THE SELF, SOCIETY, and
CULTURE
The SELF…
• Commonly defined by the ff. characteristics: “ separate, self-contained,
independent, consistent, unitary and private.” (Steven 1996)
• (Separate) It is distinct from other selves.
• (Self contained & Independent) It does not require any other self for it to exist.
• (Consistent) It has a personality that is enduring and therefore can be
expected to persist for quite some time.
• (Unitary) It is the center of all experiences and thoughts that run through a
certain person.
• (Private) Each person sorts out information, feelings and emotions, and the
thought processes within the self and is never accessible to anyone.
The SELF and CULTURE
• French Anthropologist
• Every self has two faces:
• Moi refers to a person’s sense of who he is, his
body and his basic identity, his biological
givenness.
• Personne is composed of the social concepts of
what it means to be who he is.
• Can be seen in how some men easily transform
into sweet, docile guys when trying to woe and
court a particular women and suddenly just
change rapidly after hearing a sweet yes.
MARCEL MAUSS
LANGUAGE
• Is another interesting aspect of social constructivism.
I love you Mahal Kita
The Filipino brand of articulation of love, unlike English, does not
specify the subject and the object of love; there is no specification of who
loves and who is loved. There is simply a word for love, mahal, and the
pronoun kita, which is the second person pronoun that refers to the
speaker and the one being talked to. In Filipino language, inlike English,
there is no distinction between the lover and the beloved. They are one.
• In the example, we have seen how language has something to do with
culture. It is a salient part of culture and ultimately, has a tremendous
effect in our crafting self.
• This might also be one of the reasons why culture divide spells out
differences in how one regards oneself.
• If a self is born into particular society or culture, the self
The Self and the Development of the Social World
• How do people actively produce their social worlds?
• How do children growing up become social beings?
• How can a boy turn out just to be like an ape?
• How do twins coming out the same mother turn out to be terribly
different when given up for adoption?
• “Language as both a publicly shared and privately utilized symbol
system is the site where the individual and the social make and remake
each other” (Schwartz, White, and Lutz 1993)
• The way that human persons develop is
with the use of language acquisition and
interaction with others.
• The that we process information is normally
a form of an internal dialogue in our head.
• Cognitive and emotional development of a
LEV VYGOTSKY child is always a mimicry of how it is done
in the social world, in the external reality
where he is in.
• Both treat the human mind as something
that is made, constituted through language
as experienced in the external world and as
encountered in dialogs with others.
GEORGE HERBERT MEAD
• For Mead, this takes place as a child
assumes the other through language and
role play.
• Vygotsky, a child internalizes real life
dialogs that he has had with others, with his
family, his primary caregiver, or his
playmates.
LEV VYGOTSKY
• They apply this to their mental and
practical problems along the social and
cultural infusions brought about by the said
dialogs.
GEORGE HERBERT MEAD
SELF in FAMILIES
• The kind of family that we are born in, the resources available to us
(human, spiritual, economic), and the kind of development that we
will have will certainly affect us we go through life.
• Human persons learn the ways of living and therefore their selfhood by
being in a family.
• Babies internalize ways and styles that they observe from their family.
• Without family biologically and sociologically, a person may not even
survive or become a human person.
GENDER and SELF
• Gender is one of the loci of the self that is subject to alteration, change,
and development.
• One’s gender partly determines how he see himself in the world.
• Oftentimes, the society forces a particular identity unto us depending
on our sex and/or gender.
• Here in the Philippines, husbands for
the most part are expected to provide for
the family. The eldest man in a family is
expected the to head the family and
hold it in. Slight modifications have
been on the way due to feminism and
lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender
(LGBT) activism for the most part,
patriarchy has remained to be at work.
• The gender self is then shaped within a particular context of time and
space.
• The sense of self that has being taught make sure that an individual fits
in a particular environment.
• Gender has to be personally discovered and asserted and not dictated
by culture and the society.
“.Your understanding
of your inner self
holds the meaning of
your life”
-LEO TOLSTOY
