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1. Introduction A principle of self-ownership has broad appeal in moral and political philosophy, in several distinguishable respects. The first of these is its appeal across the political spectrum. Although [...]

I THINK IT ONLY APPROPRIATE TO BEGIN A PAPER ON RELIGIOUS and secular selves by invoking the words of the tenth-century Muslim mystic al-Hallaj, who famously declared "Aha al'haq"--"I am [...]

The activation of non-targets' social self in stereotype-relevant testing situations is examined. The results have shown that the test diagnosticity manipulation is enough to cause stereotype threat because targets require less pushing to activate their social self and the associated negative stereotype in diagnostic testing situations.

The effects of different types of self-activation on the social comparison tendencies are examined. The results have concluded that the need for social comparison information is determined not only by whether self-cognitions are activated, but also by the specific valence of these activated self-cognitions.

This article looks at the ways in which young people reflexively construct their self within a rapidly changing society. Drawing on texts written by young people aged 14-17 years, it explores the existence of patterns identified by theorists of late modernity as regards relationships, fateful moments, a search for authenticity, life plans and life styles and looks at gender-differentiated trends in these areas drawing on a 'weak cultural feminist tradition' (Evans, 1995:91). These texts are part of a sub-sample of approximately 34,000 texts written by young people in a school context in response to an invitation to 'tell their life stories' by writing a page 'describing themselves and the Ireland they inhabit'. The article suggests that gender is a repressed but crucially important framework in the construction of young people's sense of self, while also identifying areas where consumer society is eroding gender difference. KEYWORDS gender / late modern / reflexivity / self / young

Most models of how perceivers infer the widespread attitudes and qualities of social groups revolve around either the self (social projection, false consensus) or stereotypes (stereotyping). The author suggests people rely on both of these inferential strategies, with perceived general similarity moderating their use, leading to increased levels of projection and decreased levels of stereotyping. Three studies featuring existing individual differences in perceived similarity as well as manipulated perceptions supported the predictions, with similarity yielding increased projection to, and decreased stereotyping of, various in-groups and out-groups. Evidence that projection and stereotyping may serve as inferential alternatives also emerged. The model and accompanying results have implications for research on social comparison and projection, stereotyping and prejudice, and social inference.

The public/private debate has not been a major feature in recent sociological theory. However, Bailey (2000) has argued for a renewed sociological research programme to focus on the sociological private. He outlines three dimensions of this: intimate relationships, the self and the unconscious. This article seeks to address two of these dimensions, the production of self-theories and unconscious disavowal. We extend this theorizing to account for the experience of sexual engagement, and present a discourse analysis of the diaries of the comedian and actor Kenneth Williams (1928-1988). Drawing principally on the thought of Merleau-Ponty (1962) we argue that our analysis demonstrates the importance of a pre-reflective engagement with the social world that is then reflected on in internal dialogue. We show how discourse analysis may be used to demonstrate the discursive production of a self-theory and the rote of such a self-theory in the disavowal of the principal's pre-reflective engagement with others. KEY WORDS agency / discourse analysis / Merteau-Ponty / private / public self

An exploration of the concepts of selfhood and loss in old age adds to understanding of the ageing process. Improved understanding of these two concepts may challenge one of the main threats of ageism, the attack on meaning. Social workers who understand that ageism characterizes older people as a powerless and dependent group can focus on perceiving an older person as an individual with a value equal to that of other individuals. A social worker's understanding of the aspects of loss which accompany old age will also help the older client.

Inner-directed actions refer to actions which an individual directs toward himself or herself to bring about inner states or to motivate him- or herself to perform actions in the outer world. A study was conducted on the role played by inner-directed actions in understanding 'inner' phenomena with respect to emotions and the unity of the person. The study aims to develop a nonpsychological approach to the analysis of inner states and processes.

1. It must be obvious to any student of the liberal state that the rational burdens on persons in all versions of liberalism are considerable. Two of the controlling thoughts [...]

Open-ended interviews assessing the type and importance of self-descriptors were conducted with Mexican American and Anglo American adolescents. Consistent with previous work in cross-cultural self-description, Mexican Americans were more likely to give allocentric responses than Anglo Americans were. Different patterns of results from the ethnic groups emerged when total importance versus average importance ratings were used, suggesting that previous methods of determining importance on the basis of response quantity may not provide a complete picture of idiocentric and allocentric self-description. In addition, ratings of grade point average and perceived academic competence were positively related to idiocentrism and negatively related to allocentrism., The recognition of cultural differences in the formation and maintenance of the self-system has recently received theoretical and empirical attention (Markus & Kitayama, 1991; Marsella, DeVos, & Hsu, 1985; Trafimow, [...]

The major shortcomings in the Meadian and Neo-Meadian views of the self are identified. An alternative view of the self as a soliloquy that avoids these particular shortcomings is presented. In this alternative view, an 'us' or 'phantom community' is seen as playing the premier part in our soliloquies. Thirteen principles that govern soliloquizing are explicated, including ones governing the nature and form of our soliloquies, the creation of our emotions, the hidden sources of our emotional sensitivities, the painting of our self portraitures, the origin and nature of our phantom communities, as well as governing our display of individuality and conformity.

Why has W.E.B. Du Bois not mattered more in sociology? In addition to being on the short list of the 20th century's most influential public intellectuals, Du Bois made substantial, if under recognized, intellectual contributions as a sociologist and social theorist. Among his nearly 2000 published writings, The Philadelphia Negro and Souls of Black Folk have all the qualities of classic works. Yet, neither has been officially canonized by sociology. The exclusion of Du Bois can be explained with tolerable plausibility by reference to his two key concepts in Souls of Black Folk: the veil and the double-self. One can only wonder what might have been significantly different about sociology, especially its theories of the Self and of field studies of race, had William James's most important student been allowed to matter.

Social psychologists currently conceptualize self as composed of many parts; often they visualize the parts as organized hierarchically by differences in salience or psychological centrality. We ask whether these concepts are equivalent, overlapping, or independent, and whether one concept 'works' better in an identity theory context. Models relating commitment to role relations to salience and centrality, and salience and centrality to time spent in role, are estimated for four roles and identities related to university students. Results show that identity salience and centrality are independent for some roles, but overlap for others. When they are independent, both are predicted by commitment and both predict time in role, although salience 'works' somewhat better in these terms. When they overlap, considerable commonality is present in the variance of time in role they explain. Salience again links somewhat better to commitment and time in role, but centrality again contributes to explaining time in role. This study considers when salience and centrality overlap in impact and when they do not, but no clear answer is at hand. Until an answer is available, researchers would be well advised to incorporate both salience and centrality into their designs.

The authors argue that temporality is a significant dimension of social activity. The paper reviews the phenomenological experience of temporality, ways of conceptualizing time, and ways in which temporality may shape interpretation, and illustrates these themes through an empirical study in which approximately 80 subjects read and responded to one of two short stories. Themes of temporality were explored in the interview transcripts through references to temporal themes, temporality as an influence on causal and trait attributions, temporal chains, and other forms of interpretive cycles, as well as ways in which temporality is involved in the definition of other and 'possible others.' On the basis of these patterns, we conclude that time is a crucial factor in shaping interpretations of social life.

Man's life cannot be condensed into a single function, one ideology or a single sex. This is what one may see in our contemporary reality which becomes more and more heterogeneous in so many areas such as sex, speech, and work. The role of the double, the guardian angel, the anthropological twin, is at present held by a sort of psychological and social duplicity which plays with the various assignments attributed to identity. If one considers the shadow as a metaphor of the double, of plurality, one is led on one hand to a more complex order and on the other hand, to a communal conception of life. Since everything has its place in social reality, everyone can live there. The essential lesson of openness, induced through the notion of 'person', is not to deny what may seem strange or foreign, not to satisfy oneself with tolerance, but to appreciate the solid organicity it serves to impulse at its just value.

Despite pervasive reference to the self in grief literature, theorists have failed to offer a compelling model of how the self functions in loss, recovery and growth. A dyadic model is proposed wherein a 'reflective' side of the self is seen as acting on a 'core' repository of identity, interpreting feelings and formulating meaning. The reflective self is developed and sustained by attachment figures, and thus severely disrupted in their loss. The core remains intact. Grief work enhances the reflective self's insight, affirmative strength, and ability to make life matter - all aspects of growth. Implications for grief counselling are discussed.

Analysis of a sequence of literary frames suggests that a heightened experience of interactional reality is also anomically constructive of the frame. In each of 16 frames, Durkheimian anomie neither destroys the frame's integrity nor renders its routine grounds unintelligible, as Goffman and Garfinkel would claim it must. Paradoxically, anomie ritually intensifies the frame. The selves in the paper's sequence of highly ritualized frames are not routine selves, however. They are 'strangers to themselves.' The analysis shows how Mead's 'I' can re-emerge from Goffman's ritual thinking - where the 'I' is collapsed into an interactionally-bound 'me' - as an original manifestation of great importance to interactants, and therefore to society as well. (Parenthetically it is also argued that selves need an element of rituality in order to be selflike and that it is interactional rituality which guarantees the evolution of social life beyond given frames, corpora, cultural repertoires, and collective representations.) The idea that interactants can be strangers to themselves is an advance on Goffman's and Garfinkel's accounts of interactional selfhood, but one that problematizes the prosecution of the interaction sociology that Goffman and Garfinkel pioneer, since strangers to themselves disappear in normal sociological appearances.

Belief certainty and belief importance represent 2 relatively independent forms of investment in the self-concept. Three studies suggested that whereas certainty is associated with epistemic (i.e., rational or informational) factors, importance is more closely associated with emotive (i.e., emotional and motivational) factors. A 4th study explored the implications of certainty and importance for the temporal stability of people's self-views and revealed that whereas belief certainty was associated with the stability of both positive and negative beliefs, belief importance was associated with the stability of positive beliefs only. The implications of belief investment for the verification-enhancement debate and for the structure and measurement of the self-concept are discussed.

Richard Ofshe and Ethan Waters have attempted to answer questions on the reality of memory in their book 'Making Monsters: False Memories, Psychotherapy, and Sexual Hysteria.' On the other hand, Ian Hacking's book, 'Rewriting the Soul: Multiple Personality and the Sciences of Memory,' did not answer the questions which were not thought to concern the readers of the book. Allan Young's book, 'The Harmony of Illusions: Inventing Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder,' examines posttraumatic disorder and links treatment and diagnostic category to unique narrative methods.

This work incorporates concepts from the behavioral confirmation tradition, self tradition, and interdependence tradition to identify an interpersonal process termed the Michelangelo phenomenon. The Michelangelo phenomenon describes the means by which the self is shaped by a close partner's perceptions and behavior. Specifically, self movement toward the ideal self is described as a product of partner affirmation, or the degree to which a partner's perceptions of the self and behavior toward the self are congruent with the self's ideal. The results of 4 studies revealed strong associations between perceived partner affirmation and self movement toward the ideal self, using a variety of participant populations and measurement methods. In addition, perceived partner affirmation - particularly perceived partner behavioral affirmation - was strongly associated with quality of couple functioning and stability in ongoing relationships.