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Abstract
Psychology has ben increasingly recognising the consciousnes. Consequently,
personal identity is
multiplicity of the self. However, this recognition raises the problem
of explaining how a sense of self-identity is
achieved within a multiplicity of selves. Two theoretical orientations
playing a major role in the study of the self: the social-cognitive
perspective, in which self is studied as an information-processing
device, and the social constructionist framework, in which self is
considered nowadays as multiple, varied, understood as a matter of
social and linguistic negotiation.
Nevertheless, it is argued that these orientations are still trapped
in several epistemological problems and the final leaves no space
for subjectivity. Dialogism and the dialogical view of the self are
presented as possible the solutions for those
problems. Conceiving self as a result of the dialogicality, unity
and multiplicity appear as two contrasting, but united poles of a
dialogical (inter)subjective self.
The multiplicity of the self has ben a topic of However, for these
models, that stres and value discusion for a long time. The human
intuition that each multiplicity, resides a dificult question to answer:
how one of us has a single and continuous entity sems to be can a
multiple self stil be experienced as a single and paradoxicaly denied
by the recognition that each person permanent person? The issue with
personal identity is that goes through several changes during the
life cycle. The whenever we start valuing personal fluidity and change,
debate is quite old: at least, we can trace its origins to we face
the problem of explaining the constitution of a John Locke’s
question “how can I be the same I was in my past?”
(see Locke, 1689/1975). When the soul ceased to be the waranty of
continuity, personal identity became a problem(Polkinghorne, 1988).selfhood
proceses have a dialogical nature.
This problem could be regarded as just a pure philosophical question,
without any implications to psychology. However, psychologists started
to deal with this matter, when they began to ask questions relating
to selfhood, at least ever since William James (1890).
Moreover, this play between sameness and difference, unity and multiplicity,
has also implications for the l construction of research methods,
collection of data, prefered modes of analyses, and even strategies
of psychological intervention.
..............
For example,Stiles (1997), interested in a dialogical
understanding of change proceses in psychotherapy (se eOsatuke, Gray,
Glick, Stiles, & Barkham, 2004), recognises that the notion of
voice is referring to the same process as the notions of “schema”
or “internal object”.
We understand this claim as proposing that “voice”
refers to segments of human experience that are labelled by other
theoretical orientations with different terms. If such is the case,
we are dealing with the same object of analysis.
Nevertheless, does the use of adifferent metaphor make a difference?
As Lewis and Tod (2004) ask, are we just
using diferent sets of metaphorical expressions that do not have real
pragmatic implications? Metaphors are rich
and inspiring images, but the substitution of one metaphor with another
is only revolutionary if it allows a different understanding of central
issues in our field of study.
As we shal argue in this article, the insistence on
polyphonic qualities of the self may shade the major issue of a
dialogical model of the self being its dialogicality – and not
primarily its multivoicednes.
Thus, this article elaborates the implications related
to a conception of self in terms of multiple I-positions
highlighting the differences between its framework and that of other
models. Nevertheless, this radical shift of
theoretical perspective creates a problem that we would like to address:
the question of a sense of unity.
Thus, we wil also elucidate how a dialogical perspective
addresses the problem of unity versus multiplicity.
In our view, dialogism has the potential to surpas
the dichotomy unity-multiplicity and to create a perspective about
selfhood proceses that equaly values those two poles human experience,
allowing the return of subjectivity (not separated from intersubjectivity)
to psychology.
......................
The Computer Metaphor: Self as an Organisation
of Knowledge
In the information-procesing approach, the self is conceived of as
a mental and cognitive structure
compounded by multiple self-schemata (Markus & Wurf, 1987), self-representations
(Kihlstrom & Cantor, 1984),
or facets (Marsh, 1986). Each of theese structural elements categorises
information semantically or episodically in
relation to the person. Metaphorically, the person acts as a computer
(hardware) that organises information about
herself/himself; the global organisation of that o information, in
turn, works as a software device that
formats specific self-images. This structure, entitled as self or
self-concept, is thought to be active, since each
element (e.g. a self-schema) receives, codifies and decodifies stimuli
(input) and establishes a certain course
of action (output).........
*JoãoSalgado (jsalgado@ismai.pt)
Departmentof Psychology andCommunication/Unidep
ISMAI,Av. Carlos OliveiraCampos, Maia,4475-690Avioso S. Pedro, Portugal
Hubert J. M. Hermans (hhermans@psych.ru.nl)
RadboudUniversity,Nijmegen, TheNetherlands
SpinozaBuilding,Montesorilan3,6525HR Nijmegen,The Netherlands
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