3: PSYCHOLOGICAL VIEW OF THE SELF
BSA 1 – Understnading the Self (GE1)
The Self as a Cognitive Construction
- is a cognitive approach that focuses on the
mental processes rather than the observable
behavior.
- This approach will assist individuals in
assimilating new information to their existing
knowledge and will enable to make the
appropriate modification to their existing
intellectual framework to accommodate their
new information.
William James - “Me Self and I Self”
- father of Scientific Psychology
- His theory of self – “essence of a person: his
thoughts, feelings and actions, experiences,
beliefs, values, principles and relationships.”
Me Self
- refers to the aspects of someone that came from
that person’s experiences
Three Sections of Me Self
Material Self - consists of things that belong
to us or that we belong to
Social Self - are who we are in a given social
situation.
Spiritual Self - who we are at our core. The
spiritual self is more concrete or permanent
than the other two selves. The spiritual self is
our subjective and most intimate self
I Self
- classified as pure ego and suggested that this
component of self is consciousness itself.
GLOBAL VERSUS DIFFERENTIATED MODELS
- There had been postulation that one’s self may be
fragmented into different parts and different
selves which may be in conflict or needs
regulation from each other.
Self-esteem - is a person’s overall self-evaluation
or sense of self-worth.
Global Self- Esteem
- Trait self-esteem
- Personality variable that represents the way
people generally feel about themselves
- Relatively enduring across time and situation
- A decision people make about their worth as a
person
State Self- Esteem
- Feelings of self-worth
- Refers to temporary feelings or momentary
emotional reactions to positive and negative
events where we feel good or bad about
ourselves during these situations or experiences.
Domain Specific Self- Esteem
- Self-evaluation
- Focused on how people evaluate their various
abilities and attributes
- Making distinctions or differentiation on how good
or bad people are in specific physical attributes,
abilities and characteristics
Real and Ideal Self Concepts
- A group of psychologists called for renewed
attention to inner experience, processes, and
self-constructs to assert the dignity and worth of
human beings and their capacity for self-
realization.
Karen Horney
- with her feminine psychology suggests that
people have an idealized self image and an actual
self, which is revealed when they shed the
techniques developed to cope with basic anxiety
and find ways to resolve conflicts.
Idealized Self-Image
- An imaginary picture of the self as the processor
of unlimited powers and superlative qualities is
developed.
Actual Self
- The person one is in everyday life, is often
despised because it fails to fulfill the requirement
of the idealized image.
Real Self
- It is revealed only as person begins to shed the
various techniques developed to deal with basic
anxiety and to find ways to resolving conflicts.
- It is a force that drive towards growth and self-
realization.
Carl Rogers – Person-Centered Theory
- established the conception of self
Real Self (the self-concept)
- It includes all those aspects of one’s being and
one’s experiences that are perceived in
awareness by the individual.
- It is the part of ourselves where we feel think, look
and act involving our self-image.
Ideal Self
- It revolves around goals and ambitions in life, is
dynamic, the idealized image that we have over
time.
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3: PSYCHOLOGICAL VIEW OF THE SELF
BSA 1 – Understnading the Self (GE1)
- This is what our parents have taught us
considering: what we admire in others, what our
society promotes, what we think are in our best
interest.
. following social codes.
A wide gap between real self and ideal self can:
Indicates incongruence and can cause
unhealthy personality
If the way I am (real self) is aligned to the way
I want to be (the ideal self). Then I will feel a
sense of mental well-being or peace of mind.
If the way I am is not aligned to the way I want
to be, it will cause mental distress or anxiety.
The greater is the gap, the greater is the level
of distress.
MULTIPLE VERSUS UNIFIED SELVES
(Kenneth Gergen)
- Postmodern psychology - deal with that man
has an identity that shifts and morphs in different
social situations and in response to different
stimuli, as
- Kenneth Gergen argues that having a flexible
sense of self is more socially adaptable than
sticking to one self-concept.
Multiple Selves
- according to K. Gergen, are the capacities we
carry within us from multiple relationships.
- These are not ‘discovered’ but ‘created’ in our
relationships with other people.
Unified Selves
- as strongly pointed out in Traditional Psychology
emphasizes that well-being comes when our
personality dynamics are congruent, cohesive
and consistent.
- It is understood that a person is essentially
connected with selfhood and identify. In a healthy
person the ego remains at the helm of the mind,
coherent and organized, staying at the center.
Donald Winnicott – True vs. False Selves
- distinguished what he called the "true self from
"false self" in the human personality.
True self - as based on a sense of being in
the experiencing body.
False self - as a necessary defensive
organization, survival kit, and a care taker self,
the means by which a threatened person has
managed to survive.
True Self
- It has a sense of integrity, of connected
wholeness that harks to the early stage.
False Self
- Used when the person has to comply with
external rules, such as being polite or otherwise
- It constantly seeks to anticipate the demands of
others in order to maintain the relationship
Healthy False Self
- Functional can be compliant but without the
feeling that it has betrayed its true self.
Unhealthy False Self
- Fits in but through a feeling of forced compliance
rather than loving adaptation.
The Self as Proactive and Agentic
- Social Cognitive Theory takes an agentic view
of personality, meaning that human have the
capacity to exercise control over their own lives.
People consciously act on their environment in
a manner that permits growth towards
psychological health.
Agent Self
- Known as an executive function that allows for
actions.
- This is how we, as individuals, make choices and
utilize our control in situations and actions.
- Resides over everything that involves decision-
making, self-control, taking charge in situations,
and actively responding.
Human Agency
- It is not a thing but the active process of exploring,
manipulating and influencing the environment in
order to attain desired outcomes.
Core Features of Human Agency (Albert Bnadura)
Intentionality - acts a person performs
intentionally
Forethought - setting goals, the anticipation
of outcomes of actions, selection of behaviors
to produce desired outcomes, and avoiding
undesirable ones.
Self-reactiveness - monitoring progress
toward fulfilling choices.
Self-reflectiveness - examination of own
functioning, evaluation of the effect of other
people’s action on them.
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BSA 1 – Understnading the Self (GE1)

The four (4) core features of human

agency leads to self-efficacy.
- The belief that they are capable of performing
acting that will produce a desired effect.
- Lies in the center of bandura’s social cognitive
theory.
- It is the measure of one’s ability to complete
goal.
- People with high self-efficacy often are eager to
accept challenges
- Because they believe they can overcome them
- While, people with low self-efficacy may avoid
challenges, or believe experiences are more
challenging than they actually are