UNDERSTANDING THE SELF

MODULE ONE

LANIE
PRELIMINARIES
E. AVELINO, LPT, MA
Module Title: Module One - DEFINING THE SELF: PERSONAL AND DEVELOPMENTAL
PERSPECTIVES ON SELF AND IDENTITY

Understanding the Self (Module GE 101) lnea 2020 | 1

Course Title: Understanding the Self

Course Number: GE 101

Course Description:

This course Understanding the Self is a fundamental course in the General Education Curriculum for tertiary
education. It s designed to help the students understand the nature of identity including the factors that influence and
shape personal identity. Today, issues of self and identity are very critical to adolescents. This book was
conceptualized to aid undergraduate students develop a more critical and reflective attitude in exploring the issues
and concerns of the self and identity for a better and proper way of understanding one’s self. It emphasizes the
integration of personal daily experiences of the students with their learning experiences inside the classroom to
encourage them to improve themselves for a better quality of life.

Total Learning Time: 6 weeks

Pre-requisites: N/A

OVERVIEW

This module has three major parts. The first chapter enables the students to understand the construct of the self from
various disciplinal perspective: philosophy, sociology, anthropology, and psychology including the more traditional
division between East and West. The second chapter deals with some of the various aspects that make up self like
the biological self, the material self, the spiritual self, the political self and the digital self. The third and final
chapter provides a discussion on some areas and issues or concern for young students these days, which are learning,
goal setting and stress. This module will provide opportunities for students to gain new skills for practical
application of the concepts learned that aim to help them become better and significant individuals of our society in
order to build a great nation.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

This course/module made a concerted effort to achieve the following learning outcomes.
 Help students explain why it is essential to understand the self; describe and discuss the different notions of the
self from the points of view of the various philosophers across time and place; compare and contrast how the
self has been represented in different philosophical schools; and examine one’s self against the different views
of self.
 Explain the relationship between and among the self, society and culture; describe and discuss the different
ways by which society and culture shape the self; compare and contrast how the self can be influenced by the
different institutions in the society; and examine one’s self against the different views of self that were
discussed.
 Identify the different ideas in psychology about the self; Create your own definition of the self based on the
definitions from psychology; and analyze the effects of various factors identified in psychology in the
formation of the self.
 Differentiate the concept of self according to western thought against Eastern/Oriental perspective; explain the
concept of self as found in Asian thoughts; and create a representation of the Filipino self.

INDICATIVE CONTENT

CHAPTER I - DEFINING THE SELF: PERSONAL AND DEVELOPMENTAL PERSPECTIVES ON SELF AND
IDENTITY

 Lesson 1. The Self from Various Philosophical Perspectives

 Lesson 2. The Self, Society, and Culture
 Lesson 3.The Self, as Cognitive Construct
 Lesson 4. The Self in Western and Eastern Thoughts

DISSCUSSION

Lesson 1. The Self from Various Philosophical Perspective

Before we even had to be in any formal institution of learning, among the many things that we were first taught as
kids is to articulate and write our names. Growing up, we were told to refer back to this name when talking about
ourselves. Our parents painstakingly thought about our names. Should we be named after a famous celebrity, a

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respected politician or historical personality, or even a saint. Were you named after one? Our names represent who
we are. It has not been a custom to just randomly pick combination of letters and number (or even punctuation
marks) to denote our being. Human beings attach names that are meaningful to birthed pro-genies because names
are supposed to designate us in the world. Thus some people get baptized with names such as “precious”, “beauty”,
or “lovely”. Likewise, when our parents call our names we were taught to respond to them because our names
represent who we are. As a student, we are told to always write our names on our papers, projects, or any output for
that matter. Our names signify us. Death cannot even stop this bond between the person and his/her name. Names
are being inscribed even into one’s gravestone. A name is not the person itself no matter how intimately bound it is
with the bearer. It is only a signifier. A person who was named after a saint most probably will not become an
actual saint. He may not even turn out to be saintly. The self is thought to be something else than the name. The self
is something that a person perennially molds, shapes, and develops. The self is not a static thing that one is simply
born with like a mole on one’s face or is just assigned by one’s parents just like a name. Everyone is task to discover
oneself. Have you truly discovered yours?

The history of philosophy is replete with men and women who inquired into the fundamental nature of the self.
Along with the question of the primary substratum that defines the multiciplity of things in the world, the inquiry on
the self has pre-occupied the earliest thinkers in the history of philosophy. The Greeks were the ones who seriously
questioned myths and moved away from them in attempting to understand to perennial questions curiously,
including the question of the self. The different perspective and views on the self can be best seen and understood by
revisiting its prime movers and identify the most important conjectures made by Philosophers from the ancient times
to the contemporary period.

 Socrates and Plato

Prior to Socrates, the Greek thinkers, sometimes collectively called the pre-Socrates to denote that some of them
preceded Socrates while others existed around Socrates’s time as well, preoccupied themselves with the question of
the primary substratum, arche that explains the multiplicity of things in the world. These men like Thales,
Pythagoras, Parmenides, Heraclitus and Empedocles, to name a few were concerned with explaining what the world
is really made up of, why the world is so, and what explains the changes that they observed around them. Tired of
simply conceding to mythological accounts propounded by poet-theologians like Homer and Hesiod, these men
endeavored to finally locate an explanation about the nature of change, the seeming permanence despite change, and
the unity of the world amidst its diversity.

After of series of thinkers from all across the ancient Greek world who were distributed by the same issue, a man
came out to question something else. This man was Socrates. Unlike the pre-Socrates, Socrates was more concerned
with another subject, the problem of the self. He was the first philosopher who ever engaged in a systematic
questioning about the self. To Socrates, and this has become his life-long mission, the true task of Philosopher is to
know oneself. Plato claimed in his dialog that Socrates affirmed that the unexamined life is not worth living. During
his trial for allegedly corrupting the minds of the youth and for impiety, Socrates declared without regret that his
being indicted was brought about by his going around the Athens engaging men, young and old, to question their
presuppositions about themselves and about the world, particularly about what they are. Socrates took it upon
himself to serve as a gadfly that disturbed Athenian men from their slumber and shook them off in order to reach the
truth and wisdom. Most men, in his reckoning, were really not fully aware of who they were and the virtues that
they were supposed to attain in order to preserve their souls for the afterlife. Socrates thought that this is the worst
that can happen to anyone to live but die inside.

For Socrates, every man is composed of body and soul. This means that every human person is dualistic, that is, he
is composed of two important aspects of his personhood. For Socrates, this means all individuals have an imperfect,
impermanent aspect to him, and the body, while maintaining that there is also a soul that is imperfect and
permanent.
Plato, Socrates’s student, basically took off from his master and supported the idea that man is a dual nature of body
and soul. In addition to what Socrates earlier espoused. Plato added that there are three components of the soul:
rational soul, spirited soul, and the appetitive soul. In his magnum opus, “ The Republic”, Plato emphasizes that
justice in the human person can only be attained if the three parts of the soul are working harmoniously with one
another. The rational soul forged by reason and intellect has to govern the affairs of the human person, the spirited
part which is incharge of emotions should be kept at bay, and the appetitive soul incharge of base desires like eating,
drinking, sleeping and having sex are controlled as well. When this ideal state is attained, then the human person’s
soul becomes just and virtuous.

 Augustine and Thomas Aquinas

Augustine’s view of the human person reflects the entire spirit of the medieval world when it comes to man.
Following the ancient view of Plato and infusing it with the new found doctrine of Christianity, Augustine agreed
that man is of a bifurcated nature. An aspect of man dwells in the world and its imperfect and continuously yearns to
be with the Divine and other is capable of reaching immortality. The body is bound to die on earth and the soul is to
anticipate living eternally in a realm of spiritual bliss in communication with God. This is because the body can only
thrive in the imperfect, physical reality that is the world, whereas the soul can also stay after death in an eternal

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realm with the all-transcendent God. The goal of every human person is to attain this communion and bliss with the
Divine by living his life on earth in virtue.

Thomas Aquinas, the most eminent thirteenth century scholar and stalwart of the medieval philosophy, opened
something to this Christian view. Adapting some ideas from Aristotle, Aquinas said that indeed, man is composed of
two parts: matter and form. Matter, or hyle in Greek, refers to the “ common stuff that makes up everything in the
universe”. Man’s body is part of this matter. Form on the other hand or morphe in Greek refers to the “ essence of a
substance or thing”. It is what makes what it is. In the case of the human person, the body of the human person is
something that he shares even with animals. The cells in man’s body are more or less to the cells of any other living,
organic being in the world. However, what makes a human person really a human person and not a dog, or a tiger is
his soul, his essence. To Aquinas, just as in Aristotle, the soul is what animates the body; it is what makes us
humans.

 Descartes

Rene Descartes, Father of Modern Philosophy, conceived of the human person as having a body and a mind. In his
famous treatise, the Meditations of First Philosophy, he claims that there is so much that we should doubt. In fact, he
says that since much of what we think and believe are not infallible, they may turn out to be false. One should only
believe that sins can pass the test of doubt. If something is clear and lucid as not to be even doubted, then that the
only time when one should actually buy a proposition. In the end, Descartes thought that the only thing that one
cannot doubt is the existence of the self, for even if one doubts oneself, that only proves that there is doubting self, a
thing that thinks and therefore, that cannot be doubted. Thus, his famous cogito ergo sum, “ I think therefore I am”,
the fact that one thinks should lead one to conclude without a trace of doubt that he exists. The self then for
Descartes is also a combination of two distinct entities, the cogito, the things that thinks, which is the mind and the
extenza or extension of the mind, which is body. In Descartes’s view, the body is nothing else but a machine that is
attached to the mind. The human person has it but it is not what makes man a man. If at all, that is the mind.
Descartes says “ but what then, am I? A thinking thing. It has been said. But what is thinking thing? It is a thing that
doubts, understands, affirms, denies, wills, refuses; that imagines also, and perceives”.

 Hume

David Hume is a Scottish philosopher, has a very unique way of looking at man. As an empiricist who believes that
one can know only what comes from the senses and experiences. Hume argues that the self is nothing like what his
predecessors though of it. The self is not an entity over and beyond the physical body. One can rightly see here the
empiricism that runs through his veins. Empiricism is the school of thought that espouses the idea that knowledge
can only be possible if it is sensed and experienced. Men can only attain knowledge by experiencing. For example,
Jack knows that Jill is another human person not because he has seen her soul. He knows she is just like him because
he sees her, hears her, and touches her.

To David Hume, the self is nothing else but a bundle of impressions. What are impressions? If one tries to examine
his experiences, he finds that they can all be categorized into two: impressions and ideas. Impressions are the basic
objects of our experience or sensation. They therefore form the core of our thoughts. When one touches an ice cube,
the cold sensation is an impression. Impressions therefore are vivid because they are products of our direct
experience with the world.Ideas, on the other hand, are copies of impressions. Because of this, they are not as lively
and vivid as our impressions. When one imagines the feeling of being in love for the first time, that still is an idea.
What is the self then? Self, according to Hume, is simply “ a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which
succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement. Men simply want to
believe that there is a unified, coherent self, a soul or mind just like what the previous philosophers thought. In
reality, what one thinks is a unified self is simply a combination of all experiences with a particular person.

 Kant

Thinking of the self as a mere combination of impressions was problematic for Immanuel Kant. Kant recognizes the
veracity of Hume’s account that everything starts with perception and sensation of impressions. However, Kant
thinks that the things that men perceive around them are not just randomly infused into the human person without an
organizing principle that regulates the relationships of all these impressions. To Kant, there is necessarily a mind
that organizes the impressions that men get from the external world. Time and space, for example, are ideas that one
cannot find in the world, but is built in our minds. Kant calls these the apparatuses of the mind.

Along with the different apparatuses of the mind goes the self. Without the self, one cannot organize the different
impressions that one gets in relation to his own existence. Kant therefore suggests that it is an actively engaged
intelligence in man that synthesizes all knowledge and experience. Thus, the self is not just what gives one his
personality. In addition, it is also the set of knowledge acquisition for all human persons.

 Ryle

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Gilbert Ryle solves the mind-body dichotomy that has been running for a long time in the history of thought by
blatantly denying the concepts of an internal, non-physical self. For Ryle, what truly matters is the behavior that a
person manifests in his day to day life.

For Ryle, looking for and trying to understand a self as it really exist is like visiting your friend’s university and
looking for the “university”. One can roam around the campus, visit the library and the football field, and meet the
administrators and faculty and still end up not finding the “university”. This because the campus, the people the
system and the territory all form the university. Ryle suggests that the self is not an entity one can locate and analyze
but simply the convenient name that people use to refer to all the behaviors that people make.

 Merleau - Ponty

Merleau - Ponty is a phenomenologist who asserts that the mind-body bifurcation that has been going on for a long
time is a futile endeavor and an invalid problem. Unlike Ryle who simply denies the self Merleau - Ponty instead
says that the mind and body are so inter-wined that they cannot be separated from one another. One cannot find any
experience that is not an embodied experience. All experience to the world. Because of these bodies, men are in the
world. Merleau-Ponty dismisses the Cartesian Dualism that has spelled so much devastation in the history of man.
For him, the Cartesian problem is nothing else but plain misunderstanding. The living body, his thoughts, emotions,
and experiences are all one.

Note: ***See attached sheets (PPT)***

Lesson 2. The Self, Society, and Culture

Across time and history, the self has been debated, discussed, and fruitfully or otherwise conceptualized by different
thinkers in Philosophy. Eventually with the advent of the social sciences, it became possible for new ways and
paradigms to reexamine the true nature of the self. People put a halt on speculative debates on the relationships
between the body and soul, eventually renamed body and the mind. Thinkers just eventually got tired of focusing on
the long-standing debate since 6th century BC between the relationships of these two components of the human
person. Thinkers just settled on the idea that there are two components of the human person and whatever
relationship these two have is less important than the fact that there is a self. The debate shifted into another locus of
discussion. Given the new ways of knowing and the growth of the social sciences, it became possible for new
approaches to the examination of the self to come to the fore. One of the loci, if not the most important axis of
analysis is the relationship between the self and the external world. What is the relationship between external reality
and the self? In the famous story, the little boy named Tarzan was left in the middle of the forest. Growing up, he
never had an interaction with nay other human being but apes and other animals. Tarzan grew up acting strangely
like apes and unlike human persons. Tarzan became an animal in effect. His sole interaction with them made him
just like one of them. Disappointedly, human person will not develop as human person without intervention. This
story, which was supposed to be based in real life, challenges the long-standing notion of living entities. After all,
our selves are not special because of the soul infused into us. We may be gifted with intellect and the capacity to
rationalize things but at the end of the day, our growth and development and consequentially, our selves are truly
products of our interaction with external reality.

 What is the Self?

The self, in contemporary literature and been common sense, is commonly defined by the following characteristics:
separate, self-contained, independent, consistent, unitary and private. By separate, it is meant that the self is distinct
from other selves. The self is always unique and has its own identity. One cannot be another person. Even Twins are
distinct from each other. Second, self is also self-contained and independent because in itself it can exist. Its
distinctness allows it to be self-contained with its own thoughts, characteristics and volition. It does not require any
other self for it to exist. It is consistent because it has personality that is enduring and therefore can be expected to
persist for quite some time. Its consistency allows it to be studied. Described, and measured. Consistency also means
that a particular self’s trait, characteristics, tendencies, and potentialities are more or less the same. Self is unitary in
that it is like the chief command post in an individual where all processes, emotions and thoughts converge. Finally,
the self is private. Each persons sorts out information, feelings and emotions, and thought processes within the self.
This whole process is never accessible to anyone but the self.

The last characteristics of the self being private suggests that the self is isolated from the external world. It lives
within its own world. However, we also see that this potential clash between the self and the external reality is the
reason for the self to have a clear understanding of what it might be, what it can be, and what it will be. From this
perspective then, one can see the self is always at the mercy of external circumstances that bump and collide with it.
It is ever changing and dynamic, allowing external influences to take part in its shaping. The concern then of this
lesson is in understanding the vibrant relationship between the self and external reality. This perspective is known as
the social constructionist perspective. Social constructionists argue for a merge view of the person and their social
context where boundaries of one cannot easily be separated from the boundaries of the other.

Social constructivist’s argue that the self should not be seen as a state entity that stays constant through and through.
Rather, the self has to be seen as something that is in understanding flux, in a constant struggle with external reality

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and is malleable in dealings with society. The self is always in participation with social life and its identity subjected
to influences here and there. Having these perspectives considered should draw one into concluding that the self is
truly multifaceted.
Consider a boy named Jon. Jon is a math professor at a Catholic university for more than a decade now. Jon ha s a
beautiful wife whom he met in college; Joan. Joan was Jon’s first and last girlfriend. Apart from being husband, Jon
is also blessed with two doting kids, a son and a daughter. He also sometimes serves in the church too as a lector and
commentator. As a man of different roles, one can expect Jon to change and adjust his behaviors; ways and even
language depending on his social situation. When Jon is in the university, He conducts himself in a matter that
builds his title as a professor. As a husband, Jon can be intimate and touchy. As a father Jon can be stern. We
ourselves play different roles, act in different ways depending on our circumstances. Are we conscious of our
shifting selves? Shifting selves is not only normal but also acceptable and expected. The self is capable of morphing
and fitting itself into any circumstances it finds itself in.

 The Self and Culture

According to anthropologist Marcel Mauss, every self has two faces: personne and moi. Moi refers to person’s
sense of who he is, his body and his basic identity, his biological givenness. Moi is a person’s basic identity.
Personne, on the other hand is composed of the social concepts of what it means to be who he is. Personne has
much to do with what it means to live in a particular institution, a particular family, a particular religion, a particular
nationality and how to be have given expectations and influences from others.

In the story of Jon, he might have moi but certainly he has to shift personne from time to time to adapt his social
situation. He knows who he is and more or less, he is confident that he has a unified, coherent self. However, at
some point, he has to sport his stern professional look., his role as a father and a husband. Therefore Jon, retains who
he is (his moi) which is part of him that is stable and static all throughout.

This dynamic and capacity of different personne can be illustrated better cross-culturally. An overseas Filipino
worker adjusting to life in another country is a very good case study. In the Philippines, many people unabashedly
violate jaywalking rules. A common Filipino treats road, even national ones, as basically his and so he just merely
crosses whenever and wherever. When Filipino visits another country with strict traffic rules, say Singapore, you
will notice how suddenly law-abiding the said Filipino becomes. A lot of Filipinos has anecdotally confirmed this
observation.

In the Philippines, Filipinos tend to consider their territory as part of who they are. This includes considering their
immediate surrounding as a part of them. Language is another interesting aspect of social constructivism. The
Filipino language is incredibly interesting to talk about. Language has something to do with culture. It is a salient
part of culture and ultimately, has a tremendous effect in our crafting of the self. This might also be one of the
reasons why cultural divide spells out differences in how one regards oneself. If one finds himself born and reared in
a particular culture, one definitely tries to fit in a particular mold. If a self is born into a particular society or culture,
the self will have to adjust according to its exposure.

 The Self and the Development of the Social World

So how do people actively produce their social world? How do children growing up become social beings? How can
a boy turn out to be just like an ape? How do twins turn out to be terribly different? Most often, we think the human
persons are just passive actors in the whole process of the shaping of selves. That men and women are born with
particularities that they can no longer change. Recent studies, however, indicate that men and women in their growth
and development engage actively in the shaping of the self. The unending terrain of metamorphosis of the self is
mediated by language. “Language as both a publicly shared and privately utilized symbol system is the site where
the individual and the social make and remake each other.

For Mead and Vygotsky, the way that human persons develop is with the use of language acquisition and interaction
with others. The way that we process information is normally a form of an internal dialogue in our head. Those who
deliberate about normal dilemmas undergo this internal dialog. “ Should I do this or that?” “ but if I do this, it will
be like this.” And so therefore cognitive and emotional development of a child is always a mimicry of how it is done
in the social world and in the external reality, where he is in.

Mead and Vygotsky treat the human mind as something that is made constituted through the language as
experienced in the external world and as encountered in dialog with others. A young child internalizes values,
norms, practices and social beliefs through exposure that will eventually become part of his individual world. For
Mead, this takes place as a child assumes the other through language and role-play. Can you notice how little
children are fond of playing role-play with their toys? It is through this that child delineates the “I” from the rest.
On the other hand Vygotsky, for this part, a child internalizes real-life dialogs that he has with others, with his
family, his friends, his primary caregivers or playmates. They apply this to their mental and practical problems along
with the social and cultural infusions. Can you notice how children eventually become what they watch, is the best
example.

 Self in Families

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Apart from the anthropological and psychological basis for the relationship between the self and the social world,
the sociological likewise struggled to understand the real connection between the two concepts. In doing so,
sociologists focus on the different institutions and powers at play in the society. Among these, the most prominent is
the family.

While every child is born with certain givenness, disposition coming from his parents genes, and general condition
of life, the impact of one’s family is still deemed as a given in understanding the self. The kind of family that we are
born in, the resources available to us (human, spiritual, economic) and the kind of development that we will have
will certainly affect us as we go through life. As a matter of evolutionary fact, human persons are one of those
beings whose importance of family cannot be denied. Human beings are born virtually helpless and the dependency
period of human baby to their parents for nurturing is relatively longer than most of other animals. Learning
therefore is critical in our capacity to actualize our potential of becoming humans. In trying to achieve the goal of
becoming fully realized human, a child enters system of relationships. Most important of which is the family
relationship.

Human person learn the ways of living and therefore their self-hood by being in a family. It is what a family initiates
a person to become that serves as a basis for this person’s progress. Babies internalize ways and styles that they
observe from their family. By imitating for example the language of their primary agents in rearing them., babies
learn the language. The same is true for the ways of behaving. Notice those kids reared in a respectful environment
becomes respectful as well and the converse if raised in a converse family. Internalizing behavior may either be
conscious or unconscious. Table manners or ways of speaking to elders are things that are possible to teach and
therefore are consciously learned by kids. On the other hand, some behaviors may be indirectly taught through
rewards and punishment. It is clear at this point that those who develop and eventually grow to become adult who
still did not learn simple matters like basic manners of conduct, failed in internalizing due to parental or familial
failure to initiate them into the world.

Without family, biologically and sociologically, a person may not even survive or become a human person. Go back
to the story of Tarzan. In more ways than one, the survival of Tarzan in the forest is already a miracle. His being is
fully human person with a sense of self-hood is a different story though. A person is who he is because of his former
family for the most part.

 Gender and the Self

Another important aspect of the self is gender. Gender is one of those loci of the self that is subject to alteration,
change and development. We have seen in the past years how people fought hard for the right to express, validate
and assert their gender expression. Many conservatives may frown upon this and insist on the biological. However,
from the point of view of the social sciences and the self, it is important to give one the leeway to find, express, and
live his identity. This forms part of self-hood that one cannot just dismiss. One maneuvers into the society and
identifies himself as who he is by also taking note of gender identities. A wonderful anecdote about Leo’s wife can
solidify this point of view.

Sonia, the wife of the famous Russian novelist Leo, wrote when she was twenty one, “I am nothing but miserable
crushed worm, whom no one wants, whom no one loves, a useless creature with morning sickness, and a big belly,
two rotten teeth, and a bad temper, a battered sense of dignity, and a love which nobody wants and which nearly
drives me insane.” A few years later she wrote, “ It makes me laugh to read over this diary. It’s so full of
contradictions, and one would think that I was such an unhappy woman. Yet is there a happier woman than I?”

This account illustrates that our gender partly determines how we see ourselves in the world. Oftentimes, society
forces a particular identity unto us depending on our sex and/or gender. In the Philippines, husbands for the most
part re expected to provide or the family. The eldest man a family is expected to head the family and hold in it.
Slight modifications have been on the way due to feminism and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT)
activism but for the most part, patriarchy has remained to be at work.

Nancy Chodorow, a feminist argues that because mothers take the role of taking care of children, there is a tendency
to girls to imitate the same and reproduce the same kind of mentality of women as care providers in the family. The
way that little girls are given dolls instead of guns or any other toys are encouraged to play with makeshift kitchen
also reinforces the notion of what roles they should take and the selves they should develop. In boarding schools for
girls, young women are encouraged to act like fine ladies, are trained to behave in a fashion that benefits their status
as women in the society.

Men on the other hand, in the periphery of their own family, are taught early on how to behave like a man. This
normally includes holding in one’s emotion, being tough, fatalistic, not to worry about danger, and admiration for
hard physical labor. Masculinity is learned by integrating a young boy in a society. In the Philippines, young boys
had to undergo circumcision not just for the original, clinical purpose of hygiene but also to assert their manliness in
the society. Circumcision plays another social role by initiating young boys into manhood.

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The gendered self is then shaped within a particular context of time and space. The sense of self that is being taught
makes sure that an individual fits in a particular environment. This is dangerous and detrimental in the goal of truly
finding one’s self, self determination, and growth of the self. Gender has to be personally discovered and asserted
and not dictated by culture and society.

Note: ***See attached sheets (PPT)***

Lesson 3. The Self as Cognitive Construct

In every field of study, at least in the social sciences. Have their own research, definition and conceptualization of
self and identity. Some are similar while some specific only in their field. Each field also has thousands of research
on self and identity as well as related or synonymous terms. The trend of the lesson seems to define self from a
larger context. Psychology may focus on the individual and the cognitive functions, but it does not discount the
context and other possible factors that affect the individual.

In confidence or in 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 you who you are?”

As mentioned, there are various definitions of the self and other similar interchangeable concepts in psychology.
Simply self is the sense of personal identity and of who w are as individuals. According to William James, the self
has 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.

Other concepts similar to self are “ identity” and “self concept”. Identity is composed of personal characteristics,
social roles, responsibilities and affiliations that define who one is. Self-concept is what basically comes to your
mind when you are asked about who you are. Self concept and self identity 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 5 th grade” which pertains to
the past, “ college student” which pertains the present, and a “future politician” which is the future. They are not
also fixed for life nor are they ever changing at every moment. Think of a malleable metal, strong and hard but can
be bent and molded in other shapes. Think also about water. It can take the shape if its container ill the same
element.but at its core, it is still the same element.

Another concept is the self-schema or the organized system or collection of knowledge about who we are. Schema is
not limited to your hobbies only. It may include your interests, work, course, age, and physical characteristics
among others. As you grow and adopt to the changes around you, these schema also changes, but they are not
passive receivers, they actively shape and affect how you see, think and feel about things. For example, if someone
states your name even if they are not talking about you, your attention is drawn to them. If you have a provincial
language and you hear someone using it, it catches your attention.

Theories generally see the self and identity as mental constructs, created and recreated in memory. Current
researchers point to the frontal lobe of the brain as the specific area in the brain associated with the processes
concerning the self. Several psychologist, followed this trend (frontal lobe) of thought, looking deeper into the mind
of the person to theorize 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.

One cannot fully discount the effects of society and culture on the formation of the self, identity and self-concept.
Under the theory of symbolic interaction-ism, the self is created and developed through human interaction. Basically
there are three (3) reasons why self and identity are social products.

 We do not create ourselves out of nothing. Society helped in creating the foundations of who we are and even
if we make our choices, we will still operate in our social and historical contexts in one way or the other. You
may, of course, transfer from one culture to another, but parts of who you were will still affect you and you
will also have to adopt to the new social context.
 Whether we like to admit it or not, we actually need others to affirm and reinforce who we think we are. We
also need them as reference points about our identity. One example is the social media interactions we have. It
is almost like a battle between who got more friends, more views and tending topics. If one says he is a good
singer but his performance and the evaluation of his audience says otherwise, then that will have an effect on
person’s idea of himself, one way or another.
 What we think is important to us may also have been influenced by what is important in our social or historical
context. Education might be an important thing to your self-concept because you grew up in a family that
valued education. Money might important to some because they may have grown in a low-income family and
realized how important money is.

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 a certain group.
For example, you are student who is also a part of a certain group of friends. You study because it is your role as a

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student but you prefer to study with your friends and your study pattern changes when you are with your friends
than you do it alone.

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 student interested in basketball but is also academically challenged in most of
your subject. Your “ideal self” might 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 may be
positive or negative depending on the circumstances.

Our group identity and self-awareness also has a great impact on our self esteem, one of the common concepts
associated with the self. Self esteem is defined as our own positive or negative perception or evaluation of ourselves.
One way in which our social relationship affects our self-esteem is through social comparison. According to 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. 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 to that person or
redefine our relationship with them. Second, we may also reconsider the importance of the aspect or skill in which
you were out-performed. If you were beaten in the field of drawing, then drawing might not for you, you might find
another hobby where you could excel, thus preserving your self-esteem. Lastly, we may also strengthen our resolve
to improve that certain aspects of ourselves. Instead of quitting drawing, you might join seminars, practice more.
Achieving your goal in the field you wanted through hard work will increase your self esteem too.

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. They are often charismatic because
of how they take care of their image. Taking care of that image includes their interpersonal relationships thus they
will try to look for better partners, better acquaintances as well as people who will appreciate them a lot. This makes
them bad romantic partner or friend since they engaged in relationships only to serve themselves. Self-esteem is a
very important concept related to self. It can be argued that high or healthy self-esteem may result to an overall good
personality but it is not, and should not be. People with high self esteem are commonly described as outgoing,
adventurous, and adaptable in a lot of situations. They may also initiates activities and building relationships with
people. However, they may also dismiss other activities that do not conform to their self-concepts. They may also be
bullies and experiment on abusive behaviors with drugs, alcohol and sex. This simply concludes that programs,
activities and parenting styles to boost self-esteem should only be for rewarding good behavior and other
achievements and not for the purpose of merely tying to make children feel better about themselves or appease them
when they get angry or sad.

Note: ***See attached sheets (PPT)***

Lesson 4. The Self in Western and Eastern Thoughts

Different cultures and varying environment tend to create different perceptions of the self and the one of the most
common distinctions is between cultures and people in eastern (Asia) vs western (Europe and Northern America). it
must be understood that this distinction includes politics and other concepts included in social sciences. Countries
who are geographically close to each other may share commonalities and a lot of factors that create differences. In
the Philippines alone, each region may have a similar or varying perception regarding self. There are actually a lot of
sources in which you can analyze the perspective of each culture and country about the concept of self. You can see
it in their literature like how one culture depicts a hero or a villain in their stories. You can see it in their social
organization like how they see their boss and their subordinate. In their artworks, dances, even clothing may show
you clues about the self. It may also looked at religious beliefs and theories of different political philosophers who
influenced the mindset of a nation.

 Confucianism - an be seen as a code of ethical conduct, of how one should properly act according to their
relationships 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 man of virtue or noble character is still
embedded in his social relationships. The cultivated self in Confucianism is what scholars call a “subdued self”
wherein personal needs are represented for the good of the many and making Confucian society also hierarchal
for the purpose of maintaining order balance in society.
 Taoism - living in the way of the Tao or the universe. However Taoism rejects having one definition of what
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 brought by Confucianism and would
prefer a simple life style 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 manifestation of Tao.
The ideal self is selflessness but this is not forgetting about the self, it is living a balanced life with society and
nature, being open and accepting to change, forgetting about prejudices and egocentric ideas and thinking
about equality as well as complementary among humans as well as other beings.in this way, you will be able to

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 act normally because you are not restricted by some legalistic standards but because you are in the harmony
with everything.
 Buddhism - the self in Buddhism is seen as an illusion, born out of ignorance, or tying 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 had attain the state of Nirvana. In striving to become a better person, one does not create
a self above other people or nature but a self beneficial to his community as well as in order and harmony with
everything else.
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 ca also describe the Western thought looks at the world in dualities wherein you are distinct from
the other person, the creator is separate from the object he created. On the other hand, Eastern perspective sees the other person
as part of yourself as well as things you may create.
Several studies showed that Americans talk more about their personal attributes when describing themselves while
Asian’s in general talk about their social roles or the social situations that invoked certain traits that they deem
positive for their selves. Evaluation of the self also differs as Americans would highlight their personal
achievements while Asian would rather keep a low profile as promoting the self can be seen as boastfulness that
disrupts social relationships. The Western culture is what we would call an individualistic, 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 importance than individual needs and wants.

By valuing the individual, Westerners may seem to have loose associations or even loyalty to their groups. Competition is the
name of the game and they are more likely straightforward and forceful in their communication as well as decision making.
Eastern or oriental persons look after the welfare of their groups and values cooperation. They would also be more
compromising and they tend to go around the bush in explaining things, hoping that the other person would feel what they really
want to say. It must be emphasized however, that these are general commonalities among Western cultures as compared to Asian
or Oriental cultures. In the case of the Philippines, we can also consider the colonization experience for differences and
similarities with our Asian neighbors. We might also find variation among provinces and regions due to geographical conditions.
With the social media, migration, and inter-marriages variety between Western and Asian perceptions may either be blurred or
highlighted. Whereas conflict is inevitable in diversity, peace is also possible through the understanding of where each of us is
coming from.

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