Summary of Psychological Self, Summaries of Psychology

Download Summary of Psychological Self and more Summaries Psychology in PDF only on Docsity! CO_ujtersreapig the S~_DO DISCUSSION/READINGS INTRODUCTION Most people would say that they do not want to talk about themselves. But in actuality, most people like hearing life stories of another person as a\chance to talk about themselves or to relate self to others. The famous line of “Me, Myself and I” is often used in movies, animation and even in social media—as caption to pictures or as shout-outs. The psychology of self focuses on the representation of an individual based on his/her experiences. These experiences are either from the home, school and other groups, organizations or affiliations he/she engaged in. Seemingly, the ‘self’ is one of the most heavily researched areas in social and personality psychology, where concepts are introduced that beyond our physical attributes, lies our psychological identity. Questions of ‘who am I?’ or ‘what am I beyond my looks?’ are thoughts of many that continuously search for a deeper sense of self which can be traced back from some time of human history. “Drawing on caves suggests that sometime during the dawn of history, human beings began to give serious thought to their nonphysical, psychological selves. With the advent of written history, writers would describe this awareness of self in terms of spirit, psyche, or soul.”*(Pajares & Schunck, 2002) From ancient to current times, the concept of the self is always an interesting subject for many as it is very personal that it talks about intrapersonal properties. In oxfordbibliographies.com (2-13), it is mentioned that whatever stance one adopts regarding the self’s ontological status, there is little doubt that the many phenomena of which the self is a predicate—self-knowledge, self-awareness, self-esteem, self-enhancement, -self- regulation, self-deception, self-presentation—to name just a few, are indispensable research areas. 1. THE SELF AS A COGNITIVE CONSTRUCTION Cognitive Construction is a cognitive approach that focuses on the mental Processes rather than the observable behavior. This approach will assist individuals in assimilating new information to their existing knowledge and will enable to make the appropriate modification to their existing intellectual framework to accommodate their new information. 1.1 William James and the Me-Self, I-Self With the initiative of Wilhelm Wundt, the father of Scientific Psychology, scienti methods in studying what Aguirre et al. (2011) mentioned as iphenomen ge’ of he consciousness’, urged interest in further studies of the self and its role in human behavior. It is in this time that William James’ classic distinction between the self as knower (or 1 €go) and the self as known (or the empirical self) provides a useful scheme within which t, view the multitudinous aspects of self-functioning (oxfordbibliographies.com, 2013). 3 Quite GUN it were 4 “Me, bein} were zi W. James suggested that "the st oe ence, he differentiated, tt Coupes audigy The St 5The Sep) composed of "partly object and partly subject Me". He referred to th milestone, prominent psychologists followed with their own perspectives of the self to contest the roles and functions of ego as the self. These were the landmarks of op ‘as known, or “I é the self as knower, er the and ats conssousess ise, The °M s c Contemporary Psychology and the understanding of the internal processes of man. A group inner experience, internal processes, and ego and suggested that this component vous of, and it consists If-constructs. These perspectives assert the overall ‘ity and worth of human beings and y other hand, is one of the many things that the I may be consci°"- it components, one physical or material, one social, and one spiritual (Pajares & Schy, ir capacity for self-realization (Hall, Lindzey, Loehlin, & Manosevitz, 1997) 2002). Material Self- clothes, our body, Karen Horney with her Feminine Psychology, established that a person has an ‘deal self’, ‘actual self” ‘and the ‘real self’. She believed that everyone experiences basic anxiety through which we experience conflict and strive to cope and employ tension reduction approaches. H 1997) mentioned that Horney believed people develop a consists of things that belong to us or that we belong to. Things like fap; and money are some of what make up our material selves. iven social situation. For Jam Social Self-our social selves are who we are in a gi i change how they act depending on the social n that they are in. James bel number of strategies to cope with basic anxiety. Because people feel inferior, an idealized tuations they participated in. ginary picture of the self as the possessor of unlimited powers and ies, is developed. On the other hand, the actual self, the person one is in people had as many social selves as they had soci and most intimate self. image. Underlying both the idealized self and the actual self is the real self, which is of an individual's spiritual self, include things li) t personality, core valu revealed only as a person begins to shed the various techniques developed to deal with basic conscience that do not typically change throughout a lifetime. anxiety and to find ways of resolving conflicts. The real self is not an entity but a ‘force’ that impels growth and self-realization. Carl Rogers with his Person-Centered Theory, establish a conception of self, There had be jati . sedi involving the Real Self (a.k.a. Self-concept) and Ideal Self. The Real Self includes all those id differen calves en Dey be coal | self may be fragmented into differen sspcts of one's being and one's experiences tet ar perceived in awareness (hough no W. James gave a very interesting perspective on th ae : each other. A\ always accurately) by the individual (Feist, Feist& Roberts, 2013). It is the part of ourselves wntiorsto ote there SalP Eee en Fs nthe self, and was even among the fis’ where we feel, think, look and act involving our self-image. On the other hand, the Ideal an integrated part of one’s psych th jeories emerged to study on the selfhood Seif revolves around goals and ambitions in life, is dynamic, the idealized image that we embedded in popular c athe ' e. wae 30 years, self-esteem has become deer! have developed over time. This is what our parents have taught us considering: what we evaluation or ee ofsiworth jrown & Marchal, 2006). It is a person’s overall sel admire in others, what our society promotes, what we think are in our best interest. ‘A wide gap between the ideal self and the real self indicates incongruence and an unhealthy personality (Feist et al., 2013). If the way that I am (the real self) is aligned with the way that 1 want to be (the ideal self), then I will feel a sense of mental well-being or situations. Accordi cording to researchers (e.g. Crocker & Park, 2004; Crocker & Wolfe, peace of mind, If the way that I am is not aligned with how I want to be, the incongruence, Global self-esteem is a decisi stem is a decision people make about their worth as a person. ot lack of alignment, will result in mental distress or anxiety. The greater the level of incongruence between the ideal self and real self, the greater is the level of resulting distress. Spiritual Self- is who we are at our core. The spiritual self is more concrete or pe 1.2 Global versus Differentiated Models Global Self-esteem (a.k.a, Trait self-esteem), is a ity vari . |, is a personality variable that re the way people generally feel about themselves. It is relatively cadurng aeross ti State Self-esteem (a.k.a. Feelings of Self- worth), I (2 a ), refers to temporary feeli momentary emotional rea Positive and negative events where we feel good elves during these situations or experiences, 1.4 Multiple versus Unified Selves Postmodern psychology contends that man has an identity that shifts and morphs in ifferent social situations and in response to different stimuli, as Kenneth Gergen argues that having a flexible sense of self in different context is more lly adaptable than force oneself to stick to one self-concept (ctlsites.uga.edu, 2016, danielew). Domain Specific evaluate their various and attrib utes. This is maki g on how good or bad people are in specific pl ae atin characteristics. attributes, al 1.3 Real and Ideal Self Concepts Theorists believed that there is no one answer to the question, “Who am T?” as one person can undergo several transitions in his life and create multiple versions of himself. ‘mental well-being, of maintaining The self as the regulati eat under the guise of id, oak ap of an individual's personality and self-proceS However, there is still the contention of the importance of Psychology as the biggest breakthrough in es (Pajares & Schunck, 2002) 0c"! a unified, centralized, coherent self : ig the psychological self. From . , 45 44