Understanding The Self PDF

UNDERSTANDING THE SELF Part of man dwells in the world and yearns MODULE 1: to be divine while the other part is capable Course Description: The course deals with of immortality. The BODY dies and stays on the nature of identi...

UNDERSTANDING THE SELF Part of man dwells in the world and yearns MODULE 1: to be divine while the other part is capable Course Description: The course deals with of immortality. The BODY dies and stays on the nature of identity, as well as the factors earth while the SOUL lives eternally in and forces that affects the development and spiritual bliss with God. maintenance of personal identity. MODULE 2.2 MODERN PHILOSOPHY Unit 1: The Self From Various Perspective RENE DESCARTES Essential Properties vs. Accidental Renè Descartes is a famous philosopher Properties considered to be the founding father of ESSENTIAL PROPERTIES ‘modern’ philosophy. Core elements needed for a thing to be the The rise of Skepticism in the 17th Century, thing that it is. the period of Modern Philosophy, was found ACCIDENTAL PROPERTIES by Rene Descartes. Traits that could be taken away from an Skepticism object without making it a different thing. A Skeptic is a person who questions FUNGIBILITY whether anything can be known with is the property of being interchangeable certainty. with other objects of the same kind. As a Skeptic himself, Descartes had caused MODULE 2.1 himself to doubt everything. PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVE OF The act of thinking about self of being self THE SELF - conscious - is in itself proof that there is Ancient Philosophy self. PHILOSOPHY - Philosophy or the love of Descartes believed that the essence of the wisdom is the Academic study of the human self a thinking entity that doubts, fundamental nature of knowledge, reality understands, analyzes, questions, and and existence. It came to be understood reasons. more as a way of thinking about questions. Two distinct entities: (1) Cogito and (2) Extenza. BODY THEORY/ THE CONCEPT OF DUALISM “ Cogito, ergo sum” I think, therefore i am SOCRATES Every man is dualistic. A person’s self is comprised of two Parts, DAVID HUME The BODY and the SOUL. Along with the rise of skepticism, the rise of Empiricism also burst forth in the same BODY - The physical material of our self. period led by David Hume. SOUL - The immaterial part our self which Empiricism promotes that one can only contains our personal identity. know what comes from the senses and experiences. 3 COMPONENTS OF THE SOUL According to Hume, the self is nothing but PLATO a bundle of Impression and ideas. (Added to his teacher’s theory) the SOUL has 3 more underlying Components. Impression being the basic objects of our experiences or sensations that forms the core RATIONAL SOUL - Governs reason and of our thoughts while the ideas are copies of intellect. impression but not as real as impression. SPIRITED SOUL - manages the person’s Self is simply a bundle or collection of emotions. different perception, which succeed each APPETITIVE SOUL - which stores our other with an inconceivable rapidly and are base desires such as food, drinks, sleep, sex in a perceptual flux and movement. etc. The idea of personal identity is a result of imagination. Added Christianity to the idea “ There is no Self” ST. AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO I agree to the views of Plato but I will add Christianity to it. JOHN LOCKE Sociology is found by Auguste Comte in the 1800’s Father of Liberalism as he posited the It is the scientific study of society and theory of the mind or the memory theory. behavior. He believed that personal identity persists over time because you retain memories of Everything that you enjoy or like can be yourself at different points and each of those influenced by what you are exposed to as a memories is connected to the one before it. child, your neighborhood, your friends or He felt that the self is constructed what schools you went to. Society is primarily from sense experiences everywhere and gets to everything you might not expect which includes how you “The Self is Consciousness’’ perceive and develop yourself. MODULE 2.3 In the pre-modern society, they were focused Contemporary Philosophy on survival, family, traditions and cultures but in the modern society we are more REDUCTIVE PHYSICALISM fixated on the individual or his/her choices. Our “Self” and our Body are believed to be two not separate physical or metaphysical Anthony Giddens systems. a British sociologist, says that the key characteristics of modernity are PAUL CHURCHLAND Industrialism, Capitalism, Institution of The Self is the workings of the brain or Surveillance, and Dynamism. what we could call as the physiological state of the mind. George Simmel He believed that the brain affects the a society is comprised with different social mental as well as the emotional states of the groups. person and vice-versa. The ties that connect you and your social group is called Social Network;(1) Organic EPIPHENOMENALISM Group;(2) Rational Group Physical States can give rise to Mental States but Mental States can’t affect Physical States. SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE OF By this thinking, your beliefs, desires and THE SELF: Mead and the Social Self temperaments do exist but they have no power over anything physical about you. For George Herbert Mead instance, you may believe that you are a A sociologist from the late 1800 and is work of art and should be envied by all well-known for his Theory of Social Self. human kind but does not necessarily mean According to him, a multiple personality is that it manifests in reality in a certain sense normal. “The Self is a product of social MAURICE MERLEAU - PONTY interactions and internalizing views along “You first need to have a physical body with one’s personal view about one’s Self” and brain before you can create an Essence Self is not present at birth, rather, it (the element of being) that is you”. develops over time through social Body, the Self and Experiences are experiences and activities intertwined He believes that the Self is defined through Stages of Developing the Self: LPG perception and generally through experiences. LANGUAGE It just means that if all of your and others’ Through shared understanding of symbols, experiences contributes to the person that is gestures and sound. you or what others might think that is you. Language gives the individual the capacity MODULE 3.1 and 3.2 to express himself/herself while at the same SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE OF time comprehend what other people are THE SELF: BACKGROUND conveying. Auguste Comte PLAY EXPLICIT the stage where the individual role play or the aspect of the self that you are assume the perspective of other which consciously aware of. enables them to internalize some other people’s perspective. IMPLICIT is the aspect of the self that is not GAME immediately available to the consciousness. the level where the individual not only internalizes the perspective of other people Katherine Ewing but also able to take into account social rules an associate professor of cultural and adheres to it. The child no longer plays anthropology and religion. with roles but begins to consider several She claimed that the Self is just an illusion tasks and relationships simultaneously. rather, just a representation Accordingly, Self-representation are based on selected cultural concepts of person and George Herbert Mead selected chains of personal memories. Mead sees the person as an active process, She added that, People from different not just a mere reflection of society. cultures have been observed to be able to The reason for this is that he proposed two rapidly project different self-representations interactive facets of the Self, the “I” and depending on the context of situation. “Me”. In Anthropology, how individuals see Two interactive facets of the Self, the “I” themselves, relate to other people and how and “Me” they relate with their environment are deeply defined by culture. ME is the product of what the person has Richard Shweder learned while interacting with others and an American Anthropologist said that with the environment. It includes learned cultural traditions and social practices behaviors, attitudes and even expectations regulate, express and transform the Human Psyche. I He suggests that people from different is the part of the self that is unsocialized societies thinks, act and feel differently and and spontaneous. It represents the that our so-called Self is deeply embedded in individual’s impulses and drives. It enables our culture. The reason for this is that we him or her to express individualism and have various Construals. creativity. MODULE 4 : Anthropological Cultural Psychologists distinguished two Perspective of the Self: Me and my ways on how the self is constructed, Culture Independent and Interdependent. ANTHROPOLOGY Independent Construct is the scientific study of people in the past characterized by individualistic culture, and in the present. such as North America and Europe. It it focuses on the understanding of the represents the self as separate, distinct and human condition on its cultural aspect. with emphasis on internal attributes, skills It is also concerned with understanding and values. how humans evolved and how they differ from one another. Interdependent Construct it is typical of the collectivist culture in Joseph Ledoux East Asia stressing the essential connection a neuroscientist, conceptualized the between the individual and to other people. Implicit and Explicit aspects of the Self. he believes that the self is not static Catherine Raeff a developmental psychologist who believes that culture can influence how you view relationships, personality traits and expressing emotions. SENSORIMOTOR STAGE (AGES 0 TO 2 YEAR OLD) Culture influences how you enter and maintain; relationships children go through a period of dramatic Culture influences whether and how you growth and learning. As kids interact with value personality traits their environment, they are continually Culture influences how you define success making new discoveries about how the and whether you value certain individual world works through their senses. and group achievements Piaget believed that developing object Culture influences what will affect you permanence or object constancy, the emotionally, as well as how you express understanding that objects continue to exist yourself. even when they cannot be seen. MODULE 4: PSYCHOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE OF THE SELF: PREOPERATIONAL STAGE (AGE 2 BACKGROUND TO 7) At this stage, they often struggle with PSYCHOLOGY understanding the idea of constancy or The word Psychology comes from the conservation. words “Logos” which means to study and It is marked as the stage of Egocentrism “Psyche” which means the soul which drives most of what the kid thinks and the science of behavior and mental say. processes CONCRETE OPERATIONAL STAGE DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY (AGES 7 TO 11 YEARS OLD) The Study of our physical, cognitive, children are still very concrete and literal social and emotional changes throughout our in their thinking at this point in whole lives from prenatal to preteen to post- development, they become much more adept retirement at using logic. begin to understand that their As we age, we tend to follow a sequence thoughts are unique to them and that not of change in our behavior and appearance everyone else necessarily shares their called Maturation thoughts, feelings, and opinions. COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT FORMAL OPERATIONAL STAGE How we learned to think, know, remember, (AGE 11 YEARS AND ABOVE) and communicate The final stage of Piaget's theory involves an increase in logic, the ability to use JEAN PIAGET deductive reasoning, and an understanding One of the Pioneer who talked about of abstract ideas. Cognitive Development. He theorized that humans go through PSYCHOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE OF specific stages of cognitive development and THE SELF: UNITY OF SELF intellectual progression. He tried to answer the question, how does DR. SUSAN HARTER knowledge grow? Psychologist, author and professor. She He proposed that as we mature we create detailed the emergence of self - concept and Schemas. Schemas, mental frameworks that asserted that the broad development changes help interpret information. observed across early childhood, later Piaget proposed that we adapt to new childhood and adolescence could be experiences through two processes call interpreted through Piagetian Framework. Assimilation and Accommodation. When According to Harter, a sense of self-worth we Integrate our experiences we interpret is both a cognitive and social construction. them in terms of our existing Schemas. she developed the 4 Stages of Self- Development. FOUR STAGE OF SELF DEVELOPMENT EARLY CHILDHOOD (2-6 Y/O)  Gender and age appear to be the first Accordingly, all behaviors are motivated characteristics applied to the self. by self-actualizing tendencies which drives At this stage, the child describes the self in you to reach your full potential. terms of concrete, observable characteristics Rogers emphasized that achieving such as attributes, Material Possession, and consistency between the ideal self and real preferences self is imperative. The Alignment of both ideal and real self which is called MIDDLE TO LATER CHILDHOOD Congruence will give an individual a greater (7-11 Y/O) sense of self-worth and healthy, productive the second stage, is described as the stage life. where the self is defined with trait-like constructs, that would require the type of TWO CATEGORIES OF SELF hierarchal organizational skills characteristic of logical thought development. IDEAL SELF Children at this age also become more the person you would like your Self to be or adept at taking the perspective of the what you perceive as the best version of you. generalized other and to see themselves It could be influenced by the; from other people’s point of view. social (1) notion influenced by your parents, comparison processes also become more (2) what you admire from others, influential at this stage of life. (3) What society sees as acceptable and (4) What you think is in your best interest. ADOLESCENCE (!2-18 Y/O) Adolescents define themselves in abstract REAL SELF qualities that emphasize their perceived the person you actually are. It is how you emotions and psychological characteristics behave right at the moment of the situation. It is who you are in reality – how EMERGING ADULTS (AGES 18 YEARS you think, feel or act at the present. OLD AND ABOVE) is marked for having the characteristic of PSYCHOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE OF having a vision of a “possible self” it is the THE SELF: SELF OR SELVES “age of possibilities”. GORDON ALLPORT WILLIAM JAMES The notion of having multiple self may be The Father of American Psychology rooted on Gordon Allport’s Theory of Accordingly, the self has two elements: the Personality Trait. “I” and “Me”. According to Allport, a “trait” is your essential characteristic that never, ever “I” changes and stick with you all your life. refers to our awareness that we are a Allport recognizes that some traits are more distinct and unified entity, continuous over closely tied to the Proprium than others. time, and capable of willful action. CENTRAL TRAITS “ME” the building blocks of your personality refers to our more specific ideas about what we are like. These ideas include beliefs SECONDARY TRAITS about our physical appearance, social roles ones that aren’t quite so obvious, or so and relationships, tastes, habits, values, and general, or so consistent. personality characteristics. CARDINAL TRAITS CARL ROGERS These are the traits that some people have American psychologist and among the which practically define their life. founders of humanistic approach to psychology. The Concept of the Unity of Consciousness He coined the term actualizing tendency posits that we are conscious not only of which refers to a person’s basic instinct to single experience but of a great many succeed at his or her highest possible experiences at the time capacity. ERIC BERNE in and constantly needing to adjust your Father of the Transactional Analysis Model behavior to adapt to the social situation. Accordingly, every person’s personality has three parts called ego states and that people communicate to one another assuming roles of any of these ego states TRANSACTIONAL ANALYSIS MODEL Transaction Stimulus - when two people encounter each other, one of them will speak to the other. Transaction Response - The reaction from the other person he called Agent - The person sending the Stimulus. Respondent - The person who responds EGO STATES Parent – ingrained voice of authority, absorbed conditioning, learning and attitudes when we were young. Child – our internal reaction and feelings to external events. Adult – our ability to think and determine actions for ourselves GREGG HENRIQUE He proposed that the Self, despite being a unit, has three related but separable domains. 1.Experiential Self 2.Private Self 3.Public Self / Persona DONALD WOODS WINNICOTT British Psychoanalyst, says that the Self is simply the person that is Me. He suggested that there is a “Self” inside of our self. He called our inner Self as “True Self” , outer layer that protecrs it is “False Self” FALSE SELF built to defend the core from these realities and prevent it from any changes. it can be both helpful and destructive TRUE SELF is the inner part of the self that is based on spontaneous authentic experience, the inner core of the self that encases the person that you truly are. HEALTHY FALSE SELF can still function both as an individual and in society. UNHEALTHY FALSE SELF may seem happy and comfortable in your environment but actually feels forced to fit