CHAPTER I

THE SELF: Its Nature

and Significance
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. Define the concept “The self;”
2. Discuss the meaning of identity
3. Determine the process of understanding the
‘self’
4. Recognize the concepts associated with the
‘self; and
5. Explain the quadrants in the Johari Window.
• What is all about?
• Why are you in this subject?
College life is said to be the most challenging
and exciting phase of your life. It is an entirely
new adventure that everyone likes forward to. It
is a world different from your primary as well as
junior and senior high schools. Since your are in
in freshman year, everything including this
subject is new to you.
• What is understanding the self?
• Is it important in the curriculum?
• How will it help me as a student and as a
person?
Defination of Self

• SELF - the union of elements (such as

body, emotions, thoughts, and sensations)
that constitute the individuality and
identity of a person.
• Frazoi defined self as a symbol using
individual who can reflect upon his/her
own behavior.
• Self - the entire person of an individual
An in-depth understanding of the nature of self covers
many things as describe below:

1. It includes the body,

2.It includes the social identity = refers to the ways that
people’s self concepts are based on their membership in
social group.
Example: Religions, nationalities, ethnic groups and
gender.
with which it can be understood as a cluster of meaningful
definitions that become attached to the body
including a name, social roles, membership in various
groups, and various other attributes.
Social Roles – are set of social behaviors assigned to
people based upon social status.
Example: Parent social roles, providing love, care and
shelter.
Student social roles, to study, learn and attend class.
3. Self is the active agent involved in making decisions.
Concepts Related to Self
• Carl Rogers, a psychologist, was the proponent
of the Self-theory.
• This theory is regarded as humanistic and is a
move toward recognizing human potential for
psychological growth.
• Self-Perception theory - It asserts that people
develop their attitudes by observing their own
behavior and concluding what attitudes must
have caused it.
• Example: A person deciding that jazz is their
favorite type of music simply because they
observed that they listen to it more than other
type of Music.

• The self is made up of many self-perception,

abilities, and personality characteristics that are
organized and consistent with one another.
The self is associated with self concept and
identity.
Lloyd defined self concept as a collection of
beliefs about one’s basic nature, unique
qualities, and typical behavior.
Feldman referred self-concept as an individuals
sense of identity, the set of beliefs about what he
or she is like as an individual
A person’s self-concept includes his beliefs, for
example: I’m tall, I’m stout, I play tennis, I’m
good student, and I’m friendly.
• Rogers (1953) contends that self-concept plays
an important role in personality because it
influences human behaviors, feelings, and
thoughts.
• Self-concept – refers to how people see or
describe themselves (Plotnik, 2014).
• self-concept is a collection of beliefs about
oneself.
• It is the subjective perception of who people are
and what they are like.
• People with a positive self-concept tend to act,
feel, and think constructively and optimistically.
Overall, they think to themselves is a good light.

• On the other hand, people who have a negative

self-concept will behave, think, and act with
pessimism.
• They do not believe in their ability to do things
or carry out certain task.
Two kind of selves
• The Real Self and Ideal self
• The real self – is the image or picture of the
self based on the person’s actual experiences and
represents how he/she really or actually sees
himself/herself.
• It is what one thinks he/she is in terms of
personal characteristics and abilities. In
contrast,
• Ideal self – is the self based on one’s hopes and
whishes. It reflects how one likes to see
himself/herself to be.
Weiten and Lloyd, explains that people have
separate concepts of their physical, social,
emotional, and intellectual selves.
Apruebo, maintains self-concept as the product of
experience and as a result of the individual
growth process and his personal-social
development.

Self-concept is the total of individual past

experiences, decision-makings, and future plans.
Baumeister, defined identity as composed of interpersonal
roles and traits, a particular conception of potentiality,
and a structure of values and priorities.
Identity = Condition as to who a person or what a thing
is;
Identity singly recognizes individuals, categories, and
types of individuals in terms race, class, and ethnicity.
Lindesmith, Strauss, and Denzin categorized identity as
stated below:
1. Social identity – it is used to describe identification
based on first appearances including manner of dress
and speech.
It also draws on markers of the self that a
person has little control the marker of race, ethnicity,
age, and gender.
Lindesmith and Densin, refers this marker of the
self as circumstantial facts of the self or
circumstantial identity.
In contrast, the situational facts of the self
reference are those markers of identification
that the person can control and manipulate.
2.Personal Identity – refers to the specific
biographical details of a given, named
individual.
It also builds on the situational facts of the self
with which the fact becomes part of the
individual's self-identity.
3. Ego, Self, or Felt Identity – it describes the self-
feelings of the individual; the subjective sense
of meaning the person gives to his or her
personal situation the continuity and character
that an individual comes to obtain as a result of
his social experiences.

Self (person, ego, or identity) displays essentially

to any human social nature of the socialization
process.
The specific beliefs and the element of the self concept
refer to self-schema, a belief about self that
organizes and guides the processing of self relevant
information.

Self-schema provides an organizing framework for

understanding a concept, an event, a situation an
object, or a person.
A schema for physiques might enable a person to
describe the difference between being stout and
being muscular.
To a person who does not have a schema for physiques,
that is, stout person and a muscular person who
weigh the same might both be classified as
overweight.
Self-schema summarizes the personality traits,
attitudes, values, interest, and other
characteristics that people attribute to
themselves.
Self-reference – refers to the tendency to
process efficiently and remember well
information related to oneself.
When information is relevant to self-concept
would process it quickly and remember it well.
For example: People oftentimes relate themselves
with the characters in movies thus they
remember the character better.
Symbolic Interactionism
Symbolic interactionism – as sociological and
social psychological approach to the study of
human group life and human interaction.
Famous America psychologists like William James,
John Dewey, and George Mead focused on
interaction between the self and others.
Symbolic interaction plays a vital role to describe
self, attitude, motive, gender, and emotion.
Individualism is the concept of giving priority to
ones own goals over group goals and defining
one’s identity in terms of personal attributes
rather than group identification.
For example: adolescence is a time of separating
from parents, becoming self-reliant, and
defining one’s personal, independent self.
Collectivism – is the concept of giving priority to
one’s groups over individual and defining one’s
identity in terms of the groups to which one
belongs.
In this regard Troy Higgins, pointed out individuals who
possess three types of self-perception as describe
below:
1. Actual Self – the qualities people believed they actually
possess.
2.Ideal Self – the characteristics people would like them
to have.
3.Ought Self – the traits people believed they should
possess.
Effects of Self-Discrepancies. Higgins explains that
discrepancies between actual and ideal selves produce
disappointment and sadness, whereas discrepancies
between actual and ought selves to result in irritability
and guilt.
Such self-discrepancies can make individuals
vulnerable to more serious psychological
problems, such as depression and anxiety-
related disorders.
Self-Attribution – this concept refers to the
inferences that people draw about the causes of
their own behavior.
- refers to individuals' tendency to attribute
successes to personal skills and failures to
factors beyond their control.
Fritz Heider, exhorts that people tend to know the
cause of a behavior either within a person,
attributing it to personal factors, or outside of
a person, attributing it to environmental
factors.
Weiner’s Model of attributions assumes that
people’s explanation for success and failure
emphasize internal versus external causes and
stable versus unstable causes.
Stability Dimension
Unstable cause stable cause
(Temporary) (permanent)
Effort/mood/fatigue ability/intelligence

Luck/chance/opportunity Task difficulty

Self-awareness = is the capacity for
introspection and the ability to recognize oneself
as an individual separate from the environment
and other individuals.
For example: Humans have a self-awareness of
distant past which includes both happy and sad
memories.
Self-awareness has two major types:
1.Private Self-awareness – a psychological state in
which one is aware of ones hidden private self-
aspect.
2.Public Self-awareness – a psychological state in
which one is aware of one’s public self aspects.
The Process of Discovering the ‘Self’
• Often, we struggle in our lifetime to search
for our ‘identity’ and our ‘core being’.
• The search for our true identity is a
process of learning, re-learning the lessons
that we acquire from the teachings of life.
• Discovering and re-discovering the self
becomes a complex procedure that we
need to undergo to finally find our genuine
‘self’ and individuality.
Why do adolescents experience role of
confusion as in, “identity crisis”?
• Role of confusion = is that stage of development
wherein the adolescent in faced by various
identification which have not been harmonized
and integrated in himself.
• The search for personal identity is one of the
major tasks faced by the adolescent
• He tries to evaluate the values and beliefs of his
parents, teachers, and peers to produce a unified
self-picture.
• When this values are not consistent, he
experiences role of confusion.
The Johari Window: Getting to
know the self’
• The Johari Window model was developed in
1955 at the University of California Los Angeles
by Joseph Luft and Harrington Ingham, who are
both American Psychologist.
• This Model allows participants to understand
themselves well and their corresponding
relationship with the significant others through
the four quadrants determining traits relative to
one’s self and others judgment.
Unknown to others Known to others
Determining the Four Quadrants
1. The Arena - These are the traits of
descriptions that one sees in the ‘self’
similar to that perceived by the
significant others.

Example of this is being outgoing and

sociable. This is also know as the public
self as it is evident to the self and to
others.
2. Façade – these are traits that are
know to the ‘self’ but not to the
significant others.
An Example includes ‘being emotional
and sensitive despite being a man’.
This quadrant as it covers those that
we desire not to expose to others.
3. Blind Spot – this includes traits that
the subject is unaware of but the
significant others claim to be
possessed by the subject.
This quadrant covers those that others
perceive to characterize the subject
such as ‘being down to earth and
soft-spoken’.
3. Blind Spot – this includes traits that
the subject is unaware of but the
significant others claim to be
possessed by the subject.
This quadrant cover those that others
perceive to characterize the subject
such as ‘being down to earth and
soft-spoken’
4. Unknown – this quadrant covers traits
that both parties do not recognize and
consider as comprising the subjects traits.
This is a mystery that waits to unfold in the
proper time.
Such ideally means that there is still much
that needs to be discovered in the individual
‘self’ as we go through the process of
discovering our unique identity.