Lesson 3: The Self as a Cognitive Construct

There are various definitions of the self and other similar or interchangeable concepts in
psychology. Simply put, the self in psychology is the sense of personal identity and who we
are as individuals.
William James as one of the earliest psychologists to study the self, he conceptualized the
self as having two concepts: the “I” and “Me”.
 “I” is the thinking, acting, and feeling self.
 “Me” is the physical characteristics as well as psychological capabilities that make
who you are.
Carl Rogers used the same terms,
 “I” as the one who acts and decides.
 “Me” is what you think or feel about yourself as an object.
Other concepts similar to self are identity and self-concept.
 Identity is composed of one’s personal characteristics, social roles, and
responsibilities.
 Self-concept is basically what comes to your mind when you are asked about who
you are.
Carl Rogers captures this idea in his concept of self-schema or our own organized system or
collection of knowledge about who we are. It may include your interest, work, course, age,
name, and physical characteristics, among others. And as you grow and adapt to the
changes around you, they also change, but they are not passive receivers, they actively
shape and affect how you see, think and feel about things.
Theories generally see the self and identity as a mental constructs. Current researches point
to the frontal lobe of the brain as the specific area of the brain associated with processes
concerning the self. Sigmund Freud saw the self, its mental processes and one’s behaviour
as the results of the interactions between the structures of the personality. As in the
abovementioned definitions of the self, social interaction always has a part to play in who
we think we are.
Under the theory of symbolic interactionism, Mead argued that the self is created and
developed through human interaction. There are three reasons why self and identity are
social products:
1. We do not create ourselves out of nothing.
2. Whether we like to admit it or not, we actually need others to affirm and reinforce who
we think we are.
3. What we think as important to us may also have been influenced by what is important in
our social or historical context.

Social Interaction and group affiliation are vital factors in creating our self-concept especially
in the aspect of providing us with social identity. However, there are times when we are
aware of our self-concepts, also called self-awareness.
Carver and Scheler identified two types of self that we can be aware of:
1. The Private Self- your internal standards and private thoughts and feelings.
2. The Public Self- your public image commonly geared toward having a good representation
of yourself to others.

Self-Awareness also presents us with at least three other self-schema:

1. Actual Self - who you are at the moment.
2. Ideal Self -who you like to be.
3. Ought Self -who we think we should be.

Self-awareness may be positive or negative depending on the circumstances and our next
course of action. It can keep you doing something dangerous. In other instances, self-
awareness ca be too much that we are concerned about being observed and criticized by
others, also known as self-consciousness.

At other times, we may experience deindividuation or the loss of individual elf-awareness

and individual accountability in groups. A lot of people will attune themselves with the
emotions of their group and because the large crowd also provides some kind of anonymity.

Our group identity and self-awareness also has a great impact on our self-esteem. Self-
esteem is our own positive or negative perception or evaluation of ourselves. One of the
ways in which our social relationships affects our self-esteem is through social comparison.

1. Downward Social Comparison-comparing ourselves with those people who are worse off
than us.
2. Upward Social Comparison-comparing ourselves with those people are better off than us.

Social comparison entails what is called self-evaluation maintenance theory which states
that we can feel threatened when someone out-performs us. In this case, we react in three
ways:
 We distance ourselves from the person or redefine our relationship with them.
 We may reconsider the importance of the aspect or skill in which you were out-
performed.
 We may also strengthen or resolve to improve that certain aspect of ourselves.
However, in the attempt to increase or maintain self-esteem, some people become
narcissistic. Narcissism is a trait characterized by overly high self-esteem, self-admiration
and self-centeredness. Sometimes, there is a thin line between high self-esteem and
narcissism and there are a lot of test and measurement for self-esteem but the issue is that
the result can be affected by the desire of the person to portray herself in a positive or
advantageous way.