GEN 002: Understanding The Self

Module #2 Student Activity Sheet

Lesson title: Self, from the Perspective of Materials:

Sociology Student Activity Sheet

Lesson Objectives: At the end of the lesson, References:

students will be able to:
1. learn different sociological perspectives;
2. discover the importance of involving
myself in the community; and
3. create a self-awareness activity applying
the sociological perspectives presented.
• https://www.iep.utm.edu/mead/
http://philschatz.com/sociology-book/contents/m42821.html
Gazzingan,L., et.al. (2018), Understanding the Self, Panday.
lahi Publishing

A. LESSON PREVIEW

Introduction

A pleasant day to everyone! How are you? Hope you’re doing well with your studies! Did you read something
about our new lesson?

𛲣 When we talk about Sociology, what comes to your mind?

𛲣 Do you know some famous sociologist? What do they teach us?
𛲣 Does our environment has something to do with ourselves? How does it affects us?

Today’s lesson is all about Sociologist and their contributions, together with effect of sociology to the pond of
knowledge.

Activity 1: Lesson Review/Preview

Direction: Fill each blank with the correct answer. Write your answer on the blank provided.
1. _____________________. The goal of philosophy according to Socrates.
2. _____________________. According to him the Self (soul) is the essence of living being.
3. _____________________. He argued that Self and the body are inseparable.
4. _____________________. He argued that the identity is achieved through a twofold process: self-presentation,
which leads to self-realization.

Activity 2: What I Know Chart, part 1

Next up, let us check what you already know about the topic before reading the lesson.

Please answer the given questions in the second column of the table below. Write you answers in the first column
and leave the third column blank at this time.

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What I Know Questions What I Learned (Activity 4)

What do you understand about

sociology?

How does our feelings towards

other people affect our
community?

Why is it important to mingle,

interact, participate, and involve
ourselves to our community?

B. MAIN LESSON
Content Notes

You can make use of a highlighter to highlight important details in the text. This will help you study
effectively.

Sociological Perspective on Self

In classical sociological perspective, the Self is a relatively stable set of perceptions of who we are in relation to
ourselves, others, and to social systems. The self is socially constructed in the sense that it is shaped through
interaction with other people.

Charles Cooley’s theory of the “looking glass self.”

Cooley wrote that people’s ideas of themselves have “three principal elements:
(1) the imagination of our appearance to the other person;
(2) the imagination of his judgment of that appearance, and
(3) some sort of self-feeling, such as pride or mortification

The thing that moves us to pride or shame is the imagined effect of this reflection upon another’s mind. We are
ashamed and seem evasive in the presence of a straightforward man, cowardly in the presence of a brave one,
gross in the eyes of a refined one, and so on. We always imagine, and, in imagining, share the judgments of the
other mind. A man will boast to one person of an action—say some sharp transaction in trade—which he would be
ashamed to own to another.” To put it more simply, the way you imagine other people perceiving you affects the

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way you feel about yourself, which in turn affects your attitude and even your appearance. And you may change
the way you present yourself depending on who you’re trying to impress or fit in with. I realized that the looking
glass self applies to my own life right at that moment. This drawing depicts the looking-glass self. The person at the
front of the image is looking into four mirrors, each of which reflects someone else's image of him back to him.

George Herbert Mead’s Symbolic Interactionism

Mead's theory of the social self is based on the perspective that the self emerges from social interactions, such as
observing and interacting with others, responding to others' opinions about oneself, and internalizing external
opinions and internal feelings about oneself.

Three activities develop the self:

1.Language develops self by allowing individuals to respond to each other through symbols, gestures, words,
and sounds. Language conveys others' attitudes and opinions toward a subject or the person. Emotions, such
as anger, happiness, and confusion, are conveyed through language.

2. Play develops self by allowing individuals to take on different roles, pretend, and express expectation of others.
Play develops one's self-consciousness through role-playing. During role-play, a person is able to internalize
the perspective of others and develop an understanding of how others feel about themselves and others in a
variety of social situations.

3. Games develop self by allowing individuals to understand and adhere to the rules of the activity. Self is
developed by understanding that there are rules in which one must abide by in order to win the game or be
successful at an activity.

Mead develops William James' distinction between the "I" and the "me." The "me" is the accumulated
understanding of "the generalized other" i.e. how one thinks one's group perceives oneself etc. The "I" is the
individual's impulses. The "I" is self as subject; the "me" is self as object. The "I" is the knower; the "me" is the
known. For Mead the thinking process is the internalized dialogue between the "I" and the "me."

The "I" is the response of an individual to the attitudes of others, while the "me" is the organized set of attitudes of
others which an individual assumes.

The Looking Glass Self; Who Holds Our Reflections?

An interesting discussion is about the theory of the Looking Glass Self by Charles Horton Cooley. Cooley thought
that an individual and society do not exist separately, but rather the individual is the product society and society is
the product of the individual. There are three parts to the concept; how a person thinks the other(s) perceives
him, how the person thinks the other(s) judges that perception, and the reaction of the person to the assumed
perceptions and judgments.

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I can imagine what a group of diverse people sitting around discussing this may argue, both for and against the
theory. What a lively debate it could be, mixing young and old, liberal and conservative, and experienced and
inexperienced into the same group. Ah, how many of those individuals, I wonder, would have dressed to convey an
image to the others, would speak in certain manners in order to impress or distress, or would consider what the
importance of their statements would have upon the other group members?

At first, the theory seems to explain that each person is no more than a reflection of society. More realistically, the
theory means we are products of our cultures, our physical surroundings, and the human beings with whom we
associate. Generally, I think it can be agreed, most people want to fit into society in some manner. And to fit in
means to obey some of the rules of the group to which we belong, or want to belong.

Considering everyone wants to fit in somewhere, people we surround ourselves with have a great influence on
who we become. The type of people that we associate with differs through the various stages of our lives; the
drinking buddies we may have had in our early twenties may not be the same people we want as godparents for
our children. The people from Church are probably not the people we would invite to a bachelor party.

And so, as we grow older, what type of people should we associate with? What reflections of ourselves do we
want to nurture? It depends on how each of us view the process of aging, what and when is "old age" to each of us,
do we plan to "go gently into the night" or will we remain active in and throughout the middle and latter stages of
life, just as we did in our physical youth? There are no wrong answers, merely different ways for different people.
Simply being aware of the influences others have on us is important. In that way, we can more actively choose
those from whom we are reflected, and be mindful of how we react to others, as reflections of who they are.

Activity 3: Sketch me!

Direction: On the left side of the box below, please sketch a self-portrait that describes the social groups you
identify yourself with and around it, write its labels. These labels should be nouns such as “college student,”
“workers,” etc.

On the right side of the box, draw another portrait that represents how you believe others see you and write labels
around the portrait. This time you will use adjectives that you believe others would use to describe you. These
adjectives can be positive, negative, or whatever comes to mind.

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Activity 4: Reflective Questions:

Please answer each item in 2-3 sentences only.
1) Are there any noun labels that other people assume should be on your self-portrait but are not?
______________________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
2) Are there any that are hidden from other people and what are the reasons that you keep it hidden from them?
______________________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
3) Are there adjectives you wish were on the 2nd portrait? And Anything you wish were NOT there?
______________________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________

Activity 5: Caselet
Direction: Read the situation very carefully and answer the question below. Your aim is solve the problem
being presented by applying the concepts or theories discussed above. Answers may vary.

Skill to develop: Creativity and communication

You just landed your first job in a Non-profit Organization after graduating from college. One of your main task is to
create self-awareness activities for the beneficiaries who are teen-agers. Your supervisor asked you to create a self-
awareness activity applying your knowledge on Charles Cooley’s “Looking Glass Self”, and present it to your
supervisor. What will be the design of your self-awareness activity?

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Activity 6: What I Know Chart, part 2

Now, it’s time for you to go back in the What I Know Chart from the 1st activity for you to monitor how your
knowledge has changed by reviewing the questions in the second column and write your answers to the questions
based on what you know now in the third column of the chart.

Check for Understanding

You are doing well! Next, you need to answer the activity below. This will assess your learning about the
lesson.

Let’s try your memory, I will give you enumeration type of short assessment to determine your comprehension.

Now it’s time for you to answer ….

1 – 2 What are the two distinction of self?
_______________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________________
________________________.
3 – 5 Activities develop the self
_______________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________________
________________________.
6 – 8 Charles Cooley Theory Looking Glass Self, 3 principal elements
_______________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________________________
________________________.
 Check your answers with the Key to Corrections found in the last pages of this SAS

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C. LESSON WRAP-UP

Congratulations for finishing this module! Shade the number of the module that you finished.
You are done with the session. Let us track your progress!
PERIOD 1 – Student Activity Sheets PERIOD 2 – Student Activity Sheets

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

Activity 6: Thinking about Learning (5 mins)

A). Learning Tracker
As part of the learning tracker, we prepared some questions to reflect on, please carefully read the question
below and give your honest answer.

What felt confusing about what you learned today?

Did you have any challenges in today’s learning?

Job well done; you have reached the end of this module! We are looking forward to more meaningful learning with
you!

Frequently Asked Questions

Since we know you have questions about this lesson, we write 3 items and answer it on your behalf so it will
be clear to you. Please read the following questions and the corresponding answers to it.

1. Do parents need to be careful in their words, gestures, languages and attitudes because it might be imitated by
children observing them. why?
Ans. Certainly Yes! Anything seen / observe by children from their parents and adults are presume right and
correct.

2. Is it right for parents to be over protective to their children?

Ans. Yes, in a way that protecting them from harm, but not if the knowledge development and exploration are
controlled.

3. Is it necessary for us to reflect?

Ans. Yes, so that we can evaluate our progress, and our behavior if appropriate or not.

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KEY TO CORRECTIONS

Check your Understanding

1. I
2. Me
3. Language
4. Play
5. Games
6. the imagination of our appearance to the other person
7. the imagination of his judgment of that appearance,
8. some sort of self-feeling, such as pride or mortification

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