Various Aspects Of Self Research Articles

Development and Validation of the Social Media Self-Esteem Scale for Adolescents

Development of the self is a vital aspect during the period of adolescence. Interaction with peers contributes to the development of various aspects of self. Due to the technological advances in today's times, adolescents interact with their peers through social media sites and portals. It is essential to study this development in light of the increasing use of social media by adolescence. Thus, the study aimed at developing an item pool to tap the construct of social media influencing self-esteem of adolescents following the procedure of tool construction. Participants included adolescents ranging between 16 to 18 years of age, who have at least one social media account for personal use. There were 110 participants for the first phase and 397 participants for the second phase of the study. The scale has eight items with the overall reliability of .7. It indicates a fitting measure of self-esteem influenced by social media, with looking-glass self theory, according to which individuals develop their self, based on their perceptions of others responses to their behaviour.

The traveler as author: examining self-presentation and discourse in the (self) published travel blog

From the perspective of Goffman’s theories of self-presentation, travel blogs can be described as narratives that indicate the different roles occupied by an individual’s online self. A blogger may discursively position the self as a traveler, rather than a tourist, a dichotomy that underpins much critical debate in the area of travel and tourism studies, thus creating tensions within the blog. These tensions are heightened when blogs presented as accounts of travel are published as guidebooks or books that promote tourism. It can be argued that in such cases the act of publishing commercializes these narratives and introduces an element of touristic discourse. Moreover, the choice of either a legacy publisher or a self-publishing service can have implications for how a travel blogger may be presented and perceived as a reputable published author. Against this background, this article explores how travel blogs negotiate the discursive tensions produced as a result of the presentation of various aspects of self, particularly as a published author and as a traveler as opposed to a tourist.

The social self in schizophrenia: A neural network perspective on integrative external and internal information processing

Social impairment is recognized as a basic aspects of schizophrenia. Although the nature of aberrant self-other relationship in schizophrenia is still poorly understood, it has been suggested that some social impairments could have their roots in self-disturbances typical of schizophrenia. For instance, experiencing otherness could become problematic with anomalous self-recognition. Furthermore, deficits in the processing of self-relatedness of social stimuli disconnect the self from its social environment. On the one hand, this could lead to problems in self-other distinction caused by misattributions of ownership of experience and agency in social interaction. On the other hand, this could result in feelings of isolation and reduced intersubjectivity due to interrupted self-referential processing of social stimuli, likely also mediated by memory and emotion. Brain networks involved in self-referential processing, sense of ownership, and agency also have been implied in social cognition. Whereas cortical midline structures are associated with self-referential processing of external stimuli including social information, sensorimotor and affective networks involved in bodily and interoceptive self-processing are also involved in the ability to share others’ experiences. Schizophrenia has been linked with a reduced integrity of these networks underlying various aspects of self and social impairments, though rather separately. Recent neuroimaging findings will be highlighted explaining how self-disturbances can pervade the social domain in schizophrenia. In particular, disruptions of the social self in schizophrenia will be addressed from a neuronal network and connectiomics perspective providing a unifying framework.Disclosure of interestThe author has not supplied his declaration of competing interest.

Reflections on shifts in the work identity of research team members

Orientation: This study explores shifts in the work identity of individual members of a research team.Research purpose: The aim of the study is to explore shifts in work identity experienced by individual research team members during a project wherein they were studying work identity themselves.Motivation for the study: This study seized the opportunity to do research on the shifts in work identify experienced by researchers whilst they were studying work identify as part of the South African–Netherlands Project for Alternatives in Development. This allowed the researcher the rather novel opportunity of conducting research on researchers and resulted in the project as a whole occurring at a dual level of analysis.Research approach, design and method: Using thematic analysis methodology in the context of qualitative field research, 10 semi-structured interviews were conducted with five participants, all of them part of the research team who were themselves involved in conducting research on work identity. The sixth member of the research team, who is also one of the authors of this article, presented data related to shifts in her own work identity in her dissertation as an autoethnographic account. For purposes of this article, she is referred to as Participant 6. Given the multiple research team members, each one of whom constituted an individual case, the researcher made use of a multiple case study approach whilst focusing on the intrinsic case. The holistic nature of description found in the case study involved every aspect of the lives of the research team members. Analysis was done by means of content analysis.Main findings: In exploring the shifts in work identity experienced by individual research team members, it was discovered that finding meaning and purpose in the professional activities participants engaged in was of critical importance. Contextual realities and the way in which individuals approached the possibility of shifts also seemed to play a significant role. Both these aspects influenced the possibility of engagement with new peer groups, contacts and role models to explore various aspects of self in order to make a transition or shift. The findings lastly emphasised work identity as fluid and as entailing an element of performance. Irrespective of their life and career stage, all participants were engaged in processing possible selves.Practical/managerial implications: This study has implications for organisations looking to improve productivity through an understanding of work identity. The broader project originated from the premise that work is central to building individual identity and is influenced by job and individual characteristics. It is proposed that these factors could influence work performance and, accordingly, impact on organisational performance.Theoretical contribution: An application for shifts in work identity is done by positioning such shifts in a framework proposed by Ibarra. The study confirms that the proposed framework is suitable for application to shifts in work identity

Borderline features are associated with inaccurate trait self-estimations.

BackgroundMany treatments for Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) are based upon the hypothesis that gross distortion in perceptions and attributions related to self and others represent a core mechanism for the enduring difficulties displayed by such patients. However, available experimental evidence of such distortions provides equivocal results, with some studies suggesting that BPD is related to inaccuracy in such perceptions and others indicative of enhanced accuracy in some judgments. The current study uses a novel methodology to explore whether individuals with BPD features are less accurate in estimating their levels of universal personality characteristics as compared to community norms.MethodOne hundred and four students received course instruction on the Five Factor Model of personality, and then were asked to estimate their levels of these five traits relative to community norms. They then completed the NEO-Five Factor Inventory and the Personality Assessment Inventory-Borderline Features scale (PAI-BOR). Accuracy of estimates was calculated by computing squared differences between self-estimated trait levels and norm-referenced standardized scores in the NEO-FFI.ResultsThere was a moderately strong relationship between PAI-BOR score and inaccuracy of trait level estimates. In particular, high BOR individuals dramatically overestimated their levels of Agreeableness and Conscientiousness, estimating themselves to be slightly above average on each of these characteristics but actually scoring well below average on both. The accuracy of estimates of levels of Neuroticism were unrelated to BOR scores, despite the fact that BOR scores were highly correlated with Neuroticism.ConclusionsThese findings support the hypothesis that a key feature of BPD involves marked perceptual distortions of various aspects of self in relationship to others. However, the results also indicate that this is not a global perceptual deficit, as high BOR scorers accurately estimated that their emotional responsiveness was well above average. However, such individuals appear to have limited insight into their relative disadvantages in the capacity for cooperative relationships, or their limited ability to approach life in a planful and non-impulsive manner. Such results suggest important targets for treatments addressing problems in self-other representations.

The Aesthetics of Dissociation: Radiohead's “How to Disappear Completely” and Jasper Johns's Device Paintings

The Aesthetics of Dissociation: Radiohead's “How to Disappear Completely” and Jasper Johns's <i>Device</i> Paintings

A Pattern Theory of Self

I argue for a pattern theory of self as a useful way to organize an interdisciplinary approach to discussions of what constitutes a self. According to the pattern theory, a self is constituted by a number of characteristic features or aspects that may include minimal embodied, minimal experiential, affective, intersubjective, psychological/cognitive, narrative, extended, and situated aspects. A pattern theory of self helps to clarify various interpretations of self as compatible or commensurable instead of thinking them in opposition, and it helps to show how various aspects of self may be related across certain dimensions. I also suggest that a pattern theory of self can help to adjudicate (or at least map the differences) between the idea that the self correlates to self-referential processing in the cortical midline structures of the brain and other narrower or wider conceptions of self.

Ketamine Psychedelic Therapy (KPT): A Review of the Results of Ten Years of Research

Ketamine is a prescription drug used for general anesthesia. In subanesthetic doses, it induces profound psychedelic experiences and hallucinations. The subanesthetic effect of ketamine was the hypothesized therapeutic mechanism in the authors' use of ketamine-assisted psychotherapy for alcoholism. The results of a controlled clinical trial demonstrated a considerable increase in efficacy of the authors' standard alcoholism treatment when supplemented by ketamine psychedelic therapy (KPT). Total abstinence for more than one year was observed in 73 out of Ill (65.8%) alcoholic patients in the KPT group, compared to 24% (24 out of 100 patients) of the conventional treatment control group (p<0.01). The authors' studies of the underlying psychological mechanisms of KPT have indicated that ketamine-assisted psychedelic therapy of alcoholic patients induces a harmonization of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) personality profile, positive transformation of nonverbalized (mostly unconscious) self-concept and emotional attitudes to various aspects of self and other people, positive changes in life values and purposes. important insights into the meaning of life and anincrease in the level of spiritual development. Most importantly, these psychological changes were shown to favor a sober lifestyle. The data from biochemical investigations showed that the phannacological action of KPT affects both monoaminergic and opioidergic neurotransmitter metabolism, i.e., those neurochemical systems which are involved in the pathogenesis of alcohol dependence. The data from EEG computer-assisted analysis demonstrated that ketamine increases theta activity in cerebrocortical regions of alcoholic patients. This is evidence of the reinforcement of limbic cortex interaction during the KPT session.

The stability of self-concept in late adolescence: Gender and situational effects

The present study examined the stability of various aspects of the self concept as advocated by Harter [ Carmichael's manual of child psychology (Vol. 4), 1983] over an 18 month period. This was done using three contrasting groups of adolescents, those who remained in a relatively stable environment—full-time education in the same school, those who also stayed on in full-time education but changed schools and those who moved from full-time education to full-time work. The study also examined the possibility of changes in the centrality of these various aspects of self in relation to overall self-esteem due both to the passage of time and changing environment. The participants were drawn from a pool of 2490 young people (53% girls) who were interviewed in late 1985 when the average age was 17 yr and who had completed the same questionnaires some 18 months earlier. The results indicated that overall there was evidence of relative stability especially amongst those whose environment had remained stable while the trend was for modest positive increases in almost all aspects of self-esteem over the time period examined. Gender differences (favouring males) were also common. However, there were no interactions between either gender and time or between post-school situation and time. Finally, the results, while only examining five aspects of the self, indicate the complexity of this whole area and in particular that different aspects of self appear to be relatively independent of each other and of overall self-esteem and that all may be open to various influences including those of gender, time and situation.

Eugene O'Neill and the Tragic Tension: An Interpretive Study of the Plays by Doris V. Falk (review)

64 MODERN DRAMA May All of this is written in a vigorous style, with powerful descriptive passages whose clarity and force evoke precisely the image the author desires. One is constantly aware that Artaud is a poet. Miss Richard's translation reproduces energetically the color and movement of the original, and occasionally even surpasses it. There are, undoubtedly, weaknesses in Artaud's arguments, and the theater he describes is perhaps an impossible one, but the conception is grandiose. The Theater and Its Double is stimulating and challenging, and will not cause luke wann reactions, for it is the work of a man convinced, who is sometimes overzealous and unfair. Certainly Artaud is right in many respects, and has given an incisive impulse in the right direction when he seeks a return to the magical religious sources of theater. "The true purpose of the theater," he tells us, "is to create Myths, to express life in its immense, universal aspect, and from that life to extract images in which we find pleasure in discovering ourselves." LEONARD C. !>RONKO EUGENE O'NEILL AND THE TRAGIC TENSION: AN INTERPRETIVE STUDY OF THE PLAYS, by Doris V. Falk, Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1958, 211 pp. Price-. Perhaps the only dramatic resolution that Eugene O'Neill shaped with complete success was that of his own death, capped by the monosyllabic ego assertion "O'Neill" on his tombstone. For his plays are a series of powerful symbolic skirmishes between the unresolved components of the self. Sometimes one even gets the feeling that a play like Long Day's Journey Into Night is less a family portrait than it is one of those curious mirror studies of a single individual multiplied, or rather, we might say, a study in the refracted ego. The "tragic tension" of Miss Doris Falk's excellent monograph, is that which results from the clash of the various aspects of self, as they have been schematized by Dr. Karin Homey. The "charactology" of Homey, with occasional support from Eric Fromn, is employed in a sensitive, chronological analysis of O'Neill's plays, including a play of such recent release as A Touch of the Poet. Furthermore, the study is Jungian to the extent that O'Neill's characters seem to associate themselves with the universal subconscious, especially in its identification with the sea. While Miss Falk can approve of Dr. Philip Weissmann's diagnosis of the "sublimation of Oedipal drives" in O'Neill, hers is no psychoanalytical approach nor is she disposed to treat playas case history. Miss Falk is a literary critic with enough psychoanalytic equipment to stand her in good stead. She is notably sensible and restrained in her intent. Best of all, she suffers no illusions about O'Neill. She may observe, somewhat portentously, that "his heroes •.. are doomed to assert their humanity by a struggle with ghosts in the dark night of the soul," and yet she is frank to admit that O'Neill had trouble imparting that humanity. She is, I think, the first to touch on the real failure of O"Neill when she remarks, almost off-handedly on her first page, that "irony requires a detachment which he found impossible." It was the absence of irony, in an art form that subsists on it, that marked the failure of Eugene O'Neill. When Miss Falk can find "circles of ironic significance," they radiate from a dramatic situation like the curtain speech of Desire Under the Elms, when the Sheriff remarks "It's a jim-dandy farm, no denyin'." And she finds "the best explanation of the meaning of dramatic tragedy" in Smithers' final comment in Emperor Jones: "Gawd blimey, but yer died in the 'eighth 0' style, any'ow!" Always, the abomination of O'Neill's language, whether it is the crassly American little-boy speech or inept 1959 BOo.K REVIEWS 65 dialect! Even to drama, and perhaps especially to drama, we may apply Mallanne's dictum, "A poem is made, not of ideas, but words." Whatever Miss Falk may reveal about language or dramatic irony, however, is secondary to her business-like concern with the action and reaction of character in...