MODULE 6

(Week 10)
Time Allocation: 3 Hours

College Department College of Teacher Education

Course Code GEC 1
Course Title Understanding the Self
Place of the Course in the Program General Education
Semester & Academic Year 2nd Semester, Academic Year 2020-2021
Instructor Nancy Jane D. Victorino

DISCUSSION
The Material Self

PART 2: Unpacking the Self

CILO (Course Intended Learning Outcome/s):

 Identify and understand the connection of our material needs and wants to the development of the Self.

I. The Material Self according to William James

The material self, according to William James, pertains to the objects, places, or even people
which have the label “mine”. Such possessions are viewed as extensions of individuals'
identities.

For instance, your clothes reflect certain aspects of your personality and you designate them as
“my wardrobe”.

Specifically, James identified the body as the innermost aspect of the material self. Also, you
perceive certain body parts as more private or intimately yours as compared to the others. The
next aspect is your clothing; the garments which protect as well as project your body. This is
followed by your family; they are connected to you by blood and you share their glory as well as
shame. Your home comes next; it is where many aspects of your life have been developed, it is
where you feel most comfortable, and it is greatly linked to your identity. This is then followed by
other possessions such as gadgets, cars, collections, etc.

The material self refers to tangible objects, people, or places that carry the designation my or
mine. Two subclasses of the material self can be distinguished: The bodily self and the
extracorporeal (beyond the body) self. Rosenberg (1979) has referred to the extracorporeal self
as the extended self.

The bodily component of the material self requires little explanation. A person speaks of my
arms or my legs. These entities are clearly an intimate part of who we are. But our sense of self
is not limited to our bodies. It includes other people (my children), pets (my dog), possessions
(my car), places (my home town), and the products of our labors (my painting).

It is not the physical entities themselves, however, that comprise the material self. Rather, it is
our psychological ownership of them (Scheibe, 1985). For example, a person may have a
favorite chair she likes to sit in. The chair itself is not part of the self. Instead, it is the sense of
appropriation represented by the phrase “my favorite chair.” This is what we mean when we talk
about the extended self. It includes all of the people, places, and things that we regard as “ours.”

Page | 49 GEC 1 Understanding the Self (2nd Semester; A.Y 2020-2021)

Disclaimer: We do not take ownership of any intellectual property that is included in this
module. All rights belong to their rightful owner. Books, websites, pictures etc. that was
used in the making of this module is properly cited in the reference/s section at the end
f d l
 Another way to determine whether something is part of the extended self is to see how we act
towards it. If we lavish attention on the entity and labor to enhance or maintain it, we can infer
that the entity is part of the self.

In addition to underscoring the important role motivation plays in identifying what is self from
what is not, James also makes an interesting point here about the nature of things that become
part of the self. These possessions, James argued, are not simply valued for what they provide;
they are also prized because they become part of us. “Not only the people but the places and
things I know enlarge my Self in a sort of metaphoric way”, James wrote (p. 308).

A good deal of research supports James’s intuitions regarding the close connection between
possessions and the self (see Belk, 1988). First, people spontaneously mention their
possessions when asked to describe themselves (Gordon, 1968). People also amass
possessions. Young children, for example, are avid collectors. They have bottle-cap collections,
rock collections, shell collections, and so forth. These collections are not simply treasured for
their material value (which is often negligible); instead, they represent important aspects of self.
The tendency to treat possessions as part of the self continues throughout life, perhaps
explaining why so many people have difficulty discarding old clothes or possessions that have
long outlived their usefulness.

There seem to be several reasons for this. First, possessions serve a symbolic function; they
help people define themselves. The clothes we wear, the cars we drive, and the manner in which
we adorn our homes and offices signal to ourselves (and others) who we think we are and how
we wish to be regarded. People may be particularly apt to acquire and exhibit such signs and
symbols when their identities are tenuously held or threatened (Wicklund & Gollwitzer, 1982). A
recent Ph.D., for example, may prominently display his diploma in an attempt to convince
himself (and others) that he is the erudite scholar he aspires to be. These functions support
Sartre’s (1943) claim that people accumulate possessions to enlarge their sense of self.

Possessions also extend the self in time. Most people take steps to ensure that their letters,
photographs, possessions, and mementos are distributed to others at the time of their death.
Although some of this distribution reflects a desire to allow others to enjoy the utilitarian value
of these artifacts, this dispersal also has a symbolic function: People seek immortality by
passing their possessions on to the next generation (Unruh, 1983, cited in Belk, 1988).People’s
emotional responses to their possessions also attest to their importance to the self. A person
who loses a wallet often feels greater anguish over a lost photograph than over any money that
is missing. Similarly, many car owners react with extreme anger (and sometimes rage) when
their cars are damaged, even when the damage is only slight in physical terms. Finally, many
people who lose possessions in a natural disaster go through a grieving process similar to the
process people go through when they lose a person they love (McLeod, 1984, cited in Belk,
1988).

Further evidence that possessions become part of the extended self comes from a series of
investigations on the “mere ownership effect” Beggan (1992). In an initial study, participants
were shown a variety of inexpensive objects (e.g., a key ring, plastic comb, playing cards). They
were then given one object and told it was theirs to keep. Later, participants evaluated their
object more favorably than the objects they didn’t receive. A follow-up investigation found that
this tendency was especially pronounced after participants had previously failed at an unrelated
test. These findings suggest that once possessions become part of the self, people imbue them
with value and use them to promote feelings of self-worth (see also, Kahneman, Knetch, &
Thaler, 1990).
Page | 50 GEC 1 Understanding the Self (2nd Semester; A.Y 2020-2021)
Disclaimer: We do not take ownership of any intellectual property that is included in this
module. All rights belong to their rightful owner. Books, websites, pictures etc. that was
used in the making of this module is properly cited in the reference/s section at the end
f d l
 The tendency to overvalue that which is “ours” even extends to letters of the alphabet. When
asked to judge the pleasantness of various letters, people show enhanced liking for the letters
that make up their own name, particularly their own initials (Greenwald & Banaji, 1995; Jones,
Pelham, Mirenberg, & Hetts, 2002; Nuttin, 1985, 1987).

II. The Buyer Decision Process

The buying decision process is the decision-making process used by consumers regarding the
market transactions before, during, and after the purchase of a good or service. It can be seen
as a particular form of a cost–benefit analysis in the presence of multiple alternatives.

Figure 1; The Consumer Buying Process;

[Link]
/Consumer%20Decision%20Making%[Link];

Figure 2; The Buyer Decision Process;

[Link]
content/uploads/2014/05/buyer-decision-process-
[Link]; 03/10/21
Page | 51 GEC 1 Understanding the Self (2nd Semester; A.Y 2020-2021)
Disclaimer: We do not take ownership of any intellectual property that is included in this
module. All rights belong to their rightful owner. Books, websites, pictures etc. that was
used in the making of this module is properly cited in the reference/s section at the end
f d l
 III. Commodity Fetishism

The mistaken view that the value of a commodity is intrinsic and the corresponding failure to
appreciate the investment of labor that went into its production. Karl Marx created this term,
borrowing the notion of the fetish from anthropology, where it refers to a sacred or symbolic
object that according to its worshippers has supernatural power. For example, in certain
indigenous cultures in Australia it is believed that a ‘witch doctor’ can point a bone at a person
and thereby bring about their death—such a bone is a fetish. Commodities are fetishes in this
same sense because by power of our belief in them we create an obscure hierarchy of value that
rates a diamond over fresh water (to use Adam Smith's famous example from The Wealth of
Nations (1776), in spite of the fact that the diamond serves little or no purpose. By the same
token, as with the witch doctor's bone, it isn't clear to the people who believe in commodities
why they should believe in them, nor how they came to occupy the position they presently enjoy.
Diamonds might be valuable because they are rare, but that does not by itself explain why
society should choose to prize them so highly. Not only are there similarly rare items that might
have been seized upon, there is no intrinsic reason why rarity itself should matter as much as it
does. Commodity fetishism can also be understood in terms of social relations: neither the
producer nor the consumer of a commodity has a necessary or full relation with the other. The
fetishization of the commodity shields us from alienation. Sigmund Freud's use of the term
fetish, which occurs later than Marx's, also borrows from anthropology. Freudo-Marxian
theorists like Slavoj Žižek have combined the psychoanalytic definition of fetish with Marx's own
to create a theory of the commodity that uses the notion of fantasy to explain its peculiar power
to deceive. Commodity fetishism is an important concept in Marxist and so-called post-Marxist
theory: It is central to the work of György Lukács, particularly his concept of reification; it is also
central to the work of Guy Debord, who famously argued the final form of the commodity would
be the image; and it is central to Jean Baudrillard's theory of consumer society.

IV. CONSUMER BEHAVIOR

Understanding how people make decisions about what they want, need, and buy is essential to
successful marketing because it helps companies to predict how consumers will respond to
new products.

Deciding what to buy

Consumer behaviour is affected by psychological factors, such as a person’s perception of what

they need, their attitude, and their ability to learn; personal characteristics—someone’s habits,
interests, opinions, and style of decision-making—and social considerations, including family,
work colleagues or school friends, and group affiliations. Companies collect and analyse data
on such behaviour from focus groups and online sources such as customer reviews, question-
and answer websites, surveys, keyword research, search engine analysis and trends, blog
comments, social media, and government statistics. How people decide which options will
bring them the greatest present and future satisfaction is called consumer prediction. It has
two dimensions: the utility of a future event (how much pleasure or pain a person will get, for
example, from a trip to Paris rather than a break in New York, or whether they would get more
pleasure from eating chocolate or celery) and how likely that event is to occur.

Page | 52 GEC 1 Understanding the Self (2nd Semester; A.Y 2020-2021)

Disclaimer: We do not take ownership of any intellectual property that is included in this
module. All rights belong to their rightful owner. Books, websites, pictures etc. that was
used in the making of this module is properly cited in the reference/s section at the end
f d l
 Emotional response

Emotions are a huge factor in consumer behaviour and decisions. They affect what consumers
focus on, what they remember, how they process information, and how they predict they will feel
after making a decision. Feelings override reason when evaluating advertisements, and produce
faster and more consistent judgments. Companies constantly try to glean emotional reactions
to their products from prospective consumers, as positive and negative emotions are present at
every step of the buying process, from searching to evaluating to choosing to consuming and,
finally, to disposing of a product. Companies evaluate valence (how positive or negative the
emotion is) and arousal (how worked up the consumer is) in as much detail as possible.
Cognitive appraisal analyses what and how consumers think about their feelings. All contribute
to how ready a consumer is to take action.

The Paradox of Choice

Consumers prefer to have choice, but not too much. In a study from the year 2000, when
shoppers had a choice of 24 kinds of jam, just 3 percent of them bought any. But of those faced
with only 6 kinds of jam, 30 percent made a purchase. The same applies whatever the product,
from legal services to paint.

Positive Emotion - Seeing the difference between options gives consumers a sense of freedom
and power to make their own informed decision.
Negative Emotion - When there is no choice, consumers feel they have no control or say in the
matter and lose the motivation to make a purchase.

References:
1. Coulmas, F. (2019). Identity: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press.
2. Material Self; [Link] 03/10/21
3. Who am I?; [Link] 03/10/21
4. Buyer Decision Process; [Link] 03/10/21
5. Commodity Fetishism;
[Link] 03/10/21

Additional Learning Resources:

1. Marx on Commodity Fetishism;
[Link] 03/10/21

GEC 1 MODULE 6: The Material Self

ACTIVITY
Name: ____________________________________ Course Code: _____________________
Course/Yr./Section: _________________________ Module # & Week: ________________
Direction: Summarize “the material self” according to William James. State your answer in 5 (five) short
sentences only. Write your answer inside the box. Write legibly.

Page | 53 GEC 1 Understanding the Self (2nd Semester; A.Y 2020-2021)

Disclaimer: We do not take ownership of any intellectual property that is included in this
module. All rights belong to their rightful owner. Books, websites, pictures etc. that was
used in the making of this module is properly cited in the reference/s section at the end
f d l
EXERCISE
Direction: Give 1(one) specific example based on your personal experience wherein you incorporated the
steps of the buyer decision process.
1. Recognition of Need: ________________________________________________________________________
2. Information Search: ________________________________________________________________________
3. Evaluation of Alternatives: _________________________________________________________________
4. Purchase Decision: ________________________________________________________________________
5. Post-Purchase Evaluation: _________________________________________________________________
REFLECTION
Direction: Summarize what you have learned in this module in 5 (five) short sentences only. Write your
answer inside the box. Write legibly.

Page | 54 GEC 1 Understanding the Self (2nd Semester; A.Y 2020-2021)

Disclaimer: We do not take ownership of any intellectual property that is included in this
module. All rights belong to their rightful owner. Books, websites, pictures etc. that was
used in the making of this module is properly cited in the reference/s section at the end
f d l