11

WEEK 1: UNDERSTANDING THE SELF

Introduction to Self Understanding

Understanding oneself is essential to understand behaviors and beliefs that

affects ourselves and others specifically in becoming effective and successful
person in life, work, and relationship. Moreover, self-understanding (1) provides
a sense of purpose; (2) leads to healthier relationships; (3) helps harness your
natural strength; and (4) promotes confidence.

This module will introduce you to the basic concepts of self and
personality, and how they are related with each other. Self and personality
characterized the way we define our existence, also these refers on how we organized
our experiences that are reflected to our behavior. On the other hand, people have different ideas about
themselves. These ideas represent the self of the person. Moreover, we behave in different ways in a given
situation, but people also behave fairly stable in different circumstances. The relatively permanent pattern
of behavior represents personality of the person. In details,

Personality

 The etymological derivative of personality comes from the word “persona”, the theatrical masks
worn by Romans in Greek and Latin drama. Personality also comes from the two Latin words “per”
and “sonare”, which literally means “to sound through”.
 Personality have no single definition since different personality theories have different views on
how to define it. However, the commonly accepted definition of personality is that it is a relatively
permanent traits and unique characteristics that give both consistency and individuality to a
person’s behavior (Roberts & Mroczek, 2008).
 Personality plays a key role in affecting how people shape their lives. It involves the complex
relationship of people with their environment, how they cope and adjust through life, and how they
respond to demands of physical and social challenges.
 Personality is the overall pattern or integration of a person’s structure, modes of behavior, attitudes,
aptitudes, interests, intellectual abilities, and many other distinguishable personality traits.
Personality is the conglomeration of the following components: physical self, intelligence,
character traits, attitudes, habits, interest, personal discipline, moral values, principles and
philosophies of life.

Determinants of Personality

Personality refers to the total person in his/her overt and covert behavior. The determinants of factors
of personality are as follows:

 Environmental Factors of Personality. The surroundings of an individual compose the

environmental factors of personality. This includes the neighborhood a person lives in, his school,
college, university and workplace. Moreover, it also counts the social circle the individual has.
Friends, parents, colleagues, co-workers and bosses, everybody plays a role as the determinants of
personality.

 Biological Factors of Personality. This further includes:

1) hereditary factors or genetic make-up of the person that inherited from their parents. This
describes the tendency of the person to appear and behave the way their parents are;
2) physical features include the overall physical structure of a person: height, weight, color,
sex, beauty and body language, etc. Most of the physical structures change from time to
time, and so does the personality. With exercises, cosmetics and surgeries, many physical
features are changed, and therefore, the personality of the individual also evolves; and
3) brain. The preliminary results from the electrical stimulation of the brain (ESB) research
gives indication that better understanding of human personality and behavior might come
from the study of the brain.

GED 101 UNDERSTANDING THE SELF

 12

 Situational Factors of Personality. Although these factors do not literally create and shape up an
individual’s personality, situational factors do alter a person’s behavior and response from time to
time. The situational factors can be commonly observed when a person behaves contrastingly and
exhibits different traits and characteristics.

 Cultural Factors. Culture is traditionally considered as the major determinants of an individual’s

personality. The culture largely determinants what a person is and what a person will learn. The
culture within a person is brought up, is very important determinant of behavior of a person. Culture
is complex of these belief, values, and techniques for dealing with the environment which are
shared among contemporaries and transmitted by one generation to the next.

Personality Traits

Personality traits reflect people’s characteristic patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.
Personality traits imply consistency and stability—someone who scores high on a specific trait like
Extraversion is expected to be sociable in different situations and over time. Thus, trait psychology rests on
the idea that people differ from one another in terms of where they stand on a set of basic trait dimensions
that persist over time and across situations.

The most widely used system of traits is called the Five-Factor Model. This system includes five
broad traits that can be remembered with the acronym OCEAN: Openness, Conscientiousness,
Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism. Each of the major traits from the Big Five can be divided
into facets to give a more fine-grained analysis of someone's personality. In addition, some trait theorists
argue that there are other traits that cannot be completely captured by the Five-Factor Model. Critics of the
trait concept argue that people do not act consistently from one situation to the next and that people are very
influenced by situational forces. Thus, one major debate in the field concerns the relative power of people’s
traits versus the situations in which they find themselves as predictors of their behavior.

The Five-Factor Model of Personality

Research that used the lexical approach showed that many of the personality descriptors found in
the dictionary do indeed overlap. In other words, many of the words that we use to describe people are
synonyms. Thus, if we want to know what a person is like, we do not necessarily need to ask how sociable
they are, how friendly they are, and how gregarious they are. Instead, because sociable people tend to be
friendly and gregarious, we can summarize this personality dimension with a single term. Someone who is
sociable, friendly, and gregarious would typically be described as an “Extravert.” Once we know she is an
extravert, we can assume that she is sociable, friendly, and gregarious.

The most widely accepted system to emerge from this approach was “The Big Five” or “Five-
Factor Model” (Goldberg, 1990; McCrae & John, 1992; McCrae & Costa, 1987). The Big Five comprises
five major traits shown in the Figure 2 below. A way to remember these five is with the acronym OCEAN
(O is for Openness; C is for Conscientiousness; E is for Extraversion; A is for Agreeableness; N is for
Neuroticism). The table below provides descriptions of people who would score high and low on each of
these traits.

Table 1. Descriptions of Personality Traits

Big 5 Trait Definition
Openness The tendency to appreciate new art, ideas, values, feelings, and behaviors.
Conscientiousness The tendency to be careful, on-time for appointments, to follow rules, and
to be hard working.
Extraversion The tendency to be talkative, sociable, and to enjoy others; the tendency to
have a dominant style.
Agreeableness The tendency to agree and go along with others rather than to assert one
owns opinions and choices.
Neurotism The tendency to be frequently experience negative emotions such as anger,
worry, and sadness, as well as being itnerpersonally sensitive.

GED 101 UNDERSTANDING THE SELF

 13

Table 2. Example behaviors for those scoring low and high for the big 5 traits
Big 5 Trait Example Behavior for LOW Example Behavior for HIGH Scorers
Scorers
Openness Prefers not to be exposed to Enjoys seeing people with new types
alternative moral systems; narrow of haircuts and body piercing;
interest; inartistic; not analystica; curious; imaginative; untraditional
down-to-earth
Conscientiousness Prefers spur-of-the-moment action Never late for a date; organized;
to planning; unrealiable; hardworking; neat, persevering;
hedonistic; careless; lax punctual; self-disciplined
Extraversion Preferring a quiet evening reading Being the life of the party’ active;
to a loud party; sober; aloof; optimistic; fun-loving; affectionate
unenthusiastic
Agreeableness Quickly and confidently asserts Agrees with other about political
own rights; irritable; opinions; good-natured; forgiving;
manipulative; uncooperative; rude gullible; helpful; forgiving
Neurotism Not getting irritated by sall Constantly worrying about little
annoyances; calm, unemotional; things; insecure; hypochondrical;
hardy; secure; self-satisfied feeling inadequate

Scores on the Big Five traits are mostly independent. That means that a person’s standing on one
trait tells very little about their standing on the other traits of the Big Five. For example, a person can be
extremely high in Extraversion and be either high or low on Neuroticism. Similarly, a person can be low in
Agreeableness and be either high or low in Conscientiousness. Thus, in the Five-Factor Model, you need
five scores to describe most of an individual’s personality. In the exercises part of this module there is a
short scale to assess the Five-Factor Model of personality (Donnellan, Oswald, Baird, & Lucas, 2006). You
can take this test to see where you stand in terms of your Big Five scores.

Traits are important and interesting because they describe stable patterns of behavior that persist
for long periods of time (Caspi, Roberts, & Shiner, 2005). Importantly, these stable patterns can have broad-
ranging consequences for many areas of our life (Roberts, Kuncel, Shiner, Caspi, & Goldberg, 2007). For
instance, think about the factors that determine success in college. If you were asked to guess what factors
predict good grades in college, you might guess something like intelligence. This guess would be correct,
but we know much more about who is likely to do well. Specifically, personality researchers have also
found the personality traits like Conscientiousness play an important role in college and beyond, probably
because highly conscientious individuals study hard, get their work done on time, and are less distracted by
nonessential activities that take time away from school work. In addition, highly conscientious people are
often healthier than people low in conscientiousness because they are more likely to maintain healthy diets,
to exercise, and to follow basic safety procedures like wearing seat belts or bicycle helmets. Over the long
term, this consistent pattern of behaviors can add up to meaningful differences in health and longevity.
Thus, personality traits are not just a useful way to describe people you know; they actually help
psychologists predict how good a worker someone will be, how long he or she will live, and the types of
jobs and activities the person will enjoy.

Who Am I?

Have you ever ask yourself the question, “Who am I?”? Answering the question 'Who am I?' can
lead to a solid self-concept and self-understanding. For many people, answering this question isn't very
easy. For others, a solid understanding of who they are is a big part of their lives. Understanding of who
you are as a person is called self-concept and understanding what your motives are when you act is
called self-understanding.

In definition, self-concept is generally thought of as our individual perceptions of our behavior,

abilities, and unique characteristics—a mental picture of who you are as a person. For example, beliefs such
as "I am a good friend" or "I am a kind person" are part of an overall self-concept.

GED 101 UNDERSTANDING THE SELF

 14

Self-concept tends to be more malleable when people are younger and still going through the
process of self-discovery and identity formation. As people age, self-perceptions become much more
detailed and organized as people form a better idea of who they are and what is important to them.

According to the book Essential Social Psychology by Richard Crisp and Rhiannon Turner:

 The individual self consists of attributes and personality traits that differentiate us from other
individuals. Examples include introversion or extroversion.
 The relational self is defined by our relationships with significant others. Examples include siblings,
friends, and spouses.
 The collective self reflects our membership in social groups. Examples include British, Republican,
African-American, or gay.

At its most basic, self-concept is a collection of beliefs one holds about oneself and the responses
of others. It embodies the answer to the question "Who am I?". The lesson to follow will facilitate learning
about the self, and self concept.

ACTIVITY # 1: The Mini-IPIP (International Personality Item Pool Representation of the NEO PI-
R) Scale (20 points)
This section aims to reinforce your understanding of the topics covered in
Week 1 through the activity below.

Instructions: Below are phrases describing people’s behaviors. Please use the
rating scale below to describe how accurately each statement describes you.
Describe yourself as you generally are now, not as you wish to be in the
future. Describe yourself as you honestly see yourself, in relation to other
people you know of the same sex as you are, and roughly your same age.
Please read each statement carefully and put a number from 1 to 5 next to it to
describe how accurately the statement describes you. Answer the guide questions at the end of the
activity.

1 = Very inaccurate

2 = Moderately inaccurate

3 = Neither inaccurate nor accurate

4 = Moderately accurate

5 = Very accurate

1. _____ Am the life of the party (E)

2. _______ Sympathize with others’ feelings (A)

3. _______ Get chores done right away (C)

4. _______ Have frequent mood swings (N)

5. _______ Have a vivid imagination (O)

6. _______Don’t talk a lot (E)

7. _______ Am not interested in other people’s problems (A)

8. _______ Often forget to put things back in their proper place (C)

GED 101 UNDERSTANDING THE SELF