UTS Reviewer – Preliminaries

Philosopher – lover of wisdom; intellectual who has devoted time to study the meaning of life.

1. Socrates – “know thyself”; first philosopher who engaged in systematic questioning about the self; there
was soul before man’s body; “unexamined life is not worth living”; “one thing I know is that I know nothing”.
a. Dualistic – every man is composed of Body and Soul.
2. Plato – student of Socrates; his Dichotomy states that Form is the permanent, unchanging reality self while
Materials keep on changing and are what we see around us (where we live is just a replica of the real self).
a. Rational Soul – reason.
b. Spirited Soul – neutral.
c. Appetitive Soul – desire.
3. Augustine of Hippo – man is of a bifurcated nature; the body is bound to die on Earth while the soul is to
anticipate living eternally; the body can only thrive in the imperfect, physical reality while the soul stays
after death in an eternal realm with God; soul is fully real and its main pursuit is to have an everlasting life
with God who is the ultimate expression of love;
a. Moral Law – distinction between right and wrong.
b. Eternal Law – universal law from God.
4. Thomas Aquinas – man is composed of Matter & Form; “the soul animates the body and makes us humans”.
a. Matter – hyle in Greek; common stuff that makes up everything in the universe.
b. Form – morphe in Greek; essence of a substance or thing.
5. Rene Descartes – father of modern Philosophy; “I think, therefore, I am (Cogito ergo sum)”; doubts the
existence of everything physical, existence of the body is not proof that we exist and is nothing else but a
machine attached to the mind; the mere fact that we can doubt is evidence that we exist; body is described
in a precise, structured manner but the mind is not contained like that and is allowed to pursue its own
thoughts; when the body is gone, the mind may continue to exist and function.
6. John Locke – starting point is that all knowledge must come from experience; there are no innate ideas;
identity is not locked in the mind, soul, or body only; concept of a person’s memory as definition of the self;
subscribes to Memory Theory (we are the same person as we were in the past so long as we can remember).
a. Tabula Rasa – blank slate.
7. David Hume – self is a combination of all experiences; “I” will be constantly changing because different
experiences for every constant change will affect and reshape a person; there is no permanent and
unchanging self—a person is a bundle of perception.
a. Impressions – things we perceive through our senses as we experience them.
b. Ideas – those we create in our minds even though we are no longer experiencing them.
8. Immanuel Kant – man is a free agent, capable of making decisions for himself; a moral person is driven by
duty (we have to rationally deliberate on it and not expect from higher authority); man is gifted with reason.
9. Sigmund Freud – father of Psychoanalysis; tripartite division of man’s mind:
a. Id – man’s biological nature (impulses and bodily desires); present from birth.
b. Ego – the self (reality principle).
c. Superego – ethical component of personality and provides moral standards by which ego operates.
10. Gilbert Ryle – denies the existence of internal, nonphysical self; what truly matters is the behavior that a
person manifests; self is not an entity we can locate and analyze but simply a convenient name people use
to refer to their behaviors; we can only know a person through their behaviors, tendencies, and reactions.
11. Paul Churchland – along with his wife, believes that self is the brain; mind is affected by the state of brain;
it is only a matter of time before we comprehend how the brain works.
12. Maurice Merleau-Ponty – self is more than one’s body; self is the sum of all the things that you do.
Sociological View of Self – the self, as a social being, is influenced by culture; as products of it, we mirror the values,
traditions, and beliefs that our society holds dear.

Edward B. Taylor – founder of Cultural Anthropology; defined culture as a “complex whole which includes knowledge,
beliefs, arts, morals, laws, customs, etc.”.

Anthropology – study of the human race, its culture and society, and its physical development which is significant in
humanity’s self-understanding; we adjust ourselves and our culture to where it could be beneficial for us as we grow.

Sociology – scientific study of human life, social groups, whole societies, and the human world whose subject matter
is our own behavior as social beings; we were familiarized with the ‘ought and ought not’; our decisions should mirror
the very foundations of our culture; digs into understanding the self in reference to the behavior of the society.

Norms – are what dictate our behavior in society.

Culture – made up of all the ideas, beliefs, behaviors, and products common to, and defining a group’s way of life.

• Material Culture – human technology and all the things that people make and use.
• Non-Material Culture – intangible human creations including beliefs, values, norms, and symbols; shapes
our perspective of society, ourselves, and even the material world.

The Self according to Marcel Mauss

• MOI – person’s sense of who he is, his body, and basic identity; his biological givenness.
• PERSONNE – social concepts of what means to be who he is.

What is the Self?

• Separate – distinct from other selves; always unique and has its own identity.
• Self-Contained and Independent – in itself it can exist; its distinctness allows it to be self-contained with its
own thoughts, characteristics, and volution; does not require any other self for it to exist.
• Consistency – traits, characteristics, tendencies, and potentialities are more or less the same.
• Unitary – center of all experiences and thoughts that run through a certain person.
• Private – each person sorts out information, feelings, and emotions, and thought processes within the self;
this whole process is never accessible to anyone but the self.

Family – basic unit of society; how you were cared for makes a significant mark in yourself and affects how you
function, behave, and relate with other people.

o Functions of a family include Procreation, Economic Provision, Love, Socialization, and Sense of Security.

Family Structures

• Nuclear Family – traditional type; two parents and their children.

• Extended Family – the previous is joined in by relatives.
• Families with Working Parents
• Single Parent Family
• Blended Family
• Childless Family
• Special Family
 Parenting Styles

• Authoritarian – imposes rules and expect obedience; their children are more likely to have low social skills
and low self-esteem.
• Permissive – submit to their children’s desires; make few demands and use little punishment; children tend
to be more aggressive and immature.
• Authoritative – both demanding and responsive; exert control by setting rules and enforcing them but also
explain its reasons and encourage open discussions; children tend to have the highest self-esteem.

✓ Psychology – scientific study of behavior and mental processes.

✓ Behavior – anything an organism does; any action we can observe and record.
✓ Mental Processes – internal, subjective experiences we infer.
✓ Wilhelm Wundt – father of Psychology.
✓ Psychoanalytic Theory – one of the most controversial theories; personality is mostly established by the age of
5 and develops during childhood; early experiences play a large role in personality development.
✓ Libido – psychosexual energy that acts as the driving force behind any behavior.
✓ Behavior and Personality – derives from the constant and unique interaction of conflicting psychological forces
that operate at three levels of awareness; psychoanalytic view holds that there are inner forces outside your
awareness.

Freud’s Three Levels of Mind

1. Conscious Mind – everything that we are aware of.

2. Preconscious Mind – ordinary memory; not consciously aware but retrievable into consciousness.
3. Unconscious Mind – reservoir of feelings, thoughts, urges, and memories outside our conscious awareness.

Defense Mechanisms

• Denial – denying the anxiety outright.

• Repression – blocking out/prevention of anxiety back into the unconscious.
• Rationalization – creating false reasons/explanations for anxiety in the form of a shortcoming.
• Projection – seeing in others’ unacceptable feelings that reside in one’s own unconscious.
• Displacement – acting out anxiety on an innocent party.
• Reaction Formation – reversing the nature of anxiety so that it feels like the opposite.
• Sublimation – channeling anxiety into socially acceptable activities.
• Regression – retreating to a more infantile psychosexual stage where one’s psychic energy remains fixated.

Person-Centered Theory

• Identity – composed of personal characteristics, social roles, and responsibilities, as well as affiliations that
define who one is.
• Self-Concept – what basically comes to your mind when you are asked about who you are.

Basic Assumptions

• Formative Tendency – tendency for all matter, organic or inorganic, to evolve from simpler to more complex.
• Actualizing Tendency – tendency within all humans to move toward completion or fulfillment of potentials.
 o Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs – self-actualization, esteem needs, love and belonging
needs, safety needs, and physiological needs.

Maintenance – basic needs like food, air, and safety; also includes the tendency to resist change and seek the status
quo; desire to protect their current, comfortable self-concept; fight against new ideas and distort experiences that
do not fit.

Enhancement – need to become more, to develop, and to achieve growth; seen in people’s willingness to learn things
that are not immediately rewarding.

Two Self Sub-Systems

• Self-Concept – aspects of one’s being and one’s experiences that are perceived in awareness.
• Ideal Self – one’s view of self as one wishes to be; attributes that people aspire to possess.

Congruence – feeling good about ourselves; small gap between real and ideal self; gives confidence and satisfaction.

Incongruence – disappointed or frustrated from misalignment or huge gap between real and ideal self.

Positive Regard – need to be loved, liked, or accepted by another person; prerequisite for Positive Self-Regard;
classified into Conditional and Unconditional.

Positive Self-Regard – experience of prizing or valuing oneself.

✓ Rogers believed that receiving positive regard from others is necessary for positive self-regard, but one
positive self-regard is established, it becomes independent of the continual need to be loved.

Downward Social Comparison – more common type; comparison with those who are worse off than us.

Upward Social Comparison – comparing ourselves with those who are better off than us.

Self-Evaluation Maintenance Theory – states that we can feel threatened when someone out-performs us, especially
when that person is close to us; in the attempt to increase or maintain self-esteem, some people become narcissistic.

Narcissism – trait characterized by overly-high self-esteem, self-admiration, and self-centeredness.