Unity and Modularity in the Mind and Self

Studies on the Relationships between Self-awareness, Personality, and Intellectual Development from Childhood to Adolescence

Andreas Demetriou, Smaragda Kazi

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781134696017
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

This book explores the relationships between intellectual development, self and personality, and proposes a comprehensive theory which answers such fundamental questions as: how do humans become aware of themselves? How do people come to know and influence each other? These questions are answered on the basis of four empirical studies, highlighting the development of self-awareness in those aged from 10 to 20 years.

1 Introduction

From cognitive structures to mind, personality and self

The construct of the self comprises all self-descriptions that individuals hold about themselves, as well as all self-prescriptions that they direct to themselves. Self-representations reflect the individuals’ concept of their own personhood in its various characteristics, functions, talents, proclivities, and abilities. They also involve the individuals’ representations, fantasies, and ideations of how they would like themselves to be, especially in those abilities, characteristics, functions, talents, and proclivities which are most important for them. Finally, this construct may also involve the individuals’ strategies for self-modification and self-realization. As such, the construct of the self is very important because it influences the individuals’ actual behaviour, their motivation to initiate or disrupt activities, and their feelings about themselves. In other words, the self-construct influences the individuals’ chosen course of life, their efficiency in following this course, and the satisfaction they derive from it.

Because of its theoretical and practical importance, the study of the self has been the focus of a number of different traditions in psychology since the turn of the 20th century. The study of the self figured prominently in the early work on thought and intellectual development (Baldwin, 1894; James, 1892), in the work of the symbolic interactionists, which focused primarily on the enculturation and the socialization of the individual (Cooley, 1902; Mead, 1925), the work of the psychodynamic school which focused on the emotional and dynamic aspects of the formation of personality (Freud, 1923), and in the work of the early students of personality who explored the links among motives, personality, and the self (Allport, 1937).

The study of the self fell into disrepute during the dominance of behaviourism. The study of the self requires the investigation of internal and subjective phenomena, while behaviourism accepts only observables as legitimate objects of scientific study (see Harter, 1998, 1999). However, the fall of behaviourism, with the concomitant dominance of the cognitive revolution, has brought the self back into focus. Nowadays, cognitive (Neisser, 1994; Sternberg, 1988), developmental (Case, 1991; Fischer and Aboud, 1993; Higgins, 1987, 1991; Moretti and Higgins, 1990; Damon and Hart, 1986), educational (Boeckaerts, 1997; Nicholls, 1990) and social and cross-cultural psychologists (Bandura, 1989, 1990; Triandis, 1989) work in close liaison with the mainstream researchers of the self (Brown, 1998; Emmons, 1995; Epstein, 1973, 1991; Harter, 1998, 1999; Markus and Wurf, 1987; Markus and Kityama, 1991; McAdams, 1995), in order to highlight the organization, dynamics, functions, functioning, and development of the self.

It is beyond the scope of this book to review all of the literature in the field. Therefore, this introduction will focus on research and theorizing which is directly relevant to the studies to be presented here. Specifically, the studies examined the following questions:

1 To what extent are developing persons able to evaluate their own performance in a number of different cognitive domains, such as mathematical, spatial, causal, or social thought?

2 How do developing persons represent themselves in regard to these domains? That is, do they posses a map of self-representations in which different cognitive functions and abilities are separately represented and which can be called upon when the individuals need to act or speak about themselves?

3 How is this map organized and how does it relate to actual cognitive performance? That is, does it reflect the organization of actual cognitive performance or is it organized in ways specific to the self-representation system?

4 How do persons’ actual cognitive capabilities and self-profiles interact to influence their more dynamic characteristics, such as their ambitions and their preferred life-styles and orientations? In other words, how is mind related to personality?

5 How do developing persons’ self-representations interact with the representations held about them by important others, such as their parents? That is, how are one’s self-representations about a variety of domains shaped in relation to others’ representations?

6 What of the self, how, and why does it change with development in each of the dimensions mentioned above?

In short, the studies to be presented in this book aimed to highlight what persons know and think about their own mind during critical years of development, and how this knowledge and these thoughts relate both to the actual organization of mind and to the knowledge and thoughts that important others hold about them. Moreover, the studies aimed to show how these representations interact with more dynamic aspects of the self, such as personality attributes, preferred thinking or activity styles and orientations, which are, of course, factors of self-development. Therefore, this introduction will review literature related to: (i) the composition and structure of the self-concept; (ii) the development of the processes and functions involved; and (iii) the factors that contribute to the formation of the self-concept. The aim of this review is to show how the present studies build on earlier work in order to highlight phenomena that are still not fully understood.

The structure of the self

The basic architecture of the self-system

The basic postulates of James’s (1890, 1892) theory about the structure of the self are still accepted by modern theories of the self, albeit using a different terminology. James (1890, 1892) was the first to describe the self as a hierarchical and multi-dimensional construct. Specifically, James proposed that the self involves two hierarchical levels, the “I-self” and the “Me-self”. The I-self is the knower, and as such includes all self-observation and self-recording processes which generate the knowledge that we have about ourselves. This knowledge is the Me-self, which, according to James, involves three aspects: a material self, a social self, and a spiritual self. The material self subsumes our representations about our body and our possessions. The social self refers to all characteristics recognized by others. The spiritual self involves our thoughts and dispositions about ourselves, both descriptive and evaluative. James believed that the three aspects of the Me-self are also organized hierarchically, with the material self at the lowest level and the spiritual self at the top. It is argued below that this hierarchical conception of the self is still accepted by modern theories of the self. It may also be noted that James forecast the current view of the domain-specificity or modularity of the various aspects and components of the self with his disclaimer that various, apparently incompatible, self-descriptions or self-representations may be held simultaneously. It is not uncommon, for example, to see people with positive self-representations in the academic domain and negative self-representations in the domain of physical appearance.

James’s distinction between a knowing (the I-self) and a known self (the Me-self) is present in modern cognitive, social, and neuropsychological theories of the self. Specifically, in Markus’s model (see Markus and Wurf, 1987) the working self-concept is differentiated from the collection of self-representations possessed by the individual. The working self-concept is directly involved in the formation and control of behaviour at both the intra- and the inter-personal level. At the intra-personal level, the working self-concept is believed to influence the following functions:

i Information processing, that is, it enhances sensitivity to self-relevant stimuli thereby contributing to better processing of self-congruent stimuli and it shields out or twists of self-incongruent stimuli.

ii Self-regulation, that is, it causes changes in overt behaviour but also adjustments in the self-concept itself.

iii Motivation, that is, it orients the system to choices conducive to self-actualisation and self-enhancement.

At the inter-personal level, the working self-concept is considered to influence the following functions:

i Social perception, that is, it is used as a filter for the interpretation and the evaluation of others’ behaviour.

ii Situation and partner choice, that is, different styles of self-monitoring orient the person to different types of everyday activities.

iii Interaction strategies, that is, the behaviour and the signals emitted during interpersonal interactions are intentionally formulated so as to transmit a particular identity to the partner.

With regard to its content, the working self-concept involves any presently accessible self-representations. Therefore, in this model, the working self-concept is the active part of the self. As such, it assumes the functions of the Jamesian I-self, which generates self-descriptions which belong to the Jamesian Me-self.

The cognitive aspects of the self-system

What cognitive processes are involved in the self-as-knower of itself? And how exactly are the various functions, processes, and abilities, which comprise the self-as-known, represented and organized? Our model provides an answer to these questions. This model, which is illustrated in Figure 1.1, depicts the mind as a hierarchical edifice comprising three main levels. First, there is a very basic level of processing potentials related to information-processing as such. Second, there is an environment-oriented level, which involves cognitive systems that represent and process information from different domains in the environment. Third, there is a self-oriented level, which involves processes and knowledge guiding self-understanding, understanding of other minds, and self-regulation. The term “hypercognitive system” has been coined to refer to this level. The adverb “hyper” in Greek means “higher than” or “on top of” or “going beyond”, and when added to the word “cognitive” indicates the supervising and co-ordinating functions of the hypercognitive system (Demetriou, 1998a, 1998b, 2000; Demetriou and Efklides, 1994; Demetriou, Efklides, and Platsidou, 1993a).

The processing system

This system is defined in terms of three parameters: “speed of processing”, “control of processing”, and “working memory” (see panel B of Figure 1.1). Speed of processing basically refers to the maximum speed at which a given mental act may be efficiently executed. Usually, in tests of speed of processing (Jensen, 1998), the individual is asked to recognize a simple stimulus as quickly as possible, for example, to name a letter or read single words in one’s nature language. Under these conditions, speed of processing indicates the time needed by the system to record and give meaning to information. Traditionally, the faster an individual can recognize the stimulus, the more efficient his processing system is thought to be.

The information that is of value or interest at one particular moment seldom appears alone – it usually coexists alongside other information which must be distinguished and ignored. The control function refers to the processes that identify and register goal-relevant information and block out dominant or appealing but actually irrelevant information. Control of processing determines the system’s efficiency in selecting the appropriate mental act. This function is usually tested under conditions that can generate conflicting interpretations, such as the well-known Stroop phenomenon (Stroop, 1935). In this test, words denoting colour are written with a different ink colour (i.e. the word “red” written with blue ink), and the individual is asked to name the ink colour as quickly as possible. These conditions accurately test control of processing, because the subject is required to inhibit a dominant but irrelevant response (to read the word) in order to select and emit a weaker but relevant response (name the ink colour) (Demetriou et al., 1993; Dempster and Brainerd, 1995; Houghton and Tipper, 1994).

Finally, once information is selected and encoded, it must be actively represented in relation to the present problem. Storage refers to the processes which enable a person to hold information in an active state while integrating it with other information until the current problem is solved. A common measure of the storage function is the maximum amount of information and mental acts that the mind can efficiently activate simultaneously. Our conception of the processing system builds on and integrates the work of a number of other scholars in the neo-Piagetian and the information processing tradition (Baddeley, 1991; Case, 1985; Case, Okamoto, Griffin, McKeough, Bleiker, Henderson, and Stephenson, 1996; Halford, 1993; Kail, 1988; Pascual-Leone, 1970).

The reader may wonder how these low-level processes relate to the high-level construct of personality and the self, which are the focus of the present book. It suffices to say here that the studies to be presented in this book aim to test the assumption that the condition of these processes contributes directly and indirectly to the formation of both one’s own self-representations of intellectual efficiency and the representations of important others. In turn, these effects are transferred to many other domains of cognitive and social functioning because they direct the individual to choose activities which appear to them suitable for their perceived level of efficiency.

The environment-oriented systems

In as far as the environment-oriented level is concerned, empirical research in our laboratory has initially identified and delineated five environment-oriented systems (see panel A of Figure 1.1) (Demetriou and Efklides, 1985, 1989; Demetriou, Efklides, Papadaki, Papantoniou, and Economou, 1993b; Demetriou, Pachaury, Metallidou, and Kazi, 1996; Demetriou, Platsidou, Efklides, Metallidou, and Shayer, 1991; Demetriou et al., 1993a; Demetriou and Kargopoulos, 1998a, 1998b; in preparation; Shayer, Demetriou, and Prevez, 1988).

1 The categorical-analytic system deals with similarity-difference relations. It involves processes that enable the thinker to compare stimuli and specify their similarities and differences, and build concepts able to represent them. Thus, this system underlies abilities such as classification and analogical reasoning.

2 The quantitative-relational system deals with quantitative variations and relations. Numerical operations are the primary operations involved in this system. Other, more complex processes, such as proportional or algebraic reasoning, are used to process more complex quantitative aspects of the environment, experienced or represented. Thus, this system constitutes the ground for mathematical thinking.

3 The carnal-experimental system deals with cause-effect relations. It involves processes such as hypothesis formation, hypothesis testing by experimentation, and construction of models able to express the causal structure of the phenomenon of interest. Thus, this system underlies scientific thinking.

4 The spatial-imaginal system deals with orientation in space and the imaginal representation of the environment. This system involves processes such as mental rotation, scanning, and transformation of mental images. Thus, this system underlies the ability to build mental models of the environment and of one’s own actions and characteristics.

5 The verbal-propositional system deals with the truth and falsity and the validity and invalidity in the flow of information in verbal statements or in systems that represent the environment. This system involves operations underlying deductive reasoning, such as implication, transitivity, incompatibility, etc. Thus, this system underlies the ability to transmit information systematically but also to check if the information transmitted by others is systematic and consistent.

Recent research in our laboratory, following the work of other scholars (e.g. Case, 1992; Case et al., 1996) has identified two other systems:

6 The social-interpersonal system deals with the relations between individuals. This system involves operations and processes that enable understanding and manipulation of the forces underlying social interactions, such as motives and intentions (Demetriou, Kazi, and Georgiou, 1999).

7 The drawing-pictographic. This system involves multiple skills and operations which integrate many of the systems above into an idiosyncratic whole which is particular to humans. That is, this system makes use of imaginal and kinetic processes and abilities for the sake of the pictorial representation of the relations associated with any of the systems summarized above. Through this system humans can represent their environment or their thoughts themselves by the production of drawings or any other kind of signs (Bonoti, 1998; Loizos, 1992).

The organization of these systems obeys the following principles. First, these systems are considered to be domain-specific. That is, each specializes in the representation and processing of different types of relationships in the environment. Second, the systems are procedurally specific. That is, each system involves different types of mental operations and processes. These reflect the peculiarities of the relations which characterize the system’s domain of reality. Contrast, for instance, arithmetic operations with mental rotation. Third, the systems are symbolically biased. That is, each system makes use of symbols, such as mental images, numbers, or language that are also domain-appropriate; information related to space, for example, is best represented through mental images, whereas information on quantitative relations is best represented through mathematical notation. Finally, the systems are functionally and developmentally autonomous, at least to a certain extent. That is, each system can function without the support of the others systems to process its own domain and it may follow partially independent or idiosyncratic developmental course in relation to pace and forms of change. Because of these characteristics, the systems are called specialized capacity systems (SCSs).

According to the theory, these systems are themselves hierarchically organized. Specifically, each of them is considered to include the following components:

1 Core or kernel elements that are more or less innately determined. Subitization or the recognition of small numbers, the perception of causality, the perception of depth, or the early preference for the human face, may be taken as examples of core elements of the quantitative, the causal, the spatial, and the social SCSs, respectively. Core elements remain relatively unchanged during development, although they improve to a certain extent, especially at the early phases of development. Thus, they form the background for the development of operating rules and knowledge to be described next.

2 Operating rules and computational processes. Arithmetic operations, hypothesis testing, mental rotation, and communication skills are examples of operations...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Unity and Modularity in the Mind and the Self
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of tables
• List of figures
• Acknowledgements
• Preface
• Foreword
• 1. Introduction: from cognitive structures to mind, personality and self
• 2. Study 1: Structure and development of cognitive abilities, self-evaluation and self-representation
• 3. Results I: Levels, dimensions, and domains in performance, self-evaluation, and self-representation
• 4. Results II: Development and individual differences in cognitive abilities, self-evaluation, and self-representation
• 5. Study 2: Families of mind: relationships between children’s self-representations and parents representations about them
• 6. Study 3: From processing speed to self-representation
• 7. Study 4: Cognitive self-image, thinking styles and the big five factors of personality
• 8. General discussion: the emerging self: the convergence of mind, personality, and self
• Appendix
• Bibliography
• Index