MODULE 1: INTRODUCTION

TO UNDERSTANDING THE
SELF
Group 1
 DEFINITION OF THE
Self
SELF:
-It is a perceived pesonality, as a self-interest - (wherein) one's interest
and welfare is placed before those of other people, or as a complete
personality - one that a person recognizes as his or her own and with
which there is a sense of ease.

Imagine you're looking in a mirror. That reflection is your self - it's your
unique combination of thoughts, feelings, experiences, and everything
that makes you, you. It's who you are, your personality, your beliefs, and
how you see the world.
WHAT IS
SELF?
. SELF is a unified being and is essentially
connected to consciousness, awareness, and
activity or with the faculty of rational choice.
It means all the different aspects of the self
are integrated (or connected) in a
harmonious way such that one aspect is not
in conflict with others or driven in another
direction.
· NATURE VS. NURTURE:
THE DEBATE ON HUMAN
DEVELOPMENT
• Nature is what we think of as pre-wiring and is
influenced by genetic inheritance and other
biological factors.
• Nurture is generally taken as the influence of
external factors after conception, e.g., the
product of exposure, life experiences, and
learning on an individual.
NATURE:
• Nature refers largely to our genetics. It
includes the genes we are born with and
other hereditary factors that can impact
how our personality is formed and
influence the way that we develop from
childhood through adulthood.
NURTURE:
• Nurture encompasses the environmental factors that
impact who we are. This includes our early childhood
experiences, the way we were raised, our social
relationships, and the surrounding culture.
THE SELF IN
DIFFERENT
PERSPECTIVES

the different perspectives of the self, namely:

philosophical, psychological, sociological, and
anthropological perspectives.
It is said that adolescence is the most turbulent stage of
life for every individual. It is when each one meets a
major crisis about his/her identity --known as an identity
crisis. With this outcome, the students may be well
disposed to manage and care for themselves in their
adolescent life and their life in the future.
It primarily aims to achieve the first course outcome:
articulate a holistic and comprehensive view of the self.
 PHILOSOPHIC
AL
Dualism
It is a philosophical belief which claims that man is

PERSPECTIVE
composed of a material body and immaterial soul. This
belief is propounded by Plato, Aristotle, St. Augustine,
Post-modern View of the Self St. Thomas Aquinas and Rene Descartes. There are two
kinds of dualism: absolute and mitigated.
Post-modernism shares a similar view with Hume. Self is a
mental construct --thus not real. What seems to be the
Holism
reality of self is simply created by language.
A philosophical
Mechanistic View of the Self belief which claims that man is primarily a subjectivity
enfleshed in the human form. This is propounded by
A philosophical belief which claims that man is like a Gabriel Marcel.
machine. All of his actions (overt or covert) are products
of a natural mechanism of the human body just like the Pluralism
bodies of other living organisms. "Many people believed A philosophical belief which claims that self is simply a
that the heart was somehow what made us human. And it mental construct, or "an idea or concept." If it is an idea,
turned out it was just a pump made of meat," said Paul
then there is no reality of it. For Hume, the self is the
Churchland.
outcome of an "association of simple ideas" from
impressions of our daily life.
 SOCIOLOGICAL AND
ANTHROPOLOGICAL
PERSPECTIVES
Sociology is the systematic study of human society (Macionis, 2012). Though
the approach of Sociology is scientific but, at the heart of it, lies a point of
view known as “sociological perspective.”
Sociology is divided into two: micro-sociology and macro-sociology. Micro-
sociology deals with the details of particular interactions as they occur in
everyday life (Saquilayan, et al, 2009) . The topics mentioned above such as
socialization , role , status , gender , and social class are concepts dealt in
micro-sociology. Macro-sociology , on the other hand, concerns with the larger
patterns of relations among major social sectors (Saquilayan, et al, 2009).
 PSYCHOLOGICAL
DEVELOPMENT
the development of human beings’ cognitive, emotional, intellectual, and social
capabilities and functioning over the course of a normal life span, from infancy
through old age. It is the subject matter of the discipline known as
developmental psychology.

• Infancy is the period between birth and the acquisition of language one to
two years later. Besides a set of inherited reflexes that help them obtain
nourishment and react to danger, newborns are equipped with a predilection
for certain visual patterns, including that of the human face, and for certain
sounds, including that of the human voice.
• Childhood second major phase in human development, childhood, extends
from one or two years of age until the onset of adolescence at age 12 or 13.
The early years of childhood are marked by enormous strides in the
understanding and use of language.
• Adolescence begins with the onset of puberty at 12 or 13 and culminates at
age 19 or 20 in adulthood. The formal thinking of adolescents and adults
tends to be self-consciously deductive, rational, and systematic. Emotionally,
adolescence is the time when individuals learn to control and direct their
 MICRO
SOCIOLOGY
the study of small-scale social interactions and the ways in which
individuals and small groups shape society through their everyday
actions.
• Symbolic Interactionism: Symbolic interactionism is a foundational
theory in micro sociology. People create and interpret symbols (such
as words, gestures, or facial expressions) in their interactions with
others.
• Role Theory: Micro sociologists often study how individuals enact
various roles in their interactions. A role is a set of expectations and
behaviors associated with a particular social position or status.
• Dramaturgical Theory: Erving Goffman's dramaturgical theory
compares social interactions to a theatrical performance. In this view,
individuals are actors, and social situations are stages.
• Face-to-Face Interaction: Micro sociology often involves the analysis of
face-to-face interactions in specific settings.
 MACRO-
SOCIOLOGY
-focuses on the study of large-scale social structures,
institutions, and patterns that shape society as a whole.
• Social Institutions: Macro sociology explores major social
institutions like education, government, religion, and the
economy.
• Social Stratification: This concept refers to the
hierarchical arrangement of individuals or groups in
society based on factors such as wealth, income,
education, and social class.
• Social Change: Macro sociology investigates processes
of social change on a broad scale. This can involve
examining historical transformations or contemporary
trends that reshape society
• Globalization: Macro sociology explores the globalization
of societies and economies. It examines how
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