Handouts: Sociology, Anthropology, Psychology PDF

PREPARED BY: ESTRELLA L. RANAS Handout #2 – The Sociological Perspective of the Self What is Sociology? 1...

PREPARED BY: ESTRELLA L. RANAS Handout #2 – The Sociological Perspective of the Self What is Sociology? 1 We were born with a genetic makeup and biological traits. Who we are as human beings, however, develops through social interaction. Sociology is the study of the role of society in shaping https://www.pikrepo.com/search?q= behavior. It focuses on how different aspects of society contribute to collage&page=2 an individual’s relationship with his world. It tends to look outward (social institutions, cultural norms, interactions with others) to understand human behavior. This part of the module will be focused on the self as perceived by sociologists. We will look into the role of society in how we were shaped as to who we are today. The self as a product of modern society among other constructions Now let us start exploring the “self” as a social construction. 2The classical sociological perspective of the self holds that the self is a relatively stable set of perceptions of who we are or our identity in relation to ourselves, others, and the social world. Our self is socially constructed in the sense that it is shaped through our interaction with other people. The sociological theories of the self try to explain how social processes such as socialization influence the development of the self. Socialization is the process of learning one’s culture and how to live within it. In other words, it is the process whereby an individual learns to adjust to a group and behave in a way that is approved by the group. Through socialization, we develop our personalities and potentialities with the influence of our culture and society. As with socialization in general, we are not passive participants in this process but rather, have a powerful influence over how this process develops and its circumstances. The person can also be an agent of socialization. The self is constructed based on social roles through socialization agents (family, school, community, etc.). How people understand their sense of selves is closely tied to how they understand the world around them or their relationship with others. The Agents of Socialization: Socialization helps us learn to function successfully in the social world. This learning takes place through interaction with the various agents of socialization, like our families and peer groups, plus both formal and informal social institutions, like schools and clubs. Socialization is believed to be a life-long process, and it begins in our families. Parents, grandparents, siblings - whoever you were living with when you were young, is pretty much your entire social world. Your family is the source of what is known as primary socialization - your first experiences with language, beliefs and values, behaviors, and norms of your society. As you grow older, secondary socialization takes place. This is the process through which children become socialized outside the home, within society at large. This often starts at school. School becomes not just a place for academic subjects, but also for learning about interacting with different kinds of people. One of the most influential agents on the development of the self during school-age is the peer group. As we get older, our peer group has a massive impact on the socialization process. The media we engage with are absolutely a part of our socialization. Television and the internet are huge parts of our lives and definitely have impacts on the development of our “self” Other agents of socialization 1 "Introduction to Sociology 2e, Socialization, Theories of Self...." https://opened.cuny.edu/courseware/lesson/132/overview. Accessed 31 Aug. 2020. 2 "The Self and Socialization | Boundless Sociology." https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless- sociology/chapter/the-self-and-socialization/. Accessed 31 Aug. 2020.  PREPARED BY: ESTRELLA L. RANAS include clubs and teams, religious groups, workplaces, political groups, and ethnic or cultural backgrounds. Now, try to think back on your own life - who has been the biggest influence on who you are today? As was mentioned earlier, we are not passive participants in the socialization process, so who or what do you think that you, yourself have influenced? These may be hard questions to answer, but definitely, worthwhile - and hopefully a little easier now that you have learned how sociologists think about the development of the self. Cooley and the Looking-Glass Self Theory 3 One of the pioneer contributors to sociological perspectives was Charles Horton Cooley. He asserted that people’s self-understanding is constructed, in part, by their perception of how others view them—a process termed “the looking glass self.” For Cooley, we gradually figure out who we are as we grow up. You figure out what you look like by looking in a mirror. However, you figure out who you are through social interactions. The people you interact with become your “mirrors.” You see what they think of you when you interact with them, and it changes the way you think of yourself. https://www.flickr.com/ph 4 otos/70251312@N00/7987 The process of discovering and experiencing the looking-glass self 008481 occurs in three steps: First, we imagine how we appear to others. Second, we imagine the judgment of that appearance. Third, we develop our self (identity) through the judgments of others. Now, let us try to walk through these steps. Step one, how do other people perceive us? Maybe they think we are smart or funny, or maybe someone comes to us and says, “Wow, I’m impressed with how you did well in school today!” But, a lot of these are just our interpretation or just imagined. So, that is where we base our perception. Possibly, more than what other people are saying. Step two is whether our perception is good or bad. This is our interpretation of the perception. Let us take an example. You may then think that people admire you and see you as a smart, diligent student. And then, the last step is our response. This changes how we see ourselves. Like, if we are getting a lot of positive interpretations or negative ones, it changes a specific way of how we see ourselves. As your response to your interpretation of how other people see you, you try to act smart every time you are in class. 3 "Theories of Self-Development | Sociology - Reading." https://courses.lumenlearning.com/alamo- sociology/chapter/reading-theories-of-self-development/. Accessed 8 Sep. 2020. 4 "Theories of Socialization | Boundless Sociology." https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless- sociology/chapter/theories-of-socialization/. Accessed 8 Sep. 2020.  PREPARED BY: ESTRELLA L. RANAS Mead and the Social Self 5 George Herbert Mead is a well-known sociologist for his theory of the social self. It is based on the perspective that the self emerges from social interactions, such as observing and interacting with others, responding about others’ opinions about oneself, and internalizing them together with one’s feelings about oneself. For Mead, our self is not there at birth, but it is developed over time from social experiences and activities. Mead believed that as we grow up, our beliefs about how other people https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Sociology perceive us start to become more important. And Mead thought that this happens through three different stages: the preparatory stage, the play stage, and the game stage. During the first stage - preparatory stage, children interact with others through imitation. Children may play with pots and pans when a person is cooking or use a broom when their mothers try to clean but are not really true interactions. As children grow, they begin to focus more on communicating with others as opposed to simply imitating them. They get practice using symbols, things like words and gestures, and other forms of communication, or in other words, language. Then they later manage to master as they grow up. During the play stage, children start to become more aware of the importance of social relationships. This is evident in children’s tendency to pretend to play like other people. They play mommies or daddies or doctors or chefs, etcetera. And, whereas before they were incapable of taking on the perspective of others, now they are beginning to focus on role-taking or mentally assuming the perspectives of another person and acting based on their perceived point of view. This might seem like an imitation but goes way beyond it because the children are able to respond. They are not simply capable of mimicking social interactions; they are capable of creating them. During the game stage, children’s understanding of social interactions become even more developed. Children begin to understand the attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors of what Mead referred to as the “generalized other,” or the society as a whole. With this comes a full understanding of society. For instance, children begin to realize that people do not only perform in ways according to what they personally believe in but also based on what society expects of them. They start to understand that someone can take multiple roles, that people are not simply moms or doctors or chefs, that they portray other roles all at once. As children begin to acknowledge the generalized other, and also start to realize that people have multiple roles, they begin to understand that other people must have opinions about them and that those perceptions and opinions are influenced by how they act and what they say. As a response, they themselves begin to be influenced by these perceptions, and they start to be concerned about and more conscious of the reactions of others to what they do. However, they don't really care about the perceptions of everyone they come across. They are mainly focused on the perceptions of the significant others in their life. Mead believed that this understanding led to the development of his concept of the “I” and the “me.” For Mead, the “me” is our social self, and the “I” is our response to the “me.” The “me” represents the socialized self which consists of the internalized social attitudes based from the perspective of the community. The “I” represents the unorganized, undirected tendencies of the self. The “me” is how we believe the generalized other sees us and what we learn through interactions with others. On the other hand, the “I” thinks about what those things mean. As an example, the “me” might understand that women in the Philippines typically marry in their 20’s, but the “I” might wonder if that is best, if maybe it would be best if some wait longer and delay marrying or if they may be travel or enjoy more their singlehood for a few years. We can also look at the “me” as society’s view and 5 "Theories of Self-Development | Introduction to Sociology." https://courses.lumenlearning.com/sociology/chapter/theories-of-self-development/. Accessed 31 Aug. 2020.  PREPARED BY: ESTRELLA L. RANAS then the “I” as the individual identity stepping in, or our personal responses to what society thinks. Even though we see these two parts as conflicting, for Mead, who we are or our actual self is the balance of the “I” and the “me.” Summary: Sociology is the study of the role of society in shaping behavior. The sociological perspective of the self looks into self as a social construction, which means that who you are as a person is developed all through your lifetime under the influence of people. The self is shaped through interaction with other people. Through socialization, we develop our personalities and potentialities with the influence of our culture and society. Socialization takes place through the interaction with various agents of socialization, like peer groups and families, plus both formal and informal social institutions, like schools and clubs. Charles Horton Cooley coined the concept “the looking glass self,” which means we see what other people think of us when we interact with them, and it changes the way we think of ourselves. Our experience of discovering the looking-glass self occurs in three steps. Another well-known sociologist, George Herbert Mead, developed his theory of social self. It is based on the perspective that the self emerges from social interactions, such as observing and interacting with others, responding about others’ opinions about oneself, and internalizing them together with one’s feelings about oneself. This happens through three distinct stages: the preparatory stage, the play stage, and the game stage. Mead also developed the concept of the “me” and the “I,” where the “me” is the social self. and the “I” is one’s response to the “me.” References: "Introduction to Sociology 2e, Socialization, Theories of Self...." https://opened.cuny.edu/courseware/lesson/132/overview. Accessed 31 Aug. 2020. "The Self and Socialization | Boundless Sociology." https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless- sociology/chapter/the-self-and-socialization/. Accessed 31 Aug. 2020. "Theories of Self-Development | Introduction to Sociology." https://courses.lumenlearning.com/sociology/chapter/theories-of-self-development/. Accessed 31 Aug. 2020. "Theories of Self-Development | Sociology - Reading." https://courses.lumenlearning.com/alamo- sociology/chapter/reading-theories-of-self-development/. Accessed 8 Sep. 2020. "Theories of Socialization | Boundless Sociology." https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless- sociology/chapter/theories-of-socialization/. Accessed 8 Sep. 2020. Handout #3: THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE OF THE SELF Anthropology - derived from the Greek word anthropos which means “human” and “logia” which refers to the “study of.” Anthropology is the study of humanity. It is the study of everything and anything that makes us human. Another definition of Anthropology is that it is the study of people and cultures in the past and today. It is a discipline that helps in the understanding of one’s culture. Anthropology will always be relevant. It is always going to be interested in the now because the now has history. There are four branches of Anthropology: Archaeology – focuses on the material past - the tools, food, pottery, art, shelters, seeds, and other objects left behind by people. Archaeologists attempt to reconstruct, describe, interpret human behavior and cultural patterns through the recovery and analysis of material remains. Biological Anthropology – is the study of human biology, including how people adapt to where they live and how bodies changed over time (human evolution). Physical anthropologists also study non-human primates. Chimpanzees are the nonhuman primate that are most closely related to humans. We shared a common ancestor with Chimpanzees around 8 million years ago.  PREPARED BY: ESTRELLA L. RANAS Linguistic anthropology – is the study of how people speak and the words they use and how their language developed and evolved. Language is a defining trait of human beings. While other animals have communication systems, only humans have complex, symbolic languages. Cultural anthropology – is the study of how people live their lives in the present and how our ancestors may have lived in the past. Cultural anthropologists study the similarities and differences among living societies and cultural groups. Through immersive fieldwork, living and working with the people one is studying, cultural anthropologists suspend their own sense of what is “normal” in order to understand other people’s perspectives. The self and person in Contemporary Anthropology The very foundation of the self in anthropology is understanding man in light of its cultural context. In anthropology, the self refers to a set of implicit cultural values that we try to adhere to and use them to guide our lives. We adopt these values and become reflections of specific sociocultural practices in the place where we exist and that we learn them in our everyday interactions starting from our earliest age. The most influential in terms of self-development is family’s history, basically referring to the culture one has been brought up in. Culture is diverse and being that, self and identity may have different meanings in different cultures. Self as embedded in culture The key concept in the study of Anthropology is culture. Anthropologists believe that culture is the full range of learned behavior patterns. Culture is everything that makes up the way a group of people lives. It includes their knowledge, beliefs, values, morals, law, customs, traditions, arts and any other capabilities and habits acquired by a human as a member of society. There are two components of culture: the material culture and the non-material culture. These two are essential in understanding how the self is influenced by it. Material culture consists of human technology - all the things that people make and use. These are the physical manifestations of culture. The goods and products we buy and the products we use are also included here. Culture is very much dynamic. It changes from time to time. The fluidity of culture can be ascribed to man’s distinct ability to create, transform, and re-create culture itself. The evolution of material culture can be attributed to the technological advances that humanity was able to make. As such, material culture has drastically changed. Cultural exchanges also paved the way for the alteration of material culture. A very apt example of this is the evolution of mobile phones from the time it was introduced in 1973 to the present. Non-material culture includes intangible human creations like beliefs, values, norms, morals, rules, language, and organizations. This non-material culture also helps shape our perspective of the society, of ourselves, and even of the material world. For example, the non‐material cultural concept of religion consists of a set of ideas and beliefs about God, worship, ethics, and morals. These beliefs, then, determine how the culture responds to its religious issues, topics, and events. There are two sides of identity found in people in every culture: the egocentric self and the sociocentric self. The egocentric self is viewed as autonomous and distinct individual. This self acts independently from others. It disregards the feelings and desires of others so it’s likely to be self- centered. The sociocentric self is viewed as contingent on a situation or social setting. It is more dependent on others, considers others’ opinions, and more socially oriented. These 2 sides of identity are like the concept of individualism and collectivism as two types of cultural traits. These are manifested by the western and the eastern world’s perspectives of the self.  PREPARED BY: ESTRELLA L. RANAS WESTERN EASTERN Individualism Collectivism The self is a separate entity in the The self sees himself as an community who decides based on his own logic, integral part of the communal disregarding the influence of the communal group (family, friends, co-workers, group to his decisions. etc.) views man as disengaged from the social matrix/ The self is not separate from the values that his not minding the family holds dear expectations of the social group where the self is a part of Values independence - has allowed the self to Values interdependence - Value close family be able to live relying on his own strength and ties, group work fervor, recognizing that the individual is able to freely and intelligently decide for his own good. Culture helps us define how we see ourselves and how we relate to others. Remember that we differ in many ways: language diversity, cultural diversity, gender diversity, religious diversity, and economic diversity. All these aspects of diversity work together to form our sense of self. Always remember that it is important for you to respect others' cultures and acknowledge and understand that individuals may not develop a sense of self in the same manner. One thing that the Anthropology may contribute in our attempt to understand the self is the promotion of the virtue of compassion. Compassion is essential in becoming a productive member of society and a happy person in general. Learning to care for other people and respect the way they live their lives. Handout #3: THE PSYCHOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE OF THE SELF William James - Theory of Self William James is known as the Father of American Psychology. He distinguished two understandings of the self, the self as “Me” and the self as “I”. The “Me” is a separate individual a person refers to when talking about their personal experiences. It corresponds to the self as an object of experience. On the other hand, the “I” is the part of the self that knows who they are and what they have accomplished in life. It reflects the self as a subject of experience. For example, in the statement "I know it was me who ate the cookie,” the "Me" is the empirical self, the one who does the acting, whereas the "I" is the self that is capable of thinking and reflecting (Cooper, 1992). Although the “I” self cannot be further divided, the “Me” can be further broken down into three sub-categories: a material, social, and spiritual self. The material self consists of what belongs to a person, such as the body, family, clothes, or money. Let’s take the body, for instance. I’m fat or I love how I look. This is your “me” in terms of your material self. The social self marks who you are in a specific social situation. We tend to change our actions, thoughts, emotions, words, and mannerisms based on the current social situation or the people with whom we are interacting. We act differently when at work as opposed to when out with friends, as do we when talking to our boss as opposed to a coworker.  PREPARED BY: ESTRELLA L. RANAS Finally, our spiritual self is who we are at our core, including our personality, values, and conscience. Our spiritual self typically remains relatively stable throughout our lifetime. Together, these aspects form the self – the conscious entity (“I”) capable of experiencing physiological responses, emotions, and thoughts (“me”) CARL ROGERS: Self Theory Carl Rogers is a Humanistic psychologist. He believes that our sense of self is determined by our self-concept. If you are asked the questions, “Who are you? What makes you “you?” you may answer them in many ways. Taken together, your answers define your self-concept. Self-concept is our personal knowledge of who we are, encompassing all of our thoughts and feelings about ourselves physically, emotionally, socially, spiritually, and in terms of any other aspects that make up who we are. Self-concept also includes our knowledge of how we behave, our capabilities, and our individual characteristics. Our self-concept develops most rapidly during early childhood and adolescence, but self-concept continues to form and change over as we learn more about ourselves. The self-concept includes three components: 1) Self-image It is how we see ourselves but does not necessarily have to reflect (or coincide) with reality. (Indeed a person with anorexia who is thin may have a self-image in which the person believes they are fat.) A person's self-image is affected by many factors, such as parental influences, friends, the media, etc. Each individual’s self-image is a mixture of different attributes including our physical characteristics, social roles and personality traits. At a simple level, we might perceive ourselves as a good or bad person, beautiful or ugly. Self-image affects how a person thinks, feels and behaves in the world. 2) Self-worth Self-worth (also known as self-esteem) refers to the extent to which we like, accept or approve of ourselves, or how much we value ourselves. Rogers believed feelings of self-worth developed in early childhood and were formed from the interaction of the child with the mother and father. A number of factors can impact self- esteem, including how we compare ourselves to others and how others respond to us. When people respond positively to our behavior, we are more likely to develop positive self- esteem. When we compare ourselves to others and find ourselves lacking, it can have a negative impact on our self-esteem. High self-esteem tends to lead to Confidence in our own abilities Self-acceptance Not worrying about what others think Optimism Low self-esteem tends to lead to Lack of confidence Want to be/look like someone else Always worrying what others might think Pessimism  PREPARED BY: ESTRELLA L. RANAS 3) Ideal Self This is the person who we would like to be. This is how we wish we could be. It consists of our goals and ambitions in life, and is dynamic – i.e., forever changing. The ideal self in childhood is not the ideal self in our teens or late twenties etc. According to Rogers (1959), we want to feel, experience and behave in ways which are consistent with our self-image and which reflect what we would like to be like, our ideal- self. In many cases, the way we see ourselves and how we would like or wish to be do not quite match up. Congruence Where a person’s ideal self and actual experience are consistent or very similar, a state of congruence exists. Incongruence A person’s ideal self may not be consistent with what actually happens in the life and experiences of the person. Hence, a difference may exist between a person’s ideal self and actual experience. This is called incongruence. Here is how the three components of our self-concept interact with one another. The closer our self-image and ideal-self are to each other, the more consistent or congruent we are and the higher our sense of self-worth. If there is a mismatch between how you see yourself (e.g., your self-image) and what you’d like to be (e.g., your ideal-self) then this is likely to affect how much you value yourself. Rarely, if ever does a total state of congruence exist; all people experience a certain amount of incongruence. The development of congruence is dependent on unconditional positive regard. Roger’s believed that for a person to achieve self-actualization they must be in a state of congruence. References: McLeod, S. A. (2014, Febuary 05). Carl Rogers. Simply Psychology. https://www.simplypsychology.org/carl-rogers.html https://www.simplypsychology.org/self-concept.html Prepared by: Estrella L. Ranas – Psychology Department, CSSP, BulSU