The self as

cognitive construct
💠 Activity :

 What is your opinion about the self?

 In confidence or in an attempt to avoid further
analytical discussions, a lot of people say, “I am
who I am.” Yet, this statement still begs the
question “if you are who you are, then who are
you that makes you who you are?”
 William James (1890) – was one of the earliest
psychologists to study the self and conceptualized
the self as having two aspects the “I” and the
“Me”.
 The “I” is the thinking, acting, and feeling self.
 The “Me” on the other hand, is the physical
characteristics as well as psychological
capabilities that makes who you are.
 Carl Rogers’s (1959) – theory of personality also used
the same terms, the “I” as the one who acts and decides,
while the “me” is what you think or what you feel about
yourself as an object.
 Other concepts similar to self :

 Identity – is composed of personal characteristics, social roles, and

responsibilities as well as affiliations that define who one is.

 Self-concept – is what basically comes to your mind when you are

asked about who you are.
 Self, identity and self concept are not fixed in one time frame.
 Carl Rogers self-schema or our organized system
or collection of knowledge about who we are;

Hobbies

Family Self Religion

Nationality
 Sigmund Freud – saw the self, its mental processes,
and one’s behaviour as the results of the interaction
between the Id, Ego, and the Superego.

 Under the theory of symbolic interactions, G.H. Mead

(1934) argued that the self is created and develop
through human interaction.
 Three reasons why self and identity
are social products;
1. We do not create ourselves out of nothing.
2. Whether we like to admit it or not, we actually need
others to affirm and reinforce who we think we are. We
also need them as reference points about our identity.
3. What we think is important to us may also have been
influenced by what is important in our social or historical
context.
 Carver and Scheier (1981) identified two
types of self that we can be aware of:

1. The private self or your internal standards and private thoughts

and feelings.
2. The public self or your public image commonly gained toward
having a good presentation of yourself to others.

 Three other self-schema: the Actual, Ideal, and ought self

• The “actual” self is who you are at the moment.
• The “ideal” self is who you like to be.
• The “ought” self is who you think you should be.
 The downward social comparison – is the more common type of
comparing ourselves with others

 The upward social comparison – which is comparing ourselves

with those who are better off than us.

 Social comparison – also entails what is called self-evaluation

maintenance theory, which states that we can feel threatened when someone
out-performs us, especially when that person is close to us.
 In this case we usually react in three ways:
• First – we distance ourselves from that person or redefine our relationship
with them.
• Second – we may also reconsider the importance of the aspects or skill in
which you were outperformed.
• Third – we may strengthen our resolve to improve that certain aspect of
ourselves.
 Narcissism – is a “trait” characterized by overly high self-esteem,
self-admiration, and self-centeredness.

 Baumeister, Smart, and Boden (1996) – in their research on

self-esteem concluded that programs, activities, and parenting styles
to boost self-esteem should only be rewarding good behaviour and
other achievements and not for the purpose of merely trying to make
children feel better about themselves or to appease them when they
get angry or sad.