Sunday, December 26, 2004

An overview of the Self:

There wouldn't be more intresting topic to every person than to know "self". For most of the people "Self" is the most intresting person. Across ten centuries, people have started to write about themselves in their autobiography, some of them just felt that they need to justify the practice by explaining about themself.
Psychology which is the most intresting area to know about it because it teaches, researches, develop something about people and Self. There is other sources that provides self knowledge, from fortunetellers and astrology to magazine articles to medical tests to religion. Yet, It had been still big curiousity to every person to know about Self. As far as I know,It has been done alot of researches and have defined in different way based on the research area like psychology, management, social science, astrologly, religion and so on. However, it has defined terms, the main theme of all of them is know about “self”.
Generally,It is quite hard to define the term "Self".Most of people use "I" and "Self" many times each day. So today, It really made me to think, what is "Self" and how it had been defined and explained in differeent sectors? However,It is not easy to write an article about it,my main theme of this topic is to gather information about it and put it in one orderly form.
In psychology, It has been divided into so many sides and sub topics:Self awarness, Self monitoring, Self presentation, Self concept, Self esteem, Self actualization, Self verification, Self scheme, Self enhancement, Self regulation
Roy F. Baumeister has defined it as the main fact that every person can use the "self" with such ease and familiarity suggests that concept of selfhood is rooted in some simple, Universal human experiance. however, Self generally reffered to psychological rather than a physical beings which contains thoughts, feeling and attitudes. To a child, and to many adults who are less psychologically minded cultures, Self is body. While in the process of development in civilization in develop countries, It is referred to psyhological rather than a physical being which contains thoughts, feelings, and attitudes. It is often gazed on steadly as hidden components so that other people cannot understand your "Self" unless It discloses to them and indeed even each person to struggle and work hard in order to know own self. Therefore, There is something more than the body that must be included when a person wants to know the foundations or origins of selfhood. Numerious research have been done which was focused on Self in psychology. Among those research, I would like to focus on the primary three human experiences form on the basis of selfhood. These three major factors is Universal because people all over world experience it based on these three experience factors. These three knowledge factors are also broad enough to combine everything that psychology study can explain about the Self.
The first experience is reflective conscious which is based on human mind who inquiry their attention back toward its own source and seek the self which is also known as Self-aware. It is hard to know and understand because the concept of self would be meaningless if a person is not able to become aware of self. In our everyday experiences, think about self, feeling self conscious, experiencing a rise or drop in self esteem and trying to learn about person his/herself are all include under this aspect of the self knowledge.
The second experience of self is interpersonal being which is based on a memeber of groups and relationships, and it is indeed one of the very important functions of the self is to make possible people to relate others. While looking inwards, the self is not created nor discovered in social isolation. e.g. A child learns about it self involve its connections to others (Being a member of a certain family) and its characteristic set it apart from others (being male and female). The interpersonal dimension mesure the scope of knowledge of how the self is involved in interacting with others. It focused on person's self presentation, which involves how a person communicate images of him/herself to others and alter behaviour when others are watching. It also includes the inter-personal interactions of self perceptions, as well as the views of self shape interactions and relationships.
The third experience of self is an executive functions which is focused on the self to make a choices, originate action and exert control over self and world. It plays as "agent" and "origin" but it could not do anything. Without this, the self might still be something that could be known and could relate to other people in our daily life. It is experienced when one weighs options and makes a decision, forces oneself to do something, restains an impulse and other similar phenomena.
(I would like to request every individual who are interested in this article, please kind send me your comments and information to improve so that I can make it more iteresting.Thank you very much for your time and interest on my article,cheers).
References:
Aron, A., Aron, E.N., Tudor, M. and Nelson, G. (1991) Close relationships as including other in the self. Journal of personality and social psychology, 60, 241-253.
Ashmore, R.D., and Jussim, L. (1997) Toward a second century of scientific analysis of self and identity. "Self and identity:Fundamental issues(page: 3-19), Oxford University Press, New York
B.R. Schlenker, The self and social life (page: 100-125), McGraw Hill, New York
Baumeister, R.F.(1999) The self in social psychology(page:1-24), Edwards Brothers, MI, USA

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