scholarly journals The True Self: A Psychological Concept Distinct From the Self

2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 551-560 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nina Strohminger ◽  
Joshua Knobe ◽  
George Newman
Keyword(s):  
Psychological Research ◽  
The Self ◽  
True Self ◽  
Psychological Concept

A long tradition of psychological research has explored the distinction between characteristics that are part of the self and those that lie outside of it. Recently, a surge of research has begun examining a further distinction. Even among characteristics that are internal to the self, people pick out a subset as belonging to the true self. These factors are judged as making people who they really are, deep down. In this paper, we introduce the concept of the true self and identify features that distinguish people’s understanding of the true self from their understanding of the self more generally. In particular, we consider recent findings that the true self is perceived as positive and moral and that this tendency is actor-observer invariant and cross-culturally stable. We then explore possible explanations for these findings and discuss their implications for a variety of issues in psychology.

The ”true me”—one or many?

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Iris Berent ◽  
Melanie Platt
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Optimality Theory ◽  
The Self ◽  
True Self ◽  
Behavioral Test ◽  
Brain Scan ◽  
Moral Behaviors ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Constraint Ranking

Recent results suggest that people hold a notion of the true self, distinct from the self. Here, we seek to further elucidate the “true me”—whether it is good or bad, material or immaterial. Critically, we ask whether the true self is unitary. To address these questions, we invited participants to reason about John—a character who simultaneously exhibits both positive and negative moral behaviors. John’s character was gauged via two tests--a brain scan and a behavioral test, whose results invariably diverged (i.e., one test indicated that John’s moral core is positive and another negative). Participants assessed John’s true self along two questions: (a) Did John commit his acts (positive and negative) freely? and (b) What is John’s essence really? Responses to the two questions diverged. When asked to evaluate John’s moral core explicitly (by reasoning about his free will), people invariably descried John’s true self as good. But when John’s moral core was assessed implicitly (by considering his essence), people sided with the outcomes of the brain test. These results demonstrate that people hold conflicting notions of the true self. We formally support this proposal by presenting a grammar of the true self, couched within Optimality Theory. We show that the constraint ranking necessary to capture explicit and implicit view of the true self are distinct. Our intuitive belief in a true unitary “me” is thus illusory.

Conceptual Disruption

2017 ◽  
Vol 41 (4) ◽  
pp. 451-464 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara I. McClelland
Keyword(s):  
Survey Research ◽  
Sexual Satisfaction ◽  
Thematic Analysis ◽  
Psychological Research ◽  
The Self ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Research Designs ◽  
Report Data ◽  
Self Report Data ◽  
Cantril’S Ladder

In research using self-report measures, there is little attention paid to how participants interpret concepts; instead, researchers often assume definitions are shared, universal, or easily understood. I discuss the self-anchored ladder, adapted from Cantril’s ladder, which is a procedure that simultaneously collects a participant’s self-reported rating and their interpretation of that rating. Drawing from a study about sexual satisfaction that included a self-anchored ladder, four analyses are presented and discussed in relation to one another: (1) comparisons of sexual satisfaction scores, (2) variations of structures participants applied to the ladder, (3) frequency of terms used to describe sexual satisfaction, and (4) thematic analysis of “best” and “worst” sexual satisfaction. These analytic strategies offer researchers a model for how to incorporate self-anchored ladder items into research designs as a means to draw out layers of meaning in quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods data. I argue that the ladder invites the potential for conceptual disruption by prioritizing skepticism in survey research and bringing greater attention to how social locations, histories, economic structures, and other factors shape self-report data. I also address issues related to the multiple epistemological positions that the ladder demands. Finally, I argue for the centrality of epistemological self-reflexivity in critical feminist psychological research. Additional online materials for this article are available on PWQ’s website at http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/suppl/10.1177/0361684317725985

scholarly journals The Metaphysics of Self in Praśastapāda’s Differential Naturalism

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shalini Sinha
Keyword(s):  
Human Life ◽  
The Self ◽  
Natural Order ◽  
Ethical Practice ◽  
True Self ◽  
Epistemic Practice

In A Compendium of the Characteristics of Categories (Padārthadharmasaṃgraha) the classical Vaiśeṣika philosopher Praśastapāda (6th century ce) presents an innovative metaphysics of the self. This article examines the defining metaphysical and axiological features of this conception of self and the dualist categorial schema in which it is located. It shows how this idea of the self, as a reflexive and ethical being, grounds a multinaturalist view of natural order and offers a conception of agency that claims to account for all the reflexive features of human mental and bodily life. Finally, it discusses the ends of self’s reflexivity and of human life as a return to the true self. It argues that at the heart of Praśastapāda’s metaphysics of self is the idea that ethics is metaphysics, and that epistemic practice is ethical practice.

Umbria and the Laurentine Shore

2020 ◽  
pp. 132-161
Author(s):  
Roy K. Gibson
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
True Self

Pliny owned two important residences outside Rome: one on the Laurentine shore; the other in Umbria. Pliny calls the latter villa ‘Tuscan’: a reference to the ethnicity (rather than geography) of the locality. He was deeply embedded and widely connected in Umbria, but plays the region down, to give Comum prominence. A network of Umbrian friends can be documented, plus marriage to ‘Venuleia’: daughter of an established Umbro-Etruscan senatorial family. Pliny says little about her, to give the later marriage to Calpurnia of Comum more publicity. Pliny’s persona in Umbria is warm, and marked by an interest in religious sites. At the Laurentine villa, Pliny focuses on reading, writing, and improvement of the self. How does Pliny’s persona at his villas relate to ancient conceptions of the ‘true self’? Pliny’s leisure was based on the labour of those who worked his huge Umbrian estates. What were his record and practices as a wealthy landowner?

Love and Unselfing in Iris Murdoch

2020 ◽  
Vol 87 ◽  
pp. 169-180
Author(s):  
Julia Driver
Keyword(s):  
The Self ◽  
Iris Murdoch ◽  
True Self ◽  
Close Attention ◽  
Narrow Focus ◽  
The World ◽  
The Way

AbstractIris Murdoch believes that unselfing is required for virtue, as it takes us out of our egoistic preoccupations, and connects us to the Good in the world. Love is a form of unselfing, illustrating how close attention to another, and the way they really are, again, takes us out of a narrow focus on the self. Though this view of love runs counter to a view that those in love often overlook flaws in their loved ones, or at least down-play them, I argue that it is compatible with Murdoch's view that love can overlook some flaws, ones that do not speak to the loved one's true self. Unselfing requires that we don't engage in selfish delusion, but a softer view of our loved ones is permitted.

Lying and Self-Deception

2018 ◽  
pp. 202-213
Author(s):  
Kathi Beier
Keyword(s):  
Human Mind ◽  
The Self ◽  
Virtue Theory ◽  
True Self ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Motivational Bias

Given the definitions of lying and self-deception, it would be wrong to understand self-deception as lying to oneself. It seems, however, that any definition of self-deception gives rise to two paradoxes. According to the ‘static paradox’, self-deception involves believing ‘p and not-p’ at the same time. According to the ‘dynamic paradox’, self-deception involves the intention to deceive oneself. If both claims were true, self-deception would seem to be impossible. ‘Divisionists’ try to solve the first paradox by arguing that the human mind is divided into several subsystems such that the self-deceiver consciously believes that p while unconsciously believing that not-p. ‘Non-intentionalists’ try to solve the second paradox by arguing that self-deception is based on a ‘motivational bias’. Since both explanations fall short of accounting for the blameworthiness of self-deception, a third approach examines the phenomenon from the perspective of virtue theory, claiming that self-deceivers have not yet succeeded in developing the virtue of accuracy.

Humans are not the Borg: Personal and social selves function as components in a unified self-system

2016 ◽  
Vol 39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donelson R. Forsyth
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
The Self ◽  
Social Loafing ◽  
Psychological Processes ◽  
Collective Identities ◽  
True Self ◽  
Self System

AbstractDoes joining groups trigger a cascade of psychological processes that can result in a loss of individuality and lead to such outcomes as social loafing and poor decision-making? Rather than privileging the self comprising primarily individual qualities as the “true self,” a multilevel, multicomponent approach suggests that, in most cases, personal and collective identities are integrated and mutually sustaining.

scholarly journals Losing Hurts: The Happiness Impact of Partisan Electoral Loss

2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lamar Pierce ◽  
Todd Rogers ◽  
Jason A. Snyder
Keyword(s):  
Presidential Election ◽  
Regression Discontinuity ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Psychological Research ◽  
The Self ◽  
Quasi Experimental ◽  
Partisan Identity ◽  
Boston Marathon

AbstractPartisan identity shapes social, mental, economic, and physical life. Using a novel dataset, we study the consequences of partisan identity by examining the immediate impact of electoral loss and victory on happiness and sadness. Employing a quasi-experimental regression discontinuity model we present two primary findings. First, elections strongly affect the immediate happiness/sadness of partisan losers, but minimally impact partisan winners. This effect is consistent with psychological research on the good-bad hedonic asymmetry, but appears to dissipate within a week after the election. Second, the immediate happiness consequences to partisan losers are relatively strong. To illustrate, we show that partisans are affected two times more by their party losing the 2012 U.S. Presidential Election than both respondents with children were to the Newtown shootings and respondents living in Boston were to the Boston Marathon bombings. We discuss implications regarding the centrality of partisan identity to the self and its well-being.

Life histories and the perspective of the present

2004 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaretha Järvinen
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Theoretical Approach ◽  
Life Histories ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Past Experience ◽  
The Self ◽  
George Herbert ◽  
True Self ◽  
George Herbert Mead ◽  
The Past

The purpose of the article is to suggest a development of the narrative life history tradition along the lines represented by George Herbert Mead and Paul Ricoeur. This theoretical approach is presented as an alternative to both subjectivist approaches, that continue the search for the solitary, true self behind the life histories, and to structuralist approaches, in which the self and its past experience disappears. In the article a theoretical framework is sketched that a) focuses on “the perspective of the present” but does not lose sight of the past, and b) emphasizes the interactionist dimensions of life histories but also pays attention to the self and its ongoing projects. The reasonings of Mead and Ricoeur are applied to a series of empirical examples, drawn from different areas of life history research. (Time, Narrative, Emplotment, Life Histories, Self, Mead, Ricoeur)

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