scholarly journals A Tale of Two Perspectives: How Psychology and Neuroscience Contribute to Understanding Personhood

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Erin I. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Developmental Psychology ◽  
Sense Of Self ◽  
The Self ◽  
Data Driven ◽  
Empirical Science ◽  
Construct Development ◽  
Psychological Essentialism ◽  
Human Functioning ◽  
Complex Phenomena

Empirical science, such as psychology and neuroscience, employ diverse methods to develop data driven models and explanations for complex phenomena. In research on the self, differences in these methods produce different depictions of persons. Research in developmental psychology highlights the role of intuitive beliefs, such as psychological essentialism and intuitive dualism, in individuals’ singular, cohesive, and stable sense of self. On the other hand, research in neuroscience highlights the de-centralized, distributed, multitudes of neural networks in competition making selves, with arguments around whether the interpretation of these data imply that the self is somehow fundamental and special to human functioning. In this paper, I explore these discrepant pictures of the self to advance understanding about personhood. Specifically, I suggest that these divergent pictures of self from psychology and neuroscience have the potential to inform philosophical and theological discussions around personhood by anchoring models of persons in empirical views of persons. Likewise, I explore the opportunity for philosophy and theology to inform and enhance scientific research on the self by critiquing scientific bias and construct development as well as highlighting potential limits in understanding selves with empirical models.

scholarly journals ‘Do you mean I’m not whole?’: Exploring the role of support in women’s experiences of mastectomy without reconstruction

2016 ◽  
Vol 23 (12) ◽  
pp. 1598-1609 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanie Archer ◽  
Fiona G Holland ◽  
Jane Montague
Keyword(s):  
Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis ◽  
Sense Of Self ◽  
The Self ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Younger Women ◽  
Women’S Experiences ◽  
Women's Experiences ◽  
Positive Support ◽  
Unilateral Mastectomy

This study explores the role of others in supporting younger women who opt not to reconstruct their breast post-mastectomy. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with six women diagnosed with breast cancer in their 30s/40s. The women lived in England, had been diagnosed a minimum of 5 years previously and had undergone unilateral mastectomy. An interpretative phenomenological analysis revealed three themes: Assuring the self: ‘I’ll love you whatever’, Challenging the self: ‘Do you mean I’m not whole?’ and Accepting the self: ‘I’ve come out the other side’. The women’s experiences of positive support and challenges to their sense of self are discussed.

The Bodily Self

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
José Luis Bermúdez
Keyword(s):  
Sense Of Self ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Self ◽  
Behavioral Sciences ◽  
Significant Contributor ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Physical Objects ◽  
Selection Of

How can we be aware of ourselves both as physical objects and as thinking, experiencing subjects? What role does the experience of the body play in generating our sense of self? What is the role of action and agency in the construction of the bodily self? These questions have been a rich subject of interdisciplinary debate among philosophers, neuroscientists, experimental psychologists, and cognitive scientists for several decades. José Luis Bermúdez been a significant contributor to these debates since the 1990’s, when he authored The Paradox of Self-Consciousness (MIT Press, 1998) and co-edited The Body and the Self (MIT Press, 1995) with Anthony Marcel and Naomi Eilan. The Bodily Self is a selection of essays all focused on different aspects of the role of the body in self-consciousness, prefaced by a substantial introduction outlining common themes across the essays. The essays have been published in a wide range of journals and edited volumes. Putting them together brings out a wide-ranging, thematically consistent perspective on a set of topics and problems that remain firmly of interest across the cognitive and behavioral sciences.

scholarly journals I overthink—therefore I am not: Altered Sense of Self in Depersonalisation Disorder

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Ciaunica ◽  
Casper Hesp ◽  
Anil Seth ◽  
Jakub Limanowski ◽  
Karl Friston
Keyword(s):  
Sense Of Self ◽  
Formal Analysis ◽  
The Self ◽  
Predictive Processing ◽  
Special Focus ◽  
Mental Action ◽  
The World ◽  
Physiological Abnormalities ◽  
Sensory Attenuation

This paper considers the phenomenology of depersonalisation disorder, in relation to predictive processing and its associated pathophysiology. To do this, we first establish a few mechanistic tenets of predictive processing that are necessary to talk about phenomenal transparency, mental action, and self as subject. We briefly review the important role of ‘predicting precision’ and how this affords mental action and the loss of phenomenal transparency. We then turn to sensory attenuation and the phenomenal consequences of (pathophysiological) failures to attenuate or modulate sensory precision. We then consider this failure in the context of depersonalisation disorder. The key idea here is that depersonalisation disorder reflects the remarkable capacity to explain perceptual engagement with the world via the hypothesis that “I am an embodied perceiver, but I am not in control of my perception”. We suggest that individuals with depersonalisation may believe that ‘another agent’ is controlling their thoughts, perceptions or actions, while maintaining full insight that the ‘another agent’ is ‘me’ (the self). Finally, we rehearse the predictions of this formal analysis, with a special focus on the psychophysical and physiological abnormalities that may underwrite the phenomenology of depersonalisation.

Crossing Ethical Boundaries in the Pursuit of Passion: How Passion Gaps Cause Unethical Pro-Organizational Behavior

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jon Jachimowicz ◽  
Zachary Brown ◽  
Joel Brockner ◽  
Adam Galinsky
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Behavior ◽  
Unethical Behavior ◽  
Sense Of Self ◽  
Field Studies ◽  
Causal Chain ◽  
The Self ◽  
Long Run ◽  
Chain Analysis ◽  
Predicting Success

Many contemporary organizations encourage their employees' pursuit of passion for work. However, we propose that this strategy may simultaneously increase the likelihood their employees engage in unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB), immoral acts that benefit the company. Specifically, we suggest that when employees fall short of desired levels of work passion-i.e., when they experience a "passion gap"-their sense of self is threatened. One way employees deal with the self-threat elicited by passion gaps is by engaging in UPB, which gives them the feeling that they are worthy organizational members. Eight studies (N = 2,695)-including two field studies, an experimental-causal-chain analysis, and two intervention studies-provide support for the proposed relationships between passion gaps, self-threat, and the tendency to engage in UPB. Two interventions highlight factors that directly attenuate the self-threat prompted by passion gaps: (1) having employees engage in self-affirmation, and (2) de-emphasizing the role of passion in predicting success. Our results suggest that organizations' increased emphasis on the pursuit of passion may have an unintended consequence: it leads those employees who fall short of desired levels of passion to engage in unethical behavior designed to help the company, which may harm the organization in the long-run.

scholarly journals An Ethnographic Study of Former Dissociative Identity Disorder Patients

2001 ◽  
Vol 20 (4) ◽  
pp. 315-346 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eli Somer ◽  
Orit Nave
Keyword(s):  
Childhood Abuse ◽  
Sense Of Self ◽  
Dissociative Identity Disorder ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
The Self ◽  
Integration Process ◽  
Depth Interview ◽  
Spirituality And Religion ◽  
Childhood Suffering

Three therapists interviewed five of their former DID patients in a semi-structured depth interview. Two respondents were Israeli, two were North American, and one was Dutch. Prior to therapy their sense of self had been vague at best and was described as an uncomfortable feeling of internal void. They all had at least rudimentary recollections of their childhood suffering. They were more likely to believe their memories of childhood abuse if they succeeded in experiencing the feelings connected with those images. Fantasy, spirituality, and religion played a role in helping them manage their existence. Their integration process was incremental, as they gradually embraced the disowned aspects and functions of the self. Dissociative and ego state processes were still present during the period of data collection. The results are discussed in terms of the convergence of borderline and dissociative symptomatology, the role of fantasy and spirituality in DID, therapeutic processes, and patterns of treatment outcome.

scholarly journals EXPRESS: Theorising work-life balance endeavours as a gendered project of the self: The case of senior executives in Denmark

2021 ◽  
pp. 001872672110733
Author(s):  
Maria Adamson ◽  
Sara Louise Muhr ◽  
Alexandra T. Beauregard
Keyword(s):  
Sense Of Self ◽  
Work Life ◽  
The Self ◽  
Work Life Balance ◽  
Senior Executives ◽  
Female Executives ◽  
Senior Managers ◽  
Life Balance ◽  
Male And Female

Recent work-life balance (WLB) studies offer considerable insight into the challenges and strategies of achieving WLB for senior managers. This study shifts the focus from asking how to asking why individuals are so invested in pursuing a particular kind of WLB. Through analysing 62 life history interviews with male and female senior executives in Denmark, we develop the concept of the gendered project of the self to theorise WLB. We show how for the executives, WLB was not simply an instrumental process of time or role management; instead, pursuing WLB in a certain way was a key part of acquiring and maintaining a particular desired subjectivity or a sense of self as a better person, better worker, and better parent. We argue that theorising WLB as the gendered project of the self allows us to explicate the mechanisms through which gendered social and cultural expectations translate into how male and female executives can and want to pursue their WLB goals—firstly by driving one’s desire for WLB and, secondly, by shaping and restricting what is desired. In doing so we highlight the importance of scrutinising the role of broader WLB discourses in shaping the experience and uptake of organisational WLB policies.

scholarly journals Digital literacies and children’s personalized books: Locating the ‘self’

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalia Kucirkova ◽  
Margaret Mackey
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Sense Of Self ◽  
Personal Data ◽  
The Self ◽  
Personal Agency ◽  
Digital Literacies ◽  
The Social ◽  
Objective Space ◽  
Subjective Space

This conceptual article discusses the role of digital literacies in personalized books, in relation to children’s developing sense of self, and in terms of assessing the potential impact of artificial intelligence (AI). Personalized books contain children’s data, such as their name, gender or image, and they can be created by readers or automatically by the publisher. Some personalized books are e-books enhanced with artificial intelligence, and some can be ordered as paperbacks. We discuss this use of children’s personal data in terms of the social location of the self with regard to subjective and objective dimensions. We draw on a map metaphor, in which objective space requires readers to locate themselves in an unknown ‘A-to-B’ space and subjective space provides an individually oriented world of ‘me-to-B’. By drawing on examples of personalized books and their use by parents and young children, we discuss how personalization troubles the borders between readers’ me-to-B and A-to-B space experiences, leading to possible confusion in the sense of self. We conclude by noting that AI-enhanced personalized texts can reduce personal agency with respect to formulating a sense of identity as a child.

Sense of Self: Its Place in Personality Disturbance, Psychopathology, and Normal Experience

2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 159-171
Author(s):  
Christopher Basten ◽  
Stephen Touyz
Keyword(s):  
Developmental Psychology ◽  
Normal Development ◽  
Sense Of Self ◽  
Borderline Personality ◽  
The Self ◽  
Psychological Conditions ◽  
Working Definition ◽  
Personality Disturbance ◽  
Psychological Inquiry ◽  
Authentic Person

Sense of self (SOS) is a cornerstone of psychological inquiry and therapy and is a defining feature of a range of psychological conditions including borderline personality disorder, yet it is poorly understood. SOS is that continuous experience of being a complete and authentic person who feels in control of their own activities. It is a part of normal development of the self and, when weakened by trauma or developmental neglect, is a vulnerability for developing many different disorders, including depression and dissociative, personality, and eating disorders. This review aims to provide a working definition and description of SOS and to summarize its transdiagnostic role in contributing to psychological disorders. To achieve this aim, the article encompasses and unites the literature from various theoretical domains including developmental psychology, identity theory, cognitive psychology, personality disorders, and psychodynamic theories. Implications are raised for psychological therapy and research into psychopathology and its underpinnings.

scholarly journals The COlIStruction of the Self: A Developmental Perspective. Susan Harter. New York, NY: Guilford Press, 1999.

1999 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandra Leanne Bosacki
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Developmental Psychology ◽  
Sense Of Self ◽  
School Context ◽  
Human Experience ◽  
School Experience ◽  
The Self ◽  
Developmental Perspective ◽  
Systematic Research ◽  
Self Development

Within the fields of educational and developmental psychology, interest has grown concerning the question of how cognitive and socioemotional processes work together to construct pathways for the self. In particular, researchers and educators have become increasingly interested in the role that the school plays in children's self-development. According to Jerome Bruner, "the single most universal thing about human experience is the phenomenon of the 'Self" (1996, p. 35) and advocates that education is crucial to its formation. However, despite the strong theoretical claims linking a child's sense of self to school experience, there has been a lack of systematic research on the self within the school context.

Gender and Migration

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Syswerda
Keyword(s):  
Local Community ◽  
Sense Of Self ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Migrant Women ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Gender And Migration ◽  
And Migration ◽  
Muslim Identities

While much of the literature about Muslim identities has tended to focus on British-born Muslims in densely populated ‘Muslim’ localities, the experiences of Muslim migrants living outside such localities have been largely overlooked. This leaves unanswered questions about the role of ‘other’ women – that is, women from diverse religious, cultural and ethnic backgrounds – in shaping Muslim migrant women’s sense of self and their attitudes towards post-migration life. This chapter seeks to address this oversight by exploring the ways in which recent Muslim migrant women to Scotland construct new identities in relation to the ‘other’ women whom they encounter in their post-migration, everyday lives, including friends, neighbours and local community members. Thus, this chapter steps off from what is now a ‘relatively widespread understanding of the self as a relational achievement’ (Conradson and McKay, 2007: 167).

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