Binalonan, Pangasinan

College of Business Education

First Semester, A.Y. 2023-2024
MODULAR LEARNING

MODULE 2: The Self from the Sociological Perspective

Course Title: Understanding the Self

Course Code: GE 1

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Course and Year: _________________________________________________
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Introduction
This module entitled The Self from the Sociological Perspective explains various
idealizations based on sociological aspects. This encompasses different views of the self in view
of group dynamics and societal factors.

Pre-activity
Orientation
Answer the following questions below:
1. Sociology has been a part of social science since then, you have tackled many social
science subjects from your elementary to high school. In your own understanding, what
is sociology?
2. Do you think a group of people could really be influential to the development of the
self?

I. Objectives
At the end of the end of this module, students should be able to:
1. Identify the sociological perspectives about the self
2. Demonstrate critical and reflective thinking in showing different aspects of the self
3. Examine yourself using Private, Public, and Collective self.
4. Integrate some sociological theories on how their personality developed

II. Lectures
In the realm of sociology, the self-interacts with the social world. Initially, the self is self-absorbed
and is just concerned with its own. Progressively, however, the self-expands and is now
concerned with other constellations of selves, known as others. Conceptually, with the
introduction of others, sociology as a science comes to fore, expanding the self in its
contemporary setting and relating with others as well.

No one could live by himself or herself alone. By extension, man will always look for someone to
communicate with. The human person is a social animal; he or she will always seek others for
commercial or personal reasons. These reasons will always be equated with relationships.
Relationships and their scientific study will always be correlated with sociology.
 In sociology, the self is a product of modern society versus other constructs or archetypes.
When one talks about sociology, one talks about social norms and social values. Social factors
such as political system, children, partners, school, religion, wealth, family, and ethnicity are also
considered.

George Herbert Mead’s Social Self

Sociologist George Mead argued that the self is not biological but social. Self is
something that is developed through social interaction. The self is developed as one grows and
ages. He illustrated the development of self in the case of Genie, a girl who was confined in a
room until she reached the age of 13. She was found when she was already 13 years old; she
did not know how to walk and speak. According to Mead, she had no development of the self.
Even though her body developed normally according to her age, she had not developed her
“self” because of her isolation from the world. Self, therefore, is constructed by directly
engaging in the world through interaction and through reflections on those interactions.

Mead explains that self has 2 parts; (1) self-awareness and (2) self-image. He
proposed the idea that the self develops through social interaction; that social interaction
involves the exchange of symbols (i.e. language); and that understanding if symbols involves
being able to take the role of another. In order for interaction to prosper, each person involved
must correctly interpret the meanings of symbols and intentions of others. It can only succeed
by the existence of common symbols but accomplished through the process of role playing.
Role Playing is the process in which one takes on the role of another by putting oneself in the
position of the person with whom he or she interacts. One’s response to the action of another
comes after putting oneself in the position of another person. Through role playing, the
individual develops a concept of self. By putting oneself in the position of others, one is able to
reflect oneself. The idea of self can only be developed if the individual can get outside in such a
way that he or she can become an object to oneself. To accomplish this, one must be conscious
of oneself from the standpoint of others. Therefore, the development of the concept of “self” lies
in the ability “to wear other people’s shoes”

“I” and “Me” Self

For Mead, all human experience internal conversation. This conversation involves the “I
and me”, which he called “phases of self”. For him, self is essentially a social process going on
between the I and me. The I is the phase of the self that is unsocialized and. It is the acting
part of the self, an immediate response to other people. It represents the self that is
spontaneous free and unique. It is the subjective part of the self. The Me, on the contrary, is
the self that results from progressive stages of role playing or role-taking and the perspective
one assumes to view and analyze one’s own behaviors. It is the organization of the
internalized attitude of others. It represents the conventional and objective part of the self.

The I is the response of the organism to the attitude of others. It allows the individual to
still express creativity and individualism and understand when to possibly bend and stretch the
rules that govern social interactions.
The Me is the organized set of attitudes of others which one assumes. It is the socialized
aspect of the individual. It represents learned behaviors, attitudes, and expectations of others
and society. It is developed through the knowledge of society and social interactions that the
individual has experienced.

He proposed the stages of self-formation:

1. Preparatory Stage. Mead believed that the self-did not exist at birth. Instead, the self
develops over time. Its development is dependent on social interaction and social
 experience. At this stage, children’s behaviors are primarily based on imitation. It
was observed that children imitate the behaviors of those around them. At this stage,
knowing and understanding the symbols are important for this will constitute their way of
communicating with others throughout their lives.

2. The Play Stage. Skills at knowing and understanding the symbols of communication
is important for this constitutes the basis of socialization. Through communication, social
relationship is formed. Now children begin to role play and pretend to be other
people. Role taking in the play stage is the process of mentally assuming the process of
another person to see how this person might behave or respond in a given situation
(Schefer, 2012). The play stage is significant in the development of the self. It is at this
stage where child widens his perspective and realizes that he is not alone and that there
are others around him whose presence he has to consider.

3. The Game Stage. Here, the child is about eight or nine years of age and now
does more than just role-take. The child begins to consider several tasks and
various types of relationships simultaneously. Through the learnings that were
gained in stage two, the child now begins to see not only his own perspective but at the
same time the perspective of others. In this final stage of self-development, the child now
has the ability to respond not just to one but several members of his social environment.

Generalized Others
One of Mead’s best-known concept is the generalized other. He described it as an
organized community or social group which gives to individual his or her unity of self. The
attitude of the generalized other is the attitude of the entire community.

Charles Horton Cooley’s Looking-glass Self

The looking-glass self is a social psychology concept introduced by Charles Horton

Cooley. In this view, the self is developed as a result of one’s perceptions of other people’s
opinions. For instance, if parents or teachers praise the child of his or her artistic skills, the child
will infer that he or she is artistic, thus boosting the child’s confidence.

People are the way they are at least partly because of other people’s reactions to them
and to what they do. They are constantly picking up feedback and incorporating it into their
sense of self. It is a social construction as well as a personal reality for it shows how others
influence the image people have of themselves. The self, which is essentially an individual’s
awareness of one’s social or personal identity is, for Cooley, a social development (Leano
&Corpuz, 2012).

The self is built through social interaction which involves 3 steps; first, people imagine
how they must appear to others; second, they imagine the judgment in that appearance;
and finally, they developed themselves through the judgment of others.

People imagine not only how others see them and their actions but also how others
judge what they see, whether with approval, doubt, or hostility. As a result, the looking-glass self
is made up of feelings about other people’s judgments of one’s behavior. The self consists of a
composite of the person’s more or less accurate assessments of other people’s judgment. For
Cooley, this social self is the central element of society. He wrote “the imaginations which
people have of one another are the solid facts of society.”
 The concept of looking-glass self provides an idea in how the self develops in relation to
the perception of others. It should serve only as a guide for reflection and should not be taken to
end up living in accordance with other people’s expectations.

Private Self, Public Self, and Collective Self

Private self, or individual self, is the cognition that involves traits, states, and
behaviors. It is an assessment of the self by the self. For instance, “I am generous” and “I am
ambidextrous” show one’s knowledge of his or her attributes that differentiate him of her from
the others.

Public self is the cognition concerning the generalized other’s view of the self. It
corresponds to an assessment of the self by the generalized other. For instance, “People think I
am religious” or “People think I am corrupt” shows one’s relation with others and the role one
assumes in that relationship.

Collective self is the cognition concerning a view of the self that is found in
memberships in social groups (e.g., family, co-workers, tribe, professional organizations). For
instance, a person may be identified as feminist. Attributes of being feminist that are similar with
other feminists are emphasized forming the collective self.

Social Identity Theory

Henri Tajfel's greatest contribution to psychology was social identity theory. Social
identity is a person’s sense of who they are based on their group membership(s).
Tajfel (1979) proposed that the groups (e.g., social class, family, football team etc.) which people
belonged to were an important source of pride and self-esteem. Groups give us a sense of
social identity: a sense of belonging to the social world.
We divided the world into “them” and “us” based through a process of social categorization (i.e.,
we put people into social groups).
Henri Tajfel proposed that stereotyping (i.e., putting people into groups and categories) is based
on a normal cognitive process: the tendency to group things together. In doing so we tend to
exaggerate:
1. the differences between groups
2. the similarities of things in the same group.

This is known as in-group (us) and out-group(them). The central hypothesis of social identity
theory is that group members of an in-group will seek to find negative aspects of an out-group,
thus enhancing their self-image.

Prejudiced views between cultures may result in racism; in its extreme forms, racism may result
in genocide, such as occurred in Germany with the Jews, in Rwanda between the Hutus and
Tutsis and, more recently, in the former Yugoslavia between the Bosnians and Serbs.

We categorize people in the same way. We see the group to which we belong (the in-group) as
being different from the others (the out-group), and members of the same group as being more
similar than they are.
Social categorization is one explanation for prejudice attitudes (i.e. “them” and “us” mentality)
which leads to in-groups and out-groups.
Examples of In-groups and Out-groups
o Northern Ireland: Catholics – Protestants
o Rwanda: Hutus and Tutsis
o Yugoslavia: the Bosnians and Serbs
o Germany: Jews and the Nazis
o Politics: Labor and the Conservatives
o Football: Liverpool and Man Utd
o Gender: Males and Females
o Social Class: Middle and Working Classes

Social Identity Theory Stages

Tajfel and Turner (1979) proposed that there are three mental processes involved in evaluating
others as “us” or “them” (i.e. “in-group” and “out-group”. These take place in a particular order.

Social Categorization
The first is social categorization. We categorize objects in order to understand them and identify
them. In a very similar way, we categorize people (including ourselves) in order to understand
the social environment. We use social categories like black, white, Australian, Christian,
Muslim, student, and bus driver because they are useful.
If we can assign people to a category then that tells us things about those people, and as we
saw with the bus driver example, we couldn't function in a normal manner without using these
categories; i.e., in the context of the bus.
Similarly, we find out things about ourselves by knowing what categories we belong to. We
define appropriate behavior by reference to the norms of groups we belong to, but you can only
do this if you can tell who belongs to your group. An individual can belong to many different
groups.
Social Identification
In the second stage, social identification, we adopt the identity of the group we have categorized
ourselves as belonging to.
If for example you have categorized yourself as a student, the chances are you will adopt the
identity of a student and begin to act in the ways you believe students act (and conform to the
norms of the group).
There will be an emotional significance to your identification with a group, and your self-esteem
will become bound up with group membership.
 Social Comparison

The final stage is social comparison. Once we have categorized ourselves as part of a group
and have identified with that group, we then tend to compare that group with other groups. If our
self-esteem is to be maintained our group needs to compare favorably with other groups.
This is critical to understanding prejudice, because once two groups identify themselves as
rivals, they are forced to compete in order for the members to maintain their self-esteem.
Competition and hostility between groups is thus not only a matter of competing for resources
(like in Sherif’s Robbers Cave) like jobs but also the result of competing identities.

Just to reiterate, in social identity theory the group membership is not something foreign or
artificial which is attached onto the person, it is a real, true and vital part of the person.
Again, it is crucial to remember in-groups are groups you identify with, and out-groups are ones
that we don't identify with, and may discriminate against.
IV. REFERENCES:
● Ariola, Marciano, Introduction to the Philosophy of the Human Person, 2016, Unlimited Books Library
Services and Publishing Inc., Intramuros, Manila
● Ariola, Marciano, Sociology and Anthropology with Family Planning, 2016, Purely Books Trading and
Publishing Corp., Intramuros, Manila
● Brawner &Arcega, Understanding the Self, 2018, C&E Publishing, Inc. Quezon City.
● Corpuz, R., Estoque, Ronan S., Tabotabo, Claudio V., Understanding The Self, 2019, C&E Publishing, Inc.,
Quezon City
● Galotti, Kathleen, 2011, Cognitive Development Infancy through Adolescence, Library of Congress
Cataloging in Publication Data, Canada.
● Levine and Munsch, Child Development, 2011, Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data, Canada
● McNamara, Valverde et al. Science, Technology & Society,2018, C &E Publishing, Inc.
● Pasco, Suarez and Rodriguez, Ethics, 2018, C&E Publishing, Inc. Quezon City.
● Peer & Reid Special Educational Educational Needs, 2012, Sage Publication. Ltd, London
● Peñaflor and Peñaflor, Values Education Legal and Ethical Perspective (1st edition), 2016,
● Unlimited Books Library Services and Publishing Inc., Intramuros, Manila

Prepared by:

Jemimah Faith Curaming Caligtan

Instructor, CBE

Checked by:

MONA LIZA DELA CRUZ-ABANES, Ph. D.

Dean, CBE