CAVITE STATE UNIVERSITY GNED 08 – Understanding the Self

Cavite City Campus Learning Modules

MODULE 2
Sociological Perspective of the Self
OBJECTIVES / INTENDED LEARNING OUTCOMES

• Define how the society influences the persons’ knowledge about himself.
• Compare sociological perspectives to one another and find out which is most applicable to our
current understanding of our individuality.

INTRODUCTION
SOCIOLOGY
• It is a social science that studies human societies, their interactions, and the processes that preserved
and change them.
• 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.
• Sociology as a scientific study of social groups and human relationships generates new insights into
the interconnectedness between the self and other people.
• Sociology derived from the French word “sociologie” and the term was coined in 1830 by a French
philosopher Isidore Auguste Comte.

The idea about the self that is used in defining a person who he/she is points to the central part of the
socialization process. The self represents ideas regarding the characteristics, behavior and qualities of a
person. It is usual to hear from others phrases such as: “I am proud of myself”, “losing my control”, “hating
myself”, “loving myself”, and “talking to myself”. These conceptions represent the awareness of a person of
who he/she is and that he/she is unique being apart from other beings and is the same person across time.
The idea that each person is a distinct one, bounded and coherent being gives the latter a feeling of psychic
wholeness.

CHARLES HORTON COOLEY

• American sociologist.
• Earned his Doctorate at University of Michigan and became a sociology professor at the same
university.
• In his written work Human Nature and the Social Order (1902), he discussed the formation of the self
through social interaction.
• Cooley stated that people learn who they are through their social interaction with other people.
Although oneself is based on contemplating one’s personal qualities, the view of the self is also
significantly influenced by the impression and perception of others. In 1920, he called this the
LOOKING-GLASS SELF.

References: Go-Molina, Ma. Jocelyn A. and Ramirez, Normaliza C. (2018). Understanding the Self. Quezon City: C & E Publishing, Inc. Prepared: Dianne E. Agana, RPm 1
Gazzingan, Leslie B. et. al. (2018). Understanding the Self. Sucat, Muntinlupa City: Panday-Lahi Publishing, Inc.
 CAVITE STATE UNIVERSITY GNED 08 – Understanding the Self
Cavite City Campus Learning Modules

Looking-glass Self Theory

 A process by which a person develops his/her self-image based on how others treat him/her.
 The treatment is like a mirror reflecting one’s personality.
 It is a life-long mental process.

Threefold Events/Phases of Looking-glass Self Theory

1. How a person presents himself or herself to others.
2. How he or she analyzes how others perceive him or her.
3. How he or she creates an image of himself or herself.

• Looking-glass self does not only provide description of who a person is, it is also responsible for the
evaluation of one’s self. Two important dimensions of this evaluation are self-esteem and personal
efficacy.

Self-esteem is the belief that one is good and valuable to others. It is used to describe a person's
overall subjective sense of personal worth or value. In other words, how much you appreciate and
like yourself. It involves a variety of beliefs about yourself, such as the appraisal of your own
appearance, beliefs, emotions, and behaviors.

Personal efficacy, based on this principle, a person believes that he/she can rise above obstacles
or challenges and eventually achieves his/her goals. The primary determination of personal efficacy
is the nature of personal experience.

ERVING GOFFMAN
• Canadian-American Sociologist, Social Psychologist, and Writer.
• Deemed by others as ‘the most influential American Sociologist of the 20th century.
• 73rd President of the American Sociological Association.
• Listed as sixth most-cited author in the humanities and social sciences by the Times Higher Education
Guide.

• Erving Goffman has provided additional dimension to understand the self and socialization. According
to him people in their everyday life are very much like actor performing in a stage. If one imagines
himself/herself doing what does on in the theatre of everyday life, he is doing DRAMATURGICAL
ANALYSIS/APPROACH.

Dramaturgical Analysis/Approach
 The study of social interactions in terms of theatrical performance. He took this perspective
from theatre. He uses THEATRE, as a METAPHOR to represent how people behave in society
and represent themselves.

 As people interact, they behave like actors by following a script that they have learned from
their parents, teachers, and friends.
 The script essentially dictates a person how to behave based on his/her status and roles. As
a person presents himself/herself, he/she reveals pieces of information about himself/herself
to others – consciously and unconsciously.
 The performance includes the way he/she talks, the way he/she dresses and the way he/she
projects according to the setting of the drama.

Impression Management
 One of his popular work was The Presentation of the Self in Everyday Life. In this work, he
wrote how he observed that people early in their social interactions learned to slat their
presentation of themselves in order to create preferred appearances and satisfy particular
people.

References: Go-Molina, Ma. Jocelyn A. and Ramirez, Normaliza C. (2018). Understanding the Self. Quezon City: C & E Publishing, Inc. Prepared: Dianne E. Agana, RPm 2
Gazzingan, Leslie B. et. al. (2018). Understanding the Self. Sucat, Muntinlupa City: Panday-Lahi Publishing, Inc.
 CAVITE STATE UNIVERSITY GNED 08 – Understanding the Self
Cavite City Campus Learning Modules

 He referred to this process of altering how the person presents himself to others as
impression management.

 This brings us to the concept of front stage and backstage.

Front stage – it is the self that we are likely to show to the world or people present their selves
the way others expect them to be.

Backstage – refers to that aspect of self which we are really are, this is the self where we are
in the environment in which we are comfortable and where there is no audience, they reveal
their true selves.

GEORGE HERBERT MEAD

• He was born on February 27, 1863 and died on April 26, 1931.
• He enrolled at Harvard University in 1887 taking up his MA in Philosophy.
• Prominent in the field of social psychology, sociology, philosophy.

Social Behaviorism
 An approach he used to describe the power of the environment in shaping human behavior.
 He developed the theory of social behaviorism in order to explain how social experience
shapes a person’s personality. At the center of his theorizing is the concept of self.

Mead’s Social Self

1. He viewed self as the central concept, which is the part of individuals’ personality, is composed
of self-awareness and self-image. The self is the product of social experience; it is not part of
the body and does not exist at the time of birth. For him, self develops as one interacts with
others. Without social interactions, the body grows without self.

2. Mead explained that social experience is the exchanges of symbols. Human beings find
meanings in action by inferring people’s underlying intentions. Only human beings can use words
and other physical gestures to convey meaning.

3. Mead’s point of view is that by taking the role of another, a person become self-aware. He
explained that the person’s capacity to see the self through others implies that the self is
composed of TWO PARTS.

Two Parts of the Self

1. “I” part – When the person initiates or performs a social action, the self-functions as a subject.
This subjective element of the self is the I. As subject, the self is active and spontaneous.

2. “Me” part - When the person takes the role of the other, the self-functions as an object. The
object element of the self is the me. As an object, a person imagines himself/herself as how
others perceive him/her.

Three Stages of Self-Concept

1. Preparatory Stage
 During 0 to 3 years old.
 The ‘self’ is not present at birth but it develops over time through social interaction and
social experience.

References: Go-Molina, Ma. Jocelyn A. and Ramirez, Normaliza C. (2018). Understanding the Self. Quezon City: C & E Publishing, Inc. Prepared: Dianne E. Agana, RPm 3
Gazzingan, Leslie B. et. al. (2018). Understanding the Self. Sucat, Muntinlupa City: Panday-Lahi Publishing, Inc.
 CAVITE STATE UNIVERSITY GNED 08 – Understanding the Self
Cavite City Campus Learning Modules

 At this stage, children learn through the process of imitation. They mimic behavior without
understanding the underlying intention. They simply imitate others without knowing the
meaning of their actions.
 Children will become familiar with symbols that people use in their interaction. Symbols
are the basis of communication.

2. Play Stage
 About 3 to 5 years old.
 Skills at knowing and understanding the symbols of communication is important for this
constitutes the basis for socialization.
 Children start role-playing and taking on the role of significant people in their lives. Children
pretend to be their mothers or fathers while the play, being the significant in their loves.
 Along the process, they internalize the values and attitudes of their parents and eventually
incorporating them with their own personalities.
 The ‘self’ is developing (the play stage is significant in the development of the self).

3. Game Stage
 Begins in the early school years; about 8 to 9 years old.
 Children begins to see not only his own perspective but at the same time the perspective
of others around him.
 Children play the roles of the generalized others. Generalized others are those people who
do not have close relationship with the children but influence the children’s internalization
of values in the society.
 Children now has the ability to respond not just to one but several members of his social
environment.
 During this stage, the self is now present.

References: Go-Molina, Ma. Jocelyn A. and Ramirez, Normaliza C. (2018). Understanding the Self. Quezon City: C & E Publishing, Inc. Prepared: Dianne E. Agana, RPm 4
Gazzingan, Leslie B. et. al. (2018). Understanding the Self. Sucat, Muntinlupa City: Panday-Lahi Publishing, Inc.