THE “SELF” ACCORDING TO PHILOSOPHERS

SOCRATES

- “Knowing oneself”
- Goal is to obtain happiness

LOCKE

- Tabula Rasa / Blank Slate

- Does not disregard a person’s experiences.
- Experiences and perceptions are essential.

FREUD

- Austrian
- Father of psychoanalysis
- People are by-products of past experiences.
- The self is different constructs of personality that interact with each other.

Said ASPECTS OF PERSONALITY are as follows:

ID: Child. Pleasure-seeking.

SUPER EGO: Conscience

EGO: Realism / Pragmatism

 SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE OF THE SELF
SOCIOLOGY

The study of human society.

GEORGE HERBERT MEAD

- Father of American pragmatism

- One of the pioneers of social psychology
- Rejected biological determination (pog)
- A person in regards to who they are develops from social interactions with other people.
- The idea of the “Self” may be based on the general attitudes and behaviors of other people
or the individuality of the person that manifests in response.
- Proposes there are two components of the self, the ”I” and the ”ME”.

His descriptions of ”I” and the ”ME” are as follows:

ME: Yourself around others.

I: Individuality.

MEAD’S THREE ROLE-PLAYING STAGES OF SELF DEVELOPMENT

- THE PREPARATORY STAGE (BIRTH - 2 YEARS OLD)
Imitates people they grow up with.

- THE PLAY STAGE (2-6 YEARS OLD)

Children begin to interact in social situations where rules apply.

- THE GAME STAGE (6-9 YEARS OLD)

Recognize the rules of society and start to identify roles.
 ANTHROPOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE OF THE SELF
ANTHROPOLOGY AND ITS SUBDISCIPLINES

ETHNOGRAPHY

o Field work

ETHNOLOGY

o Not hands-on

CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY

- You already know what this is.

ARCHAEOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY

- You already know what this is.

BIOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY

- You already know what this is.

LINGUISTIC ANTHROPOLOGY

- You already know what this is.

 THE SELF EMBEDDED IN THE CULTURE
CULTURE

- Customary behavior and beliefs that are passed on through enculturation (the process
through which culture is learned and transmitted).

- Social process that is learned and passed on from generation to generation.

- Everybody is cultured.

- Depends on images which have specific significance.

- Cultures oblige people, yet the activities of people can change cultures. (Think: Social
upheaval)

CSORDAS

- Culture is shared, symbolic, natural, learned, integrated, encompassing, maladaptive and

adaptive.

- The human body is not essential for anthropological study.

GEERTZ

- Culture is “a system of inherited conceptions expressed In symbolic forms”.

 PSYCHOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE OF THE SELF
“THE SELF AND ITS SELVES”

WILLIAM JAMES

- Author of “The Principles of Psychology”

- Another “me”-self and “I”-self-er
- The “me”-self is the one with experience.
- The “I”-self is the self-thought one.

Understanding of Self can be separated into Three categories:

o It’s constituents
o Self-feelings: The feelings and emotions they arouse
o Self-seeking and self-preservation: The actions which they provoke.

Sub-categories of self:
o The material self: Bodies, clothes, immediate family, home.
o The social self: How we present ourselves to different groups.
o The spiritual self: Morals, conscience, will.

CARL ROGERS

- Came up with his conception from intervention he used on a client.

Person-centered Therapy
o Non-directive intervention.
o Believes all people have the potential to solve their own problems.

Has three sides as follows:

▪ Perceived Self: Self-worth.
▪ The Real Self: Self image (how the person really is).
▪ The Ideal self: How the person would like to be.

CONCEPT OF UNIFIED AND MULTIPLE SELF

DANIELCW

- Wrote Psychoanalysis vs. Posmodern Psychology

- Emphasis on the “Conscious” and “Unconscious”
 KENNETH GERGEN

- Having a flexible “self” allowed for multiple “selves”

- A proponent of Postmodern Psychology
- “Maybe it is healthy to have multiple selves / masks”

TRUE SELF VS FAKE SELF

- True self: Who you are

- Fake self: Defense mechanism

PSYCHOSOCIAL DEVELOPMENT

ERIK ERIKSON

- Ego psychologist
- Inspired by Freud but focused on psychosocial instead of psychosexual.
- Described the impact of social experience across the whole lifespan.
- In each stage Erikson believed people experience conflict that serves as a turning point in
development.

The stages that make up his theory are as follows:

o Stage 1: Infancy. Trust vs. Mistrust.
o Stage 2: Early Childhood: Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt.
o Stage 3: Preschool. Initiative vs. Guilt.
o Stage 4: School age. Industry vs. Inferiority.
o Stage 5: Adolescence. Identity vs. Role Confusion.
o Stage 6: Young Adulthood. Intimacy vs. Isolation.
o Stage 7: Middle Adulthood. Generativity vs. Stagnation.
o Stage 8: Maturity. Integrity vs. Despair.

THE SELF IN WESTERN VS. EASTERN THOUGHT

TL;DR Egoism / Individualism vs. Collectivism