Self-Awareness

Its Nature and Development

Edited by Michel Ferrari and Robert J. Sternberg

Hardcover

April 17, 1998

ISBN 9781572303171

Price: $79.00

430 Pages

Size: 6" x 9"

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This integrative volume brings together leading social scientists to present diverse perspectives on the emergence, development, and practical role of self-awareness. Shedding light on the fundamental question of how human beings come to understand who we are—in relation to ourselves, to others, and to the broader world—the book does justice to the complexity of its subject while remaining accessible to readers in a wide range of disciplines. Chapters cover such topics as developmental and evolutionary aspects of self-awareness; the self, consciousness, and theory of mind; and connections between self-awareness and social, affective, academic, and neuropsychological functioning.

“An excellent introduction to the burgeoning field of research on the development of the self. Bringing together leaders in philosophy, comparative psychology, and developmental psychology, and carefully sequencing their contributions, the editors provide a fascinating road map to the complexities of self-awareness, its development, and its centrality in any discussion about human nature itself.”

— Michael Cole, PhD, Communication Department and Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition, University of California, La Jolla

I. Definitions and Underpinnings of Self-Awareness

1. The Mind and Education, Searle

2. Consciousness and Self-Awareness, Natsoulas

II. The Evolution of Self-Awareness

3. When Self Met Other, Povinelli and Prince

4. A Social Model for the Evolution and Adaptive Significance of Self-Conscious Emotions, Parker

III. Development of Self-Awareness across the Lifespan

5. Is There a Self in Infancy?, Kagan

6. Inching toward a Mature Theory of Mind, Chandler and Carpendale

7. Self-Awareness and Social Intelligence: Web Pages, Search Engines, and Navigational Control, Ford and Maher

8. Personal Navigation, Sternberg and Spear-Swerling

9. The Developing Self-System and Self-Regulation of Primary School Children, Bouffard and Vezeau

10. The Brain, the Me, and the I, Pribram and Bradley

11. Narrative and Metanarrative in the Construction of Self, Bruner and Kalmar

12. The Development of Self through the Coordination of Component Systems, Mascolo and Fischer

IV. Integration and Conclusion

13. Being and Becoming Self-Aware, Ferrari

About the Editors

Michel Ferrari , PhD , University of Pittsburgh

Robert J. Sternberg ,PhD , Yale University.

All titles by Robert J. Sternberg

Audience

Psychologists, philosophers, anthropologists, and students of these and related disciplines as well as a text for courses on cognitive development; theory of mind; human physiology and the emergence of mind; human evolution; and metaphysics and philosophy of mind.

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