THE SELF AS COGNITIVE

CONSTRUCT
LESSON 5
Objectives:
At the end of this lesson, you should be able to:
1. IDENTIFY THE DIFFERENT IDEAS IN PSYCHOLOGY
ABOUT THE “SELF”.
2. CREATE YOUR OWN DEFINITION OF THE “SELF”
based on the definitions from psychology.
3. Analyze the effects of various factors identified in
psychology in the formation of the “self”.
 SELF AS COGNITIVE CONSTRUCT
There are various definitions of the “self” and other similar or
interchangeable concepts in psychology. Simply put, the “self” in
psychology is the sense of personal identity and of who we are as
individuals.(Jhangiani and tarry 2014).
• William James (1890) as one of the earliest psychologists to study
the self, the conceptualized the self as having two aspects: the “I”
and “Me”.
• “I” is the thinking, acting and feeling self.
• “Me” is the physical characteristics as well as psychological
capabilities that make who you are.
Carl Rogers (1959) theory of personality also used the same terms
• “I” as the one who acts and decides.
• “Me” is what you think or feel about yourself as an object.
Other concepts similar to self are identity and self-concept:
1. Identity- is composed of one’s personal characteristics, social roles
and responsibilities. Like example, beliefs such as "I am a good
friend" or "I am a kind person"
2. Self-concept-is basically what comes to your mind when you are
asked about who you are. Like example, For instance, ideas like I
am a critical thinker
Carl Rogers captures this idea in his concept of self-schema
or our own organized system or collection of knowledge
about who we are Imagine an organized
It may include your interest, work, course, age, name, and
physical characteristics, among others. And as you grow
and adapt to the changes around you, they also change, but
they are not passive receivers, they actively shape and
affect how you see, think, and feel about things.
List or a diagram similar to the one HOBBIES
below: EX: playing chess,
reading books, writing,
FAMILY cooking, traveling, etc.
Nuclear or
conjugal(complete
•
family
RELIGION
matrifocal (a mother

SEL
Roman
and her children),
catholic
•patrifocal (a father and Iglesias

F
his children), and. SDA
•extended families MUSLIM
(parents, grandparents,
children, aunts, uncles,
and so on).

NATIONALITY
Ex: Filipino in Ethnic
tagalog,Visaya,Cebuano,llocano,Ilonggo,
waray
Theories generally see the self and identity as mental constructs. Current researches point to the frontal
lobe of the brain as the specific area of the brain associated with processes concerning the self.

Sigmund Freud saw the self, its mental processes and one’s behavior as the results of the interaction
between The Id and the ego, superego. As in the abovementioned definitions of the self, social interaction
always has a part to play in who we think we are.
1) Id-(internal desires)- Instinctive drives, it consist of the body’s primitives biological drives and urges
which are concerned only with achieving pleasure and self-satisfaction because id lives completely in
the unconscious. Like example, when you are hungry, the id prompts you to eat; when you are thirsty, it
prompts you to drink.
2) Ego (reality)- It is “I” part of the individual that gives him/her the sense of his/her own identity because
ego is the rational part of personality. Like example, if you are craving chocolate, the ego will make you
wait until you can get your own chocolate bar instead of snatching the one your friend is about to enjoy.
3) Superego (conscience)- It is the part of the personality concerned with morals,precepts,standards and
ideas the superegos also the critical faculty of the personality. Like example, A woman feels an urge to
steal office supplies from work
Under the theory of symbolic interactionism, Mead argued that the self
is created and developed through human interaction. There are three
reasons why self and identity are social products:
1. We do not create ourselves out of nothing.
2. Whether we like to admit it or not, we actually need others to
affirm and reinforce who we think we are.
3. What we think as important to us may also have been influenced
by what is important in our social or historical context.
Social interaction and group affiliation are vital factors in creating our self-concept
especially in the aspect of providing us with or social identity.
However, there are times when we are aware of our self-concepts, also
called self-awareness. Carver and Scheier (1981) identified two types of
self that we can be aware of:
1) The Private Self – your internal standards and private thoughts and
feelings. Like example, you may notice yourself tensing up as you are
preparing for an important meeting.
2) Public Self – your public image commonly geared toward having a
good representation of yourself to others and, they worry about what
others think of them, and they seek social approval. Like for example,
could look a person realizing how much they swear when out to
dinner with others based on the reactions of those around them.
Self-awareness also presents us with at least three other self-schema:
1) Actual Self - who you are at the moment.(Like example, if I believe that I am a
punctual person, then punctuality is part of my actual self)
2) Ideal Self - who you like to be (Like example, Take responsibility for mistakes.
Your ideal self understands that things don’t always go according to plan, but
they don’t shy away from addressing their mistakes.)
3) Ought Self - who we think we should be (Like example, traits commonly listed
to describe one's ought self include successful, attractive, loving, conscientious,
hard-working, kind, and independent)
Self-awareness may be positive or negative depending on the circumstances and
our next course of action. It can keep you doing something dangerous. In other
instances, self-awareness can be too much that we are concerned about being
observed and criticized by others, also known as self-consciousness Like example,
Positive self,It's like having an optimistic voice in your head that always
looks on the bright side and Negative makes you feel pretty crappy about
yourself and the things that are going on
At other times, we may experience deindividuation or the loss of individual self
awareness and individual accountability in groups. A lot of people will attune
themselves with the emotions of their group and because the large crowd also
provides some kind of anonymity, we may lessen our self- control and act in the way
that we will not do when we are alone. Ex. Mass demonstration erupting into a riot.
Our group identity and self-awareness also has a great impact on our self-esteem.
Self-esteem-is our own positive or negative perception or evaluation of ourselves.
One of the ways in which our social relationships affects our self-esteem is through
social comparison.
According to the social comparison theory:
1. Downward Social Comparison –comparing ourselves with those people who
are worse off than us.
2. Upward Social Comparison – comparing ourselves with those people who are
better off than us
Social comparison entails what is called self-evaluation maintenance theory which states that
we can feel threatened when someone out-performs us. In this case, we react in three ways:
1) We distance ourselves from the person or redefine our relationship with them.
2) We may reconsider the importance of the aspect or skill in which you were out
performed.
3) We may also strengthen or resolve to improve that certain aspect of ourselves.
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. Sometimes, there is a thin line between high self-esteem and narcissism and
there are a lot of test and measurements for self-esteem 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.
THANK YOU FOR
LISTENING