Psychologists ask: What do we mean by “self”

In the introduction to their book Handbook of Self and Identity, psychologists Mark Leary and June Price Tangney write:

Although psychologists and sociologists often have had difficulty agreeing how to define and conceptualize their constructs, “self” has been particularly troublesome. Not only have we lacked a single, universally accepted definition of “self,” but also many definitions clearly refer to distinctly different phenomena, and some uses of the term are difficult to grasp no matter what definition one applies.

They go on to distinguish five different and common uses of the word “self.”

Self as the total person
This is the everyday language use of self, no different from saying herself or himself. When we say “self-defeating,” the self refers to the person who is defeated. Leary and Tangney advise psychologists to avoid this usage, since it is not the “psychological entity that is actually of interest to self researchers.”
Self as personality
An example of this usage is Abraham Maslow’s concept of self-actualization, where what is actualized is a person’s personality. Leary and Tangney suggest that when referring to “a collection of abilities, temperament, goals, values, and preferences,” use the word personality, not self.
Self as experiencing subject
Has there always been an “I” who reflects on a “me”? The I who reflects is the self as experiencing subject. The me that gets reflected on is the self as known object. The experiencing self is a subjective mental presence that we commonly think of as the core of who we really are.
Self as beliefs about oneself
This includes the thoughts, feelings, and perceptions we have about ourselves. It’s only one facet of what the self can be.
Self as executive agent
The executive function of the self includes the self-control and self-regulation we use to make decisions, plan, and act. This is also just one aspect of the self.

Addressing themselves to psychologists, Leary and Tangney recommend against using “self” in the first two senses. If you mean by self the total person, say person or people. If you mean by self the personality, say personality.

The other three uses of the word are perfectly valid, but not sufficiently inclusive to capture the essence of the self. What these three have in common is the idea that the self has a capacity for and can use reflexive thought, that is, the self has the ability to be the object of it’s own attention.

Leary and Tangney conclude with this definition of the self:

[W]e think it is useful to regard the self as the psychological apparatus that allows organisms to think consciously about themselves. The self is a mental capacity that allows an animal to take itself as the object of its own attention and to think consciously about itself. …

In our experience, a clearer, more precise term than “self” can almost always be found except when referring to the cognitive mechanism that allows reflexive self-thinking to take place, for which “self” is the only designation.

I’ll try to keep this in mind, and it may be good advice for academic psychologists. I can’t promise anything, however. I’m not a psychologist, and such a narrow definition of self seems a bit too limiting for casual blogging.

Not only that. This definition leaves out what I consider most important about understanding the self – that we are social beings. This understanding of the self is captured nicely by Nikolas Rose:

‘The self’ does not pre-exist the forms of its social recognition; it is a heterogeneous and shifting resultant of the social expectations targeted upon it, the social duties accorded it, the norms according to which it is judged, the pleasure and pains that entice and coerce it, the forms of self-inspection inculcated in it, the languages according to which it is spoken about and about which it learns to account for itself in thought and speech.

Image source: Rose Knows Coupons

References:

Mark Leary and June Price Tangney, Handbook of Self and Identity

Nikolas Rose, Governing the Soul: The Shaping of the Private Self