CHAPTER 4_PSYCHOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES OF THE SELF

• Psychology comes from the Greek words "psyche," which means soul or mind, and "logos," which means the study of mind. Thus, psychology literally means the study of the soul or mind.
• upon being established as a scientific discipline in 1879, psychology is now considered as the study of human behavior and mental processes.
• unified self - seen as the totality of who we, our beliefs, attitudes, characteristics, and all attributes central to our self-concept.
• Postmodern psychologists, suggest that wat have different multiplicity of selves. Given the different social roles we take on in life, we may also have different subselves.
• intrapersonal level - we may also have different selves, such as the ideal self, the true self or even the false self.
• The different psychological perspectives suggest different ways by which we can view the self:

  1. Psychodynamic perspective
  2. Behaviorist perspective
  3. Humanistic perspective
  4. Cognitive perspective
  5. Biological perspective
  6. Evolutionary perspective
• Psychodynamic perspective - Freud, the main proponent of psychodynamic, believes that our behavior is primarily influenced by past experiences. In addition, he believes that we are driven by unconscious motives, meaning we have little free will to make choices and are unaware of our behaviors.
• Behaviorist perspective - we are controlled by what we learn from our environment. Environmental forces (stimuli) elicit a certain response which affects our observable behaviors.*
• Humanistic perspective - believes that each person is unique and is capable of making choices. We are responsible for our own happiness, and we all have the innate capacity to achieve our best potential (self-actualization).
• Cognitive perspective - concerned with mental functions such as memory, perception, and attention. Cognitive psychologists view people as similar to computers in terms of information processing (input-process-output).
• Biological perspective - asserts that there is a link between a person's behavior and genetic factors such as the activities of the brain and hormones.
• Evolutionary perspective - believes that people's behavior are influenced by their attempt to adapt to evolutionary changes to help us survive.
• According to William James (1842-1910), an American philosopher and psychologist, the self is "the sum total of all that he can call his, not only his body and his psychic powers, but his clothes and his house, his wife and children, his ancestors and friends, his reputation and works, his lands and horses, and yacht and bank-account".
• I-self (the self as knower) - called pure ego. The processor of information or the thinker, which allows one to be aware of the environment and one's existence within that environment.
• Me-self (the self as known) - called the empirical self. Further divided into three constituents: (a) the material self, (b) the social self, and (c) the spiritual self
• James further proposed a duality of the self; the self as knower or the "I-self" and the self as known or the "Me-self". This duality sees the self as both the perceiver and the perceived object.
• Material Self - This consists of one's body, clothes, family, home, and any other possessions that one values and regards as one's own. This includes all those possessions that we call "ours" or "mine" and those which bring about intense emotional feeling since we consider them as an extension of ourselves.
• Social Self - This includes how we think other people think about us, in other words, our reputation in society. James suggests that our need to be regarded favorably by other people is an inherent part of human nature. Whether consciously or unconsciously, we would like to know how people feel or think about us.
• Spiritual Self - This includes our psychological faculties and dispositions, as well as our thoughts, beliefs, and feelings, which are considered the most enduring and intimate part of the self. These psychic dispositions are very personal for us. For instance, the beliefs arising from our significant life experiences have been guiding our actions and decisions all along.
• The constituents of the Me-self can arouse different self-feelings. These are positive or negative emotions resulting from our self-knowledge.
• Self-seeking involves our efforts to preserve or improve ourselves based on our existing self-knowledge and self-feelings.
• Dr. Murray Bowen (1913-1990), an American psychiatrist, was one of the pioneers of family therapy. One of the concepts he posited is the differentiation of selves. Differentiation of selves refers to the degree to which one is able to balance (a) emotional and intellectual functioning, and (b) intimacy and autonomy in relationship (Skowron & Friedlander, 1998). On a more personal level, differentiation involves the ability to make clear boundaries between our thoughts and feelings, and to choose which of the two will guide our behavior.
• highly differentiated person may be able to assert one's self despite the influence of peers. Poorly differentiated individuals, on the other hand, may engage in fusion in their relationships.
• According to Bowen, differentiation is a salient trait for attaining mature development and psychological well-being.
• Carl Rogers (1902-1987), an American psychologist, was one of the forerunners of humanism, a major theoretical perspective in psychology. One of the central features of his personality theory is self-concept.
•  self-concept - includes all those aspects of the self that are perceived in awareness by the individual.
• Rogers further suggests two important aspects of the self: the real self and the ideal self.
• real self - refers to all ideas that reflect a person's actual behavior which answers the question, Who am I?.
• ideal self - refers to what the person wishes to be, and basically answers the question, Who I want to be.
• According to Rogers' theory, a wide gap between our ideal and real selves results in incongruence, which in turn, indicates an unhealthy personality.
• Freud believes that the first five years of life are crucial to the formation of the self. He also believes that the body is the core of human experience, which is further explained by his psychosexual stages of development theory.
• PSYCHOSEXUAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE SELF ACCORDING TO SIGMUND FREUD, Each person undergoes five stages of development which represents the fixation of libido (sexual drives) on different areas of the body.
• PSYCHOSEXUAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE SELF ACCORDING TO SIGMUND FREUD

  • Oral Stage
  • Anal Stage
  • Phallic Stage
  • Latency Stage
  • Genital Stage
• Oral Stage

  1. 0 to 1 year old
  2. Erogenous zone: mouth
  3. Source of pleasure: biting, sucking, breastfeeding
  4. Adult behaviors due to fixation: overeating, nail biting, smoking, thumbsucking, sarcasm, tactlessness
• Anal Stage

  1. 1 to 2 years old
  2. Erogenous zone: anus
  3. Source of pleasure: defecation
  4. Anal fixation:

  • Anal-retentive personality due to strict toilet training - obsession with cleanliness, being overly organized, stinginess
  • Anal-expulsion personality due to lenient toilet training - clumsiness, being messy
• Phallic Stage

  1. 3 to 5 or 6 years old
  2. Erogenous zone: genitals
  3. Source of pleasure: examining or touching their genitals out of curiosity
  4. When properly resolved, the self is developed when the child identifies with and adopts the characteristics of the parents of the same sex.
• Latency Stage

  1. 5 or 6 years to puberty
  2. The sexual drives become dormant; the child's energy is focused on school work, hobbies, and games.
• Genital Stage

  1. Puberty to adulthood
  2. The person realizes that sexual pleasure is satisfied through healthy relationships with other people rather than self-pleasure.
• Erik Erikson - believes that the ego is not just a mediator between the id and the superego. He believes that the ego plays a positive driving force in human development, specifically, he asserts that the ego's main job is the establishment and maintenance of sense of identity.
• ERIK PSYCHOSOCIAL STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT OF THE SELF

  1. Trust versus mistrust.
  2. Autonomy versus shame and doubt.
  3. Initiative versus guilt.
  4. Industry versus inferiority.
  5. Identity versus role confusion.
  6. Intimacy versus isolation.
  7. Generativity versus stagnation.
  8. Ego integrity versus despair.