NARRATIVE

LIFE HISTORY
MODULE 11
UNDERSTANDING THE SELF
 SELF AND IDENTITY
For human beings, the self is what
happens when “I” encounters “Me.”

The central question of selfhood, then, is

this: How does a person understand
who he or she is?
 SELF AS AGENT
SELF AS ACTOR

Second, the self is a motivated agent,

First, the self may be seen as a social actor, who acts upon inner desires and
who enacts roles and displays traits by formulates goals, values, and plans to
performing behaviors in the presence of guide behavior in the future.
others.

SELF AS AUTHOR
Third, the self eventually becomes an autobiographical author, who
takes stock of life — past, present, and future — to create a story
about who I am, how I came to be, and where my life may be going.
the self is inherently reflexive—it reflects back
on itself
the self is both the I and the Me

—it is the knower, and it is what the

knower knows when the knower
reflects upon itself
 The Social Actor
◦ Shakespeare tapped into a deep truth about human nature
when he famously wrote, “All the world’s a stage, and all
the men and women merely players.”

◦ He was wrong about the “merely,” however, for there is

nothing more important for human adaptation than the
manner in which we perform our roles as actors in the
everyday theatre of social life.
 The Social Actor
attributing traits to the self: “honest,” “moody,”
“shy”

ascribing social roles to the self: “I am a good

student,” “I am the oldest daughter,” or “I am a
good friend”

Traits and roles are the main currency of the self

as social actor
 Freud used the term “ego” to refer to an executive self in the
personality.

Coming from a more sociological Erikson(1963) argued that experiences

perspective, Mead(1934) suggested that of trust and interpersonal attachment in
the I comes to know the Me through the first year of life help to consolidate
reflection, which may begin quite literally the autonomy of the ego in the second.
with mirrors but later involves the
reflected appraisals of others, as other
people function like mirrors.
The Motivated Agent

Observers can never fully know what is

in the actor’s head, no matter how
closely they watch.

We can see actors act, but we cannot

know for sure what they want or what
they value.
THE MOTIVATED AGENT
the self as a motivated agent prioritizes the
motivational qualities of human behavior—
the inner needs, wants, desires, goals, values,
plans, programs, fears, and aversions that
seem to give behavior its direction and
purpose
 To be an agent is to act with direction and purpose, to move forward into the future
in pursuit of self-chosen and valued goals.

◦ For adolescents and young adults, establishing ◦ Committing oneself to an

a psychologically efficacious identity involves
integrated suite of life goals
exploring different options with respect to life
goals, values, vocations, and intimate and values is perhaps the
relationships and eventually committing to a greatest achievement for
motivational and ideological agenda for adult the self as motivated agent.
life—an integrated and realistic sense of what
I want and value in life and how I plan to
achieve it (Kroger & Marcia, 2011).
 LIFE STORY
6 PRINCIPLES
MODULE 11.1
UNDERSTANDING THE SELF
 Principle 1: The Self is Storied
◦ Invoking William James’ famous
distinction between the “I” and the “me”
◦ The “I” as the knower and the “me” as
the subject to be known
◦ The self is both the storyteller and the
stories
◦ Life stories are always about both the
reconstructed past and the imagined
future
Principle 2: Stories Integrate Lives
◦ Life stories provide personal integration in an ever-
changing, multifaceted, contradictory social world

◦ First, stories bring together different self ascribed traits,

roles, goals into a synchronic pattern of the person as a
complex whole

◦ Second, stories provide diachronic integration through

time, as the story shows how a person moved from A to
B to C in life
◦ Autobiography is an exercise
in putting things together into
a narrative pattern that affirms
life meaning and purpose
 Principle 3: Stories are Told in Social
Relationships
People tell stories

◦ Stories are social phenomena told in accord with

societal expectations and norms

◦ In the performative aspect of life storytelling, stories

need to be understood in the context of the perceived
listener or audience

◦ Storytellers position themselves differently to different

listeners
Principle 4: Stories Change over Time
Autobiographical memory is unstable, changing the life
story over time
As people accumulate new experiences over time, and
people’s positions change over time, memories of events
and their meaning also change over time
*People construct and reconstruct their life story over
time *
Hence, the life story is a person’s construction of the self
at a given moment in time
 Principle 5: Stories are Cultural Texts
Life stories mirror the culture wherein the story
is created and told
Stories live in culture and a culture shapes what
is a tellable life
Stories may vary across cultures, across gender
and class, across power positions
Stories may carry dominant cultural discourses
or alternatively, resist them through counter-
narratives
 Principle 6: Some Stories are Better Than
Others
◦ A life story suggests a moral perspective with
the characters as moral agents – as “good” or
“bad” from a societal standpoint
◦ From a psychological standpoint, a disrupted
and disorganized life story can be reformulated
and repaired through a form of retelling or
narrative therapy
 ◦ Life stories can narrate suffering,
growth, and self-transformation, that can
lead to insight and well-being
◦ Storytelling can make sense of negative
life events towards constructing a
positive meaning or resolution – the
story of redemption and the self
redeemed
Freud argued that dreams are the “royal road to the unconscious”
McAdams argues that life stories are the road to knowing the self,
to knowing who we are

for the “I” to know the “me”