Self and Identity: Personal, Social, and Symbolic

This edited volume outlines the latest meta-theoretical and theoretical contexts of self-research. Self and Identity examines theoretical accounts of human experience within the contemporary socio-cultural milieu and attempts to answer the question of what it means to be human. It provides a clear structure within which to conceptualize contemporary empirical research on self and identity in terms of personal, social, and symbolic aspects. In so doing, it identifies the symbolic aspect as an emerging area of contemporary significance.

Featuring contributions from a distinguished group of scholars and therapists, the book is organized into four parts. The editors provide section introductions to demonstrate how each chapter relates to the book’s overall theme, as well as how the chapter authors responded to the editors’ charge to go beyond the social cognitive theory of the self. Part I describes the current meta-theoretical context of self-research, the editors’ interpretation of the social cognitive approach to the self, and an emerging alternative theory, the Connectionist Approach. Part II highlights personal perspectives on selfhood, Part III focuses on social perspectives, and Part IV reviews symbolic processes. The concluding chapter reviews the book’s major themes with overlapping themes and intellectual disputes.

The book is intended for graduate students and researchers in social and personality psychology interested in self and identity and self-research. It may also be used as a supplemental text in advanced-level courses on self and identity.

Yoshihisa Kashima, Margaret Foddy, Michael Platow