Self-Understanding and Digital Self Notes

Physical Self

  • Self-Understanding: An individual's cognitive representation of the self, encompassing the substance and content of self-conceptions.
  • Physical Self: Refers to the concrete dimensions of the body and tangible aspects of a person.
  • Physical Characteristics: Defining traits or features of a person’s body that can be directly seen or observed, such as facial features, body structure, or clothing.

Adolescence

  • Adolescence: The transitional period between puberty and adulthood.
  • **Three Periods of Adolescence:
    *Early Adolescence*: 11 to 14 years old.
    *Middle Adolescence*: 15 to 17 years old.
    *Late Adolescence*: 18 to 21 years old.
  • Puberty: The most essential marker of the beginning of adolescence.

Body Image

  • Body Image: The way one perceives their own body, which can be either positive or negative.
    • Negative Body Image: Characterized by poor self-perception and negative thoughts and feelings about one's appearance.
    • Positive Body Image: Characterized by a healthy self-perception, positive thoughts, feelings, and acceptance of one’s body and physical appearance.
  • Imaginary Audience: An egocentric state where an individual believes that many people are actively listening to or watching them.
    • Also known as the "spotlight effect" in social psychology.
    • Reflects the belief that others are paying more attention to the person’s physical appearance and behavior than they really are.

Factors Affecting Perception of the Physical Self

1. Personal Factors

  • Introspection and Self-Reflection: The process of observing and examining one's internal state after behaving in a certain way.
  • Self-Perception Theory: People infer their inner states by observing their own behavior, especially when their internal state is difficult to interpret.
  • Self-Concept: A cognitive representation of self-knowledge, including all beliefs that people have about themselves, such as characteristics, social roles, values, goals, and fears.
  • Personal Identity: A person's concept of themselves that develops over the years, including aspects such as family, gender, nationality, and physical traits.

2. Social Factors

  • Attachment Process and Social Appraisal: People learn about their value and lovability through the care they receive from their mothers or caregivers.
    • Consistent and responsive caregiving promotes a positive self-concept.
    • Neglectful caregiving leads to a negative self-concept.
  • Maintaining Relationships: The sense of self is shaped through interaction with others.
  • Looking-Glass Self Theory: A person’s self grows out of society’s interpersonal interactions and the perception of others.
    • One’s view of themselves is a product of the impressions and opinions of other people.
  • Social Comparison: Understanding oneself by comparing one’s traits and abilities to others.
    • Upward Social Comparison: Comparing oneself to others who are better. Example: Comparing your exam score to a friend who got a higher score.
    • Downward Social Comparison: Comparing oneself to others who are worse off, providing a sense of superiority. Example: Comparing your score to someone who has a lower score.
  • Social Identity Theory: People achieve understanding about themselves by being a member of their group.

Impact of Culture on Body Image and Self-Esteem

  • Culture: A social system characterized by shared meanings attributed to people and events by its members.
  • Individuals may feel compelled to conform to societal standards of beauty, leading to insecurity and the alteration of their appearance.
  • Standards of beauty vary greatly from one individual to another.
  • Social media plays a significant role in dictating what beauty is, which can be harmful as people start to base their concept of beauty on what they see online without considering other aspects of a person that define their unique beauty.

The Filipino Concept of Beauty

  • Eurocentrism: Interpreting the world in terms of European values and experiences.
  • Filipinos with fair skin are often favored, leading to a negative body image for those with darker skin tones.
  • Fair skin is associated with beauty, health, and wealth and seen as more desirable because it is closer to looking Caucasian.
  • Mass media often promotes fair-skinned Filipinos as the standard of beauty.

Self-Esteem and Body Image

  • Self-Esteem: Overall evaluation that a person has of themselves, which can be positive or negative. It is the measure of the person’s self-worth based on some personal or social standard.

The Sexual Self

Theory of Sigmund Freud

  • Freud believed that adult personality problems result from early life experiences.
  • Psychosexual development occurs in five stages where pleasure is experienced in one part of the body more than in others.
  • Erogenous zones are parts of the body that have strong pleasure-giving qualities at particular stages of development.
  • Fixation is a psychoanalytic defense mechanism where the individual remains locked in an earlier developmental stage because needs are under- or over-gratified.

Stages of Psychosexual Development

  • 1. Oral Stage (Birth to 18 Months):
    • Erogenous zone: Mouth.
    • Gratification through eating and sucking.
  • 2. Anal Stage (18 months to 3 years old):
    • Erogenous zone: Anus.
    • Sexual gratification derived from defecation.
  • 3. Phallic Stage:
    • Erogenous zone: Genitals.
    • Experiences sexual attraction towards the opposite-sex parent.
      • Oedipus complex: Sexual attraction of the boy child toward the mother.
      • Electra complex: Sexual attraction of the girl toward the father.
  • 4. Latency Stage:
    • Sexual impulses lie dormant as the child is occupied by social activities.
  • 5. Genital Stage:
    • Erogenous zone: Genitals.
    • Sexual attraction directed towards others, usually of the opposite sex.

Psychoanalytic Theory

  • Ego: The reality principle.
  • Id: The pleasure principle, seeking immediate gratification.
  • Superego: The morality principle.

Religious Views on Sexuality

  • Religious Judaism: Views marital sex positively as sacred, pleasurable, and fostering spiritual connection.
  • Taoism: Sees sex as natural, healthy, and a sacred union vital for physical, mental, and spiritual well-being.
  • Hinduism: Considers sexuality a means of balancing male and female energies, with ritualistic intercourse a way to celebrate and elevate the physical aspect.
  • Roman Catholic Church: Considers marriage solely for procreation and believes spouses should engage in sexual relations only for reproduction.
  • Islam: Permits sex only within marriage. Muslim men may have up to four wives, while Muslim women are limited to one husband. Extramarital sex is forbidden.

The Phases of Human Sexual Response (Masters and Johnson)

  • Excitement Phase: The body's initial physical response to sexual arousal.
    • Characterized by an increase in heart rate and blood pressure.
  • Plateau Phase: The period of sexual excitement prior to orgasm.
    • Characterized by intensification of the changes begun during the excitement phase.
  • Orgasm Phase: Waves of intense pleasure.
    • Associated with vaginal contractions in females and ejaculation in males.
  • Resolution Phase: The body returns to its non-excited state.

Different Views About Sexual Response

  • Rasenthal (2013): Included the "desire" stage prior to excitement, which is the drive or motivation to engage in sexual activities.
  • The Triaphasic Model of Sexual Response (Helen Singer Kaplan): Composed of sexual desire, excitement, and orgasm.
  • The Erotic Stimulus Pathway Theory (David Reed): Focuses on psychosocial aspects of sexual response.
    • Four Stages:
      • Seduction: Actions that enhance attractiveness.
      • Sensation: Senses that affect arousal.
      • Surrender: Orgasm.
      • Reflection: A perspective about sexual experience.

The Chemistry of Lust, Love, and Attachment

  • Attraction: A characteristic that causes pleasure or interest by appealing to a person's desire or taste and causes one to be drawn to the other.
  • Love as Emotion or Drive: Love is like a craving, not just a feeling.
    • The brain lights up when seeing a loved one (fMRI study).
    • Dopamine system = pleasure, motivation (Fisher et al., 2006).
    • Love motivates us to be with someone, even if emotions change.
  • Three Phases of Romantic Love (Fisher, 1998):
    • 1. Lust Stage: Intense craving for sexual contact (estrogen and androgen pheromones and the senses).
    • 2. Attraction Phase: Couples are infatuated and pursue a relationship. Energy and attention are focused on one particular person.
    • 3. Attachment Phase: A long-term bond between partners, involving feelings of security, comfort, and emotional union.

John Lee's Love Styles

*   **Eros**: Strong sexual and emotional components. Romantic and passionate love emphasizes physical attraction and sexual desire.
*   **Agape**: Unselfish or selfless love, where the person shows love without expecting anything in return.
*   **Storge**: Love related to friendship, involving non-sexual affection.
*   **Lubus**: Love is just a game; lovers do not experience jealousy and avoid commitment.
*   **Mania**: Characterized by intense feelings that can lead to obsessive or possessive love and jealousy.
*   **Pragma**: Practical and business-like love, based on what is appropriate.

The Triangular Theory of Love (Robert Sternberg)

  • Love is made up of three components:
    1. Intimacy: Desire to give and receive emotional closeness, support, caring, and sharing.
    2. Passion: Hot component of love, intensely romantic or sexual desire for another person, accompanied by physical attraction and physiological arousal.
    3. Commitment: Cold component of love, the decision to maintain the relationship through good times and bad times.
  • Sternberg also described several types of love based on the above components:
    1. Liking (intimacy): Only emotional intimacy; no passionate intention for long-term commitment. Just a friendly relationship.
    2. Infatuation (passion): High physiological arousal; passion without intimacy or commitment. Usually called “love at first sight” and may fade quickly.
    3. Empty love (commitment): Only commitment; no intimacy and passion. Couples stay together for their children or other reasons.
    4. Romantic love (passion & intimacy): Combination of passion & intimacy; present during the first phase of a relationship. Characterized by emotional intensity and sexual excitement. The experience of passionate love may be positive and negative.
    5. Companionate (intimacy & commitment): Intimacy and commitment are experienced in long, deeply committed friendships or marriages where passion has faded. More durable than romantic love and may grow over time.
    6. Fatuous Love (passion & commitment): Passion and commitment are experienced by a couple who spent a short time in courtship and suddenly decided to get married.
    7. Consummate Love (passion, intimacy & commitment): Healthy balance of passion, intimacy, and commitment shared by couples considered ideal for each other.

Political and Digital Self

  • Politics: From the Greek word "Politika," meaning "Affairs of the cities."
  • The process of making decisions for a group, involving governance and control over a community, state, or nation.
  • Your Political Self: Your power to influence.
    • Your ability to influence others.
    • Involves opinions, decisions, and actions.
    • Reflected in voting, leading, and advocacy.
    • Emerges in daily experiences.

Types of Social Influence (Deutsch & Gerard, 1955)

*   **Normative Influence**: Conforming to social expectations; avoiding rejection or disapproval.
*   **Informational Influence**: Accepting others’ information as truth; trusting the group’s knowledge.

Types of Leaders

*   **Transformational Leaders**: Inspire with vision and motivation; put group above self-interest.
*   **Transactional Leaders**: Exchange-based: reward for performance; maintain order and results.
*   **Laissez-Faire Leaders**: Passive; avoid responsibility; often absent in decision-making.

Why Politics is Personal

*   Politics is present in Daily Life in the: Family, School, Social Media and Nation.

Open Space Technology (OST)

  • An approach to purpose-driven leadership with no formal agenda at the start

OST’s Four Guiding Principles

*   **“Whoever comes are the right people”**: whoever joins is meant to be there.
*   **“Whatever happens is the only thing that could have happened”**: What happens is what’s meant to happen.
*   **“Whenever it starts is the right time”**: No one is late; it starts when it starts.
*   **“When it’s over, it’s over”**: No need to drag it out; when it ends, it ends.

The law of two feet

*   When you find yourself neither learning nor contributing, use your two feet and go to some more productive places
  • Two Roles in OST:
    • Bumble Bees: Move from group to group, sharing ideas.
    • Butterflies: Sit quietly but can spark new conversations.

What Makes Us Filipino?

Developing a Filipino Identity: Values, Traits, Community and Institutional Factors

*   **Pakikipagkapwa-tao (Shared Humanity)**

Seeing everyone as equal — not above or below us.
Having empathy and compassion.