UNPACKING THE SELF
Physical Self
 refers to the body, this marvelous container
and complex, finely tuned, machine with
which we interface with our environment and
fellow beings.
2 Ways of Improving the Physical Self
1. Exercise
– Engaging in sufficient physical activity
through daily activity and lifestyle habits,
exercise, or on one’s job to keep in good
physical condition.
– Stretching for flexibility, cardiovascular
activity for endurance, and weight
bearing activity to build strength are all
important.
2. Nutrition
– Eating a nutritionally balanced diet;
maintaining a normal weight for your age
and size (BMI between 18.5 and 24.9);
not overeating.
How do you perceive your physical self?
 Actual Self vs. Ideal Self
 Actual Self – what you think you are
actually like
 Ideal Self – what you think you would like
to be
 Body Image
– the way you see yourself
– the way you imagine how you look
 Healthy / Positive Body Image – comes
from negative thoughts and feelings about
your appearance
 Poor / Negative Body Image – is made up of
thoughts and feelings that are positive.
 Body image is a major factor in
Self-esteem - which is the way you
think and feel about yourself as a
person.
How do you describe yourself?
 Physical Features
 Your Identity
– A description of who you are
 Roles
 Likes/ dislikes
 History/ experiences
 Your Personality
– A collection of your enduring
characteristics
Self-understanding is the individual’s cognitive
representation of the self which consist of the
substance and the content of self-conceptions.
• The development of self-understanding in
adolescence can be described from simple to
perplex state and involves a number of
aspects of the self. It differs from the child
understanding of self and may change
throughout life development.
The Physical Self Concept:
The self as impacted by the body
• Adolescence is a transition period in the human
life span which roughly commences in puberty
period at age 10-12 which last up to 18-22 years
of age (Santrock, 2016). However, the age bracket
of adolescent may vary according different
groups.
 According to healthy children.org,
adolescence these years is divided into three
stages:
1. early adolescence (11-14 years old),
2. middle adolescence (15-17 years old)
3. late adolescent (18-21 years old)
 In the Philippines, the Youth in Nation
Building Act (1994) defined youth according
to ages which covers between 15-30 years.
This age range was created by the National
Youth Commission.
The physical self refers to the concrete
dimension of our body, the tangible aspect of the
person that can be directly observed and
examined
 Physical characteristics are defining
traits or features about your body.
- The first thing a person sees when an
individual looks at someone could be
their hair, clothes, nose, or figure.
- Physical characteristics are what is
seen with the naked eye. They
encompass anything that one can
describe about a person or group of
people, just on sight.
According to Santrock (2016), puberty is not the
same as adolescence because puberty ends prior to
adolescence period. But he recognized that puberty
as the as the most essential marker of the beginning
of adolescence.
 Puberty is a process occurring primarily in early
adolescence that provides stimulation for the
rapid physical changes that occur in the period of
development.
BODY IMAGE
Santrock added that one psychological aspect of
physical change in puberty is that “adolescents are
preoccupied with their bodies and develop images of
what their bodies are like”.
• Body image refers to the way one sees
himself/herself or the way he/she imagine how
he/she looks. It can either be positive or negative.
 Recent researches revealed that adolescents
with the most positive body images are
engaged in health enhancing behaviour such
as regular exercise.
 In general, girls are less happy with their
body images than boys throughout puberty
but moving towards the beginning till the end
of puberty, both girls and boys become more
positive.
 PERSONAL IDENTITY
• Personal identities focuses on traits or
characteristics that may feel separate from one's
social and role identities (profession, student,
parent) or linked to some or all of these identities
(Leary and Tangney, 2012).
SOCIAL IDENTITY
(Collective Identities)
• Social identity theory was formulated by Tajfel
and Turner in in 1979 which provides a
framework about how people achieve their
understanding about themselves by being a
member of their group.
 People have a need for a positive social
identity that is why they connect to a wider
social network.
 This idea assumes that as a member of the
group they will not be discriminated by
outgroup. It will enhance their self-esteem
because they felt secured from the shield of
group membership where they belong.
 Social groups include gender, ethnicity,
religion, profession, political membership,
business organization etc.
SELF-CONCEPT
• According to Hewstone, et al. (2015)
Self-concept is a cognitive representation of
self-knowledge which includes the sum total of
all beliefs that people have about themselves.
 It is a collection of the content of the
individual’s experiences involving one’s
characteristics, social roles, values, goals
and even fears. Thus, it pertains to
everything a person uses when asked to
describe who he is.
• According to Santrock (2015)
Self-concept is that it is a domain-specific
evaluation of self like academic, athletic,
appearance and so on.
Physical self-concept is the individual’s
perception or description of his physical self,
including their physical appearance and
typically does not involve an evaluative
component.
SELF-ESTEEM
 According to Hewstone et al (2015)
Self-esteem Is the overall evaluation that a
person has of himself which involves a positive
and negative or high and low dimension.
Example is an evaluation of how good a
person is or how proud or embarrassed is
the person about his characteristics. It is a
global evaluative dimension of the self.
 The distinction between the self-concept and
self-esteem is that self-concept is domain-
specific evaluation while self-esteem is a
global evaluation.
SOCIAL COMPARISON (AND CONTRAST)
• Social comparison is a process of comparing
oneself with others in order to evaluate one’s
own abilities and opinions.
2 TYPES OF SOCIAL COMPARISON
1) UPWARD SOCIAL COMPARISON
- when an individual tends to compare
himself/herself to other better than him.
For example, a person loves playing tennis,
then he compares himself to the one who is
expert in tennis to become inspired and do
his best effort to become an expert.
2) DOWNWARD SOCIAL COMPARISON
- when an individual tends to compare
himself to someone who is worse off than
he is especially when the person is feeling
so low to make himself better knowing
that he is more fortunate than others.
Facebook is the biggest land of social
comparison.
In order to have a healthy self-image, never
compare yourself to others. One should
have his own standard for himself.
JOHARI WINDOW
 is a communication model that can be used to
improve understanding between individuals.
• Developed by Joseph Luft and Harry Ingham
(the word “Johari” comes from Joseph Luft
and Harry Ingham).
2 KEY IDEAS BEHIND THE TOOL:
• Individuals can build trust between themselves
by disclosing information about them.
• They can learn about themselves and come to
terms with personal issues with the help of
feedback from others.
Using the Johari model, each person is represented
by their own four-
quadrant, or four-pane,
window. Each of these
contains and represents
personal information
(feelings), motivation
(about the person), and
shows whether the information is known or not
known by themselves or other people.
Q1: OPEN AREA
• What is known by the person about him/herself
and is also known by others.
Q2: BLIND AREA / BLIND SPOT
• What is unknown by the person about
him/herself but which others know.
Q3: HIDDEN / AVOIDED AREA
• What the person knows about him/her that
others do not.
Q4: UNKNOWN AREA
• What is unknown by the person about him/her
and is also unknown by others.