1.

1 UNDERSTANDING THE SELF

Understanding oneself ○ Includes:

■ Neighborhood
● essential to understand behaviors and ■ School
beliefs that affects ourselves and others ■ Workplace
● provides a sense of purpose ■ Social circle
● leads to healthier relationships
● helps harness your natural strength ● Biological Factors of Personality
● promotes confidence
○ hereditary factors
Personality ■ genetic make-up of the
person that inherited from
● Etymology: their parents
○ Persona - the theatrical masks ■ describes the tendency of
worn by Romans in Greek and the person to appear and
Latin drama. behave the way their
○ Per & Sonare - to sound through parents are
● Has no single definition since different ○ physical features
personality theories have different views ■ overall physical structure of
on how to define it a person
● Relatively permanent traits and unique ○ Brain
characteristics that give both consistency ■ The preliminary results
and individuality to a person’s behavior from the electrical
● plays a key role in affecting how people stimulation of the brain
shape their lives. (ESB) research gives
● the overall pattern or integration of a indication that better
person’s structure, modes of behavior, understanding of human
attitudes, aptitudes, interests, intellectual personality and behavior
abilities, and many other distinguishable might come from the study
personality traits. of the brain.
● Conglomeration of the following
components: ● Situational Factors of Personality
○ Physical self ○ Doesn’t literally shape up an
○ Intelligence individual’s personality, but does
○ Character traits alter a person’s behavior and
○ Attitudes response from time to time.
○ Habits ○ Commonly observed when a
○ Interest person behaves contrastingly and
○ Personal discipline exhibits different traits and
○ Moral values characteristics.
○ Principles
○ Philosophies of life ● Cultural Factors
○ Culture - traditionally considered
Determinants of personality (4) as the major determinants of an
individual’s personality.
● Personality refers to the total person in ○ belief, values, and techniques for
his/her overt and covert behavior. dealing with the environment
which are shared among
● Environmental Factors of Personality contemporaries and transmitted
○ surroundings of an individual by one generation to the next.
Personality Traits ● Self-understanding
● reflect people’s characteristic patterns of ○ understanding what your motives
thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. are when you act
● trait psychology rests on the idea that
people differ from one another in terms of ● Essential Social Psychology by Richard
where they stand on a set of basic trait Crisp and Rhiannon Turner:
dimensions that persist over time and ○ Individual self - consists of
across situations. attributes and personality traits
● Five-Factor Model that differentiate us from other
○ most widely used system of traits individuals.
○ includes five broad traits (OCEAN): ■ introversion or
■ Openness extroversion.
■ Conscientiousness ○ Relational self - defined by our
■ Extraversion relationships with significant
■ Agreeableness others.
■ Neuroticism ■ siblings, friends, and
○ Extravert - Someone who is spouses.
sociable, friendly, and gregarious ○ Collective self - reflects our
membership in social groups.
■ British, Republican,
African-American, or gay.

○ Scores are independent. A person’s

standing on one trait tells very
little about their standing on the
other traits.
● Traits are important and interesting
because they describe stable patterns of
behavior that persist for long periods of
time

Who Am I?
● Answering the question 'Who am I?' can
lead to a solid self-concept and
self-understanding.
● Self-concept
○ Understanding of who you are as a
person
○ our individual perceptions of our
behavior, abilities, and unique
characteristics
○ A mental picture of who you are as
a person
○ more malleable when people are
younger
○ a collection of beliefs one holds
about oneself and the responses of
others.
 1.2 THE SELF ACCORDING TO PHILOSOPHY

Philosophy ○ Spirit or passion

● the study of knowledge or wisdom ■ basic emotions of human
● Latin etymology: beings
○ Philo - love ● Illustrated his view of the soul/self in
○ Sophia - wisdom “Phaedrus” in the metaphor:
● “The Queen of All Sciences” ○ the soul is like a winged chariot
drawn by two powerful horses:
Socrates ■ White horse - spirit
● Athens, Greece ■ Black horse - appetite
● said to have the greatest influence on ■ Charioteer - reason
European thought.
● Socratic Method St. Augustine
○ involves the search for the ● last of the great ancient philosophers
correct/proper definition of a whose ideas were greatly Platonic.
thing. ● Christianity’s first theologian.
● The foundation of Socrates' philosophy ● the human nature is composed of two
was the Delphic Oracle's command to realms:
“Know Thyself”. ○ God as the source of all reality and
● Self is dichotomous which means truth
composed of two things: ○ The sinfulness of man
○ Physical Realm ● He also stated that real happiness can
■ changeable, temporal, and only be found in God.
imperfect i.e the physical
world Rene Descartes
○ Ideal Realm ● A french philosopher, mathematician
■ imperfect and unchanging, ● Founder of modern philosophy
eternal, and immortal i.e ● cogito, ergo sum - I think, therefore I exist
the intellectual essences ● He explained that in order to gain true
● A human is composed of: knowledge, one must doubt everything,
○ Body - belongs to the physical even its own existence.
realm because it changed, it is ● soul
imperfect, and it dies ○ a non-material, immortal,
○ Soul - belongs to the ideal realm conscious being, independent of
for it survives death the physical laws of the universe
● The self - the immortal and unified entity ● physical body
that is consistent over time. ○ a material, mortal, non-thinking
entity, fully governed by the
Plato physical laws of nature.
● Student of socrates
● introduced the idea of a three-part John Locke
soul/self: ● An English philosopher and physician
○ Reason ● “Tabula Rasa” or Blank Slate
■ enables humans to think ○ assumes the nurture side of human
deeply, make wise choices development.
and achieve a true ● The self is consciousness
understanding of eternal ● On Personal Identity
truths ; divine essence ○ from his most famous work, Essay
○ Physical Appetite Concerning Human Understanding
■ basic biological needs of ● Was not convinced that the self exists in a
human beings single soul
 ● self is not tied to any particular body or ○ Superego
substance. ■ dependent on learning the
difference between right
David Hume and wrong
● Scottish philosopher, empiricist. ■ moral principle
● assumed that there is no self ● Instincts that drive individual behavior:
● Only two distinct entities ○ Eros - life instincts
○ Impression ○ Thanatos - death instincts
■ basic sensations of our
experience, the elemental Gilbert Ryle
data of our minds ● A British analytical philosopher.
○ Ideas ● Linguistic Analysis - focused on the
■ copies of impressions that solving of philosophical puzzles through an
include thoughts and analysis of language.
images that are built up ● Self - a pattern of behavior, the tendency
from our primary or disposition for a person to behave in a
impressions certain way
● Category mistake
Sigmund Freud ○ confused conceptual thinking
● Father and Founder of Psychoanalysis ○ happens when we speak about the
● The dualistic view of self: self as something independent of
○ conscious self the physical body
■ governed by reality
principle Immanuel Kant
■ self is rational, practical, ● German Philosopher who made great
and appropriate to the contributions to the fields of metaphysics,
social environment. epistemology, and ethics.
■ has the task of controlling ● the greatest philosopher of the modern
the constant pressures of period.
the unconscious self ● Individual self
○ unconscious self ○ makes the experience of the world
■ governed by the pleasure comprehensible because it is
principle. responsible for synthesizing the
■ self that is aggressive, discrete data of sense experience
destructive, unrealistic and into a meaningful whole.
instinctual. ● Transcendental apperception
● Subconscious serves as the repository of ○ happens when people do not
past experiences, repressed memories, experience self directly, instead as
fantasies, and urges. a unity of all impressions that are
● Levels of the mind: organized by the mind through
○ Id perceptions.
■ based on the pleasure ● the true nature of things is altogether
principle. unknown and unknowable
■ demands immediate ● For Kant, the kingdom of God is within
satisfaction man
○ Ego
■ based on the reality Maurice Merleau-Ponty
principle. ● A French philosopher and
■ mediates between the phenomenologist.
impulses of the id and ● The division between the “mind” and the
restraints of the superego. “body” is a product of confused thinking.
 ● Self experienced as a unity in which the
mental and physical are seamlessly woven
together.
● Phenomenology
○ provides a direct description of the
human experience which serves to
guide man’s conscious actions.
● Perception
○ not purely the result of sensations
nor it is purely interpretations.
● Consciousness
○ a process that includes sensing as
well as interpreting/reasoning.

1.3 THE SELF ACCORDING TO SOCIOLOGY AND ANTHROPOLOGY

● Sociology and Anthropology are two ○ Language

interrelated disciplines that contribute to ○ Play
the understanding of self. ○ Game
● Sociology ● stages of self formation:
○ presents the self as a product of ○ Preparatory Stage
modern society. ■ self did not exist at birth
○ the science that studies the ■ self develops over time.
development, structure, ■ development is dependent
interaction, and collective behavior on social interaction and
of human beings. social experience.
● Anthropology ■ children’s behaviors are
○ the study of humanity primarily based on
○ takes an interdisciplinary approach imitation.
to looking at human culture, both ○ The Play Stage
past and present. ■ children begin to role play
and pretend to be other
George Herbert Mead and the Social Self people.
● American philosopher, sociologist, and ■ this stage where a child
psychologist. widens his perspective and
● one of the founders of social psychology realizes that he is not alone
and the American sociological tradition in and that there are others
general. around him whose presence
● well-known for his theory of self he has to consider
● Self ○ The Game Stage
○ represents the sum total of ■ The child begins to consider
people’s conscious perception of several tasks and various
their identity as distinct from types of relationships
others. simultaneously.
○ something which undergoes ■ the child now begins to see
development because it is not not only his own
present instantly at birth. perspective but at the
● The social emergence of self is developed same time the perspective
due to the three forms of inter-subjective of others.
activity:
 ● Generalized other ■ comes to stand in the place
○ other the person realizes that of almost everything
people in society have cultural ○ Social network
norms, beliefs and values ■ Rural settings
○ which are incorporated into each ● relationships are
self. strongly influenced
● the two phases of self: by family.
○ Me ● Organic motivation
■ the phase which reflects - natural inclination
the attitude of the to join groups
generalized other ■ Urban settings
■ conventional, habitual ● group membership
individual is due to rational
○ I motivation or
■ the phase that responds to freedom of choice
the attitude of generalized ● More likely that an
other individual will
■ the “novel reply” of the develop unique
individual to the personalities.
generalized other ● Role conflicts - a
situation that
The Self as a product of modern society among demands a person
other constructions of two or more roles
that clash with one
Georg Simmel another.
● German sociologist, philosopher, and ● Blasé attitude -
critic. attitude of absolute
● Human Nature - innate to the individual boredom and lack
● Simmel as a social thinker made a of concern.
distinction between subjective and
objective culture. The Self and Person in the Contemporary
○ Subjective culture Anthropology
■ the ability to embrace, use,
and feel culture. Subfields of Anthropology (4)
○ Objective culture
■ made up of elements that ● Archeology
become separated from the ○ study of the past and how it may
individual or group’s have contributed to the present
control and identified as ways of how people conduct their
separate objects. daily lives.
● Interrelated forces in modern society that ● Biological Anthropology
tend to increase objective culture: ○ how the human body adapts to the
○ Urbanization different earth environments
■ process that moves people ● Linguistic Anthropology
from country to city living ○ Focused on using language as
○ Money means to discover a group’s
■ creates a universal value manner of social interaction and
system wherein every their worldview.
commodity can be ● Cultural Anthropology
understood ○ Focused in knowing what makes
■ increases individual one group’s manner of living forms
freedom by pursuing an essential part of the member’s
diverse activities personal and societal identity.
 ○ Theory of Cultural Determinism
■ human nature is
determined by the kind of
culture he was born and
raised in
○ Ways in which culture may
manifest itself in people:
■ Symbols
● words, gestures,
pictures or objects
that have
recognized or
accepted meaning
in a particular
culture.
■ Heroes
● people from the
past or present who
have characteristics
that are important
in culture
■ Rituals
● are activities
participated by a
group of people for
the fulfillment of
desired objectives
■ Values
● core of every
culture.

The Self Embedded in the Culture

Clifford Geertz
● Anthropology Professor at the University
of Chicago.
● Balinese person is extremely concerned
not to present anything individual
(distinguishing him or her from others) in
social life but to enact exclusively a
culturally prescribed role or mask.
 1.4 THE SELF ACCORDING TO PSYCHOLOGY

Psychology ○ Me viewed as material

● scientific study of mental processes and ■ of everything an individual
human behavior. call uniquely as their own
● aims to describe, analyze, predict, control ○ Me viewed as social
human behavior in general. ■ recognition an individual
gets from other people
The Self as Cognitive Construction ○ Me viewed as spiritual
● The cognitive aspect of the self is known ■ the individual inner or
as self-concept. subjective being
● Self-concept
○ self-knowledge, a cognitive Real and Ideal Self
structure that includes beliefs
about personality traits, physical Carl Rogers
characteristics, abilities, values, ● the founder of client- centered therapy
goals, and roles, as well as the ● His therapy aimed to make the person
knowledge that an individual exists achieve balance between their
as individuals. self-concept (real-self) and ideal self.
● Six domains related to self-concept: ● Real self
○ Social domain ○ includes all those aspects of one's
■ ability of the person to identity that are perceived in
interact with others awareness.
○ Competence domain ● Ideal self
■ ability to meet the basic ○ defined as one’s view of self as one
needs wishes to be.
○ Affect domain ● A wide gap between the ideal self and the
■ awareness of the emotional self-concept indicates incongruence and
states an unhealthy personality.
○ Physical domain
■ feelings about looks, Multiple versus Unified Self
health, physical condition,
and overall appearance Multiple Selves Theory
○ Academic domain ● there are different aspects of the self exist
■ the success or failure in the in an individual
school Gregg Henriques
○ Family domain ● Tripartite Model of Human
■ how well one function Consciousness
within the family unit ○ self consists of three related, but
also separable domains:
Me-Self and I-Self ○ experiential self
■ defined as felt experience
William James of being
● founder of functionalism ○ private self
● James made a clear distinction between ■ portion of self that verbally
ways of approaching the self – the knower narrates what is happening
(the pure or the I – Self) and the known and tries to make sense of
(the objective or the Me – Self). what is going on
● The knower - agent of experience ○ public self
● The known - has 3 different aspects of ■ domain of self that an
self concept individual shows to the
public, and this interacts on
 how others see an The Self as Proactive and Agentic
individual
Albert Bandura
True versus False Self ● psychologist and Professor Emeritus of
Social Science in Psychology at Stanford
Donald Winnicott University.
● a pediatrician in London who studied ● Famous for the concept of self-efficacy
Psychoanalysis with Melanie Klein, a ● The Social Cognitive Theory
renowned personality theorist ○ asserts that a person is both
● False self proactive and agentic, which
○ an alternative personality used to means that we have the capacity
protect an individual’s true identity to exercise control over our life.
● True self ○ human beings are proactive,
○ self has a sense of integrity and self-regulating, self-reflective, and
connected wholeness that is rooted self-organizing.
in early infancy. ● People who doubt their capabilities shy
away from difficult tasks which they view
as personal threats.

1. 5 THE SELF IN THE WESTERN AND ORIENTAL/EASTERN THOUGHT

Individualism Confucius philosophy

● the idea that the fundamental unit of the ● known as humanistic social philosophy
human species that thinks, lives, and acts which focuses on human beings and the
toward goals is the individual. society in general.
● Western cultures are known to be ● Confucianism is centered on ren which can
individualistic. be manifested through:
● li or propriety
Collectivism ○ Rules of propriety should be
● the idea that the fundamental unit of the followed to guide human actions.
human species that thinks, lives, and acts ● xiao or filiality
toward goals is not the individual, but ○ This is the virtue of reverence and
some group. respect for the family.
● Asian countries are known to be collective ● yi or rightness
in nature. ○ The right way of behaving which is
unconditional and absolute.
Qualities imparted to the Western subjective
self
● Western self as analytic.
● Western self as monotheistic.
● Western self as individualistic.
● Western Self as materialistic and
rationalistic.
 1.6 PHYSICAL SELF

Physical self
● Refers to the concrete dimensions of the
body, it is the tangible aspect of the
person which can be directly observed Sex chromosomes
and examined. ● The 23rd pair
Heredity ● determines the sex of an individual
● transmission of traits from parents to DNA
offspring. ● Deoxyribonucleic acid
Traits ● is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic
● made up of specific information instructions specifying the biological
embedded within one’s genes development of every individual.
Genotype Maturation
● specific information embedded within ● completion of growth of a genetic
one’s genes character within an organism or the
● not all genotypes translate to an observed unfolding of an individual’s inherent traits
physical characteristic. or potential.
Phenotype Puberty
● physical expression of a particular trait. ● A period of rapid physical changes
Chromosomes
● threadlike bodies in the nucleus of the cell
and the storage unit of genes.
● 23 pairs of chromosomes

1.7 PHYSICAL SELF

● social constructionist approach

○ suggests that beauty, weight,
sexuality, or race do not simply
result from the collection of genes
one inherited from one’s parents.
Instead, these bodily features only
take on the meaning that they
have.

● essentialist view
○ bodies are defined entirely by their
biological make-up – bones,
muscles, hormones, and the like.
Matching type Analogy

Id preparatory stage
● Level of the mind that is based on the ● self did not exist at birth
pleasure principle. ● self develops over time.
● demands immediate satisfaction and is ● development is dependent on social
not hindered by societal expectations interaction and social experience.
● children’s behaviors are primarily based
Asexual Reproduction on imitation.
● Simplest form of reproduction that literally
means without sex play stage
● children begin to role play and pretend to
Ovaries be other people.
● Female gonads that produce ova and sex ● this stage where a child widens his
hormones perspective and realizes that he is not
alone and that there are others around
Lust him whose presence he has to consider
● Being physically attracted to your object
of affection Sociology
● Driven by the desire for sexual ● presents the self as a product of modern
gratification society.
● the science that studies the development,
Superego structure, interaction, and collective
● Dependent on learning what is right and behavior of human beings.
wrong, thus called the moral principle
Archeology
Physiological Arousal Theory ● study of the past and how it may have
● Explains the most acceptable theories contributed to the present ways of how
about emotions people conduct their daily lives.
● The body experiences a physiological
change, then people assign an emotion to Biology
that physical sensation ● the science of life and living organisms

Genital Herpes William James

● Sexually transmitted infection caused by a ● founder of functionalism
large family of viruses of different strains ● James made a clear distinction between
ways of approaching the self – the knower
Evolutionary Theories (the pure or the I – Self) and the known
● Explains that love arose from some (the objective or the Me – Self)
biological need
Donald Winnicot
Syphilis ● a pediatrician in London who studied
● sexually transmitted infection caused by Psychoanalysis with Melanie Klein, a
bacterium treponema palligum, a renowned personality theorist
spirochete ● False self - an alternative personality used
to protect an individual’s true identity
Latency Stage ● True self - self has a sense of integrity and
● Sexual impulses lie dormant as the child is connected wholeness that is rooted in
occupied by social activities such as going early infancy.
to school and playing
Anthropology
● the study of humanity
● takes an interdisciplinary approach to
looking at human culture, both past and
present.

real self
● includes all those aspects of one's identity
that are perceived in awareness.

ideal self
● defined as one’s view of self as one wishes
to be.

Individualism
● the idea that the fundamental unit of the
human species that thinks, lives, and acts
toward goals is the individual.

Collectivism
● the idea that the fundamental unit of the
human species that thinks, lives, and acts
toward goals is not the individual, but
some group.

Chromosomes
● threadlike bodies in the nucleus of the cell
and the storage unit of genes.

Western
●

Eastern
●

virtue of reverence
●

Family something
●

Oriental
●