Psychological Approaches to the Self

Psychologists have shared the interest of Cooley, Mead, and other sociologists in the development of the self. Early work in psychology, such as that of Sigmund Freud (1856—1939), stressed the role of inborn drives—among them the drive for sex­ual gratification—in channeling human behav­ior. Other psychologists, such as Jean Piaget and Lawrence Kohlberg, emphasize the stages through which human beings progress as the self devel­ops.

Like Charles Horton Cooley and George Her­bert Mead, Freud believed that the self is a social product. But unlike Cooley and Mead, he sug­gested that the self has components that are al­ways fighting with each other. According to Freud, people are in constant conflict between their natural impulsive instincts and societal con­straints. Part of us seeks limitless pleasure, while another part seeks out rational behavior. By in­teracting with others, we learn the expectations of society and then select behavior most appropriate to our own culture. (Of course, as Freud was well-aware, we sometimes distort reality and behave irrationally.)

Research on newborn babies by the renowned child psychologist Jean Piaget (1896-1980) has underscored the importance of social interactions in developing a sense of self-identity. Piaget found that newborns have no self in the sense of a looking-glass image. Ironically, though, they are quite self-centered; they demand that all atten­tion be directed toward them. Newborns have not yet separated themselves from the universe of which they are a part. For these babies, the phrase "you and me" has no meaning; they un­derstand only "me."

Children are gradually socialized into social re­lationships even within their rather self-centered world. Young children begin to have a some­what better realization of the existence of others as well as of the positions that people have in society. Piaget (1954) observes that children slowly come to think in a more abstract fashion. Through so­cialization, they learn to distinguish between their own identities and those of others.

Piaget has also suggested that moral develop­ment becomes an important part of socialization as children become able to think more abstractly. When children learn the rules of a game such as checkers or jacks, they are learning to obey socie­tal norms. Those under 8 years old display a rather basic level of morality: rules are rules, and there is no concept of "extenuating circum­stances." However, as they mature, children be­come capable of greater autonomy and begin to experience moral dilemmas as to what constitutes proper behavior. According to both Piaget and Lawrence Kohlberg (see Box 4-1 on page 100), children give increasing attention to how people think and why they act in a particular way. As a result, children learn to evaluate the intentions behind norms and the consequences of norms in a much more sophisticated manner.

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