Republic of the Philippines

Potot, Libmanan, Camarines Sur

Email Address: gmvcc.lib16@yahoo.com

UNDERSTANDING THE SELF

General Education 1

UNIT 7: MATERIAL SELF: TO BUY OR NOT TO BUY?

We are living in a world of sale and shopping spree. We are given a wide
array of products to purchase from a simple set of spoon and fork to owning a
restaurant. Almost everywhere, including the digital space, we can find
promotions of product purchase. Product advertisements are suggestive of
making us feel better or look good. Part of us wants to have that product. What
makes us want to have those products are connected with who we are. What we
have and already possess is related to our self.
Belk stated that “we regard our possessions as part of our selves. What we

EDITED BY: KIETHLY B. RILLO LPT

SOURCES FROM: Miguel C. Cierva Jr
have and what we possess.” There is a direct link b/w self-identity with what we
have and possess.
 At the end of this unit, you will be able to:
1. Explain the association of self and possessions;
2. Identify the role of consumer culture to self and identity; and
3. Appraise one‟s self based on the description of material self.

LESSON PROPER

Material self

A Harvard psychology in the late nineteenth century, William James, wrote

in the book, the principles of psychology in 1890 that understanding the self can
be examined through its different components namely: 1] its constituents; 2] the
feelings and emotions they aroused self-feelings; 3] the actions for which they
prompt the seeking and self-preservation. The constituents of self are composed
of material self, the social self, the spiritual self, and the pure ego.

The material self, according to William James primarily is about: our bodies;
clothes; immediate family; home.

HOME
Resume:

Immediate family

Clothes

Clothes

MATERIAL SELF:

1. Body is the innermost part of material self. You are directly attached to this
commodity that you cannot live without. You strive hard to make sure that
this body functions well and good. Example is Mariah Carey, she was
reported to have placed a huge amount for the insurance of his vocal cords
and legs.
1 2. Clothes is next to the body that was being influenced by the “the
philosophy of dress” by Herman Lotze. William James believed that an
essential part of the material self is clothing. Lotze stipulated in his book
that any time you bring an abject into the surface of your body, you invest
that object into any consciousness of your personal existence taking in its
contours to be your own and making it part of the self.
 3. Immediate Family is the third in the hierarchy. Your parents and siblings
hold another great important part of yourself. What they do or became
affects you. When an immediate family member dies, part of you dies, too.
When their lives are in success, you feel their victories as if you are the
one holding the bacon. In their failures, you are put to chance or guilt.
When they are disadvantage situation, there is an urgent urge to help like
a voluntary instinct of saving one‟s self from danger.
4. Home is the fourth component of material self. Home is where your heart
is. It is the earliest nest of your selfhood. Your experience inside the home
were recorded and marked on particular parts and things in your home.
There was an old cliché about rooms: “if only walls can speak”. The home
thus is an extension of self, because in it, you can directly connect
yourself.

We are what we have

Russel Belk (1988) posits that “… we regard our possessions as part of

our selves. We are what we have and what we possess.” The identification of the
self to things stared in our infancy stage when we make a distinction among self
and environment and others who may desire our possessions.
The possessions that we dearly have tell something about who we are, our self-
concept, our past, and even our future.

ACTIVITY 9

NAME: SECTION:

Instruction: Create a collage of your treasured possessions including your

current clothing style. You may use symbols or pictures of your treasured
possessions. Put a short note why you treasure each item.

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Resume: