Universidad de Zamboanga
GEC 1 UNDERSTANDING THE SELF
BSMT - 1J
GROUP 2
Leslie Mallari Kelsey Oas Maria Andrea Radzvi Omar
Manuel
LESSON 3
The Self as the Cognitive Construct
INTRODUCTION
Psychology is a rather new field in the social sciences
compared to the tho mentioned in the earlier lessons.
Unlike sociology and anthropology that investigate the
structures of society as a whole and the culture of a
large group of peop psychology mainly focuses on the
individual. It is interested in the functions a processes of
the brain, the mind, as well as the behaviors related to
the men functions of a person.
WILLIAM JAMES (1890)
He was one of the earliest psychologists to
study the self and conceptualized the self
as having two aspects-the “I” and the “me.”
The “I” is the thinking, acting, and feeling
self (Gleitman, Gross, and Reisberg 2011;
Hogg and Vaughan 2010).
The “me” on the other hand, is the physical
characteristics as wellas psychological
capabilities that makes who you are.
Other concepts;
IDENTITY
• Identity is composed of personal
characteristics, social roles, and
responsibilities, as well as
affiliationsthat define who one is.
SELF CONCEPT
• Self concept is what basically
comes to your mind when you are
asked about who you are.
The Self - Schema Concept
CARL ROGERS
captured this idea in his concept of
self-schema or our organized system
or collection of knowledge about who
we are.
The schema is not limited with the given examples in
the diagram. Itmay also include you interest, work,
course, age, name and physicalcharacteristics,
among others.As you grow and adapt changes
around you, they also change.They actively shape
and affect how you see, think and feel about things.
There are times, however, when we are aware of our self- concepts,
this is also called self-awareness.
Carver and Scheier identified two types of self that we can be
aware of:
1 - The private self or your internal standards and private thoughts
and feeling.
2 - The public self or your public image commonly geared toward
having a good presentation of yourself to others.
Self Awareness also presents us w/ at
least 3 other self-schema:
ACTUAL – is who you are at the
moment
IDEAL – is who you like to be
OUGHT – is who you think you should
be
Self Awareness may be positive or negative depending
on the circumstances and our next course of action.It
can keep you from doing something dangerous, it can
help you that there is an exam tomorrow in one of
your subjects when you are about to spend time
playing computer games with your subjects when you
are about to spend time playing computer gameswith
your cousins, among others.In other instance, self
awareness can be too much that we are concerned
about being observed andcriticized by others, also
known as SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.
One of the common concepts associated
with the “SELF”. It is defines as our own
positive or negative perception or
evaluation of ourselves. One of the way
in which our social relationship affects
our self-esteem is through social
comparison. According to the social
comparison theory we learn by
comparing aspects of ourselves with
other people.
DOWNWARD SOCIAL
COMPARISON
UPWARD SOCIAL
COMPARISON
The downward social comparison is the
more common type of comparing
ourselves w/ others. As the name
implies, we create a positive self-concept
by comparing ourselves w/ those who
are worse of than us. by having
advantage, we can raise our self-esteem.
Another comparison is the upward social
comparison
UPWARD SOCIAL COMPARISON which
comparing ourselves with those who are
better than us, well it can be a form of
motivation for self lot of those who
actually felt lower self-esteem as they
highlight more of their weakness and
inequities.
NARCISSISM
Narcissism is a “trait characterized by overly high selfesteem, self-admiration, and self-centeredness. They are
often charismatic because of how they take care of their
image. Taking care of that image includes their interpersonal
relationships thus they will try to look for better partners,
better acquaintances, as well as people who will appreciate
the a lot. This makes them badromantic partner of friend
since they engage in relationship only to see themselves.
Self-esteem is a very important
concept related to the self, people
with high self-esteem are commonly
described as outgoing an adaptable in
every situations.
Baumeister, Smart and Boden in their
research concluded that programs
activities and parenting styles to
boost self-esteem should only be
rewarding good behavior and other
achievements and not for the purpose
of merly trying to make this children
feel better about themselves.