PSYC3032 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Moral Responsibility, Cultural Identity, Social Reality
Document Summary
What is the self: common thought that we could learn most about ourselves from rats because they"re like us - helpful but a lot missing. Studying the self not really common in rats - not really like us that much: the self is an organised system integrated to operate within a complex social system, required to survive and reproduce. The self needs a system to have purpose. Focuses on being differentiated because culturally we are a group: when grouped together --> bad group outcomes, when individualised --> good group outcomes. The remarkable human self: unique among mammal species in nature, agent with moral responsibility, highly self-aware, self-critical, actively self-serving, in thought, feeling and deed. Shifts among multiple roles: capable of principled self-sacrifice, uses logical reasoning to guide behaviour, extensively self-regulating, organises behaviour in complex sequences, alters behaviour based on ideas, manages reputation, obeys complex set of rules.
