Understanding the Self (UTS)

THE SELF FROM THE SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE

After the discussion, the learner should be able to:

➤ discover and assess the relevance of sociology to the self;

➤ describe the importance of studying the self in a sociological perspective;
➤ identify the sociologists and their significant contributions to sociology;
➤establish a profound and reflective understanding of the self.

LESSON 2

No one could live by himself or herself alone. By extension, man will always look
for someone to commune with. Hence, in the realm of sociology, the self interacts with
the social world.
Initially, the self is self-absorbed and is just concerned with its own. However, the
self expands and is now concerned with other constellations of selves, known as
others. Conceptually, with the introduction of others, sociology as a science comes to
fore, expanding the self in its contemporary setting and relating with other selves as
well.

When one talks about sociology, one talks about social norms and social values.
Social factors such as political system, children, partners, school, location, education,
economic status, physical status, religion, wealth, family, and ethnicity are also
considered. Therefore, in sociology, the self is a product of modern society versus other
constructs or archetypes.

What is Sociology?

● Socio-logy (sociologie) derives its name from the latin and greek word.
● Socius (latin word) | “companion or fellowship”
● Logy (greek word) | “the study of”
● A social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of
social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with
everyday life.

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Why study sociology?

Provides a better understanding of the following:

● Reasons for social differences, including differences in social behavior.

● Reasons for the differentials in group opportunities and outcomes.
● The relevance of social hierarchies and social power in everyday life.
● Sociology can help us to understand ourselves better, since it examines how the
social world influences the way we think, feel, and act.
● It can help with decision-making, both our own and that of larger organizations.

Who studies sociology?

People who study Sociology are called Sociologists.

- They are the ones to study social relationships, cultures, histories, and
institutions and their intersections with modern life to determine how that affects
people today.

Now, let us ponder and explore new discoveries as we dive into the notable sociologists
and their various theories that have significantly contributed to the realm of sociology.

a. GEORGE HERBERT MEAD

○ Pioneer in symbolic interactionism, a sociological theory focused on the

role of symbols and language in human interaction.
○ Developed the concept of "self" as a social product, emphasizing the
importance of socialization and role-taking in self-development.
○ Emphasized the significance of the "I" (spontaneous, creative self) and the
"Me" (socially influenced self) in understanding human behavior.
○ Influential in the development of social psychology, stressing the role of
the individual in shaping society and vice versa.

➥SOCIAL BEHAVIORISM
Sociologist George Herbert Mead argued that self is not biological but social.
Self is developed through social interaction. He illustrated the development of self in the
case of Genie, a girl who was confined in a room until she reached the age of 13. She
was found when she was already 13 years old; she did not know how to walk and speak.
According to Mead, she had no self development of the self. Even though her body
developed her “self” because of her isolation from the world. Self, therefore, is

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constructed by directly engaging in the world through interaction and through

reflections on those interactions.

Mead explained that the self has two parts: (1) self-awareness and (2) self
image. He proposed the idea that self develops through social interaction; that social
interaction involves the exchange of symbols (i.e., language); and that understanding of
symbols involves being able to take the role of another. In order for interaction to
prosper, each person involved must correctly interpret the meanings of symbols and
intentions of others. It can only succeed by the existence of common symbols, but
actually accomplished through the process of role playing. Role playing is the process in
which one takes on the role of another by putting oneself in the position of the person
with whom he or she interacts. Through role playing, the individual develops a concept
of self. By putting oneself in the position of others, one is able to reflect upon oneself.
Therefore, the development of the concept of “self” lies in the ability “to wear other
people’s choice”.

For Mead, self is not inborn. Babies cannot interpret the meaning of other
people’s behavior. It is usually learned during childhood which comes in three stages of
development. First is imitation or the preparatory stage. In this stage, a child initiates
the behavior of their parents like sweeping the floor. Second, the play stage. It involves
the child playing the role of others such as acting as a teacher, carpenter or soldier. In
doing these they become aware that there is a difference between themselves and the
role that they are playing. Last is the game game stage. It is where the child comes to
see themselves from the perspective of other people. To play the game, the child must
be aware of their relationship with other people and place themselves in their roles in
order to appreciate their relationships in the game. It is where the collective viewpoint
from the generalized others (other people). This is the time when remarks like “He is
brilliant,” “She is creative.” or “He is lazy” are formed.

“I” and “Me” Self

According to Mead, all humans experience internal conversation. This

conversation involves the I and Me, which he called phases of self. For him, self is
essentially a social process going on between I and me. The I is the phase of the self
that is unsocialized and spontaneous. It is the acting part of the self that is free and
unique. On the contrary, the “Me,” is the self that results from the progressive stages of
role playing or role-taking and the perspective one assumes to view and analyze one’s
own behaviors. It represents the conventional and objective part of the self.

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The I is the response of the organism to the attitude of others. It allows the
individual to still express creatively and individualism and understand when to possibly
bend and stretch the rules that govern social interactions.

The Me is the organized set of attitudes of others which one assumes. It is a

socialized aspect of the individual. It represents learned behaviors, attitudes, and
expectations of others and society. It is developed through the knowledge of society
and social interactions that the individual has experienced.

➥GENERALIZED OTHERS
One of the best known concepts is the generalized other. He described it as an
organized community or social group which gives to the individual their unity for self.
The attitude of the generalized other is the attitude for the entire community. For
example, a dance group, as a team, is the generalized other as long as it enters as an
organized process or social activity into the experience of any one of the members of
the group. However, this sort of exchange is entirely different from one more complex
set of behaviors that require an individual to participate in the dance presentation. With
this, one is required to learn not only the responses of specific others, but also the
behaviors associated with every member of the stage.

b. CHARLES HORTON COOLEY

○ Coined the term "the looking-glass self," a concept that emphasizes how
individuals develop their self-concept through social interactions and the
perception of how others view them.
○ Advocated for the significance of primary groups, such as family and
close friends, in shaping an individual's identity and socialization.
○ Played a key role in the development of symbolic interactionism, a
sociological perspective that focuses on the role of symbols and social
interactions in shaping human behavior and society.

➥THE LOOKING-GLASS SELF

It is a social psychological concept introduced by Charles Horton Cooley. In this
view, the self is developed as a result of one’s perceptions of other people’s opinions.
For instance, if parents of teachers praise the child for their artistic skills, the child will

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infer that they are artistic, thus boosting the child’s self confidence. People are the way
they are at least partly because of the other people’s reactions to them and to what they
do.

The self is built through social interaction which involves three steps: first, people
imagine how they must appear to others; second, they imagine the judgment on that
appearance; and finally, they develop themselves through the judgment of others .

For Cooley, this social self is the central element of society. He wrote, “the
imaginations which people have of one another are the solid facts of society.” The
concept of looking-glass self provides an idea on how the self develops in relation to the
perception of others. It should serve only as a guide for reflection and should not be
taken to end up living in accordance with other people’s expectations.

➥PRIVATE SELF, PUBLIC SELF, AND COLLECTIVE SELF

Private/Individual Self is the cognition that involves traits, states, and behaviors. It is
the assessment of the self by the self. For instance, “I am generous” and “I am
ambidextrous” show one’s knowledge of their attributes that differentiate them from the
others.

Public Self is the cognition concerning the generalized other’s view on the self. It
corresponds to an assessment of the self by the generalized other. For instance,
“People think I am religious” or “People think I am corrupt” shows one’s relation with
others and the role one assumes in that relationship.

Collective Self is the cognition concerning a view of the self that is found in
memberships in social groups (family, workers, tribe, professional organizations). For
instance, a person may be identified as feminist. Attributes of being feminist that are
similar with other feminists are emphasized forming the collective self.

c. SOCIAL IDENTITY THEORY

The Social Identity Theory was conceived by Henri Tajfel. Social identity has been
defined as the person’s sense of who they are according to their membership to a
certain group. Group membership, according to social identity theory, is an important
source of pride and self-esteem. It gives a sense of social identity—a sense of
belongingness to the social world.

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In this view, the world is divided into “us” and “them” through the process of
social categorization forming the social groups. These social groups developed by
William Graham Sumner are further divided into two—the in-group and out-group. An
in-group is an esteemed social group commanding a member’s loyalty. It is to which a
person belongs. On the other hand, an out-group is a social group to enhance its
self-image. For instance, in upholding the claim that Filipinos are the most hospitable
people in the world, Filipinos increase their self-image by interacting with other Filipinos,
the in-group (the group against the out-group (the group one does not identify with).

Tajfel and Turner (1986) identified three mental processes involved in evaluating
others as “us” or “them” (in-group and out-group).

● Social Categorization: how people categorize things

● Social Identification: It is where people adopt the identity of self
● Social Comparison: People tend to compare themselves with other groups.

Consequently, they might begin to discriminate and criticize the other groups.

d. POST MODERN VIEW OF THE SELF

Postmodernism is not a philosophy but more of a report on the mindset of

western culture in the latter health of the 20th century. In the postmodernist view, self is
not the creator of meaning, nor the center or the starting point of sociological inquiry.
For French philosopher Michel Foucault, the self is also seen as a product of modern
discourse that is socially and historically conditioned (David, 2002).

Anderson (1997) gives four basic postmodernist ideas about the self, which
address the issues of change and multiple identities.

● Multiphrenia: refers to the many different voices speaking about “who we are
and what we are”
● Protean: a self capable of changing constantly to fit the present conditions.
● De-centered: a belief that there is no self at all. d. Self-in-relation: Humans do not
live their lives in isolation but in relation to people and to certain cultural
contexts.
● Self-in-relation: Humans do not live their lives in isolation but in relation to
people and to certain cultural contexts.

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In this view, the person has no center, but is drawn in many directions and is
constantly changing and being defined externally by their relations with other people.
For postmodernists, there is no “I” as Mead maintained. The self is shaped by outside
forces; it is socially constructed. What defines a person are the norms, values,
languages, arts, and culture of society. People have no fixed identities which are
separable from their surroundings and which remain the same even though certain
characteristics and conditions may change.

The postmodern social condition is dominated by two realities:

● The rise of new media technologies

● The dominance of consumerism

According to Lyon (1997), the predicament of the self postmodern societies is

complicated by the advent of technology. However, Green (1997), posited that the self is
“digitalized” in cyberspace.

Therefore, in traditional society, a person’s status is determined by their role,

while in modern society, it is determined by their achievement, and in postmodern
society, by fashion or style. (Wade, 1999)

e. ERVING GOFFMAN

○ His most renowned work, "The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life," was
published in 1959 and had a profound impact on sociology.
○ He authored "Asylums" in 1961, which examined the experiences of
individuals in total institutions like mental asylums and prisons.
○ Goffman is known for his development of the "dramaturgical perspective,"
which views social interactions as theatrical performances.
○ He explored concepts such as impression management, face-saving, and
stigma in his research.

➥PRESENTATION OF SELF IN EVERYDAY LIFE

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Erving Goffman is one of the most influential American sociologists of the 20th
century, introducing a theory which he referred to as the dramaturgical model of social
life. For him, social interaction may be compared to a theater and people to actors on a
stage where each plays a variety of roles (Crossman, 2018). In this theory, he posited
the idea that as people interact with one another they are constantly engaged in
impression management—a process in which people regulate and control information in
social interaction. This model of social life assumes that personalities are not static
because they change to suit the situation.

Goffman used the imagery of theater in order to portray the nuances and
significance of face-to-face social interaction. For him, the self is made up of the various
parts that people play, and a key goal of social actors is to present their various selves
in ways that create and sustain particular impressions to their different audiences. In
theater, people play the part of either an actor/performer or an audience. The actor is
the one who gives meaning to themselves, to others, and to the situations. They have all
the creative and destructive information about the situation or the performance. They
are the ones who constantly attribute meaning to the performance and to the actors.

However, the audience will be confused and upset if there is inconsistency

between appearance and manner. In this scenario, like in real life, everyday interactions
happen in three regions which have different impacts on a person’s individual
performance. These are the front stage, and back stage, and Off stage.

● FRONT STAGE : the region where actors perform and act in a conformity with
expectations of the audience.
● BACK STAGE : the region where actors behave differently (portrayal of natural
selves)
● OFF STAGE: the last region where actors meet members of the audience
independently.

f. KENNETH GERGEN

○ Gergen is known for his contributions to the development of social

constructionist theory.
○ His book "The Saturated Self: Dilemmas of Identity in Contemporary Life"
(1991) is considered one of his significant works.

➥SATURATED or MULTIPLICITOUS SELF

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For Keneth Gergen, the saturated self is characterized by constant connection to

others, a self that absorbs a multitude of voices (sometimes contradictory) and takes in
seemingly endless streams of information. This saturation contradicts the notion
consisting of “multiple” selves. This is due to the splitting of the self into a multitude of
options, which Gergen calls multiphrenia—when people establish multiple selves
through absorption of the multiple voices of people in their lives, either in real life or
through the media. People then internalize these different selves, thus creating a
seemingly endless pool of selves that they can choose to draw upon depending on the
needs of the current situation.

The saturated self as a multiphrenic condition, in which one experiences the

vertigo of unlimited multiplicity, does not only apply to mere exposure to technology but
also accounts for the feeling of overload that results in a socially saturated condition.
Gergen explained that options are not only endless, but are no longer constrained by
time or distance, and because of this, “the daily life has become a sea of drowning
demands, and there is no shore in sight.” Simply put, the saturated self is stressed.

Furthermore, he gives a particularly compelling example of how social saturation

makes even a seemingly simple dilemma such as “what should I do today” into
something complex and stressful by describing a man contemplating about what to do
with his free Saturday. The man starts his day excited about having the freedom to
choose how he spends his time. He starts to think about what to do with the day, which
turns into thinking about more things that need to be done, which reminds him of other
things her would like to do. With that, his sense of having a free day becomes
completely overwhelming with all the options and obligations.

Gergen described what the state of social saturation is like. Thus, for him, social
saturation brings with it a general loss of true and knowable selves.

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REFERENCES

George Herbert Mead (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). (2022, November 24).

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mead/

Kenneth J Gergen - Alchetron, The Free Social Encyclopedia. (2022, September 5).

Alchetron.com. https://alchetron.com/Kenneth-J-Gergen

Wikipedia contributors. (2023). George Herbert Mead. Wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Herbert_Mead#:~:text=George%20Herbert%

20Mead%20

Zevallos, Z. (2019, March 31). Definition of sociology. The Other Sociologist.

https://othersociologist.com/2013/09/01/definition-of-sociology/#:~:text=Sociology

%20literally%20means%20the%20study,what%20makes%20up%20%23social%

20membership%3F

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