Uts1

• Material Self (William James)


  The manifestation of one's identity through his material possession
• Components of the Material Self

  • Our goals
  • Body
  • Clothes
  • People
  • Other material possessions
• Body


  • Accept and appreciate the physical characteristics of their body
  • Girls are more concerned about the appearance of their body than boys
  • Body beautiful are usually influenced by the media as shown in television and internet
• Clothes


  • The style and brand of clothes become significant symbols, particularly among adolescents
  • Clothes they tend to wear are generally influenced by their peer groups because adolescents are anxious to conform to what their peer groups find fashionable and attractive
• People

  • Individual has relationship with such as one's immediate and extended family members as well as close friends with whom one feels psychologically connected
  • Shape and influence the development of one's self and identity
• Other material possessions


  • Include one's house, car, pets
  • Pet could also symbolically define a person's identity
  • A person's pet could be an expression of one's social status, pride and prestige, as in owning a dog or cat of a very expensive breed
• Russell Belk (1988) in his work Are We What We Own? suggests that material possessions act as an objective manifestation of the self
• People tend to measure success through the amount of their material possessions
• Material possessions can also contribute to a feelings of well-being, including a sense of growth and purpose or meaning in life
• Lack or loss of material possessions can be disruptive to one's mental health
• The greater the material possessions, the more likely one will be accepted and regarded well by other people
• Materialistic Person


  One who is excessively concerned with the acquisition of material possessions
• Compulsive Buying Disorder (CBD)


  Obsession with shopping and buying behaviors that can cause adverse consequences
• Materialism


  Giving more importance to material possessions than intangible values
• Social and cultural factors seem to be strongly implicated in the etiology of materialism
• Lack or loss of these material possessions could lead to anxiety, insecurity, and depression in people who are overly materialistic
• When a person is about to make a purchase, he or she should ask himself or herself a very important question: Do I Really Need This?
• Consumer Culture


  Social system in which consumption is dominated by the consumption of commercial products
• Consumerism


  Consumption of material goods and services in excess of one's basic needs
• The state of needs and wants tends to be endless, and thus could cause negative effects such as dissatisfaction, unhappiness and depression
• Spirituality


  Taken from the Latin word "spiritus" meaning breath or life force, process which people seek to discover, hold on to, and when necessary, transform whatever they hold sacred in life
• Spirituality


  Generally refers to meaning and purpose in one's life, a search for wholeness and a relationship with a transcendent being
• Spirituality (for Christians)

  Use the term "SPIRIT" to describe the HOLY SPIRIT
• Aspects of spirituality

  • Reverence
  • Faith
  • Fear
  • Trust
  • Admiration connecting to God
• Worship


  Regarded as an essential act to realize the ultimate meaning of transcendence and human life
• Acts of worship


  • Prayer
  • Reading the Bible
  • Attending sacraments
  • Doing sacrifices
• Worship


  Through acts of faith, love and hope, man is able to encounter God and understand God's words of salvation
• Religion


  Organized system of ideas about the spiritual sphere or supernatural along with associated ceremonial practices by which people try to interpret and/or influence aspects of the universe otherwise beyond their control
• All religions recognize the importance of spirituality of one's life
• Spirituality and religion


  Fulfill numerous social and psychological needs, such as the need to explain human suffering and death and may be a source of love, hope, and affection
• Viktor Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning"


  Explains how a prisoner passes through three major phases in the concentration camp and how each phase transformed the prisoners from their previous lives to a new one and how they developed various pathologies
• Shock


  The first phase the prisoner went through in the concentration camp
• Apathy


  The second phase the prisoner went through, a blunting of the emotions and the feeling that one could not care anymore, a protective shell from the brutalities in the camp
• Depersonalization


  The third phase the prisoner went through, a state in which everything seemed unreal, unlikely, as in a dream
• Logotherapy


  The pursuit of human existence as well as on man's search for a meaning, the striving to find a meaning in one's life is the primary motivational force in man
• Three different ways to discover life in Logotherapy

  • Doing a deed - meaning in life through achievements or accomplishments
  • Experiencing a value - experiencing something or someone, loving a person
  • Suffering - to live is to suffer, to survive is to find meaning in the suffering
• Animism


  Belief that creatures, objects, and places possess certain spirits, belief that things and places are alive and grounded by a supernatural order
• Friedrich Nietzsche: '"He who has a why to live can bear almost any how."'