The Self As A Cognitive Construct: Prepared By: Minera Laiza C. Acosta, MP, RPM

The Self as a Cognitive Construct
Prepared by: Minera Laiza C. Acosta, MP,

RPm
Lesson Objectives
At the end of this lesson, you should be able to:
1. Identify the different ideas in psychology about the
“self”;
2. Create your own definition of the “self” based on the
definitions from psychology; and
3. Analyze the effects of various factors identified in
psychology in the formation of the “self”.
As mentioned earlier, there are various definitions of the
“self” and other similar or interchangeable concepts in
psychology. Simply put, “self” is “the sense of personal
identity and of who we are as individuals (Jhangiani and
Tarry 2014).”
William James (1890) was one of the earliest psychologists
to study the self as having two aspects—the “I” and the
“me”. Hogg and Vaughan 2010). The “I” is the thinking,
acting, and feeling self. The “me” on the other hand, is the
physical characteristics as well as psychological
capabilities that makes who you are (Gleitman, Gross, and
Reisberg 2011; Hogg and Vaughan 2010).
Carl Rogers’ (1959) theory of personality also used the
same terms, the “I” as the one who acts and decides
while the “me” is what you think or feel about yourself
as an object (Gleitman, Gross, and Reisberg 2011).
Other concepts similar to self are identity and self-
concept. Identity is composed of personal
characteristics, social roles, and responsibilities, as
well as affiliations that define who one is. Self-
concept is what basically comes to your mind when
you are asked about who you are.
Self, identity, and self-concept are not fixed in one
time frame. They are not also fixed for life nor are
they ever-changing at every moment. Think of a
malleable metal, strong and hard but can be bent and
molded in other shapes. Think about water. It can take
any shape of the container, but at its core, it is still the
same element.
Carl Rogers captured this idea in his concept of self-
schema or our organized system or collection of
knowledge about who we are. Imagine an organized
list or a diagram similar to this one:
Hobbie
s
Famil
y
Self Religio
n
Nationalit
y
The schema is not limited to the example above. It
may also include your interests, work, course, age,
name, and physical characteristics, among others. As
you grow and adapt to the changes around you, they
also change. But they are not passive receivers, they
actively shape and affect how you see, think and feel
about things.
Theories generally see the self and identity as mental
constructs, created and recreated in memory. Current
researches point to the frontal lobe of the brain as the
specific area in the brain associated with the processes
concerning the self.
Several psychologists, especially during the field’s
earlier development, followed this trend of thought,
looking deeper into the mind of the person to theorize
about the self, identity, self-concept, and in turn, one’s
personality. The most influential of them is Sigmund
Freud. Basically, Freud saw the self, its mental
processes, and one’s behavior as the results of the
interaction between the Id, the Ego, and the Superego.
However, as mentioned earlier, one cannot fully
discount the effects of society and culture on the
formation of the self, identity, and self-concept. Even
as Freud and other theories and researchers try to
understand the person digging deeper into the mind,
they cannot fully discount the huge and important
effects of the environment. As in the abovementioned
definitions of the self, social interaction always has a
part to play in who we think we are. This is not nature
vs. nurture but instead a nature-nurture perspective.
Under the theory of symbolic interactionism, G.H.
Mead (1934) argued that the self is created and
developed through human interaction. Basically, there
are three reasons why self and identity are social
products:
1. We do not create ourselves out of nothing. Society
helped in creating the foundations of who we are and
even if we make our choices, we will still operate in
our social and historical contexts in one way or the
other.
2. Whether we like to admit or not, we actually need
others to affirm and reinforce who we think we are.
We also need them as reference points about our
identity.
3. What we think is important to us may also have been
influenced by what is important in our social or
historical context.
Social interaction and group affiliation, therefore, are

vital factors in our self-concept especially in the aspect
of providing us with our social identity on our
perception of who we are based on our membership to
certain groups.
There are times, however, when we are aware of our
self-concepts; this is also called self-awareness. Carver
and Scheier (1981) identified two types of self that we
can be aware of: 1. the private self or your internal
standards and private thoughts and feelings, and 2. the
public self or your public image commonly geared
toward having a good presentation of yourself to
others.
Self-awareness also presents us with at least three
other self-schema: the actual, the ideal and ought self.
The “actual” self is who you are at the moment, the
“ideal” self is who you like to be, and the “ought” self
is who you think you should be.
Our group identity and self-awareness also has a great
impact on our self-esteem, one of the common
concepts associated with the “self”. It is defined as our
own positive or negative perception or evaluation of
ourselves.
One of the ways in which our social relationship
affects our self-esteem is through social comparison.
According to social comparison theory, we learn about
ourselves, the appropriateness of our behaviors, as well
as our social status by comparing ourselves with other
people.
The downward social comparison is the more common
type of comparing ourselves with others. As the name
implies, we create a positive self-concept by
comparing ourselves with those who are worse off
than us. By having the advantage, we can raise our
self-esteem.
Another comparison is the upward social comparison
which is comparing ourselves with those who are
better off than us. While it an be a form of motivation
for some, a lot of those who do this actually felt lower
self-esteem as they highlight more of their weakness or
inequities.
Social comparison also entails what is called self-
evaluation maintenance theory, which states that we
can feel threatened when someone out-performs us,
especially when that person is close to us (i.e., a friend
of family).
In an attempt to increase self-esteem, some people
become narcissistic. Narcissism is a “trait
characterized by overly high self-esteem, self-
admiration, and self-centeredness”.
Sometimes, there is a thin line between high self-
esteem and narcissism and there are a lot of tests and
measurements for self-esteem like the Rosenberg scale
but the issue is that the result can be affected by the
desire of the person to portray herself in a positive or
advantageous way.
And though self-esteem is a very important concept
related to the self, studies have shown that it only has a
correlation, not causality, to positive outputs and
outlook. It can be argued that high or healthy self-
esteem may result to an overall good personality but it
is not, and should not be, the only source of a person’s
healthy perspective of herself.

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Social interaction and group affiliation, therefore, are

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