THE PSYCHOLOGICAL SELF:

MY FAVORITE MYSTERY
 “ Who in the world am I?’,
ah that's the great puzzle! ”
- ALICE IN WONDERlAND
At the end of the lesson students
must be able to:
• Demonstrate critical, analytical, and creartive
thinking.
• Appreciate the complexity of the human condition.

• Examine the contemporary world from both Philippine

and Global perspectives.
• Take responsibility for knowing and being Filipino.

• Reflect critically on shared concerns.

 INTRODUCTI
ON
According to Weiten et al. (2014, p. 115)
, questioning who we are or engaging in
self-reflection to figure out and
understand why we behave in a certain
way is normal and is actually beneficial
in inceasing self-awareness.
“ You are very powerful,
provided you know how
powerful you are. ”
- Yogi Bhajan
Self / Self - Concept
According to Carl Rogers, the self or
our self-concept “is an organized,
consistent set of perceptions of and
beliefs about oneself”
(Passer & Smith, 2007, p. 451).
Self / Self - Concept
These perceptions and beliefs that
comprise our self-concept are called
self-schemas.
Factors;
1.) Past Experiences

- your memories of successes, failures, challenges, and

interactions shape how you see yourself.

2.) Personality Traits

– characteristics like being introverted, optimistic, or patient

give you a framework for predicting how you’ll behave and
respond in different situations.
Factors;
3.) Abilities

- skills you’ve developed (e.g., singing, problem-solving,

sports) contribute to how you define your strengths and
limitations.
4.) Physical Features

- How you look and how others respond to your appearance

affect your self-perception, from height and body type to
distinctive features.
Factors;
5.) Values

- Your principles and beliefs influence how you evaluate

yourself and your choices.

6.) Goals
- aspirations give you a “future self” to compare your present
self against, shaping your motivation and sense of progress.
 Factors;
7.) Social Roles

The positions you hold in life define parts of your identity

and influence how you behave in different contexts.

8.) Own Observations

- How you monitor and interpret your behavior strengthens or
changes your self-view.
Factors;
9.) Feedback from Others

- Praise, criticism, and suggestions from peers,

family, and teachers can reinforce or challenge
your self-perception.
 Real and Ideal
Self
Ideal Self Real Self

Person we want to be who we actually are

IDEALIZED VERSION
How I see me
OF OURSELF

Also called
How I should be
“Actual Self”
“ Whatever the mind can
conceive and believe, the
mind can achieve. ”
- Napoleon Hill
According to Weiten et. al (2914, p.116), “
possible selves are one's conceptions about the
kind of persons one might become in the near
future.” The ideal self can be a helpful in guiding
the real self to strive and continue improving.
 SELF IMAGINING
EXERCISE
• A self-imagining exercise is an activity
where you deliberately picture or visualize
yourself in a certain way — either your current
self or your ideal/future self — to explore your
identity, clarify your goals, and understand
your personal growth.
“ Sometimes, however, possible selves are
negative and represent what you fear you
might become” ( Lee & Oyserman, 2009 as
cited in Weiten et al., 2014, p. 116) .
POP-UP QUESTION

How aligned is your ideal self from

your real self?? And what are your
realizations based on your answer
 Incongruent and
Congruent Selves

Congruen
Self-concept meshes

Actua
Self-concept

well with actual

ce
l Ex p
experience ( some
ingcongruence is
e ri e

probably
n c e

unavoidable)
 Incongruent and
Congruent Selves

Ac
Incongrue
Self-concept

t
Self-concept does not

u a l
meshes well
nce with

Ex p
actual experience.
e ri e n c e
• When we feel good about ourselves, it is
said that there is congruence or
alignment or there is a small gap
between our real self and ideal self. This
gives us confidence, satisfaction, and a
sense of self-actualization or fulfillment
leading to a high self-esteem.
However, When we are disappointed or frustrated about
ourselves, it is said that there isincongruence or
misalignment or disparity or a huge gap between our
real and ideal self.

This results to us being distressed, anxious, leading to a

low self-esteem or self-worth and be defensive in our
actions. In cases where in the gap between the real and
ideal self is immense, this may cause instability to one's
psychological well-being.
This gap causes anxiety, and to deal with it, we
use two defenses: denial and perceptual
distortion.

The process of defense .. consists of the

selective perception or distortion of the
experience and/or the denial to awareness of the
experience or some portion thereof...” (Shpancer,
2018, para. 13).
 Two main defenses to reduce that anxiety:

DENIAL – Refusing to acknowledge the

experience or parts of it.

(e.g., “That didn’t happen” or “That’s not a

problem”).
 Two main defenses to reduce that anxiety:

PERCEPTUAL DISTORTION – Twisting or

changing how you see the experience
so it fits your existing self-view.

(e.g., convincing yourself criticism was

just a joke).
 WORTH
KNOWING:
“ it has been documented that there is a
relationship between low self-esteem
and violence, school dropout rates,
teenage pregnancy, suicide, and low
academic achievement.” ( Misetich &
Delisabrams, 2003, para. 5) .
 WORTH
KNOWING:
Hayes and Fors (1990) report that lower self-esteem is
often the reason why young girls engage in premarital
sexual relationships and is more likely to be
responsible for teen pregnancies than any other single
factor.h They found that as self-esteem decreases,
sexual attitudes and behavior become more
permissive" ("Some Interesting, "2017).
POP-UP QUESTION

How do you cope with your ideal

self and real self's your ideal and
real self in the way you live your life
every day?
• If the level of incongruence is too much to handle, causing a person's
self-worth to be questionable, it is best to seek help through
counseling or seeking advice from people who can help.

• Experiencing incongruence mnay happen from time to time, most

especially in cases or contexts that are new or extreme. In
circumstances like these, we need to reflect, evaluate our behavior,
and be reminded of our ideal self to put us back on track.
• We have to learn to separate behaviors from the totality of one's being.
We may have behaved badly but it does not mean that we are
automatically an entirely bad person.

• Changing our way of thinking may take a bit of getting used to since
most of us may havebeen exposed to people who. might be given
usnegative labels such as "bad, stupid, weak, fat, ugly, etc."
Negative labels could come from a single failure or
blunder. Sadly, a single unintentional mistake is
used to judge a person holistically. We might have
been a victim or this or we might also be guilty of
doing this to other people.
 Self-Esteem and Self-Efficacy
Self-esteem refers to ones overal assessment of
one's worth as a person (Weiten et al., 2014, p.
118), one's self-worth. People with high self-
esteem succeed more, have better relationships,
and are happier compared to those with low self-
-esteem (Oswalt, 2010). Our self-esteem refers to
how we value our selves and perceive our worth
as a person (Weiten et al., 2014).
 Self-Esteem and Self-Efficacy
Specific elements of the self-concept may
contribute to self-esteem. This presents evidences
that who we are is never defined by one success or
one failure. It is helpful to look into our self-esteem
coming from several boxes. This helps us
categorize our victories and loses. Hopefully, a
success from one box will not make us
overconfident because we still need to also work
 "There is nothing noble about
being superior to some other man.
The true nobility is in being
superior to your previous self."
- Hindu
Proverb
 Structure of Self-esteem

Self-
esteem
Emotional Academic Physical
Social Self- Self-image Self-image Self-image
image
Emotional Course Work Physical
Relationships Appearance
expression

Peers, Anger, English, History, Weight, Smile,

Significant Happiness Psychology Hairstyle
others Love
Self-efficacy is how one performs
(Coten, 2009), Self-efficacy is
directly correlated with self-
esteem. When our self-efficacy
or our performance improves,
our self-esteem improves which
will lead to congruence.
 However, an increase in self-esteem does not alwavs lead to increase to
self-efficacy most especially if no effort was exerted to improve
performance. This is why we nave to continuously remind ourselves to be
motivated and put that motivation into action.

For self-esteem and self-efficacy to increase, we have to learn to give

unconditional positive regard to each other. Hopefully, we have
experienced being provided with unconditional positive regard so we may
also be able to give the same to others.
In case you feel that others have not or do not show vou
unconditional positive regards, try to give the benefit of the doubt.
They might be expressing it in other means or languages that
might not have been that direct or explicit. We iust have to be
sensitive and appreciative of the other means or languages used to
express appreciation.
Rogers presented the idea of a fully functioning person. For him, "this
means that the person is in touch with the here and now, his or her
subjective experiences and feelings, continually growing and changing"
(McLeod, 2014, para. 9).

Some of the key characteristics of a fully-functioning person include:

"openness to experience, a flexible self-concept, unconditional [positive]
regard for the self, and the ability to live in harmony with others" (Cherry,
2017, para. 16).
 WORTH
KNOWING:
"Most of the damage to our self-esteem is
self- inflicted. Unfortunately, we often
respond to rejections and failures by
becoming self-critical, listing all our faults
and short-comings, calling ourselves
names, and basically kicking ourselves
when we're already down.
SELF-ESTEEM
FACTS!!
Self-esteem reflects a persons overall emotional
evaluation of his or her own worth. It is a
judgement of oneself as well as an attitude toward
the self. Experiences in a person's life are a major
source of self-esteem development. The positve or
negative life experiences one has, creates
attitudes towards the self which can be fabourabu
or can be unfavourable.
 “The curious
paradox is that
when I accept
myself just as I am,
then I can change.”
- Carl
Rogers
• 80 % of females surveyed claimed
their poor body image was linked to
negative remarks made by FRIENDS
and FAMILY.
• 75% of girls with low self-esteem
report engaging in negative activities
like cutting, bullying, smoking or
drinking.
• 80 % of females surveyed claimed
their poor body image was linked to
negative remarks made by FRIENDS
and FAMILY.
• 75% of girls with low self-esteem
report engaging in negative activities
like cutting, bullying, smoking or
drinking.
We need to continue investing and valuing
ourselves by learning something relevant
every day “Many people fail to comprehend
that evervthing vou learn and own always
stays with you as priceless assets. These are
the core ingredients that build you” (Nathan,
2018, para. 3).
"When you invest your time in developing
yourself personally and professionally, you
are role-playing as a catalyst for self-growth.
There are myriad skill investnent avenues.
For instance — read the news and books,
expose your brain to creative ideas, meet
[good] people" (para. 5).
Our mind is hard to change once we become
convinced. So it might be very natural to feel
demoralized and defeated after you fail. But you
cannot allow yourself to becomne convinced you
can't succeed. You have to fight feelings of
helplessness. You have to gain control over the
situation. And you have to break this kind of
negative cycle before it begins (Winch, 2014).
 “ It is never too late to be
what you might have been."

- George Eliot
 SUMMARY
Self-awareness helps us protect and improve our
psychological well-being by understanding what shapes our
self-concept. While negative experiences are unavoidable,
we can learn from them and use them for growth. Focusing
on the positive motivates our real self to improve for the
greater good, not out of revenge. Though self-esteem may
fluctuate, choosing daily to invest in ourselves benefits
both us and others, as our psychological health greatly
influences our lives, relationships, and society.
 KEYWORDS
Congruence - alignment of ideal and real self

Ideal Self - who we want to be

Incongruence - misalignment of ideal and real self

Real self - who we really are

 KEYWORDS
Self-concept: organized, consistent set of perceptions
of and beliefs about oneself

Self-efficacy: how one performs

Self-esteem: to one's overall' assessment of one's

worth as a person

Self-schemas: perceptions and beliefs that comprise

our self-concept
THANK
YOU