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The Minimal Self
(2017)
The aim of The Minimal Self is to undertake a conceptual analysis of the term ‘self’ and thereby establish the minimal conditions that must be met to ascribe selfhood to an entity. This conceptual analysis focuses on what is termed ‘intrinsic reflexivity’, which is taken as the defining feature of selfhood. Three underlying categories of intrinsic reflexivity are distinguished: self-maintenance, self-reproduction and self-containment. These three fundamental categories provide a framework within which it is possible to distinguish entities that can be designated ‘selves’ from entities that are merely ‘self-like’, thus establishing the logical preconditions for the ‘emergence’ of selfhood. By examining the fuzzy borderlines between selves and the merely self-like as manifest in phenomena such as dissipative systems, genetic material, viruses and bacteria, it becomes possible to ascertain a form of ‘minimal selfhood’, a mode of being shared by all selves qua selves. Free-living single-celled organisms such as protozoa are paradigmatic instances of minimal selfhood to the extent that they can be characterized in terms of the three intrinsically reflexive processes of self-maintenance, self-reproduction and self-containment. Minimal selfhood is also presupposed by more complex multicellular selves such as animals. Such an analysis is found to shed light on the origin of life and on the nature of organisms and biological individuals.
The aim of the book is to ground the logical origins of consciousness in what I have previously called the ‘minimal self’. The idea is that elementary forms of consciousness are logically dependent not, as is commonly assumed, on ownership of an anatomical brain or nervous system, but on the intrinsic reflexivity that defines minimal selfhood. The book seeks to trace the logical pathway by which minimal selfhood gives rise to the possible appearance of consciousness. It is argued that in specific circumstances it thus makes sense to ascribe elementary consciousness to certain predatory single-celled organisms such as amoebae and dinoflagellates as well as to some of the simpler animals. Such an argument involves establishing exactly what those specific circumstances are and determining how elementary consciousness differs in nature and scope from its more complex manifestations.
The impact of stories in their ability to shape our view on the world has long been a central topic in communication science and media psychology. While reading a book or watching a movie, we are transported into story worlds and we identify with depicted protagonists. Several studies showed that high levels of transportation lead to greater story-consistent beliefs. Similar effects were found for identification. However, much less is known how and in which direction stories could affect the self. Five experimental studies were conducted and summarized in three manuscripts. Manuscript #1 explored the moderating role of transportation that could shift one’s self-perception towards traits of a depicted story character (assimilation) or away from him/her (contrast). Manuscript #2 focused on downward social comparisons with a protagonist and possible contrast effects on participants’ self-perception in relation to others, their motives and behavior. Thereby, the mediating role of transportation and identification were investigated. Finally, upward social comparison with a protagonist and related emotions (e.g., envy) that mediate possible effects on one’s self perception and behavioral intentions were investigated in manuscript #3.
This dissertation project contributes to the literature on stories and the self. Consistent with previous work, assimilation effects were found for highly transported recipients. However, stories might also elicit contrast effects on recipients’ selves and behavioral intentions that are opposite to a depicted character. Extending prior research, there were evidence that transportation and envy are important process variables explaining assimilation vs. contrast effects.
The aim of the current work was to enhance the understanding of the relationship between goals and the self. More specifically, I wanted to achieve three things. First, I developed an implicit measure of self-activation (SA) based on response latencies to avoid the problems of traditional measures of self-activation (i.e., demand effects, self-presentation concerns). Therefore, two studies were conducted in which increased self-activation, induced by classic self-manipulations, was measured with a newly developed picture task. Thereby it was assumed that individuals would react faster to photographs of themselves when the self was activated than when it was not. Second, I aimed to demonstrate that there exists a close connection between personal goals and the self. Despite being inherent in several theories, this assumption has never been tested directly before. It was hypothesized that thinking about personal goals should activate the self, resulting in faster reactions in the newly developed measure of SA, i.e., quicker responses to the self-pictures. Third, it was investigated whether goals and the self are linked in a bidirectional fashion; according to the reported findings, it seems to be functional for individuals’ self-regulation and goal pursuit to develop such a link. To provide evidence for the bidirectionality of the relationship, it was hypothesized that in conditions of high SA, it should be more likely personal evaluations to be construed as goals; this goal activation should result in higher accessibility of goal-related knowledge, stronger approach motivational tendencies towards goal-related targets, and more goal-directed behavior. The obtained results endorse the applicability of the picture task as implicit method to measure increased SA and also corroborate the core hypothesis, namely that personal goals and the self are inherently connected and that they are linked in a bidirectional fashion.