Understanding the Self and Wellbeing: Key Terms and Concepts

A set of vocabulary-style flashcards covering key wellbeing concepts, self theories, and related frameworks from the lecture notes.

Wellbeing

A positive state experienced by individuals and societies. It is also serving as a resource for daily life and shaped by social, economic, and environmental conditions.

Physical Dimension

This consists of everything that helps support keeping our physical bodies whole and functioning well.

Emotional Dimension

This involves recognizing, expressing, and managing emotions in healthy, constructive ways.

Intellectual Dimension

Also known as the lifelong learning dimension, it encourages continuous mental stimulation, growth, and curiosity.

Spiritual Dimension

It relates to finding deeper meaning, purpose, and connection in life.

Environmental Dimension

It emphasizes the importance of the spaces where we live, work, and play, as well as how we interact with the natural world.

Social Dimension

It is about cultivating meaningful, supportive relationships and maintaining a sense of connection with others.

Occupational Dimension

Finding fulfillment and balance in work, pursuing meaningful roles aligned with values and strengths.

Positive Emotions

a multifaceted aspect of human flourishing that extends much further than mere happiness.

Engagement

This is characterized as being concentrated and deeply engrossed in one’s tasks, fostering a sense of investment and involvement that drives productivity and promotes well being.

Relationship

Being authentically connected to others, cultivating mutual respect, understanding, and empathy.

Meaning

It signifies the thoughtful understanding of one’s life narrative, affirming of life’s worth, and one’s pursuits in life that provide a greater sense of coherence, purpose, and significance.

Accomplishment

It embodies the relish of undertaking challenges, the persistence to keep moving forward despite setbacks, the resilience to recover from failures, and the exhilaration of realizing personal or shared ambitions.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

It is a motivational theory in psychology comprising a five-tier model of human needs

Self-Care

The ability to promote health, prevent disease, maintain health, and cope with illness, with or without professional help.

SMART Criteria

Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound goals used for effective planning.

The Self

A distinct, private center of experience that is consistent, unitary, and separate from other selves.

Moi (Mauss)

The individual's sense of their own body, identity, and biological givenness.

Personne (Mauss)

The social concepts of what it means to be who one is, i.e., social identity.

Mead: I

The subjective, active, spontaneous, and unique part.

Mead: Preparatory Stage

(0–3 years) Children imitate others; no real sense of self yet.

Mead: Play Stage

(3–5 years) Children use language and symbols, imitate specific others, and begin to form self.

Mead: Game Stage

(early school years) Children understand social positions and generalized others; self is present.

Johari Window

A tool for self-awareness and communication with four quadrants (open, hidden, blind, unknown).

Looking-Glass Self

Cooley's idea that the people whom a person interacts with become a mirror in which he or she views himself or herself.

Charles Horton Cooley

Sociologist who emphasized the influence of primary groups on values and personality; introduced the looking-glass self.

Birth Order Theory (Adler)

A child’s position in the family (oldest, middle, youngest, only) influences personality and development.

Oldest Child

Tends to be highly responsible, high achiever, self-reliant, traditional, and may take leadership roles.

Middle Child

Often independent, sociable, peacekeeper, and may seek identity outside the family.

Youngest Child

Often sociable, creative, and desire attention; may seek freedom and expressiveness.

Only Child

Receives strong parental attention, tends toward maturity and high achievement, but may face shared challenges like reduced sharing.

Western Self (Geertz)

A bounded, autonomous, and individualistic self, analytic and rational in orientation.

Eastern Self (Hinduism/Buddhism/Confucianism/Taoism)

Self concepts emphasize relationality, community, and harmony with nature or ultimate reality, often interdependent rather than strictly autonomous.

Mead: Me

The objective, socialized part that internalizes others’ expectations.

Nature

The genetic inheritance (sets individual’s potentials).

Nurture

The sociocultural environment.

Edward Tylor

He emphasized that culture is learned, shared, and passed down across generations.

Culture

Shared understandings that guide and are expressed in behavior.

Martin Sökefeld

He stated that self complements culture and should be regarded as a human universal.

Identity

It is understood as a disposition of basic personality features acquired mostly during childhood and, once integrated, more or less fixed.

Egocentric

Self is seen as autonomous and distinct.

Sociocentric

Self is contingent on a situation or social setting.

Identity Toolbox

It is used to construct our social identity.

Separation

People detach from their former identity to another.

Liminality

A person transitions from one identity to another.

Incorporation

Change in one’s status is officially incorporated.

“Illusion of Wholeness”

self is constantly reconstituted.

William James

Father of American Psychology

I-Self

It refers to the self that knows who he or she is which is also called the thinking self.

Me-Self

It is is the empirical self which refers to the person's personal experiences.

Material Self

It attributed to an individual's physical attributes and material possessions that contribute to one's self-image.

Social Self

It refers to who a person is and how he or she acts in social situations; people have different social selves depending on the context.

Spiritual Self

The most intimate and important part of the self that includes the person's purpose, core values, conscience, and moral behavior.

Carl Rogers

He defined the self as a flexible perception of personal identity

Real Self

It is all the ideas, including the awareness of what one is and what one can do.

Ideal Self

It is the person’s conception of what one should be or aspires to be; includes goals and ambitions

Donald Winnicott

He was known for his work on child development and the parent-child relationship. He also introduced the concepts of True Self and False Self.

True Self

The authentic personality.

False Self

It hides and protects the true self.

Albert Bandura

He proposed that humans are proactive agents of their development.

Intentionality

acts done intentionally; plans of action with anticipated outcomes.

Forethought

anticipating consequences actions.

Self-Reactiveness

making of choices, motivating, regulating actions.

Self-Reflectiveness

reflecting on thoughts and actions.

Self-Efficacy

belief in one’s capability to perform a task.

Carl Jung

Founder of Analytical Psychology.

Carl Jung

He focused on integrating all parts of the psyche, with the Self as the central archetype.

Persona

social roles presented to others.

Shadow

repressed, socially unacceptable thoughts.

Anima

feminine side of male psyche

Animus

masculine side of female psyche

Self

central archetype uniting all parts of the psyche.

Maslow

He made the comprising five tier model

Self Actualization

The desire to become the most that one can be

Esteem

Respect, self esteem, status, recognition, strength, freedom

Love and Belonging

Friendship, family, sense of connection

Safety Needs

Personal Security, employment, resources, health

Physiological Needs

Air, water, food, shelter, sleep, clothing

The self is Seperate

It is meant that the self is distinct from other selves.

The self is Self-contained and Independent

It is self-contained with its own thoughts, characteristics, and volition.

The self is Consistent

Has a personality that is enduring.

The self is Unitary

It is the center of all experiences and thoughts that run through a certain person.

The self is Private

Each person sorts out information, feelings and emotions, and thought processes within the self.

Socrates

An Unexamined Life is Not Worth Living

Plato

The Self is an Immortal Soul

Aristotle

The Soul is the Essence of the Self

St. Augustine

The Self has an Immortal Soul

René Descartes

I Think Therefore I Am

John Locke

The Self is Consciousness

David Hume

There is No Self

Immanuel Kant

We Construct the Self

Sigmund Freud

The Self is Multilayered

Gilbert Ryle

The Self is the Way People Behave

Paul Churchland

The Self is the Brain

Maurice Merleau-Ponty

The Self is Embodied Subjectivity