PYSCHOLOGY AND THE

SELF
FDM
PSYCHOLOGY
IT  IS A MULTIFACETED DISCIPLINE AND INCLUDES MANY SUB-
FIELDS OF STUDY SUCH AREAS AS HUMAN DEVELOPMENT,
SPORTS, HEALTH, CLINICAL, SOCIAL BEHAVIOR AND COGNITIVE
PROCESSES.
 A. THE SELF AS A
COGNITIVE CONSTRUCTION

1) Me-Self vs I-Self

2) Global vs Differentiated Models

3) Real and Ideal self-concepts

4) Multiple vs Unified selves

5) True vs False selves

 WILLIAM JAMES:
ME-SELF VS I-SELF

• William James is known as the Father of American Psychology.

“A man's 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.”

• The Self is divided into two categories:

• I-Self
• Me-Self
 ME-SELF: EMPIRICAL SELF
• Material Self: mine
• Tangible objects, people or places that carry the designation of mine
• Bodily self and extracorporeal self

• Social Self: ours

• Parents, siblings, romantic partners
• Relationship self: interpersonal relationships

• Spiritual Self: inner or psychological self; subjective being

• Self-perceived abilities, attitudes, emotions, interests, values, and
motives.
 I-SELF: THINKING SELF

• Individual Self: individual traits, abilities and possessions

• Spiritual self and aspects of the material self (I am tall; I am shy)

• Relational Self: other people with whom we have a

personal relationship
• Aspects of the social self (I am Noah’s dad)

• Collective Self: Social roles, social categories, and social

group membership
• Aspects of social self (I am a Filipino)
 GLOBAL VS DIFFERENTIATED
MODELS
GLOBAL MODEL DIFFERENTIATED
MODEL
- Psychoanalysis: the psyche is
• Gestalt: divided into the id, ego and
the whole is more than the superego
sum of its parts.
- The self as divided into
• Humanistic: dimensions: physical,
the person is a total person emotional, behavioral, social,
and cannot be reduced into parts. moral.

- The self as personality divided

into Traits.
THREE STRUCTURES OF THE MIND
THROUGH WHICH PERSONALITY IS
FORMED:

A. ID- need to satisfy basic urges and desires; pleasure-

seeking side, impulsive, child-like and demands instant
gratification (DEVIL).

B. EGO- refers to the ‘I’ and operates on the reality principle

and controls the ID; can conform with existing societal
consideration (ANGEL).

C. SUPEREGO- conscience and moral judge of one’s

conduct; strives for perfection than pleasure (PERSON).
 CARL RANSOM ROGER’S SELF THEORY:
REAL VS IDEAL SELF
• Carl Ramson Rogers is the founder of Humanistic
Approach to Psychology.
• The self develops from interactions with significant people and
awareness of one’s own characteristics and level of functioning.
• Central to achieving self-actualization is the development of self-
concept.

• Karen Horney proposed the Psychoanalytic Social

Theory.
• Psychoanalytic Social Theory was built on the assumption that
social and cultural conditions are largely responsible for shaping
personality.
 TWO COMPONENTS OF SELF-
CONCEPT:
a. Real Self: consists of all the ideas, including the
awareness of what one is and what one can do.

b. Ideal Self: what one should be or what one aspires to

be; the closer the ideal self to the real self.
• The more fulfilled and happy the individual becomes (NORMAL)
• When the ideal self is far from the real self, the person becomes
unhappy and dissatisfied (NEUROTIC).

The Perceived Self is how person sees self and how

others see them.
 THE IDEALIZED SELF-IMAGE

(1)Neurotic search for glory.

(2)Neurotic claims.

(3)Neurotic pride.

• Self-hatred is expressed as either self-contempt or alienation from self.

• Neurotic means someone who shows signs of mental disturbance (anxiety, self-
doubt, and other negative feelings) but does not indicate complete psychosis.
• It gives us more attention to negative outcomes or risks.
DAVID LESTER AND ROY BAUMEISTER:
MULTIPLE VS UNIFIED SELVES
• David Lester
“Properly speaking, a man has as many social selves as there are individuals who
recognize him and carry an image of him in their head.”

• Roy Baumeister
“But the concept of the self loses its meaning if a person has multiple
selves…the essence of self involves integration of diverse experiences
into a unity…In short, unity is one of the defining features of selfhood and
identity.”

• Unified Self is the integration of the subselves into one, however,

integration is a task for the later part of life.

• Multiple Selves is the diverse subselves representing the identity of a

person.
 MULTIPLE UNIFIED

- Big Five Personality Factors - Carl Gustav Jung: Self-

realization
a. Neuroticism
b. Extraversion - Alfred Adler: Striving for
c. Openness to experience success
d. Agreeableness
e. Conscientiousness - Abraham Maslow: Self
actualization

- Carl Rogers: Actualize the

perceived self

- Rollo May: Rediscover

selfhood: An accurate
perceived self
 BIG FIVE PERSONALITY
FACTORS
1) Neuroticism- It indicates a person’s ability to remain stable and
balanced.

2) Extraversion: It indicates how outgoing and social a person is.

3) Openness to Experience: It indicates how open-minded and

authority-challenging a person is.

4) Agreeableness: It indicates how warm, friendly and tactful a

person is.

5) Conscientiousness: It indicates how self-disciplined and

organized a person is.
 CARL GUSTAV JUNG:
SELF-REALIZATION
• Carl Jung was a the founder of depth psychology. 

• Jung realized that we are guided toward Self-realization by the aims and instincts of the
soul.

• Archetypes:  a collectively inherited unconscious idea, pattern of thought, image, etc.,

universally present in individual psyches (human mind or soul).
• Four major archetypes:
a. Persona- social roles that individuals present to others
b. Shadow- repressed thoughts that are usually unacceptable; dark side of the
psyche
c. Anima- feminine side of the male psyche;
Animus- masculine side of the female psyche
d. Self- central archetype
 ALFRED ADLER:
THEORY OF HUMAN MOTIVATION
• Alfred Adler is the founder of individual psychology.

• Striving for superiority or success: single drive or motivating force behind all behavior
and experience.

• People striving for superiority with little concern to others are motivated largely by
exaggerated feelings of personal inferiority.

• People striving for superiority with concern to others has more importance for them the
social progress rather than personal credit.
 ABRAHAM MASLOW:
THEORY OF SELF-ACTUALIZATION
• Self-actualization, according to Maslow, represents growth
of an individual toward fulfillment of the highest needs—
those for meaning in life, in particular.
 CARL ROGERS:
ACTUALIZE THE PERCEIVED
SELF
"The organism has one basic tendency and striving - to actualize, maintain, and
enhance the experiencing organism”
(Rogers, 1951, p. 487).

•  Humans have one basic motive, that is the tendency to self-actualize - i.e., to fulfill
one's potential and achieve the highest level of 'human-beingness' we can.

• Characteristics of a Fully Functioning Person:

• Open to Experience
• Existential Living
• Trust feelings
• Creativity
• Fulfilled life
 ROLLO MAY:
REDISCOVER SELFHOOD: AN ACCURATE
PERCEIVED SELF
• Rollo May is the best known American existential psychologist.

• Rediscovering selfhood involves rediscovering our own feelings

and desires and fighting against those things that prevent us from
feeling and wanting.

• Mays theory is not a scientific theory of personality giving us a

series of hypotheses that may be tested by an empirical procedure
• Instead he suggested a philosophical picture of human nature that is
coherent, relevant, comprehensive, and compelling.
 FOUR STAGES OF
CONSCIOUSNESS OF SELF:
• Innocence: characteristic of the infant before consciousness of self is born.

• Rebellion : the individual seeks to establish some inner strength where

defiance and hostility is commonplace which we can sometimes see in toddlers.

• Ordinary consciousness of self: stage most people refer to when they speak
of a healthy personality. It involves being able to learn from ones mistakes and
live responsibly.

• Creative consciousness of self: it involves the ability to see something

outside ones usual limited viewpoint and gain a glimpse of ultimate truth as it
exists in reality
 DONALD WINNICOTT:
TRUE VS FALSE SELF
• True Self is represented by our real feelings and desires.

• False Self is a side of us that has changed its behavior,

repressed feelings and pushed needs aside in order to survive.

• Healthy false self is described as one which allows someone to be

functional in society.  It enables politeness and social courtesy, even
when we may not feel like it.
• Unhealthy false self as one that fits into society through forced
compliance rather than a desire to adapt.

•  We introduced the idea of the onion – the true self at the
center protected by outer layers of false self.
 TRUE SELF FALSE SELF
• Like their bodies • Pessimistic

• Appreciate their qualities • Take no risks

• Do not compare yourself with others • Focus on faults

• Speak kindly • Happy to imitate others

• Proactive • Critical of themselves

• Accept your emotions and know how • Blaming

to express them
• Look defeated and depressed
• Optimistic
• Repress their emotions
• Welcome the praise of others
• Suspicious of praises
• Confident • Compare themselves with Others

• Look for challenge and adventure • Narcissistic

• Think they are important because of their

• Live the present Moment possessions
DONALD WINNICOTT AND THE FALSE SELF
• Donald Winnicott is best known for the true and
false self along with the relationship between
mother and baby.

• Winnicott says that most of the efforts of a

person with a very strong false self are
oriented towards the intellectualization of
reality.
• This means that they try to turn reality into something that can be reasoned, but
without emotions, affections or creative acts. 

• When such intellectualization succeeds, the individual is perceived as normal.

• However, he does not experience what he lives out as something that is truly his, but
rather as something alien to him.

• He is never able to feel happy about his successes, nor feel valued even
though others may see that value in him.

• As far as he is concerned, it is his false self who has achieved it or his false self that is
being valued. This just creates a breakdown with himself and with the world.

• His true self is trapped, fantasizing about, and experiencing, a despair that it is never
able to understand by itself.
 B. ALBERT BANDURA:
THE SELF AS PROACTIVE AND
AGENTIC
• Humans through their agency are proactive agents
of experiences.

- Agency: embodies the endowments, belief

systems, self-regulatory capabilities, and distributed
structures and functions.

• Personal influence is exercised, rather than reside as a

discrete entity.

• The core features of agency enable people to play a part in

 MAIN FEATURES OF HUMAN
AGENCY
1. Intentionality: acts done intentionally; plans of actions with the
anticipation of possible outcomes.

2. Forethought: enables the person to anticipate the likely

consequences of prospective actions.

3. Self-reactiveness: making choices and choosing appropriate course

of action as well as motivating and regulating them.

4. Self-reflectiveness: give the person the ability to reflect upon and the
adequacy of his or her own thoughts and actions; people are not only
agents of actions but also self-examiners of their own functioning.
• Efficacy Beliefs: foundation of human agency; plays a role in self-regulation.

• Self-Efficacy: individual’s belief that he or she is capable to perform a task

which influences whether he or she will think pessimistically or optimistically.

• Self-regulation: ability of an individual to control his or her behavior without

having to rely on others for him/her.

BANDURA’S CONCEPT ON SELF REGULATION

a. Self-observation: monitor our own performance.
b. Judgmental Process: self-evaluation
c. Self-reaction: create incentives for our own actions through self
reinforcement or self-punishment.