Sociological View of Self

Sociological View of Self
Project for the Midterm:

• AVP of the assigned topic (as a group).
• 3-5 minutes duration.
• To be shown 1 meeting before midterm exam.
• Midterm coverage: Sociological, Anthropological view of self

Physical Self
Sexual Self
Material / Economic Self
Reminders:
• Submit the soft copy of the folder (group ppt) prior to presentation.
• Have your own laptop to be used in your presentation.
• We will have a quiz next meeting……….

Sociologists are interested with the questions:
• How does society influence you?
• How do you affect the society?
• Who are you as a person in the community?

George Herbert Mead – Theory of Social Self
- “Social Behaviorism”.
- The power of the environment in shaping human behavior.
- The self cannot be separated from the society.

George Herbert Mead – Theory of Social Self
- The self is a product of social interactions and internalizing the
external (other people’s) views along with one’s personal view about
oneself.
- He believed that the “self” is not present at birth; rather it develop

over time through social experiences and activities.
3 Stages of Self-Development
1. Language (preparatory stage)
Through shared understanding of symbols, gestures and sound, language gives

the individual the capacity to express himself or herself while at the same time
comprehending what the other people are conveying.
Symbols (verbal and non verbal ) are bases of communication.
Children’s behavior is primarily based on imitation.

2. Play
- At this level, individuals role-play or assumes the perspective of

others.
- Role-playing enables the person to internalize some other people’s
perspective.
- Hence, he or she develops an understanding of how the other people
feel about themselves in a variety of situations.
3. Game
- The level where the individual internalizes the other’s perspective, he or she
is also able to take into account societal rules and adheres to it.
- According to Mead, the self is developed by understanding the rule, and one
must abide by it to win the game or be successful at an activity.
- The child now has the ability to respond not just to one but several
members of his social environment.
2 sides of self: “I” and “Me”
Me – is the product of what the person has learned while interacting with others and with
the environment.
- Social self.
- Self function as an object.
- When the person takes the role of the other.
- Ex. The choice for the best drawing was awarded to me.
- Students around school voted for me.
I – is the part of the self that is unsocialized and spontaneous.

- The individual’s response to the community’s attitude toward the person.
- Presents impulses and drives.
- Enables a person to express individualism and creativity
- Does not blindly follow rules.
- It understand when to possibly bend or stretch the rules that govern social
interactions.
- It construct a response on what has been learned by the me.
- Response to social self.
I – the function of the self is as a subject.
- When the person initiates or performs a social action.
- Ex. I will go on a date.

- I will cook dinner tonight.
Charles Horton Cooley – Looking Glass Self
• Sociopsychological approach to understanding how society works.
• A person’s self grows out of out of society’s interpersonal interactions and the perceptions of
others.
• The view of oneself comes from a compilation of personal qualities and impressions of how
others perceive the individual.
• Therefore, in looking glass self is shaped and reflected from the social world.
• These reflected appraisals are internalized and become part of self-concept which guides
future behavior.
Charles Horton Cooley – Looking Glass Self
• Symbolic interactionalist self
- The self emerge as a reflection of a
society.
- “looking glass self” – our own concept

of the self is also derived from seeing
ourselves as others see us.
Self-fulfilling prophecy
• The process by which people’s expectations about a person lead them
to elicit the behavior that confirms these expectations. Thus, the self
fulfills the prophecy or expectations.
Social Comparison
Social comparison is a process of comparing oneself with others in order to

evaluate one’s own abilities and opinions.
- People’s views of themselves are influenced by comparisons they make of

them selves with others.
- the self is derived from social comparison, where our feelings, thought and
behavior are compared to others such that a social identity and sense of self
emerges.
Social Comparison Theory
• Downward social comparison – comparing ourselves to people who
are worse than we are on a given trait or ability in an attempt to feel
better about ourselves.
Social Comparison Theory
• Upward social comparison – comparing ourselves to people who are
better than we which could be detrimental to our self esteem.
Donald W. Winnicott - True and False Self
• English pediatrician and psychoanalyst who studied child

development.
• It is also through play where he observed children/people as having

true and false self.
False Self
• It is developed as the infant is repeatedly subjected to maternal care that

intrudes upon, rejects, or abandons his or her experience.
• It is based on completely obedient to the parent’s wishes.
• When the child is constantly expected to follow the rules, a false self develops.
• It is a mask or a persona.
False Self
• May be manifested as a form of defense.

• It lacks spontaneity, is dead and empty.
• It is the mask that hides the true person for fear of the pain of
rejection and failure.
• It usually surface when the person is forced to comply with existing
social norms and standards.
• At times, false selves enable the person to form superficial but
productive social relationship.
Healthy False Self vs. Unhealthy False Self
• Healthy false Self
• Healthy false self is when the person has false self but can still
function in the society.
• Feels that it is still connected with the true self.
• Thus, it can be compliant without feeling guilty that it abandoned its

true self.
Healthy False Self vs. Unhealthy False Self
• Unhealthy false Self
• An individual who may seem happy and comfortable in his or her

environment but actually feels forced to fit in and constantly needs to
adjust his or her behavior to adapt to the social situation is said to
have an unhealthy false self.
True Self
• One in which the self is seen as creative, spontaneously experiencing each day of
their lives.
• It is further characterized by a high level of awareness in the person of who he is,

what he is capable of and is not afraid to let others know his weaknesses and
imperfections.
• The true self is the individual who recognizes his strengths and accepts his
limitations, enjoys winning and success and learns from mistakes and failures.
• Never afraid to try all over again.

D.W. Winnicott - True and False Self
• According to Winnicott, true and false selves are present in all individuals.
• For the two to exist in a healthy individual, they should be functional for
the advantage of both the person himself and the society.
• A person that struggles to fit in but still experiences the feeling of being
forced to comply rather than adapting gracefully to the situation is a
person whose self is maladjusted and unhealthy.
Multiple vs. Unified self
• Is there just one self or there are many selves ?
• One self or many selves?
• How will you justify?

- “A multiple personality is in a sense normal”.
- Mead
“Properly speaking, a man has as many social selves as there are

individuals who recognize him and carry an image of him in their head.”
- William James
- “But the concept of the self loses its meaning if a person has multiple selves
…….the essence of selves involves integration of diverse experiences into a
unity ……In short, unity is one of the defining features of selfhood and identity.
- Roy Baumeister (2010), Social Psychologis
• Contemporary psychological studies challenged the notion of a single, distinct,

“only one self” notion of self. Several major personality theorists proposed
that the mind is made up of several sub-selves.
Real vs. Ideal Self
• Ideal self –idealized image of self that the individual has developed based on what you
have learned and experienced.
could include:
• 1. Notions influenced by your parents
• 2. What you admire in others..
• 3. What the society sees as acceptable; and
• 4. What you think is your best interest.
Real self – is the person you actually are. It is who you are in reality- how you think, feel,
act at present. How you behave right at the moment of the situation.
Anthropological View of Self
“Indeed, much of the self is learned by making new memories out of

old ones.”
• Joseph E. Ledoux
• Anthropology is the study of people, past and present.

• It focuses on understanding the human condition in its cultural
aspect.
• It is concerned with how humans evolved and how they differ from
one another.
• Biological anthropology
-how human adapts to the earth environment
- How human being have evolved
- Biological strengths and vulnerabilities.
• Linguistic anthropology
-human survival is primarily linked to their ability to communicate.
-focus on language as a means to discover a group’s manner of social
interaction and his worldview.
-From the story of Tower of Babel which provided an alternate view on

how language originated, it can be attested that through the centuries,
man had been searching for ways in order for people of different
languages to understand each other. This resulted in a consensus of
having a universal language which is English.
• Cultural anthropology
-Culture is described as a group of people’s way of life. It includes their
behavior, belief, values and symbols transmitted through
communication and imitation from generation to generation.
- What makes a manner of living essential part of the personal and
social identity.
Ways in which cultures may manifest in
people:
1. Symbols – the words gestures, pictures or objects that have a
recognized meaning in a culture.
2. Heroes – are persons from the past or present who have
characteristics that are important in a culture. They may be real or
fictitious and are models of behavior.
3. Rituals – are activities participated in by a group of people for the
fulfillment of desired objectives and considired as socially essential.
4. Values – human preferences toward good or bad, the core of every
culture.
Individual vs. collective self
• Individual self has personal and private views while collective selves
derives from the group.
• Individual together form a group mind.

Unpacking the Self: Physical Self
• Activity: Exploring my physical self
• Directions: Choose your partner and sit face to face with your partner.
Get a piece of paper and create 2 columns. In the first column, list
down 10 adjectives (features/characteristics) of yourself and for the
next column, list down 10 adjectives (features/characteristics) of your
partner. Preferably, descriptions are based on how a person look
My Characteristics My Partner’s Characteristics

1. 1.
2. 2.
3. 3.
4. 4.
5. 5.
6. 6.
7. 7.
8. 8.
9. 9.
10. 10.

Tell us your insight….
• What is the first thing you notice about your partner?

• What descriptions of yourself given by your partner which you think is
questionable about?
• What descriptions of yourself that you wrote by which your partner
find it questionable?
• What do you think of the proverb, "beauty is in the eye of the
beholder?"
• What kinds of things do you do to improve/maintain your
appearance?
• What did you learn about yourself from this activity?
PHYSICAL SELF
refers to the body, this marvelous container and complex, finely tuned,
machine with which we interface with our environment and fellow beings.
is the concrete dimension, the tangible aspect of the person

that can be directly observed and examined.
Physical characteristics are defining traits or features about your
body. The first thing you see when you look at someone could be
their hair, clothes, nose, or figure.
Physical characteristics can include a variety of things. Hairstyles and

facial features play a big role, but aren’t the main ones. Physical
characteristics are what you see with the naked eye. They encompass
anything you can describe about a person or group of people, just on
sight.
PHYSICAL SELF
Engaging in sufficient physical activity Eating a nutritionally balanced diet;

through daily activity and lifestyle habits, maintaining a normal weight for your
exercise, or on one’s job to keep in age and size
good physical condition. (BMI between 18.5 and 24.9);
not overeating.
Stretching for flexibility, cardiovascular activity
for endurance, and weight bearing activity to
build strength are all important.
HOW DO YOU PERCEIVE YOUR
PHYSICAL SELF ?
BODY the way you see yourself

IMAGE the way you imagine how you look
Positive Body Image

Negative Body Image
BODY IMAGE
Poor Body Image
comes from negative

thoughts and feelings
about your appearance
Healthy Body Image

is made up of thoughts and feelings that are positive.
Body image is a major factor
in self-esteem;
which is the way you think
and feel about yourself
as a person.
Self Image
• Poor self-image may be the result of accumulated criticisms that the
person collected as a child which have led to damaging their own
view of themselves. Children in particular are vulnerable to accepting
negative judgments from authority figures because they have yet to
develop competency in evaluating such reports. Also, adolescents are
highly targeted to suffer from poor body image issues.

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Sociological View of Self

Project for the Midterm:

• Midterm coverage: Sociological, Anthropological view of self

• We will have a quiz next meeting……….

• How do you affect the society?

• Who are you as a person in the community?

- The power of the environment in shaping human behavior.

- The self cannot be separated from the society.

- He believed that the “self” is not present at birth; rather it develop

Through shared understanding of symbols, gestures and sound, language gives

Symbols (verbal and non verbal ) are bases of communication.

Children’s behavior is primarily based on imitation.

- At this level, individuals role-play or assumes the perspective of

- Self function as an object.

- When the person takes the role of the other.

I – is the part of the self that is unsocialized and spontaneous.

- Ex. I will go on a date.

- “looking glass self” – our own concept

Social comparison is a process of comparing oneself with others in order to

- People’s views of themselves are influenced by comparisons they make of

• English pediatrician and psychoanalyst who studied child

• It is also through play where he observed children/people as having

• It is developed as the infant is repeatedly subjected to maternal care that

• It is based on completely obedient to the parent’s wishes.

• May be manifested as a form of defense.

• Feels that it is still connected with the true self.

• Thus, it can be compliant without feeling guilty that it abandoned its

• An individual who may seem happy and comfortable in his or her

• It is further characterized by a high level of awareness in the person of who he is,

• Never afraid to try all over again.

• Is there just one self or there are many selves ?

• One self or many selves?

• How will you justify?

“Properly speaking, a man has as many social selves as there are

- Roy Baumeister (2010), Social Psychologis

• Contemporary psychological studies challenged the notion of a single, distinct,

“Indeed, much of the self is learned by making new memories out of

• Anthropology is the study of people, past and present.

-From the story of Tower of Babel which provided an alternate view on

• Individual together form a group mind.

• What is the first thing you notice about your partner?

is the concrete dimension, the tangible aspect of the person

Physical characteristics can include a variety of things. Hairstyles and

Engaging in sufficient physical activity Eating a nutritionally balanced diet;

BODY the way you see yourself

Positive Body Image

comes from negative

Healthy Body Image

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