Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Gladys Lavarias, MA
Choose your self-presentations carefully, for what starts out as a mask may
become your face” – Erving Goffman
How would you answer the question “Who are you?” How would you introduce
yourself to a person or a group when it’s your first time to meet or interact with
them? Would you be very willing to share and open-up your true self, or would
you have some limitations first?
This topic (for 3 hours) on the sociological perspective of the self will let you
explore the importance of the self in relation to the society. It will let you examine
how your attitudes and behavior is influenced by social interactions and
relationships. And as you try to understand fully yourself, this topic will facilitate
you to accept and be more tolerant of the differences that you have and that of
others for you to live in a harmonious way and be productive in society.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Personality Development
In what ways are you like all other people? In what ways are you only like some
other people? In what ways are you like no other people? In this topic you will
examine the importance of the sociological self to look at what brings about the
similarities and differences among people through the uniqueness of personality.
2. Abilities – are skills that are developed within the culture. For
example, one may develop ability in playing sepak takraw or football,
to paint or do beadwork, to program computers or use an abacus. Other
than abilities, you have the capacity to learn skills, or to acquire a
particular body of knowledge – your aptitude. Aptitude is more related
to heredity, as abilities are always related to culture.
Heredity gives you biological needs. Your culture determines how you
meet these needs. Heredity plays an important role in shaping human
personalities by setting limits on individuals. For example, if you were
born with a five-foot frame, you are not likely to become a
professional basketball player. On the other hand, it is not a guarantee
that you’ll become one even if you are seven feet tall. Inherited
characteristics place limits on what is possible, but it will not
determine what you will do and what kind of personality you will
have.
LET’S PRACTICE
Read the following additional reading material on the influence of heredity and
environment in personality development, the 10 Heartbreaking Stories of Feral
Children.
At birth, you cannot talk, walk, feed yourselves, or even protect yourself from
harm. You know nothing about the ways of your culture or society. Then, through
interaction with other people and your environment, you are developed into
individuals who have knowledge of your culture – you become participants of
your society. This process of cultural molding, how individuals learn the basic
skills, values, beliefs, and behavior patterns of the society, is called socialization.
The Socialization Process
The following theories will help you understand how we become socialized and
develop our identity, or self.
3.
a) Significant others and the I-self – from these relationships you develop
the I-self. The I-self does not depend on your role or where you are. You
may be in class, in the mall shopping, with your friends, or working. You
are something more than what your role as a student, shopper, and so on
indicates. It is subjective, or personal, and entirely constant. You can act in
a way that is not expected of someone in your role because of your I-self.
As you grow, you begin to expand beyond the significant others of the
family. When you were kids, while playing the “bahay-bahayan”, you
realize that one can take the role of a mother or a father. At this point, you
begin to realize that there is more than one mother and one father. You see
mothers and fathers as “generalized others” – people or roles to whom
you relate in a more abstract, general way.
I-Self Me-Self
The result of your subjective, private
Comes from your objective, social self
self (personal)
Self as subject Self as object
Self-expression Conformity
Objective behavior that is quite
Subjective behavior, quite constant
predictable
How you act according to the rules and
Your unique personal qualities, your
expectations of a specific role in a
individual impulses
given situation