Self Continuity

Individual and Collective Perspectives

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• Publisher: Psychology Press
• Year: 2010
• eBook ISBN: 9781135599287
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

This volume is the first to bring together the fast-growing research on self-continuity from multiple perspectives within and beyond social psychology.

The book covers individual and collective aspects of self-continuity, while a final section explores the relationship between these two forms. Topics include environmental and cultural influences on self-continuity; the interplay of autobiographical memory and personal self-continuity; the psychological function of self-continuity; personal and collective self-continuity; and resistance to change. The volume is rounded off with commentaries on the central issues and themes that have been discussed.

The book provides a unique sourcebook for this important topic and will appeal not only to upper-level students and researchers in social psychology, but, in view of the multiple perspectives represented in the volume, it will also appeal to cognitive, developmental, and personality psychologists.

1

Introduction and Overview

FABIO SANI

I remember climbing, when I was a child, up the old cherry tree in my house garden to grab the juicier, redder-looking cherries. I am now an adult and left that house long ago. Besides, I do not think I could even still climb trees with such agility. Nonetheless, I have no doubt that I am the same person as that brisk and gluttonous child. What is more, I am sure that in the future—assuming I will not suffer from some serious mental illness—I will have a sense of being the same person as the one I am today. Clearly, I retain a sense that deep inside, beneath the turbulence of the surface—the alterations of my body and the constant reshuffling of my desires, aspirations, fears, sentiments, and beliefs—I am now the same sentient and living being that I was in the past and that I will be in the future. I have a clear, unmistakable sense of my own endurance through time, a sense of sameness and self continuity.

But I am not unusual. A sense of temporal continuity is an inherent feature of the human self. After all, without a sense of permanence it would be hard to have a personal identity at all. As aptly observed by the philosopher Charles Taylor, “in order to have a sense of who we are, we have to have a notion of how we have become and of where we are going” (1989, p. 47). For centuries, thinkers interested in the nature of consciousness and the self—mostly philosophers and, more recently, neuroscientists—have debated the nature of this sameness. What is it? Where does it come from? Needless to say, there has been disagreement. To simplify the matter, there are two broad views, stemming from two general positions on the nature of human selfhood, which Parfit (1987) has defined as “ego theory” and “bundle theory.”

Ego theorists argue that we have a sense of self continuity because inside us there truly is something that corresponds to a continuous self, something that is the subject of all our experiences. There is some sort of inner essence, a single and cohesive ego that owns all our thoughts, feelings, and perceptions, and therefore holds each of us together. Descartes (1641/1993) is a typical representative of this position. He believed in the existence of an immaterial soul, located in the pineal gland of the brain, which observes and interprets our sensory perceptions of the world. Perceptions may come and go, but this soul will persist. Recent advocates of this position tend to base their speculations on modern neuroscience, but still accept the existence of an agency—be it a system, a structure, or some sort of immaterial entity—that accounts for the perceived unity and continuity of the self. For instance, Baars (1997) assumes that an implicit self exists that stands behind the scenes of the theater of consciousness, organizing and integrating the vast amount of bits of information to which the brain is constantly exposed. This self, which is said to be the overall, unified context of personal experience, “remains largely stable across many different life situations” (p. 145).

Unlike the ego theory, the bundle theory holds that a sense of self and of self continuity does not refer to anything like an undivided, coherent, temporally extended central core or substratum. Instead it refers to an ownerless series of different mental states and actions that are connected by various types of causal relationships. The first detailed account of this position was offered by the Scottish empiricist David Hume (1739/2000). He was very skeptical about the existence of an “experiencer,” a metaphysical self somehow independent from the succession of sensations, impressions, and ideas that constitute our mental lives. In an often-quoted sentence of his Treatise of Human Nature Hume wrote:

For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, or heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe any thing but the perception. (p. 165)

For Hume, that is, introspection does not reveal the presence of any mysterious inner agent. This led him to conclude that the human mind is “a bundle or collection of different perceptions which succeed one another with an inconceivable rapidity and are in perpetual flux and movement” (p. 165). It is the causal interrelationship of perceptions, their contiguity and resemblance, that provides a sense of sameness and self continuity, not an unchanging entity to which these perceptions supposedly belong.

One of the most radical contemporary exponents of the bundle theory is Daniel Dennett (1991). The self, according to Dennett, “is not any old mathematical point, but an abstraction defined by the myriads of attributions and interpretations (including self-attributions and self-interpretations) that have composed the biography of the living body whose Center of Narrative Gravity it is” (p. 427). The sense of a unified and continuous self is, therefore, based on an illusion, not on something that exists somewhere in the brain. The self is a fictional entity, a mental model that we unconsciously and unintentionally construe through the stories we tell to others and to ourselves. The construction of a self in humans is biologically driven; it is the work of an active body that strives to differentiate itself from the external environment and to enhance knowledge of itself (its own internal states, tendencies, decisions, and so on).

Regardless of whether the sense of self continuity refers to a thing or whether it is an illusion, we cannot underestimate the fact that we do have this sense, we do feel that our inner world is anchored to something that has continuity and endurance over time. What is more, this sense is crucial for our ability to learn from past experience, to take moral responsibility for our behavior and choices, and to plan future action. This is why individuals who, for various reasons, seem to lack a sense of self continuity have become an object of interest for psychiatrists and psychopathologists.

A lack, or a seriously weakened sense, of self continuity is considered one of the most typical disorders of the self (e.g., Scharfetter, 2003; Sims, 2003). Some people suffering from schizophrenia, organic states, or neuroses and depression may experience this condition. For instance, Jaspers (1959/1997) described the case of a psychotic patient who was convinced that his present self was not the same as the self he owned up to a specified moment of his life. This patient perceived his past self as “a little dwarf” inside himself. This dwarf was considered an entirely different person, and the patient could not refer to it as “myself” as he felt this would upset his sense of existence.

The neuropsychiatrist Oliver Sacks (1985) has given touching descriptions of what it means to feel disconnected, to have impairments that preclude the maintenance of self continuity. He has recounted, for instance, the case of a man with Korsakov syndrome who, at any given point in time, did not know where and who he was. He desperately tried to overcome this deeply unsettling and tragic mental state by constantly reinventing fictional stories about himself, his relationship to other people, and his life. He was immersed in chaotic, incessant, frenzied tale telling. “Unable to maintain a genuine narrative of continuity,” observed Sacks, “unable to maintain a genuine inner world, he is driven to the proliferation of pseudo-narratives, in a pseudo-continuity, pseudo world peopled by pseudo-people, phantoms” (p. 106). This and other similar cases demonstrate the centrality of a sense of self continuity within our lives, and the very necessity to have self continuity for our psychological survival.

Given that self continuity is such an important feature of human psychology, one would expect for this to figure as a well-worn topic of psychological analysis. As a matter of fact, at the end of the 19th century William James (1890/1981) discussed our own sense of personal identity at length in his monumental book The Principles of Psychology. He recognized that across time we have different experiences and thoughts, and, therefore, we have a different self every day. Importantly though, he noted that we have a sense that all these selves pertain to the same and continuous self, a sense of “unbrokenness in the stream of selves” (p. 318). He explained this sense by referring to the fact that the experiences and thoughts of these different selves are all pervaded by the same feelings of “warmth” and “intimacy,” which do not apply to the experiences and thoughts of others.

However, James’s reflections and speculations did not inaugurate a tradition of theoretical and empirical work about self continuity in psychology. In fact, the issue of self continuity has been largely absent from the literature until the late 20th century. Perhaps this absence is due to the dominant role played by behaviorism, which expunged the study of inner states and mental entities from the psychology’s agenda during a large part of the 20th century, or perhaps because of the philosophical flavor of the phenomenon. Obviously, there have been exceptions. For instance, Erik Erikson (1963) discussed self continuity within his theoretical work on identity. He conceptualized self continuity as a constitutional aspect of a robust identity and thus as the antithesis of identity confusion. Breakwell (1986), who considered identity continuity a core dimension of identity, together with distinctiveness and self-esteem, argued that lack of continuity constitutes a fundamental threat to identity. Also, Ulric Neisser (1988) wrote a seminal paper in which he listed the temporally “extended self” among the five core forms of self-knowledge, together with the ecological, interpersonal, private, and conceptual self.

These examples remain, however, rather isolated. It is only over the past decade or so that we have witnessed a resurgence of scholarly interest in self continuity. However, while in some cases self continuity has been the primary object of investigation, in the majority of cases it has been addressed only indirectly and tangentially. What is more, researchers in different fields have pursued their own agendas without any form of communication or cross-fertilization. I therefore decided to invite some of the most prominent researchers of self continuity, or issues related to self continuity, to write a chapter, either empirical or theoretical in nature, for this book. In addition, I asked two leading psychologists in the field of self and identity, Russell Spears and Philippe Rochat, to read all of the chapters and write a commentary separately. In doing so, my aim was to provide a first chart of the territory, to explore possible links between paths that so far have run in parallel, and to point toward new directions for the future.

This book is divided into seven parts. Part I deals with the ways in which our social and cultural environments contribute to the shaping of our sense of personal self continuity. In chapter 2, Nelson proposes that initially the infant is present-oriented, and his or her various experiences are unconnected to a continuing sense of self. Young children do have a memory, of course, but they tend to remember the experience simply as an episode without including the self in the experience. What is more, the recalling of the experience is not accompanied by the expression of feelings and thoughts. It is only during school years that children start marking memories about the self as different from other memories and attaching emotional, social, or cognitive value to them. This is an ability that children gradually learn through the stimulation of their caregivers, who provide a temporal setting to shared experiences that are recollected in conversations and emphasize the mental and affective meaning of such recollections. At the same time adults introduce the concept of “growing up” to the child and talk about possible future life. It is through this social collaborative construction of the child’s past and future in early childhood that a sense of self continuity emerges. Its function, for Nelson, is that of establishing the child’s position in the temporally defined social and cultural world of adulthood.

In chapter 3, Tafarodi offers his own reflections on the cultural phenomenology of a sense of self continuity. His central argument is that the experience of self as continuous across time cannot be separated from cultural contingencies. Although acknowledging that the basic intuition of time is an inherent property of consciousness, Tafarodi claims that the understanding of self in time is largely based on preestablished scripts provided by a role-structured cultural community. Our society offers us the tools to manufacture our personal narrative, our life story, which is what provides us with a sense of self continuity.

In Part II the interplay between autobiographical memory and self continuity is discussed. In chapter 4, Bird and Reese examine two studies on the association between the emotional content of parent–child past event conversations and the coherence of the self-concept in 5- to 6-year-old children. The authors find that those children who experience more negotiated discussions of their emotions, especially the negative emotions, with their parents have a more consistent view of themselves. From these results, Bird and Reese evince that children who are able to discuss the emotional implications of past events with their parents are in an ideal position to experience a sense of self continuity.

Bluck and Alea contend, in chapter 5, that a core function of autobiographical memory is that of promoting or maintaining self continuity. This is especially important when life circumstances (e.g., changes in one’s physical environment, lack of long-term social relationships) or the particular developmental phase one is going through (late adolescence into early adulthood) constitute a challenge to one’s own sense of self continuity. Bluck and Alea present some empirical findings, suggesting that individuals going through the life circumstances and the developmental stages indicated above have lower self-concept clarity. As a consequence, these people draw on autobiographical memory more frequently than others in order to link their past with their present, thereby maintaining a sense of self continuity.

In chapter 6, Addis and Tippett provide a very useful review of the contributions of the social-cognitive neuroscience approach to the issue of the relation between autobiographical memory and identity. Special attention is given to the literature addressing two aspects of autobiographical memory, namely, personal semantic memory and personal episodic memory. Addis and Tippett argue that both types of memory contribute to the content of identity and the sense of self continuity. However, they specify that narrative continuity (the sense of the continuing self conveyed through personal narratives) probably depends more on personal semantic memory, while phenomenological continuity (the sense of the self over time produced by the simple experience of recollecting) depends more on personal episodic memory.

Part III is especially devoted to the distal psychological motives underlying people’s efforts to achieve and maintain a sense of self continuity and to ways in which self continuity is preserved. In chapter 7, Landau, Greenberg, and Solomon present a “terror management theory” of self continuity. They argue that structuring the past in terms of a unified, coherent narrative that provides people with a sense of self continuity serves a significant psychological function over and above its practical utility, namely, it helps to quell deeply rooted concerns about death. More precisely, these researchers contend that constructing and maintaining a culturally meaningful narrative of the self enables us to conceive of ourselves as significant and valuable entities whose lives are interconnected to people, cultural institutions, and ideals that transcend our individual existence. This minimizes the existential threat of passing time and the end of life.

In chapter 8, Burris and Rempel focus on how a sense of self continuity is preserved. They observe that the self extends to include identity markers (familiar objects, places, persons, and so on) that must be acquired, maintained, and in some cases even discarded. In this respect, humans are like much simpler organisms: just as amoebas must take in nourishment, avoid threats, and discard toxins or metabolic by-products, so too humans expand themselves by psychologically engulfing identity markers, resisting involuntary loss or modification of these markers, and excreting those that come to be perceived as threatening or no longer useful. It is by means of these ongoing, cyclical processes that a person’s sense of self-identity is preserved over time.

At this point the book turns its focus to collective self continuity. Here, a short premise is needed. Over the past three decades social psychologists have emphasized the fact that the self may be experienced in terms of its unique, peculiar, and idiosyncratic characteristics (e.g., eccentric, extrovert, son of X), or in terms of group membership (e.g., Roman Catholic, Republican party affiliate, French). These two forms of self-understanding have been generally conceptualize...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• The Editor
• Contributors
• 1 Introduction and Overview
• Section I Cultural and Societal Dimensions of Self Continuity
• Section II Self Continuity, Autobiographical Memory, and Identity
• Section III Self Continuity Motives and Maintenance Strategies
• Section IV The Continuity of Groups and Collective Selves
• Section V Collective Self Continuity in a Time of Change
• Section VI The Interplay between Individual and Collective Self Continuity
• Section VII Commentaries
• Index