CHAPTER 1

LESSON-3 : THE SELF AS A

COGNITIVE CONSTRUCT
REPORTERS:
LERA F. FAINA
JONARD TAN DEL CAMPO
GINA MAE E. MAGANGGO
OBJECTIVES:

 IDENTIFY THE DIFFERENT IDEAS IN PSYCHOLOGY ABOUT “SELF”

 CREATE YOUR OWN DEFINITION OF THE “SELF” BASED ON THE DEFINITION FROM
PSYCHOLOGY.
 ANALYZE THE EFFECTS OF VARIOUS FACTORS IDENTIFIED IN PSYCHOLOGY IN THE
INFORMATION OF THE “SELF”.
ABSTRACTION:

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?”
Simply put “self” is the sense of personal identity and who we are so as individuals
(Jhangiani and Tarry 2014)”.
William James (1890)

One of the earliest psychologists to study the self and

conceptualize the self of as having two aspects the “I” and the
“ME”

The “I” is the thinking acting, and feeling self.

The “ME” is the physical characteristics as well as psychological

capabilities that makes you who you àre.

(Gleithman, Gross, Reisberg 2011; Hogg and Yaughan 2012010).

CARL ROGERS (1959)

Theory of personality also used the same terms.

The “I” as the one who acts and decides.

While the “ME” is what you think or feel about your self as an object.
IDENTIFY AND SELF CONCEPT

 Other concepts similar to self are “identify” and “self concept”

 “Identity” is composed of personal characteristics, social roles, and responsibilities as well as affiliation that
define who one is.
 The “Self concept” is what basically comes to your mind when you are asked about who you are.

(Oyserman, Elmore, and Smith 2012).

CARL ROGERS

 Captured the idea in his concepts of self schema or our organized system or collection of knowledge about
who we are.
 Lesson 3:m

THE SELF AS COGNITIVE CONSTRUCT

 The schema is not limited to the example above.

- INTEREST
- WORK
- COURSE
- AGE
- NAME
- PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTIC
• As you grow and adapt to the changes around you, they also
change, But they not passive receivers, they actively shape and
affect how you

- SEE
- THINK
- AND FEEL ABOUT THINGS

(Gleitman, Gross and Reiserg 2011; Jhangiani and Tarry 2014)

EXAMPLE

 When someone states your first name even if they not talking about you, your
attention is drawn to them
 If you have provincial language and you hear someone using it, it catches yours
attention, if you consider yourself a book-lover, a bookstore may always entice
you out of all the other stores in a mall

Theories generally see the self and identity as mental constructs, created and
recreated in memory (Oyserman, Elmore, and Smith 2012)
Theories generally see the self and identity as mental constructs, created and recreated in memory (Oyserman, Elmore,
and Smith 2012)

- Several psychologist, especially during field’s earlier development, followed this trend of thought, looking deeper
into the mind of the person to theorize about 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 I’d, the
Ego and the Superego
- However, as mentioned earlier, one cannot fully discount the effects of society and culture on the formation of the
self, identity, and self-concept

- Even Freud and the other Theories and Researchers try to understand the person by digging deeper into the mind,
they cannot fully discount the huge and important effects of the environment

- As the abovementioned definitions of the self, social interaction always has a part to play in who we think we are.
This is not Nature vs. Nurture but instead a nature-and-nurture perspective.
Under the theory of symbolic interactionism, G.H
Mead (1934) argued that the self created and
developed through human interaction (Hogg and
Vaughan (2010).
3 Reasons why self and identity are social
products

1. We do not create ourselves out of nothing. Society helped I creating the

foundation of who we are and even if we make our choice. 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 part of who you were will affect and you
will also have to adapt to the new social context. Try looking at your definition of
who you are and see where society had affected you.
UNDER THE THEORY OF SYMBOLIZE
INTERACTION ISM

1. Whether we like or not. We actually need other to affirm and reinforce who we think we are
2. We also need them as reference points about our identity
3. Education might be an important thing to your self-concept. Because you grew up in a family that valued
education
4. Money might be important to some because they may grown low income family
Carver and Scheier (1981)
Identified Two types of Self- Awareness

1.The private self or your internal and private thoughts and

feelings
2.The public self or your public image commonly geared
toward having a good presentation of your self to others
(Hogg and Vaughan 2010).
Self-Awareness

Self awareness is our ability to notice our thoughts and feelings

and how they influence our behaviors. In doing so, we can
monitor ourselves because we have a better understanding of
what our internal preferences are. At its core, self-awareness is
our ability to understand ourselves and how we fit into the
world.
 3 Self Schema

1.Actual self – Who you are at the moment

2.Ideal self – Who you like to be
3.Ought self – Who you think you should be

- Self awareness may be positive or negative depending on

the circumstances and our next course of action.
-Self awareness may be positive or negative depending on the
circumstances and our next course of action.
- Self awareness can e too much that we are concerned about being
observed and criticized by others, also known as self consciousness.
- At other times, especially with large crowds, we may experience
deindividuation or the loss of individual self awareness and
individual accountability in groups”. A lot of people will attune
themselves with emotions of their group and because the large crowd
are provide some kind of anonymity, we ,may lessen our self control
and act in ways that we will not do when we are alone a common
example is a mass demonstration erupting into a riot.
Social Comparison

We learn about ourselves the appropriateness of our

behaviors, as well as our social status by comparing aspects
of our selves with other people.
Downward Social Comparison

Is the more common type of comparing ourselves with

others. As the name implies, we create a positive self-
concept by comparing ourselves with those who are worse
off than us by having the advantage, we can trace our self
steam.
Upward Social Comparison

A lot of those who o this actually felt lower self-esteem has

they highlights more of their weakness or inquirities.
Take note that this occurs not only
between individual but also among
groups. Thus if a persons group is
performing better and is
acknowledge more than the other
group.
Social Comparison

 Also entails what is called self-evaluation maintenance theory which states that we can feel threatened when
someone outperform us especially when that person is close to as a friend
 We also reconsider the Importance of the aspect or skill in which you were outperformed
 We may also strengthen to improve our resolve that certain aspect of ourselves
 However in the attempt to Increase or maintain self-esteem some people become narcissistic
Self Esteem

 Sometimes, there is a thin line between high self-esteem and narcissism and there are a lot of tests and
measurements for self-esteem like the Rosenberg scale but the issue is that the result can be affected by the desire
of the person to portray herself in a positive or advantageous way (Jhangiani and Tarry 2014). In case you want to
take a test and find a numerical value or level of your self esteem, try to be honest and objective about what you
feel and see about yourself
 And though self esteem is very important concept related to the self, studies have shown that it only has a
correlation, not causality, to positive outputs and outlook (Jhangiani and Tarry 2014). 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, the only source of a
person’s healthy perspective of herself
 People with high esteem are commonly described as outgoing, adventurous , and adaptable in a lot situations. They
also initiate activities and building relationship with people. However, they may also dismiss other activities that
do not conform to their self concept or boost their self-esteem