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GED 101 Understanding the Self

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Bersoto, M.A., Arcega, A.M., & Cullar, D. S.

GED
G ED 101 UNDERSTANDING THE SELF
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WEEK 1: UNDERSTANDING THE SELF

Introduction to Self Understanding

Understanding oneself is essential to understand behaviors and beliefs

that affects ourselves and others specifically in becoming effective and
successful person in life, work, and relationship. Moreover, self-understanding
(1) provides a sense of purpose; (2) leads to healthier relationships; (3) helps
harness your natural strength; and (4) promotes confidence.

This module will introduce you to the basic concepts of self and
personality, and how they are related with each other. Self and personality
characterized the way we define our existence, also these refers on how we
organized
our experiences that are reflected to our behavior. On the other hand, people have different ideas about
themselves. These ideas represent the self of the person. Moreover, we behave in different ways in a
given situation, but people also behave fairly stable in different circumstances. The relatively permanent
pattern of behavior represents personality of the person. In details,

Personality

 The etymological derivative of personality comes from the word “persona”, the theatrical masks
worn by Romans in Greek and Latin drama. Personality also comes from the two Latin words
“per” and “sonare”, which literally means “to sound through”.
 Personality have no single definition since different personality theories have different views on
how to define it. However, the commonly accepted definition of personality is that it is a
relatively permanent traits and unique characteristics that give both consistency and individuality
to a person’s behavior (Roberts & Mroczek, 2008).
 Personality plays a key role in affecting how people shape their lives. It involves the complex
relationship of people with their environment, how they cope and adjust through life, and how
they respond to demands of physical and social challenges.
 Personality is the overall pattern or integration of a person’s structure, modes of behavior,
attitudes, aptitudes, interests, intellectual abilities, and many other distinguishable personality
traits. Personality is the conglomeration of the following components: physical self, intelligence,
character traits, attitudes, habits, interest, personal discipline, moral values, principles and
philosophies of life.

Determinants of Personality

Personality refers to the total person in his/her overt and covert behavior. The determinants of
factors of personality are as follows:

 Environmental Factors of Personality. The surroundings of an individual compose the

environmental factors of personality. This includes the neighborhood a person lives in, his school,
college, university and workplace. Moreover, it also counts the social circle the individual has.
Friends, parents, colleagues, co-workers and bosses, everybody plays a role as the determinants
of personality.

 Biological Factors of Personality. This further includes:

1) hereditary factors or genetic make-up of the person that inherited from their parents. This
describes the tendency of the person to appear and behave the way their parents are;
2) physical features include the overall physical structure of a person: height, weight, color,
sex, beauty and body language, etc. Most of the physical structures change from time to
time, and so does the personality. With exercises, cosmetics and surgeries, many physical
features are changed, and therefore, the personality of the individual also evolves; and
3) brain. The preliminary results from the electrical stimulation of the brain (ESB) research
gives indication that better understanding of human personality and behavior might come
from the study of the brain.

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 Situational Factors of Personality. Although these factors do not literally create and shape up
an individual’s personality, situational factors do alter a person’s behavior and response from
time to time. The situational factors can be commonly observed when a person behaves
contrastingly and exhibits different traits and characteristics.

 Cultural Factors. Culture is traditionally considered as the major determinants of an individual’s

personality. The culture largely determinants what a person is and what a person will learn. The
culture within a person is brought up, is very important determinant of behavior of a person.
Culture is complex of these belief, values, and techniques for dealing with the environment which
are shared among contemporaries and transmitted by one generation to the next.

Personality Traits

Personality traits reflect people’s characteristic patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.
Personality traits imply consistency and stability—someone who scores high on a specific trait like
Extraversion is expected to be sociable in different situations and over time. Thus, trait psychology rests
on the idea that people differ from one another in terms of where they stand on a set of basic trait
dimensions that persist over time and across situations.

The most widely used system of traits is called the Five-Factor Model. This system includes five
broad traits that can be remembered with the acronym OCEAN: Openness, Conscientiousness,
Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism. Each of the major traits from the Big Five can be divided
into facets to give a more fine-grained analysis of someone's personality. In addition, some trait theorists
argue that there are other traits that cannot be completely captured by the Five-Factor Model. Critics of
the trait concept argue that people do not act consistently from one situation to the next and that people
are very influenced by situational forces. Thus, one major debate in the field concerns the relative power
of people’s traits versus the situations in which they find themselves as predictors of their behavior.

The Five-Factor Model of Personality

Research that used the lexical approach showed that many of the personality descriptors found in
the dictionary do indeed overlap. In other words, many of the words that we use to describe people are
synonyms. Thus, if we want to know what a person is like, we do not necessarily need to ask how
sociable they are, how friendly they are, and how gregarious they are. Instead, because sociable people
tend to be friendly and gregarious, we can summarize this personality dimension with a single term.
Someone who is sociable, friendly, and gregarious would typically be described as an “Extravert.” Once
we know she is an extravert, we can assume that she is sociable, friendly, and gregarious.

The most widely accepted system to emerge from this approach was “The Big Five” or “Five-
Factor Model” (Goldberg, 1990; McCrae & John, 1992; McCrae & Costa, 1987). The Big Five comprises
five major traits shown in the Figure 2 below. A way to remember these five is with the acronym OCEAN
(O is for Openness; C is for Conscientiousness; E is for Extraversion; A is for Agreeableness; N is for
Neuroticism). The table below provides descriptions of people who would score high and low on each of
these traits.

Table 1. Descriptions of Personality Traits

Big 5 Trait Definition
Openness The tendency to appreciate new art, ideas, values, feelings, and behaviors.
Conscientiousness The tendency to be careful, on-time for appointments, to follow rules, and
to be hard working.
Extraversion The tendency to be talkative, sociable, and to enjoy others; the tendency to
have a dominant style.
Agreeableness The tendency to agree and go along with others rather than to assert one
owns opinions and choices.
Neurotism The tendency to be frequently experience negative emotions such as anger,
worry, and sadness, as well as being itnerpersonally sensitive.

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Table 2. Example behaviors for those scoring low and high for the big 5 traits
Big 5 Trait Example Behavior for LOW Example Behavior for HIGH Scorers
Scorers
Openness Prefers not to be exposed to Enjoys seeing people with new types
alternative moral systems; narrow of haircuts and body piercing;
interest; inartistic; not analystica; curious; imaginative; untraditional
down-to-earth
Conscientiousness Prefers spur-of-the-moment Never late for a date; organized;
action to planning; unrealiable; hardworking; neat, persevering;
hedonistic; careless; lax punctual; self-disciplined
Extraversion Preferring a quiet evening reading Being the life of the party’ active;
to a loud party; sober; aloof; optimistic; fun-loving; affectionate
unenthusiastic
Agreeableness Quickly and confidently asserts Agrees with other about political
own rights; irritable; opinions; good-natured; forgiving;
manipulative; uncooperative; rude gullible; helpful; forgiving
Neurotism Not getting irritated by sall Constantly worrying about little
annoyances; calm, unemotional; things; insecure; hypochondrical;
hardy; secure; self-satisfied feeling inadequate

Scores on the Big Five traits are mostly independent. That means that a person’s standing on one
trait tells very little about their standing on the other traits of the Big Five. For example, a person can be
extremely high in Extraversion and be either high or low on Neuroticism. Similarly, a person can be low
in Agreeableness and be either high or low in Conscientiousness. Thus, in the Five-Factor Model, you
need five scores to describe most of an individual’s personality. In the exercises part of this module there
is a short scale to assess the Five-Factor Model of personality (Donnellan, Oswald, Baird, & Lucas,
2006). You can take this test to see where you stand in terms of your Big Five scores.

Traits are important and interesting because they describe stable patterns of behavior that persist
for long periods of time (Caspi, Roberts, & Shiner, 2005). Importantly, these stable patterns can have
broad- ranging consequences for many areas of our life (Roberts, Kuncel, Shiner, Caspi, & Goldberg,
2007). For instance, think about the factors that determine success in college. If you were asked to guess
what factors predict good grades in college, you might guess something like intelligence. This guess
would be correct, but we know much more about who is likely to do well. Specifically, personality
researchers have also found the personality traits like Conscientiousness play an important role in college
and beyond, probably because highly conscientious individuals study hard, get their work done on time,
and are less distracted by nonessential activities that take time away from school work. In addition, highly
conscientious people are often healthier than people low in conscientiousness because they are more
likely to maintain healthy diets, to exercise, and to follow basic safety procedures like wearing seat belts
or bicycle helmets. Over the long term, this consistent pattern of behaviors can add up to meaningful
differences in health and longevity. Thus, personality traits are not just a useful way to describe people
you know; they actually help psychologists predict how good a worker someone will be, how long he or
she will live, and the types of jobs and activities the person will enjoy.

Who Am I?

Have you ever ask yourself the question, “Who am I?”? Answering the question 'Who am I?' can
lead to a solid self-concept and self-understanding. For many people, answering this question isn't very
easy. For others, a solid understanding of who they are is a big part of their lives. Understanding of who
you are as a person is called self-concept and understanding what your motives are when you act is
called self-understanding.

In definition, self-concept is generally thought of as our individual perceptions of our behavior,

abilities, and unique characteristics—a mental picture of who you are as a person. For example, beliefs
such as "I am a good friend" or "I am a kind person" are part of an overall self-concept.

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Self-concept tends to be more malleable when people are younger and still going through the
process of self-discovery and identity formation. As people age, self-perceptions become much more
detailed and organized as people form a better idea of who they are and what is important to them.

According to the book Essential Social Psychology by Richard Crisp and Rhiannon Turner:

 The individual self consists of attributes and personality traits that differentiate us from other
individuals. Examples include introversion or extroversion.
 The relational self is defined by our relationships with significant others. Examples include
siblings, friends, and spouses.
 The collective self reflects our membership in social groups. Examples include British,
Republican, African-American, or gay.

At its most basic, self-concept is a collection of beliefs one holds about oneself and the responses
of others. It embodies the answer to the question "Who am I?". The lesson to follow will facilitate
learning about the self, and self concept.

ACTIVITY # 1: The Mini-IPIP (International Personality Item Pool Representation of the NEO PI-
R) Scale (20 points)

This section aims to reinforce your understanding of the topics covered in

Week 1 through the activity below.

Instructions: Below are phrases describing people’s behaviors. Please use

the rating scale below to describe how accurately each statement describes you.
Describe yourself as you generally are now, not as you wish to be in the
future. Describe yourself as you honestly see yourself, in relation to other
people you know of the same sex as you are, and roughly your same age.
Please read each statement carefully and put a number from 1 to 5 next to it to
describe how accurately the statement describes you. Answer the guide questions at the end of the
activity.

1 = Very inaccurate

2 = Moderately inaccurate

3 = Neither inaccurate nor accurate

4 = Moderately accurate

5 = Very accurate

1. Am the life of the party (E)

2. Sympathize with others’ feelings (A)

3. Get chores done right away (C)

4. Have frequent mood swings (N)

5. Have a vivid imagination (O)

6. Don’t talk a lot (E)

7. Am not interested in other people’s problems (A)

8. Often forget to put things back in their proper place (C)

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9. Am relaxed most of the time (N)

10. Am not interested in abstract ideas (O)

11. Talk to a lot of different people at parties (E)

12. Feel others’ emotions (A)

13. Like order (C)

14. Get upset easily (N)

15. Have difficulty understanding abstract ideas (O)

16. Keep in the background (E)

17. Am not really interested in others (A)

18. Make a mess of things (C)

19. Seldom feel blue (N)

20. Do not have a good imagination (O)

Scoring: The first thing you must do is to reverse the items that are worded in the opposite direction. In
order to do this, subtract the number you put for that item from 6. So if you put a 4, for instance, it will
become a 2. Cross out the score you put when you took the scale, and put the new number in representing
your score subtracted from the number 6.

Items to be reversed in this way: 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20

Next, you need to add up the scores for each of the five OCEAN scales (including the reversed numbers
where relevant). Each OCEAN score will be the sum of four items. Place the sum next to each scale
below.

Openness: Add items 5, 10, 15, 20

Conscientiousness: Add items 3, 8, 13, 18

Extraversion: Add items 1, 6, 11, 16

Agreeableness: Add items 2, 7, 12, 17

Neuroticism: Add items 4, 9,14, 19

Compare your scores to the norms below to see where you stand on each scale. If you are low on a trait, it
means you are the opposite of the trait label. For example, low on Extraversion is Introversion, low on
Openness is Conventional, and low on Agreeableness is Assertive.

19–20 Extremely High, 8–10 Low,

17–18 Very High, 6–7 Very low,

14–16 High, 4–5 Extremely low

11–13 Neither high nor low; in the middle,

GED 101 UNDERSTANDING THE SELF

Guide Questions: Answer the following questions in an essay form with a maximum of 300 words.
Write your answers in a clean sheet of paper. Take a photo and turn it in using GED 101 group chat via
FB (10 points each).

1. How do you describe your scores on Mini IPIP Scale? Do you think the results are accurate? Why?
2. Do you think personality changes through time? How?
3. Discuss how we develop our personality.
4. Differentiate personality from self.
5. How will you answer the question, “Who am I?”?

References/Sources:
Personality Traits. Edward Diener and Richard E. Lucas. Accessed July 25, 2020.
https://nobaproject.com/modules/personality-traits#discussion-questions
Self-Understanding & Self-Concept: How We Perceive Ourselves. Natalie Boyd. Accessed July 25, 2020.
https://study.com/academy/lesson/self-understanding-and-self-concept.html
Personality. Accessed July 25, 2020.
https://sg.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/148426/12/12_chapter%205.pdf
4 Reasons Why Self-understanding is Essential. Kee’s Blog. Accessed July 25,
2020. https://intuitivehaven.com/4-reasons-why-self-understanding-is-essential/
Self and Personality. National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT). Accessed July
25, 2020. http://www.ncert.nic.in/NCERTS/l/lepy102.pdf
What Is Self-Concept? The Psychological Exploration of "Who Am I?". Kendra Cherry. Accessed July
25, 2020. https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-self-concept-2795865

END OF WEEK 1
Well done on finishing Week 1!

WHAT COULD YOU LEARN NEXT?

Week 2: THE SELF ACCORDING TO PHILOSOPHY
WEEK 2: THE SELF ACCORDING TO PHILOSOPHY

Philosophy

Philosophy is defined as the study of knowledge or wisdom from its Latin

roots, philo (love) and sophia (wisdom). This field is also considered as “The
Queen of All Sciences” because every scientific discipline has philosophical
foundations.

Various thinkers for centuries tried to explain the natural causes of everything
that exist specifically the inquiry on the self preoccupied these philosophers in
the history. The Greek philosophers were the ones who seriously questioned myths
and moved away from them in attempting to understand reality by exercising the art of questioning that
satisfies their curiosity, including the questions about self. The following lecture will present the different
philosophical perspectives and views about self.

Socrates

 A philosopher from Athens, Greece and said to have the

greatest influence on European thought.
 According to the history he was not able to write any of
his teachings and life’s account instead, he is known from the
writings of his student Plato who became one of the greatest
philosophers of his time. Socrates had a unique style of asking
questions called Socratic Method.
 Socratic Method or dialectic method involves the search
for the correct/proper definition of a thing. In this method,
Socrates did not lecture, he instead would ask questions and
engage the person in a discussion. He would begin by acting as if
he did not know anything and would get the other person to
Image Source: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/275648.Socrates

clarify their ideas and resolve logical inconsistencies (Price,

2000).
 The foundation of Socrates philosophy was the Delphic
Oracle’s that command to “Know Thyself”. Here, Socrates would like to emphasize that knowing
or understanding oneself should be more than the physical self, or the body.
 According to Socrates, self is dichotomous which means composed of two things: The physical
realm or the one that is changeable, temporal, and imperfect. The best example of the physical
realm is the physical world. The physical world is consisting of anything we sense – see, smell,
feel, hear, and taste. It is always changing and deteriorating. The ideal realm is the one that is
imperfect and unchanging, eternal, and immortal. This includes the intellectual essences of the
universe like the concept of beauty, truth, and goodness. Moreover, the ideal realm is also present
in the physical world. One may define someone as beautiful or truthful, but their definition is
limited and imperfect for it is always relative and subjective. It is only the ideal forms themselves
that are perfect, unchanging, and eternal.
 For Socrates, a human is composed of body and soul, the first belongs to the physical realm
because it changed, it is imperfect, and it dies, and the latter belongs to ideal realm for it survives
the death. Socrates also used the term soul to identify self.

GED 101 UNDERSTANDING THE SELF

  The self, according to Socrates is the immortal and unified entity that is consistent over time. For
example, a human being remains the same person during their childhood to adulthood given the
fact that they undergone developmental changes throughout their lifespan.

Plato

 A student of Socrates, who introduced the idea of a

three- part soul/self that is composed of reason, physical appetite
and spirit or passion.
o The Reason enables human to think deeply, make wise
choices and achieve a true understanding of eternal
truths. Plato also called this as divine essence.
o The physical Appetite is the basic biological needs of
human being such as hunger, thirst, and sexual desire.
o And the spirit or passion is the basic emotions of human
being such as love, anger, ambition, aggressiveness and
empathy.
 These three elements of the self works in every
individual inconsistently. According to Plato, it is always the
Image Source: https://www.alamy.com/plato

responsibility of the reason to organize, control, and

reestablish harmonious
relationship between these three elements.
 Plato also illustrated his view of the soul/self in “Phaedrus” in his metaphor: the soul is like a
winged chariot drawn by two powerful horses: a white horse, representing Spirit, and a black
horse, embodying appetite. The charioteer is reason, whose task is to guide the chariot to the
eternal realm by controlling the two independent-minded horses. Those charioteers who are
successful in setting a true course and ensuring that the two steeds work together in harmonious
unity achieve true wisdom and banquet with the gods. However, those charioteers who are unable
to control their horses and keep their chariot on track are destined to experience personal,
intellectual, and spiritual failure.

St. Augustine
 He is considered as the last of the great ancient
philosophers whose ideas were greatly Platonic. In melding
philosophy and religious beliefs together, Augustine has been
characterized as Christianity’s first theologian.
 Like Plato, Augustine believed that the physical body is
different from the immortal soul. Early in his philosophical
development he described body as “snare” or “cage” of the soul
and said that the body is a “slave” of the soul he even
characterized that “the soul makes war with the body”. Later on
he came to view the body as “spouse” of the soul, with both
attached to one another by a “natural appetite.” He concluded,
“That the body is united with the soul, so that man may be entire
and complete, is a fact we recognize on the evidence of our own
Image Source: http://lexchristianorum.blogspot.com/ nature.”
 According to St. Augustine, the human nature is
composed of two realms:
GED 101 UNDERSTANDING THE SELF
 1. God as the source of all reality and truth. Through mystical experience, man is capable
of knowing eternal truths. This is made possible through the existence of the one eternal
truth which is God. He further added that without God as the source of all truth, man
could never understand eternal truth. This relationship with God means that those who
know most about God will come closest to understanding the true nature of the world.
2. The sinfulness of man. The cause of sin or evil is an act of mans’ freewill. Moral
goodness can only be achieved through the grace of God.
 He also stated that real happiness can only be found in God. For God is love and he created
humans for them to also love. Problems arise because of the objects humans choose to love.
Disordered love results when man loves the wrong things which he believes will give him
happiness. Furthermore, he said that if man loves God first and everything else to a lesser degree,
then all will fall into its rightful place.
Rene Descartes
 A French philosopher, mathematician, and considered
the founder of modern philosophy.
 Descartes, famous principle the “cogito, ergo sum—“I
think, therefore I exist” established his philosophical views on
“true knowledge” and concept of self.
 He explained that in order to gain true knowledge, one
must doubt everything even own existence. Doubting makes
someone aware that they are thinking being thus, they exist.
The essence of existing as a human identity is the possibility
of being aware of our selves: being self-conscious in this way
is integral to having a personal identity. Conversely, it would
be impossible to be self-conscious if we did not have a
personal identity of which to be conscious. In other words, the
Image Source: https://www.sapaviva.com/

essence of self is being a thinking thing.

 The self is a dynamic entity that engages in metal operations – thinking, reasoning, and
perceiving processes. In addition to this, self-identity is dependent on the awareness in engaging
with those mental operations.
 He declared that the essential self or the self as the thinking entity is radically different from the
physical body. The thinking self or soul is a non-material, immortal, conscious being,
independent of the physical laws of the universe while the physical body is a material, mortal,
non-thinking entity, fully governed by the physical laws of nature.
 He also maintained that the soul and the body are independent of one another and each can exist
and function without the other. In cases in which people are sleeping or comatose, their bodies
continue to function even though their minds are not thinking, much like the mechanisms of a
clock.
 He identified the physical self as part of nature, governed by the physical laws of the universe,
and available to scientific analysis and experimentation, and the conscious self (mind, soul) is a
part of the spiritual realm, independent of the physical laws of the universe, governed only by the
laws of reason and God’s will. And because it exists outside of the natural world of cause-and-
effect, the conscious self is able to exercise free will in the choices it makes.

GED 101 UNDERSTANDING THE SELF

John Locke
 An English philosopher and physician and famous in his
concept of “Tabula Rasa” or Blank Slate that assumes the
nurture side of human development.

 The self, according to Locke is consciousness. In his

essay entitled On Personal Identity (from his most famous work,
Essay Concerning Human Understanding) he discussed the
reflective analysis of how an individual may experience the
self in everyday living. He provided the following key points:
1. To discover the nature of personal identity, it is
important to find out what it means to be a person.
2. A person is a thinking, intelligent being who has the
abilities to reason and to reflect.
3. A person is also someone who considers themself to be
Image Source: https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/

the same thing in different times and different places.

4. Consciousness as being aware that we are thinking—
always accompanies thinking and is an essential part of the thinking process.
5. Consciousness makes possible our belief that we are the same identity in different times and
different places.
 Although Locke and Descartes believed that a person or the self is a thinking intelligent being
who has the abilities to reflect and to reason, Locke was not convinced with the assumptions of
Plato, St. Augustine and Descartes that the individual self necessarily exists in a single soul or
substance. For Locke, personal identity and the soul or substance in which the personal identity is
situated are two very different things. The bottom line of his theory on self is that self is not tied
to any particular body or substance. It only exists in other times and places because of the
memory of those experiences.

David Hume
 He was a Scottish philosopher and also an empiricist.
 His claim about self is quite controversial because he
assumed that there is no self! In his essay entitled, “On
Personal Identity” (1739) he said that, if we carefully examine
the contents of [our] experience, we find that there are only
two distinct entities, "impressions" and "ideas".
 Impressions are the basic sensations of our experience,
the elemental data of our minds: pain, pleasure, heat, cold,
happiness, grief, fear, exhilaration, and so on.
 On the other hand, ideas are copies of impressions that
include thoughts and images that are built up from our
primary impressions through a variety of relationships, but
because they are derivative copies of impressions, they are
once removed from reality.
Image Source: https://www.britannica.com/

 Hume considered that the self does not exist because all
of the experiences that a person may have are just perceptions
and this includes the perception of self. None of these perceptions resemble a unified and
permanent self-identity that exists over time.

GED 101 UNDERSTANDING THE SELF

  He further added that there are instances that an individual is limited in experiencing their
perception like in sleeping. Similarly, when someone died all empirical senses end and according
to him, it makes no sense to believe that self exists in other forms. As an empiricist, Hume
provide an honest description and analysis of his own experience, within which there is no self to
be found.
 Hume explained that the self that is being experienced by an individual is nothing but a kind of
fictional self. Human created an imaginary creature which is not real. “Fictional self” is created to
unify the mental events and introduce order into an individual lives, but this “self” has no real
existence.

Sigmund Freud
 A well-known Australian psychologist and considered as
the Father and Founder of Psychoanalysis. His influence in
Psychology and therapy is dominant and popular in the 20th to
21st century.
 The dualistic view of self by Freud involves the
conscious self and unconscious self.
 The conscious self is governed by reality principle. Here,
the self is rational, practical, and appropriate to the social
environment. The conscious self has the task of controlling the
constant pressures of the unconscious self, as its primitive
impulses continually seek for immediate discharge.
 The unconscious self is governed by pleasure principle.
Image Source: https://www.researchgate.net/

It is the self that is aggressive, destructive, unrealistic and

instinctual. Both of Freud’s self needs immediate gratification
and reduction of tensions to optimal levels and the goal of every individual is to make unconscious
conscious.
 Freud proposed how mind works, he called this as provinces or structures of the mind. By illustrating
the tip of the iceberg which according to him represents conscious awareness which characterizes the
person in dealing with the external world. The observable behavior, however, is further controlled by
the workings of the subconscious/unconscious mind.
 Subconscious serves as the repository of past experiences,
repressed memories, fantasies, and urges. The three levels of
the mind are:
1. Id. This is primarily based on the pleasure principle. It
demands immediate satisfaction and is not hindered
by societal expectations.
2. Ego. The structure that is primarily based on the
reality principle. This mediates between the impulses
of the id and restraints of the superego.
3. Superego. This is primarily dependent on learning the
difference between right and wrong, thus it is called
moral principle. Morality of actions is largely
dependent on childhood upbringing particularly on
rewards and punishments. Image Source: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/

GED 101 UNDERSTANDING THE SELF

 According to Freud, there are two kinds of instinct that drive individual behavior – the eros or the life
instinct and the thanatos of the death instinct. The energy of eros is called libido and includes urges
necessary for individual and species survival like thrist, hunger, and sex.in cases that human behaior
is directed towards destruction in the form of aggression and violence, such are the manifestations of
thanatos.

Gilbert Ryle
 A British analytical philosopher. He was an important
figure in the field of Linguistic Analysis which focused on the
solving of philosophical puzzles through an analysis of
language.
 According to Ryle, the self is best understood as a
pattern of behavior, the tendency or disposition for a person to
behave in a certain way in certain circumstances.
 He opposed the notable ideas of the previous
philosophers and even claimed that those were results of
confused conceptual thinking he termed, category mistake.
 The category mistake happens when we speak about the
self as something independent of the physical body: a purely
Image Source: https://www.jstor.org/
mental entity existing in time but not space

Immanuel Kant
 A German Philosopher who made great contribution to
the fields of metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics. Kant is
widely regarded as the greatest philosopher of the modern
period.
 Kant maintained that an individual self makes the
experience of the world comprehensible because it is
responsible for synthesizing the discreet data of sense
experience into a meaningful whole.
 It is the self that makes consciousness for the person to
make sense of everything. It is the one that help every
individual gain insight and knowledge. If the self failed to do
this synthesizing function, there would be a chaotic and
insignificant collection of sensations.
 Additionally, the self is the product of reason, a
Image Source: https://mediaethicsmorning.wordpress.com/

regulative principle because the self regulates experience

by making
unified experience possible and unlike Hume, Kant’s self is not the object of consciousness, but it
makes the consciousness understandable and unique.
 Transcendental apperception happens when people do not experience self directly, instead as a
unity of all impressions that are organized by the mind through perceptions. Kant concluded that
GED 101 UNDERSTANDING THE SELF
 all objects of knowledge, which includes the self, are phenomenal. That the true nature of things
is altogether unknown and unknowable (Price, 2000).
 For Kant, the kingdom of God is within man. God is manifested in people’s lives therefore it is
man’s duty to move towards perfection. Kant emphasized that people should always see duty as a
divine command (Price, 2000).

Paul and Patricia Churchland

 An American
philosopher interested in the
fields of philosophy of mind,
philosophy of science, cognitive
neurobiology, epistemology, and
perception.
 Churchlands’ central
argument is that the concepts and
theoretical vocabulary that
people use to think about the
selves— using such terms as
belief, desire, fear, sensation,
pain, joy— actually misrepresent
Image Source: http://thesciencenetwork.org/
the reality of minds and selves.
He claims that the self is a
activity. product of brain
 The behavior of the self can be attributed to the neuropharmacological states, the neural activity
in specialized anatomical areas.
 Neurophilosopy was coined by Patricia Churchland, the modern scientific inquiry looks into the
application of neurology to age-old problems in philosophy. The philosophy of neuroscience is
the study of the philosophy of science, neuroscience, and psychology. It aims to explore the
relevance of neurolinguistic experiments/studies to the philosophy of the mind.
 Patricia Churchland claimed that man’s brain is responsible for the identity known as self. The
biochemical properties of the brain according to this philosophy of neuroscience is really
responsible for man’s thoughts, feelings, and behavior.
 Paul Churchland is one of the many philosophers and psychologists that viewed the self from a
materialistic point of view, contending that in the final analysis mental states are identical with,
reducible to, or explainable in terms of physical brain states. This assumption was made due to
the physiological processes of the body that directly affecting the mental state of the person. The
advent of sophisticated technology and scientific research gives hope to understand the
connection between the physical body and the mind/brain relationship that integrated in the self.
 Being an eliminative materialist, he believes that there is a need to develop a new vocabulary and
conceptual framework that is grounded in neuroscience. This new framework will be a more
accurate reflection of the human mind and self.

GED 101 UNDERSTANDING THE SELF

Maurice Merleau-Ponty
 A French philosopher and phenomenologist.
 He took a very different approach to the self and
the mind/body “problem.” According to him, the
division between the “mind” and the “body” is a
product of confused thinking. The self is experienced as
a unity in which the mental and physical are seamlessly
woven together. This unity is the primary experience of
selves and begin to doubt it when an individual use their
minds to concoct abstract notions of a separate mind
and body.
 Developed the concept of self-subject and
contended that perceptions occur existentially. Thus, the
consciousness, the world, and the human body are all
interconnected as they mutually perceive the world.
 According to him, the world and the sense of
Image Source: http://all-to-human.blogspot.com/

self are emergent phenomena in the ongoing process of

man’s becoming.
 Phenomenology provides a direct description of the human experience which serves to guide
man’s conscious actions. He further added that, the world is a field of perception, and human
consciousness assigns meaning to the world. Thus man cannot separate himself from his
perceptions of the world.
 Perception is not purely the result of sensations nor it is purely interpretations. Rather
consciousness is a process that includes sensing as well as interpreting/reasoning.

References/Sources:
Arcega, A M., Cullar, D. S., Evangelista, L. D. & Falculan, L. M. (2018). Understanding the Self.
Malabon City: Mutya Publishing House Inc.
Gazzingan, L. B. et al. (2019). Understanding the Self. Muntinlupa City: Panday-Lahi Publishing House,
Inc.
Alata, E.J.P., Caslib, B.N., Serafica, J.P.J., Pawilen, R.A. (2018). Unsertanding the Self. Rex Book Store
Inc., Sta Mesa Heights, Quezon City, Philippines

GED 101 UNDERSTANDING THE SELF

ACTIVITY # 2: SELF IN ONE LINE (55 points)

This section aims to assess your understanding of some of the topics covered
in Week 2 through the activity below.

Instructions: Write a one-sentence description of self according to the

following philosophers. Write your answers in a clean sheet of paper. Take a
photo and turn it in using Google Classroom (GED 101 Class) GED 101
group chat via FB.

Philosophers One sentence definition of self

Socrates

Plato

St. Augustine

Descartes

Locke

Hume

Kant

Freud

Ryle

Churchland

Merleau-Ponty

GED 101 UNDERSTANDING THE SELF

 END OF WEEK 2

Well done on finishing Week 2!

WHAT COULD YOU LEARN NEXT?

Week 3: THE SELF ACCORDING TO SOCIOLOGY AND

ANTHROPOLOGY

GED 101 UNDERSTANDING THE SELF

WEEK 3: THE SELF ACCORDING TO SOCIOLOGY AND ANTHROPOLOGY

Sociology and Anthropology

Sociology and Anthropology are two interrelated disciplines that

contributes to the understanding of self. Sociology presents the self as a
product of modern society. It is the science that studies the development,
structure, interaction, and collective behavior of human being. On the other
hand, Anthropology is the study of humanity. This broad field takes an
interdisciplinary approach to looking at human culture, both past and present.
The following set of sociologists and anthropologist offered their views about
self.

George Herbert Mead and the Social Self

 Mead is an American philosopher, sociologist, and

psychologist. He is regarded as one of the founders of social
psychology and the American sociological tradition in general.
Mead is well-known for his theory of self.
 He postulated that, the self represents the sum total of
people’s conscious perception of their identity as distinct from
others. Mead argued that the self like the mind is social
emergent. This means that individual selves are the products of
social interaction and not logical or biological in nature.
 He claimed that the self is something which undergoes
development because it is not present instantly at birth. The
self arises in the process of social experience and activity as a
result of their relations to the said process as a whole and to
other individuals within that process. In other words, one
cannot experience their self alone, they need other people to
Image Source: https://wannabeinsociology.wordpress.com/

experience their self.

 The social emergence of self is developed due to the three forms of inter-subjective activity, the
language, play, and the game.
 He proposed the stages of self formation:
1. Preparatory Stage. Mead believed that the self did not exist at birth. Instead, the self
develops over time. Its development is dependent on social interaction and social
experience. At this stage, children’s behaviors are primarily based on imitation. It was
observed that children imitate the behaviors of those around them. At this stage, knowing
and understanding the symbols are important for this will constitute their way of
communicating with others throughout their lives.
2. The Play Stage. Skills at knowing and understanding the symbols of communication is
important for this constitutes the basis of socialization. Through communication, social
relationship are formed. Now children begin to role play and pretend to be other people.
Role-taking in the play stage is the process of mentally assuming the process of another

GED 101 UNDERSTANDING THE SELF

 person to see how this person might behave or respond in a given situation (Schefer,
2012). The play stage is significant in the development of the self. It is at this stage where
child widens his perspective and realizes that he is not alone and that there are others
around him whose presence he has to consider.
3. The Game Stage. Here, the child is about eight or nine years of age and now does more
than just role-take. The child begins to consider several tasks and various types of
relationships simultaneously. Through the learnings that were gained in stage two, the
child now begins to see not only his own perspective but at the same time the perspective
of others. In this final stage of self development, the child now has the ability to respond
not just to one but several members of his social environment.
 Generalized other the person realizes that people in society have cultural norms, beliefs and
values which are incorporated into each self. This realization forms basis of how the person
evaluate themselves.
 The self, according to Mead is not merely a passive reflection of the generalized other. The
responses of the individual to the social world are also active, it means that a person decides what
they will do in reference to the attitude of others but not mechanically determined by such
attitudinal structures. Here, Mead identified the two phases of self:
1. the phase which reflects the attitude of the generalized other or the “me”; and
2. the phase that responds to the attitude of generalized other or the “I”.
 In Mead’s words, the "me" is the social self, and the "I" is a response to the "me". Mead defines
the "me" as "a conventional, habitual individual and the “I” as the “novel reply” of the individual
to the generalized other.
 Generally, Meads theory sees the self as a perspective that comes out of interactions, and he sees
the meanings of symbols, social objects, and the self as emerging from negotiated interactions.

The Self as a product of modern society among other constructions

Georg Simmel

 Simmel was a German sociologist, philosopher, and

critic. He was intensely interested in the ways in which
modern, objective culture impacts the individual’s subjective
experiences.
 In contrast to Mead, Simmel proposed that there is
something called human nature that is innate to the
individual. This human nature is intrinsic to the individual
like the natural inclination to religious impulse or the gender
differences. He also added that most of our social
interactions are individual motivations.
 Simmel as a social thinker made a distinction between
subjective and objective culture. The individual or subjective
culture refers to the ability to embrace, use, and feel culture.
 Objective culture is made up of elements that become
Image Source: https://www.imdb.com/ separated from the individual or group’s control and
identified as separate objects.

GED 101 UNDERSTANDING THE SELF

  There are interrelated forces in modern society that tend to increase objective culture according to
Simmel. These are urbanizations, money, and the configuration of one’s social network.
 Urbanization is the process that moves people from country to city living. This result to the
concentration of population in one place brought about by industrialization. This paved way to
the organization of labor or increased division of labor, which demands specializations wherein
this creates more objective culture.
 Simmel also stressed that the consumption of products has an individuating and trivializing effect
because this enables the person to create self out of things. By consumption, an individual able to
purchase things that can easily personalized or express the self. People used commodities to
create self-concept and self-image. Simmel also said that products used in the modernity to
express and produced the self is also changing. It becomes more and more separated from
subjectivity (subjective culture) due to division of labor and market economy. Many products are
easily replaced, subjected to the dynamics of fashion and diversification of markets which leads
to inappropriate sign use.
 Money creates a universal value system wherein every commodity can be understood. Money
also increases individual freedom by pursuing diverse activities and by increasing the options for
self- expression. Money also makes the individual to be less attached to the commodities because
the individual tends to understand and experience their possession less in terms of their intrinsic
qualities and more of their objective and abstract worth. Additionally, money also discouraged
intimate ties with people. Money comes to stand in the place of almost everything – and this
includes relationship! Money further discourages intimate ties by encouraging a culture of
calculation.
 Because of urbanization, Simmel observed that social networks also changed. Group affiliations
in urban is definitely different from rural settings wherein the relationship are strongly influenced
by family. An individual tends to seek membership to the same group which makes the family as
basic socialization structure. This natural inclination to join groups is called by Simmel as organic
motivation and the grouping is called primary group. This group is based on ties of affection and
personal loyalty endure over long periods of time, and involve multiple aspects of a person’s life.
 On the other hand, in the modern urban settings, group membership is due to rational motivation
or membership due to freedom of choice. This characterized the secondary group which is goal
and utilitarian oriented, with a narrow range of activities, over limited time spans. As a result, it is
more likely that an individual will develop unique personalities. Moreover, Simmel said that a
complex web of group affiliations produces role conflicts and blasé attitude. Role conflict is a
situation that demands a person of two or more roles that clash with one another. Blasé attitude is
an attitude of absolute boredom and lack of concern. This is the inability or limited ability to
provide emotional investment to other people.

The Self and Person in the Contemporary Anthropology

 The four subfields of anthropology – Archeology, Biological Anthropology, Linguistics, and

Cultural Anthropology, suggest that human beings are similar and different in varying ways and
tendencies. For example, people have the same need for food and water, but they have different
means on how to satisfy them. These similarities and differences make life so interesting. As one
learn facts/information that make them similar to the other, they will also discover that they have

GED 101 UNDERSTANDING THE SELF

 different characteristics the define them. This knowledge aims to highlight the uniqueness of each
person and making them value life and existence even more. The subfields of Anthropology are
as follows:
o Archeology. Focus on the study of the past and how it may have contributed to the
present ways of how people conduct their daily lives. Archeologists have so far
discovered the unique ways in which human beings adapted to the changes in their
environment in order for them to survive. Among their discoveries around the world is
the species, homo sapiens did not become extinct because of their ability to think, use
tools and learn from experience. In relating to the contemporary society, people still
aim for survival, for their basic needs to be fulfilled and to live legacy to their society.
o Biological Anthropology. Focus on how the human body adapts to the different earth
environments. Among the activities of Anthropologists are identification of probable
causes of diseases, physical mutation, and death, evolution, and comparison of dead
and living primates. They are interested in explaining how the biological
characteristics of human being affects their way of living. Accordingly, human beings
at present still share the same biological strengths and vulnerabilities. Like eating
balanced nutrients and minerals that are beneficial to all human beings while being
exposed to a virus in a pandemic might cause negative implications to many.
o Linguistic Anthropology. Focused on using language as means to discover a group’s
manner of social interaction and their worldview. Anthropologists in this field want to
discover how language is used to create and share meanings, to form ideas and
concepts and to promote social change. Furthermore, they also study how language
and modes of communication changes over time.
o Cultural Anthropology. Focused in knowing what makes one group’s manner of
living forms an essential part of the member’s personal and societal identity. This
encompasses the principles of Theory of Cultural Determinism which suggests that the
human nature is determined by the kind of culture he is born and grew up in. Cultural
diversities are manifested in different ways and different levels of dept. The following
are the ways in which culture may manifest itself in people:
 Symbols. These are the words, gestures, pictures or objects that have recognized
or accepted meaning in a particular culture. Example: colors have similar
meaning across all cultures.
 Heroes. These are persons from the past or present who have characteristics that
are important in culture. They may be real of work of fictions. Example: Fiction
– Thor, Captain America; Real – Jose Rizal, Apolinario Mabini.
 Rituals. These are activities participated by a group of people for the fulfilment
of desired objectives and are concerned to be socially essential. Example:
Wedding, fiesta, Christmas celebration, graduation, etc.
 Values. These are considered to be the core of every culture. These are
unconscious, neither discuss or observed, and can only be inferred from the way
people act and react to situations. Example: hospitality, respect for elders etc.
 The field of Anthropology offers another way by which a person can view themselves. As self is
formed or determined by the past and present condition, by biological characteristics, the
communication and language use, and the lifestyle we choose to live.

GED 101 UNDERSTANDING THE SELF

The Self Embedded in the Culture
Clifford Geertz
 Clifford Geertz was an Anthropology Professor at the
University of Chicago. He studied different cultures and
explored on the conception of the self in his writings entitled,
“The Impact of the Concept of Culture on the Concept of
Man” (1966) in his fieldwork at Java, Bali and Morrocco.
 The analysis of Geertz (1966) in his cultural study about
the description of self in Bali is that the Balinese person is
extremely concerned not to present anything individual
(distinguishing him or her from others) in social life but to
enact exclusively a culturally prescribed role or mask. In one
instance, Geertz (1973) gave an example of the stage fright
that pervades persons in Bali because they must not be
publicly recognizable as individual selves and actors points
Image Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clifford_Geertz

precisely to the fact that agency or an ability to act in one’s

own account is an integral ability of human beings—an ability
which continually threatens
the culturally established norm of nonindividuality

ACTIVITY # 3: COMPARE ME UP! (20 points)

This section aims to assess your understanding of some of the topics

covered in Week 3 through the activity below.

Instructions: Differentiate the Sociological and Anthropological views on

self based on the above discussions in an essay form with maximum of 150
words. Write your answers in a clean sheet of paper. Take a photo and turn
it in using Google Classroom (GED 101 Class) GED 101 group chat via FB.

Sociology Anthropology

GED 101 UNDERSTANDING THE SELF

References/Sources:
Arcega, A M., Cullar, D. S., Evangelista, L. D. & Falculan, L. M. (2018). Understanding the Self.
Malabon City: Mutya Publishing House Inc.
Gazzingan, L. B. et al. (2019). Understanding the Self. Muntinlupa City: Panday-Lahi Publishing House,
Inc.
Alata, E.J.P., Caslib, B.N., Serafica, J.P.J., Pawilen, R.A. (2018). Unsertanding the Self. Rex Book Store
Inc., Sta Mesa Heights, Quezon City, Philippines

END OF WEEK 3

Well done on finishing Week 3!

WHAT COULD YOU LEARN NEXT?

Week 4: THE SELF ACCORDING TO PSYCHOLOGY

GED 101 UNDERSTANDING THE SELF

WEEK 4: THE SELF ACCORDING PSYCHOLOGY

Psychology

Psychology is a scientific study of mental processes and

human behavior. It aims to describe, analyze, predict, control human
behavior in general. Self is an essential construct in psychology
because it fulfills the goals of the discipline in studying human and
the reason for their action. Many psychologists tried to define the
origin of mental processes and behavior but they all settle down with
numerous theories and assumptions. The following descriptions on
the formation of self were presented for you to have a clear picture
on

The Self as Cognitive Construction

 The cognitive aspect of the self is known as self-concept. Self-concept is defined as self-
knowledge, a cognitive structure that includes beliefs about personality traits, physical
characteristics, abilities, values, goals, and roles, as well as the knowledge that an individual exist
as individuals. As humans grow and develop, self-concept becomes abstract and more complex.
 According to the psychologist Dr. Bruce A. Bracken in 1992, there are six specific domains that
are related to self-concept these are:
1) the social domain or the ability of the person to interact with others;
2) the competence domain or the ability to meet the basic needs;
3) the affect domain or the awareness of the emotional states;
4) the physical domain or the feelings about looks, health, physical condition, and overall
appearance;
5) academic domain or the success or failure in the school; and
6) family domain or how well one function within the family unit.

William James and the Me-Self and I-Self

GED 101 UNDERSTANDING THE SELF

  William James is a well-known figure in Psychology
who is considered as the founder of functionalism. He brought
prominence to U.S. psychology through the publication of The
Principles of Psychology (1890) that made him more
influential than his contemporaries in the field.
 James made a clear distinction between ways of
approaching the self – the knower (the pure or the I – Self) and
the known (the objective or the Me – Self). The function of the
knower (I-Self) according to James must be the agent of
experience. While the known (Me-Self) have three different
but interrelated aspects of empirical self (known today as self-
concept): the Me viewed as material, the Me viewed as social,
and the Me viewed as spiritual in nature.
 The material self is consists of everything an individual
Image Source: https://the-mouse-trap.com/ call uniquely as their own, such as the body, family, home or
style of dress. On the other hand, social self refers to the
recognition an individual get from other people. Lastly,
spiritual self refers to the individual inner or subjective being.

Real and Ideal Self

Carl Rogers
 Carl Rogers is best known as the founder of client-
centered therapy and considered as one of the prominent
humanistic or existential theorists in personality. His therapy
aimed to make the person achieve balance between their self-
concept (real-self) and ideal self.
 The real self includes all those aspects of one's identity
that are perceived in awareness. These are the things that are
known to oneself like the attributes that an individual
possesses.
 The ideal self is defined as one’s view of self as one
wishes to be. This contains all the aspirations or wishes of an
individual for themselves.
 A wide gap between the ideal self and the self-concept
indicates incongruence and an unhealthy personality.
Image Source: https://socialworkpodcast.blogspot.com/
Psychologically healthy individuals perceive little discrepancy
between their self-concept and what they ideally would like to
be.

Multiple versus Unified Self

 According to Multiple Selves Theory, there are different aspects of the self exist in an individual.
From here, we can say that self is a whole consist of parts, and these parts manifest themselves when
need arise.
 Gregg Henriques proposed the Tripartite Model of Human Consciousness, wherein he described that
self is consist of three related, but also separable domains these are the experimental self, private
self, and public self.

GED 101 UNDERSTANDING THE SELF

 o The experiential self or the theater of consciousness is a domain of self that defined as felt
experience of being. This includes the felt consistency of being across periods of time. It is tightly
associated with the memory. This is a part of self that disappears the moment that an individual
enter deep sleep and comes back when they wake up.
o The private self consciousness system or the narrator/interpreter is a portion of self that verbally
narrates what is happening and tries to make sense of what is going on. The moment that you read
this part, there is somewhat like a “voice” speaking in your head trying to understand what this
concept is all about.
o Lastly, the public self or Persona, the domain of self that an individual shows to the public, and
this interacts on how others see an individual. Henriques’ Tripartite Model attempts to capture the
key domains of consciousness, both within the self and between others.
 Unified being is essentially connected to consciousness, awareness, and agency. A well-adjusted
person is able to accept and understood the success and failure that they experienced. They are
those kinds of person who continually adjust, adapt, evolve and survive as an individual with
integrated, unified, multiple selves.

True versus False Self

Donald Winnicott

 Donald Winnicott was a pediatrician in London who

studied Psychoanalysis with Melanie Klein, a renowned
personality theorist and one of the pioneers in object relations
and development of personality in childhood.
 According to him, false self is an alternative personality
used to protect an individual’s true identity or one’s ability to
“hide” the real self. The false self is activated to maintain social
relationship as anticipation of the demands of others.
Compliance with the external rules or following societal norms
is a good example of this. false self can be a healthy self if it is
perceived as functional for the person and for the society and
being compliant without the feeling of betrayal of true self. On
the other hand, unhealthy false self happens when an individual
feels forced compliance in any situation.
Image Source: http://freudquotes.blogspot.com/

 On the contrary, true self has a sense of integrity and

connected wholeness that is rooted in early infancy. The baby
creates experiences of a sense of reality and sense of life worth living. Winnicott claimed that true
self can be achieved by good parenting that is not necessarily a perfect parenting.

The Self as Proactive and Agentic

Albert Bandura

GED 101 UNDERSTANDING THE SELF

  Albert Bandura is a psychologist and Professor Emeritus
of Social Science in Psychology at Stanford University. He
is known for his theory of social learning by means of
modeling. He is famous for his proposed concept of self-
efficacy.
 His personality theory, The Social Cognitive Theory
asserts that a person is both proactive and agentic, which
means that we have the capacity to exercise control over
our life. This theory emphasized that human beings are
proactive, self-regulating, self-reflective, and self-
organizing.
 Self as proactive means an individual have control in any
situation by making things happen. They act as agent in
doing or making themselves as they are. Agency is a
defining feature of modern selfhood. Agents assume some
degree of ownership and control over things, both
internally (I control my own thoughts) and externally (I
make things happen in the environment). The ability of an
Image Source: https://www.uky.edu/
individual to pursue their goals in life is an example of
agentic approach to self.
 According to Bandura (1989), self-efficacy beliefs
determine how people feel, think, motivate themselves and
behave. Such beliefs produce these diverse effects through four major processes. They include
cognitive, motivational, affective and selection processes. A strong sense of efficacy enhances human
accomplishment and personal well-being in many ways.
 In contrast Bandura (1989) said that people who doubt their capabilities shy away from difficult tasks
which they view as personal threats. They have low aspirations and weak commitment to the goals
they choose to pursue. When faced with difficult tasks, they dwell on their personal deficiencies, on
the obstacles they will encounter, and all kinds of adverse outcomes rather than concentrate on how to
perform successfully. They fall easy victim to stress and depression.

GED 101 UNDERSTANDING THE SELF

ACTIVITY # 4: THE VERSUSES! (50 points)

This section aims to assess your understanding of some of the topics

covered in Week 4 through the activity below.

Instructions: Differentiate the following terms in the box in one

sentence. Write your answers in a clean sheet of paper. Take a
photo and turn it in using Google Classroom (GED 101 Class)
and/or GED 101 group chat via FB (5 points each).

Me-Self I-Self

Real Self Ideal Self

Multiple Self Unified Self

True Self False Self

Proactive Self Agentic Self

GED 101 UNDERSTANDING THE SELF

References:
Arcega, A M., Cullar, D. S., Evangelista, L. D. & Falculan, L. M. (2018). Understanding the Self.
Malabon City: Mutya Publishing House Inc.
Gazzingan, L. B. et al. (2019). Understanding the Self. Muntinlupa City: Panday-Lahi Publishing House,
Inc.
Alata, E.J.P., Caslib, B.N., Serafica, J.P.J., Pawilen, R.A. (2018). Unsertanding the Self. Rex Book Store
Inc., Sta Mesa Heights, Quezon City, Philippines

END OF WEEK 4

Well done on finishing Week 4!

WHAT COULD YOU LEARN NEXT?

Week 5: THE SELF IN THE WESTERN AND

ORIENTAL/EASTERN THOU

GED 101 UNDERSTANDING THE SELF