Mental Representations of the Self

Abstract

The study of the self is now of concern to almost every part of social psychology. This chapter attempts to adopt two complementary theoretical perspectives in cognitive psychology and pursue their implications for research and for theory on the structure and function of the self-concept. These implications should be construed as hypotheses rather than conclusions. It concerns with the cognitive aspects of the self, however, there are problems that must be confronted. Self-assessment is represented by a process involving the direct look up of features associated with the self concept. Because of the widespread implications and the great interest in the self throughout the behavioral sciences, research and theorizing in this field have inevitably followed different approaches. In the chapter, the relatively new information-processing perspective and the way the concepts and methods employed in the study of memory and information processing generally contribute in important ways to understand the self-concept is reviewed. The self-concept may be construed as a set of features that are characteristic of the person and also distinguish him or herself from other individuals.