Defining the SELF:

Personal and Developmental

Perspectives on Self
and Identity
Jessica R. Platon,RPm,MAEd
Learning Outcomes
Discuss the different representations and
conceptualizations of the self from various
disciplinal perspectives; and

Examine the different influences, factors,

and forces that shape the self.
Debate…
Nature versus Nurture
Section 1

The Self from Various

Philosophical Perspectives
Philosophy
 derived from the Greek words “Philos” and “Sophia” which literally means “Love
for Wisdom”
 the study of acquiring knowledge through rational thinking and inquiries that
involve answering questions regarding the nature and existence of man and the
world we live in.
 Philosophers of the Ancient Times
• Socrates Every human person is dualistic – composed of body and soul.
• Plato One’s soul is divided into 3 different parts – Appetitive (driven by desire and
need to satisfy oneself) , Spirited (courageous part of the person), and Rational
(conscious mind).

• St Augustine “Man is of bifurcated in nature” – body (bound to die on Earth) and

soul (bound to anticipate living eternally in a realm of spiritual bliss in communion
with God).

• St Thomas Aquinas Man is composed of two parts – matter (hyle: the common
stuff that makes up everything in the universe) and form (morphe: the essence of a
substance of thing).
 The philosophy of self has been defined through
two distinct lens: empiricism and rationalism.

Empiricism Rationalism
• there is no such thing as innate • there is innate knowledge; there are
knowledge different sources of innate knowledge

• knowledge is derived from experience – • conclusions are derived through logic and
either perceived with the five senses or reasoning
processed with the brain

Some philosophers applied empirical views of the self; other used the rational.
 Modern Philosophy
• Rene Descartes The self is a combination of two distinct entities – cogito (the mind: the
thing that thinks) and extenza (the body: extension of the mind).

• David Hume One can know only what comes from the senses and experiences; The self is
nothing else but a bundle of impressions and ideas.

• Immanuel Kant There is a mind that organizes the impressions that men get from the
external world.

• Gilbert Ryle Self is simply the convenient name that people use to refer to all the behaviors
that people make.

• Merleau Ponty The mind and body are so intertwined that they cannot be separated from
one another.
Section 2

The Self in Different

Psychological Perspectives
In psychology…
• Self refers to a person’s experience as a single, unitary, autonomous
being that is separate from others, experienced with continuity
through time and place.
• A psychological perspective is a school of thought or a philosophy which
would guide someone's interpretation of an individual's behavior.
 Behavior
• Overt - Observable act of a person. It is • Rational- making the decision and acts in
obvious. accordance with the existing social
• Covert - It is hidden and is not visible to norms and practices.
the naked eyes. • Irrational - Acts that deviate from what is
right.

• Conscious - An intended act. • Voluntary - Behaviors emerge out of free

• Unconscious - Acts that run will.
automatically without your mind • Involuntary - Bbehaviour that is usually
controlling them. uncontrollable.
 Biological Perspective
states that all thoughts, feelings, and behavior
ultimately have a biological cause

• Focuses on how an individual’s biological factors (chromosomes,

hormones, and the brain) influence behaviors, thoughts, and
emotions.

• The key idea is that biological processes control our thoughts and
actions, including hormones, neurotransmitter and genes.
 Classical Conditioning
Behavioral Learning by association

Perspective
• Emphasizes the role of
environmental factors in influencing
behavior.
Operant Conditioning
• When born, our mind is “tabula rasa” Learning from the consequence of behavior
– a blank slate.
• Positive Reinforcement: add something positive († †)

• All behaviors are learned through • Negative Reinforcement: subtract something negative (- -)
interaction with the environment
• Positive Punishment: add something negative († -)
through a process called
conditioning. • Negative Punishment: subtract something positive ( - † )
Humanistic Perspective
• Emphasizes the study of the whole person – holism. It looks at
human behavior, not only through the eyes of the observer, but
through the eyes of the person doing the behaving.

• It centers on the view that each person is unique and individual,

and has the free will to change at any time in his or her life.

• Belief that people are innately good.

• The humanistic perspective suggests that we are each responsible

for our own happiness and well-being as humans. We have the
innate (i.e., inborn) capacity for self-actualization, which is our
unique desire to achieve our highest potential as people.
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
• Our actions are motivated in order to achieve certain
needs.

• This hierarchy suggests that people are motivated to

fulfill basic needs before moving on to other, more
advanced needs.

• Maslow believed that people have an inborn desire to

be self-actualized.
 Psychodynamic Perspective
emphasizes unconscious psychological processes and contends that childhood
experiences are crucial in shaping adult personality

• The unconscious mind is the primary source of human behavior.

• Our feelings, motives, and decisions are actually powerfully

influenced by our past experiences, and stored in the unconscious.

• Our behavior and feelings as adults (including psychological

problems) are rooted in our childhood experiences.
 Provinces of the Mind
Ego In contact with reality; Operates on the reality principle; The
moderator between the ego and the superego; Responsible for
decision-making.

Jack's ego would tell him that he should not take the pie from the windowsill,
but instead he can buy some pie right up the street at the local grocery store.

Id No contact with reality; Its sole Superego Represents our moral, ideal, principles, and ethics;
function is to seek pleasure; Operates on Operates on the moralistic and idealistic principle; Main concern is
the pleasure principle.; Largely unconscious being whether an action is good or bad, right or wrong; Represents
or out of awareness. the ideal rather than the real; strives not for pleasure but for
perfection.
Jack is walking down the street and he is very hungry. He
only has an id so when he sees an apple pie cooling in a Jack is walking down the street and he is very hungry. He only has a superego so
window, he takes it for himself. when he sees an apple pie cooling in a window, he does nothing. His superego
tells him that it is someone's pie and that it is not acceptable to trespass on
someone’s property and take their pie.
Help the individual cope with anxiety and prevent the ego from being
overwhelmed.

Defense
Mechanisms
Rather than being abnormal, these defenses are normal behaviors
provided that they do not become a style of life the enables the individual
to avoid facing reality.
 Reaction Formation
Defense
Mechanisms
Recognize how they feel, but they
choose to behave in the opposite
manner of their instincts.

Repression Projection
Threatening or painful thoughts and Individual attributes unwanted
feelings are excluded from awareness. thoughts, feelings and motives onto
another person.

Denial Displacement
“Closing one’s eyes” to the existence Involves taking out our frustrations,
of a threatening aspect of reality. feelings, and impulses on people or
objects that are less threatening.
Rationalization Regression
Manufacturing “good” reasons Going back to an earlier phase of
to explain away a bruised ego. development when there were fewer
demands.

Sublimation Compensation
Allows us to act out unacceptable Overachieving in one area to compensate
impulses by converting these for failures in another.
behaviors into a more acceptable
form.

The 'id' and the 'superego' are constantly in conflict with each other and the 'ego'
tries to resolve the discord. Defense mechanisms are use to reduce the anxiety
created by this conflict.
Section 3

The Self Society

and Culture
 Nature versus Nurture
Nature Nurture
• Self is predominantly a product of natural • Self should be principally viewed as an
processes to which people are inherently outcome of various nurturing factors in the
predisposed. context of one’s life.

• The natural basis of the self is anchored on • Different social sciences stress how group
biology and explains that human traits are life (formal and informal) affects an
passed from one generation to another. individual’s behavior and attitude, and
emphasize on the impact of various social
institutions to the self-construal of a
person.
S
Refer to the lifelong process of
O inheriting and disseminating
C norms, customs, and ideologies,

The Self and

I
providing an individual with the
skills and habits necessary for
A participating within his or her own
L society.
I

the Society
Z The means by which human
A infants begin to acquire the skills
T necessary to perform as a
functioning member of their
I society and are the most
O influential learning process one
N can experience.
 Mead’s Three Role playing Stages of
George Herbert Mead SelfDevelopment
and the Social Self There are three stages in which a person has
to go through for one to develop one’s self.
• The “I” and “Me” • The Preparatory Stage (Birth – 2 years Old): The
infant simply imitates the actions and behaviors
• Me - the characteristics, behavior, and or of the people that the infant interacts with.
actions done by a person; the attitudes, • The Play Stage (2 – 6 years old): children begin to
and behavior of the person interact with other with which certain rules
apply. the child practices real life situations
• I - reaction of the individual to the through pretend play

attitude of others; one’s response to the • The Game Stage (6-9 years old): the ability of the
established attitude, and behavior children to recognize the rules of the game and
be able to identify their roles and the roles of the
others that is playing with them
Charles Horton Cooley’s Looking Glass Self

Looking Glass Self

• refers to people shaping themselves based on other people’s
perception, which leads people to reinforce other people’s
perspectives on themselves.

According to Cooley, this process contains three steps:

• we imagine how we look to others
• we interpret others’ reactions (how they evaluate us)
• we develop a self-concept

• Even if we misjudge others’ reactions, the misjudgments become

part of our self-concept.
 The Self and Culture
Culture refers to customary behavior and beliefs that are passed on
through enculturation (Kottak, 2008), wherein enculturation is the
social process which culture is learned and transmitted

• Many studies have shown that people from different cultures see and perceive
things differently and that is probably due to how their culture shaped the way
they view the world.

• Culture shapes how we each see ourselves and others. For example, some
cultures prefer children to be quiet and respectful when around adults.
 Activities
• How Do I See Myself
• Provinces of the Mind (Id, Ego, Superego) Skit
• Learning Journal
• Quiz