The Self as a Social Product By: Nick Probola

Four Components Charles H. Cooley: The Looking-Glass Self Sigmund Freud: The Psychoanalytic View Erik H. Erikson: The Eight Stages of Life Behaviorists

Charles H. Cooley: the looking-glass self From childhood on, everyone develops a self-image that is largely a reflection of the way others see us. This theory is comprised of three elements: The way we think we appear to others The way we think they judge our appearance and behavior How we react to their judgments about We evaluate our behavior through the responses of others

Sigmund Freud: the psychoanalytic view Divided the human personality into three parts: Id-the part of the personality that seeks to gratify bodily wants Ego-redirects the lustful and sometimes antisocial impulses of the id into socially acceptable patterns of behavior so that the person may function without emotional conflicts that produce stress Superego-acts as the conscience that seeks to repress these pleasure-seeking urges.

Erik H. Erikson: the eight stages of life Stage 1. Trust v. Midtrust (infancy) Stage 2. Autonomy v. doubt (early childhood) Stage 3. Initiative v. guilt (the play stage) Stage 4. Industry v. inferiority (school age) Stage 5. Identity v. role confusion (adolescence) Stage 6. Intimacy v. isolation (young adulthood) Stage 7. Generativity v. self-absorption (middle age) Stage 8. Integrity v. despair (old age)

Behaviorists Believe that all human behavior is learned and can be controlled through the presence or absence of rewards and punishments. Influenced by Russian psychologists, including Ivan Pavlov, whom conducted the famous dog experiment

Ideals of Behaviorism a person may qualify as a behaviorist, loosely or attitudinally speaking, if they insist on confirming “hypotheses about psychological events in terms of behavioral criteria” Behaviorism, the doctrine, is committed in its fullest and most complete sense to the truth of the following three sets of claims. Psychology is the science of behavior. Psychology is not the science of mind. Behavior can be described and explained without making reference to mental events or to internal psychological processes. The sources of behavior are external (in the environment), not internal (in the mind). In the course of theory development in psychology, if, somehow, mental terms or concepts are deployed in describing or explaining behavior, then either (a) these terms or concepts should be eliminated and replaced by behavioral terms or (b) they can and should be translated or paraphrased into behavioral concepts.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/behaviorism/