Understanding the Self | The Mental Self

 

Hello! It has been a while, how are you?

Last time, we discussed the Social Dimension which tackles the topic of Social Self, Socio-Digital Self, and Economic Self. It stated that individuals have developed their learnings and experiences through their environment, responsible netizens are necessary for today’s time, and material things are associated with the owner’s characteristics and emotions.

The focus of our today’s discussion is the intellectual aspects of the self. We will talk about the Mental Dimension which will discuss the topic of Cognition, Memory and Intelligence, and Human Learning.

 

Cognition, Memory, and Intelligence

In elementary, we are taught how to write and read, solve simple equations like addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, also encouraged to perform in a good manner and right conduct. While in college, more complicated mathematical lessons are given to us such as arithmetic, logarithm, and geometry, also we are expected to write essays and research papers with a high standard of writing. This explains that our mental capacity is evolving in a progressive and sequential manner. According to Ashcraft and Radvansky (2010), Cognition is defined as the complex array of the mental process involved in remembering, perceiving, thinking, and how these processes are employed. Individuals have the ability to analyze and choose the best choice, follow it, and face the possible consequences of their choices. Cognition stated that people are not robots, and they are not machines that can be manipulated, they are capable of reasoning, analyzing, and managing their behaviors. Lastly, people continuously process information that came from their environments.

Memory is often compared to a computer because it can encode, store, process, and retrieve information, and this is constantly happening. There are three levels of memory function: sensory, short-term, and long-term. Sensory memory is the level that allows information from the external environment to be perceived by an individual through the senses. An application of this memory is when we feel the pain while getting an injection of the vaccine, and from this, our brain tends to process the information and transfer it in our short-term memory. Short-term or working memory is where information is temporarily stored, and it often absorbs cues that enable the brain to process readily available information. After we finished reading a few chapters in a book and we read another chapter, we tend to lose the information on the previous chapters because we are now focused on reading the next chapter, however, it may not happen if we repeat and practice reading, this will help to process the information going to our long-term memory. Long-term memory stores information permanently and it allows consistent practice and repeated retrievals, also the amount of information that can be stored at this level is limitless and immeasurable. The best example of this memory is when we improve our learnings on basic mathematical problems such as addition and subtraction because we may apply these in our daily life.

Intelligence is often thought of as hereditary rather than environmental. It is the individual’s capacity for understanding, learning, planning, and problem-solving with logic, creativity, and self-awareness. People are born with an innate intellectual ability that is harnessed in various contexts, also it is not confined to the academic context. Students often compared themselves to who are in the top or with honors, yet little did they know that people have the different mental capacity that may help an individual to apply their learnings in real life.

 

Human Learnings

In college, every student must do a practicum or on-the-job training before they graduate, it is because it helps familiarize themselves with their possible working environment and prepare them in real-life situations in their working stations. All their learnings and experiences may help them to face the possible challenges when they start working. From this, we can associate that learning is a permanent change in an individual’s knowledge or behavior as a result of experience. Individuals developed their learnings through their personal experiences in their environment, and this experience can be long-term. As a student, there two strategies that we can use: deep learning and surface learning. Deep learning is the in-depth understanding of information by creating connections between yourself and the concept, while surface learning is simply accepting the information given and memorize with no building connections in between.

To further understand thyself, we will release our next discussion which is the Emotional Self that includes the topic of Human Emotions and Emotional Intelligence, and Emotional Regulation.

Thank you for reading!~