BIOPSYCHOSOCIAL EGO: RELATIONSHIP WITH HUMAN DEVELOPMENT, COMPONENTS - PSYCHOLOGY - 2025

The biopsychosocial self is a theory from psychology and medicine that talks about the different aspects of the human being that make us who we are. The three components (biological, psychological and social) come together within each person to make up their mental and physical characteristics.

In principle, the biopsychosocial model emerged with the intention of serving as a multi-causal explanation for some diseases, including mental disorders. However, later this theory has been used to encompass the healthy aspects of a person as well.

The model is mainly used to treat diseases and better understand why they are caused. However, some of its critics consider that since it is a theory that includes so many differentiated aspects, its explanations are sometimes very diffuse and do not help excessively to the understanding of the human being and its difficulties.

Relationship with human development

Since the appearance of the biopsychosocial ego model, this has gone from being a theory that was only used to explain and understand diseases, to better understand all kinds of phenomena related to human experience. One of these is the development of people.

Developmental psychology is responsible for studying how the human being evolves throughout the stages of life (childhood, adolescence, adult life and old age).

In addition, it also explores the main difficulties that we can find in each stage, and the way in which a healthy person transforms through each of these.

Birth vs. breeding

Within traditional psychology, one of the most important debates that has been held throughout history is that of «birth vs. breeding".

The discussion has to do with which is the factor that weighs the most on the development, personality and characteristics of a person: their genes or their education. Recently the social component has also gained great weight in some theories.

Developmental psychology is no exception. While some researchers like Piaget consider that the stages we go through in our lives are predetermined from our birth, currents such as behavioral psychology defend that the environment plays a fundamental role in our way of being.

On the other hand, disciplines such as sociology or social psychology, although they do not deny the importance of genetics or the environment in our way of being, believe that our relationships and the society in which we live largely determine our development as people.

The biopsychosocial ego approach tries to integrate these three elements within the same theory. For its defenders, both our biology and our upbringing and our social environment play fundamental roles in transforming us into who we are.

Over the last decades, numerous studies have pointed out that the biopsychosocial approach is the most successful: each of the elements described above influences our development as people, but none has a much greater weight than the other two.

Components of the biopsychosocial self

The biopsychosocial self is mainly made up of three components:

- The biological self, related to our genes and purely organic components.

- The psychological self, formed by rational thought, emotions and a predisposition to action.

- The social self, which has to do both with the influence that society has had on us and with the role we play within each of our social circles.

Biological me

Thanks to fields such as genetic medicine and evolutionary psychology, today we know that our biology has a great impact on both our body and our mind.

Factors such as the genes with which we were born, the chemical influences received when we were still embryos, or the hormones and neurotransmitters that run through us greatly influence who we are.

Our genes almost completely determine how we are physically (height, weight, etc.), but they also greatly influence psychic factors, such as personality or temperament. With this factor, phenomena as diverse as heart disease or introversion can be explained.

On the other hand, the substances to which we are exposed in the womb also leave a deep mark that will influence all aspects of our lives.

Lastly, our hormones and neurotransmitters determine both our physical body and our mental states.

Psychological me

The psychological self has to do with those factors most related to our mind, both conscious and unconscious. It is made up of our thoughts, our emotions, and our willingness to act.

Our conscious thoughts have a great impact on our quality of life and development. Factors such as beliefs, attitudes and ways of seeing life can cause us to react in different ways to the same situations. Therefore, they will make us interpret our developmental experiences in different ways.

Our emotions influence both our body and our state of mind, and therefore will change the way we interpret what happens to us and what we do in response.

Finally, our predisposition to act will cause us to change our vital circumstances. Depending on what we do, we will achieve different results in our lives, which will influence our development.

Social me

The influence of society has a great impact on who we are. From childhood we are receiving a certain message about how we have to be or the correct way to behave; This makes our development express itself in a different way than it would be in another culture.

On the other hand, once we belong to a certain social group, people tend to act in the way that is expected of us. This will greatly influence psychological factors, as emotions, beliefs and ways of acting change.

Social factors are also related to our biology, since depending on our genes and our personality we will tend to associate with certain types of people and to distance ourselves from others.

References

1. "The Biopsychosocial Perspective" in: Cliffs Notes. Retrieved on: March 27, 2018 from Cliffs Notes: cliffsnotes.com.
2. "The Biopsychosocial Model and Its Limitations" in: Psychology Today. Retrieved on: March 27, 2018 from Psychology Today: psychologytoday.com.
3. "Biopsychosocial model" in: Wikipedia. Retrieved on: March 27, 2018 from Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org.
4. "The Biopsychosocial I" in: Human Development. Retrieved on: March 27, 2018 from Human Development: dh-ige.webnode.es.
5. "El Ser Biopsychosocial" in: Psychology 1. Retrieved on: March 27, 2018 from Psychology 1: mijarespsicologia1repe.blogspot.com.