Lesson 2

THE SELF,
SOCIETY, AND
CULTURE
Lesson Objectives

At the end of the lesson, you should be able to:

1. Explain the relationship between and among the self,

society and culture
2. Describe and discuss the different ways by which
society and culture shape the self.
3. Compare and contrast how the self can be influenced
by the different institutions in the society
4. Examine one’s self against the different views of self
that were discussed in the class.
 ACTIVITY
My Self Through the Years
My Elementary My High School My College Self
Self Self
ABSTRACTION
WHAT IS THE SELF?
 The self in contemporary literature and even common sense, is
commonly defined by the following characteristics: “separate,
self-contained, independent, consistent, unitary, and private”
(Stevens 1996).
 Separate – it is meant that the self is distinct from other selves.
One cannot be another person.
 Self-contained and independent – it does not require any other
self for it to exist.
 Consistent – means that a particular self’s trait, characteristics,
tendencies, and potentialities are more or less the same.
 Unitary – the center of all experiences and thoughts that runs
through a certain person.
 Private – each person sorts out information, feelings and
emotions, and thought processes within the self.
Social constructionist perspective – understanding
the vibrant relationship between the self and exrternal
reality.
Social constructionists argue for merged view of the
person and their social context where the boundaries
of one cannot easily be separated from the boundaries
of the other (Stevens 1996).
Social constructivist argue that the self should not be
seen as a static entity that stays constant through and
through.
THE SELF AND CULTURE
 According to French Anthropologist Marcel Mauss, every
self has two faces: Personne and Moi.
 Moi refers to a person’s sense of who he is, his body, and his
basic identity, his biological givenness.
 Moi is a person’s basic identity.
 Personne is composed of the social concepts of what it
means to be who he is.
 Personne has much to do with what it means to live in a
particular institution, a particular religion, a particular
nationality, and how to behave given expectations and
influences from others.
Language is another interesting aspect of this social
constructivist.( ex. Mahal kita – the Filipino
translation of I love you.
In our language, love is intimately bound with value,
with being expensive, being precious.
The sanskrit origin of the word love is “lubh,” which
means desire.
Another interesting facet of our language is its being
gender-neutral.(HE and SHE) in Filipino it is plain
siya.
THE SELF AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SOCIAL
WORLD
 One is to believe to be in active participation in the shaping
of selves.
 That men and women are born with particularities that they
can no longer change.
 Recent studies, indicate that men and women in their
growth and development engage actively in the shaping of
the self. The unending terrain of metamorphosis of the self
is mediated by language.
 “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).
MEAD AND VYGOTSKY
 For Mead and Vygotsky, the way that human persons
develop is with the use of language acquisition and
interaction with others.
 The way that we process information is normally a form
of an internal dialogue in our head. Those who deliberate
about moral dilemmas undergo this internal dialogue,
“Should I do this or that?” “But if I do this, it will be like
this.” “Don’t I want the other option?”
 Both Vygotsky and Mead treat the human mind as
something that is made, constituted through languages
experienced in the external world and as encountered in
dialogs with others.
 Can you notice how little children are fond of playing
role-play with their toys? How they make scripts and
dialogs for their toys as they play with them?
 According to Mead, it is through this that a child
delineates the “I” from the rest.
 Vygotsky for his part, a child internalizes real life
dialogs that he has had with others, with his family,
his primary caregiver, or his playmates.
 They apply this to their mental and practical problems
along with the social and cultural infusions brought
about by the said dialogs.
SELF IN FAMILIES
 Sociologists focus on the different institutions and
powers at play in the society. Among these, the most
prominent is the family.
 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 as we go through life.
 Human beings are born virtually helpless and the
dependency period of a human baby to its parents for
nurturing is relatively longer than most other animals.
 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.
Table manners or ways of speaking to elders are
things that are possible to teach and therefore, are
consciously learned by kids.
Some behaviors and attitudes maybe indirectly taught
through punishments
Sexual behavior or how to confront emotions, are
learned through subtle means, like the tone of the
voice or intonations of the models.
Without a family, biologically and sociology, a person
may not even survive or become a human person.
GENDER AND THE SELF
 Gender is one of those loci of the self that is subject to alteration,
change, and development.
 we have seen in the past years how people fought hard for the right
to express, validate, and assert their gender expression.
 Nancy Chodorow, a feminist argues that because mothers take the
role of taking care of children, there is a tendency for girls to imitate
the same and reproduce the same kind of mentality of women as
care providers in the family.
 The way that little girls are given dolls instead of guns or any other
toys or are encouraged to play with makeshift kitchen also reinforces
the notion of what roles they should take and the selves they should
develop.
 In boarding schools for girls, young women are encouraged to act
like fine ladies, are trained to behave in a fashion that befits their
status as women in society.
 Men, in the periphery of their own family, are taught early
on how to behave like a man. This normally includes
holding in one’s emotion, being tough, fatalistic, not to
worry about danger, and admiration for hard physical
labor.
 Masculinity is learned by integrating a young boy in a
society.
 In the Philippines, young boys had to undergo
circumcision not just for the original, clinical purpose of
hygiene but also to assert their manliness in the society.
Circumcision plays another social role by initiating young
boys into manhood.
 The gendered self is then shaped within a particular
context of time and space.
APPLICATION AND ASSESSMENT
Answer the following questions cogently but
honestly.

1. How would you describe your self?

2. What are the influences of family in your
development as an individual?
3. What social pressures help your self? Would you
have wanted it otherwise?
4. What aspects of your self do you think may be
changed or you would like to change?
THANK YOU
AND
GOD BLESS!
-Ma’am Renalyn T. Gutierrez