According to crittendon’s model, infants encode early experiences of care-giving in the form of

HN 501 CHAPTER 5:

The Emerging Self and Socialization in the Early Years “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the real me, after all?” Philosophers, poets, wicked stepmothers, and ordinary human beings have pondered versions of this question ever since the ancient Greeks advised, “Know thyself.” The search for self embodies within it many of the profound questions at the heart of the human condition: What is the nature of human consciousness? Are we the same or different across situations and over time? How do people come to understand and accept who they are? Modern cultures, as we have noted, are not the first to express interest in these matters. Nonetheless, critics have raised concerns that the level of attention directed toward the self has increased in recent decades. Note the amount of press devoted to the ideas of self-concept, self-esteem, self-enhancement, and self-actualization, and you might agree that we have become downright self-centered! Those of us in the helping professions are no exception to this trend. Even a cursory review of the professional literature in clinical and educational fields reveals an intense interest in topics related to the self. Therapeutic approaches that emphasize self-development are very common. Educational institutions struggle to incorporate self-development into their more traditional academic objectives. Popular magazines are saturated with advice about self-concept and self-esteem. All together, the pieces add up to a crazy quilt: part folklore, part research, part anecdote, and part good intention. Our task in this chapter is to unscramble some of this information and present the self in its developmental context. Helpers need to understand the research findings in this critically important area lest they assume that all of our popular, contemporary notions about self-development are valid. For example, the postmodern focus on individualism might convey the idea that the self is truly independent and autonomous when, in fact, it is largely a product of social interaction. Bowlby (e.g., 1969/1982) suggested that working models of the self develop in concert with working models of attachment figures. Erikson (1950/1963) developed the idea that when others respond sensitively to their needs, children develop concepts of themselves as valuable. Cultural groups differ in their emphasis on an autonomous self. So self-development, despite our Western predilection for thinking of the self as independent, occurs in interaction with others and is influenced by culture and context. In this chapter, we will describe the earliest roots of self-development from a Western scientific perspective and emphasize the importance of parenting to this process. As we will see, the role of caretakers is of major significance in the development of many of the processes related to the self. We will also take a look at cultural approaches to specific parenting behaviors, such as discipline. THE SELF-SYSTEM: TRADITIONAL CONCEPTIONS The self and its development are complicated, abstract topics. Writers still grapple with the question of what constitutes a self. In their search for answers, theorists and researchers need to account for the fact that selves are multifaceted and possess elements of both stability and change. If you have ever said that you are not the same person that you were some time ago, you can understand this point. Recently, writers have begun to use the term self-system to replace “self,” because the latter seems too unidimensional (see Damon & Hart, 1988). The self-system includes aspects related to the self, such as self-concept, self-regulation, and self-esteem. The notion of an independent entity called “self” is such a deeply embedded concept in Western psychology that we tend to take it for granted. Therefore, it may be surprising to learn that the psychologies of other cultures (e.g., Buddhist psychology) take a decidedly different view. In Buddhist psychology, mind and matter change continually, and this impermanence is influenced by surrounding conditions (Bodhi, 1999). The Buddhist concept of “no-self” (anatta) does not imply that our conventional use of “self” is not helpful or that you and I are not real in some way. Rather, it emphasizes the transient nature of our phenomenological experience as human beings. The self is constantly being constructed in the moment-to-moment flow of experience. This insight is at the core of recent therapies that offer ways to alleviate the suffering that can come from our human tendency to protect and defend reified concepts about ourselves (see Olendzki, 2010). The view of “no-self” is quite different from that of classic Western psychology, which assumes a relatively permanent construct that can be studied over time. We will begin our look at the nature of the self-system within Western psychology with a brief description of the classic work of James, Cooley, and Mead. William James (1890) made a distinction between the “I” and the “Me,” a distinction that is still used productively in contemporary research about the self. That part of the self called “I” refers to the I-Self/self-as-subject, as active agent, or as the knower. It is that part of the self that experiences a sense of subjective self-awareness. The part called “Me” is that part of the self that is the object of self or others’ observations, or in other words, the part that is known. One might think of the “Me” part of the self (Me-Self) as the Me-Self/self-concept. Implicit in James’s traditional construction of selfhood is the idea that the self is multidimensional. Freud (1956) once wrote that a person could be construed as a whole “cast of characters.” Interestingly, this view of the multiplicity of selves was rejected by a number of influential writers in the first half of the 20th century. Gergen (1971) described the emphasis placed on the importance of maintaining a unified, coherent self by important therapists and scholars such as Horney (1950), Jung (1928), Maslow (1954), and Rogers (1951). Considerable recent evidence, however, has not supported the view of the unified self but has demonstrated that individuals vary across situations, that they may possess conflicting self-ideas that speak with different voices at different times, and that the self-concept differentiates with maturity. A basic feature of the self, then, is that it incorporates both the private and the more public sides of our nature, accommodating our ability to keep our own counsel and still be known to others by virtue of our interactions with them. Recently, writers have developed alternative ways of categorizing the classic “I–Me” distinction. Among these are Lewis’s (1994) subjective and objective self-awareness, Case’s (1991) implicit and explicit self, and Neisser’s (1993) ecological and remembered self. All the newer contrasts share the original distinction between the self as knower and the self as known. Furthermore, there is consensus between classic and contemporary theorists that the “I” self emerges first. What specifically does the “I” comprise? James proposed that this is the side of the self that experiences continuity over time. Even though we all grow and change, we know we embody core elements of the same “self” throughout our lifetime. The “I” also recognizes the distinctiveness of the self as a person compared to other persons. You know where you end and the person sitting next to you begins. Finally, the “I” reflects agency or is that part of the self that engages in self-directed activity, self-control, and contemplation of the “Me.” With time, these elements will be explored and further consolidated in the adolescent search for identity. The “Me” includes all those attributes that are used to define the self and that make up the self-concept. In James’s typology, these are the “material self,” the “social self,” and the “spiritual self,” ranked in that order of importance from lowest to highest. The material self encompasses a person’s physical characteristics and material possessions. The social self includes her social standing, her reputation, and those personal characteristics that are recognized by others, such as gregariousness or stubbornness. The spiritual self, viewed by James as the most precious, incorporates her qualities of character, beliefs, and personal values. Self-concept, as defined here, is distinct from self-esteem. The former is a description of personal attributes. The latter is one’s evaluation of these attributes, or the positive or negative valence associated with those attributes. Valence refers to the affective value of a characteristic, either good, bad, or neutral. James believed that self-esteem is more than just the measure of accomplishments. Rather, he believed that it depends upon the number of successes we enjoy relative to our aspirations, or, in his terminology, pretensions. Pretensions are goals that we choose to meet for ourselves because of their personal importance. For example, if it is highly important to you to be popular and socially active, the lack of a date for an important New Year’s Eve party can be a real blow to your self-esteem. However, if you really care more about earning enough money to become rich at an early age, you might consider working overtime on New Year’s Eve to be highly congruent with your aspirations. Your dateless condition is less damaging to your self-esteem. Failures or even successes in areas that are relatively unimportant to us may be discounted and will have less effect on self-esteem. If James provided ideas about the structure of the self that resonate with contemporary theorizing, Charles Cooley (1902) introduced a developmental perspective that describes how interactions with others help construct the self-system. Using his now-famous metaphor of the “looking-glass self,” Cooley described the process of self-development as one that originates from observing the reflected appraisals of others, primarily attachment figures. Cooley hypothesized that this process consists of three steps. As we interact with others, we first imagine how we must appear to the other person on a certain dimension, such as intelligence. Then, we interpret or imagine how that other person evaluates us on that certain dimension. Finally, we experience some emotional response to that perceived evaluation. The resulting interpretation and its affective valence constitute a building block for constructing self-knowledge. So it is that our self-representations are shaped and given affective valences by the significant people in our life. Let’s consider a simplified example of a young child’s display of affection for a parent. A 4-year-old girl approaches her father to give him a hug. The father, preoccupied with a pressing business matter, looks annoyed by the interruption. He gives her a quick hug and returns to his work. If this type of sequence is repeated on a regular basis across various situations, the child may come to develop a “self-idea” that she is bothersome and not important enough to interrupt her father’s work. She may begin to construct a vague impression of herself as unappealing or possibly too emotionally expressive or dependent. Because the child perceives the emotion and interprets her father’s response as impatient and irritated, her view of the event includes a self-appraisal—presumably that she is irritating—that is incorporated into her self-system. With repeated experience, the youngster comes to regard herself in certain ways by looking at the mirror of her parent’s view of her, warped though that mirror might be. The emotional valence associated with this aspect of the child’s self-image can be unpleasant or uncomfortable. This self-representation may serve as a standard for her behavior in social interactions (e.g., in her willingness to express her need for attention and affection from others) and inform her sense of right and wrong. Now imagine this same little girl in another family. She interrupts her father to give him a hug, and he beams, expressing evident satisfaction in his daughter’s affectionate nature. This child’s self-concept is likely to include a positively valenced sense of being emotionally expressive. The same child and the same behavior could lead to different social responses in different families, setting the child’s developing sense of self, relationships, and morality on a different pathway. Thus early attachment and parenting interactions have been viewed as instrumental in the development of individual differences in self-concept (Sroufe, 1996). Although the development of the self is obviously influenced by many factors and is extraordinarily complex, Cooley believed that it was largely the product of social influences. Recent researchers have investigated the possibility that the sequence Cooley proposed can also operate in reverse order, namely that a positive appraisal of oneself can generate positive interpretations of others’ appraisals. George Herbert Mead (1934) expanded on Cooley’s work, enlarging the scope of influence to include the role of language and society in shaping the self-system. He held that the self-idea, or self-concept, becomes internalized or “generalized” through repeated interactions with others of the same cultural group. The individual adopts the perspective of others who share the same societal perspective, producing a kind of ecological self (Neisser, 1993). An example of this phenomenon is provided by Markus and Kitayama (1991), who found cultural differences in preferred ways of viewing the self. In their study, Japanese were more likely to describe themselves by emphasizing their affiliations, such as family membership, whereas Americans used self-descriptors that emphasized their individuality. Children not only adopt descriptive information about the self from their cultural milieu, they also incorporate those standards, rules, and goals that their family and their culture have determined to be appropriate ways of behaving and thinking (Stipek, Recchia, & McClintic, 1992). Note the parallels between Mead’s approach and Vygotsky’s (see Chapter 3). These classic formulations of the self as multidimensional, as influenced by the reflected appraisals of significant others, and as shaped by the cultural milieu, provide a foundation for current Western thinking about the self-system. You may have noticed that conceptions of self and of morality overlap in these models. Damon and Hart (1992) have noted: Children cannot know themselves without some sense of the other. Nor can they forge their self-identities without an awareness of their own values. Moreover, at all developmental periods, social activities derive from—and in turn shape—judgments about the self, other, and morality. In these and many other ways, self-understanding, social interaction, and morality are intertwined in a developing psychological system that grows and changes throughout the life span. (p. 421) Self-understanding is one of the key building blocks of personality, social, and moral development. How does this mysterious self begin? In the next section, we will review the earliest stages of developing self-awareness. THE EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF THE SELF-SYSTEM The Beginnings of the “I” and the “Me” Settling on a time that marks the beginning of the self is a difficult task because various aspects of the self emerge at different rates and may be identified differently depending upon one’s theoretical viewpoint. A child’s ability to describe herself as “smart” or “funny” will not be apparent until several years after birth. Does this mean there is no sense of self until the time when she can recognize and articulate her personal characteristics? Most contemporary developmentalists would disagree with this idea. In general, the development of self is viewed as a gradually unfolding process, beginning at birth and lasting throughout life. Even adults continue to grow and change, thus experiencing self-development. However, the adult sense of self is far more differentiated than that of the infant, or even that of the articulate preschooler. What are the competencies of the infant that make self-development possible? How do these competencies interact with the social relationships that ultimately give birth to the self as a manifestation of personal consciousness? Precursors of Self-Awareness in Infancy—the “Pre-Self” We might say that the newborn’s capacities for rudimentary information processing and social bonding provide the building material out of which the self is born. For example, one early competency is the infant’s capacity for imitation. As we saw in Chapter 3, babies can imitate the facial gestures of adults a few days after birth (Meltzoff, 1990). When a baby imitates an adult opening and closing his mouth, she is detecting, at least at a behavioral level, similarity between herself and the adult model. Meltzoff argues that such early imitative skills are precursors of the older child’s ability to draw parallels between her own and another person’s mind or feelings. A sensitive caregiver responds to this infant’s signals, allowing the child to take control of the meal. This type of behavior encourages development of a strong sense of an autonomous self. As we saw in Chapter 4, from birth through the first half year of life, the infant is primarily engaged in the business of regulating physiological and emotional states, largely in the context of infant–caregiver interactions. Young infants have limited power to regulate a caregiver’s responses, and so it is primarily the caregiver’s responsibility to scaffold interactions, providing the sensitive care that allows for the establishment of routines. Meltzoff (1990) argues that from the regularity and reliability of caregiver–infant interactions babies extract notions of “self-invariance” and “other invariance,” which precede self-awareness. We might say that the infant comes to possess a pre-self, composed of early inklings of the permanence of her body, its separateness from others, and the rhythms of interpersonal connections. Gradually, over the second half year, the infant assumes more control in signaling the caregiver to provide for her needs. The regularity with which the caregiver is available and sensitive or unavailable and insensitive is stored in memory in what Stern (1985) calls representations of interactions (RIGs). These are “procedural” representations or schemata—preverbal, unconscious, and a kind of sensorimotor memory. They are patterns generalized from the repetitive nature of caregiver–infant interactions. When the infant’s attempts to exert some control over caregiver contingencies are successful, she is thought to experience a budding sense of mastery or self-efficacy (Bandura, 1990). She takes pleasure in expressing the agentic “I.” Imagine the lesson learned by an infant who, when she coos and babbles, regularly attracts the smiles and responsive vocalizations of her caregivers. This baby’s world, in some small way, begins to come under her control. She might encode the message, “When I am upset or need attention, my parent responds and takes care of me.” Again, the infant does not represent these ideas linguistically, but rather encodes these kinds of organized sequences as procedural models or patterns of the self-in-relationship. Affective responses, such as feelings of love and relief, also become associated with these memories. The infant’s self-system is under construction. As the infant approaches the end of the 1st year, other cognitive and affective developments point to an increasing sense of self as separate from the caretaker. We saw in Chapter 4 that by about 8 to 10 months infants display separation anxiety, signaling the formation of an attachment to the primary caregiver. For example, they might show distress even at an impending separation from an attachment figure, perhaps by looking anxiously at the door when the babysitter arrives. Many babies cry and cling to a departing caregiver. These behaviors serve to maintain proximity, and they demonstrate the infant’s recognition that the caregiver is separate from herself. Attachment theorists like Bowlby assume that the attachment between infant and caregiver gives rise to a sense of security and optimism in an infant, what Erikson described as a burgeoning trust in others and an early sense of self-worth. From this perspective, when the 1-year-old begins to use the caregiver as a secure base from which to explore the environment, we are seeing the emergence of a kind of preliminary sense of self-worth. Once