The Self as a

Social Construct
Lesson Objectives:

• explain how cultural factors affect or shape

one’s perception of self;
• compare and contrast the impact of social
groups on your personality; and
• evaluate the influence of individualism and
collectivism on one’s identity.
• Growing up, he never had an
interaction with any other human being
but apes and other animals.
• Tarzan became an animal, in effect.
• Human persons will not develop like
human persons without intervention.
• We may be gifted with intellect and
capacity to rationalize things but at the
end of the day, our growth and
development and consequentially, our
“selves” are truly products of our
interaction with external reality.
 • SO WOULD YOU RATHER BE SO
INTELLIGENT YET HAVE FEW TO NO
FRIENDS/SOCIAL INTERACTION OR BE
AVERAGE YET HAVE A LOT OF FRIENDS?
ABSTRACTION

• Knowing the self requires understanding our

society and its culture and how it provokes us to
make decisions that are culturally influenced and
socially constructed. No one could live by
themselves alone.
• The self, as a social being, is influenced by his
culture. As products of it, we mirror the values,
traditions, and beliefs
SOCIAL SELF by George Herbert Mead
(1863-1931)

• self is developed as one grows and ages and is

constructed by directly engaging in the world
through interaction and reflections on those
interactions.
• Role-playing is the process in which one takes on the
role of another by putting oneself in the position of
the person with whom they interact.
• Through role-playing, the individual develops a
concept of self. By putting oneself in the position of
others, one can reflect upon oneself.
• To accomplish this, one must be conscious of oneself
from the standpoint of others. Therefore, developing
the concept of “self” lies in the ability “to wear other
Developmental Stages of the Self - For Mead, the self is not
inborn; It is usually learned during childhood

• Imitation, or the preparatory stage, is where a child

imitates their parents’ behavior.
• The play stage involves the child playing the role of
others. In doing these, they become aware that there is a
difference between themself and the role that they are
playing.
• The game stage is where the child comes to see
themselves from the perspective of other people. To play
the game, the child must be aware of their relationship
with others and place themselves in their roles to
appreciate their particular role. In doing this, they see
themselves in terms of the collective viewpoint of other
people and the attitude of generalized others.
 I and Me

• For Mead, the self is a social process

between the I and Me.
• “I”- unsocialized and spontaneous self,
subjective and acting part, immediate
response to others,
• “Me” – conventional and objective part of
the self, results from the progressive
stages of role-playing or role-taking and
the perspective one assumes to view and
analyze one’s behaviors, organization of
the internalized attitude of others
Generalized Other

• One of Mead’s best-known concepts

• an organized community or social group
which gives the individual their unity of self.
• The attitude of the generalized other is the
attitude of the community as a whole.
• The focus of the individual’s actions has now
shifted from the ‘self’ to the generalized other
or the prominent people around him
• Since an individual sees themself as a
member of the group, their actions and
decisions tend to be carefully analyzed so
that it would mirror societal goals and values.
 LOOKING-GLASS SELF by Charles Horton
Cooley (1864-1929)
• self is developed as a result of one’s
perceptions of other people’s opinions
• They constantly pick up feedback and
incorporate it into their sense of self. It is
a social construction and personal reality,
showing how others influence people’s
image of themselves.
• For Cooley, the self, an individual’s
awareness of one’s social or personal
identity, is a social development.
 LOOKING-GLASS SELF by Charles Horton
Cooley (1864-1929)
• The self is built through social interaction, which involves three steps:
• first, people imagine how they must appear to others;
• second, they imagine the judgment on that appearance;
• and finally, they develop themselves by assessing others.
• As a result, the looking-glass self is made up of feelings about other
people’s judgments of one’s behavior.
• The self consists of the individual’s more or less accurate assessments of
other people’s judgment about one’s self.
• It should serve only as a guide for reflection and should be taken to avoid
ending up living following other people’s expectations.
 PRIVATE, PUBLIC, AND COLLECTIVE SELF
by Harry Triandis (1926-2019)

• Private self, or individual self, is the cognition that involves traits, states,
and behaviors. It is an assessment of the self by the self. It shows one’s
knowledge of attributes that differentiate them from others.
• Public self is the cognition concerning the generalized other’s view of the
self. It corresponds to an assessment of the self by the generalized other.
It shows one’s relationship with others and the role one assumes in that
relationship.
• Collective self is the cognition concerning a view of the self found in
memberships in social groups (e.g., family, co-workers, tribe, professional
organizations). For instance, a person may be identified as a feminist.
Attributes of being a feminist similar to other feminists are emphasized,
forming the collective self.
 SOCIAL IDENTITY THEORY by Henri Tajfel
& William Sumner (1919-1982)
• Social identity has been defined as the
person’s sense of who they are according to
their membership in a particular group;
group membership is an essential source of
pride and self-esteem
• An in-group is an esteemed social group
commanding a member’s loyalty; group to
which a person belongs.
• an out-group is a scorned social group to
which one feels competition or opposition. It
is a group to which a person does not belong.
 SOCIAL IDENTITY THEORY by Henri Tajfel
& William Sumner (1919-1982)

• three mental processes involved in evaluating others as “us” or “them”

• social categorization. People also categorize other people to identify and
understand the social environment. With this, people learn things about
themselves by knowing their category.
• The second process is called social identification. After learning their
category, people adopt the identity of the group they have categorized
themselves with.
• last process is social comparison. After classifying themselves as part of
the group and identifying with it, they tend to compare that group with
others. Here they might begin to discriminate and criticize the other
groups.
 ANTHROPOLOGY OF THE SELF by Brian
Morris (1936-present)

• self is not an entity but a process

orchestrating an individual’s experience
• a person becomes self-aware and self-
reflective about their place in the surrounding
world. For him, “self” is defined as an
individual’s mental representation of their
person as self-representation.
• “other” refers to how one perceives the
mental representations of others.
• At the same time, the relationship between
the self and others is also a function of
culture.
DIALOGICAL SELF by Hubert Hermans
(1935-present)
• regarded the “self” as the “society of
Mind.”
• An internal I-position refers to how one
functions in oneself, while an external I-
position refers to how one identifies
themselves based on particular external
factors. All these constitute the
functionality of the self.
• The dialogic self approach calls for the I-
positions to come in contact with each
other – to be in a dialogue with one another
for an individual to become fully aware of
the different dimensions that constitute
themselves.
 SATURATED SELF by Kenneth Gergen
(1935-present)
• characterized by constant connection to others.
• This self absorbs many voices (sometimes
contradictory) and takes in seemingly endless
streams of information.
• contradicts the notion of a singular, true,
authentic self and instead gives way to a self
consisting of multiple selves.
• Multiphrenia- people establish multiple selves by
absorbing the numerous voices of people in their
lives, either in real life or through the media;
creating a seemingly endless pool of selves that
they can choose to draw upon depending on the
needs of the current situation.
SATURATED SELF by Kenneth Gergen
(1935-present)
• Today’s technology has become a
significant outlet for people to create
and experiment with multiple selves.
• Simply put, the saturated self is
stressed. Because of technology,
there are a lot of options that are all
available immediately, which leads
to an endless list of things to do.
• Thus, social saturation brings a
general loss of true and knowable
selves.
The Self in the Western and Oriental
Thought
CULTURE
That complex whole
which includes
knowledge, beliefs,
arts, morals, law,
customs, and any
other capabilities and
habits acquired by
humans as a member
of society.
 The self is clearly linked to his/her
culture. In fact, our social personality is
a reflection of culture itself.
INDIVIDUALIST
• emphasize that people are
independent of their groups.
• personal goals are more
important than the goals of the
ingroup.
• value independence and personal
uniqueness. Highly individualist
people value personal freedom,
self-sufficiency, control over their
lives, and appreciation of their
unique qualities that distinguish
COLLECTIVIST
• goals of the ingroup are
more important than
personal goals

• people are expected to

maintain close
interdependent relationships
Individualist vs. Collectivist Societies
FOCUS:
- self/immediate family - extended family
-I - WE
- Individual ownership - Resources are shared
Source of Information:
- Media - Social networks
Goal:
- Self-actualization - Harmony and consensus in
society
-Task over relationship - Relationship over tasks
 THE SELF AS A PRODUCT OF THE
MODERN WORLD
• Culture is dynamic, ever-changing, go through
adjustments and re-alignments
• Culture’s values change over time, and if they do not,
society is trapped in the challenges of the modern
world.
• The fast-paced world has made it more challenging to
decipher the self since the sources of our identities are
no longer stable and secure.
• Technology has allowed us to do things unimaginable
before. Yesterday’s handful of options is fast becoming
obsolete, and choices that man makes now integrate
the post-modern world’s cultural traditions culture has
been presented as global in perspective, as today’s
generation does not identify with their societal culture
but recognizes the unprecedented influence of the
 REFERENCES
• Corpuz, R.M., Estoque, R.S., Tabotabo C.V. (2019). Understanding the Self. C&E Publishing
• Palea, E.D.V., Nazario, M.B.D., Valero, J.B.G., Descartin, I.K.L., Morales-Nuncio, E. (2018).
Introspection: Understanding the Self. Books Atbp. Publishing Corp.
• Alata, E.J.P., Caslib Jr., B.N.C., Serafica, J.P.J., Pawilen, R.A. (2018). Understanding the Self.
REX Book Store, Inc.

• Additional Materials:
• How do you define yourself? by TEDxTalks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzPbY9ufnQY

• How Our Identities Are Socially Constructed by TEDxTalks https://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=uIuJT1n2vRY

• Is your identity given or created? By TEDxTalks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-

tJKGZ_xSZ0
QUIPPER ACTIVITY

FLEX KO
LANG ANG
___________
KO.
• This is your chance to show off a family
member/friend who greatly influenced who you
are now. State the reasons why that member
became a vital model in shaping your personality
-- whether it's a good or a bad effect.
• Post a photo in the Quipper Essay of that
family/friend.
• Just be yourself. Be vulnerable.