Development of self
How did you become you?
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What do you think are the factors that
contributed in the making of you?
Think about how you would explain how you
developed into you. What sorts of
explanations might you give?
How do you think you might research this?
What experiments or research might you do?
Which of the debates might influence your
understanding of the development of self?
Key questions
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Some key questions have been asked in the study of the
development of self. Questions such as:
Is ‘self’ or ‘identity’ fixed or fluid? For example is your
personality and who you are the same throughout time
and in each situation.
Is there one ‘true’ version of self or do we have multiple
selves?
Is self nature or nurture?
Can we apply the nomothetic approach to self, such as
personality measurements? Or are we all uniquely
different?
How much of an influence are our early experiences on
the way we develop and behave as an adult?
Do we go through distinct stages in the development of
self?
Theories
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We are going to briefly look at some of the key theories related to
the development of self. These are:
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Cooley – Looking glass self
Mead – I/Me
Skinner – Behaviourist approach to understanding self
Piaget – Cognitive-developmental approach
Bandura – Social learning theory
Rogers and Kelly – Humanistic perspective
Maslow – Hierarchy of needs
Selman – Theory of role-taking
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We will also look;
 Freud - Psychodynamics
Development of self
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Early researchers such as Cooley (1902) and Mead (1934)
suggest that our development of self relies on our interactions
with others
Children become aware of judgements made by others such as
‘naughty’ ‘good’ ‘bright’ ‘slow’ ‘boisterous’ ‘feminine’
Through these labels children develop a sense of who they are –
their self-concept.
Cooley called this the ‘looking-glass self’ since it reflects what
other people think of us
Selman (1980) suggests the growth of role-taking skills
demonstrates a mature understanding of self and other people.
To ‘know’ another person one must take on their perspective,
thoughts and feelings. And this requires cognitive competence.
Different ways of looking at
self
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There are some theorists that suggest that we have multiple
selves. In other words we may be different in different situations
or with different people. We may take on different roles that
represent different parts of ourselves. For example, I am a
mother, a wife, a teacher, a belly dancer!
Goffman (1959) suggested we play out different aspects of
ourselves as though we are in a play; we are the audience, the
actor and the character.
Have you ever noticed that you behaved differently in different
situations? – self as character
Have you ever behaved in a particular way because you were
worried about what people might think of you? – self as audience
George Herbert Mead (1934) talked of self as ‘I/Me’ that the
different ways we refer to ourselves reflect the different aspects
of ourselves; how we see ourselves and how we perceive that
others see us
Behaviourist approach to
understanding self
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Behaviourists believe that as babies we are all quite
similar and have the potential to grow-up to be very
similar adults
However our experiences shape how we develop
and as a result each one of us is different with our
own unique patterns of behaviour
For example if you grow-up in a loving caring
environment you may turn out to be optimistic and
confident
If however, you grow-up in an environment deprived
of love you may turn out to be withdrawn and
unsociable
Behaviourist approach to self
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Behaviourists believe that we are shaped by
classical and operant conditioning
Remember Pavlov and the experiment he carried
out on dogs? Pavlov paired the stimulus of food with
a bell so that eventually the dogs salivated to the
sound of the bell alone.
Watson and Rayner (1920) did an experiment on an
infant to prove that fears could be developed in the
same way
How do you think they did this?
Behaviourism – Watson and
Rayner
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Little Albert was conditioned to fear white rats.
Each time that Watson presented a white rat to little
Albert it was accompanied by the sound of a loud
gong.
How might this relate to the development of
self/identity?
As humans our emotional responses can be
conditioned to the environment. Things or people
present when a child feels happy/scared/sad
become the stimulus for those feelings later in life.
Behaviourism - Skinner
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Remember the experiment Skinner did with rats?
Skinner placed rats in a maze with different levers
for food or electric shocks and used these to shape
their behaviour and how they moved around the
maze. The rats saw food as a reward and would
return to levers with food or press levers that
represented food. They avoided levers that provided
punishment; the electric shock and even learned to
press some levers that stopped the electric shock
and therefore avoided it – negative reinforcement.
How can this be applied to humans?
Behaviourism - Skinner
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Parents and key workers unconsciously
shape children’s behaviour and development
of personality through rewards and
punishments
A child who is praised for being helpful
around the home is more likely to repeat that
behaviour.
Social Learning approach
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Remember Bandura’s bobo doll experiment?
3 groups of children were shown the same video
footage of an adult playing aggressively with a large
doll. One group saw the adult being told off, the next
group saw no punishment and the third group saw
the adult being praised.
When children were presented with the doll, all but
the first group repeated the behaviour. –
Observational learning
How might this apply to development of self?
Social Learning approach
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You learn how to behave in different situations by
watching others around you, particularly significant
others such as parents, teachers, peers
If you see your parent cry and get upset each time
they make a mistake you too may develop this way
of dealing with situations that involve a risk of error
Think about some of the fears you have. Have you
learnt those fears from watching other people’s
responses? Why are small children often afraid of
spiders or wasps?
Humanist perspectives on self
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Humanists such as Maslow, Kelly and Rogers are
interested in how we experience the world
George Kelly felt that we derive feelings about
us/world through experiences and interactions. We
then modify/extend them by testing them out.
Carl Rogers developed a therapy that was client
centred and he encouraged his patients to
restructure their life by following their ‘true’ self not
their social self.
Rogers has a huge impact on counselling and
psychology and promotes the idea that we are in
control and can make conscious decisions for
ourselves
Maslow
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Maslow developed a
hierarchy of needs
He felt that we could
not reach the top of our
potential unless other
needs were met
Cognitive-developmental
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Cognitive-developmentalists such as Piaget, believe
that children’s self-concept is distinctively linked to
their cognitive development.
Therefore they can only begin to develop an
understanding of themselves as their cognitive skills
develop
Piaget believed that up until the age of around 6 or 7
children can only see the world from their own point
of view. He called this ‘egocentrism’.
E.g. If you ask a small child to tell you what
someone else can see from the other side of the
room they will describe things from their perspective.
Or a child might tell you that they have a sister but
strongly deny that their sister has a sister!!
Summary
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4.
So far we have suggested that children’s
development of self is dependent on a number of
things:
Development of self is dependent on interactions
with others, including reinforcement
Others provide labels that become a means of
comparison in the development of self e.g. ‘clever’,
‘tall’
Children imitate and model themselves on
significant others
Through imitation we learn social roles which can
be described like a play; we act out the role of
mother, daughter, friend and so on
Summary
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We have considered
the behaviourist, social
learning, humanist and
cognitivedevelopmental
perspectives on the
development of self.
Next time we will look
at Freud’s
psychodynamic theory
of self.
Bibliography
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Birch A., (1997) Developmental Psychology
from infancy to adulthood 2nd Ed., New York:
Palgrave
Flanagan C., (1996) Applying Psychology to
early child development, London: Hodder
Education