Edited
by Fiona Kerr from original text by Dorothy Miell
So what is self and how do we
study its development? As we grow older we become aware
of differences between ourselves and others, for example:
what I look like; my gender; what makes me happy or
sad. A sense of self is not achieved in a single step;
we don’t emerge from our mother’s womb as
fully formed adults. As our bodies grow and change we
also learn more and more about ourselves. How we describe
ourselves to others changes as we get older. This process
is not necessarily constant - some aspects of self may
stay the same for many years, others may change rapidly.
There may also be big differences
to how you feel and how you want others to think you
are. This may colour your choices in self-description.
A sense of self is also a cultural
construction - in some societies individual uniqueness
and self-expression is seen as vulgar and uncivilised.
In the test we will be examining
self in a Western sense, the gradual formation of becoming
a self-aware individual. We’ll be grouping the
results in age groups, so you can see how the self-descriptions
change as people get older. Although self development
is most significant in childhood, we’ve decided
to keep the results going to see how things change into
adulthood (if at all!).
A child’s first step to
self-understanding is the recognition that she or he
exists. As an infant explores the world and interacts
with caregivers, she becomes aware that she has power
- she is an agent of change within her own environment.
She is able to cause things to happen and control objects.
This awareness is known as "self-as-subject",
"I" or the "existential self":
There are thought to be four
elements to the existential self:
- an awareness of one’s
own agency (i.e. one’s power to act) in life
events,
- an awareness of the uniqueness
of one’s own experience, of one’s distinctiveness
from other people,
- an awareness of the continuity
of one’s identity,
- an awareness of one’s
own awareness, the element of reflexiveness.
For example, if a child closes
his or her eyes, the world goes dark. If a toy is touched,
it moves. The interaction with the world is physical,
external and, in developmental terms, it helps the child
differentiate between self and other.
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