define the origin of mental
processes and behavior but they all settle down with numerous theories and assumptions.
The following descriptions on the formation of self were presented for you to have a clear picture on the
psychological perspective of self.

The Self as a Cognitive Construct

▪ The cognitive aspect of the self is known as self-concept. Self-concept is defined as self-knowledge,
a cognitive structure that includes beliefs about personality traits, physical characteristics, abilities,
values, goals, and roles, as well as the knowledge that an individual exist as individuals. As humans
grow and develop, self-concept becomes abstract and more complex.
▪ According to the psychologist Dr. Bruce A. Bracken in 1992, there are six specific domains that
are related to self-concept these are:
1) the social domain or the ability of the person to interact with others;
2) the competence domain or the ability to meet the basic needs;
3) the affect domain or the awareness of the emotional states;
4) the physical domain or the feelings about looks, health, physical condition, and overall
appearance;
5) academic domain or the success or failure in the school; and
6) family domain or how well one function within the family unit.

William James and the Me-Self and I-Self

▪ William James is a well-known figure in Psychology who is considered as the founder of

functionalism. He brought prominence to U.S. psychology through the publication of The

THE SELF ACCORDING TO PSYCHOLOGY

 Principles of Psychology (1890) that made him more influential than his contemporaries in the
field.
▪ James made a clear distinction between ways of approaching the self – the knower (the pure or the
I – Self) and the known (the objective or the Me – Self). The function of the knower (I-Self)
according to James must be the agent of experience. While the known (Me-Self) have three
different but interrelated aspects of empirical self (known today as selfconcept): the Me viewed as
material, the Me viewed as social, and the Me viewed as spiritual in nature.
▪ The material self is consists of everything an individual call uniquely as their own, such as the
body, family, home or style of dress. On the other hand, social self refers to the recognition an
individual get from other people. Lastly, spiritual self refers to the individual inner or subjective
being.

Real and Ideal Self carl Rogers

▪ Carl Rogers is best known as the founder of clientcentered therapy and considered as one of the
prominent humanistic or existential theorists in personality. His therapy aimed to make the person
achieve balance between their selfconcept (real-self) and ideal self.
▪ The real self includes all those aspects of one's identity that are perceived in awareness. These are
the things that are known to oneself like the attributes that an individual possesses.
▪ The ideal self is defined as one’s view of self as one wishes to be. This contains all the aspirations
or wishes of an individual for themselves.
▪ A wide gap between the ideal self and the self-concept indicates incongruence and an unhealthy
personality.
▪ Psychologically healthy individuals perceive little discrepancy between their self-concept and what
they ideally would like to be.

Multiple versus Unified Self

▪ According to Multiple Selves Theory, there are different aspects of the self exist in an individual.
From here, we can say that self is a whole consist of parts, and these parts manifest themselves
when need arise.

THE SELF ACCORDING TO PSYCHOLOGY

 ▪ Gregg Henriques proposed the Tripartite Model of Human Consciousness, wherein he described
that self is consist of three related, but also separable domains these are the experimental self,
private self, and public self.
o The experiential self or the theater of consciousness is a domain of self that defined as felt
experience of being. This includes the felt consistency of being across periods of time. It
is tightly associated with the memory. This is a part of self that disappears the moment that
an individual enter deep sleep and comes back when they wake up.
o The private self consciousness system or the narrator/interpreter is a portion of self that
verbally narrates what is happening and tries to make sense of what is going on. The
moment that you read this part, there is somewhat like a “voice” speaking in your head
trying to understand what this concept is all about.
o Lastly, the public self or Persona, the domain of self that an individual shows to the public,
and this interacts on how others see an individual. Henriques’ Tripartite Model attempts to
capture the key domains of consciousness, both within the self and between others.
▪ Unified being is essentially connected to consciousness, awareness, and agency. A well-adjusted
person is able to accept and understood the success and failure that they experienced. They are
those kinds of person who continually adjust, adapt, evolve and survive as an individual with
integrated, unified, multiple selves.

True versus Fals Self Donald Winnicott

▪ Donald Winnicott was a pediatrician in London who studied Psychoanalysis with Melanie Klein,
a renowned personality theorist and one of the pioneers in object relations and development of
personality in childhood.
▪ According to him, false self is an alternative personality used to protect an individual’s true identity
or one’s ability to “hide” the real self. The false self is activated to maintain social relationship as
anticipation of the demands of others. Compliance with the external rules or following societal
norms is a good example of this. false self can be a healthy self if it is perceived as functional for
the person and for the society and being compliant without the feeling of betrayal of true self. On
the other hand, unhealthy false self happens when an individual feels forced compliance in any
situation.
▪ On the contrary, true self has a sense of integrity and connected wholeness that is rooted in early
infancy. The baby

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 creates experiences of a sense of reality and sense of life worth living. Winnicott claimed that true
self can be achieved by good parenting that is not necessarily a perfect parenting.

The Self as Proactive and Agentic Albert Bandura

▪ Albert Bandura is a psychologist and Professor Emeritus of Social Science in Psychology at

Stanford University. He is known for his theory of social learning by means of modeling. He is
famous for his proposed concept of selfefficacy.
▪ His personality theory, The Social Cognitive Theory asserts that a person is both proactive and
agentic, which means that we have the capacity to exercise control over our life. This theory
emphasized that human beings are proactive, self-regulating, self-reflective, and selforganizing.
▪ Self as proactive means an individual have control in any situation by making things happen.
They act as agent in doing or making themselves as they are. Agency is a defining feature of
modern selfhood. Agents assume some degree of ownership and control over things, both
internally (I control my own thoughts) and externally (I make things happen in the environment).
The ability of an individual to pursue their goals in life is an example of agentic approach to self.
▪ According to Bandura (1989), self-efficacy beliefs determine how people feel, think, motivate
themselves and behave. Such beliefs produce these diverse effects through four major processes.
They include cognitive, motivational, affective and selection processes. A strong sense of efficacy
enhances human accomplishment and personal well-being in many ways.
▪ In contrast Bandura (1989) said that people who doubt their capabilities shy away from difficult
tasks which they view as personal threats. They have low aspirations and weak commitment to
the goals they choose to pursue. When faced with difficult tasks, they dwell on their personal
deficiencies, on the obstacles they will encounter, and all kinds of adverse outcomes rather than
concentrate on how to perform successfully. They fall easy victim to stress and depression.

References:
Arcega, A M., Cullar, D. S., Evangelista, L. D. & Falculan, L. M. (2018). Understanding the Self. Malabon
City: Mutya Publishing House Inc.

Gazzingan, L. B. et al. (2019). Understanding the Self. Muntinlupa City: Panday-Lahi Publishing House,
Inc.

THE SELF ACCORDING TO PSYCHOLOGY

Alata, E.J.P., Caslib, B.N., Serafica, J.P.J., Pawilen, R.A. (2018). Unsertanding the Self. Rex Book Store
Inc., Sta Mesa Heights, Quezon City, Philippines

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