Individuation:

Definition:

It refers to the forming of stable personality. “It refers to the process through which a person
achieves a sense of individuality separate from the identities of others.”
OR
“One’s unique self-identity which is different from others. The process through which it
develops is known as Individuation.”
In simple words, it is our journey towards understanding ourselves.
This term is introduced by Psychologist Karl Jung. He described it as life long process.
According to Jung, there is a difference between Individualism and Individuation.
Individualism is ego driven and it cultivates selfishness. It lacks of concern for others. While
an individuated person feels deeper responsibility to serve and support others.
How the process of Individuation start?

In the first half of life, we make our way through the world, doing our best to develop healthy
egos. This is mainly external as we try to meet our basic needs. From Jung’s point of view, the
second part of life can represent a turning inward toward a deeper part of ourselves. This
inward turn starts the individuation process.
Stages of Individuation:
There are three stages of individuation process: the shadow, the anima, and the self.
Shadow include part of the personality that you don’t want to identify as self but still is a part
of your unconscious mind. This dark side of personality contains everything that conscious mind
cannot admit about itself.
Anima is the unconscious feminine side of a male while animus is the masculine side of the
female.
Self integrate various aspect of one’s personality and represent the psyche as a whole. It is
realized as the product of the Individuation.
Sign of Individuation:

 People may seek privacy.

 People may focus more on themselves.
 People may rebel against the family or cultural norms.
 People may personalize their appearance.
Why is Individuation important?
1. It is essential to the development of healthy identity.
2. It is also important for the development of healthy relations with others.
3. It is important in order to avoid the feelings of depression and anxiety for longer run.
4. It is important to the process of self-analysis and discovery.
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Power and Civil Society in Pakistan:

Child rearing in Pakistan:
The average male child in Pakistan has a privileged (lucky) position for about the first 6-8 years.
Child is considered as “Farishta” and can do no wrong. However, when he is considered to
mature enough to face the world then suddenly, he has to face the problems of the real world.
Thus a child in Pakistan goes through different Psycho-sexual development than West.
In Pakistan, mother and other females are involved in child care. The father is an absent figure,
both emotionally and in terms of actual time spent with the young child. According to
Psychoanalytic theory, the early experiences of the child are affective, unconscious, and
powerful.

In a sense, developing child inhabits two worlds: there is the early feminine world of
sensuousness and feelings and later developing a sense of maleness. So male child as
compared to female child in Pakistan has to leave one and enter into other. This shift (change)
has important consequences.
Male birth and its consequences:

The male child in Pakistan spends his early years with his mother. From his sleeping pattern to
toilet training all is done by his mother. So when the boy steps out into the male world, the lack
of an affective relationship with the father results in the construction of an ideal male and
maleness. This determines later relationships, which leads to never changing cultural patterns.
One of the cultural pattern is tension between wife and mother. The husband looks for
mother in the wife, but remains unsatisfied. Similarly, mother get jealous from daughter-in-
law or think that she has entered into her boy’s emotional world. In short, in many ways the
male in Pakistan is a son, and female a mother.
Male child relationship with father has important consequences. The father became an
idealized figure. He is powerful and flawless. He is ideal figure. So the process of identification
seems to be work. Similarly, the strong pull towards ideal male is further strengthened by the
unconscious need to come out of the control of mother influence
Socially, this can be seen by labelling failure, immorality, and weakness with females and
glorification of masculinity. In Pakistan, the female as mother is the archetype (model,
standard) of human perfection. Motherhood is glorified in Pakistan. This also explains the
need of the Pakistani female to become a mother because that give her status socially. It
seems to be something different of femininity.
Power and relationships:
In Pakistan, almost everyone is a follower of some mentor, leader, and etc. Social positions are
inherited. Each finds fault with everyone else but self-observation are rare. A look at the leader-
follower relationships in Pakistan is that people still follow and admired Quaid and Bhutto.
Main thing is people feelings toward them. Feeling is of intimacy and emotions. In Pakistan,
leadership potential is in large measure an accident of birth. The son is raised with a sense of
destiny. The only achievement of a woman is motherhood. When woman’s other capabilities
are not socially recognized then she tries to beat the system through her son.
Conclusion:
Leadership in Pakistan comes from a background where male have at high social positions. The
females are fulfilling their dreams through the son. Projective identification and idealization
are active in everyday relationship. The average Pakistani grows up looking for a father/ savior/
leader and this search continues through life.
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Social Psychology
“There are three things extremely hard, steel, a Diamond, and to know one’s self.”
 Spotlight and Illusions:

Spotlight effect is the belief that others are paying more attention to our appearance and
behavior than they really are. For example, if somebody says something incorrect during a
conversation, and the spotlight effect causes them to think “Now everybody must be talking
about how I'm stupid,” but probably they did not think of it much.
The same thing is true about our emotions too. Our anxiety, irritation, and attraction is
noticed by few people than we presume. The illusion that our hidden emotions leak out and
can be easily read by others is known as illusion of transparency. For example, you are very
nervous about giving a speech in front of a large group of people. The illusion of transparency
may occur if you perceive the audience as being hyper aware of your nervousness and noticing
every movement and tremble in your voice etc.
Some other examples are:

 Social surroundings affect our self-awareness: when we are the only member of our
race, gender or nationality in a group, we notice how we differ, and how others are
reacting to our differences.
  Social relationships help define ourselves: in our varied relationships, we have varying
selves. We may be oneself with the mom, other with the friends, and another with
friends. Etc.
 Self-Concept: Who I am I?
A person’s answers to the question, “Who am I?” is known as self-concept.
How and how accurately do we know ourselves? What determines our self-concept? For
example, complete five sentences; “I am………” your answers define your self-concept.
Our sense of self:

This is the most important aspect of ourselves. You know who you are, your gender, feelings
and memories you experience. According to the neuroscientists, this sense of self arises as a
result of brain activity in right hemisphere. The specific beliefs by which you define yourself is
known as self- schemas. They are mental templates by which we organize our world. How we
perceive ourselves (smart, intelligent, over-weight etc.) powerfully affect how we perceive,
remember, and evaluate other. The self-schemas that make up our self-concepts help us to
organize and retrieve our experiences.

Possible selves: Hazel Markus and her colleagues note that our possible selves include our
visions of the self we dream of becoming for example; rich self, thin self, love self-etc. they also
include the self we fear of becoming for example; the academically failed self, the unloved self,
the under-employed self-etc.
The Self has following components:
 Self-Concept: who am I?
 Self-Knowledge: how can I explain and predict myself?
 Self- esteem: My sense of self-worth.
 Social self: my role as a family member, friend
The development of the Social Self:
Our self-concepts are determined by genetic influence on personality and social experience.
Among these influences are the following:
 The roles we play
 The comparisons we make with others
 Our successes and failures
 How other people judge us and
 The surrounding culture
The role we play: As we start a new role, at first we are self-conscious about it. Gradually it
becomes reality and part of our personality.
The comparisons we make with others: “Evaluation of one’s abilities and opinions by
comparing it with others.” Others around us help to define the standard by which we define
ourselves as rich, poor, smart, or dumb. Much of life revolves around social comparisons.
When we see the performance of our friends then we cannot resist to compare it with
ourselves. When facing the competition, we often protect our self-concept by perceiving the
competitor as more advantaged.
Success and Failures: Self-concept is also made by our daily experiences. For example, after
experiencing academic success, students believe they are better at school, which often push
them to work harder and achieve more. Success increases self-esteem. Low self-esteem causes
problem. Failures in life causes low self-esteem. People with high self-esteem are happier, less
prone to drugs, less neurotic as compared to low self-esteem people.

Other people judgments: when people think well of us, it helps us think well of ourselves.
Children who are labelled by others as hard working, smart and helpful tends to incorporate
such ideas into their self-concepts and behaviors.
Self and Culture:

How you complete the “I am ……” statement. Did you give information about your personal
traits? Such as; “I am honest.” “I am tall.” Etc. or did you also describe your social identity?
Like, “I am Libra” “I am Muslim.” etc.

For the people in Western culture, Individualism prevails. It is the concept of giving priority to
one’s own goals over group goals and defining one’s identity in terms of personal attributes.
Adolescence is a time of separating from parents, becoming self-reliant and developing your
identity. Individualism develops when people experience mobility, urbanism, and mass media.
However, cultures of Asia, Africa, and Central America give more importance to collectivism. It
is giving priority to the goals of one’s group and identifying one’s identity according to the
group. For example, in recent floods, collectivism is in action in Pakistan as all are helping the
flood victims. For Japanese students happiness comes with positive social engagement with
feeling of close, friendly, and respectful, while for American students, it comes with
disengaged emotions with feelings effective, superior, and proud. However, in some of these
countries culture is changing and people are becoming Individualists. For example, china’s
young people have acquired the label of “The Me generation.”

 Self-esteem: “A person’s overall sense of self-worth is known as Self-esteem.” When we

feel that we are good, attractive, smart, and intelligent then it means that our self-
esteem is high and vice versa.
Specific self-perceptions do have some influence. For example, doing well at math make you
think that you are good in Math, which then motivates you to do even better. So if you want to
encourage someone or yourself, its better if your praise is specific (you are good at math)
instead of general (you are great.)
Self-esteem motivation:
Tesser presumes that people’s perceiving about one sibling more capable than the other will
motivate the less capable one to act in a way that maintains self-esteem. He thinks that threat
to self-esteem is greater for older child if his younger sibling is more capable. Similarly, self-
esteem threats occur among friends whose success can be more threatening than that of
strangers.
Studies confirm that social rejection lowers our self-esteem and make us more eager for
approval.
People with low self-esteem often have problems in life. They make less money, abuse drugs,
and are more likely to be depressed. People with high self-esteem are more confident,
initiative, and happier. However, high self-esteem becomes problematic if it enters into
Narcissism. It is a condition in which people have high sense of their own importance. They are
always in need of excessive attention and admiration. They lack empathy for others. It leads to
manipulativeness and antisocial psychopathy.
 What is perceived Self-control?
It is the belief that one can determine one’s own internal state and behavior and can bring
about desired outcome.
For example, students exert self-control when they suppress the impulse to have fun with
their friends at their favorite place and instead study for upcoming exams.
Self-efficacy: It is the belief in our own competence and effectiveness.

Self-efficacy refers to how you feel about your ability to succeed in different situations, while
self-esteem refers to your respect for your own value and worth. In simple words, if you believe
you can do something, that is self-efficacy; if you like yourself overall it is self-esteem.
People with strong feelings of self-efficacy are more persistent, less anxious, and less
depressed. They also live healthier lives and are more successful in life. In everyday life, it leads
us to set goals.
You are special and I know you can do it.

Locus of Control: It refers to the extent to which people feel that they have control over the
events that influence their lives.
Uncontrollable bad events……. Perceived lack of control…..learned helplessness
Self-serving bias:
The tendency to perceive oneself favorably.

People attribute the success to their ability and effort, but they attribute failures to external
factors like bad luck etc. This is known as self- serving attributions. (Attributing positive
outcomes to oneself, and negative outcomes to something else). It also contribute to marital
discord.

Self-presentation: It refers to our wanting to present a desired image both to an external

audience and to an internal audience.
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