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Selfhood = "The thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that arise from the awareness of self as object and agent..." Goals of Modern Psychological Study the Self • What it means to have a self • How the self operates • The purpose of the self The Bases of Selfhood (Baumeister, 1998) 1. Reflexive Consciousness 2. Interpersonal Being 3. Executive Function Reflexive Consciousness (The Bases of Selfhood) People are self aware • Nature and Defintion of the Self • Self-Schemas and the Activation of Self Knowledge • Self-Structure and Affect • Self-Perception Interpersonal Being (The Bases of Selfhood) The self is a member of groups and relationships • Social Determinants of the Self • Relationships and Groups • Social Comparison • Self-Evaluative Motives Executive Function (The Bases of Selfhood) Enables the self to make choices, initiate action, and exert control over the self and the world • Self-Esteem: Defense and Maintenance • Self-Presentation • Self-Control and Self-Regulation • Goals and Motivation Self vs. Personality Psychology Subjective vs. Objective Experience - how people really think about themselves versus how they really are. The distinction is blurry because: • What we really are influences how we think about ourselves. • What we really are influences how we feel about ourselves. • The self is one aspect of personality. • Self-report is often used to measure personality. Plato

• The soul is the essence of a person. • When the body dies, the soul is reborn in subsequent bodies. • "Platonic soul" consists of three parts: 1. the logos (mind) 2. the thymos (emotion) 3. the eros (desire) Aristotle • Defined the soul as the core essence of a being, but argued against it having its own separate existence • We have the potential for rational activity ( = essence of the human soul) Rene Descartes • "Father of Modern Philosophy" and the "Father of Modern Mathematics" • Mind-body Dualism Thomas Hobbes • Leviathan • Portrayed the self in terms of a sensory experience • Basic pursuit of self-interest John Locke • The Lockean self is a self-aware, self-reflexive consciousness that is fixed in a body. • "As for our own existence, we perceived it so plainly and so certainly, that is needs nor is capable of any proof. For nothing can be more evident to us than our own existence. I think, I reason, I feel pleasure and pain: can any of these be more evident to me than my own existence?" • Posits an "empty" mind - a tabla rasa - that is shaped by experience; sensations and reflections being the two sources of all our ideas. William James • Distinguished between "Me" (known) and the "I" (knower); the self is malleable, multifaceted, and conscious • The "Me" 1. Material Self - individual's body and possessions 2. Social Self - image of self portrayed to others 3. Spiritual Self - collection of states of consciousness • The "I" - The 'Thinker' - A permanent agent behind passing states of consciousness - "Soul", "transcendent Ego", "Spirit" Charles H. Cooley • Observed the development of his own children, which he used to construct his theories (study on early use of self words)

• Focused on the connection between society and individual • The "Looking-glass Self" Looking-glass Self (Cooley) 1. We imagine how we must appear to others 2. We image the judgement of that appearance 3. We develop our self through the judgements of others George Herbert Mead • Mind, Self, and Society (1934) • Symbolic Interactionist - "The self is essentially a social structure, and it arises in social experience." - "We do not assume that there is a self to begin with... Rather the self arises in the world." • Human beings begin their understanding of the social world through "play" and "game" Behaviorism • Backlash against introspectionists who relied on introspection and self-report to understand the human mind; private, subjective experience • Only phenomenon that can concretely measured are suitable for scientific analysis (positivism) • Thoughts play no role in directing behavior (mechanism); direct S-R links; thoughts are epiphenomenal • "There is no place in a scientific analysis of behavior for a mind or self." 1950's and Beyond • 1950s: self was "dead" in psychological theory • 1970s and 1980s: resurgence of interest in the self - Cognitive Revolution - Relied heavily on empirical methods - Quantitative data Current Trends in the Study of the Self • Back to a more social view of the self • Experimentation to examine social influences on the self • Social neuroscience techniques Consciousness Our awareness of sensations, thoughts, and other internal processes Neuronal Correlates of Consciousness (Koch, 2004) The NCC are a minimal set of neural events and structures sufficient for a conscious percept of a conscious (explicit) memory. Critical Brain Regions for Consciousness (Seth, 2012) • Consciousness depends primarily on a specific network of regions in the cortex and the thalamus.

• Some of these regions are important for determining the level of consciousness (the difference between waking and dreamless sleep) while others are involved in shaping conscious content (the specific qualities of any given experience). Relationship Between Arousal and Consciousness ... Theories of Consciousness • Supramodular Interaction Theory (SIT) - consciousness allows us to resolve conflicts • Integrated Information Theory - consciousness allows us to integrate information Supramodular Interaction Theory (SIT) Consciousness serves the functional purpose of resolving conflicts between supramodular response systems. • The phenomenal state (consciousness) is a physical state that established a form of 'cross-talk' that permits otherwise encapsulated systems to influence skeletomotor action collectively and adaptively • Primary function of consciousness is to integrate incompatible skeletomotor intentions • People are most likely to be conscious of conflicts involving competition for control of the skeletal muscle system • Consciousness conflicts stem from incompatible skeletomotor intentions such as when one suppresses a prepotent response Efference-Efference Binding Conscious states are not needed to inhale or withdraw one's hand from a painful stimulus but they are needed to modulate these actions. Information Integration Theory Two theoretical pillars: • Conscious states are highly differentiated; they are informational rich • This information is highly integrated To be conscious you need to be a single, integrated entity with a large repertoire of highly differentiated sates. • The cortex and the thalamus are essential for consciousness. General Anesthesia (Disrupts Consciousness) • Many cortical cells continue to respond selectively during anesthesia • What appears to be disrupted is large-scale functional integration in the corticothalamic complex Early Brain Development and Consciousness • Corticothalamic complex that provides consciousness begins to be in place between the 24th and 28t week of gestation • Soon thereafter, synchrony of the electroencephalographic (EEG) rhythm across both cortical hemispheres signals the onset of global neuronal integration

• Many of the brain elements necessary for consciousness are in place by the third trimester • Third-trimester fetus is almost always in one of two sleep states: active and quiet sleep Seld-Referencing Perceptual process involving matching phenotypic characteristics of a target individual against the phenotype of the self Self-Awareness Cognitive process that enables an individual to discriminate between its own body and those of others Self-Consciousness Having a sense of one's own body as a named self, knowing that 'this body is me' and thinking about one's self and one's own behavior in relation to the actions of others Armpit Effect (Self-Referent Phenotype Matching) Golden hamsters used their own scent to distinguish unrelated hamsters from the biological siblings • Seperated hamsters from kin at birth • Examined mating preferences at 7 weeks • Preferred to mate with non-kin Problems with the Mirror Test It can yield false negatives: if an individual daily the test, it does not necessarily mean that the animal is not self-conscious • An individual might fail the test because vision is not the primary sense modality of recognition in that species • An individual might recognize self, but fail to give a behavioral response • Some species or individuals tend to avoid eye contact with same-sex conspecifics, because it is a threatening gesture; these individuals are hesitant about gazing directly into a mirror Neural Mechanisms Subserve the Process of Self-Awareness The right hemisphere may selectively participate in processes linked to self-awareness Self-Recognition and the Right Hemisphere • Studied a group of patients undergoing the intracaratoid amobarbital (Wada) test • The Wada test involves anesthetization (that is, inactivation) of one cerebral hemisphere in order to provide information regarding cerebral dominance. Self-Recognition and the Right Hemisphere Study • Five right-handed (left hemisphere is language-dominant) patients were shown pictures of faces generated by morphing the picture of a famous person with the patient's own face. • Patients were instructed to remember the picture presented. Different pictures were presented during selective anesthesia of the right and left hemispheres.

• After recovery from anesthesia, patients were a given forced-choice task in which they had to choose the picture of the face that they had been shown. Self-Recognition and the Right Hemisphere Results When the left hemisphere was anesthetized, the number of patients chose the picture of the self over the picture of the famous person. When the right hemisphere was anesthetized, patients chose the picture of a famous person over a picture of the self. This suggests that the anterior right hemisphere may be critically engaged in detecting the self face. Mike or Me? (Self-Recognition in a Split-brain Patient) • It is unclear the extent to which previous findings reflect hemispheric specialization in self-recognition or memory components of the experimental task. • A split brain patient (epileptic individual who corpus collasum had been severed to minimize the spread of seizure activity) was asked to recognize morphed facial stimuli presented separately to each hemisphere - as either himself or a familiar other. Mike or Me? Results Whereas JW's right hemisphere showed a bias toward recognizing morphed faces as a familiar other, his left hemisphere has the opposite pattern: biased recognition in favor of the self. Neural Correlates of Self-Reflection (Johnson et al., 2002) • Used fMRI to examine activity in specific brain regions • Paradigm - Participants were asked to make decisions about themselves on specific statements requiring self-evaluation in the domains of mood, social interactions, cognitive and physical abilities. - A standard set of statement was administered via headphones to each participant during scanning. - Participants responded to each statement with a 'yes' (right hand) or 'no' (left hand) button press. • Two conditions: - Self-Reflection: 'I get angry easily.', 'I often forget things.', 'My future is bright.', etc. - General Knowledge: 'Ten seconds is more than a minute.', 'You need water to live.', etc. Mirror Neurons A ______ ______ is a neuron which fires both when an animal acts and when the animal observes the same action performed by another (especially conspecific) animal. Thus, the neuron "mirror" the behavior of another animal, as though the observer were itself acting. Mirror Neuron Theory of Self (The Neurology of Self-Awareness)

• Self-Awareness is simply using mirror neurons for "looking at myself as if someone else is looking at me" (the word 'me' encompassing some of my brain processes, as well). • The mirror neuron mechanism - the same algorithm - that originally evolved to help you adopt another's point of view was turned inward to look at your own self. Symbolic Self (Sedikides & Skowronski, 1997) A flexible and multifaceted cognitive representation of an organism's own attributes Symbolic Self-Awareness (Sedikides & Skowronski, 1997) The unique capacity of the adult human organism to: 1. Form an abstract representation of itself through language (the symbolic self) 2. Communicate the symbolic self to other organisms and negotiate the contents of the symbolic self with others 3. Set goals far into the future 4. Preform goal-guided behaviors 5. Evaluate the outcome of these behaviors 6. Link behavioral outcome to feelings toward the symbolic self 7. Defend the symbolic self against threatening events and ideas Is the symbolic self the product of evolution? Sedikides and Skowronski argue that: • Some heritable traits (adaptations) promote reproductive success in a particular set of environmental circumstances. • The symbolic self is a broad-based capacity that was selected and distributed in the human population because of its high adaptive significance. Adaptive Functions of the Symbolic Self Symbolic self plays a crucial role in human thinking, feeling, and behaving • More sensitive to self-relevent information • Processes in place to maintain postive feelings about the self; associated with health and well-being • Symbolic self allows for goal-setting and goal-consistent behavior Temporal Origin of the Symbolic Self Homo erectus During the late Pleistocene epoch: • The brain exhibited substantial increases in capacity and complexity • Hunting became an increasingly important form of food procurement • Humans began to exhibit signs of complex social organization Ecological Pressures Perspective (Why did the symbolic self evolve?) • Arose as a consequence of the multiple environmental challenges (especially food acquisition) that faced early humans Social Pressure Position (Why did the symbolic self evolve?)

• Arose out of complex social interaction (e.g., perspective-taking) • Facilitated by language capabilities • Shaped by the way other conspecifics perceived the organism • Was in the service of impression management Development of Self-Awareness (General Timeline) • Proprioceptive Feedback (3-5 months) • Object Permanence (8-9 months) • Self-Other Determination (12 months) • Body Self-Awareness (18 months) • Mirror Test (18-24 months) Proprioceptive Feedback • As early as 3-5 months of age, infants are aware of the contingency between visual and proprioceptive feedback from the body movements. • Infants looked longer at prerecorded, non-contingent displays of their leg movements than at contingent displays of their legs. • Infants as young as 4 months old looked and smiled more at videotaped images of a mimicking other than at images of themselves. Object Permanence The awareness that objects continue to exist even when they are no longer visible • Typically achieved at 8-9 months of age, during the sensorimotor stage of cognitive development (Piaget) • Just as infants come to understand that objects and other people endure over time and space, so too do they come to understand that the self has the quality of object permanence Self-Other Differentiation • Typically happens by the end of the first year • Critical elements: - Intersubjectivity - Goal conflict Intersubjectivity The ability to establish a shared or mutual understanding with interaction partners (e.g., joint attention) Eye Gaze and "Social" Robots Results (Meltzoff et al., 2010) 18 month old babies only followed the gaze of "social" robots. "Social" robots were seen as sentient. This suggests how we come to believe that other being have self-awareness. When does reflective self-awareness (self-consciousness) begin?

Between 16-24 months of age, children first exhibit clear evidence of reflective self-awareness - the ability to represent and reflect on themselves as independent, objective entities (self-consciousness) • Recognize themselves in mirrors • Refer to themselves by name • Point to themselves referentially • Express self-conscious emotions Mead's Symbolic Interactionism Theory (How are individuals transformed from asocial creatures at birth into socialized beings?) • Individuals adopt the perspective of others and imagine how they appear from other's point of view • Perspective-taking ability is synonymous with acquisition of self Body Self-Awareness • Shopping Cart Task • Replica Toys Task • Children at 18 months are doing worse than 22/26 month olds. As children get older, the number of times they make mistakes goes down Generalized Other An abstract representation that embodies the broader society and culture into which we were born Trust vs. Mistrust (Erikson's Identity Development Model) Infancy Drive and Hope Autonomy vs. Shame (Erikson's Identity Development Model) Early Childhood Self-Control, Courage, and Will Initiative vs. Guilt (Erikson's Identity Development Model) Play Age Purpose Industry vs. Inferiority (Erikson's Identity Development Model) School Age Method and Competence Identity vs. Role Confusion (Erikson's Identity Development Model) Adolescence Devotion and Fidelity Intimacy and Solidarity vs. Isolation (Erikson's Identity Development Model) Young Adulthood Affirmation and Love Generativity vs. Self Absorption or Stagnation (Erikson's Identity Development Model)

Middle Adulthood Production and Care Integrity vs. Despair (Erikson's Identity Development Model) Late Adulthood Wisdom Harter's Model of Self-Development The self is both a cognitive and social construction. Cognitive Construction (Harter's Model of Self-Development) We construct a theory of self, and this construction is limited by our cognitive capabilities. Thus, it's important to consider the cognitive developmental antecedents of the self. Social Construction (Harter's Model of Self-Development) Because the self is also a social construction, it's important to consider socialization experiences. Relational Self The self in relation to significant others Significant Others Actual individuals whom one knows, with whom one feels some degree of closeness, and usually with whom one shares a relationship that can be normatively or idiosyncratically labeled Most Kids are Naturally Nice • Young children show the first signs of empathy and empathic concern between 12 and 24 months. (Eisenberg and Fabes 1998). • Felix Warneken et al. (Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology) - Researchers found that 14-month-old infants would spontaneously help a stranger by giving him objects that were beyond his reach. - The babies helped the man even though he didn't ask them for help. In most cases, the babies responded within 10 seconds—before the man made eye contact or named the object he was trying to reach (Warneken and Tomasello 2007). Parental Socialization Helpful kids are linked to the following parental practices: • Parental warmth (and love) • Secure emotional attachment to caregivers • Emotional "coaching" that helps kids learn to regulate their own negative emotions • Inductive discipline (an approach that emphasizes rational explanations rather than arbitrary punishments) Activation of the Relational Self • Relies on the idea of the working-self concept • Contextually activation

• What is activated? - Attribute and role-based conceptions of the self - Positive and negative self-evaluations - Goals and motives - Self-regulatory strategies - Behavioral tendencies Automatic Activation of Relational Self Results (Shah, 2003) Found that subjects were persistent longer at the anagram task when: - Close to father - Father values analytic skills Self-With-Other Representations • "Who I am when I'm with _____..." • Clusters of attributes for particular significant others • Can be specific or general Relational Schema Schema for the self and significant other in the self-other relationship, linked by an interpersonal script Automatic Activation of Relational Self (Shah, 2003) • Subliminally primed subjects with words related to "Father" • Had subject complete an anagram task • Also rated: - What their closeness is to their father - Father's desire for them to have good analytic skills Script Typical patterns of relating between self and others derived from past interpersonal experiences; if-then contingencies Baldwin, Carrel, & Lopez (1990) • Partici...