LESSON 3

THE SELF AS MS. BIANCA NUESTRO

COGNITIVE
CONSTRUCT
 SELF (I VS. ME)
William James was one of the earliest psychologists to
study the self and conceptualized the self as having two
aspects:
 “I” – thinking, acting and feeling self
 “Me” – physical characteristics as well as psychological
capabilities that makes you who you are
• Carl Rogers
 “I” – the one who acts and decides
 “Me” – what you think or feel about yourself as an object
• Identity- composed of personal characteristics, social
roles, and responsibilities, as well as affiliations that
define who one is.
• Self-concept- it is what basically comes to your mind
when you are asked about who you are
• Self, identity, and self-concept are not fixed in one time
frame nor are they ever-changing at every moment.
• When you are asked who you are, you can say "I was a
varsity player, a college student and a "future politician"
•Self-schema- organized system or
collection of knowledge about who
we are. It may also include your
interests, work, course, age, name,
and physical characteristics, among
others. 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.
According to G.H. Mead, the self is
created and developed through
human interaction.
• Sigmund Freud saw the self, its mental processes, and
one’s behavior as the results of the interaction between the
Id, Ego and Superego.
• Mead’s theory of symbolic interactionism- argued that
the self is created and developed through human
interaction
• Self and identity are social products because:
1. Society helped in creating who we are
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 is important to us may also have been
influenced by what is important in our social or historical
context
There are times, however, when we are aware of our self-concepts; this is also called
self-awareness. Carver and Scheier identified two types of self that we can be aware of:
1. The private self- your internal standards and private thoughts and feelings, it is
isolated from the external world.
2. The public self- your public image commonly geared toward having a good
presentation of yourself to others.
Self-awareness also presents us with at least three other self-schema:
1. The actual self- who you are at the moment.
2. The ideal self- who you like to be
3. The ought self- who you think you should be
Self-awareness may be positive or negative depending on
the circumstances and our next course of action. It can
keep you from doing something dangerous. In other
instances, self-awareness can be too much that we are
concerned about being observed and criticized by others,
also known as self-consciousness.
At other times, especially with large crowds, we may
experience deindividuation or “the loss of individual self-
awareness and individual accountability in groups”
One of the ways in which our social relationship affects our self-esteem is
through social comparison. According to the social comparison theory, we
learn about ourselves, the appropriateness of our behaviors, as well as our
social status by comparing aspects of ourselves with other people.
The Downward Social Comparison is the more common type of
comparing with ourselves with others. We create a positive self-concept by
comparing ourselves with those who are worse off than us.
The Upward Social Comparison- comparing ourselves with those who are
better off than us. While it can be a form of motivation for some, a lot of
those who do this actually felt lower self-esteem as they highlight more of
their weakness or inequities.
Social comparison also entails what is called self-
evaluation maintenance theory, which states that we can
feel threatened when someone out-performs us, especially
when that person is close to us, in this case we usually
react in 3 ways:
1. We distance ourselves from that person or redefine our
relationship with them.
2. We reconsider the importance of the aspect or skill in which
you were outperformed
3. We strengthen our 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.
High or healthy self-esteem may result to an overall
good personality but it is not, and should not be, the
only source of a person’s healthy perspective of
herself.