• Psychobiological context – relationships between neurobiological functions and psychological experiences
• Intraphysic context – Psychological aspects (thinking, emotion, learning, self-reflection).
• Social context – social behaviour of humans in interaction with one another and their environments
• Metaphysical context – philosophical, aesthetic and religious characteristics.
SELF
THE CONCEPT OF THE SELF
Core of our beings & is continuous over time.
Totality of our personal experiences.
The stable self vs the changing self:
• What came first? The stable core or the totality of our experiences.
• Erik Erikson: experience comes before the self and change develops into a stable core. Identity becomes fixed
during the developmental stage of adolescence
• Humanists (Carl Rogers & Abraham Maslow): The self comes before experience and a stable core changes.
Personal development – ultimate goal is self-actualisation
The double self:
Philosophical problems of
• Ontology – essence of things, the way things really are
• Epistemology – how we understand things
The self is both the subject and object of thought
Self-awareness
The self is simultaneously constant and it is both the subject and the object of our thoughts.
THE DYNAMICS OF SELF
1
,If the self was only
• A stable core – we would be stagnant
• Totality of our experiences – we would be too fluid
We need to be both in order to accommodate new experiences and to develop a constant manner
• Self-insight vs self-deception:
How much insight one has about oneself
Begs the question of whether one really knows who one is
Have self-insight if we display more self-insight than self-deception
We can only know ourselves in relation to the way in which others know us
High degree of self-insight if what we know about ourselves corresponds to what others know about us
Johari Window:
What I know about myself What I do not know about
myself
What others know about me Open knowledge Blinded knowledge
What others do not know Hidden knowledge Unavailable knowledge
about me
• Self-regard vs self-disregard
Humans have the need to feel worthy in the eyes of others – reflects the way in which we experience ourselves
Self-worth
Lower levels:
Experienced more rejection
Difficulty distinguishing failure in a task and failure as a person
Expect negative outcomes – puts little effort
High levels of anxiety
Performs poorly
Higher levels:
Expectations of success = confirmation of self-worth
Lowered levels of anxiety
Higher probability of success
• Self-identity vs self-alienation
Self-identification – knowing who one is and being satisfied with it
Cognitive component – knowledge about oneself
Emotional component – being content with oneself
Self-alienation – feel you do not really know who you are
Is a process of reflection
Lacan’s Mirror stage theory: development of identity in terms of reflection in one’s image in a mirror. Our self-
identification contains a measure of self-alienation.
Constructing ourselves – we have to be open to what is outside ourselves, but cannot be totally alienated from
ourselves.
Extremes:
Narcissistic – focuses on oneself too much & constructs oneself in isolation (too open to what is outside
Oneself – over dependant on others, anxious, danger of losing perspective on reality
We see ourselves in the remarks others make and through the effects and consequences of our behaviour
• Self-autonomy vs self-collectivity
Autonomous self = independent from others
Collective self = inclusive of others
2
, As group support diminishes individuals become increasingly responsible for their own well being
A healthy self = can function autonomously while acknowledging its dependency on and its responsibility for its
fellow human beings
THE FOUNDATIONS OF SELF
Physical domain – describes the self as the product of a biological process
Intrapersonal domain – describes the self as the product of a process of consciousness
Interpersonal domain – describes the self as the product of a process of symbolic interaction
The process of reflection:
• Self-reflection: process that occurs when we think about ourselves
• 2 components:
Deferred – there is some sort of distance between me and my image
Differed – sense that the image is not really me
• The self is not the source of self-reflection, it is the product
• Kinds of reflection:
The biological foundations of self
- Neural system
- The neurons establish relationships between sensations and actions
- These relationships establish patterns in the organisms behaviour
- Autogenesis of the self(How the self emerges through a process of self-organisation in the neural system):
1. Formation of neural networks
2. The unique way in which neural impulses flow – how individuals act depends on neural impulse patterns
3. Higher-order organisation in the neural networks – patterns are organised as images (including the
image of itself)
4. An even higher order of organisation in the neural system – language is developed.
The foundation of self in consciousness
- Our consciousness is what underlies every thought we can think
- Consciousness as a state of being = state of awareness
- Introspection = process in which I pitch my current state against my potential state
The linguistic foundation of self
- We understand the world in terms of social constructions
- Everything happens in language and you and I are reflected in language
GROUPS
ATTRIBUTES OF HUMAN GROUPS
Def: is a collection of elements that share attributes and or relate to one another in specific ways
Groups differ and have specific characteristics. Can be grouped:
• An element of a larger group
• A group that consists of other groups as its elements (subgroups).
General characteristics:
• Structure – a groups elements & the way they are organised
3
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