THE SELF AS

COGNITIVE
CONSTRUCT
LESSON 3
INTRODUCTION
 ABSTRACTION
In confidence or in an attempt to avoid further analytical discussions, a lot of
people say, “I am who I am.” Yet, this statement still begs the question “if you are
who you are, then who are you that makes who you are?”
Various definition of the self as discussed:
• “Self is “the sense of personal identity and of who we are as individuals
(Jhangiani and Tarry 2014)
• William James (1890) was one of the earliest psychologist to study the self and
conceptualized the self as having two aspects—the “I” and the “ME.” The “I” is
the thinking, acting, and feeling self. The “me” on the other hand, is the physical
characteristics as well as psychological capabilities that makes who you are.
• Carl Rogers’s theory of personality also used the same terms, the “I” as the one
who acts and decides while the “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 personal characteristics, social roles, and responsibilities,
as well as affiliations that define who one is.
• Self-concept 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. For
example, when you are asked about who you are, you can say “I was a
varsity player in 5th Grade” which pertains to the past, “a college
student” which may be the present and “a future politician” which is the
future.
 HOBBIE
S

• Carl Rogers captured

this idea in his concept
of self-schema or our FAMILY SELF RELIGIO
N

organized system or
collection of
knowledge about who
we are. NATIONALITY
• The schema includes your interest, work, course, age, name,
and physical characteristics, among others. As you grow and
adapt to the changes around you, they also change.
• Theories generally see the self and identity as mental
constructs, created and recreated in memory. Curremt
researchers point to the frontal lobe of the brain as the
specific area in the brain associated with the processes
concerning the self.
• Several Psychologists, especially during the field’s earlier
development, followed this trend of thought, looking
deeper into the mind of the person to theorize about the
self, identity, self-concept, and in turn, one’s personality.
• The most influential of them is Sigmund Freud. Basically,
Freud saw the self, its mental processes, and one’s
behavior as the results of the interaction between the Id,
the Ego, and the Superego.
• Under the theory of symbolic interactionism, G.H.
Mead argued that the self is created and developed
through human interaction.
 THREE REASONS WHY SELF AND
IDENTITY ARE SOCIAL PRODUCTS
1. We do not create ourselves out of nothing.
2. Whether we like 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.
• Social interaction and group affiliation, therefore, are vital factors in
creating our self-concept especially in the aspect of providing us with our
social identity or our perception of who we are based on our membership
to certain groups identities, that those identities can overlap, and that we
automatically play the roles as we interact with our group of friends.
• 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 or your internal standards as
and private thoughts and feelings, and (2) the public self or 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: the actual, ideal, and ought self.
• The actual self is who you are at the moment, the ideal self is who
you like to be, and the ought self is who you think you should be.
• An example is that you are a student interested in basketball but is
also academically challenged in most of your student. Your ideal
self might be to practice more and play with the varsity team but
ought to pass your subjects as a responsible student. One has to
find solution to such discrepancies to avoid agitation, dejection, or
other negative emotions. In some instances, however, all three may
be in line with one another.
• Self-awareness can keep you
from doing something
dangerous; it can help remind
you that there is an exam
tomorrow in one of your
subjects when you are about to
spend time playing computer
games with your cousins,
among others.
Our group identity and self-
awareness also has a great
impact on our self-esteem, one
of the common concepts
associated with the “self”. It is
defines as our own positive or
negative perception or
evaluation of ourselves.
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 ourselves with others. As the name
implies, we create a positive self-concept by comparing
ourselves with those who are worse off than us. On the
other hand, upward social comparison is when you
compare yourselves with those who are better off than
you.
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 three ways.
• First we distance ourselves from that person or redefine
our relationship with them.
• Second, we may also reconsider the importance of the
aspect or skill in which you were outperformed.
• Narcissism is a “trait characterized by overly high self-
esteem, self-admiration, and self-centerdness.
• Sometimes, there is a thin line between high self-esteem
and narcissism and there are a lot of tests and
measurements for self-esteem like the Rosenberg scale
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.
 THE SELF IN WESTERN AND
EASTERN THOUGHTS
• In this lesson, we will look at religious beliefs and
political philosophies that greatly influenced the
mindset of each nation or culture. We will
highlight the Eastern thoughts in this lesson.
 CONFUCIANISM
• Confucianism can be seen as a code of ethical conduct,
of how one should properly act according to their
relationship with other people; thus, it is also focused on
having a harmonious social life.
• Self-cultivation is seen as the ultimate purpose of life
but the characteristics of a chun-tzu, a man of virtue or
noble character, is still embedded in hisa social
relationships
• The cultivated self is Confucianism is what some
scholars call a “subdued self” wherein a personal needs
are repressed (subdued) for the good of many, making
Confucian society also hierarchal for the purpose of
maintaining order and balance in society.
 TAOISM
• Taoism is living in the way of the Tao or the universe.
However, Taoism rejects having one definition of what the Tao
is, and one can only state clues of what it is as they adopt a
free-flowing, relative, unitary, as well as paradoxical view of
almost everything.
• Taoism rejects the hierarchy and strictness brought by
Confucianism and would prefer a simple lifestyle and its
teachings thus aim to describe how to attain that life.
• The self is not just an extension of the family or the
community; it is part of the universe, one of the forms
and manifestations of the Tao.
 BUDDHISM
There are various groups who have adopted Buddhism; thus, you may find
differences in their teachings with our discussion but more likely, their core
concepts remained the same.
• The self is seen as an illusion, born of ignorance, of trying to hold and
control things, or human-centered needs; thus, the self is also the source of
all these sufferings.
• It is, therefore, our quest to forget about the self, forget the craings of the
self, break the attachments you have with the world, and to renounce the
self which is the cause of all suffering and in doing so, attain the state of
Nirvana.
Western perspective does not discount the role of the
environment and society in the formation of the self but
the focus is always looking toward the self.
One can also describe that the Western thought looks at
the world in dualities wherein you are distinct from the
other person, the creator is separated from the object he
created, in which the self is distinguished and
acknowledge.
• The western culture is what we could call an
individualistic culture since their focus is on the person.
Asian culture, on the other hand, is called a collectivistic
culture as the group and social relations that is given
more iimportance than individual needs and wants.