The Self in European and North American Culture: Development and Processes

How diverse or potentially overlapping are the numerous self-models, self-theories, and directions of self-research? It has become clear that the processes associated with the self are complex and diverse, and that many of the approaches associated with the self have been pursued in isolation. Moreover, the fact of there being different traditions within developmental and social psychology, as well as different traditions in Europe and North America, has also led to a certain cacophony when we examine the self-field as a whole. The chapters here confront these differences, trying to come to terms with phenomena that are overarching, that extend through the dimensions of developmental psychology, social psychology, motivation psychology, and parts of clinical psychology. The book as whole gives a clear presentation of the issues, questions and phenomena that surface in research fields known as self psychology.