Lesson 2 Knowing Oneself

As an individual, we commonly observe, and undeniably, judge other people’s

manners, beliefs, and lifestyle. However, it can be perceived, though, that most people find
it hard to make good and sound evaluation toward their own behavior, traits, and
personality. In this lesson, we will try to know ourselves better by having careful reflections
on how we see ourselves as an individual and understanding our characters particularly as
young and late adolescent.

What I Need to Know

This material was crafted to give you – learners, the right amount of assistance for
you to absorb and acquire all the necessary concepts and nature comprising oneself.
Lessons are bounded on the performance and content standard, learning competencies and
level of the learners. This also used languages appropriate to the understanding of the
varied types of students’ learning acquisition. Sequence of the lessons adhered to the
arrangement of the competencies as reflected on the DepEd’s curriculum guide for this
course.

Lesson Title: Knowing Oneself

After going through this module, you are expected to:
1. share his/her unique characteristics, habits, and experiences

What’s New
Adolescence is the period when a young individual develops from a child into an
adult. There are a lot of changes that happen to an adolescent like you and some of those
are: how you look, how you take your role in the community, how other people expect you
in making decisions on your own, and how you perceive yourself. Although the "Self" is one
of the determinants of what we thought about ourselves, it is also the result of what we
think and/or do.

Many people believe that we are the product of our own experiences. Those
experiences shape our unique qualities and habits that define who we as a person and differ
from others. Your features or own qualities that made you a unique are characteristics;
when you do something repeatedly and regularly it is a habit; and experiences are the skills
or knowledge you have gained because you have done it already from the past.

Now let us focus on when and how our characteristics, habits, and experiences
develop and manifest by identifying some of the factors that may affect a person’s “Self” --
the foundation of all human behavior. It is our sense of identity and of who we are as an
individual (James 1890; Mead, 1934).

Self-Esteem

Self-esteem is your evaluation of your own worth. It may be positive or negative.

Positive self-esteem is the valuation that is pleasing and acceptable according to your
standard and that of others, while negative self-esteem is the opposite which is feeling
distraught or down and unaccepted by others.

According to Tafarodi & Swann (1995), there are many factors to identify the level
of self-esteem of an individual and some of the major factors are:
- own appearance
- how satisfied you are in a relationship;
and - how you view your performance.
Our self-esteem may change from time to time depending on the situation we
encounter in our daily life. Since it can be partly a trait that someone can possess. It
depends on how you perceive the things coming your way.
Self-Efficacy

Self-efficacy is not considered as a trait. “[It] does not refer to your abilities but
rather to your beliefs about what you can do with your abilities” (Stajkovic & Luthans,
1998). It is your will to produce an effect on a specific thing. It is your self-belief to
effectively achieve your most important goal. The stronger the belief, the bigger the
possibility to achieve a positive result. For instance, you are aiming for a higher grade and
you are confidently believing it then, it will happen.

Maddux and Kleiman (2000) define and explain the five (5) different ways that
influenced self-efficacy beliefs from the ideas of Albert Badura, a professor and a
psychologist.

(a) Performance Experiences – if you are good at achieving your specific goal, then you
probably think that you will achieve it again. When the opposite happens, if you fail, you
will often think that you will fail again.
(b) Vicarious Performances – if others achieved their goal or specific task, then you will
come to believe that you will also achieve your goal.
(c) Verbal Persuasion – it is when people tell you whether they believe or not on what
you can do or cannot do. The effect of your self-efficacy will depend on how that
person matters to you.
(d) Imaginal Performances – When you imagine yourself doing well, then it will happen.
(e) The Affective States & Physical Sensations – if your mood or emotion (e.g. shame)
and physical state (e.g. shaking) come together, it will affect your self-efficacy. If
negative mood connects with negative physical sensation, the result will be negative.
And if it is positive, most likely the result will be positive.

Self and Identity

Have you tried to talk to yourself in front of the mirror? What did you see?
According to William James, a psychologist, “the self is what happens when I reflect upon
ME". Taylor (1989) described the self as a Reflective Project. How we see ourselves is
geared toward improving ourselves depending on a lot of factors.
Dan McAdam, a psychologist, reiterated that even there are many ways on how
we reflect to improve ourselves, it brings us back to these three (3) categories:
1. Self as Social Actor
o We are portraying different roles and behaving for every type/set
of people in front of us since we all care about what people think about
us. It is practically for social acceptance.
2. Self as Motivated Agent
o People act based on their purpose. They do things based on their own
dreams, desires, and planned goals for the future. This, though, is not
easily identifiable since it is self-conceptualized, unless it was shared
with us.
3. Self as Autobiographical Author
o He/she as the creator of his/her own entire life story. It is about how
oneself is developed from his/her past, up to the present, and what
he/she will become in the future.
Judgment and Decision Making

As an individual, you are expected to act and decide on your own. Most
people tend to decide based on the intuitions and available information that could
be a hindrance in making a wise decision.

It can be a habit, when our decision is always based on what is available or

gathered data. There could be a “missing link”.
 For instance, you applied for different courses in five (5) different
universities and you were able to qualify in all. Now, how will you decide? To help
you, Bazerman and Moore (2013) suggested the Six Steps on How to Make a
Rational Decision:
1. Define the Problem (select your most desired course);
2. Identify the criteria necessary to judge the multiple options (list
things to be considered like location, facilities, prestige, etc.);
3. Weight the criteria (rank the criteria based on its importance to
you);
4. Generate alternatives (the schools that accepted you);
5. Rate each alternative on each criterion (rate each school on
the criteria you have identified); and
6. Compute the optimal decision

Additional Activities
You have succeeded in studying the lesson. Now you are to know more about
yourself by accomplishing the table.

My Plan
List down the all the things you want to do/improve/change, your reason and how
will you do it. Do this on a separate sheet

Your objective Reason How will you do it?

Example: to become a Because singing is my Look for a voice coach;

professional singer dream since I was in Attend in a singing
grade school class; etc.