Psych 2 -B

In this lesson, I learned about another perspective of the self, specifically the Self
and the Person in Contemporary Anthropology. I learned about two anthropologists,
Katherine Ewing and Joseph Le Doux, and their thoughts on it. Ewing described the self
as encompassing the “physical organism, possessing psychological functioning and
social attributes.” Meaning the self is a totality with biological, psychological, cultural and
sociological aspects. Le Doux, on the other hand, had two concepts of the self. These
are the: Explicit self, the one you are consciously aware of; and the Implicit self, the one
not immediately available to our consciousness. I think what Le Doux means is that we
have two parts of the self, the one we are aware of and one that is not instantly
accessible by our consciousness.

Second, I learned how Ewing describes the self as illusory or an illusion. In this
statement, she means that the self is comprised of selected cultural concepts and a
selected chain of memories. I believe this means that our mind or self is made up of
almost some biases because we have sets of beliefs and stands that we stand by,
coupled with this the different cultures and traditions we are exposed to. We can say
that the self is not a set and standardized set because we all are exposed to different
stimulus and we all have different almost unique ways of reacting to it. Also, the self is
an illusion in the sense that we have selected chain of memories, meaning sometimes
even our memories can lie to us thus illusory. I believe this is because there are things
we ourselves wholly accept and things we reject that we can lie to ourselves.

Third, I learned how the self is embedded in culture. Our cultural traditions and
customs are what regulates, express and transform our psyche. I believe this means
that the self has to follow the social mores in the society he/she belongs to. Meaning our
culture is what shapes us and what makes up how we perceive other culture. This
means that what may be socially unacceptable to us may be what they practice and is
socially acceptable according to their customs. Also, the self is deeply implanted in our
culture in terms of how this can influence how we view our surroundings. Same as
mentioned, we conduct ourselves according to our culture and view outsiders or
nonconformists as deviants.

Fourth, I learned how some cultural psychologists expressed two ways of how
the self is constructed. These are the Independent constructs and the Interdependent
constructs. The Independent construct is where individualistic culture is present. One
such example of which is the Western culture. I learned how subjected to this culture,
Westerners, specifically Americans, are very independent in the sense that at age 18
they have to leave their homes and support themselves already. In their culture also
they, call each other by their names no matter the age gap, like their mothers and
fathers. In the Interdependent culture, on the other hand, is where the collectivist culture
exists. One example is our very own, the Filipino culture. In our culture it is very normal
for adults and even working or married adults can still live with their parents. In our
culture of extended families, we are an example of interdependence or living co-
existentially.

Lastly, I learned how our culture influences us in our relationships, personality

traits, achievements, and expressing emotions. Our culture can influence how we enter
and maintain our relationships. Such as the Filipino culture where the parents have a
say in their children’s prospective suitors and in keeping the relationship both families
are respected and maintain a good relation. Our culture also affects our values and
conducts. How we behave ourselves and what our common courtesies and manners
are we owe it to our culture. Our culture also influences how we define our success and
what we consider our highest level of satisfaction in terms of attainments. And in
expressing emotions, we are sometimes held back by our culture or it can push us too.
We fall back on our social mores in how we distance ourselves or how close we can get
to a person.