UNDERSTANDING THE SELF

SELF

 a unified being, essentially connected to consciousness, awareness, and agency”

 The consciousness of the existence of the self has been almost automatic or reflexive. Thus,
people are mostly unaware of it in their daily lives

CHAPTER 1: SOCIAL ENVIRONMENTAL AND OTHER LIFE FACTORS (S.E.L.F)

NATURE VS NURTURE

 Nature can be compared to a pre-wiring and is influenced by genetic inheritance and other
biological factors.
 Nurture is generally is the influence of external factors after conception such as life experiences
and learning on individual.

Identity VS Self

IDENTITY - are qualities, beliefs, etc. that make a particular person of group of different from others. It is
the distinguishing character or personality of an individual.

SELF - refers to the person that someone normally or truly is, or the entire person of an individual.

IDENTITY - distinguishes or compares one from another while self refers to the total characteristics or
qualities of a person both known and unknown to others (but known to oneself).

“Identities are the traits ad the characteristics, social relations, roles, and social group membership that
define who one is. Identities can be focused on the past – what used to be true of one, the present – what
is true of one now, or the future – the person one expects or wishes to become, the person one feels
obligated to try to become, or the person one fears one may become; together, identities make up one’s
self concept variously described as what comes to mind when one thinks of oneself”. Oyserman, Elmore,
and Smith (2012)

IDENTITY - Highlighted by a dominant trait which makes him/her distinguishable from others.

SOCIAL FACTOR

 an agent of one’s being

 The influences of significant people in one’s life.
 Examples: family, neighbor, peer group, church, and school
 Social factors are strong foundations of one’s being

PERSONALITY

 The individual differences in characteristic patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving.

 It is said that no two people would have an identical personality, and that every individual is
unique. One may share commonalities with other people (e.g., manners, appearance, bearing,
etc.)

ENVIRONMENTAL FACTOR

 A less obvious factor that simultaneously affects one's being or character

  It broadly includes the physical and communal elements present in everyday surroundings, and
are invariably dealt with by individuals in a specific geographic region or area.
 This factor does not only cover the physical properties of the surroundings but also the larger
society or community.

HEREDITARY FACTOR

 a biological process by which certain traits and characteristics are passed from one generation to
another.
 This unlike the 2 other factors are non negotiable factor, if one does have a choice whether or not
to adopt the influence of social groups and to change or improve one’s environment, heredity is
relatively FIXED and PERMANENT.

THE PHILOSOPHICAL VIEW OF SELF

SOCRATES: Know Thyself

 A classical Greek philosopher who is highly noted for his view of self
 He considered man from the point of view of his inner life.
 Know Thyself tells each man to bring his inner self to light
 A bad man is not virtuous through ignorance, the man who does not follow the good fails to do so
because he does not recognize it.
 The core of his ethics is the concept of virtue and knowledge
 Virtue – the deepest and the most basic propensity of man, knowing one's virtue is necessary
and can be learned.
 Virtue is innate in the mind, and self-knowledge is the source of all wisdom, an individual may
gain possession of oneself and be one’s own master through knowledge.
 Every man is composed of Body and Soul (which means every man is DUALISTIC)
 Every individuals have an imperfect, impermanent aspect to him, the body. While maintaining
that there is also a soul that is perfect and permanent.

PLATO

 Man was omniscient or all knowing before he came to be born into this world. With his separation
from the paradise of truth and knowledge and his long exile on earth, remembering through
contemplation and doing good, he can regain his former perfection.
 Man in his life should imitate his former self; more specifically, he should live a life of virtue in
which true human perfection exists.
 Happiness, which is the fruit of virtue, is attained by the constant imitation of the divine exemplar
of virtue, embodied in man’s former perfect self.

For Plato, the Psyche is composed of 3 elements:

1. Appetitive – it includes one’s desires, pleasures, physical satisfactions, comforts, etc.

2. Spirited – the part of psyche which is excited when given challenges, or fights back when agitated,
or fights for justice when unjust practices are evident. In a way this is the part of psyche which is
hot-blooded .
3. Mind/ Rational – the most superior part of the elements; it decides, analyses, thinks ahead,
proposes what is best, and rationally controls the other 2 elements.
DAVID HUME: The self is a bundle theory of mind

 He promoted EMPIRICISM, a school of thought that espouses the idea that knowledge can only be
possible if it is sensed or experienced.
 Men can only attain knowledge through experience.
 For Hume, self is nothing but a bundle of impressions.
 Impressions – basic thoughts, our experiences and sensation
 Ideas – copies of impressions: not as vividly as impressions
 For Hume, self is a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each other
with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux.

Rene Descartes: “ I think therefore I am”

 Father of Modern Philosophy

 Self is a thinking distinct from the body.
 His most famous principle “Cogito,Ergo Sum” means although the mind and the body are
independent from each other and serve their own function, man must use his own mind and thinking
abilities to investigate, analyze, experiment, and develop himself.

Immanuel Kant: Respect for Self

 A Prussian Metaphysicist
 Man is the only creature who governs and directs himself and his purpose, and who freely orders
means for the attainment of his aims.
 Other men should not be treated merely as means – as per order by the creator and the natural
order of things.
 A person should not be used as a tool, instrument, or device to accomplish another private’s ends.

John Locke: Personal Identity

 Personal identity is a matter of psychological continuity(memory), and not on the substance of either
the soul or the body.
 Opposed the idea that only reason is the source of knowledge of the self
 He proposed that self is comparable to an empty space (Tabula Rasa) where everyday experiences
substitute to the pile of knowledge that is put forth on that empty space.

St. Augustine: Love and Justice as the Foundations of the Individual Self

 A virtuous life is dynamism of love

 It is a constant following of and turning towards love while a wicked life is a constant turning away
from love
 Loving God – loving one’s fellow, Loving fellowmen – denotes never doing any harm to
others.

Sigmund Freud: Psychoanalytic Theory of Self

 Freud asserts that human psyche (personality) is structured into 3 parts:

1. ID (Pleasure Principle)
2. EGO (Reality Principle)
3. SUPEREGO (Morality Principle)
Freudian Stages of Psychosexual Development

 Freud proposed that the development of individuals can be divided into distinct stages characterized
by sexual drives.
 As a person grows, certain areas become sources of pleasure, frustration or both.
1. ORAL – birth – end of the first year
2. ANAL (expulsive phase) – 2 – 3 years old
3. PHALLIC – 3 – 6 years old
4. LATENCY – 10-12 years old
5. GENITAL – After Puberty

Erik Erikson: Psychosocial Stages of Self-development

 Concerned with how psychological and social factors affect the development of individuals
 He formulated 8 major stages of development, each posing a unique developmental task and
simultaneously presenting the individual with a crisis he/she must overcome.
 Crisis is not threat or a catastrophe but a turning point, a crucial period of increased vulnerability
and heightened potential.

Carl rogers

 In order for self to grow, we need an environment that provides us with genuineness, acceptance,
and empathy.
 Unconditioned Positive Regard is where we are accepted and loved regardless of our weaknesses.
It tells us that we need not to pretend to be loved and accepted.
 Conditional Positive Regard - is where positive regard, praise, and approval exists when we
behave in certain ways.
 Congruence – the feeling, experience and behavior in ways which we are consistent with our self-
image and which can reflect to our ideal self.

CHAPTER 2: SOCIOLOGY

SELF - defined by the following characteristics.

a) Separate – distinct from other selves, unique and has own identity.

b) Independent and Self-contained – self itself can exist. Its distinctness allows its self-contained
thoughts, characteristics and volition.

c) Consistent – acting or done in the same way over time, especially so as to be fair or accurate.

d) Unitary – centers on experiences and thoughts that run through a certain person. It’s like a chief in
command post in an individual where all processes, emotions, and thoughts converge.

e) Private – sorts out information, feelings, and emotions, and thought processes within the self.

 Self is private it lives within its own world

 Self for social constructivists argue that self should not be seen as a static entity that stays
constant through and through.
 Self itself should be seen as a constant struggle with external reality and is malleable in dealing
with society.
  Self is always in participation with social life and its identity is subjected to influences here and
there
 The self and culture
 Marcel Mauss – A French Anthropologist 
 Every self has 2 faces MOI and PERSONNE
 Moi – the basic identity of the person. It is the sense of who he is, his body, and his basic identity
 Personne – these are based on social concepts of what it means to be who he is. It has to do
with what it means to live in a particular institution, a particular family, a particular religion,
nationality and how to behave given the expectations and influences from others.

Mead and Vygotsky

 Human person develops through language acquisition and by forming an internal dialogue in our
head.
 The cognitive development of the child is always a mimicry of how it is done in the social world, in
the external reality he is in.
 They treat human mind as made, constituted through language as experienced in the external
world and as encountered dialogue with others.
 The child internalizes, norms, values, practices and social beliefs and more through exposure to
dialogs that will be eventually part of his individual world.

Mead’s 3 stages of development of self

1. The Preparatory Stage (birth – 2 years)

 Children mimic those around them, this is why parents of young children are discouraged to use
foul language around them.
 Children who usually mimic the actions and words of their parents do not know the implications
of such.
2. The Play Stage (2 – 6 years old)
 Children start to play pretend and do not adhere to the rules in an organized games like patintero
or basketball.
 Playing games with children of this age is far easier to just with “any rules” they come up with
during the course of the game.
3. The Game Stage (7 years old onwards)
 Children begin to understand and adhere to the rules of the games.
 They can begin to formalize games because they begin to understand other people’s
perspectives and the perspective of the generalized other.

The looking-glass self: our sense of self is influenced by others’ views of us

 The concept of the looking-glass self-states that part of how we see ourselves comes from our
perception of how others see us.
 Charles Horton Cooley – stated that the degree of personal insecurity you display in social
situations is determined by what you believe other people think of you.
 A person’s self grows out of a person’s social interactions with others. The views of ourselves
come from the contemplation of personal qualities and impressions of how others perceive us.
 The influence of other people’s appraisals of ourselves on our self-concept may be so strong that
we end up internalizing them.
 The labeling bias occurs when we are labeled and others’ views and expectations of us are
affected by that labeling.
  Self-labeling may occur which happens we adapt others’ labels explicitly into our self-concept.
The effects of this labeling on our self-esteem appear to depend very much on the nature of the
labels.

Self and families

 As a child is born there is a givenness and disposition inherited from his parents’ genes.
 The kind of family that we are born in, the resources available to us, and the kind of development
that we will have will certainly affect us.
 Human persons learn the ways of living and selfhood within the family.
 Babies internalize ways and styles that they observe from their family.

“Without a family, biologically and socially, a person may not even survive or become a
human person”

Gender and the self

 Sex - usually categorized as female or male but there is variation in the biological attributes.
 Gender
 Something that is subjected to change, alteration, and development.
 There is struggle to fight for your right to have a free will in choosing your gender.
 In social sciences point of view of the self it it’s important to give on the leeway to find,
express and live his identity.
 Our gender partly illustrates or determines how we see ourselves in the world. It is the
society’s expectations to its members.
 Nancy Chodrow – a feminist proposed that mothers take the role of taking care of the kids
and family because this is what they witnessed growing up. Girls tend to imitate the same and
reproduce the same action.
 Men on the other hand are expected to hold their emotions, be tough and fatalistic. They are
taught to have a hard physical labor and do everything to provide for their family.
 Circumcision plays a big role into boy’s manhood.