MODULE 1

SELF AND SOCIETY 1

A REVIEW ON SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES

•
•
THE SELF

• William James
• I – makes sense of past, present, and future encounters
• Me – social self or collection of selves based in and through known
social being
A REVIEW ON THEORIES AND
CONCEPTS OF THE SELF
G. H. MEAD & C. H. COOLEY

• G. H. Mead
• I and Me
• C.H. Cooley
• Looking glass self
• How others perceive us
• 3 steps
• How others perceive us
• How others judge us
• Ponder, internalize or reject
• Self
• Not a reflection of others’ judgments
• Interpretation and reactions
 ALLPORT

7 FUNCTIONS OF THE SELF PROPRIUM DEVELOPS INTO

• Self PERSONAL TRAITS
• 1. Sense of body - boundaries • Common traits – shared by a culture
• Cardinal traits - detected characteristics
• 2. Identity – continuing
of a person
• 3. Self-esteem – recognize our value to self and others
• Central traits – building blocks to
• 4. Self-extension – ‘my” is very close to “me” personality
• 5. Self-image – the impression “I” make on others • Secondary traits –inconsistent

• 6. Rational coping - developing problem solving skills

• 7. Propriate striving - goals, ideal, plans, vocations, callings, a

sense of direction, a sense of purpose
• Owner and operator of life!
SELF-CONCEPT
*DIFFERENT VIEWS

SOCIOLOGY PSYCHOLOGY
• Focus antecedents • Consequences of self-concept
• And looks for these in patterns of social • Most likely to lead to questions of
interactions motivation
DIMENSIONS OF THE SELF

SELF-CONCEPT SELF-EVALUATION
• Focuses on the meaning • Evaluative and affective aspects of the
self-concept
FOR 3 MINUTES:
SHARE WITH YOUR PARTNER
• When you would be asked which group you belong, what would be your immediate
answer?
• What characteristics do they have?
• Do you have these same characteristics?
 • Social identity theory
SELF-RELATED • Self categorization theory
CONSTRUCTS
• 3 processes:
• Self-categorization
• Social identification
• Social comparison
 THE SOCIAL SELF (MEAD)
• I and Me
• Interplay of self and significant others
• Self
• part of personality composed of self-awareness and self- image
• Significant others
important people who establish self-concept
• Generalized others
Expectations of all people we interact
• Role playing/ Role taking
• Another person’s view àcriteria they use to judge our behavior
ERVING GOFFMAN

• Dramaturgical analysis • Performances are the way we present

• the study of social interaction in terms ourselves to others
of theatrical performance
• Embarrassment is the “loss of face” in a
• Presentation of self performance
• Term for a person’s efforts to create • People use tact to help others “save
specific impressions in the minds of
face.”
others
 • Reflected Appraisals
• Role-taking

• Social Comparisons
• Reality-testing
• Reference group

SOURCES OF SELF- • Other processes of self-evaluation

EVALUATION • Self-perception theory

• Social Structural Variations of Self-esteem

• Social class
• Family context
• Birth order
• “broken families”
• (affected by conditional variables i.e. religious background, no.
and sex of siblings, age of mother upon divorce, separation, etc)
 • “The interpenetration of self and society is most directly
addressed in the symbolic interactionist perspective”
• NEGOTIATING IDENTITIES IN SOCIAL INTERACTION
CONTENT OF SOCIAL • "defining the situation” and "constructing reality”
CONCEPTS: • Continuous process

• Goffman
Identities
• “Staging operations” and "impression-management”

• Labeling theory
• Self-labeling
• Resistance to labeling
 • Expands our vision of the identity commitment process
• A distinction is made between "situational determinants”
– circumstance under which observers consider the
personas revealed in the role.

TURNER(1978) • "individual determinants” identifies three principles

governing role/person merger
(Gecas) • (a) merge roles by which significant others identify them
• (b) they tend to merge role and person selectively so as to
maximize autonomy and positive self-evaluations (the self-
efficacy motive and the self-esteem motive)
• (c)merge with those roles in which their investment has
been greatest (1978).
• (Gecas) Conclusion: Integrated self-theory
(CIRCLE ACTIVITY) SOME GUIDE QUESTIONS

• Were you able to reveal yourself to others?

• If so, how did you feel?
• What do you think is the effect of this revelation to the self?
 • Dualist theories
• James
• Self and society treated as distinguishable

WHAT DO YOU • Essentialist theories

THINK? • views that others might have of the self are treated as
individually located beliefs or as the outcomes of
cognitive processes.
• SIT and SCT
• Psychological processes as essential characteristics of
the self
 • Macro approaches are primarily concerned with the study of
how broader patterns of social structures and practices
shape and are enacted in the interactions that people have
with each other.
CRITICAL
APPROACHES TO SELF • Micro approaches are less concerned with the study of how
language (re) produces ideology and inequality than with
The aim is to understand people in
social life instead of attempting to examining how people them- selves use language to
separate and then somehow accomplish particular outcomes.
recombine the two.
CONSTRUCTING THE • The introduction of how the self is known by others
SELF functions to bolster the speaker’s claim to be a certain
type of person and to behave in particular ways.
 CONCLUSION

• We have to look at how selves are constructed and negotiated through discourse in interaction
with others
• The self is neither an enduring individual product nor an individual endeavor that is conducted
separately from the society in which we live.
• Adopting a critical approach allows us to see how people construct themselves in everyday
life and how the versions of self that they propose are oriented to accomplishing social
outcomes.
• The selves that people make, and how they are taken up by others, are ongoing projects, to be
developed, reworked, or otherwise dealt with as we live our lives as social beings.
COMPARING
ESSENTIALIST AND CONSTRUCTIONIST
PERSPECTIVES ABOUT THE SELF
ESSENTIALISM

• Everything has an attribute or ”essence” that make an object

• Modern essentialism
• Certain phenomena are natural, inevitable, universal, and biologically determined (Irvine, 1990)

• Biological
• Cultural
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONISM

• Reality is socially constructed

THE CONSTRUCTIONIST PARADIGM

• Our experience of the world is ordered

• Language makes sense of the world
• The reality of everyday life is shared
• Shared typifications of reality become institutionalized
• Knowledge may be institutionalized at the level of society or within subgroups.
ESSENTIALISM: SEXUALITY
EVOLUTIONARY THEORIES

SOCIOBIOLOGY: ATTRACTION
• SHORT TERM SEXUAL STRATEGY – MALES
ØYOUNG & BEAUTIFUL = HEALTHY = HIGHER LIKELIHOOD
OF BEING FERTILE
• LONG TERM SEXUAL STRATEGY – FEMALES
ØECONOMIC - LONG TERM COMMITMENT IN PROVIDING
RESOURCES
ØEVOLUTION – BEST TRAITS TO BE INHERITED. ASSURES
SURVIVAL OF YOUNG.
ESSENTIALISM: SEXUALITY

EVOLUTIONARY THEORIES

SOCIOBIOLOGY: SEXUAL ORIENTATION

• EVOLUTION– HEALTH & FITNESS
ØGAY AUNTS/UNCLES CONTRIBUTE TO
THE SURVIVAL OF THEIR NEPHEWS AND
NIECES INSTEAD OF USING RESOURCES
ON THEIR OWN CHILDREN
ESSENTIALISM: SEXUALITY

EVOLUTIONARY THEORIES

SOCIOBIOLOGY: SEXUAL ORIENTATION

PROXIMATE (hormones) & ULTIMATE CAUSES (genes)

• GENETICS – TWINS, BRAINS, HORMONES

ESSENTIALISM

CULTURAL ESSENTIALISM

Universal childhood experiences in patriarchal societies tend to

create the essential thinking and behavior of males and females

Masculine – aggressive, stoic, controlled, competitive

Feminine – nurturing, caring, communicative,
cooperative
 SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONISM

• BERGER AND LUCKMANNS TREATISE

• SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF SEXUALITY

ØSexuality is grounded in biological drives but biology does
not determine where, when, and with whom
 SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONISM

Sexual Conduct (1973) by Gagnon and Simon

Sexual scripts can be seen as providing guidelines for appropriate sexual behaviour and sexual encounters

SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF SEXUALITY

• “Sexuality is not a universal phenomenon which is the same in all historical times and cultural
spaces”
 SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONISM
• Laws & Schwartz – female sexuality (birth, sexual anatomy, menarche, sexual
initiation, impotence, & frigidity)

• Foucault
Øsexuality is a cultural construct. Its meaning is derived from discourse
ØEach institution in society has a discourse about sex
SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONISM:
ATTRACTION

DUE TO SOCIALIZATION

Finding an attractive mate may be biologically

determined but what is attractive varies from culture to
culture – there is no universal measure for attractive
(time & space)
HOW DO WE • Sexuality
DIFFERENTIATE ? • Sexual orientation

Existentialism • Attraction

Constructionism
CONJOINT • Essentialist LOVE?
APPROACH
• Constructionist
Can there truly be a
conjoint approach?
MAIN QUESTIONS (ESSENTIALISM AND
CONSTRUCTIONISM)
• Can you use conjoint approach in understanding your own sexuality?
• Do you prefer instead one over the other? If so, which one (existentialism or
constructionism)?
• How can you say so?
ACTIVITY
2 TRUTHS AND A LIE ACTIVITY

• How did it make you feel when they were wrong or right with their guesses?
• How did their replies affect how you think about yourself?
• What can you say about your ability to be able to tell a lie or not?
 POWER AND THE SELF

• For Foucault, the self is the direct consequence of power and can only be apprehended in terms of historically specific
systems of discourse.

• So-called regimes of power do not simply control a bounded, rational subject, but rather they bring the self into existence by
imposing disciplinary practices on the body.

• Through the "technologies” of surveillance, measurements, assessment, and classification of the body, technocrats, specialists,
therapists, physicians, teachers, and officers serve as vehicles of power in diverse institutional settings (prisons, schools,
hospitals, social service agencies).

• In this way, practices that are normatively represented as humane interventions in support of community health, safety, and
education actually serve as mechanisms of domination.
• The effects of globalization on the self are seen primarily through the disruption,
elaboration, and colonization of local cultures.
• Arnett(2002), the most prominent self changes à adolescence and young adults
• Why?
• Declining collective values and practices
• Global media culture and increasing rates of migration also expose actors to a wider set of
meanings for the construction of identity.This has resulted in the formation of bicultural
identities, where the self defined by local meanings and more traditional practices is
maintained alongside a self defined by global culture (Arnett2002).
SELF-CONCEPT

• "the public person is not made in the image of a unique self; rather, an interpretive
picture of a unique self is made in the image of the public person"(Cahill1998,p. 131)
• Most theorists who have criticized the essentialist assumptions of the modem self have done so without
reference to Mead's social psychology. As a consequence, the new scholarship on the self is trapped by a
"category error,” or the failure to distinguish a generic self from particular identities (Wiley 1994). For
symbolic interactionists, the self is first and foremost a reflexive process of social interaction.

• Cerulo (1997) argues that new communication technologies have expanded access to a wide range of
"generalized others,” thus altering "the backdrop against which identity is constructed
• In its new form we find a deeper appreciation of the historical, political, and sociological
foundation of selfhood and a more sophisticated understanding of the relationship between
the self and social action.
• Social identity • When collective identities are concerned,
• Affect perceptions, emotions, and behavior level of commitment determines how
• varies group characteristics, norms, outcomes,
will influence perceptions, affect, and
• Personal identity behavior of individuals in the group.
• Unitary and continuous
• Social Identification
• Content of identity and commitment
• Commitment
• Strength of people’s ties with the group
REFLECTION PAPER

• Format • Answer the given questions.

• Font size 12 • Remember that these are guide questions.
• Font TNR or Arial only • Do not answer in dialogue type.
• Double spaced • Paragraph please.
• Letter-sized • Try to incorporate as many concepts
• To be put in long folder and submitted in (discussed in class and in readings) that can
class ONLY be applied in your discussion.

• Deadline: September 27
REFLECTION PAPER GUIDE QUESTIONS

• What is your concept of the self?

• With your ongoing interaction so far, to what extent has society influenced your concept
of self?
• How much influence has power influenced your different aspects of social identity?
• How capable do you think you are in reconciling (or achieving congruence in) your
personal identity and social identity? What would you want to do, then, with this
knowledge about yourself?
I COULD NOT REITERATE MORE….

• Remember that the above questions are simply guide questions and, therefore, should
not be presented in a simple question and answer form.
• Make sure to organize your thoughts and incorporate the insights from our activities, as
well as discussions, in class in coming up with concept of the self.
HOMEWORK

• Read
• The Bell Curve Revisited: Testing Controversial Hypotheses with Molecular Genetic Data
by Dalton Conley,a Benjamin Domingue
• https://www.sociologicalscience.com/articles-v3-23-520/
• Watch
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-CI5LMDgCc