WHAT IS THE RELATIONSHIP
BETWEEN EXTERNAL REALITY AND
THE SELF?
How much of you are essential?
How much of who you are now is
a product of society, community,
and family?
Has your choice of school affected
yourself now? If you were born in
a different family and schooled in
a different college, how different
would you be?
What is the SELF?
The self is commonly defined as
'separate, self-contained,
independent, consistent, unitary,
& private.[Stevens,1996]
Is the self actually a private entity?
The self is always affected by
external circumstances that bump
and collide with it. It is ever-
changing and dynamic, allowing
external forces to take a part in its
shaping.
The social constructivist
perspective, then
-explains that there is a strong
relationship between the self and
external reality.
-argues that the person and her
social context a remerged, one
cannot easily be separated from
the other.[Stevens,1996].
-argues that herself is not static
which stay constant through and
through. Rather, it is in struggle
with external reality and malleable
in its dealings with society.
-the self has a social life and can
be influenced, therefore
multifaceted.
The Self & Culture
According to Mass, every self has
two faces: Personne and Moi
Moi- a person's self of who he is,
his body, his basic identity, his
biological givenness.
Personne- the social concepts of
what it means to be himself, what
it means to live in a particular
institution, a family, religion,
nationality, and how to behave
given expectation & influences.
-the self [especially the Personne]
morphs according to different
circumstances and contexts.
-the self is shaped by different
aspects of culture such as in
external relations,
environmental/territorial
concerns, language/lingo,
romantic relationships, etc.
The Self & the Development of
the Social World
How do people actively produce
their social worlds?
How do children growing up
become social being?
How do twins coming out from the
same mother turn out to be
different when adopted
separately?
More than his givenness one is
believed to be in active
participation in shaping the self.
Recent studies indicate that men
& women in their own growth &
development engage actively in
shaping themselves.
Mead & Vygotsky
-"the human mind is something
that is made"
-the way that human persons
develop is with the use of
language acquisitions &
interaction w/others.
-we process information in form of
internal dialogue
-therefore the cognitive &
emotional development of a child
is mimicry of how it is done in the
social world.
-A child internalizes values, norms,
practices, and social beliefs
through exposure to dialogs that
will become part of his individual
world.
Self in Families
-while every child is born w/
givenness, disposition coming
from his parents genes and
general condition of life is in factor
in forming self
-human being are born virtually
helpless and the dependency
period of a human baby of its
parents is longer than most
animals.
- in becoming a fully realized
human, a child enters a system of
relationships, most importantly
the family. This is where the
person learns how to live & their
selfhood.
-it is what a family initiates a
person to become that serves as
the basics for the person's
progress.
-the child learns language and
behavior from its family.
-without a family, biologically and
socially a person may not even
survive or become a human
person.
Gender and the Self
-gender is an aspect of the self
that is subject to alteration,
change, and development.
-from the point of view of social
sciences and the self, it is
important to give leeway to find
express, and live his identity.
-our gender partly determines
how we see ourselves in the world
society often forces a particular
identity unto us by depending on
-gender has to be personality
discovered and asserted and not
dictated by culture and society.