L1/L2: INTRO - NATURE/CULTURE/SUBJECT/AUTHOR/ACTOR/AGENT Flashcards
In the narrative of week 1, at one point a therapist gives Naomi the explicit advice that she does not need to adapt to others all the time. What aspect of her person is strengthened by this?
Agency
What can be observed regarding the theme of Agency in this narrative? What passages in the text are about that theme?
she switches from lack of agency (because she feels that she has to minmize her own needs/feelings/beings which leads her to not take herself into account and to not feel seen), to a sense of agency by realizing that she matters too. passages about this:
- consent to not adjust: therapist tells her that she can take care of herself first as well
- she doesnt feel seen which leads to suicide attempt
What can be observed regarding the theme of Communion in this narrative? What passages in the text are about that theme?
a part of Naomi’s healing journey is through her establishing a connection with people in her work & music (seen in start over passage & look at person as whole)
In what sense are Agency and Communion opposed to each other in this text? And in what
sense do they strengthen each other?
not opposed, they strengthen each other! because her taking herself into account allows her to connect with other people without dismissing herself, which makes the connection more authentic
How is Naomi’s depression related to these two narrative themes?
her depression arose from a lack of agency, she didnt take care of herself & didnt feel like other ppl saw her, and a lack of communion (because she didnt show her true self, she couldnt authentically connect w ppl)
How did her narrative change over the course of psychotherapy?
she went from lack of agency & communion -> seeing these things as central
she is central to her narrative now, and her needs & values are important (including her need & desire for connection w other ppl)
According to McAdams, What are the 3 main concepts contained in the Psychological self?
ppl understand themselves from 3 different psych standpoints: as Actors, Agents, Authors which also correspond to 3 developmental layers of psych selfhood emerging at different times in our lives
How does Mcadams explain what the psychological self is?
- semantic (general, abstract, trait based) knowledge on the self is independent from episodic (concrete, event-based- knowledge about the self (ppl w memory loss still can generally say what their personality is like)
- so there may be a “trait self” and a separate but equal “story self’ = subjective “I” may reflectively construe the constructed “Me” as both a collection of abstract traits & colleciton of personal episodes or stories about life
What distinguishes actor vs agent vs author
When the I self-consciously and reflexively apprehends and works on the Me, it does so from three different functional standpoints—as an actor who performs in the here and now on a social stage, as an agent who sets forth a motivated agenda for. the future, and as an author who tries to make sense of it all—past, present, and future—through narrative.
What is meant with the “author” concept
- 3rd stage of psych self development
- begins in early adulthood
- self as storyteller
- aims to polish & synthesize episodic (specific stories) info about self into a coherent & integrative life story
- formulate a meaningful narrative identity for life, integrating the reconstructed episodic past & imagined episodic future in a way as to explain, for the self & others, why the actor does what it does, wants what it whants, and who self was/is/will be as a dev person in time
- use autobiographic reasoning: make inferences about who they are & what their lives mean from episodic memories
What is meant with the ‘agent” concept?
- 2nd stage around middle or late childhood
- start seeing yourself as someone that explicity and self consciously sees and knows themselves as motivated agents
- motivated agent stage specifies personal goals, motives, values, hopes and fears, & other features that involve the important decisions & choices that a person makes regarding exploration & commitment to life projects
- future is involved in self now
- involves lots of changes as ppl change their goals, plans etc
- feelings of agency as “i choose my goals, i have my traits”
- engage in “episodic future thought”
What does it mean “to be an agent”?
to make choices and, as a result of those choices to move forward in life in a self determined and goal-directed manner
- suggests intention, will, purpose, and personal control in life
What is meant with the “actor” concept?
- begin life as “social actor” self
- first layer of psych self
- encompasses semantic representations of traits, social roles, and other features of self that result in & from repeated performances on social stage of life
- children start defining themselves by traits & goals etc rather than specific social behaviour (“i am outgoing” rather than “i run really fast”) based on observations of themselves & tohers
- self as social actor continues to develop in adult years: see self as increasingly agreeable & conscientious, and decreasingly neurotic
- start to understand importance of context in social behaviour (i must act this way around friends, another way as a parent, another way as an employee etc) all these ways interact
- influenced by social reputation
How are actor vs agent vs author developmentally related?
psych self is how the subjective I and constructed Me evolve & expand. 3 dev layers of personality:
- I first sees Me just as social ACTOR ( constructed in terms of performance traits & social roles)
- by end of childhood, Me is perceived also as motivated AGENT (layer over self as actor) (as personal goals, motives, values, and envisioned projects for future become central features of how the subjective I conceives of the constructed Me
- 3rd layer of selfhood begins to form in adolescent & emerging adulthood years: when self as autobio AUTHOR aims to construct a story of the Me, to provide adult life w broad purpose & continuity
What are the 3 perennial problems for the self? How do they relate to actor-agent-author?
- self regulation: how does the self (the I) keep itself (the Me) in check to maximize social reward?. need for all 3 stages but ARISES IN FIRST (ACTOR) STAGE
- self esteem: what evaluative attributions does the I make regarding the Me’s worth? arises in agent stage and depends on goals & expectations achieved. tends to increase through adulthood due to increased sense of mastery
- self continuity: to what extent does I see Me as continuous in space and time? arises in author stage through lense of identity
In what 2 ways can self continuity be experienced?
- phenomenological continuity: moment by moment sense of being the same person
- narrative continuity: constructing a coherent life story linking past, present, and future
autbio memory (both episodic & semantic) crucial for both types of continuity
disruptions in this often arise in adolescence but generally increases throughotu life
What is the general narrative of “The fire next time”? How does it connect to other course materials?
- becomes aware of new social roles expected to be taken up by her and the ppl around her as they reach a certain age (actor) + her fear & discomfort around this (agent)
- lack of agency & low self esteem due to the racism experienced -> joined the church to find some agency & freedom
- racism also led to lack of communion
- but in religion he also found doubts; and again the lack of agency & communion: as author, he could not integrate his religion with his reality
- in moments, the racism allowed for communion amongs his ppl
What are the historical origins of personalities?
➢ Human groups get cultural histories due to the continued transmission of conventions
➢ Cultures develop oral and then written traditions and
stories about who ‘we’ are and how ‘we’ came to be
➢ By telling these stories and reflecting on them we
change our understanding of who we are.
➢ The histories of individuals can be located within these
larger histories of the multiple ‘we’s’ to which we belong
- first we had natural origins (as a human) = a universal human nature, then cultural origins = a particular human culture, then individual origins = a singular human subject
What are some common confusions & mistakes about the history of personality?
I. Naturalizing cultural categories.
➢ E.g. treating race as a natural kind.
II. Reducing every aspect to cultural narratives
➢ E.g. not taking seriously the evolved physical body and brain as important limits on what is culturally possible.
III. Forgetting about the cultural and subjective position from where the author speaks.
➢ Any theory that is narrated is influenced by the narrator.
➢ His or her particular position in history, in culture, in society matters a great deal.
➢ In many aspects of personality theories this cannot be erased.
IV. Treating all accounts as equally subjective opinions.
What are the 2 key steps in the evolution of human cooperation?
- Obligate collaborative foraging: Adaptive Collaboration & Altruism
➢ Humans have developed very strong skills for collaborating w each other
➢ Crucial in this is the strong tendency of already very
young children towards joint intentionality. Humans have
a great capacity for shared goals and shared mental states (intersubjectivity).
➢ Within this context shared meanings and shared stories
can come into existence.
➢ Humans are from birth particularly attuned to sharing
mental states with other humans. - Group-mindedness
➢ Given the strong possibility of shared intentionality, humans also develop a capability for conventions.
➢ Thus children from then on are born in a world full of pre-existing conventional structures that they grow into and only later and partially become aware of.
➢ In this they are introduced into a pre-existing symbolic order: the universe of signs and meanings typical for human societies.
What is meant with first natrue & second nature?
first nature: going from universal human natrue (like collaboration & group mindedness) to individual life nature
second nature: going from particular cultural histories -> individual life story
What are schemata?
Memory-structure developed
in the repeated interactions
with others that contains
crucial pre-conceptions about
self, others and the world.
What is meant with being an organism in nature? Vs person in a culture? VS subject of your life?
Organism in nature:
- the natural instinct we have as humans
- includes collaboration, altruism, joint intentionality, intersubjectivity, group mindedness, symbolic order, conventions
Person in a culture:
- the psych self as social actor, motivated agent, author of your life narrative
Subject of your life:
- your life story: life chapters, key scenes in the life story; has a symbolic order
What are “traits”?
words in natural language to describe individual characteristics
