Self and Identity

Question 1

What is ‘self’?

Answer 1

1. Experience of oneself
   – Content (physical – but also emotional)
   – Boundaries
2. Facets of self-experience
   – Self-awareness
   – Autobiographical narrative

Question 2

What are the five distinct meanings of the term ‘self’, as used in
psychology

Answer 2

1. Self-awareness
2. Autobiographical personal narrative
3. Self-representation (self-concept)
4. Self-evaluation
5. Social self

Question 3

What is Self Awareness?

Answer 3

I” as the subjective center of all action and experience
– 6-8 months: early self-awareness developed through the experience of agency (performing successful actions on objects)
2nd year : prerequisites of the theory of mind (physical self recognition [mirror test], proto- communicative gestures, joint attention);

Question 4

What is Autobiographical personal narrative?

Answer 4

Autobiographical memory: stories we tell about ourselves
– Typically emerges gradually only after 3rd birthday:
- Childhood amnesia: limitations of memory encoding, self- awareness, self-knowledge and language skills make it impossible for us to remember the first years of our life.

Question 5

What is Self-representation?

Answer 5

• 2-3 years: verbal self reference
• 3 years: first self-descriptions, referring mostly to concrete features
• School years: self-representations differentiated by domains
• Teenage years: sophisticated descriptions of personality features and their origin

Question 6

What is Self-evaluation?

Answer 6

The difference between real self and ideal self leading to self-esteem
– The distinction between self-esteem [the sense of worth] and self-
efficacy [belief about one’s ability to succeed in a given situation]
- Preschool years: evaluations generally optimistic; difficulties in distinguishing between desired and actual performance, or in recognizing limits of one’s own capacities

Question 7

What is Social self?

Answer 7

Managing your self presentations in public; putting on “the masks”
– 2nd year: first concerns about how we are perceived by others
-15-24: self-conscious emotions begin to emerge: embarrassment,
jealousy, empathy, shame, guilt, hubris and pride
– preconditions: self-awareness must be present (as evident in mirror self-recognition)
– Connections with the emerging theory of mind