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Is there a need for a self-concept in psychology? Al- most from the beginning, the field has been divided on this question. From a behavioristic viewpoint, the self-concept has an aura of mysticism about it, ap- pearing not far removed from the concept of a soul. One can neither see a self-concept, nor touch it, and no one has succeeded as yet in adequately defining it as a hypothetical construct. Definitions that are of- fered tend to lack meaningful referents or to be circu- lar. Thus, the self has been defined in terms of the "I" or the "me," or both, or as the individual's reactions to himself. Some authors, apparently having de- spaired of providing an adequate definition, dispense with the matter by an appeal to common sense and by asserting that everyone knows he has a self as surely as he knows what belongs to him and what does not. Allport (1955), in an attempt to make afresh start, coined a new word, the "proprium," which he defined as "all the regions of our life that we regard as peculiarly ours [p. 40]." The difficulty here is that one cannot identify the proprium until one identifies what people regard as essentially theirs, which, in effect, requires identification of the self. One occasionally detects a note of authoritative assertiveness in place of logical analysis when an author feels certain he knows what the self is, but finds it a slippery concept whose adequate definition is irritatingly elusive. Thus, Sullivan (1953 ) stated, When I talk about the self-system, I want it clearly un- derstood that I am talking about a dynamism which comes
to be enormously important in understanding interpersonal relations. This dynamism is an explanatory conception; it is not a thing, a region, or what not, such as superegos, egos, ids, and so on [p. 167].
It is encouraging to know that a dynamism, unlike an ego, is a concept that can be understood without, specifying its referents.
If the self is not a thing and cannot be defined as a concept, then perhaps it can be dispensed with alto- gether. It is noteworthy that Allport, one of the pro- ponents of the self-concept, essentially agrees with this conclusion. He noted that everything that has been explained by reference to a self concept can be explained as well without it, and the only advantage in retaining the word is that it draws attention to im- portant areas of psychology that otherwise would be ignored. He stated,
If the horizons of psychology were more spacious than they are I venture to suggest that theories of per- sonality would not need the concept of self or of ego except in certain compound forms, such as self-knowledge, self-image, ego-enhancement, ego-extension [Allport, 1955, p. 56].
Despite the above arguments, there are a number of behavioral scientists, representing a variety of schools of thought, who believe that the self-concept is not only a useful explanatory construct, but a nec- essary one. Included among these are James, Cooly,
The Self-Concept Revisited
Or a Theory of a Theory
SEYMOUR EPSTEIN
University of Massachusetts
Invited address presented at the meeting of the Canadian Psychological Association, Montreal, June 1972. The preparation of this article was supported by National Institute of Mental Health, United States Public Health Service Grant MH-01293. The author wishes to acknowledge his appreciation to James Averill and Ervin Staub for their helpful comments upon reading an earlier version of this article. Requests for reprints should be sent to Seymour Epstein, Psychology Department, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts 01002.
Reprinted from: American Psychologist (1973), 28, 404-414.
Mead, Lecky, Sullivan, Hilgard, Snygg and Combs, and Rogers. To make matters more interesting, those self-theorists identified as phenomenologists con- sider the self-concept to be the most central concept in all of psychology, as it provides the only perspec- tive from which an individual's behavior can be un- derstood. From such a position, behavioristic at- tempts to develop an objective, scientific psychology that does not include a self concept can represent nothing more than a futile exercise in mimicking the physical sciences.
Although there is disagreement about the value of the self-concept as an explanatory concept, there can be no argument but that the subjective feeling state of having a self is an important empirical phenomenon that warrants study in its own right. Like many other phenomena, the subjective feeling of self tends to be taken for granted until it is absent. When the latter involuntarily occurs, the individual reports an over- whelming feeling of terror. This is well illustrated in the following description by Lauretta Bender (1950) of the reactions of a schizophrenic girl on meeting her psychiatrist:
Ruth, a five year old, approached the psychiatrist with "Are you the bogey man? Are you going to fight my mother? Are you the same mother? Are you the same father? Are you going to be another mother?" and finally screaming in terror, "I am afraid I am go- ing to be someone else" [p. 135].
Granting that there need be no argument about the existence of a feeling state of having a self, the issue remains as to whether there must be divergent view- points on the value of the self-concept as an explana- tory construct. Is psychology destined to remain with two schools of thought, a subjective one in which the self-concept is central, and an objective one in which it is superfluous? Hopefully, it is possible to integrate the two approaches within a broader framework. It is the aim of this article to do just this. I submit that the difficulty has been that the self-concept is not really a selfconcept at all, but something similar. When the proper concept is substituted for the self-concept, the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle that thus far have eluded assembly will be found to fit neatly into place and form a picture that should be satisfactory to behav- iorists and phenomenologists alike.. Let me antici- pate that, as with many integrations of familiar mate- rial, you probably will react to the solution, once pre- sented, as absurdly self-evident.
The Nature of the Self-Concept
THE SELF-CONCEPT AS VIEWED BY OTHERS
As a beginning, it will be helpful to consider the views of others on the nature of the self-concept. Per- haps its identity can then be determined by establish- ing a composite photograph.
William James (1910), one of the first psycholo- gists to have written extensively on the self, identi- fied two fundamentally different approaches, one in which the self is regarded as a knower, or has an ex- ecutive function, and the other in which it is regarded as an object of what is known. James saw no value to the self as a knower for understanding behavior and felt that it should be banished to the realm of philoso- phy. The self as an object of knowledge he identified as consisting of whatever the individual views as be- longing to himself. This includes a material self, a social self, and a spiritual self. The material self is an extended self which contains, in addition to the indi- vidual's own body, his family and possessions. The social self includes the views others hold of the indi- vidual. The spiritual self includes the individual's emotions and desires. All aspects of the self are capa- ble of evoking feelings of heightened self-esteem and well being, or lowered self-esteem and dissatisfac- tion. James, apparently, viewed the self as having a unity as well as being differentiated, and as being intimately associated with emotions as mediated through self-esteem.
Cooley (1902) defined the self as "that which is designated in common speech by the pronouns of the first person singular, I,'me,' my,'mine,' and `myself' [p. 1361." He noted that what is labeled by the individual as self produces stronger emotions than what is labeled an non-self, and that it is only through subjective feelings that the self can be identi- fied. He believed that the feeling state is produced by the belief that one has control over events, or by cog- nitive discrimination, such as in noting that one's own body is different from other people's bodies. He introduced the concept of the "looking-glass self," which refers to an individual perceiving himself in the way that others perceive him. Cooley, apparently, assumed greater prevalence of this process than the poet, Robert Burns (1897, p. 43), who, upon observ- ing the twitching and squirming of a genteel woman to an undetected louse crawling on her in church, wrote:
Allport's writing is that research in psychology is of- ten trivial because subjects are not sufficiently ego-involved. The proprium has the following eight attributes: (a) awareness of a bodily self, (b) a sense of continuity over time, (c) ego enhancement, or a need for self-esteem, (d) ego extension, or the identi- fication of the self beyond the borders of the body, (e) rational process, or the synthesis of inner needs with outer reality, (f) self-image, or the person's per- ception and evaluation of himself as an object of knowledge, (g) the self as knower, or as executive agent, (h) "propriate striving," or the motivation to increase rather than decrease tension, and to expand awareness and seek out challenges. In a later work, Allport (1961), in apparent agreement with James, decided that the self as knower did not belong in the realm of psychology.
Sarbin (1952) noted that behavior is organized around cognitive structures. One such important structure is the structure of the self. Like other struc- tures, the self is hierarchically organized, and is sub- ject to change, usually in the direction from lower order to higher order constructs. Among the sub- structures of the self are empirical selves, including a somatic self and a social self. An "I" or "Pure Ego" is represented as the cross section of the individual's total cognitive organization, including his different empirical selves, at a moment in time.
Having reviewed a variety of positions on the na- ture of the self-concept, we are now in a position to summarize the characteristics that others have attrib- uted to it. These include the following:
- It is a subsystem of internally consistent, hier- archically organized concepts contained within a broader conceptual system.
- It contains different empirical selves, such as a body self, a spiritual self, and a social self.
- It is a dynamic organization that changes with experience. It appears to seek out change and exhib- its a tendency to assimilate increasing amounts of information, thereby manifesting something like a growth principle. As Hilgard (1949) noted, it is char- acterized more aptly as integrative than integrated.
- It develops out of experience, particularly out of social interaction with significant others.
- It is essential for the functioning of the individ- ual that the organization of the self-concept be main- tained. When the organization of the self concept is threatened, the individual experiences anxiety, and attempts to defend himself against the threat. If the
defense is unsuccessful, stress mounts and is fol- lowed ultimately by total disorganization.
- There is a basic need for self-esteem which re- lates to all aspects of the self-system, and, in com- parison to which, almost all other needs are subordi- nate.
- The self-concept has at least two basic func- tions. First, it organizes the data of experience, par- ticularly experience involving social interaction, into predictable sequences of action and reaction. Second, the self-concept facilitates attempts to fulfill needs while avoiding disapproval and anxiety.
IDENTIFICATION OF THE SELF-CONCEPT AS A SELF-THEORY
Having laid out the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle, it should now be possible to determine the nature of the overall picture. Or, for those who prefer riddles, the problem can be presented as follows: What is it that consists of concepts that are hierarchically organized and internally consistent; that assimilates knowledge. yet, itself, is an object of knowledge; that is dynamic, but must maintain a degree of stability; that is unified and differentiated at the same time: that is necessary for solving problems in the real world; and that is subject to sudden collapse, producing total disorgani- zation when this occurs? The answer, by now, should be evident. In case it is not, I submit that the self-con- cept is a self-theory. It is a theory that the individual has unwittingly constructed about himself as an ex- periencing, functioning individual, and it is part of a broader theory which he holds with respect to his entire range of significant experience. Accordingly, there are major postulate systems for the nature of the world, for the nature of the self, and for their in- teraction. Like most theories, the self theory is a con- ceptual tool for accomplishing a purpose. The most fundamental purpose of the self theory is to optimize the pleasure/pain balance of the individual over the course of a lifetime. Two other basic functions, not unrelated to the first, are to facilitate the maintenance of self-esteem , and to organize the data of experience in a manner that can be coped with effectively. These functions were derived from the assumption that, at its most basic level, human behavior is organized biologically according to a pleasure/pain principle, and from an analysis of the conditions that produce total, sudden disorganization of the personality, as in acute schizophrenia.
The position I am advocating has obviously much in common with Kelley's (1955) view that the indi- vidual, as he goes about the business of attempting to
solve the problems of everyday living, proceeds in a manner similar to that of the scientist who is attempt- ing to solve more impersonal problems. Both con- tinuously make and test hypotheses and revise their concepts accordingly. Both organize their observa- tions into schemata which then are organized into a network of broader schemata called theories. If ex- perience were not so arranged, it would be impossi- ble to behave effectively in a complex world with innumerable conflicting demands. Further, without such a system, the individual would be overwhelmed by innumerable isolated details that would have to be recalled to guide behavior.
While Kelley does not postulate a self-concept, given the value of a distinction between self and non- self it can be surmised that a universal higher order postulate in an individual's overall conceptual system is that the data of experience can be organized into a self-system and a world system. Not only are the cues for differentiating self and nonself ubiquitous and salient to the point that they are normally impos- sible to ignore, but there are overwhelming advan- tages to making the distinction. For one, to act within a world of shared reality, it is necessary to distin- guish what is subjective from what is common ex- perience. Second, the distinction between self and nonself is useful for the individual to exercise control of his behavior. Third, for humans to live harmoni- ously in social communities, it is necessary to have a concept of responsibility, and such a concept would be meaningless without a distinction between self and nonself. It is thus apparent that in everyday liv- ing, as well as in science, it is important to distin- guish the subjective world of self from the objective world of nonself. However, where man, the scientist, needs the distinction to study the objective world for its own sake, for man, the human being, the distinc- tion is important only to the extent that it contributes to the satisfaction of his personal needs and happi- ness. Thus, the theory I am proposing differs from Kelly's theory in that Kelly assigns little significance to emotion, while in the present theory emotion occu- pies a position of central importance.
Structure of the Self-Theory
ATTRIBUTES IN COMMON WITH ALL
THEORIES
All theories can be evaluated by the degree to which they are extensive, parsimonious, empirically valid, internally consistent, testable, and useful. Ac- cordingly, it should be of interest to examine
self-theories of individuals with respect to each of these attributes.
Extensivity
All other things being equal, the more extensive a theory, the better the theory. This holds for an indi- vidual's self-theory as well as for other theories. An individual with an extensive self-theory will have concepts available for coping with a wide variety of situations. He will be aware of more facets of his feelings, abilities, and personality characteristics than an individual with a narrow self-theory. Accordingly, he should be more flexible and open to new experi- ence. A person with a narrow self-theory will experi- ence life in a relatively simplified fashion. Things for him should tend to be black or white, and he charac- teristically should exhibit repression and rigidity.
Good theories are expansive. They become more differentiated and extensive as additional data are made available. Poor theories are not only restricted, they are restrictive. Put otherwise, an individual with a narrow self-theory will tend to avoid drawing infer- ences that disturb the stability he has achieved through limiting his ways of construing the world and himself.
There are at least three reasons why individuals may have excessively restricted self-theories. One is that the individual lacks the cognitive capacity to dif- ferentiate and generalize adequately, as in the case of children and mental defectives. A second is that un- der stress, all theories tend to become restricted as this protects the theory against disorganization. Thus, individuals who are highly threatened, particularly if they have a low threshold for disorganization, can be expected to have restricted self-theories. It should be considered that individuals who, at one time, were highly anxious and learned to react to threat by re- stricting their self-theories may continue to react to minor threats with constriction, even though they no longer are highly anxious. As the self-theory is de- rived from experience, it follows that the diversity of experience that an individual is exposed to is a criti- cal factor in determining the complexity and range of his self-theory. It can be expected that the person whose self-theory is narrow because of limited expo- sure will not be as resistant to change as the person who is defending against anxiety and disorganiza- tion.
Parsimony
Holding other factors constant, the more parsimo- nious a theory, the better the theory. Parsimony is
homosexual impulses or feelings of hostility to a loved one (cf. Kaplan, 1964). Apparently, it is not the inconsistency itself that produces the disorganization, but awareness of the inconsistency. An individual's self-theory can contain considerable inconsistency even with regard to relatively basic postulates with- out the individual experiencing stress, as long as he is able to deny the inconsistency. Of course, such inconsistency represents a potential source of stress and disorganization, as there is always the possibility that conditions will arise where denial is no longer possible.
Testability
A self-theory, if it is to be useful in coping with real events, must, like a scientific theory, be testable. As previously noted, a good self-theory is one that increases in validity with increasing experience. It is obvious that concepts that are not testable cannot be improved by experience. The question may be raised as to why, then, should individuals entertain concepts that are not open to testing. The answer is that such concepts are protected from invalidation. It is as- sumed that the disconfirmation of a concept in the self-theory produces anxiety; the more significant the concept for maintaining the self-theory, the greater the anxiety. Individuals who have reason to suspect that reality may invalidate a postulate important to their self theory will thus have strong motivation to insulate that concept from the test of reality. Put oth- erwise, under certain circumstances, illusion may be preferable to reality, and when this is so, the individ- ual will avoid subjecting his concepts to testing. In less dramatic ways, all people, to some extent, shield their significant concepts from being invalidated, as all people are motivated to avoid anxiety.
Usefulness
A self-theory does not exist for its own sake but, like other theories, is developed for the purpose of solving problems. It has already been noted that the basic functions of the self-theory are to maintain a favorable pleasure/pain balance, to maintain self-es- teem, and to assimilate the data of experience. A good self-theory is one that carries out these func- tions effectively, while a poor self-theory does so inadequately. A failure of the self-theory to carry out any one of its functions places it under stress, and if the stress is great enough, the theory ultimately col- lapses. The corresponding subjective experience is a state of disorganization. Case histories of schizo- phrenics (cf. Kaplan, 1964) support the above analy- sis by indicating that states of mounting stress and ultimate disorganization often are preceded by unas-
similable experiences, feelings of failure and inade- quacy, or a prolonged period of unhappiness with no hope for the future. Collapse of a self-theory under stress, although it is a consequence of maladaption, can, in itself, be adaptive as it provides an opportu- nity for a more effective reorganization. The terror and incapacity that follow the collapse of the self-structure in schizophrenia, as well as the desper- ate need schizophrenics exhibit to establish a new structure, even if an unrealistic one, provide strong evidence for the importance of a self-theory in hu- man behavior.
THE NATURE OF THE POSTULATES
Postulates Inferred from the Structure of a
Self-Theory
Given the assumption that individuals have self theories which contain postulates that direct their be- havior, it follows that if an individual's behavior is to be understood, it is necessary to reconstruct his pos- tulate system. How is one to undertake this task? It is assumed that there are certain domains in which all people have postulates and other domains in which some people have postulates. Some of the more gen- eral domains can be identified by an analysis of the functions of the self-theory, namely, the maintenance of a favorable pleasure/ pain balance, the assimila- tion of the data of experience, and the maintenance of self-esteem. Accordingly, it can be surmised that every individual will have postulates that are assess- ments of where he stands on each of these variables. Organized under these postulates will be a hierarchi- cal arrangement of postulates of lesser generality. For example, under a postulate evaluating overall self-esteem, there will be second-order postulates relating to general competence, moral self-approval, power, and love worthiness. These postulates are pre- sumably common to all people, at least in Western society. Lower order postulates organized under competence include assessments of general mental and physical ability. The lowest order postulates un- der competence include assessments of specific abili- ties. As one moves from lower order to higher order postulates, the postulates become increasingly impor- tant to the maintenance of the individual's self-the- ory. It is assumed that the sum of the appraisals of the individual's ability to derive pleasure from life, to assimilate experience, and to maintain self-esteem determines the overall stability of his self-theory. Thus, a self-theory under minimum stress would be expected to contain higher order postulates such as the following: "I am basically a worthwhile human being"; "I know where I am going and what is ex-
pected of me"; "I expect to lead a happy life"; "I am a highly competent person"; "I like myself and con- sider myself to be a decent person"; "People who matter to me care a great deal about me." The corre- sponding postulate system for someone with a self-theory under a great deal of stress, and therefore subject to disorganization, might read as follows: "I am a worthless human being"; "Life is meaningless, and has nothing to offer me"; "I will never know hap- piness"; "I am incompetent, a total failure"; "I am a despicable human being"; "No one whom I respect could ever care for me."
Postulates Inferred from Emotions
One approach to identifying the concepts that or- ganize an individual's experience is to ask him about them. Rogers and his colleagues (cf. Rogers & Dy- mond, 1954) have used a p-soot technique in which individuals rate themselves on self-descriptive state- ments by distributing them in a quasinormal distribu- tion. Kelley (1955) analyzed the concepts that indi- viduals employ to identify likenesses and differences among triads of people they are asked to compare, such as mother, teacher, and close friend. Both ap- proaches require the individual to be able to identify consciously the concepts he uses. Neither approach is satisfactory from the viewpoint proposed here, which assumes that individuals are not necessarily aware of the significant postulates in their self-theories. Fortu- nately, the relationship between emotion and cogni- tion provides an indirect means of identifying an in- dividual's significant concepts. There are two ways in which emotions can be used to infer cognitions. One follows from the assumption that human emotions, at least for the main part, depend on interpretation of events (cf. Arnold, 1960; Epstein, 1967, 1972; Laza- rus, 1966; Schachter, 1964). Thus, if I make the in- terpretation that someone has wronged me and de- serves to be punished, I feel anger. If I interpret a situation as one that is threatening, and that I would like to escape from, I feel fear. If I make the interpre- tation that I am deprived of love or the satisfaction of some other need vital to my happiness, and have no hope that it will ever be fulfilled, I feel depressed. If I make the interpretation that love, or something else important to me, is being given to someone else in- stead of me, I feel jealousy. The point I wish to make is that, as each emotion implies an underlying cogni- tion, by knowing a person's emotional dispositions, it should be possible to reconstruct some of his major postulates. This, of course, presupposes sufficiently detailed knowledge about the relationship of cogni- tion to emotion, an area that has been receiving in- creasing attention.
The second, and probably more fruitful way of using emotions to infer postulates, follows from the assumption that for an emotion to occur, a postulate of significance to the individual must be implicated. It is assumed further that negative emotions arise when any of the functions of the self-theory is inter- fered with or is threatened. Included are threats to the assimilative capacity of the self-system, to self-es- teem, and to a favorable pleasure / pain balance. Positive emotions occur when any of these functions are facilitated or when it is anticipated that they will be. It is assumed that the stronger the positive or negative emotion, the more significant is the postu- late that is implicated for maintaining a function of the self-theory of the individual. Thus, if a woman is found to register strong anticipatory anxiety before a beauty contest and considerable unhappiness after not winning it, but little reaction before and after fail- ing an important examination, it can be inferred that, within her self-system, beauty is more important than academic achievement. This, of course, may appear to be self-evident, but the point is that if one were to ask her, she might well report having the opposite values. I believe that a systematic study of emotions in everyday life, including the situations that produce the emotions, provides a promising approach for ad- vancing knowledge of human behavior, in general, and one that can be used effectively by individuals to advance their own self-knowledge. My students and I have recently begun a research program in which people keep records of their emotions on a day-to-day basis on specially constructed forms over a protracted period of time. Although the data have not yet been formally analyzed, preliminary results are dramatically exciting. Not only does the tech- nique provide interesting new information on the re- lationship between emotions and underlying implicit cognitions, in general, but we have observed that awareness of such relationships in their own data by individuals can be highly therapeutic.
THE EMPIRICAL SELVES
In considering the structure of an individual's pos- tulate system, I have thus far discussed the nature of some general postulates that relate to the overall self-system. However, as noted earlier, the self-sys- tem is differentiated as well as integrated. It follows that, in considering structure, it is necessary to con- sider the subsystems, or different empirical selves, which retain a degree of independence despite being influenced by as well as influencing the generic self-system. Thus, the same overall level of self-es- teem may be achieved by high appraisal of the body self and low appraisal of the inferred inner self, as by
DEVELOPMENT OF AN INFERRED
INNER SELF
Once a body self has been developed, it facilitates the development of an inferred inner self, which is assumed to proceed in an analogous manner. While the level of conceptual ability required for the devel- opment of the inferred inner self can be assumed to be greater than that for the body self, as the elements are more abstract, the level of inference is still not very great.
Just as it is evident that some people are short and others tall, that some have loud voices and others soft voices, and that some wear their hair short and oth- ers. long, it is evident that people differ in behav- ioral characteristics, such as friendliness, aggressive- ness, and helpfulness. In identifying people physi- cally, one does not add up their separate characteris- tics, but recognizes a configuration. It is assumed that the same is true for identifying people's person- alities. Now, if one recognizes that people have sta- ble patterns of underlying personality attributes in- ferred from their repetitive behavior, then there is as much reason to assume that people have a personal- ity identity as that they have a body identity. It fol- lows, if others have personality identities and if one is a person, that one must have a personality identity also. Other sources for inferring an inner self include a feeling of continuity of experience, ego involve- ment, awareness of the need to defend some inner aspect of one's being against threat, awareness of un- derlying motives that need not be expressed, aware- ness of a tendency to automatically evaluate oneself, and awareness of emotions associated with self-es- teem. All of these imply the existence of an inner self that is different from the body self, invisible to the perception of others, yet very real.
Consider the experience that an individual has when his self-esteem is severely injured, such as when he is humiliated in the presence of people he wishes to impress. Such an experience is apt to be acutely distressing, to prevent the individual from sleeping nights, and to reverberate for months, years, and possibly a lifetime. Vv-here in the body does the hurt reside? Since it cannot be located in the body self, such experiences suggest the existence of some nonphysical aspect of the self that is more significant than the body self. The same argument can be made for positive experiences. When an individual has a feeling of joy because he has accomplished some- thing important to him, where in the body self does the pleasurable feeling reside? Unlike pleasant physi- cal stimulation, it cannot be attributed to the body
self. Accordingly, it suggests the existence of a non- physical self. Given the existence of a body image, the proclivity of people to think in concrete imagery, and the observation that there is something within the body that appears to have an identity of its own, it is not surprising that it is conceptualized as a spiritual homunculus rather than as a hierarchical organization of concepts that assimilates experience and guides behavior. This accounts for why belief in a soul has been so prevalent throughout human history.
The question may be raised as to what conditions impede the development of an inferred inner self. It can be assumed that one such condition is an absence of a feeling of control, as such a feeling provides one of the important sources for inferring an inner self. Further, since the inferred inner self has as its func- tions assimilating the data of experience, maintaining a favorable pleasure/pain balance, and maintaining self-esteem, it follows that any conditions that pre- vent the individual from achieving these functions should impede the development of an inferred inner self. Under certain circumstances, an inferred inner self might be a detriment to the individual as it could contribute to an unfavorable pleasure/pain balance. Consider the case of a child who is unconsciously, if not consciously, hated and who, if he were to inter- nalize the values of significant others, would hate himself. Consider, further, that the only attention he could hope to obtain would be when he failed in something. We are considering a situation in which the self-system, were it to develop, would have to be turned against the welfare of the individual, contrib- uting to low self-esteem and to an unfavorable pleas- ure/pain balance. It is hypothesized that under such circumstances, if extreme enough, a self system would not develop at all, while under less extreme circumstances, the development of a restricted or dis- torted self-system would occur.
DEVELOPMENT OF A MORAL SELF
The body self and the inferred inner self devel- oped because of their utility as conceptual tools for organizing, the data of experience: They would value even in a world in which individuals did not judge each other, and in which there was no reason to seek approval and avoid disapproval. The moral self, on the other hand, is presumed to develop only be- cause of the need to obtain approval and to avoid dis- approval. The child initially labels behavior that pleases him as good and behavior that displeases him as bad, much in the way that he labels sweet tasting food as good and bitter tasting food as bad. Up to this point, he has no moral self; his only concern is with
his own pleasure. This state of affairs, obviously, does not last very long. In order to fit into a society, he must be, taught to take into account the wishes of others. The parents, as the carriers of the culture, have the task of redefining what is good and what is bad, so that the child will feel that he is good when his behavior coincides with socially accepted mores and that he is bad when it does not. Whether they do so consciously or unconsciously, directly or indi- rectly, parents tend to withhold affection following behavior they disapprove of, and to bestow affection following behavior they approve of. Before long, the child receives the message that, operationally de- fined, good means what the parents approve of and bad means what the parents disapprove of. Further, good is associated with a feeling of being loved, and bad with a feeling of being unworthy of love. The child is now able to avoid open conflict with and dis- approval from others, as he has internalized the par- ents' values and can correct himself. He has become his own evaluator, feeling pleased with himself and loveworthy when he behaves according to his inter- nalized standards, and guilt ridden and unworthy of love when he violates these standards. Thus, he has developed a moral self which appears to him to have an identity of its own as it is not under his conscious control.
A problem which warrants special consideration in any treatment of the moral self is the existence of intense, irrational self-belittlement or self-hatred. It is known, for example, that people confess to serious crimes they could not have committed, and that in every mental hospital there are patients who com- plain of being the most despicable individuals who ever existed and who do not deserve to live. Freud accounted for this phenomenon by attributing it to hostility turned inward. More specifically, he be- lieved the depressed person has unacceptable hostile feelings toward a figure who denied him love, either purposely or unintentionally. By identifying with, or internalizing, this lost love object, the individual maintains the relationship, in a sense, and can then acceptably express his hostility toward the other per- son by directing it at himself. Its very complexity makes me doubt the generality of this explanation. I would like to suggest a simpler one, which rests on the assumption that a sudden drop in self-esteem is more distressing than a chronically low level of self-esteem. If this is true, then individuals who an- ticipate that their self-esteem will be lowered by oth- ers will tend to chronically devaluate themselves in order to prevent a greater discomfort. In more dra- matic cases, such as in psychotic depression, I be- lieve that Freud is correct in assuming that an uncon-
scious component is also involved. My explanation, however. is that the unacceptable feelings, which need not necessarily be hostile, produce an anticipa- tion of disapproval or loss of love from a significant other. However. the internalized values of the signifi- cant other define the individual's own values. Ac- cordingly, the individual withdraws approval from himself and treats himself as unworthy of love. Fur- ther, by retaining his self-evaluation at a low level, he is saved from concern over the greater pain of having it further lowered. This can account for why depressed people resist efforts to increase their self-esteem.
I believe the mechanism just described is of highly general significance, and can account for the relative stability of people's self-esteem if it is as- sumed that there are two fundamental tendencies that work in opposition to each other, thereby affecting a balance. One tendency is for the individual to wish to raise his self-esteem, as high self-esteem feels good. The other is for the individual to wish to avoid a drop in self-esteem, as a drop in self-esteem feels particu- larly bad. Accordingly, the individual avoids evaluat- ing himself unrealistically highly, as this would ex- pose him to decreases in self-esteem. As a result, it can be expected that even under the most favorable circumstances, self-esteem will tend to increase only gradually.
Implications
What is accomplished by the statement that the self-concept is identified more properly as a self the- ory? Does it contribute anything more than Sullivan's statement that the self is not an ego or an id, but a dynamism? I believe it solves a number of problems that could not be resolved by previous theories of the self, and that it has other significant implications as well.
- By recognizing that individuals have implicit theories about themselves as functioning individuals, it is possible to assimilate the views of phenomenolo- gists on the nature of the self-concept into a broader framework that should be acceptable to all psycholo- gists. When the self-concept is redefined as a self-theory, it can no longer be dismissed as unscien- tific, or as a reincarnation of the soul, unless one is also willing to dismiss theory, in general, as unscien- tific.
- The recognition that the self-theory is a theory solves the problem of how the self can be both the subject and object of what is known. All theories contain knowledge, yet influence the acquisition of
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