DO YOU

TRULY
KNOW
YOURSELF?
ACTIVITY 1
 What is SELF?

 SELF-AWARENESS, SELF-ESTEEM, SELF-KNOWLEDGE, SELF-PERCEPTION – THESE ARE THE

ASPECTS OF THE “SELF”
 THEY MAKE UP THE INTEGRAL PARTS OF THE “SELF”
 WHAT DO WE DO TO GAIN SOCIAL ACCEPTANCE?
 IN PSYCHOLOGY, THE “SELF” IS EITHER THE COGNITIVE or the AFFECTIVE
REPRESENTATION OF THE INDIVIDUAL.
 COGNITIVE IS RELATING TO OR INVOLVING CONSCIOUS INTELLECTUAL ACTIVITY
 AFFECTIVE IS RELATING TO OR ARISING FROM FEELINGS INFLUENCED BY EMOTIONS
(Merriam-Webster, 2017)
OUR NAME…WHAT DOES IT TELL US ABOUT OUR SELF?
WAS YOUR NAME JUST PICKED RANDOMLY?
DOES IT SUPPOSE TO DESIGNATE US IN THE WORLD?
DOES OUR NAME SIGNIFY US?
HOW IMPORTANT IS OUR NAME TO US?
CAN DEATH STOP THIS BOND BETWEEN THE PERSON AND
HER NAME?
A NAME IS NOT THE PERSON ITSELF NO MATTER HOW
INTIMATELY BOUND IT IS WITH THE BEARER.
 IS IT ONLY A SIGNIFIER?
 IS YOUR NAME YOUR IDENTITY?
 THE SELF IS THOUGHT TO BE SOMETHING ELSE THAN THE
NAME
 THE SELF IS SOMETHING THAT A PERSON PERENNIALLY
MOLDS, SHAPES, and DEVELOPS
THE SELF IS NOT A STATIC THING…NOT
JUST A NAME OUR PARENT HAD
CHOSEN FOR US.
HENCE, EVERY ONE OF US IS TASKED TO
DISCOVER ONE’S SELF.
 How do disciplines describe the
“SELF”?

 SOCIOLOGY – SEES THE “SELF” AS A PRODUCT OF SOCIAL INTERACTIONS,

DEVELOPED OVER TIME THROUGH SOCIAL ACTIVITIES AND EXPERIENCES
 ANTHROPOLOGY – VIEWS THE “SELF” AS A CULTURALLY SHAPED
CONSTRUCT OR IDEA. THE “SELF” IS AN AUTONOMOUS PARTICIPANT IN
THE SOCIETY AS MUCH AS IT IS SUBMERGED IN THE COMMUNITY.
 PSYCHOLOGY – SEES THE “SELF” AS HAVING CHARACTERISTICS OR
PROPERTIES THAT CAN BE USED TO DESCRIBE IT. IT IS RELATED TO ITS
PHYSICAL AND SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT, IT IS UNIQUE, AND IT IS
NECESSARY TO ITS EXPERIENCES.
 EASTERN VERSUS WESTERN
CIVILIZATIONS’ VIEW OF THE “SELF”
(ALAN WATTS)

WEST
• “THE WORLD IS AN ARTIFACT”
• THERE IS CLEAR DISTINCTION
BETWEEN THE CREATOR AND THE
CREATION.
• THE “SELF” POSSESSES AN
INTERNAL DISTINCTION FROM ITS
EXTERNAL ENVIRONMENT.
EAST
• THE WORLD IS A DRAMA AND ALL
THINGS ARE ACTORS WITH
SPECIFIC PARTS TO PLAY.”
• THERE IS NO DISTINCTION BETWEEN
THE CREATOR AND THE CREATION
AS ALL THAT EXISTS ARE IMMERSED
IN ONE AND THE SAME EXISTENCE.
• THE “SELF” IS SEEN IN THE EYES OF
THE COMMUNITY RATHER THAN A
DETACHED SINGLE ENTITY.
 Cultural psychologists Hazel Rose Markus and Alana Conner
studied different ways of being, or what they term
the independent and interdependent selves.
 Markus and Conner looked at a range of environments, from
classroom participation to ways of parenting, between
students from Eastern and Western cultures.
 While there are important variations and distinct differences
within these regions and cultures, Markus and Conner shared
some general observations:
 For many East Asians, and their children growing up in the
West, listening, following the “right” way, fitting in, and
keeping calm are not odd classroom behaviors; they are the
very route to being a good person—a good interdependent
self, Eastern style.
 But for their Western classmates and teachers, speaking up,
choosing your own way, standing out, and getting excited
are also ways of being a good person—but in this case, a
good independent self, Western style. . . .
 Independent European-American parents and teachers say
that a student should first choose what she wants to do, and
then do it her own way.
 In the West, choice is perhaps the most important act
because it lets people realize all five facets of
independence.
 Choice allows people to express their individuality and
unique preferences, influence their environments, exercise
their free will, and assert their equality.
 But interdependent parents lay out a different agenda: I
show my child the right thing to do, and then help her do it
the right way.
 In the East, following the right way is a central act because it
lets people realize all five facets of interdependence:
relating to others, discovering your similarities, adjusting
yourself to expectations and the environment, rooting
yourself into networks and traditions, and understanding your
place in the larger world.
 Tiger Writing: Art, Culture, and the Interdependent Self,
explores Eastern and Western differences in self-narration.

 Author Gish Jen feels the tension between cultures in very

personal ways. in an interview conducted for Harvard
University Press, Jen reflects on her individualistic, or
independent, self that dominates in the West, especially
America, and her collectivist, or interdependent, self that
dominates in the east, including China.
 Jen first came to understanding this continuum in herself
after reading her own father’s autobiography:
 Tiger Writing: Art, Culture, and the Interdependent Self,
explores Eastern and Western differences in self-narration.

 I was not a narrative native. We didn’t do this in my family. I was not asked what do
you want, as if what I wanted was a very important thing or what do I like. I was not
encouraged to think of myself as a unique individual whose uniqueness was really a
very important thing. Quite the contrary. And so therefore it wasn’t until I started
reading that I realized that in the West . . . this was a foundational idea. That it started
with pictures of you as a baby. I don’t have any pictures of myself one minute after I
was born. In fact, I have very few pictures of myself and there are few stories also
about me as a child. As I started to get interested in this whole question of narrative
difference, which is tied to a difference of self and difference in perception, I
happened to start to work on my father’s autobiography that he had written when
he was 85.
 Tiger Writing: Art, Culture, and the Interdependent Self,
explores Eastern and Western differences in self-narration.

 When I first looked at it, it just made no sense at all to me. Here was this thing that was
supposed to be an autobiography about his growing up in China, and yet he,
himself, did not appear until page 8. This autobiography did not start with “I was born
in such and such a year.” No, no, no. It started way, way before that, thousands of
years before that, and went through the generations. By the time my father gets to his
birth, he mentions his birthday in parentheses, in conjunction with another event. I
remember reading that and thinking, “How very interesting.” I could both see that it
was “weird” from a Western narrative point of view and yet of course there was
something about it that was incredibly familiar to me. I understood this. I understood
this diminishment of the self. One thing was something I knew with my left hand and
another was something I knew with my right.
 Tiger Writing: Art, Culture, and the Interdependent Self,
explores Eastern and Western differences in self-narration.

 [T]he “independent,” individualistic self stresses uniqueness, defines itself

via inherent attributes such as its traits, abilities, values, and
preferences, and tends to see things in isolation.
 The second—the “interdependent,” collectivist self—stresses
commonality, defines itself via its place, roles, loyalties, and duties, and
tends to see things in context.
 Naturally, between these two very different self construals [self-
definitions] lies a continuum along which most people are located, and
along which they may move, too, over the course of a moment.
 Culture is not fate; it only offers templates, which individuals can finally
accept, reject, or modify, and do.
 “Me” vs. “We”: How Mindsets Change What We See

 The way we think can be profoundly influenced by our cultural

upbringing.
 Few psychological patterns are universal. Some patterns of behavior
might be really reliable among European Americans but hard to find in
other cultures.
 One big difference that psychologists have found between cultures is
the difference between independence vs. interdependence as ways
of thinking.
 Cultural Differences in Independence vs. Interdependence

 These two ways of thinking come down to how we

think of ourselves.
 One way of thinking is to consider yourself as an
independent entity, focused on your own needs and
desires.
 Another way of thinking is to consider yourself as
an interdependent entity, focused on how you fit
within a group of people.
 Cultural Differences in Independence vs. Interdependence

 Overall,people from more Western cultures like the

U.S., Canada, and Western Europe tend to think of
themselves as independent selves whereas people
from East Asian cultures like China, Japan, and Korea
tend to think of themselves as interdependent selves.
 Ofcourse, this is an average difference, but it can
relate to cultural differences in what’s valued most
What do you see?
 Culture and Visual Perception

 Vision is one of those things that seems so universal. When

you look into the world, you’d probably guess that you’re
seeing what one sees.
 Time and again, however, psychologists find that what we
see can be biased by our own motivations and beliefs.
 Indeed, plenty of research has shown that people from
different cultures can perceive the same visual information in
reliably distinct ways.
 Culture and Visual Perception

 One way in which cultures differ is in their attention to context.

 People from Western cultures tend to pay more attention to
the focal elements of a scene. Based on the photo you saw earlier,
someone from the U.S. is relatively likely to see this is a photo of a bridge
since that’s the focal element.
 People from East Asian cultures, however, pay more attention to the
context of the scene. Someone from this type of culture, then, would
be relatively more likely to see the photo as a picture of a forest.
 Sure, there’s a bridge in the forest, but that’s not what the scene is.
 Culture and Visual Perception

 Research has shown that people from Western cultures are quicker to
notice changes to the focal element of an image, compared to people
from East Asian cultures.
 The opposite, however, is true for how long it takes people to notice
changes to contextual elements–East Asian participants were better at
that.
 WHAT WILL YOU DO IN TIMES OF
DESPAIR? OR IN DIFFICULT SITUATIONS?

 “IFYOU FEEL LOST/ DISAPPOINTED/ HESITANT, OR

WEAK/ RETURN TO YOURSELF, TO WHO YOU ARE/ HERE
AND NOW/ AND WHEN YOU GET THERE/ YOU WILL
DISCOVER YOURSELF/ LIKE A LOTUS FLOWER IN FULL
BLOOM./EVEN IN A MUDDY POND/ BEAUTIFUL AND
STRONG.”
- Masaru Emoto, Secret Life of Water