The Self as a

Cognitive
Construction:

REPORT OF:

GROUP ll
The Self as a Cognitive
Construction:
 Some of the non-humans, including the
chimpanzees, orangutans, and perhaps
dolphin have at least a primitive sense of self
(Boysen and Himes 1999).
 We know this because of some interesting
experiments that have been done with
animals
 Psychology is the scientific study of the mind
and behavior. Psychology is a multifaceted
discipline and includes many sub-fields of
study such areas as human development,
sports, health, clinical, social behavior and
cognitive processes.
 Infants who have similar red dots painted on
their foreheads recognized themselves in a
mirror in the same way that chimps do, and
they do this by about 18 months of age
(Asendorpf, Warkentin & Baudonniére ,1996 ;
Povinelli, Landau & Perrilux, 1996) the cild’s
knowledge about the self continues to
develop as the child grows.
According to Confucius, he translated
Kong Fu Zi or K’ ung – fu – Tzu or
frequently referred to as Kongz. He
was a Chinese born in BC in the city of
Qufu, located at the Chinese state of
Lu, and now part of present-day
Shandong Province, Confucius was
believed that have been conceived
out of wedlock.
 William James was an
American philosopher and
psychologist, and the first
educator to offer a
psychology course in the
United States. James is
considered to be a leading
thinker of the late
nineteenth century, one of
the most influential
philosophers of the United
States, and the "Father of
American psychology".
 William James beliefs

 Through his philosophy of

pragmatism William James justifies
religious beliefs by using the results of his
hypothetical venturing as evidence to
support the hypothesis' truth. Therefore, this
doctrine allows one to assume belief in a god
and prove its existence by what
the belief brings to one's life.
 James(1890)distinguished two
understandings of the self, the self as “Me” and the self
as “I”. This distinction has recently regained popularity
in cognitive science, especially in the context of
experimental studies on the underpinnings of the
phenomenal self. The goal of this paper is to take a step
back from cognitive science and attempt to precisely
distinguish between “Me” and “I” in the context of
consciousness. This distinction was originally based on
the idea that the former (“Me”) corresponds to the self
as an object of experience (self as object), while the
latter (“I”) reflects the self as a subject of experience
(self as subject).
George Herbert Mead, a sociologist from the late
1800’s is well known for his theory of the social life,
which includes the concept of “self”, “me”, and “I”. In
this lesson, we will explore Mead’s theory and gain a
better understanding of what is meant by the terms
“me” and “I”.
 Mead’s work focuses on the way in which the self is
developed. Mead’s theory of the social life is based
on the perspective that the self emerges from social
interactions, such as observing and interacting with
others, responding the others opinions about
oneself and internalizing external opinions and
internal feelings about oneself. According to Mead,
the self is not there from birth, but it developed over
time from social experiment and activities.
Development of self

 According to Mead, three activities developed the

self: Language, play and games.

 Language – develop self by allowing individuals to

respond to each other through symbols, gesturers,
words and sound. Language convey other’s attitude
and opinions toward a subject or to the person.
Emotions such as anger, happiness and confusion are
conveyed through language.
 Play – develops self by allowing individuals to take on the roles, pretend
and express expectation of other. Play develop one’s self consciousness
through role-playing, during the role-playing, a person is able to
internalize the perspective of others and develop an understanding of
how other feels about themselves and others in a variety of social
situations.

 Games- develop self by allowing individuals to understand and adhere to

the rules of the activity. Self is developed by understanding that there are
rules in which one must abide by in order to win the game or to be
successful at an activity.
 From the word self is the most cases synonymous with the word
organisms. When we speak bacterium we speak of its capacity to self-
maintain, self-protection and self-reproduce in recognition of its
selfhood. By listing such activities as denoting a self, we are also saying
that the self is not a thing but an ongoing and integrated process (not to
say totally mind-boggling). Selves have a function which is to keep that
process ongoing and integrated while they interact with other selves and
the environment.
 Much of our boggling has concerned the relationship between these two
selves. While we basically have no idea how the relationship might work
at a mechanistic level. The sticky wicket is imagining how physical brain
could possibly give rise to something experienced as being non-physical
with the example of “the redness of the red”.
 In the many expositions on the “consciousness problem” that are out
there. Little attention is given to a second capacity of human brains that
also likely unique, namely the ability to rapidly and seamlessly and utilize
symbolic language when exposed to them at an early age.

 Language are transmitted via cultures and cultures encode, via language,
information essential for human survival. Hence, there has occurred a 3 –
way co-evolution of :
(1) Children’s brain capable of learning symbolic languages
(2) Symbolic languages capable of being learned by children’s brain
(3) Symbolic-languages-based cultures
 Since both self–complexity – overlap in particular – and self concept
differentiation theoretically refer to the same idea of contextualized self-
views, according to Donahue et al (1993) he argued that these aspects of
self–concept structure are different in two respects: first, self-complexity
includes not only the distinctiveness, but also the numerousness of self-
aspects; and second, the original Linville’s self-complexity hypothesis
does not postulate a direct link between self-complexity adjustments.
And according to Campbelle (1991) was contributed to this issue by
pointing out that there is a crucial, though slightly ambiguous, difference
between a complex self concept and an uncertain one.
 The empirical evidence supports the above reasoning by
indicating that self-complexity and self concept differentiation
have dissimilar relationship with indices of well-being. Perhaps
more puzzling is the lack of convergence of indices that purport
to measure only the distinctiveness component of self-concept
structure namely overlap and self concept differentiation. This
difference supposedly is due to the way the two constructs are
assessed – self-complexity scores are derived from self-
generated roles that are idiosyncratic in content, whereas self-
concept differentiation task uses participant’s self ratings for
personality attributes across experimenter-provided roles.
According to Dr. Murray Bowen, he develops
the eight interlocking concept and its called
the Bowen Family System Theory.

The eight interlocking concept of Bowen

Family System Theory are:
1. Differentiation of Self
2. Triangles
3. Nuclear Family Emotional Process
4. Family Projection Process
5. Cutoff
6. Multigenerational Transmission Process
7. Sibling Position
8. Societal Emotional Process
 Differentiation of self describes how people cope with life’s
demands and pursue their goals on an continuum from most
adaptive to least. Variations in the adaptiveness depends on
several connected factors including the amount of solid self.
For example, with well thought out principles enhances solid
self will feel more pressure to think feel, and act like other
thinks, feels and does. Acute anxiety also plays a role. A fairly
probably return to adaptive functioning soon after. A less
differentiated person may live in a stress-free environment and
therefore function quite well for long period of time. A higher
levels of differentiation, people maintain separate, solid selves
under considerable stress and anxiety.
Triangles
 Triangles are basically molecules of the human relationship
system. A two-person dyad becomes unstable once anxiety
increase. Then, one or both members of the diad usually pulls in a
third person to relive some of the pressure. In a third person
system, anxiety has more places to go, and the relationship where
it originated experiences some relief. When the three-person
system can no longer contain the anxiety. It involves more people
forms a series of interlocking triangles. Bowen researchers
consider triangles a natural function of living systems. Triangles
can have either negative or positive outcomes depending on how
their member of the triangle remains calm and in emotional
contact with the other two, the system automatically calms down.
Nuclear Family Emotional Process

 Nuclear Family Emotional Process manages

differentiation and anxiety with conflict, distance over
and under functioning reciprocity, which at extreme
can lead to dysfunction in a spouse and child focus.
People engaged in conflict, fight, argue, blame and
criticize each other. Reciprocity in relationship occurs
when one person takes the responsibility for the
twosome. The two people slide into overadequate and
underadequate roles. And this can become so
extreme that one partner becomes incapacitated
either with an illness or a general lack of direction.
 In psychology, the real self and the ideal self are terms used to describe
personality domains. The real self is who we actually are. It is how we
think, how we feel, look and act. The real self can be seen by others but
because we have no way of truly knowing how others view us, the real is
our self-image.

 The Ideal self, on the other hand, is how we want to be it is an idealized

image that we have developed over time, based on what we have
learned and experienced. The Ideal self could include components of
what our parents have taught us, what we admire in others, what our
society promotes, and what we think is in our best interest.
 The concept of the self must be analyzed within the broader
context of the model of human nature in which it is rooted. Our
conceptions human nature have changed markedly over time.
The symbiotic ability to comprehend, predict and alter the
course of events provide considerable functional advantages.
Human forebears involve into a sentient agentic species their
advance symbolizing capacity enabled humans to transcend
the dictates of their immediate environment. It made them
unique in there power to shape their environment and the
course of their lives. Though cognitive self-regulation, humans
can visualized futures that act on the present; order
preferences rooted in a personal values;
 Construct, evaluate and modify alternative course of action;
anticipate possible outcomes of the options considered; and override
environmental influences. One such property is intentionality.
Collective endeavors require commitment to shared intentions and
coordination or interdependent plans of action to realize them
(bratman 1999). Effective group performance is guided by collective
intentionality.

 The second property involves the temporal extension of agency

through forethought. However, through cognitive representation,
visualized futures are brought into the present as the current guides
and motivators of behavior. When projected over a long-time course,
a forethoughtful perspective provides direction, coherence and
meaning to one’s life.
 The third agentic property is self-reactiveness. Agents are not only
planners and overthinkers. They are also self-regulators. Having
adopted an intention and action plans, one cannot simply sit back
and wait for the appropriate performance to appear (Searle 2003).
 Success requires a lot of self-regulative efforts to translate visions
into reality. They do things that gives them satisfaction and a
sense of self-worth and refrain from actions that bring self-
censure. Self-investments in the activity as a strong motivator.
 The fourth agentic property is self reflectivness. People are not
only agents of action. There are also self-examiners of their own
functioning. The meta-cognitive ability to reflect upon oneself is
the most distinctly human core property of agency. In verifying the
adequacy of thought by self-reflective means, people generate
ideas and act upon them or predict occurrences from them.
 The process of thought verification involves compairing how
well one's thoughts match some indicators of reality. There
are four modes of thought verification: Enactive, Vicarious,
Persuasory and Logical.

 The Enactive verification relies on the closeness of the fit

between one's thoughts and the result of the action spawn.
Good matches lend validity of thoughts; mismatches
challenge them.
 In the Vicarious verification, seeing the effects of
other people's action provides the check on the
correctness of one's outcomes expectations.

 The Vicarious thought verification is not simply

supplement of Enactive validation. Symbolic
modeling vastly expands the range verification
experiences that cannot be attained by personal
action because of the constraints of time, resources
and mobility.
 True Self also known as (real self, authentic self, original
self and vulnerable self) and False self also known as (fake
self, ideal self, perfect self, superficial self and pseudo self)
are psychological concept often used in connection with
narcissism. They were introduced in psychoanalysis in 1960
by D.W. Winnicott. Winnicott used true self to describe a
sense of self based on spontaneious authentic experience,
and a feeling of being alive, having a real self.
 The false self contrast, Winnicott saw as a defensive facade -
one which in extreme cases could live its holder lacking
spontaneity and feeling dead and empty. Behind a mere
apperance of being real.

 To maintain their self-esteem, and protect their vulnerable

true selves. Narcissist need to control other 's behavior -
particularly that of their children, seen as extentions of
themselves.
 The self as
Proactive and
Agentic
The self as proactive

People whose self-identity as proactive makes better

job hunters.

People with strong ratings of self-efficacy are more

successful and landing a job following graduation
from college, and its according by the book and its
published in May issued of the journal of applied
psychology (Vol.91, No.3)
 And according to the author
Douglas J. Brown, an associated
psychology professor at the
University of Waterloo in canada, he
must says that the study's finding
points out the need to study
whether job candidates low in
proactive personality - defined as
the tendency to take personal
initiative across a range of activities
and situations - can learned how to
be more proactive to get a better
start on there working life.
 Graduates rated high in proactive personality tended to be
strong in self-efficacy, the belief that one can actively
influence one's environment and circumstances through
personal actions. Those with more self-efficacy searched
more frequently for jobs, prepared better for interviews and
were asked back for follow-up interviews more often.

 And brown says that "Someone who feels they can change
their environment feels they're going home to be more
successful, which in turn leads them to actually engaged in
more jobs-search behavior".
 These students wants more likely to land their jobs, and
probably setting a stage for the stable carreer arc and for a
long-term success. The prior research has already
established that employees was rank high by the proactive
personality and get promoted more often and can earn a
higher salary in their careers and that was the brown said

 And another brown said that "It sets the frame from which
the rest of your careers unfolds"
 Brown and his fellow researchers was got
interested to the question after noticing that
some of the college students are expected for
the jobs to "fall into their laps", and while the
others are still actively searching. In the
future research, Brown says that he wants to
examine whether it is possible to teach
someone to be more proactive the context of
job searches.
1. A social cognition theory is proposed by Standford University
psychologist, Albert Bandura it says that the views people as a
self-organizing, proactive, self reflective and self-regulating as
time change. An Agentic perspective states that we are not
merely reactive organisms shaped by environmental forces or
driven by inner umpules.

2. The capacity for human beings to make choices in the world.

We see the world as an agents of change, and we believe that we

have to choice over our actions and we strive to be enable other to
make informed responsible desicions online
The Self in Western
and Oriental/Eastern
thought
 The tendency to stress either individuality or more collective
is one of the most widely distributed traits around the world.
Not every culture is a one end or the other end of the
spectrum, but the majority tend to favor one thing the other
in an everyday life. And knowing about the basis of the
Collectivism versus the Individualism construct will help us to
recognize, understand and to anticipate attitudes in
different types of culture.
 It says that the individuals identifies
primarily with self, looking and after taking
care of oneself, being self sufficient,
guarantees of well-being of the group,
independence and self-reliance, are the
greatly stressed and valued. Individualist
characteristics are often associated with the
men and people in urban settings.
 One's identity is, in large part, a function of one's
membership and role in a group. The survival and
success of the group ensures that the well-being in the
individual. Harmony and interdependence of group
member are also stressed and valued. Group
members are relatively close psychologically and
emotionally, but distant toward non-group members.
Collectivist characteristics are often associated by the
women and the rural settings.
 This article sheds light on the importance of understanding the self
within social and cultural contexts. The self is the most important
intervening factor to come between phenomenal objects (other people,
roles, and external things) and an individual's own behavior and action. I
ask questions about the individual and his or her role in the social
construction process, by comparing Eastern and Western ideas about the
concept of self.

 The most important commonality between Eastern and Western thought

is an emphasis on constructing the self in relationship with others and
exploring the dialectical relationships between self, culture, organization,
and society. If our understanding of organizational reality fails to grapple
with the dynamic nature of the self, organizations will remain more of a
management's interest in explaining and controlling human behavior
than in understanding human experience and action.
 According to Confucians, spiritual development comes
after physical, emotional, and mental development.
One must first learn to know oneself and to respect and
honor oneself as one goes about daily business. As
Confucius said, "If you don't know how to live as a
person, how can you serve the spirit?" (Confucian
Analects, Confucius 1971 [500 B.C.E.]).

 Confucius avoided talking about extraordinary things,

feats of strength (violence), disorder, and religious gods
(Confucian Analects, Confucius 1971 [500 B.C.E.]).
Confucianism stresses being spiritual, but not religious.
 A central feature of Confucianism is harmony
between people and their environment, Nature, or
Tao. The Tao Chi (Yin-Yang diagram) is an example
of the value of harmony with the environment. It is
also applied to the concept of health for energy
(qi/chi), balance for disease prevention, healing, and
the development of human potential. Meditation is
a way of managing energy that is applied to reach
physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual harmony
for individual holistic health.