1st Year - Understanding The Self, Midterms

Understanding oneself

essential to understand behaviors and beliefs that affects ourselves and others specifically in becoming effective and successful person in life, work, and relationship. Moreover, self-understanding

Understanding oneself

provides a sense of purpose

leads to healthier relationships

Understanding oneself

helps harness your natural strength

promotes confidence

"persona"

etymological derivative of personality

theatrical masks worn by Romans in Greek and Latin drama.

"per" and "sonare"

Personality also comes from the two Latin words which literally means "to sound through".

Personality

have no single definition since different personality theories have different views on how to define it

plays a key role in affecting how people shape their lives

Personality

the overall pattern or integration of a person's structure, modes of behavior, attitudes, aptitudes, interests, intellectual abilities, and many other distinguishable personality traits.

Personality

the conglomeration of the following components: physical self, intelligence, character traits, attitudes, habits, interest, personal discipline, moral values, principles and philosophies of life.

Personality

refers to the total person in his/her overt and covert behavior

Environmental Factors of Personality.

The surroundings of an individual compose the environmental factors of personality. This includes the neighborhood a person lives in, his school, college, university and workplace.

Moreover, it also counts the social circle the individual has. Friends, parents, colleagues, co-workers and bosses, everybody plays a role as the determinants of personality.

hereditary factors

genetic make-up of the person that inherited from their parents.

physical features

include the overall physical structure of a person: height, weight, color, sex, beauty and body language, etc.

brain

The preliminary results from the electrical stimulation of the brain (ESB) research gives indication that better understanding of human personality and behavior might come from the study of ___________________?

Situational Factors of Personality

Although these factors do not literally create and shape up an individual's personality, they do alter a person's behavior and response from time to time.

Culture

traditionally considered as the major determinants of an individual's personality

largely determinants what a person is and what a person will learn

Personality traits

reflect people's characteristic patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.

imply consistency and stability—someone who scores high on a specific trait

Extraversion

expected to be sociable in different situations and over time

Five-Factor Model

most widely used system of traits

can be divided into facets to give a more fine-grained analysis of someone's personality

This system includes five broad traits that can be remembered with the acronym OCEAN: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism

Openness

The tendency to appreciate new art, ideas, values, feelings, and behaviors.

Conscientiousness

The tendency to be careful, on-time for appointments, to follow rules, and to be hard working.

Extraversion

The tendency to be talkative, sociable, and to enjoy others; the tendency to have a dominant style.

Agreeableness

The tendency to agree and go along with others rather than to assert one owns opinions and choices.

Neurotism

The tendency to be frequently experience negative emotions such as anger, worry, and sadness, as well as being itnerpersonally sensitive.

self-concept

Understanding of who you are as a person

self-understanding

understanding what your motives are when you act

self-concept

generally thought of as our individual perceptions of our behavior, abilities, and unique characteristicss—a mental picture of who you are as a person

tends to be more malleable when people are younger

individual self

consists of attributes and personality traits that differentiate us from other individuals

relational self

defined by our relationships with significant others. Examples include siblings, friends, and spouses.

collective self

reflects our membership in social groups. Examples include British, Republican, African-American, or gay.

self-concept

At its most basic is a collection of beliefs one holds about oneself and the responses of others. It embodies the answer to the question "Who am I

Philosophy

defined as the study of knowledge or wisdom

This field is also considered as "The Queen of All Sciences" because every scientific discipline has philosophical foundations

philo (love) and sophia (wisdom)

Latin roots of philosophy

The Greek philosophers

the ones who seriously questioned myths and moved away from them in attempting to understand reality by exercising the art of questioning that satisfies their curiosity, including the questions about self.

Socrates

A philosopher from Athens, Greece and said to have the greatest influence on European thought.

According to the history he was not able to write any of his teachings and life's account instead, he is known from the writings of his student Plato who became one of the greatest philosophers of his time

Socratic Method

Socrates had a unique style of asking questions called?

involves the search for the correct/proper definition of a thing

he did not lecture, he instead would ask questions and engage the person in a discussion. He would begin by acting as if he did not know anything and would get the other person to clarify their ideas and resolve logical inconsistencies

Delphic Oracle's

foundation of Socrates philosophy

command to "Know Thyself"

self is dichotomous

According to Socrates, self is?

The physical realm

the one that is changeable, temporal, and imperfect

consisting of anything we sense - see, smell, feel, hear, and taste. It is always changing and deteriorating.

The ideal realm

the one that is imperfect and unchanging, eternal, and immortal. This includes the intellectual essences of the universe like the concept of beauty, truth, and goodness.

body and soul

For Socrates, a human is composed of?

the immortal and unified entity

The self, according to Socrates is ______________________ that is consistent over time

Plato

A student of Socrates, who introduced the idea of a three- part soul/self that is composed of reason, physical appetite and spirit or passion

The Reason

enables human to think deeply, make wise choices and achieve a true understanding of eternal truths.

Plato also called this as divine essence.

organize, control, and reestablish harmonious relationship between these three elements

The physical Appetite

the basic biological needs of human being such as hunger, thirst, and sexual desire.

the spirit or passion

the basic emotions of human being such as love, anger, ambition, aggressiveness and empathy.

"Phaedrus"

Plato also illustrated his view of the soul/self in ____________

St. Augustine

He is considered as the last of the great ancient philosophers whose ideas were greatly Platonic

Christianity's first theologian

God as the source of all reality and truth

The sinfulness of man

According to St. Augustine, the human nature is composed of two realms, namely?

Rene Descartes

A French philosopher, mathematician, and considered the founder of modern philosophy.

"cogito, ergo sum—"I think, therefore I exist"

Doubting

makes someone aware that they are thinking being thus, they exist.

Rene Descartes

He also maintained that the soul and the body are independent of one another and each can exist and function without the other.

John Locke

The self, according to him is consciousness

David Hume

His claim about self is quite controversial because he assumed that there is no self! In his essay entitled, "On Personal Identity" (1739) he said that, if we carefully examine the contents of [our] experience, we find that there are only two distinct entities, "impressions" and "ideas".

He was a Scottish philosopher and also an empiricist

Impressions

the basic sensations of our experience, the elemental data of our minds: pain, pleasure, heat, cold, happiness, grief, fear, exhilaration, and so on

ideas

copies of impressions that include thoughts and images that are built up from our primary impressions through a variety of relationships, but because they are derivative copies of impressions, they are once removed from reality.

Sigmund Freud

Father and Founder of Psychoanalysis

Sigmund Freud

had a dualistic view of self

conscious self

governed by reality principle

unconscious self

governed by pleasure principle

Id

This is primarily based on the pleasure principle. It demands immediate satisfaction and is not hindered by societal expectations.

Ego

primarily based on the reality principle. This mediates between the impulses of the id and restraints of the superego

Superego

primarily dependent on learning the difference between right and wrong, thus it is called moral principle

eros

called libido and includes urges necessary for individual and species survival like thrist, hunger, and sex

thanatos

human behaior is directed towards destruction in the form of aggression and violence

Gilbert Ryle

According to him, the self is best understood as a pattern of behavior

opposed the notable ideas of the previous philosophers

category mistake

happens when we speak about the self as something independent of the physical body: a purely mental entity existing in time but not space

Immanuel Kant

the self is the product of reason

regarded as the greatest philosopher of the modern period

maintained that an individual self makes the experience of the world comprehensible

Transcendental apperception

happens when people do not experience self directly, instead as a unity of all impressions that are organized by the mind through perceptions.

Patricia Churchland

claimed that man's brain is responsible for the identity known as self. The biochemical properties of the brain according to this philosophy of neuroscience is really responsible for man's thoughts, feelings, and behavior.

Paul Churchland

is one of the many philosophers and psychologists that viewed the self from a materialistic point of view

Maurice Merleau-Ponty

He took a very different approach to the self and the mind/body "problem." According to him, the division between the "mind" and the "body" is a product of confused thinking

the world and the sense of self are emergent phenomena in the ongoing process of man's becoming.

Perception

not purely the result of sensations nor it is purely interpretations

consciousness

process that includes sensing as well as interpreting/reasoning

Sociology and Anthropology

two interrelated disciplines that contributes to the understanding of self

Sociology

presents the self as a product of modern society

science that studies the development, structure, interaction, and collective behavior of human being

Anthropology

study of humanity

looking at human culture, both past and present

George Herbert Mead

He postulated that, the self represents the sum total of people's conscious perception of their identity as distinct from others

He proposed the stages of self formatio

Preparatory Stage

Mead believed that the self did not exist at birth. Instead, the self develops over time. At this stage, children's behaviors are primarily based on imitation

The Play Stage

Skills at knowing and understanding the symbols of communication is important for this constitutes the basis of socialization

is significant in the development of the self. It is at this stage where child widens his perspective and realizes that he is not alone and that there are others around him whose presence he has to consider

The Game Stage

Here, the child is about eight or nine years of age and now does more than just role-take. The child begins to consider several tasks and various types of relationships simultaneously

Georg Simmel

proposed that there is something called human nature that is innate to the individual.

individual or subjective culture

refers to the ability to embrace, use, and feel culture

Objective culture

made up of elements that become separated from the individual or group's control and identified as separate objects

Urbanization

process that moves people from country to city living

Archeology

Focus on the study of the past and how it may have contributed to the present ways of how people conduct their daily lives

Biological Anthropology

Focus on how the human body adapts to the different earth environments.

Linguistic Anthropology

Focused on using language as means to discover a group's manner of social interaction and their worldview.

Cultural Anthropology

Focused in knowing what makes one group's manner of living forms an essential part of the member's personal and societal identity

Symbols

These are the words, gestures, pictures or objects that have recognized or accepted meaning in a particular culture

Heroes

These are persons from the past or present who have characteristics that are important in culture

Rituals

These are activities participated by a group of people for the fulfilment of desired objectives and are concerned to be socially essential

Values

considered to be the core of every culture. These are unconscious, neither discuss or observed, and can only be inferred from the way people act and react to situations

Clifford Geertz

an Anthropology Professor at the University of Chicago.

He studied different cultures and explored on the conception of the self in his writings entitled, "The Impact of the Concept of Culture on the Concept of Man" (1966) in his fieldwork at Java, Bali and Morrocco.

the social domain

the ability of the person to interact with others

the competence domain

the ability to meet the basic needs

the affect domain

the awareness of the emotional states

the physical domain

feelings about looks, health, physical condition, and overall appearance

academic domain

the success or failure in the school

family domain

how well one function within the family unit

William James

made a clear distinction between ways of approaching the self - the knower (the pure or the I - Self) and the known (the objective or the Me - Self).