Third Quarter, Week 1
Module 1
Title:
Facilitator: Ms. Krisha S. De Leon
09457819964/ teacherkrisha@graceofshekinahschool.com
Lesson 1
KNOWING ONESELF
KNOWING ONESELF
“He who knows other is wise; he who knows himself is enlightened.” ~Lao Tzu
Why did Aristotle say that knowing oneself is the beginning of wisdom? Why is it important to know
oneself? Personal development starts with knowing yourself. Before you start to build and improve your
relationships with other people and before you can identify and set your career and life goals, you should
know yourself well first. This lesson will help you understand more about yourself and start your way to
personal development.
Dimensions of the Self: Physical, Psychological, Spiritual
The word "self" is popularly and generally defined as what an individual sees, perceives, and defines
oneself apart from others. The term self-perception is a sub-definition of this simple yet complex concept.
The self as we know it is divided into three known dimensions - physical, psychological, and spiritual.
To know oneself, one must distinguish the three apart from each other.
The physical dimension revolves around the physical body of a human being; its processes,
functions, mechanisms, and chemistry – from the cells as the smallest units, the tissues these cells create
when united, the organs these tissues give shape to, to the organ systems that pretty much are responsible
to keeping us alive, walking, talking, and breathing. This dimension is responsible for giving us the ability to
move our muscles, to perceive our surroundings, and to think of the ideas and opinions that bring wonders
to our lives and of others'.
Next comes the psychological dimension which contains the concepts of stress, cognition,
behaviour, attitude, emotion and ultimately, personality. As compared to the physical dimension which could
be observed directly and be measured, the psychological dimension has both internal and external factors
that can or cannot be measured, observed, and calculated. To make it simpler, the physical dimension of self
refers to the individual as an organism under the species of Homo sapiens; a person will view oneself based
on his or her physical traits; while the psychological dimension of self refers to the individual as a set of
characteristics, behaviours, attitudes, cognitions, and emotions.
Lastly, the spiritual dimension allows us to view ourselves in a spiritual level- as spiritual beings.
Compared to the physical and psychological dimensions, this dimension cannot be observed but can be
subjectively altered and perceived by the person. It holds a relevance to a perceived existence of God, of a
greater good, or a Superior Being relating to the humble individual.
Attitudes and its Components: Affect, Behavior, Cognition
A key factor in personality development is attitude - a settled way of thinking and feeling about
someone or something, typically reflecting in a person's behavior. Attitude manifests itself as behavior, as a
representative of personality.
Attitude can be both implicit and explicit. Implicit attitudes are thoughts or feelings that conscious
awareness does not cover. Explicit attitudes, however, can be perceived consciously and expressed
accordingly.
For attitude to come into existence, it needs three components, namely; affect, cognition and
behaviour.
Affect
Affect, in Psychology, term used to represent emotions directed to the self, the environment and to
others. For one to develop a bitter attitude towards being rejected, for example, there must be an underlying
emotional response to the action and its doer. Through this example alone, we cannot fully describe attitude,
therefore, attitude cannot be solely described or defined by one component alone.
Cognition
Cognition is the way we think. It encompasses our thoughts in different levels, ranging from ourselves
to our environment, from imaginary to perceivable reality. While cognitions involve all that we mentally
conceive, ideas that we create, etc.; affect is solely focused on emotions. Again, cognition as a component
of attitude is only a view point, a portion of the bigger picture of attitude. A common question in Psychology
is which comes first, affect or cognition?
Behavior
Behavior is the action form or manifestation of attitude. Without attitude, affect and cognition,
behavior will be rendered baseless and ungrounded. It would seem that attitude has is proven otherwise.
Attitude affect behaviour as behaviour affects attitude. A practical application of this is the relatable situation
of trying a new approach to particular situations wherein a different behaviour is encouraged to the person
who has a different attitude towards the subject. A very specific example on how one's behaviour can affect
ones attitude is the act of smiling when things are going the wrong way – a person's affect might be
predominantly sad and has an effect on this person's present attitude, yet smiling - the example behaviour in
this situation, elicits a change in the effect of sadness to his or her attitude because smiling is associated with
happiness. The association of happiness to the behaviour then affects the present attitude in various degrees.
Now that we are made aware of the three components, let us tackle how exactly one's attitudes are
formed.
A human being learns as it interacts with its environment, thus, it experiences. Experience, as most
say, is the best teacher. Attitudes can form consequently through this, either from personal encounters or
observed consequences. Rejection is a common experience and often result to embittered attitudes towards
the doer of the action which influences the affect component. If we saw someone we know or a stranger get
rejected or react to rejection, we observe it and end up speculating and thinking about what could have led
to the situation. We see the person get hurt and thus develop an attitude out of cognition that rejection hurts,
typically. From the behaviour component, however, it would be more interactive. We would not speculate
about rejection being a hurtful experience if we did not see the resultant behaviour of the person experiencing
it. We have a brilliant brain and it feels, observed, and thinks and through these it forms ideas.
Social factors, in the other hand, also influence attitude heavily. Your roles in a social environment
and of course, the social norm that tell you what to do and what not to do in a social situation also affect
attitude. This factor is related to upbringing as well. Our parents, elders and peers set examples to actions
we would later on conform to and sometimes, we will not even know why.
Learning is another factor. Consider how commercials can affect your attitudes towards particular
products like the usual fast-food commercial that caters to your appetite by showing off crispy meals in slowmotion and the like. The affect component being triggered by the hunger centers in our brain, our observant
cognition component observing how the people in the commercials are all happy, pleasant and satisfied and
their behaviour of eating with sheer delight has an effect on your attitude. We then tend to associate what we
observed with their attitude and employ the same mind set to the product. It is a practical use of classical
conditioning.
Operant conditioning can also affect and influence how we develop attitudes. A common example
would be alcohol consumption and the headache its hangover gives a person. It is a matter of consequences,
pleasant or unpleasant, that our attitude towards it is affected. If it helps one to escape from the problems
one is suffering, one develops a pleasant attitude towards it, then again, when one wakes up after being
drunk, one realizes alcohol did not solve the problems, thus, feel guilt and regret which are unpleasant.
Finally, modelling - when someone particularly close to us, a person we admire or adore, or a parent
does something, it is more than likely we would be doing the same thing they are doing. If our parents loved
playing musical instruments, we as kids would likely imitate them and their attitude. In a negative application,
if our parents dislike close communication, we might end up having communicative constraints as well.
It has been also observed that people interacting during a date tend to imitate each other's actions
and body language if they like each other. This usually goes unnoticed. In its extremes, celebrities set trends
for their fans, and the fans that relentlessly adore and admire their idols tend to end up wearing the same
fashion trend their idol is using, or spreading an action or imitating his or her behaviours.
Attitude is a prominent factor in personality. If you know how it is created, you can know how to
handle it especially when you need to. It is a matter of self-monitoring and self –assertion.
Self-concept and Self-esteem
Self-concept and self-esteem are two different terms that are usually mistakenly interchanged. Let
us define them by aiming for their key differences.
Self-concept is our cognition to ourselves, what we think and know about our identity, personality,
and individuality. It requires a lot of self-evaluation and reflection to be able to say that your self-concept is
high. Then again, it is still focused on the cognition component of attitude, proving what Rene Descartes had
said: "I think, therefore I am."
When we think we are worthless and talentless, we end up identifying ourselves to the thought and
behave in such a way that the thought holds true. When we are brought up to think that we are special again
and again, we may tend to
Have an overly bloated self-concept that may lead to self-entitlement.
Self-esteem is related to self-concept but it is different. It does not focus on how we know ourselves
but rather our attitude towards ourselves. It is a more situational approach in terms of attitude because selfesteem is how we value ourselves, given the negative or positive feedback we receive. To further delineate
self-concept from self-esteem, we must focus on their key difference - the involvement emotion. Self-concept
is purely or mostly informational while self-esteem is emotionally inclined.
Self-concept and self-esteem are learned variables, however. If one is raised in an unsupportive
home filled with verbal degradations one would probably feel and think that he or she is a burden to blame
for familial problems. On the other hand, if an individual is raised in a fostering or nurturing environment, his
or her self-concept and self-esteem would be more positive - making one feel secure, integrated, and sure
of oneself.
Having low self-esteem usually leads to decreased confidence levels, a whim to be like or look like
someone else deemed "superior", being a pleaser of other people, and pessimism. On the contrary,
individuals with high self-esteem develop high confidence with themselves, a huge degree of selfacceptance, a tolerance to what other people think of them, and optimism.
It would be unfair to compare people with high self-esteem from low self-esteem because every
individual person has gotten through different situations that led them to what they are at present self-concept,
attitude, self-esteem, and all. Nonetheless, the knowledge of the two terms - self-concept and self-esteem –
will help any individual into developing a sturdier, more adaptive personality for his or her own growth.
If one's enemy is his or her low self-esteem, through developing his or her personality, one may
overcome its lows and give way to an enlightened and more evolved outlook in life. If one's enemy, on the
other hand, is his or her bloated self-esteem and self-concept, he or she would know to keep grounded for
him or her to keep learning and grow into a better, more actualized individual.
Comparing people is not pleasantly fair but for some it actually works to propel them, and sadly, for
others, it discourages them further down. Personality is too complex to be given an absolute solution or
formula that is why it is focused on applicable theories. Which method applies to you?
For inquiries and/or clarification for this subject, please message or call:
Contact Number of Facilitator: 0945-781-9964 (every Friday)
E-mail Address: teacherkrisha@graceofshekinahschool.com
Grace of Shekinah School, Inc.
J.P. Rizal St., Poblacion, Sta. Maria, Bulacan