UTS Midterms Reviewer - Chapters 1-5 (Understanding the Self)

Foundations and Importance of Self-Understanding

  • Understanding oneself is a critical prerequisite for understanding behaviors and beliefs.
  • Key benefits of self-understanding include:
    • Providing a sense of purpose.
    • Leading to healthier relationships.
    • Helping individuals harness their natural strengths.
    • Promoting overall confidence.
  • The term "personality" originates from the word "persona," which refers to the theatrical masks worn by Romans in Greek and Latin drama.
  • According to Roberts and Mroczek (2008), personality consists of relatively permanent traits and unique characteristics that provide consistency and individuality.
  • The four primary determinants of personality are:
    • Biological determinants.
    • Cultural determinants.
    • Environmental determinants.
    • Situational determinants.
  • Personality traits represent characteristic patterns of an individual's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.

The Five-Factor Model of Personality

  • Openness: The tendency to appreciate new art and ideas.
    • High Score: Characterized by curiosity and imagination.
    • Low Score: Characterized as inartistic and down-to-earth.
  • Conscientiousness: The tendency to be careful, punctual, rule-following, and hardworking.
    • High Score: Characterized as neat and self-disciplined.
    • Low Score: Characterized as impulsive ("spur of the moment") and careless.
  • Extraversion: The tendency to be talkative, sociable, and dominant.
    • High Score: Characterized as active, optimistic, and fun-loving.
    • Low Score: Characterized as quiet and unenthusiastic.
  • Agreeableness: The tendency to agree and go along with others.
    • High Score: Characterized as forgiving and good-natured.
    • Low Score: Characterized as overly confident, manipulative, or rude.
  • Neuroticism: The tendency to frequently experience negative emotions.
    • High Score: Characterized as insecure and worrying.
    • Low Score: Characterized as calm, secure, and self-satisfied.

Dimensions of the Self-Concept

  • Self-Concept: The answer to the question "Who am I?" It is a collection of beliefs held about oneself and the responses received from others. It is often more malleable in younger individuals undergoing self-discovery.
  • Self-Understanding: The specific understanding of one's motives behind their actions.
  • According to "Essential Social Psychology" by Richard Crisp and Rhiannon Turner, the self-concept includes:
    • The individual self: Attributes and personality traits that differentiate one person from others.
    • The relational self: Defined by the relationships an individual maintains.
    • The collective self: Participation and membership in social groups.

The Self in Philosophical Thought

  • Philosophy seeks truth and meaning through the art of questioning value, significance, and relevance.
  • Socrates:
    • An Athenian philosopher of great influence.
    • Advised "Know Thyself," emphasizing that understanding must go deeper than the physical body.
    • Asserted that "The unexamined life is not worth living."
  • Plato:
    • Student of Socrates who proposed the soul is immortal.
    • Identified a three-part soul/self:
      1. Reason (Divine Essence): Enables deep thinking, wise choices, and understanding of eternal truths.
      2. Physical Appetite: Basic biological needs like hunger, thirst, and sexual desire.
      3. Spirit or Passion: Basic emotions like love, anger, ambition, aggressiveness, and empathy.
    • Conflicting parts must be managed by Reason to maintain harmony.
  • St. Augustine:
    • Merged Platonic ideas with theology. Viewed the self as comprising body and soul.
    • Defined the Physical Realm as changeable and imperfect, while the Ideal Realm is perfect and eternal (e.g., truth, goodness).
    • Believed moral goodness is achieved through God's grace, and sin is a result of humans' free will. Use of constant soul-searching is required for happiness.
  • Rene Descartes:
    • Founder of modern philosophy. Famously stated "I think therefore I am" (Cogito ergo sum).
    • Viewed the self as a dualism of Mind (Cogito - the thing that thinks) and Body (Extenza - a machine extension of the mind).
  • John Locke:
    • Identified the self as consciousness.
    • Believed the self exists across different times and places through the memory of experiences rather than being tied to a specific body.
  • David Hume:
    • An empiricist who claimed "there is no self."
    • In "On Personal Identity" (1739), he proposed two types of perception:
      1. Impressions: Vivid, basic sensations like pain, pleasure, heat, or fear.
      2. Ideas: Faint, non-vivid images of impressions.
  • Sigmund Freud:
    • Proposed a dualistic view of the self:
      1. Conscious self (Ego): Rational, practical, and governed by the reality principle.
      2. Unconscious self (Id): Aggressive, instinctual, and governed by the pleasure principle.
    • The goal is to make the unconscious conscious to reduce tension.
  • Immanuel Kant:
    • Argued "We construct the self" by synthesizing sense data into a meaningful whole.
    • Transcendental apperception occurs when individuals perceive the self as a unity of impressions organized by the mind.
  • Maurice Merleau-Ponty:
    • Phenomenologist who stated the self is "embodied subjectivity."
    • Mind and body are intertwined; all experience is an embodied experience that serves as an opening to the world.
  • Paul and Patricia Churchland:
    • Claimed "the self is the brain."
    • The self is inseparable from brain activity and physiology.

Sociological and Anthropological Perspectives

  • Sociology studies the self as a product of modern society, focusing on structure and collective behavior.
  • Anthropology studies humanity and culture across the past and present.
  • George Herbert Mead (Social Self):
    • Stages of self-formation:
      1. Preparatory Stage: Characterized by imitation and observation.
      2. Play Stage: Characterized by role-playing and pretend play.
      3. Game Stage: Acknowledging outside perspectives.
    • Two phases of self: The "Me" (reflective attitude of society) and the "I" (responsive perspective).
  • Georg Simmel:
    • Explored how objective culture affects subjective experience. Distinguished between Subjective/Individual (internal feel) and Objective (separate objects).
    • Forces increasing objective culture: Urbanization (rural to city), Money (universal value, individual freedom), and Social network configuration (family and group affiliations).
  • Anthropology Subfields:
    • Archaeology (study of the past).
    • Biological Anthropology (body adaptations).
    • Linguistic Anthropology (language).
    • Cultural Anthropology (manner of living).
  • Manifestations of Culture:
    1. Symbols: Words, gestures, or pictures.
    2. Heroes: Past or present influential persons.
    3. Rituals: Group activities for fulfillment.
    4. Values: The conscious core of culture; how people act and react.
  • Clifford Geertz focused on how individuals enact culturally prescribed roles or masks.

Psychological Perspectives on the Self

  • Dr. Bruce A. Bracken (1992) identified 6 domains of self-concept:
    1. Social Domain (interaction with others).
    2. Competence Domain (ability to meet needs).
    3. Affect Domain (emotional awareness).
    4. Physical Domain (looks and health).
    5. Academic Domain (school success/failure).
    6. Family Domain (functioning within the family).
  • William James: Divided the self into "The I" (The Knower/Agent of experience) and "The Me" (The Known).
    • The Me Self includes: Maternal (body, family), Social (recognition), and Spiritual (inner being).
  • Carl Rogers: Founder of client-centered therapy. Focused on the balance between the Real Self (identity as known) and the Ideal Self (aspirations/wishes). Inconsistency results in an unhealthy, incongruent personality.
  • Gregg Henriques (Tripartite Model of Human Consciousness):
    1. Experimental Self (Theater of consciousness, memories).
    2. Private Self (The internal narrator).
    3. Public Self (The persona/public version).
  • Donald Winnicott: Pediatrician who proposed the True Self (integrity/honesty) and False Self (alternative personality used to hide the real self to maintain social relationships).
  • Albert Bandura: Asserted people are proactive and agentic. Self-efficacy beliefs determine how individuals feel and think.

Western and Eastern Conceptions of the Self

  • Individualist Self (Western):
    • Individual as the fundamental unit of thinking and action.
    • Focus on own best interests, independence, and self-reliance.
    • Analytic, monotheistic, and often materialistic/rationalistic (treating spiritual phenomena as superstition).
  • Collectivism Self (Asian/Eastern):
    • Group as the fundamental unit.
    • Focus on group interests, harmony, and interdependence.
  • Confucian Thought:
    • Founded by Confucius during the Zhou Dynasty in Northeastern China.
    • Ren involves elements such as Li (customs/ceremonies/norms), Xiao (filiality/respect for parents), and Yi (rightness).
    • Yi dictates that actions should be performed because they are right, not for selfish benefits.

The Physical Self: Body Image and Self-Esteem

  • The physical self is influenced by Biological Factors (hereditary traits, genotype, phenotype) and Environmental Factors (social networks, cultural practices).
  • Maturation is the completion of growth of genetic characteristics.
  • Erik Erikson emphasized the role of puberty, driven by the Pituitary Gland (master endocrine gland), in rapid physical change.
  • Psychodynamic Perspective (Freud):
    • Body Ego refers to the importance of the body to the self.
    • Stages of development: Early psychic experience, defining body surface boundaries, and distinguishing internal states.
  • Cognitive-Behavioral Perspective: Views body image as a multidimensional experience involving perceptual, cognitive, and affective components.
  • Feminist Perspective: Views the body as a social construction, often experienced in distorted ways by women.
  • Personal Factors in Perception:
    • Introspection: Observing one's own emotional/mental state.
    • Self-Perception Theory: Inferring traits by observing own behavior.
  • Social Factors in Perception:
    • Attachment Process and Social Appraisal: Value based on caregiver responses.
    • Looking Glass Self (Charles Horton Cooley): Self-image is a reflection of society's interactions.
    • Social Comparison: Comparing self to others, either Upward or Downward.
    • Social Identity Theory (Tajfel and Turner, 1973): Achieving self-understanding through group membership.
  • Ervin Goffman (1983): Dramaturgical Theory views people as actors on a stage monitoring perceptions.
  • Self-Esteem: A global evaluative dimension of self-worth (positive or negative).
  • Beauty Standards: Charles Darwin (1871) stated there is no universal standard of beauty. Samuels and Ewy (1985) found infants can discriminate attractiveness, suggesting early cognitive components.