Construction Of Self Research Articles

Construction of Self and Family in Intergenerational Family Stories: Associations with Sociocultural Group and Familism in Female Emerging Adults

SYNOPSIS Objective. Family stories are the fabric of identity, as they anchor individuals in their familial, cultural, and societal context. However, relatively little research has examined the function of family stories in relation to sociocultural group or cultural values. Design. In the present study, we examined how emerging adult women (n = 41) engaged in retrospective storytelling of a favorite family memory based on sociocultural group (Asian American, Latina American, or European American) and familism (high or low). Results. Drawing upon narrative identity and sense-making literatures grounded within a sociocultural framework, analyses revealed that family stories consistently served to provide insight into the perspectives of others and to model positioning of relationships. Sociocultural group was associated with how family stories served as a mechanism for expressing familism values, and both sociocultural and familism groups were related to how family stories served as a source of meaning-making and identity creation. Conclusions. Our findings add to the growing literature on the nuanced ways in which sociocultural group and cultural values shape the function of family stories and have important implications for the development of identity and storytelling behaviors in emerging adulthood.

DIASPORA BELONGING BETWEEN EXCLUSIONARY ISOLATIONIST DISCOURSES AND COSMOPOLITAN IDEALS

Reviewed literature on “long-distance nationalism” with its roots in methodological nationalism and more recent constructivist theoretical frameworks that allow for the fluidity of identity, intersectionality of social power dynamics and regard for the immigrant connectivity and simultaneity of virtual presences, provide us with a spectrum of analytical lenses. The mechanism that explains either isolationist, exclusivist tendencies in some migrants or their agency as envisaged promoters of cosmopolitan lifestyles, rests in the stories migrants tell about themselves and how they choose to structure emotional affinity into identity constructs of self and others. While accommodating the theoretical framework of seeing diasporas as transnational digital networks or as amorphous “imagined communities” potentially molded by political elites, this article chooses to consider diaspora affiliation as a category of social practice, fulfilling psychosocial needs of self-actualization. This theoretical framework provides the basis for semi-structured autobiographic interviews and analysis of narratives, as artefacts structuring the basis of belonging and othering within first- and second-generation of Romanian American migrants. This analysis may help examine how diaspora engagement with state actors is decoupled from the native territory’s evolution and governance. It also intends to be the basis for recommendations for further research to better understand transatlantic diasporas and to inform potential policy making with regards to engaging diaspora community entities in promoting cultural identity resilience, skills that protect and promote the positive anchoring of members.

Vampires, Narcissists, and Psychopaths: The Psychopolitics of Stigma in Self-Help Books

Until now, self-help literature has been viewed as a medium through which the processes of neoliberalization took place at the "micro-level", i.e. at the level of individual consciousness. The central idea of ​​that set of research papers is that books in this field aim to internalize the "neoliberal self", that is, a depoliticized individual solely focused on self-improvement. Although this paper does not dispute the aforementioned conclusions, I believe that the previous studies of self-help literature have been focused on the prescribed construction of the relationship that an individual should have with themselves, at the expense of the relationship that an individual should establish with others. In other words, the focus of the previous analyzes was the cultivation of a desirable, positively valorized, socially acceptable personality. The aim of this paper is to focus on the "other side of the coin", that is, the production of those forms of subjectivity whose influence or mere presence the "successful neoliberal self" should avoid. The focus is directed toward what the self-help literature refers to as "emotional vampires", "toxic" people, "psychopaths" and "narcissists", as well as the advice on how to avoid them, deal with them or how to "heal" them. Through the analysis of self-help books dealing with these personality types, I aim to highlight that the construction of the neoliberal self also includes the marginalization, exclusion and stigmatization of undesirable forms of subjectivity, thus influencing the creation of certain forms of sociality as an integral part of its psychopolitics. This has significant implications for the possibilities available to other forms of sociality, which are also a subject of examination.

Mentoring Professional Identity Development through Media Assignments

Online portfolios are educational requirements used to encourage self-reflection and to assess competency in various disciplines. These ePortfolios focus on student selfpresentation without emphasizing the social construction of self and the opportunities that online spaces provide to enact an authentic professional public persona. Structured appropriately, online portfolios afford an opportunity for faculty to mentor students in effective impression management throughout their careers by strategically sharing high-quality multimedia texts that meet audience needs and expectations. Students need guidance in analyzing online environments and producing effective messages. This paper relates how the professional identity development potential of ePortfolios have been explored in three case studies: (1) a graduate digital analytics course, (2) an undergraduate public speaking course, and (3) an undergraduate travel course. Mentors and teachers are offered frameworks that encourage robust articulations of self and more advanced impression management skills in public online portfolios. These approaches can be employed across the curriculum in senior capstone courses or as ongoing projects that scaffold evolving student identities throughout their college development.

Reconstructing a Meaningful Self: The Identity Work of People Living With Chronic Disease.

With the escalating number of people diagnosed with chronic disease globally, research aimed at supporting their adjustment and coping is invaluable. Reconstructing a sense of self is core to the psychosocial adjustment of people with chronic disease (PwCD), and meaning making is central to their coping with the diagnosis. Despite the growing number of PwCD living productive lives, their identity work is underexplored. This article reports on an in-depth multiple case study that explored the identity work of PwCD from a meaning-making perspective. Data were gathered from three cases using semi-structured interviews, document analysis, and diaries. Data analysis entailed interpretative phenomenological analysis and flexible pattern matching. Three themes describe participants' identity work process: First, they narrate a broken identity, having experienced identity disruption, discontinuity, and loss; second, they envision an ideal identity through existential reflection; and third, they reconstruct a meaningful identity. Reconciling the broken self with an ideal self leads to the construction of a meaningful self. The meaningful self is conceptualized in participants' application of Frankl's meaning-making principles, as they constructed a purposeful self (creative), a connected self (experiential), and a determined self (attitudinal). The article discusses the implications for helping professionals and organizations in supporting PwCD as they work toward rebuilding a meaningful self, facilitating their identity work in the search of a meaningful self.

A Merleau-Pontian Critique of Sartrean Philosophy of Negation

The phenomenological ontologies of Sartre and Merleau-Ponty have often been discussed in comparison to one another. Often, a Merleau-Pontian critique of Sartre, based on subjectivity, has been given. In doing so, both Sartre’s and Merleau-Ponty’s views on freedom, facticity, the body, and the Other has been discussed in great detail. Despite all of this, however, not much emphasis has been given to their understanding of negativity in its relation to the construction of Self as the Being-in-the-world of human-reality. Accordingly, this article will focus on the relationship between subjectivity and negativity in Sartre and Merleau-Ponty with a specific emphasis on Merleau-Ponty’s critique of Sartre’s philosophy of negation. First, the article will expand on Sartre’s philosophy of negation and explain how he conceives the experience of nothingness as the foundation of subjectivity. Later, it will develop a Merleau-Pontian critique of Sartrean philosophy of negation (a) by claiming that Sartrean negativity degenerates into pure and absolute positive of the Cartesian duality, and most importantly, (b) by showing how Merleau-Ponty constructs a new dialectical ontology of Self, based on the world-as-me; a being that is seen as flesh.

U.S. students learning Czech in study abroad: motivational dynamics

Abstract While study-abroad students generally prefer destinations where the local language relates to their personal, academic, or professional pursuits, the Czech Republic ranks as the 25th most popular destination for U.S. study abroad, signalling an interest in exploring beyond traditional language choices. This study addresses the gap in the literature on learning a less commonly taught language in the study abroad setting, which is unrelated to the student’s major fields of study (Czech). Over thirteen weeks, data were gathered through a qualitative methodology involving initial questionnaires, learner diaries, and semi-structured interviews with a sample of five students. Drawing on the L2 Motivational Self System (L2MSS), the research underscores the impact of the L2 learning experience and the construct of the ideal L2 self on motivation. Findings revealed a general increase in motivation for learning Czech throughout the semester, accompanied by a decline in the ideal Czech self by the end and an indicative enhancement in the ideal multilingual self-concept. This study additionally emphasizes the vital role of mandatory language courses in augmenting motivation, particularly when aligned with learners’ objectives. These insights broaden the understanding of motivational dynamics in acquiring languages other than English (LOTEs), highlighting the necessity for continued exploration of the multilingual motivational self-system within study-abroad contexts.

Sport, criminal justice interventions and possible future selves: Towards a research agenda

There is growing evidence surrounding the instrumental role of sport and physical activity as a tool to address issues within criminal justice systems and act as a mechanism to engage, educate and develop individuals both in community and correctional settings. This article outlines how sport-based interventions might serve to support the individual aspirations and imagined ‘future selves’ of their participants. Utilising the seminal work of Markus and Nurius, we consider the barriers that may impede the development of an idealised future self for people involved in, or on the margins of, crime. Considering these barriers, the article examines the concept of ‘liminality’, outlining the challenges evident when reconstructing personal identity as the individual transitions ‘betwixt and between’ former and imagined lives. Finally, the article presents evidence which advocates for mentoring within sport-based interventions to facilitate the construction of possible selves, before concluding with suggestions for future research in this area.

Synthesizing the temporal self: robotic models of episodic and autobiographical memory.

Episodic memories are experienced as belonging to a self that persists in time. We review evidence concerning the nature of human episodic memory and of the sense of self and how these emerge during development, proposing that the younger child experiences a persistent self that supports a subjective experience of remembering. We then explore recent research in cognitive architectures for robotics that has investigated the possibility of forms of synthetic episodic and autobiographical memory. We show that recent advances in generative modeling can support an understanding of the emergence of self and of episodic memory, and that cognitive architectures which include a language capacity are showing progress towards the construction of a narrative self with autobiographical memory capabilities for robots. We conclude by considering the prospects for a more complete model of mental time travel in robotics and the implications of this modeling work for understanding human episodic memory and the self in time. This article is part of the theme issue 'Elements of episodic memory: lessons from 40 years of research'.

The Impact of Algorithmic Culture on the Construction of Self in a Globalized World

Globalization and the rise of social media have fundamentally reshaped how individuals construct their identities. This paper explores this phenomenon through an interdisciplinary lens, weaving together philosophical and anthropological perspectives. Philosophical frameworks of existentialism and phenomenology illuminate how algorithms shape lived experiences and self-understandings. Anthropological analysis examines how social media platforms foster virtual communities, impacting cultural norms and individual identities. The paper examines how pre-existing cultural backgrounds and social structures influence the impact of algorithmic culture on the self in a globalized world.

Preserving choice: weaving femininity and autonomy through egg freezing discourse on Xiaohongshu

ABSTRACT This paper provides a critical investigation into the discourse of egg freezing on Xiaohongshu, a prominent social media platform in China, to uncover the complexities of female identity, reproductive autonomy, and consumer narratives within this context. Employing Multimodal Critical Discourse Analysis (MCDA), it examines the discursive construction of self by single Chinese women who share their egg freezing experiences online. This study scrutinizes the semiotic resources utilized in these narratives, including textual and visual elements, to reveal how individuals craft their identities in relation to emerging reproductive technologies. The analysis identifies dominant themes in the discourse, such as ‘negotiation of motherhood’, ‘women’s empowerment’, and ‘technologization of egg freezing’, juxtaposing these against the backdrop of China’s market socialism and shifting social attitudes. By engaging with the posts of Xiaohongshu bloggers, the research dissects how these women articulate their journeys, challenging traditional paradigms and contributing to ongoing debates about women’s rights and feminist ideologies in the context of advanced reproductive technologies.

Conceptualising personhood in nursing care for people with altered consciousness, cognition and behaviours: A discussion paper.

The aim of this discussion paper is to explore factors and contexts that influence how nurses might conceptualise and assign personhood for people with altered consciousness, cognition and behaviours. While a biomedical framing is founded upon a dichotomy between the body and self, such that the body can be subjected to a medical and objectifying gaze, relational theories of self, multiculturalism and technological advances for life-sustaining interventions present new dilemmas which necessitate discussion about what constitutes personhood. The concept of personhood is dynamic and evolving: where historical constructs of rationality, agency, autonomy and a conscious mind once formed the basis for personhood, these ideas have been challenged to encompass embodied, relational, social and cultural paradigms of selfhood. Themes in this discussion include: the right to personhood, mind-body dualism versus the embodied self; personhood as consciousness, rationality and narratives of self; social relational contexts of personhood and cultural contexts of personhood. Patricia Benner's and Christine Tanner's clinical judgement model is then applied to consider the implications for nursing care that seeks to reflexively incorporate personhood. Nurse clinicians are able to move between conceptions of personhood and act to support the body, as well as presumed autonomy and relational, social and cultural personhood. In doing so, they use analytical, intuitive and narrative reasoning which prioritises autonomous constructions of self. They also incorporate relational and social contexts of the person receiving care within the possibilities of technological advances and constraints of contextual resources.

A discursive construction of self in selected songs by Azeez Fashola (aka Naira Marley)

Studies on Azeez Fashola (aka Naira Marley) have only made passing comments on his personality. Most of the comments present negative perceptions about the personality of Naira Marley (NM). Such negative commentaries, this study contends, are insufficient in describing the construction of identities in NM’s lyrics. This study investigates the construction of self in selected songs of NM with a view to describing what the construction of self reveals about his music. Twenty-five songs by NM constitute the study population. However, data were drawn from eight purposively selected singles of NM. Using a fusion of social constructionist theory and literary stylistics, the study situates NM’s lyrics in global hip hop culture to show the meeting and departure points between NM’s tropes and those of other artistes. The study reveals that contextual variables are deployed in the construction of identities in NM’s songs. Against the submission of scholars that the contents of NM’s lyrics are replete with negative realities, he articulates the prevalence of alcohol addiction and cyber fraud among Nigerian youths. He equally assumes the role of a social reformer. Apart from the danceable beats that garnish his lyrics, NM also articulates burning societal issues.

Malleability of the sense of bodily self in early childhood: 5- and 6-year-old children show the enfacement illusion

The mechanisms underlying the developing sense of bodily self are debated. Whereas some scholars stress the role of sensory factors, others propose the importance of contextual factors. By manipulating multisensory stimulation and social familiarity with the other person, we explored two factors that are proposed to relate to young children’s developing sense of bodily self. Including an adult sample allowed us to investigate age-related differences of the malleability of the bodily self. To this end, the study implemented an enfacement illusion with children (N = 64) and adults (N = 33). Participants were exposed to one trial with synchronous interpersonal multisensory stimulation and one trial with asynchronous interpersonal multisensory stimulation—either with a stranger or with the mother as the other person. A self-recognition task using morph videos of self and other and an enfacement questionnaire were implemented as dependent measures. Results revealed evidence for the presence of the enfacement effect in children in both measures. The identity of the other person had a significant effect on the self-recognition task. Contrary to our hypothesis, the effect was significantly smaller in the caregiver condition. No significant differences between children and adults emerged. Our results demonstrate the role of both multisensory stimulation and contextual—here social familiarity—factors for the construction and development of a bodily self. The study provides developmental science with a novel approach to the bodily self by showing the validity of the self-recognition task in a child sample. Overall, the study supports proposals that the sense of bodily self is malleable early in development.

Development of Self-Concept in Childhood and Adolescence: How Neuroscience Can Inform Theory and Vice Versa

How do we develop a stable and coherent self-concept in contemporary times? Susan Harter’s original work, The Construction of Self (1999; 2012), argues that cognitive and social processes are building blocks for developing a coherent sense of self, resulting in self-concept clarity across various domains in life (e.g., [pro-]social, academic, and physical). Here, we show how this framework guides and can benefit from recent findings on (1) the prolonged and nonlinear structural brain development during childhood and adolescence, (2) insights from developmental neuroimaging studies using self-concept appraisal paradigms, (3) genetic and environmental influences on behavioral and neural correlates of self-concept development, and (4) youth’s perspectives on self-concept development in the context of 21st century global challenges. We examine how neuroscience can inform theory by testing several compelling questions related to stability versus change of neural, behavioral, and self-report measures and we reflect on the meaning of variability and change/growth.

Voices in the Virtual: Constructing Linguistic Identity in Digital Spaces

The emergence of digital spaces has fundamentally reshaped how humans interact and communicate. The research paper explores the intricate dynamics of language and identity in the online environment in the Indian context. The influence of the Internet and digital spaces has provided unprecedented opportunities to express their linguistic identities in diverse ways. The paper examines how digital platforms allow individuals to construct their linguistic identities, a process shaped by social interaction, platform constraint, and social interaction. Code-switching, online slang, and manipulation of registers highly influence the formation of the digital persona or image of oneself, also known as digital self-fashioning does not come without complexities. With the help of Social Identity theory and Goffman’s dramaturgy, the paper highlights the social construction of the linguistic selves. Through the analysis of the case studies and the theoretical framework, the paper discusses the process of linguistic identity development in digital space and its impact on social dynamics, cultural representation, and individual expression.

Music and the Social Construction of Self

Sociologists have demonstrated that people use music to construct meaning in numerous specific contexts, groups, and subcultures. This article expands such work by examining how people draw on music to construct identities in daily life beyond any specific setting. Drawing on four years of participant observation and twenty‐five in‐depth interviews, findings demonstrate three mechanisms of identity‐work as people use music in public to (1) define who they are, (2) explain how they feel because of who they are, and (3) narrate where they have been in their lives that made them who they are. These findings demonstrate how people use music in daily life to construct identities, and the theoretical potential of such exploration for sociological and music studies of public life.

The Connection between Pronouns and Distorted Thinking: Depressed Selves in an Online Depression Community

Limited studies have investigated the presence of cognitive distortion and emotional disturbance in online depression narratives. Additionally, the intricate relationships between the expression of depressive emotions, the construction of the depressed self and the manifestation of cognitive thinking lack an intuitively perceived connection. This study explores the affective cognition of a group of young individuals who shared their depressive emotions on the ‘Zoufan’ Weibo page. A set of 2000 comments was selected and coded, which revealed a prevalence of negative emotions within the community. Pronouns, a pivotal discursive resource and a cue for studying identity work, were further mapped with the top 10 negative emotions. Exploratory analyses revealed the four most salient distorted thinking patterns: self-isolating thinking, self-blaming thinking, absolutist thinking, and catastrophic thinking. The implication of this study lies in assisting both the public and Internet users in recognizing pronouns as nuanced emotional and cognitive cues of online depression narratives.

Role of Social and Self-Regulated Learning in School Contexts

Self- and socially regulated learning skills allow students to develop soft skills or competencies to tackle learning tasks. Self-regulated learning skills help students set learning goals, choose learning strategies, monitor their progress, and control their affective and motivational states when working on learning tasks. Socially regulated learning skills help students to use self-regulated learning practices recognizing the reciprocal influence of other people, technology, and environment, creating opportunities for joint regulation of learning. However, it is still not clear how social regulation of learning relates to self-regulated learning. The purpose of this article is to describe the constructs of self- and socially regulated learning, report on the results of recent research studies of their components, introduce a theoretical model of the self- and socially regulated learning, discuss the results of our studies, and identify the areas for future research. The scientific contribution of this article is an attempt to compare the scholarly evidence and theoretical views of Russian and foreign researchers in order to understand the state of research of self- and socially regulated learning in authentic school contexts.

The role of critical experiences, positioning, and agency in the dynamic, emergent construction of heritage speaker selves

Previous research has proposed a crucial role for critical experiences in language learning to better understand how learners understand and discursively construct their self-concept (Mercer, 2011, 2016; Serafini, 2020a; Thompson, 2020). However, studies have mainly explored critical experiences in the narratives of foreign language learners of English with little attention to how heritage speakers of languages other than English (LOTE) draw on critical experiences in discursive constructions of self. To address this gap, this study aims to explore the impact of critical experiences in university heritage Spanish speakers’ self-narratives. Twenty heritage Spanish students completed a background questionnaire and peer-facilitated, video-recorded interview. Emergent, recurring themes were identified in transcribed interview data following tenets of grounded theory (Charmaz, 2006; Glaser & Strauss, 1967). Findings underscore the key role of positioning (Davies & Harré, 1990) in dynamic conceptions of self, particularly how heritage speakers (re)imagine and discursively construct past, current, and future self-states. Positioning was also linked to agency (Ahearn, 2001) in relation to students’ critical reflections on experiences of racialization and resistance to, or reproduction of, dominant language ideologies. Overall, the study provides valuable insights for (heritage) language educators seeking to enact critical pedagogical principles in their classroom and curriculum.