Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Anastasia Platoff
June 2012
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Table of Contents
Introduction
A Metaphor for Self Continuity
Three Tenets of Self Continuity that Merit Examination
Conclusion
Works Cited
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The focus of this review is the enduring, though controversial, axiom that perceived
self continuity is the crux of personal identity (James, 1890/1950; Erikson, 1963; Kihlstrom,
2002; Kandel, 2006; McAdams, 2001; Schacter, 1996; Scheibe, 1995). This inner experience of
spatiotemporal coherence is a tenable, pragmatic illusion that nearly all humans create, modify,
and regulate within themselves over time, both consciously and unconsciously. There is no
single motive that may be elucidated to make sense of this process; the subjective judgment
social psychology each have distinct, well-founded explanations for how and why humans think
of themselves as continuous, stable entities, despite the inexorable vicissitudes that accompany
our material existence from start to finish. The issues addressed in this paper will concern the
reductionistic form, as if the development of continuous personal identity were akin to a rivers
current, moving along a bounded trajectory. I will draw on this metaphor to begin the discussion
of continuity from a purely conceptual frame of reference; the ensuing critical analysis will
Think about the trajectory of a flowing river. Branches and other raw material will
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frequently amass within the overall stream, and circumstances that entail changes in velocity,
whether or not they are anticipated, will be encountered. Greater impediments to this fluidity
such as tree trunks that spontaneously partition the current, extreme fluctuations in the stream,
and embankments erected by othersdepending on their magnitude and severity, may bring the
river to a standstill, preventing further progression. More powerful rivers are sometimes able to
surmount such obstacles and reinstate some semblance of their past motion.
The metaphor of identity continuity as a river channel is also apt in the sense that, if one
withdraws a handful of water from a certain point in the stream, its quality will surely be
different from water taken from other sections of the river. It has been extracted from a distinct
place in time and, consequently, this handful of water has an isolated existence and history,
separate from the broader current. By the same token, this small amount of water still provides
an illustration of the nature of the river; it remains an integral part of the whole.
Continuity metaphors exert a strong attraction in people because they depict certain
facets of the self as having their origins in the past, allowing individuals to retrospectively trace
archetypal vestiges to what they feel may be their true spatiotemporal source (Kagan, 1998).
The river metaphor is naturalistic, which further augments its evocative and explanatory powers.
explanations for the human perception of self continuity, and for that reason, it provides us with
Furthermore, this metaphor illuminates two noteworthy paradoxes that comprise the self
continuity paradigm. The first paradox is that the continuity cannot occur without change, yet
between past and present dispositions, beliefs, or attributes is a genuine feeling that can be
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further authenticated by the observation of close others. However, this nearly universal
experience has no concrete veracity. A person is never truly the same, physically or
psychologically, from one moment to the next. It is the perception of sameness that acts as the
vital link, coalescing time and lived experience (i.e., memory), despite ones consciousness of
change.
The second paradox of the self continuity paradigm, skillfully conceptualized by William
James (1890/1950), has been labeled by Knowles and Sibicky (1990) as the one-in-many-
selves paradox. This term refers to the problem of the unitary self versus multiple selves; James
described an individual as ha[ving] as many social selves as there are distinct groups of persons
about whose opinion he [sic] cares. He generally shows a different side of himself to each of
stream of selves, and a sense of familiarity among all of themin other words, a
Kashima et al. (2002) identified two interlinked but separable components of this
paradox: one is the contextual multiplicity of social selves, and the other is the temporal
continuity of personal identity. James and more recent scholars of cognition have primarily
accounted for these intersecting perceptions of plurality and consistency with models of
parallel distributed processing and other connectionist models that account for the subjective
appraisal of both a unitary self and multiple selves, both of which are necessary for continuity.
These two paradoxes have perhaps magnified the intrinsic ambiguity of self continuity as
a theoretical concept. However, the phenomenon itself is not as oblique. The perception of the
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procedures. But continuity is also shaped in circumstances of no explicit self-awareness
(Kihlstrom, 2002; Ross and Wilson, 2002; Schacter, 1996). This suggests that continuity is not
only an attractive state of being, but a remarkably utilitarian creation, as well. The processes and
motives behind this creation, as they relate to identity, are what I plan to explain.
At present, the most pertinent tenet for initial inquiry is the proposition that the judgment
of self continuity is the foundation of personal identitya view propounded by William James
in his magnum opus, The Principles of Psychology (1890). In this first section, the explanations
and validity of this enduring hypothesis will be assessed from the vantage points of more recent
In contemporary psychology, the self and identity are major topics of fascination, which
William James. James thoughts on consciousness and the self have weathered over a century of
discussion, and although some technical and rhetorical particularities have been adjusted in
accordance with contemporary science, the fundamental components of his ideas have remained
extraordinarily accurate and applicable to recent findings on the relationship between memory,
In connection with James theory, this inquiry will be analyzed with reference to the
(a) from the perspective of cognitive psychology, viewing the self as continuous is an efficient
way to connect senses, thoughts, and experiences into a structure that seems coherent and
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practical; (b) from an evolutionary standpoint, self continuity enables self-prediction, which
memory suggests that, because identity is an active, diachronic configuration, humans have the
natural tendency to select and consolidate their meaningful experiences into an expository,
continuous chronology; (d) this theory is also influenced by developmental factorsthe qualities
of the early relationship with ones primary caregiver and, later, the undertaking of individuation
and autonomous judgment, often have tremendous impact on how temporally continuous we
view ourselves and our experiences; (e) and finally, social considerations, such as self-
The second tenet of this review is the designation of memory as the system that fosters
and shapes perceptions of continuity, and therefore has paramount implications for personal
identity. An illustration of the influential elements of memory will include: an outline of the
brain regions essential for long-term memory; encoding, storage, and retrieval processes (e.g.
motivational, and cognitive mechanisms that influence perceived continuity (both implicit and
explicit); and the interactive effects between the quality of the present state and the nature of the
retrieved memory. In summary, this section will first consider neuroscientific research that
clarifies how neural activity results in subjective experience, and then give priority to cognitive
studies that explicate how individuals decipher, utilize, and reconstruct memories for the purpose
of identity cohesion. These areas of research will give us insight into the degree to which
temporal continuity is an illusion, and how this illusion is established and maintained.
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The third issue that warrants investigation is the antithetical experience of a discontinuous
identity. The factors that precipitate obstructions in conscious links between past and present
selves reveal that the framework of continuity, despite its general adaptability to fluctuation, is
not invariably resilient. Moreover, an evaluation of phenomena such as identity pathology and
cultural dislocation, which often coincide with a certain degree of trauma, may help to
corroborate the importance of self continuity by revealing the detrimental effects of its absence.
Common to most dissociative phenomena is the experience of the self as fragmentedas though
each part of ones identity belongs to a fixed time or context and that these selves are incoherent
when arranged next to one another. As a consequence, these rigid boundaries prohibit voluntary
movement between recalled episodes in time, and thus undermine the ability to identify the
continuities that flow between past and present thought and experience.
After these three propositions have been integrated, the conclusion of this work will
feature questions left unanswered due to the limited scope of this review and provide suggestions
Rather, within every individual there exists an aggregate of feelings, habits, and thoughts (in
other words, an assemblage of selves) which are constantly being appropriated, disowned,
augmented, and weakened by the person who possesses them (James, 1890/1950). A continuous
identity is maintained by a diachronic search for resemblance, but the framework of continuity
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also encompasses an infinite succession of changes in its content. Therefore, the mere desire to
It must not be taken to mean more than these grounds warrant, or treated as a sort of
metaphysical or absolute Unity in which all differences are overwhelmed. The past and present
selves compared are the same just so far as they are the same, and no farther. A uniform feeling
of 'warmth,' of bodily existence . . . pervades them all; and this is what gives them a generic unity,
and makes them the same in kind. But this generic unity coexists with generic differences just as
real as the unity. And if from the one point of view they are one self, from others they are as truly
not one but many selves. And similarly of the attribute of continuity; it gives its own kind of unity
to the self -- that of mere connectedness, or unbrokenness, a perfectly definite phenomenal thing
(James, [1890/1950], pp. 334-335).
Although self continuity is, in part, a subjective illusion, James significantly notes that
this omnipresent feeling of sameness is not simply the product of retrospective fabrication. In
order for an individual to perceive continuity between temporal episodes, there must be a certain
quality that permeates within and between these episodes, forming links within the stream of
experience, rather than treating ones autobiography as an array of discrete episodes. James
accounts for this feeling of familiarity or warmth from a number of vantage points. At its most
basic level, personal existence is felt as continuous and unified because of our bodies,
our material selves, which we possess from birth until death. Accordingly, all thoughts,
feelings, and behaviors are also in our sole possession, inseparable from our existence. The
actions, thoughts, and feelings of others may stir us, but do not hold as much weight, for we do
not feel the same sense of ownership over the movements of others. We absolve our own
of who we really are. In contrast, we find that oversights made by others are easily derided and
treated as failures in the others identity (e.g. Wilson and Ross, 2003; Skowronski al., 2004).
We hear from our parents various anecdotes about our infant years, but we do not
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appropriate them as we do our own memories. Those breaches of decorum awaken no blush,
those bright sayings no self-complacency (James, [1890/1950], p. 335). These stories, because
like the intimacy of our own experiences. The same air of disinterest is present when we recall
nebulous shards of memory from a distant pastscenes that are no longer evocative or detailed
and contain no sense of warmth or subjectivity generally do not seem to belong to us.
appropriation and assimilation of thoughts, all possessing the warm feeling tone that marks
them as mine. Memory facilitates this process, allowing access to the past in order to survey
the present and contemplate the future. Without memory, there is no temporal link, nor any
The knowledge the present feeling has of the past ones is a real tie between them; so is their
resemblance; so is their continuity; so is the ones appropriation of the other: all are real ties,
realized in the judging Thought of every moment, the only place where disconnections could be
realized, did they exist . . . the ties and the disconnections are exactly on a par, in this matter of
self-consciousness (James, [1890/1950], pp. 359-360).
rendered equally indiscernible. The reason why individuals appropriate knowledge of the past
with the present, James argues, is that the grounds for appropriation (i.e., continuity and
resemblance) outweigh the perceived grounds for disowning such knowledge (i.e., temporal
distance). Over time, these continuities become realized as habits and sensibilitiesfoundations
upon which new experiences are shaped. Having been acquired over a long temporal duration
and maintained through repetition, conscious awareness is not necessary for these tendencies to
take effect because they are implicit components of ones general character. For this reason,
many defining traits of personal identity are resistant to change (James, 1890/1950; Grigsby,
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2001; Schacter, 1996) but undergo adaptation relative to the accumulation of experience and
insight.
The legacy of William James ideas on self continuity can be found in contemporary
works of cognitive psychology (e.g. Hoelter, 1985; Kihlstrom et al., 2002; Reid & Deaux, 1996;
Ross & Wilson, 2002; Scheibe, 1995; Jacoby, 1988), developmental psychology (e.g. Bird &
Reese, 2008; Erikson, 1963; Kagan, 1998; Kohut, 1978; McAdams, 2001; Pasupathi, 2001),
social psychology (e.g. Nelson, 2008; Sedikides et al., 2008; Shrauger & Schoeneman, 1979;
Tafarodi et al., 2003), and neuroscience (e.g. Kandel, 2006; Grigsby, 2001; LeDoux, 2002;
Schacter, 2003). However, the theory that identity necessitates subjective continuity and
coherence over time has also encountered a fair amount of dissent, particularly from self-defined
postmodern psychologists, who contend that identity fragmentation is a certainty that individuals
should concede so they may extricate themselves from the confines of an illusory wholeness.
For example, Paul C. Vitz (1996) argues that the hallmarks of modern psychology have
which have depreciated the notion of human dignity. He defends Gergens description of the
society, such as increased locational movement, pervasive media propaganda, and frequent
interactions with peoples belonging to different cultures and adhering to diverse lifestyles, he
claims, have left no time for personal integration or reflection. In such a fast-paced society, the
variety of situations encountered on a daily basis require immediate response and thus restrain all
possibilities for self-prediction. Vitz deems the modern view of a core self an illusion,
reasoning that the theory of an authentic self is inauthentic because no subjective judgment of a
core identity could have veracity in an environment typified by chaos. The self, then, is
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perpetually indeterminate, motivated by the faculty of free will.
to maintain personal coherence in the face of rapid contextual changes. In her opinion, the
notion of the self as unified is an illusion based on semiotic ideas, which often mutates into
an endeavor to reify the theory in psychoanalytic and philosophical writings. Instead, Ewing
argues that the process of shifting selves is constant, but occurs in the unconscious, which
enables us to organize our experiences into what feels like timeless self-representations, although
their components are inconsistent and context-dependent. When situated in an explicit conflict
anxiety, such as insisting that they have retained their temporal continuity, but that external
Ewing (1990) takes issue with what Heinz Kohut has labeled the cohesive
and fragmented selves. Kohut described the cohesive self as the healthy development of
situational and relational changes are too frequent and rigid to maintain a consistent sense of
wholeness. Ewing judges this polarity as a fallacious representation of the psychological and
symbolic processes involved in such a phenomenon; it underscores the self as autonomous and
bounded, while objectifying relational and cultural factors. Ewing posits that, as long as
individuals are able to shift their self-representations to suit the corresponding context and
interaction, they may experience a sense of continuity despite the existence of multiple,
Thus far, the major points of skepticism regarding psychological theories of continuity
are: 1) the reductionistic view that personal identity is constructed by the self as an autonomous
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agent, and 2) the ineffective reification of self continuity from a symbolic idea to an observable
reality. Vitz and Ewing agree that the perception of temporal fluidity is a false notion created by
individuals as a coping device for evident incongruities in daily life. Psychologist Lynne Layton
takes this discourse a step further in Whos That Girl? Whos That Boy? (2004) by explicating
in early life, the postmodern feminist view is that fragmentationor to use the preferred
term, multiplicityof the self is a means of subverting the cultural-symbolic system that
celebrating diversity, ambiguity, and indeterminacy of the self, options become boundless
The problems with Anglo-American theories of identity, from Laytons perspective, are
that fragmentation is not considered as a byproduct of a rigidly defined culture and that cohesion,
in these terms, is based on the presumption that normative thoughts and behavior are healthy.
However, Layton emphasizes the importance of having an identity to call ones own:
What is necessary is some way of recognizing the self in ones fragments, or . . . a growing ability
to call each voice I. What you call this I has all kinds of ramifications, but some experience
of a cohesive I, of something that recognizes itself even in its most disparate elements, seems to
be necessary to relieve suffering. This sense of unity that one identifies as a core self may be no
more than a cultural artifact, but it is one that is necessary not only to good mental health but to
ethical behavior (1994, p. 136).
oppression and valorize fragmentation as a struggle against these forces, Layton still sees
something advantageous in an individuals ability to recognize the core self as a unified entity.
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and are consequently governed by the (self-imposed) ambition to escape being imposed on by
others. Her major criticism of postmodernism, like that of many other psychologists, is that it
calls for a multiplicity of selves without taking into consideration the psychological effects of
living with discrete selves within the same body. Despite the possibilities offered by continual
reinvention, Layton ultimately affirms that a sense of identity and agency are crucial
components of the ability to be good to both the self and to others (p. 136).
innovation, but the effects of these frequent sociocultural transformations on the individuals
capacity to preserve the perception of continuity are unknown. The notion of identity continuity
should not be mistaken as analogous to an obstinate or immutable sense of self over time. The
network of subjective associations that not only accommodates, but necessitates change for its
development and crystallization. The pertinent question here is the extent to which ones sense
of identity continuity can benefit from acclimating to vicissitudes, and at what point such
changes begin to overwhelm ones motivation and potential for personal coherence. To unravel
this issue, it is necessary to analyze self continuity as a psychological process while taking into
account the factors that exist outside of the individual, which can either foster or damage this
experience.
The exaggerated expectation of consistency is a common error. We are prone to think that the
world is more regular and predictable than it really is, because our memory automatically and
continuously maintains a story about what is going on, and because the rules of memory tend
to make that story as coherent as possible and to suppress alternatives . . . The confidence we
experience as we make a judgment is not a reasoned evaluation of the probability that it is right.
Confidence is a feeling, one determined mostly by the coherence of the story and by the ease with
which is comes to mind, even when the evidence for the story is sparse and unreliable . . . When
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a compelling impression of a particular event clashes with general knowledge, the impression
commonly prevails (Kahneman, 2011).
seemingly trivial details about the lived past. Interspersed in this collection are formative life
experiences, which encapsulate significant motifs that have patterned and shaped the overall
configuration of subjective experience (Engel, 1999). When placed in isolation from pivotal
episodes, the fragmentary details of our histories are easily interpreted as insignificant, despite
the fact that these shards of knowledge are the primary constituents of the context, movement,
experience. From the original event onward, individuals will recall their experience in an
incomplete form; temporal distance transforms the specifics of daily affairs into relics,
containing only the impressions they have left upon us (Bartlett, 1932). When brought to mind,
these events are not accurately reproduced, but instead are rebuilt from vestiges of meaning and
imaginatively furnished with other self-knowledge to provide an image of the past that seems to
have integrity. For example, autobiographies are structured chronologically, but they comprise
experiences that have been schematized by their creatorsthey are necessarily selective to fit a
template of self-conception.
Two experiments conducted by Barclay and DeCooke (1988) found that, in both the
written records and the verbal recollection of various types of autobiographical events,
accordance with their current self-perceptions. The participants instinctively integrated their
diverse experiences to typify themes of personal relevance. Participants did not consider discrete,
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daily routines as memorable, but they recognized them with great accuracy and perceived them
as self-fulfilling on the whole. Similarly, distinct life events that were perceived as meaningful
became larger allegorical constructions, exemplifying life themes, self-schema, and enduring
attitudes and traits. When organized into categories of personal meaning, the remembered past
becomes an intelligible frame of reference for the present. Since many life episodes are not
initially experienced with such clarity, the consolidation of continuous life themes is often a
thought, behavior, and motivation relating to self-appraisals (e.g. Ross & Wilson, 2003;
Rusting, 1999; Schacter, 2003; Skowronski, et al., 2004). For example, a classic study by
Markus (1986) had participants rate their attitudes towards various political issues in 1973 and
again in 1982. In the second session, individuals were also asked to recall what their attitudes
had been back in 1973. Remembrances typically corresponded poorly to opinions as originally
expressed, with respondents perceiving that they were more attitudinally stable than was actually
autobiographies to give the impression of stability regardless of the changes that had occurred.
We search for continuous strands of meaning that link the past and present into a coherent
personal history, making causal connections between temporally distant events and selectively
attending to what we view as self-representative (Ross & Wilson, 2003). We rationalize, distort,
and neglect past actions that appear incongruous with our true selves so that we may reduce
cognitive dissonance and other threats to identity consistency (Schacter, 2003; Turner, 1976).
The ways in which cognitive mechanisms of memory distortion nurture these beliefs will be
discussed later on in this paper. At present, the excerpt offered by Daniel Kahneman applies to
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our preliminary question of why cognitive processes facilitate the experience of a continuous
identity.
When evaluating phenomena related to our personal identities, the implicit incentive for
internal coherence is often a more tenacious force than any conscious commitment to objectivity
and accuracy. Subjective judgments about personal identity arise largely from a heuristic method
of interpretationa strategy that is efficient, practical, learned over time, and unique to the
cognitive repertoire of rules, habits, and skills that are employed without explicit awareness and
are unavailable to introspection. Although it is impossible to recognize the systems that govern
these reflexive procedures, we may indirectly learn about our skills and habits by analyzing our
performance on cognitive and motor tasks (Kihlstrom, 2002). Once we have discerned our own
mental and behavioral patterns, they become features of our declarative knowledge, i.e.,
information that we can consciously harness, allowing us to cultivate a set of expectations and
representations of ourselves in the world. These self-schemata can be considered from multiple
temporal orientationsan individual may reflect on the past and realize that many of his/her
habits and attitudes have remained consistent despite fluctuations and adjustments in other
realms of personal life. This recognition of historic continuity prompts the hypothetical future
self to be construed on the basis of prior self-knowledge. In this way, the self-concept becomes
The heuristic process of deciphering patterns and building cognitive models reveals the
pragmatism of identity development; it is an internal operation, but one that can be empirically
observed. Individuals recognize contexts in which they are not feeling or acting
like themselves, but this sentiment implies only a transient change, as if some feature of the
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self has deviated from its continuous trajectory and is obliged to return to its stable route. The
cognitive representation of the self as continuous is on one hand a functional, subjective illusion;
on the other hand, continuity and change can be spotted in an individuals disposition and
conduct, as well as discussed objectively with close others. The exaggerated expectation of
consistency, the ease with which we interpret associated phenomena as causal, and the tendency
to judge temporally distant events as inextricably bound together by meaning are some of the
cognitive errors that turn ontological continuity into a transparent illusion.1 However, the
The key is mans power of accumulative selection: nature gives successive variations; man adds
them up in certain directions useful to him (Darwin, [1859/1909], p. 46).
If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been
formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.
But I can find out no such case (p. 194).
From an evolutionary perspective, the notion of the temporally continuous self can be
mental faculties and the mechanisms by which they influence thought and behavior are evolved
systems that operate to ensure our survival. Although we are not in control of our environments,
we have inherited relatively homogeneous systems of behavioral response based on the trial and
error methods evolved from hereditary variations in our animal ancestors. In the same way,
consciousnessof the self and of others, of the past and the futureis the result of ancestral
evolution (Kandel, 2006). Self-awareness affords us the capacity to realize our continuity over
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time, which in turn lends itself to self-prediction: an adaptive means of self-preservation. In this
way, the perception of self continuity is a conditioned agent of order (i.e., habit) that navigates
humans through erratic habitats, tracing a small but meaningful element of self-determinism
The structure of continuous identity development has remarkable parallels to the structure
of Darwins theory of evolution: in the aggregate of all things I, the individual retains what is
relevant and useful and abandons that which runs counter to past and present self-knowledge and
circumstances, so that the future self will exist as a coherent extension of past experience. Self-
perceptions are not determined by the arbitrary environmental conditions surrounding the
individual, nor are they purely autonomous constructionsthere is a bidirectional link between
the internal and external worlds of the individual. Because they are interdependent,
discontinuities in one of these spheres can threaten the stability of the other (Kagan, 1998;
Kohut, 1978). Similar to the evolution of a species, personal identity can be seen as a process
that interacts with and influences the biological and environmental conditions from which it
emerges (Grigsby, 2001). We have established that the cognitive formation of self continuity
Character is the aspect of personality consisting of the routine, typical things that are done
repetitively (Grigsby, 2001). Individuals are frequently defined by others in terms of these
distinguishing properties (e.g., extroverted, flaky, impulsive) because they are continuously
expressed, even if they are not recognized as continuous self-conceptions by the individual. Otto
Fenichel writes that character is the habitual mode of bringing into harmony the taks presented
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by internal demands and by the external world . . . a function of the constant, organized, and
integrating part of the personality which is the ego (1945, p. 427). The ego serves an adaptive
role in daily life, attempting to coalesce thought and behavior into a coherent template for self-
implicit mechanisms working in parallel, and because these processes are shrouded by our
unconscious, they do not contradict our vital phenomenological experience of wholeness and
unity.
Moreover, Homo sapiens are not equipped with cognitive capabilities necessary to
recognize the concurrent workings of multiple processing systems that govern thought and
action, but there is no evidence to suggest that such a faculty would serve as an adaptive
function. The perception of self continuity does not preclude our ability to adapt to
circumstances that demand or motivate changes in our thought and behavior. If this were the
case, the self would no longer be perceived as an autonomous individual, but rather a detached,
indeterminate entity governed only by the concerns of the present moment. With no temporal
continuity, self-prediction would be futile; although implicit memory and perception would act
as our unconscious guides in daily life, we would not have the conscious episodic and semantic
associations needed to utilize our past experience as a reference for the present and future. We
would live as continuous entities on a path of maturation, yet lack the ability to recognize these
developments in ourselves. If individuals could not judge any of their attributes, habits, beliefs,
or skills as continuous over their life span, nor receive consistent feedback from others about
these qualities, then they would be left with illogical, mercurial models of personal identity. The
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fluctuating and unpredictable, that is only meaningful when considered as a whole. We cannot
adapt to the present without the accrued knowledge of its relationship with our past; we must
is the universally human awareness of mortality. Beyond the empirical manifestations of ones
own continuous character traits, the need to feel continuous is made paramount by the
knowledge that we materialize from a void and retreat into another, with some span of ascension
connecting the two. Invariably, The Life Story begins with birth and ends with death. This
understanding diffuses our existence as a species and impels the creation of an identity with
certain stipulations: just as time moves forward, so is personal identity on a diachronic track.
However, unlike historical time, experiential time is temporary. The continuity that one
perceives is not based on chronological history, but rather on ones subjective experience and
understanding of said history. The life story that each of us creates and internalizes is founded on
the unsettling awareness of temporality, and thus our habits, preferences, aversions, quirks, and
secrets are elevated to the level of the symbolic, as eternal emblems of I. Motifs of selfhood
must be continually garnered into an aggregate because, although one knows that life will end,
one cannot know when. With this uncertain certainty, we find assurance in self-assurance.
The unfolding drama of life is revealed more by the telling than by the actual events told. Stories
are not merely chronicles, like a seccretarys minutes of a meeting, written to report exactly
what transpired and at what time. Stories are less about facts and more about meanings. In the
subjective and embellished telling of the past, the past is constructedhistory is made (McAdams,
1993, p. 28)
Personal narratives pose a difficulty in the sense that idiosyncratic experience cannot be
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generalized to a population (McAdams, 2001). However, the psychology of life stories and
autobiographical memory have recently become major subjects of interest for researchers in the
fields of developmental, social, and cognitive psychology (e.g. Walker et al., 2009; Habermas &
Bluck, 2000; Pasupathi & Mansour, 2006; McLean, 2008; Wilson & Ross, 2003). Salient life
themes, retrospective interpretation of events, structural complexity and coherence, and the use
of allegory are a few of the innumerable self-defining features that can be revealed through
written and oral narratives. Additionally, individual life stories reflect cultural norms and
assumptions (McAdams, 2001), level of identity development (Neimeyer & Rareshide, 1991),
Engel (1999) writes that remembrance of the personal past is driven by two opposing
forcesone is personal, the other is social: first, the creation of a meaningful chronology fulfills
the individuals need to experience the self as temporally continuous. The remembered self can
have explanatory power for the remembering self, offering a cogent illustration of personal
identity over time; second, autobiographical memory allows the individual to advance a
particular self-representation that fits the current social situation and elicits affirmative feedback
from others. Once again, these dual motives exemplify the concomitant needs for unity and
multiplicity and, with a likeness to the river metaphor, an autobiographical narrative can capture
When looking back on ones life as a whole, personal identity can appear to have
developed in a continuous and cogent manner, so that the present self is bound to the past by
infinite links of similitude. By contrast, when the self is extracted from a discrete episode to
representative of the self in fixed time. Based on the type of milieu that is soliciting
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reminiscence, the individual will be inclined to narrate his or her experience from the point of
view warranted by the context. For example, if a student is motivated to express self-
enhancement in front a disparaging teacher, s/he may communicate change over time by
imparting a perspective of distance between the past self and present self (Wilson & Ross, 2003).
If a past episode is consistent with ones current self-representations, it will be approached from
The purposeful shifts in ones interpretation of past selves illustrates the interactive
construction of personal identity through narrativein equal measure, we influence and are
influenced by our recollections. This continual reconstruction of the past follows McAdams
(2001) statement that human intentionality is at the heart of narrative. Accounts of the personal
past are necessarily selective, and the articulation of an integrative life story not only demands
human intention, but a sophisticated understanding of how events have unfolded and influenced
the current self. Habermas and Bluck (2000) argue that autobiographical reasoning and life
narrativestwo manifestations of the life storycan be assessed with respect to four types of
global coherence: temporal, biographical, causal, and thematic. While autobiographical memory
begins to develop in childhood, and life narratives are formalized in adulthood, they claim that
the cognitive tools and social-motivational demands needed to construct a coherent life story
dependent on adults prompting and sustaining the topical focus (Habermas & Bluck, 2000).
Around 30 months, children start to take a more active role in maintaining focus on a topic of
discussion, and by talking about memories with others, they begin to discern which memories
are worth telling. Nelson (1988) has found that between the ages of 2 and 5, children begin to
23
form generalized scripts for episodic information that determine normative sequence of actions,
important actors, locations, and objects. These scripts contain a hierarchical structure, so that the
fundamental elements of a story are emphasized, while the peripheral features play a less
conspicuous role. Children advance from these scripts to the method of constructing stories from
an evaluative perspective, with a format that often includes a temporal sequence of events, a
setting, an identified problem, and the necessary steps toward resolution. In using a story
template to organize events, children learn to recognize the causal links between a given problem
events, seldom make any mention of the past in their narratives (Engel, 1999). Children around
the age of 10 devise a cultural concept of biography, but have yet to access the cognitive ability
consistent. In addition to undeveloped cognitive tools, Habermas and Bluck propose that
children lack life stories because the psychosocial motivations and demands to construct an
Framed within Eriksons (1963) stage theory of identity development, the onset of
adolesence encompasses the psychosocial conflict of identity versus role confusion. The
preceding stage of industry versus inferiority problematizes the childs experience of him/herself
in societyfrom the ages of 6 to 12, children begin to recognize themselves as individuals with
a particular social status, which forces them to confront issues of responsibility, self-confidence,
personal skills, morality, and how family and social milieu have influenced these perceptions.
The subsequent stage of identity versus role confusion (lasting roughly from ages 12 to 18)
inspires individuals to configure their diverse roles, attributes, preferences, talents, and beliefs
24
into an integrated biographical structure that is internally coherent and accepted by ones peers.
This socially-driven need for identity commitment requires increased introspection and
judgment, which in turn spur the creation of a life story. Erikson writes, To be [an] adult means,
among other things, to see ones own life in continuous perspective (1958, p.111). The
A coherent life narrative must account for change and development over time. Thus, it is essential
to interrelate past and present selves by establishing causal links between life circumstances
or events and ones personal development. Global causal coherence provides a diachronic
understanding of how individuals remain themselves in spite of change (i.e., maintain self-
continuity) and a biographical understanding of how previous experiences have shaped oneself
(Habermas & Bluck, 2000, p. 757).
The tendency to view identity as a diachronic process obliges individuals to justify and
take heed of changesi.e., the aspects of personality and experience that appear incongruous
with an indviduals criteria for what exemplifies personal continuity. A body of research on age
differences in autobiographical reasoning and narrative formation has shown that the stories of
younger versus older adults vary on a number of significant structural characteristics, including
Pasupathi & Mansour, 2006; Neimeyer & Rareshide, 1991). A number of these investigators
have also found evidence to suggest that gender differences shape the development of narrative
identity, due to factors such as generational and cultural understandings of gender roles
(McLean, 2008) and sex-specific qualities of maternal scaffolding in childhood (McLean &
Mansfield, 2011).
gender differences in autobiographical reasoning (e.g., McLean, 2005; McLean & Pratt, 2006;
25
McLean & Thorne, 2003), the reports in McLeans (2008) study indicated more processing and
more thematic coherence in the stories of female participants, regardless of age. One possible
explanation for these gender differences could be that this study, unlike the previous studies
cited above, used an interview to assess autobiographical reasoning, rather than written
measurements. McLean mentions that the interview context affords a level of social intimacy
with which female participants may have been more comfortable or familiar, prompting them to
In another study, McLean & Manfield (2011) observed further evidence for gender
emotional events. Mothers displayed more supportive scaffolding behaviors toward younger
adolescents and boys, encouraging them to elaborate on the stories they told. This maternal
reassurance did not manifest in mothers conversations with older adolescents and girls, who
openly disclosed and elaborated on emotional events without reiterative questioning. McLean &
involve the willingness to self-disclose, to discuss vulnerability, and a level of self-reflection that
are conducive to normative female identity development and socialization processes. The
developmental confines of the normative male gender role may preclude young boys from
practicing these autobiographical reasoning behaviors until they are so compelled in mid- to late
Our autobiographies develop and change across the life course as we adapt to age-related
life transitions and unpredictable turning points. McAdams observed that narrative identity work
in early to middle adulthood concentrates on the articulation, expansion, and refinement of self-
26
conceptions or personal imagoes: the idealized personifications of the self as a protagonist in the
narrative. The integration of these imagoes in a single life story can resolve the one-in-many-
selves paradox identified by William James. From late adolescence to early adulthood, we learn
student can peacefully coexist in a single autobiography, although it can take a great deal of time
and reflection to locate the patterns of thematic coherence within this multiplicity.
This process of integration entails what Habermas and Bluck (2000) have deemed
autobiographical reasoning, defined as the ability to link the self to experience. The
development of this capacity is correlated with age and manifests itself in the construction of
heterogeneous events are often seen as necessary fluctuations in the process of identity
development; they are indicative of growth, transition, and discovering ones place in the world.
These judgments reflect a level of autobiographical reasoning that has yet to achieve full
maturation. Because the adolescent years are characterized by change, uncertainty about the
future, and conflicting cultural messages, these perceptions will be expressed in the structure and
content of adolescent identity narratives. Adolescents are in the midst of assuming the
interpretive, self-critical stance that is required in order to make a stable commitment to beliefs,
ambitions, and roles that will embody a consistent personal identity. Therefore, they are at a
juncture in which they are neither able nor impelled to draw on past experiences to confirm their
temporal self continuity. Instead, adolescents are actively forming perceptions of themselves and
the world, which will later serve as central components of their autobiographical narratives.
27
Heterogeneous events are interpreted in terms of their connected, underlying themes, rather than
their temporal or contextual diversity. Years of self-appraisals and meaning-making have worked
to crystallize a perception of identity that is cogent, flexible, and continuous. As such, these
features of self continuity serve as the basic foundation from which experience flows. The
two stages of psychosocial development: generativity versus stagnation and ego integrity versus
despair. In the former, adults begin to review their lives in terms of their accomplishments,
contributions to society, and productivity. Generativity refers to the task of establishing and
guiding the next generation (Erikson, 1963), which is an undertaking that can only be
accomplished once individuals have made sense of their own identities in the broader context of
society. If individuals feel dissatisfied with themselves and the products of their life work, they
will remain stagnant, unable to reach out to others and promote the interests of successive
generations.
In Eriksons last stage of ego integrity versus despair, older adults slow their productivity
in retired life to reflect on their histories. Acts of remembrance, for these individuals, concern the
shape that life has takenwhat goals have or have not been accomplished, what has one learned
over time, what semantic and emotional themes have characterized the life span, what aspects of
experience have been most meaningful, and if one feels fulfilled by these developments. This is
the time when loose ends are tied up and the life span converges toward a coherent whole.
The truth of an autobiographical narrative, in its accordance with facts and reality, is
event receiving elaboration through our own imagination and the conditions of the present
context. The autobiographical narratives that we rely on to communicate ourselves to others and
28
to interpret current situations are selectively constructed and deliberately retrieved. A meaningful
life history with explanatory power serves as a valuable representation of personal identity
because it is lucid and communicative. Self continuity, symbolized in narrative form, becomes a
concrete phenomenon in the sense that individuals possess the episodic evidence for its
existence. In their study on the health advantages of narrative writing, Pennebaker et al. (1999)
found a high correlation between physical and mental health and the simple exercise of writing
down ones experiences. Additionally, their findings indicated that these benefits were both
qualitatively and quantitatively equivalent to the effects of verbally recounting ones experiences
to others. In both forms of disclosure, we gain meaning and insight about ourselves through the
reflection, organization, and articulation of lived experience. The perception of self continuity is
bolstered by the process of unfolding that characterizes life and is further emphasized in
autobiographical narratives.
a great deal of significance to the early years of life. The experiences of early childhood have
been emphasized by a wide range of theorists as playing a pivotal role in shaping personality
structure, affect regulation, social adjustment, and other thought, feeling, and behavior patterns
in adulthood (see Westen, 1998). Advocates of infant determinism posit a causal link between
cognitive, and social psychology, as well as research in behavior genetics and neuroscience,
29
have established that, while this relationship may be correlative, the collection of factors that
mold adult psychopathology is far too broad and eclectic to be limited to the formative years of
early childhood. In addition to infant attachment styles, genetic predispositions and heritability,
environmental factors, and cultural systems of meaning are a few of the myriad variables that can
in adult life, we must underscore the cumulative nature of this relationship. The psychology of
the young child is often a provisional arrangement, by virtue of a malleable constitution, but this
should not suggest that the events of early life do not carry weight for future development. The
to the evolution of a new species. With this being said, The events of the opening years do
start an infant down a particular path, but it is a path with an extraordinarily large number of
The psychological characteristics of children are not guaranteed endurance, but these first
years of life would not be judged as formative if this potential were nonexistent. One of the
primary inquiries of developmental research that has yet to be fully understood is how gene-
siblings in shared environments have remained equivocalthe ways in which two children
respond to the same event are highly variable, which would suggest that personality depends less
on the environment and more on individual temperament and adaptibility. However, while the
specific, heritable genetic makeup of a child may predispose him/her to certain forms of
genotype with the environment. These research scenarios are problematic in that causal links are
30
virtually impossible to ascertain. For example, if two children are impacted by the same
environmental pathogen, such as an emotionally erratic maternal figure, each may develop
opposite patterns of adaptation that alter the course of personality development. One child may
become inattentive, impulsive, and emotionally labile, while the other becomes dutiful,
overbearing, and perfectionistic. In attempting to interpret the polarity of these coping methods,
how does one determine whether these differences should be attributed primarily to genotypic
in succession, they are inextricable and must be analyzed as such. This research is further
complicated when we take into consideration additional circumstantial factors such as the other
parents behavior toward the capricious mother, or if another parent is even present in the family
environment.
Westen (1998) suggests that the complexity of this research arises from the fact that one
cannot assume a simple model of development, such as Experience x leads to trait y, from
childhood to adulthood. He provides four reasons for why models are inadequate in longitudinal
studies of personality development (p. 350). The first is that childhood experiences can have
delayed effects. For example, promiscuity, a common outcome of antecedent sexual abuse, does
not typically manifest itself until adolescence; second, trait y may have different behavioral
manifestations at different points in the life span, which makes it nearly impossible to gauge the
development of the same trait over time; third, as individuals take on a wide set of roles, the
expression of trait y may become differentiated and varied (e.g., passive versus active and verbal
versus physical expression); and fourth, many traits are better understood in the context of an
individuals broader personality structure and patterns. Certain early experiences may prompt a
child to become aggressive at age 6, but at age 21, this aggression could be projected inward and
31
engender a more depressive personality style.
Despite numerous caveats that emerge in the study of behavior genetics, other bodies of
research in developmental psychology have uncovered childhood variables that have significant
and reliable predictive power for adult psychopathology. Specifically, attachment research has
afforded a unique profusion of evidence to suggest a correlative link between parenting styles
and childrens subsequent patterns of attachment and social adjustment. Such consistent findings
would indicate that the outcomes of these early relationships are not primarily contingent on
heritable genetic factors, but rather on the childs rearing environment. Infants are born with
complete dependency on their caregivers, and the mothers rearing practices, which later evolve
into interactive patterns between the mother and infant, become internalized by the developing
child. The childs assimilation of this early relationship implicitly works to cultivate a set of
crucial expectations that can extend beyond the family environment for example, how
dangerous the world is; to what extent responsiveness, empathy, and care are assured; and
consequently, the extent to which the child can rely on the mother versus other people.
The expectations shaped by early interactions between children and their caregivers are
not immutable from this stage forward. For these expectations to become fully internalized, they
early life of the child is characterized by empathetic failures of the mother, the child may only
know how to behave toward others in ways that elicit and fulfill these expectations of neglect.
Indeed, Westen claims that if these patterns reflect repeated experiences or experiences that are
painful and conflictual and hence have engendered automatized affect-regulatory procedures to
cope with them, they are more likely to be resistant to change (p. 352). The childs experience
of the physical world is mediated through his/her relationship with the mother, and therefore
32
continuity in thought, feeling, and behavior patterns from childhood to adulthood goes beyond
fiction. The validity of these continuous processes and their childhood antecedents have been
predictive patterns. Main and her colleagues found high predictability of attachment behavior
and representational processes in children at 1, 6, and 19 years of age. In the first phase of this
study, the researchers conducted the Strange Situation procedure to determine the level of
attachment security (or insecurity) between mothers and their 1-year-olds. The Strange Situation
method, developed by Mary Ainsworth and her colleagues in 1978, is one of the most widely
used and validated methods of assessing infants attachment styles in relation to their primary
caregivers. The procedure consists of eight episodes in an experimental room, each designed to
measure the infants level of attachment security through manipulating the proximity of the
attachment figure (the mother or primary caregiver) and observing the infants behavioral and
affective responses to these unfamiliar conditions. These episodes include: the presence of the
mother, the absence of the mother, the presence of a stranger (research assistant), the vocal
presence of the mother, the infant left alone, and a reunion of the mother and infant.
missing the parent during separation, and immediate and active proximity-seeking behavior upon
the mothers return. In contrast, Insecure-Avoidant infants respond to the parents separation
with indications of indifference; they do not cry when left alone, but continue to explore the
room. On reunion, these infants avoid and ignore the parent, and express resistance to being
33
behavior lacks any such patternbecause these infants behaviors are anomalous and may be
linked to constitutional factors and/or parental maltreatment, they cannot be categorized into a
Situation include: a marked indication of fear when the parent is present, a display of
At the 6th-year follow-up, the researchers administered the Separation Anxiety Test
(SAT) to reassess levels attachment security in the children and to examine signals of developing
autonomy. The SAT consists of a series of images and questions about parental separation,
asking children what they would do if separation ever occurred. Secure responses at year 1
responses to the Strange Situation predicted insecure-inactive responses to the SAT (e.g., I
dont know, Nothing, and Run away). D infants in the Strange Situation were categorized
as D-Fearful in their SAT responses, indicated by their linguistic disorganization (e.g., yes-no-
yes-no-yes-no).
Attachment at year 19 was assessed with the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI), a scale
that measures security and autonomy through the coherence of the interview transcript. Secure
responses at ages 1 and 6 predicted secure-autonomous states of mind on the AAI. Not one of the
participants insecure in infacy was classified as secure at age 19. Adults who were judged
insisted on a lack of memory when given the AAI at age 19. D infant responses was predictive
Main and her colleagues found a strong correlation between scales of proximity seeking
34
in infancy and the coherence of transcripts on the AAI 18 years later. While the sample in this
study contained 42 participants and thus cannot be generalized to a population, these results
indicate a significant relationship between the security of infants attachment figures and
environments and later representations of stability, autonomy, and flexibility in adulthood. These
and similar research findings have repeatedly corroborated the leading theoretical works on
psychological development, which are ideally crystallized into a coherent sense of self by
adulthood. Legions of internal, external, central, and peripheral factors interact to shape
trajectories of development e.g., cultural milieu, child rearing practices, object relations, social
status, intervening trauma, genetic endowment, sex and gender, temperament, siblings, and
education. The amalgamation of these cumulative developments is the source of our perceptions
of identity. We cannot sift through our histories to locate the exact precipitants, relationships,
and events that have molded specific elements of our identitiesany personal attribute is the
childhood and resulting adult psychology. However, the manifestations of psychological and
behavioral continuity in clinical and experimental research are theoretically sensible and have
the past and ascribes meaning to the continuities that pervade certain episodic memories, the
study of continuity from a developmental perspective allows for the detection of continuous
thought and behavior patterns as they evolve over time, and thus are not subject to the cognitive
35
errors and affective-motivational processes that are inherent in subjective recollection.
Our examination of the origins and implications of self continuity began with a review
of William James thoughts on the consciousness of self, which was followed by a discussion
with four topical analyses from the perspectives of cognitive, evolutionary, narrative, and
developmental psychology. The following perspective will conclude our systematic explication
of the first tenet of this review: that the experience of a continuous self is the crux of personal
identity.
I am not what I think I am and I am not what you think I am; I am what I think that you think I am.
Robert Bierstedt, 1974, p. 197.
Temporal continuity would not be experienced as tenable or cogent if such beliefs did not
receive social feedback (e.g. Mead, 1934; Stets & Burke, 2003). Although coherence and
continuity are fundamentally personal judgments, the physical and imagined presence of others
greatly influences how we construct and understand our self-perceptions. Indeed, from the social
an other, and accordingly, the development of self-knowledge is inseparable from the social
environments and interactions that have shaped our ideas about who we are.
reference to George Herbert Mead (1863-1931) and Charles Horton Cooley (1864-1929), who
respectively pioneered the school of thought known as symbolic interactionism and the
36
hypothesis of the looking glass self. These theories emphasize the self as a reflection of what
we perceive as others perceptions of us. Cooley (1902) described the looking glass self in terms
of its three principal components: The imagination of our appearance to the other person; the
imagination of his judgment of that appearance, and some sort of self-feeling, such as pride or
mortification (p. 152). Self-perception, then, is not a product of the individual mind, but a
Classified as social behaviorists, Cooley and Mead are in many ways the successors to
James functionalist approach to theories of the self, but their thoughts on the role of society in
relation to the self are distinct from those of their forefather. James described the tripartite
Empirical Self or Me as composed of a material self, a social self, and a spiritual self, each with
its own self-seeking behaviors and means of self-estimation. James considered social self-
seeking as our instinctive impulse to be recognized and admired by others, to pursue love, honor,
ambition, as well as to strive for the achievement of possible ideal selves; this, he believed, was
an objective drive of human nature. The Empirical Me has a propensity for objects of self-
fulfillment: the material self seeks acquisitions and personal adornment, while the spiritual self
pursues exemplary intellect and morality. However, James asserted that the constituents
Empirical Me were isolated from the internal refuge of I the place of sameness and
familiarity to which we retreat when our social, material, or spiritual selves fail to receive
Cooley and Mead, by comparison, interpret the empirical self as essentially social in
nature. Whereas James attributes the continuity of I to individual perception and judgment of
the self over time, Mead argues that the sense of a integrated I is conveyed to the individual by
his/her community. In this view, self and identity emerge in the mind, while the mind develops
37
out of social interaction. Thus the self is a representation of the thoughts and behaviors of an
Scheibe, 1995).
James gave primacy to individual, as did Freud in his prevailing theory of the self as an
isolated and inward entity. However, these ideas were eclipsed by the developing fields of
behavioral psychology, which discarded notions of internal life in favor of observable processes,
and social psychology, which deemed the relationship between the self and society as one of
mutual dependence. Symbolic interactionism, framing, impression formation, and role theory
were phenomena conducive to empirical study, which in turn could provide these theories with a
When compared with the preceding psychological discourses in our review, we find
notable differences in the epistemology and methodology of the social psychological approach to
studies of self and identity. However, the underlying tenet of these fieldsthe human motivation
influential force in individuals behavior, dialogue, and self-representations (e.g. Shrauger &
Schoeneman, 1979; Stets & Burke, 2003). Empirical studies of symbolic interactionism draw
processes, but their findings ultimately uncover the same incentive for personal continuity,
despite the markedly different means by which people form this belief in the social sphere.
James long-standing assumption that people have a relatively continuous and reliable
sense of who they are has been both reinforced and undermined in social psychological
to make assertions that self-conceptions are unstable and ephemeralin other words, situation-
38
dependent (e.g. Mischel & Peake, 1982; Mischel, 1968). Swann and Read (1980) have remarked
on the large quantity of studies that have demonstrated the apparent ease with which participants
credibility of such findings, they argue, is weakened by growing evidence that self-conceptions
have much more endurance against change in naturalistic studies than in laboratory settings (cf.
feedback imply that we are passive beings who watch in wonderment as [our] self-conceptions
are tossed about willy-nilly by the pressures that swirl around [us] (Swann & Read, 1981, p.
1127). However, the abundant and diverse literature that we have considered thus far in our
review suggests the opposite realityi.e., that we assume an active role in the search for
temporal continuity. We continually seek to bring our memories, behavior, and feelings into
congruence with our current self-perceptions, whether or not we are conscious of this effort.
In their review, Stets and Burke (2003) outline two major sociological approaches to the
study of self and identity. Both of these perspectives attest to processes of self-verification and
judge individuals as active agents in society. However, these positions differ in the way they
visualize society as a system of social relations. The situational approach sees the individual as a
social actor, an object among objects, in a state of flux. Society is defined as a tentative structure
that is in the process of being built by the individuals within it, who have the freedom to behave
and define situations in order to fit their personal identifications, which bidirectionally reinforces
phenomena that can only be defined in specific terms of time, place, role dynamics, and co-
constructed meanings. The more contemporary structural approach looks at society from a
39
macro levelas a relatively stable structure that reflects the patterned regularities of large- and
small-scale social interactions that unfold within it. While both of these perspectives regard self-
verification as an human goal, the structural approach to self studies allows us to observe and
consider patterns of behavior over time, while the situational approach limits behavioral analysis
to particular incidents and categories of interaction. Neither of these approaches is less valid than
the other, but the structural approach to identity preservation in society is more pertinent to the
Swann and Read (1980) have proposed that individuals use their social interactions as
In Investigation I, participants were more likely to seek social feedback when they
elicited reactions from their interaction partners that confirmed their self-conceptions,
especially when they suspected that their partners appraisals might disconfirm their self-
The results of this study indicate that people actively seek, elicit, and recall social
feedback that confirms their self-conceptions. The self-concept, as defined by Mead (1934), is
derived from the perceived reactions and evaluations of generalized others, rather than others
actual assessments of the individual. However, the desire for self-confirmatory feedback varies
in proportion to the individuals commitment to his/her self-conception. Data from a later study
conducted by Swann and Read (1981) suggests that individuals whose self-concepts are more
diffuse, poorly integrated, or less articulated do not have as strong of a propensity to acquire self-
40
confirmatory feedback. Although instances of truly diffuse self-conceptions are rare, this finding
seems reasonable: if individuals do not have precise and formulated understandings of who they
are, neither will they have detailed ideas about who they are not. Therefore, these individuals
may seek a highly inclusive range of social feedback in the attempt to understand themselves,
and would then be less likely to evade inconsistent social feedback than individuals who have
Just as individuals selectively and preferentially remember the past in a way that
conforms to their current beliefs and self-perceptions, so do they disclose and behave toward
others in a manner in which their focal attributes will be affirmatively evaluated (Shrauger,
representations of the self. The self-concept then becomes the regulator of individual behavior as
it organizes ones interpretation of the social environment (Markus & Nurius, 1986). Learned
expectations and affective displays, either normative or heuristic, are branded on situational
stimuli, so that when a perfectionist speaks to a scholar, she will promote a humble yet proficient
image of herself, and when a high school principal asks a self-defined deviant to pull his pants
up, the boy may scoff at the request and mutter, Youre not my mom!. We can augment and
diminish particular characteristics to suit present contextual concerns while still maintaining a
subjective experience of unity. However, we may feel insecure when we become aware of our
own internal contradictions, which can advance to severe anxiety if these discrepancies are
exposed to the public. It is for this reason that an integrated self-concept is vital to self
continuity.
The aspects of personal identity that are assessed as salient by an individual and others
will receive added attention and scrutiny as such from both parties. It is unclear, however, if the
41
initial attribution of salience to a personal feature is made by the individual and is then
intensified in social interaction so that it may be authenticated, or if the personal feature is first
judged salient by others (e.g., Youre always so generous with your friends) and is then
assimilated into the individuals network of self-appraisals and subsequently fortified through
behavior. Social identity theorists would tend to insist on the latter, but regardless of the origins
The first section of this analysis has addressed William James principle of personal
ascertained the multifaceted purpose of the human perception of self continuity. The following
section of this review will attend to the contiguous matter of memory as the means by which we
2
Personal Identity as Memory
If a man wakes up some fine day unable to recall any of his past experiences, so that he has to
learn his biography afresh, or if he only recalls the facts of it in a cold abstract way, as things that
he is sure once happened, or if, without this loss of memory, his bodily and spiritual habits all
change during the night, each organ giving a different tone, and the act of thought becoming aware
of itself in a different way, he feels and he says that he is a changed person (James, [1890/1950],
p. 336).
The realization of self continuity entails an inward search for resemblances between past
42
and present landscapes. The mental topography of a remembered past provides each of us with a
kind of personal knowledge that others histories fail to evoke. While perceived continuity is
essential to an integrated identity, memory is a criterion for this awareness and thus acts as the
mainspring of all that we deem I. We cannot judge likeness or distance between the self of the
past and the self of the present without memory as the mediator between these temporal
domains. Just as the perceptual recognition of our own bodies tells us that we still exist, the
subjectively remembered past illustrates that we still arethat I am still the inhibited girl at
family gatherings, that I still have a distaste for the color yellow, consistently bite my nails, and
prefer mint chocolate chip ice cream to other flavors. Others may reasonably perceive these
details as trivial, but I perceive them as my own and therefore as components of me. These
preferences, habits, and oddities of my past still carry weight in the present, as emblems of
In our brains, the enduring facets of personal identity to which we ascribe special value
are, most simply, patterns of synaptic transmission. Synapses are the connections between
neuronsthe channels through which information is stored and encoded. Our mental and
behavioral characteristics, whether congenital or acquired, are deposited in the brains synaptic
ledgers; the outcomes of nature versus nurture are merely two different means of achieving
synaptic interconnectivity within and between various neural systems (LeDoux, 2002). An
innate feature in all of the brains systems is plasticityi.e., the ability to modify in response to
experience. Without our synaptic capacity to change and maintain change, we would not be able
to learn, nor would we possess the fruits of learning: memory. Learning and memory processes
are our neurological continuitytheir continuous development hinges on the history of their
functioning. Neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux contends that, without memory, the self would
43
be an empty impoverished expression of our genetic constitution (p. 9). Experiments in
neuroscience and cognition have conveyed the powerful relationship between memory and the
self, particularly through demonstrating the tremendous implications for personal identity that
However, one should not misinterpret the far-reaching significance of memory to mean
that this system is the absolute overseer of personal identity. The relationship between memory
and the self is reciprocal and interdependent. We know from sections I, III, and V of this review
that recollection is not a passive activity; the self is an active agent in matters relating to personal
identity because we are the protagonists in our respective autobiographies. Our memories may
appear to be faithful and intact records of experience, but this verisimilitude is often the result of
imaginative reconstruction (Barlett, 1932; Schacter, 1996). Factors such as the motivation for
recall, expectations of reliability, the present context, how frequently the memory has been
invoked, and ones affective state at the moment of recall have an effect on how we perceive and
Memory does not constitute a single process, but a diverse collection of neural activities,
all of which coincide to bring about the conscious recollective experience (Engel, 1999). In a
similar way to Engel, cognitive psychologist Ulric Neisser proposed that incoming data are
reconstructing a past event. Long-term memory comprises three major systems: semantic
memory contains our learned repertoire of factual and conceptual information, and procedural
memory represents our acquired habits and skills. The third system, which constitutes subjective
remembrance of discrete past experiences, was first distinguished by psychologist Endel Tulving
(1972) as our episodic memory, which, together with semantic memory, forms the declarative
44
(or explicit) memory systemthe assemblage of self-knowledge and memories that are
accessible through consciousness and communicable to others. The converse implicit memory
system is made up of procedural memory and experiences that cannot be willfully activated, but
important and unique interplay between the rememberer and the remembered: The particular
rememberers belief that the memory is a more or less true replica of the original event, even if
only a fragmented and hazy one, as well as the belief that the event is part of his own past.
Remembering, for the remember, is mental time travel, a sort of reliving of something that
happened in the past (1983, p. 127). As rememberers, we free ourselves from the impositions of
time and space as we traverse across our histories to events that may be separated by years or
decades, but are preserved as meaningful representations of self-relevant experiences. Nigro and
Neisser (1983) have referred to this type of subjective retrospection as field memory, in which
past experiences are viewed from the eyes of the rememberer as the protagonist. They
distinguish the field perspective from that of the observer, who reflects on the lived past from a
detached, third-person perspective. The observer perspective is often exercised when one is
temporal distance, while field memory is motivated by a valenced trigger in the present context
that leads to the reexperiencing of an associated emotional event from the past. Field memories
are indicative of subjective temporal connections; we use the same perspective to reminisce on
these episodes as we did when they were originally experienced, and we attribute our present
feelings to these earlier scenes, thereby solidifying a meaningful link between past and present.
45
Semantic memorythe elaborate network of concepts, associations, and facts that frame
our knowledge of the worldshapes what we select and encode as meaningful representations
of experience. Regardless of whether one consciously attempts to utilize the past through finding
its associations with present circumstances, our implicit memory system affords special salience
(Bornstein, 1999; Kandel, 2006; Jacoby et al., 1985). These learned patterns work to form a
template of continuous qualities that we associate with our episodic memories, so that any one
story may encapsulate the elements that are diffused throughout all personal experience.
experience and motivational mechanismsyield patterns in thought, behavior, and emotion that
we use to characterize ourselves. However, the connections we perceive between different times,
places, and experiences are not universal. When one sees vestiges of the self in remembrance of
things past, are these merely products of a motivated imagination? Can fragments of episodic
memory promote continuity in the same way as procedural and semantic memory, or must the
individual play a more active role in binding these artifacts to the current self? In Imaginary
declaring that:
Human beings do not perceive things whole; we are not gods but wounded creatures, cracked
lenses, capable only of fractured perceptions. Partial beings, in all the sense of that phrase.
Meaning is a shaky edifice we build out of scraps, dogmas, childhood injuries, newspaper articles,
chance remarks, old films, small victories, people hated, people loved; perhaps it is because
our sense of what is the case is constructed from such inadequate materials that we defend it so
fiercely, even to the death (p. 12).
Rushdie lays bare the precarious constitution from which we build continuous meaning.
The shards of the past that we locate in memory are irresolute entities that we are compelled to
interpret, for why would they persist in memory if they did not have a bearing on who we are? It
46
is through these means that the trivial becomes symbolic, the mundane becomes potent, and the
past becomes an illustrative web for the present and the future.
Think of the episode of the madeleine in Marcel Prousts Remembrance of Things Past
(1913). In this example of involuntary memory, the narrator visits his mother and sits down for
tea and pastries, known as petites madeleines. He dips the madeleine into the tea, brings it to his
lips, and is overcome with a feeling of warmth, familiarity, and joy. His sensory faculties are
struck with a sensation that seems to embody his total person. His mind is infused with an aura
of nostalgia as a shred of his past migrates from the realm of the lost to that of the
recovered: The taste was that of the little piece of madeleine which on Sunday mornings at
Combray . . . when I went to say good morning to her in her bedroom, my aunt Lonie used to
give me, dipping it first in her own cup of tea or tisane (p. 48). The taste of the madeleine
brings with it a sense of temporal continuityit is the same madeleine now as it was then, and
accordingly, the narrator of the past and the narrator of the present become ontologically united
in a transient space that feels timeless. James affirms that memory requires more than mere
dating of a fact in the past. It must be dated in my past. In other words, I must think that I directly
experienced its occurrence (p. 650). The madeleine triggers a backward motion through time, to
a specific object in a specific place inhabited by a specific person. However, these past
actualities are only given substance when the narrator is able to reexperience them in the present;
he first recognizes the objective reality of this place from his past, but once he inserts himself
within it, the features of the scene become animated. This sliver of the past, once occupied by
The evocative power of recollection is seldom experienced but always recognized. Each
of us can note occasions in which some stimulus has stirred within us a nostalgic remembrance
47
of halcyon days. The meanings that we derive from such experiences are variable, but the
neuroscience can tell us why and how the episode of the madeleine transpired as it did, but the
broader question of why we remember what we remember entails us to start at the beginning of
the memory processa moment in timeand work our way toward its end resultthe
recollective experience.
You have to begin to lose your memory, if only in bits and pieces, to realize that memory is
what makes our lives. Life without memory is no life at all, just as an intelligence without the
possibility of expression is not really an intelligence. Our memory is our coherence, our reason,
our feeling, even our action. Without it, we are nothing (Buuel, 1984, p. 5)
The encoding process is a method of reshaping something a person sees, hears, thinks, or
feels into an explicit memory. We remember only what we have encoded, and what we encode
depends on who we are (Schacter, 1996). Therefore, our past experience, motivation, and
knowlege all have an impact on the types of information that we retain. It is for this reason that
the same event can be recalled by two people in vastly divergent ways, depending on the depth
of encoding at the time of the event. Neuroimaging studies have located the neural substrates that
are activated (i.e., increase in blood flow) during encoding operations. For example, positron
emission tomography (PET) scanning experiments have found differences in region and level of
activation for shallow encoding tasks versus deep encoding tasks (Kapur et al., 1994). Synaptic
transmission in the frontal and medial temporal lobes are associated with elaborative encoding
48
which the individual configures incoming information in meaningful ways that will aid future
recall. For example, a piano teacher may suggest that his student memorize the notes of the bass
clef by remembering All Cows Eat Grass (the notes A-C-E-G on the spaces on the staff)
and Good Boys Eat Fudge Always for the lines on the staff (the notes G-B-E-F-A). These
kinds of semantic associations help people conceptualize strings of information that do not have
encoding processes that contribute to the lucidity and ease of recollection and work to cultivate a
The changes in neural connectivity that result from encoding an experience produce a
neuroscience as engrams, have been eloquently defined by psychologist Daniel Schacter (1996)
as follows:
The brain records an event by strengthening the connections between groups of neurons that
participate in encoding the experience. A typical incident in our everyday lives consists of
numerous sights, sounds, actions, and words. Different areas of the brain analyze these varied
aspects of an event. As a result, neurons in the different regions become more strongly connected
to one another. The new pattern of connections constitutes the brains record of the event: the
engram . . . These patterns of connections have the potential to enter awareness, to contribute
to explicit remembering under the right circumstances, but at any one instant most of them lie
dormant (pp. 58-59).
Rich and elaborate encoding processes yield a wide range of retrieval cues, increasing the
chances of longterm explicit memory retrieval. Superficial encoding of an event produces very
few cues for retrieval, which may leave these memories dormant in the brain. The vivid and
stirring contextual details in the episode of the madeleine suggest prior elaborative encoding, but
the narrator and reader realize the fragility of this recollection, as it was completely dependent on
a serendipitous reinstatement of the appropriate retrieval cues. The encoding process is virtually
responsible for what we remember, but extensive encoding does not ensure that our memories
49
will be accessible to deliberate and total recall. Retrieval is the second constituent process
essential to explicit memory. The memories that we weave into our personal autobiographies are
made up of activated and strengthened connections between groups of neurons associated with
the engram and retrieval cues; although they may not be recalled voluntarily, there is a wide
latticework of associations that allow them to be recalled with frequency and ease.
Memory constitutes the dual effects of the cue and the engram, but this interaction is not a
fixed operation that evokes the same image across multiple retrievals. As Neissers research on
field and observer memory has shown, the way we remember the past has a considerable
indicate that our thoughts about the memorys meaning for the self have changed. Retrieval
processes involved in subjective memory shape our perceptions of the contextual details, the
emotional tone, and the role of the self in an episode from the past, which lead us to modify our
interpretations of a memory at each instance of recollection. Thus, the properties of the retrieval
cue and the retrieval environment initiate a process of memory reconstruction that is
embellished, imagined, and adjusted to suit present attitudes and knowledge. The way an event is
recalled and communicated to ones therapist will differ from ones recollection of the same
event in a court room; the truth of a memory, the meaning it conveys, and the definitions and
implications of its accuracy shift according to their relevance in the context of retrieval (Engel,
1999).
The important dynamic between encoding and retrieval processes was demonstrated in a
series of famous experiments conducted by Tulving and Thompson (1973) on the priming,
encoding, and retrieval of word pairs. Their results led them to the encoding specificity principle:
the idea that the environment and manner in which we encode an event will determine its
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retrieval cues for later recall. For example, studies on mood-congruent memory have confirmed
that an individuals positive or negative affective state allows for easier and more accurate
retrieval of memories that correspond with that present mood (Rusting, 1999; Walker, et al.,
2009). This phenomenon fits into the category of state-dependent retrieval, whereby an
individuals state at the time of encoding must be reinstated at the time of attempted recall for
optimum memory retention. When individuals encode information while under the influence of
drugs or alcohol, their ability to recall this information will be most favorable in similar
instances of intoxication
To remember an event with accuracy and detail, we rely on our source memory: the
precise knowledge of the time and setting in which the event occurred. Semantic memory often
involves knowing without remembering; we know that we have learned certain information,
but are unable to determine the time and location of its initial encoding. Episodic memory, on the
other hand, is sustained and defined entirely by source memory. The hippocampus is essential to
the encoding, consolidation, and retrieval of episodic memories. Located deep within the medial
temporal lobe, the hippocampus is involved in the detection of novel events, places, and stimuli
during encoding processes. Thus, contextual details and spatial configurations of an episodic
memory depend largely on the workings of the hippocampus. The hippocampus is also
term potentiation, which develops through mechanisms of prolonged synaptic plasticity and
transmission (Kandel, 2006). This hippocampal process marks semantic features among different
episodes so that they are identified and grouped in our memory through associative links.
The importance of the hippocampus is exemplified the case of HMa well-known case
51
undertaken to control his epilepsy, two-thirds of HMs hippocampus, parahippocampal gyrus,
and amygdala were removed from his medial temporal lobes. After the procedure, the twenty-
seven-year-old HM began to suffer from anterograde amnesia: his working memory and
procedural memory remained intact, but he could not commit new episodes to memory. HM also
experienced moderate retrograde amnesia: although he recall many of his childhood experiences,
HM could not remember the events leading up to his surgery, nor many episodes that had
occurred in the last decade of his life. HMs recollection of childhood events suggested that the
engrams for such memories had become consolidated in the extensive cortical networks outside
the medial temporal region that subserve long-term storage (Schacter, 1996). However, the
damage caused to HMs medial temporal structures prevented him from consolidating any new
information to long-term memory. Priming experiments showed that HM could acquire implicit
memory, but the damaged neural structures underlying declarative knowledge inhibited HMs
ability to remember how he knew what he knew. His episodic and semantic memory had been
obliterated.
The autobiographical events that linger in our memory possess a potent affective valence,
first activated at the time of the event, which is encoded and receives prolonged strengthening
over time. While the spatial and temporal details of episodic memory are supported by the
activated at the onset of emotional arousal and receives sensory input from surrounding brain
structures. The amygdala learns and modulates the emotional content of events, so that the same
behavioral and affective responses. The episodic memories that we interpret as self-revealing
52
and momentous are often vividly remembered and highly emotivethe result of enriched
amygdala-hippocampal interactions.
The synergy between the amygdala and hippocampus supports the enhancement of
episodic memory for emotionally significant events (Anderson et al., 2006). In turn, greater
recollection for emotional events causes them to be more richly experienced in memory (Todd &
Anderson, 2009). While the amygdala is responsible for processing and strengthening the
general affective tone of the original event and moderating the emotional response to its
subsequent retrievals (i.e., emotional conditioning), the hippocampus records the contextual
details and mnemonic features that correspond with this global emotional representation,
building a localized neural substrate for emotional behavior that can be identified by the
individual and then expressed as declarative knowledge. Owing to this process, physiological
responses to emotional stimuli are turned into associated perceptions, thoughts, and memories
(Dalgleish, 2004).
While the personal memories that we seek, discuss, and interpret are central to our
identity coherence, the implicit memory system also has a formative influence on our self-
attractions, motivations, and dislikes have just as much, if not more control over our daily lives
as they would if we could place their origins. Without our awareness, implicit memories and
perceptions from the past steer cognition, affect, and behavior in the present (Bornstein, 1999).
Kihlstrom et al. (1992) suggest that implicit memory is demonstrated by any change in
experience, thought, or action that is attributable to some past experience, even in the absence of
conscious recollection of that event (p.21). The cognitive processes that are activated in
response to these unconscious perceptions and memories sustain temporal continuity without
53
individual involvement. The bountiful self-knowledge that we seem to glean from our direct
personhood that has accrued from years of past experience. Whether engaged in current
object of their attention in ways that will reconcile its congruence with the past or the present,
The mechanisms underlying this temporal binding of selves create and fortify our
perceptions of an integrated identity, primarily through the means of adaptive distortions and
errors of cognition. The following section will give insight into these somewhat illusory
elements of self continuity, and thereafter our review will conclude with a rumination on the
While engaging in personal or collective recollection, we are provided with the unique
capacity to assess how we believe we have changed or remained consistent over time. One
phenomenon that allows us to gauge the nature of these transformations is the experience of
nostalgia, such as we saw in Prousts episode of the madeleine. Nostalgic memoryof a time,
place, person, or some other reliccan be pertinent to self continuity in one of two ways: either
the remembrance of things past manifests as a vestigial pang of loss in the individual, or the act
54
of remembrance affords the individual with a warmth for experiences that have survived by way
of memory. The former perspective suggests a discrepancy between temporal selves, while the
latter adopts a sense of temporal affinity. It is not the particularities of the memory that
determine our judgments of subjective distance, but rather the perspective we take toward the
memory when looking at the relationship between who we were and who we are.
from ones environment or a motivated search for a self-affirming past event. When a retrieval is
triggered and a memory travels into consciousness, one may experience unexpected shifts in
mood, affect, judgment, or perspective (see Bornstein, 1999; Leboe & Ansons, 2006; Rusting,
1999). These abrupt fluctuations can lead one to assume that the content of the memory is
responsible for the emotional shift, but in many cases, it is the individuals implicit motivation at
Wilson and Ross (2003) argue that there is a two-step process involved in the motivated
Because present attributes and feelings are frequently more accessible than past ones, individuals
start with current self-appraisals, such as How do I feel about X today. Next, people invoke
implicit theories about the stability of their own attributes and feelings to construct a past that is
similar to or different from the present (p. 138).
incorporates a consistency bias, in which one implicitly reshapes the past to make it consistent
with present thoughts, feelings, and beliefs (Schacter, 2003). We know that continuity cannot
exist without change; progressions in time, space, age, and development are the products of
continual successions of alterations. However, because these movements are often slight and
occur in sequence, we perceive these changes as continuous. This is neither an illusion nor a lie,
55
but rather the practical effects of human perception. Recollections of the past are fabricated and
in some cases inaccurate, depending on the individuals motives for retrieval, but these cognitive
phenomena should not be judged as active attempts to alter or erase past realities. Instead, ones
past attitudes and traits as harmonious with current ones, this reduces cognitive dissonance and
Wilson and Ross note that the motivation for self-enhancement necessitates a perception
of change over time: By depreciating their former satisfaction levels, individuals create the
illusion of improvement even in the face of actual decline (p. 139). For many people, recent
selves are discerned as more germane and familiar than selves of a distant past, which many
sometimes feel like strangers (van der Kolk et al., 1991; Bell, 1996). This motivation for
distance can be accomplished by taking on the impartial, observer perspective and may serve as
a temporary coping mechanism for those who have experienced trauma in their pasts. By
dissociating the past self from the current self, individuals mitigate threats to identity through
facilitating spatiotemporal distancethey may feel as though their lives have followed a
manipulations of subjective familiarity and distance, changes between the past and present can
either be justified (e.g., X made me who I am today) or estranged (e.g., That was the old me,
or When X happened, I wasnt myself). Wilson and Ross emphasize that these acts of
remembering attend to personal benefit, rather than veracity. They are active functions of
identity maintenance; the goal is not to recapture the truth of a past event, but to revise past and
present appraisals (although the two are not mutually exclusive). The bi-directional link between
memory and personal identity is demonstrated herecurrent self views influence recollection,
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but are also influenced by what and how we remember.
perceptual fluencya term used to describe the speed and ease with which stimuli are
cognitively processed. Stimuli with high fluency will be quickly recognized, conveying to the
individual a feeling of familiarity. The subsequent perception is that this stimulus belongs to
some aspect of the individuals past. Even stimuli that elicit ambiguous feelings of familiarity
will prompt a controlled search for a memory with an episodic representation of the stimulus, so
that one may assuage these feelings of uncertainty (Jacoby et al., 1985). Once a corresponding
recollection rushes into consciousness, a burst of positive affect will accompany the memory as
Self continuity is recognized in that which seems familiar, and the mechanism of fluency
is often the catalyst for these perceptions. For example, Reber et al.s (2004) research on
perceptual fluency and judgments of aesthetic beauty found that stimuli with high processing
capability (i.e., stimuli that are easily processed in the brain) have an intrinsic hedonic marking,
which naturally elicit perceptions of familiarity and evaluative judgments of pleasantness and
attraction. It is not, however, the perceptual or processing fluency that facilitates these judgments
and preferences, since fluency is experienced without awareness. Instead, the positive affective
response to these implicit cognitive processes is what the individual consciously experiences and
In this process, the perceived spark of familiarity in a fluent object or experience will
prompt the conscious self, the active rememberer, to take up a heuristic search for an episode
that conforms to the feelings induced by the stimulus and satisfies current self-
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representations: When we perceive an event, we activate fragments of pre-existing knowledge
stored in memory; when we attend to the event, the corresponding mental representation
becomes part of our working memory (Kihlstrom, 1992, pp. 41-42). With the self as an
unconscious modulator, this recreation of memory parallels Wilson and Ross proposition that
implicit perceptions of spatiotemporal orientation (closeness to or distance from the past) have a
bidirectional link with motivated self-appraisals of either continuity or change over time.
Memorythe system that facilitates temporal order in perceptions of the self through the
interactive effects of associated brain processeshas proven to be the crux of all matters relating
to personal identity. If an individual had no conception of his or her own temporality, then the
question of Who am I? would garner answers empty of reason, perspicuity, and tenability.
The idea that humans could live with such incoherent systems of self-understanding is by no
In the case of HM, a surgery that resulted in impaired memory function was the direct cause for
what one may consider a loss or diminution of the self. While memory disorders brought on by
age, genetic mutation, and brain injury are relatively tangible strings of causality, the memory
impairments that survive as by-products of traumatic phenomena such as childhood sexual abuse
and cultural dislocation have proven to be equally potent determinants of identity disintegration,
3
Fractures and Obstructions
in the Temporally Continuous Self
58
Any thorough discussion of identity continuity will tacitly inspire attention to its
phenomenological counterpart: identity fragmentation. The roots of that which obstructs the
continuity of consciousness are of great import in this review: just as the examination of memory
loss, distortion, and damage uncovers the profound value of an intact memory system, so does
the consideration of identity pathology and fragmentation attest to the far-reaching significance
of the perception of self continuity (e.g., Apfelbaum, 2000; Davoine & Gaudilliere, 2004;
Donahue et al., 1993; Holman & Silver, 1998; Kihlstrom et al., 1994; Kohut, 1978; Silverstein,
2007).
may deduce that X occurred as a direct result of how we were reared as children, our
enculturation and acquisition of knowledge, our unique genetic endowment, and a host of other
biographical events that preceded and supposedly caused X. We impose order on our lives by
situating meaningful experiences within a spatial and temporal framework of cause and effect,
creating a mental landscape of fluidity in thought, feeling, and behavior. We reify and shelter
these sacred spaces from the forces of fragmentation so that we may feel as though they are
ensured against potential loss. However, the unbroken experience of I is tenable only to the
extent that the individual truly perceives it as such. Indeed, as William James reminds us, The
past and present selves compared are the same just so far as they are the same, and no farther
(p. 334). It must be noted, however, that the individual is the arbiter of these ties between the
past and the present, and thus the truth of continuity, the truth of the past, and the truth of
personal identity can only exist as subjective realities, forever vulnerable to decay and
contradiction.
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The temporally continuous self becomes a matter of significance to the individual only
when the concept descends from its theoretical sphere and immerses itself in the underpinnings
of daily praxis. As a matter of course, the acknowledged existence of self continuity serves to
concretize its inverted form: the discontinuous or fragmented self. Implicit memory, habit, or
what may otherwise be known as pre-reflective self-awareness provide all humans with an
unconscious, foundational continuity, regardless of whether one consciously identifies with the
postmodern striving for multiplicity (Frie, 2011). Conversely, individuals who profess their own
consistency undoubtedly recognize the profusion of vicissitudes that have the potential to
challenge, modify, and demolish their experience of continuity. Cases of such identity
dissolution occur most notably in circumstances of severe trauma, when perceptions of self,
time, and consequently memory, are altered as unforeseen forces begin to subvert ones previous
experience of reality.
In the attempt to uncover the nature of the relationship between traumatic experiences and
identity fragmentation, the investigators initial task is to forgo the blanket assumption of
Although the psychological sequelae of trauma are predictable, with many common symptoms
across populations of victims (Herman, 1992), there are many factors, independent of the
traumatic experience itself, that can trigger innumerable permutations in individual pathology.
For victims, the initial and ongoing impacts of trauma are influenced by complex negotiations
between private understandings of and public discourse on the nature of the event, which in turn
affect the victims perceptions of the experience and its implications for personal identity.
Considerations that are ancillary to the traumatic event, such as contextual variables (e.g.,
socially normative behavior, gender role constructs, the location of the event, the presence of
60
other victims and/or perpetrators), dispositional variables and diathesis, antecedent trauma and
mental health, and the level of post-trauma psychological support, shape victims responses to
and mechanisms of coping with their trauma (e.g., Barlow & Freyd, 1999; Holman & Silver,
While active suppression or denial of the traumatic experience and its psychological
outcomes can serve as coping strategies for victims attempting to function in the present,
research has shown that these methods of adaptation may fragment the individuals memory of
the event, disrupt the temporal ordering and sequencing of the event, undermine the individuals
ability to make sense of the experience, and thus prolong his or her search for meaning (Holman
& Silver, 1998). By cultivating a stance of temporal dissociation between the self before the
trauma and the self after the trauma, victimized individuals nurture a severance of what may
have once been an integrated narrative between the past, present, and future. These altered
perceptions of time in turn influence the cognitive processes that normally work to connect
temporal episodes together, and as a result, traumatized individuals unwittingly perpetuate the
negative effects of the event by constricting the reflective process that will restore the capacity to
The attempt to establish common features among diverse forms of trauma can be either
advantageous or futile, depending on the nature of ones inquiry. For the purposes of this review,
Traumatic events call into question basic human relationships. They breach the attachments of
family, friendship, love, and community. They shatter the construction of the self that is formed
and sustained in relation to others. They undermine the belief systems that give meaning to human
experience. They violate the victims faith in a natural or divine order and cast the victim into a
61
state of existential crisis (Herman, 1992, p. 51).
The complex structures of continuity that humans build for themselves over the life
spanthrough systems of interaction, belief, order, trust, faith, control, autonomyare the
existence that feels unfamiliar. Perceptions of internal and external coherence and continuity can
erode in the wake of traumaand from this devastating reality emerges the ultimate inquiry of
our review: the twofold matter of how personal identity is wounded by trauma, and how these
wounds may be stitched and reintegrated into the fabric of temporal continuity.
Section I.IV of this review addressed the role of early childhood experiences on
subsequent identity development. While findings from longitudinal developmental research have
discredited theories of infant determinism, many studies have continually attested to the strong
correlative link between the quality of childrens early attachment relationships and rearing
environments and their psychological adjustment as adults (e.g., Ainsworth, 1978; Main et al.,
2005; Kohut & Wolf, 1978; Westen, 1999). The literature reviewed in section I. IV focused on
the conditions in early life that are crucial to a childs development of a secure, autonomous
sense of self. By contrast, this section will attend to two types of identity pathology that often
have their roots in early childhood trauma: Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) and Borderline
thought, feeling, and behavior, as well as varying levels of incoherence in the experience of
62
personal identity.
continuity are by no means limited to these two disorders, but a comprehensive analysis of long-
term correlates of trauma is outside the scope of this review.2 DID and BPD have been selected
for their relevance and illustrative power in the comparison between continuity and
postmodernists have described is markedly absent from the experience of those living with
dissociative identity disorder and borderline personality disorder. Instead, the fundamental
alternating in control over experience, thought, and action (Kihlstrom et al., 1994). While
everyday life are relatively common. When experiencing this latter form of dissociation,
individuals betray symptoms not qualitatively different from those of pathological dissociation,
but lack the trauma-based etiology that characterizes severe DID (Barlow & Freyd, 2009). Thus,
in the diagnosis of this disorder, the distinction between normal and abnormal personality is
2 See, for example, Browne & Finkelhor (1986) and Polusny & Follete (1995) for thorough literature reviews on the
short- and long-term effects of childhood sexual abuse.
63
symptoms displayed (Kihlstrom et al., 1994).
fantasy proneness) have shown modest connections with dissociative tendencies, the underlying
mechanisms of these disorders remain equivocal. What studies have consistently observed is that
severe dissociative disorders are almost always the result of childhood trauma (e.g., Barlow &
The first explanation of dissociation was presented by Janet (1889, 1907) in his
Janet analyzed mental life into a large number of content-specific elementary structures, called
psychological automatisms, which combine perception and action. Ordinarily, the individuals
repertoire of psychological automatisms is bound together into a single, unified stream of
consciousness. But in periods of stress a particular automatism, or set of related structures, could
be split off from the rest, continuing to function but isolated from conscious awareness and
voluntary control. Thus, dissociated psychological automatisms continued to influence experience,
thought, and action but did so subconsciously, as hysterical accidents. This condition was labelled
desaggregation (in English, dissociation) (Kihlstrom et al., 1994, p. 117).
dissociate or split their consciousness into sections as a means of sheltering themselves from
the effects of the trauma. This immediate adaptation to stress is often reinforced through
processes are divided into rigid categories, each continuing to survive as a discrete alter that is
Because they occur at a time when the brain is still developing, early experiences of
trauma make victimized children particularly susceptible to severe dissociative identity disorder.
It is through healthy relationships with their caregivers that infants learn to regulate their arousal:
attachment security, empathetic response, and stable rearing environments will be reflected in an
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infants internal working models (IWMs), which serve as representations of personal safety, not
only in relation to the infants primary caregiver, but in relation to the outside world. When
abusive caregivers display sudden and extreme shifts in affect and behavior toward their infants,
they actively induce dysregulated emotional arousal without repair capabilities, which can cause
irreparable damage to childrens developing brains (Barlow & Freyd, 1999). Furthermore,
because children have yet to develop the language skills necessary to articulate their thoughts
and feelings, their memories of traumatic and other emotionally-laden experiences, if they
without a spatial or temporal context, and without the presence of an I (van der Hart et al.,
2004).
However, in the context of childhood trauma, we must take into consideration the fact
that infants are entirely dependent upon their primary caregivers for survival. Freyds (1996)
betrayal trauma theory (BTT) addresses the logic of dissociation in face of childhood abuse: on
one hand, the infants physical needs of food and warmth and emotional needs of love and care
necessitate attachment to the caregiver; on the other hand, like other social primates, humans
have a strong motivation to avoid being cheated or betrayed. The most adaptive responses to
such instances of betrayal would be either to confront the perpetrator or withdraw from further
contact. Freyd emphasizes that, when a young child is abused by a parent or caregiver, these two
needs come into direct conflict. Whereas an independent adult can retreat from a cheater or
betrayer and exist autonomously, the infant cannot continue to exist without his or her abuser,
and thus the maintenance of the attachment relationship is essential. As Freyd writes:
In this situation, it is more adaptive to not know about the trauma that is occurring . . . The more
important the relationship, the stronger the motivation to preserve it. Thus, abuse by a parent
or other trusted caregiver is more likely to lead to amnesia and/or dissociation than is abuse by
a stranger. Dissociation is therefore conceptualized as an adaptive survival response to a bad
situation. Simultaneously, it may also be a maladaptive deficit in information processing that can
65
make future revictimization more likely (Barlow & Freyd, 1999, p. 100).
The adaptations that infants and young children make in response to traumatization are
necessary for survival, but represent the initial splinters of the self-concept, which almost always
deepen and spread over time. The integration process for adults with DID, while adaptive and
restorative, entails a painful, self-threatening, and unpredictable journey of recovering the past,
reliving the past, making sense of the past, and integrating the past. The attempt to find solace in
a past that was and is remembered as starkly unsafe, is the ultimate therapeutic goal, as well as
Psychotraumatologist Onno van der Hart and his colleagues at Utrecht University have
published extensive clinical research on the origins, diagnosis, and treatment of trauma-related
disorders, and have made significant strides in our understanding of the effects of trauma on
memory. In a study on memory fragmentation in dissociative identity disorder, van der Hart et
al. (2004) examined the quality of self-reported memories of traumatic experiences in 30 women
with DID and compared them with their memories of non-traumatic, but emotionally significant,
life experiences. While many retrospective studies have systematically investigated traumatic
memory retrieval in patients with DID, this study was the first to implement the same criteria for
non-traumatic memory retrieval in individuals with DID. In this way, the researchers were able
to ascertain the ongoing effects of trauma on memory processes, even when trauma is no longer
present.
All 30 participants in this study reported a history of either childhood sexual abuse,
childhood physical abuse, or both types of abuse. The mean age at which childhood sexual abuse
reportedly started was 3.6 years with an average duration of 10.25 years, and the mean age at
which childhood physical abuse started was 5.1 years with an average duration of 12.5 years.
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Only two (6.6%) participants reported that they had told someone about their abuse during
childhood.
When asked about amnesia for their traumatic events, twenty-seven out of thirty
participants reported having been unable to recall the index traumatic event for a substantial
period of time, even if someone had asked them about it directly. The reactivating stimuli for the
recall of the traumatic experience included: therapy (N=12), television (N=8), a sensation such
as tasting certain foods, the smell of sweat, seeing ones own hands move, sexual sensations, etc.
(N=8), talking with others (N=7), and a special day (N=4) (pp. 60-61). In all participants, the
initial recall of the traumatic event was never experienced in a narrative form, but rather
visual images, affective reliving, auditory reliving, kinesthetic reliving, or somatic reactions such
as in a smell and as a taste. Whether initial and ongoing recall occurred with or without affect,
participants reported that their memories of trauma were not experienced as integrated
autobiographical episodes.
prize. Many participants experienced difficulties in recalling a personally emotional but non-
traumatic event because they mentioned that they remembered little from their past (p. 63). The
majority of participants (60%) also reported that these personal non-traumatic events were
initially recalled as sensory fragments rather than as narratives, with little to no associated affect
of their experience, in all cases but one, these memories remained depersonalized.
The delayed recall (amnesia) and fragmented quality of participants memories of early
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experiences was reported for both traumatic and non-traumatic events, demonstrating a global
difficulty among DID patients to integrate multiple sensory inputs into autobiographical
memory. Whereas other victims of trauma who suffer from PTSD may recall their traumatic
memories in a similarly disorganized form, findings have shown that PTSD patients memories
recollection (Kolk & Fisler, 1995). However, this unique finding in Van der Hart et al.s (2004)
study is not entirely unexpected, given that the core symptom of DID is the presence of two or
As pages 46-48 of this review have illustrated, sensory input from an event is integrated
hippocampal processes. The detection of novel events, places, and stimuli; the contextual details
and spatial configurations of an episodic memory; the encoding, consolidation, and retrieval of
episodic memories; and the synthesis of somatic, affective, and physiological components of an
event into a cohesive template are processes that depend on active functioning of the
hippocampus. The memories of DID participants in this study displayed a striking lack of these
features, illustrating the powerful influence that early childhood trauma can have on long-term
episodic memory.
individuals with dissociative disorders and other trauma-based psychopathology. Van der Hart et
al. (2004) note that corticosterone, a hormone released by the adrenal cortex in periods of
extreme stress, can disrupt hippocampal activity, thereby interfering with the integration,
localization, and categorization of events. This could result in the imprints of experience
remaining isolated, temporally disordered, and stimulus-bound (van der Hart et al., p. 65). The
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researchers suggest that in adults with hippocampal damage associated with childhood trauma,
even mildly arousing information may interfere with the hippocampus processing of incoming
sensory information. Additionally, they discuss recent findings that support the hypotheses that
there are positive correlations between hippocampal shrinkage and the severity of dissociation,
as well as the reported degree of traumatization. A series of studies conducted by Nijenhuis et al.
(1998; 2002; 2003) found that hippocampal volume was strongly associated with somatoform
reporting. Patients with DID had about 25% smaller bilateral hippocampal volume compared to
healthy controls.
frequently applicable to survivors of childhood abuse. However, whereas severe DID is very
strongly linked to childhood sexual abuse (CSA), research has indicated that approximately 10%-
30% of borderline individuals do not report a history of sexual abuse, although CSA is more
prevalent among individuals with BPD compared to other personality disorders (Hong et al.,
2011). The sufferer of BPD is subjected to a similar process of temporal fragmentation as DID,
rooted in a personal history of unstable attachment, with protracted affect dysregulation and
suffering. However, this disorder manifests itself differently than DID in a number of important
ways.
Patients with borderline personality disorder lack the capacity to establish a coherent self-
concept. Instead, they adopt what could be called a post-modernist stance towards their life,
switching from one present to the next and being totally identified with their present state
of affect. Instead of repression, their means of defence consists in a temporal splitting of the
self that excludes past and future as dimensions of object constancy, bonding, commitment,
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responsibility and guilt (Fuchs, 2007, p. 379).
fluctuations, and places sole interest in fulfilling the impulses that arise in the present, thereby
embodying a mode of conduct that very much resembles the behavior of the early caregiver who
originally triggered the fragmentation process. The repercussions for identity in BPD, DID, and
other trauma-related psychopathology include a chronic feeling of vacancy that stems from
complete obstruction between the effects that ones past have on the present, but embedded
within the cognitive processes of the borderline individual is an incapacity to recognize this
temporal link, and thus an incapacity to garner any meaning from the past.
To elucidate the structural necessities of a self that the borderline individual lacks,
Fuchs draws on the philosophical perspectives of Nietzsche and Paul Ricoeur. Nietzsche wrote
in his Genealogy of Morals : Man is the animal which is able to make promises. In Fuchs
interpretation, a promise requires an efficient memory systemone that does not forget past
thoughts and actions, and thus enables the individual to project desires and ambitions into the
future. This capacity for rememberingor, in other words, this inability to forgetalso makes
humans morally responsible for their actions. However, since those with BPD are governed only
by the present moment, memory becomes irrelevant, promises are rendered impossible, and the
In Oneself as Another (1990), Riceour argues that identity is not formed through mere
sameness or constancy of things, but rather through the individual, the continuous being, in
relation to itself. In being faithful to ourselves, by adhering to our norms and values, we are
faithful to our temporal continuity. This concept is similar to the previously discussed matter of a
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narrative identityan internal autobiography that is cumulative, self-referential, and created by
the self for the self and others.3 The self also contains an inner witness or an implicit
other: Both responsibility and promise, which Fuchs believes are emblems of selfhood, make
clear that these concepts of personal identity are essentially related to the other . . . the person we
talk to and to whom we are responsible, be it a real or imaginary person (Fuchs, p. 380). Rooted
in the overarching implicit other is the representation of I over time, a self that will
undoubtedly include people and relics of influence, who continue to survive as symbolic
However, the implicit presence of the other presupposes early experiences of object
constancy and secure attachment. The experience of a mutual emotional attunement between an
infant and caregiver involves adequate holding, soothing, and mirroring for the child. Though
these [patterns] date back to preverbal and prereflective periods, their results become particularly
identity (Fuchs, p. 383). Borderline individuals live without this essential source of self-
coherence, and instead are driven by a mercurial temperament that has been instituted as a both
an early representation of an unstable early life and as a form of psychic resistance against the
awareness of this disturbing past. The ambiguities, nuances, and contradictions that are revealed
through self-reflection, while meaningful and expository for some, are threatening to those with
chronically discontinuous identity structures. Because past experiences for borderline individuals
are often as markedly reckless and disorganized as their present behavior, there is no coalesced
Borderline individuals exhibit a characteristic temporal structure: they are only what they are
experiencing at this moment, in an often intense and yet empty and flat present; for this present
may only be experienced passively, not as the result of ones own planning and will (p. 381).
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When examined retrospectively, the etiology of BPD has a developmental trajectory that
is far less serpentine than most dissociative disorders, even though borderline individuals often
experience varying levels of dissociation. DID individuals reflexively pull shrouds over a past
that only they can uncover and interpret, yet they simultaneously struggle to hide these memories
in places that will never be found, through stress-induced amnesia and alters that are elicited by
specific and subjective contextual cues. By contrast, the behavior of borderline individuals,
(1993) that aims to address the common symptoms of borderline pathology that work in tandem:
in efforts to avoid their central fear of abandonment, borderline individuals experience rapid
emotional shifts; unstable, superficial, and temporary relationships; impulsivity and self-injuring
behavior; and psychotic delusions and/or dissociative symptoms (DSM-IV-TR, 2000). The
dialectical behavior therapist helps borderline patients build a tolerance for emotional discomfort
through a merging of Western psychodynamic theory and Eastern awareness practices. The
primary goal of this therapeutic structure, similar to treatments for other personality and/or
and the borderline patient will promote the restoration of internal deficits caused by early
black-and-white assessments will become more flexible, the patient will make self-discoveries in
relation to personal history, and an autonomous self may begin to grow. When unwanted moods
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surface to consciousness, therapists suggest that borderline individuals use these awareness
practices to sit with their emotions instead of actively averting them; observe and reflect upon
their potential origins and meaning instead of habitually dismissing them as wholly negative; and
The theory and practice of self psychology, pioneered by Heinz Kohut, attributes nearly
all disorders of the self to disruptions and deficits in early childhood development. One may or
may not position such disturbances within the general spectrum of traumatic experience, in view
of the fact that not all infants who are raised in unstable family environments grow up to be
pathological (Hong et al., 2011; Kohut & Wolf, 1978). In his work on primary and secondary
disturbances of the self, Kohut underlines the long-term impact of chronically unwholesome
atmospheres, rather than discrete traumatic events such as the loss of a parent or the primal
[Discrete instances of trauma] may be no more than clues that point to the truly pathogenic
factors . . . these events leave fewer disturbances in their wake than the chronic ambience created
by the deep-rooted attitudes of the selfobjects, since even the still vulnerable self, in the process
of formation, can cope with serious traumata if it is embedded in a healthily supportive milieu
(1978, p. 416).
interactions with caregivers are internalized by the child as self-representations and self-
potentialities. When the childs need for self-affirmative mirroring is insufficiently met by the
primary selfobject (usually the mother) and when the childs necessary idealization of and
merging with an empathetic, nurturing, and trustworthy selfobject is met with disregard,
inconsistency, or reprimand, these are the experiences the child must use to constitute the
infrastructure from which the self will emerge. The quality of the relationship between the self
and its selfobjects can be conceptualized as the ground floor of the edifice of selfhood. The
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adult self may thus exist in states of varying degreees of coherence, from cohesion to
varying degrees of functional harmony, from order to chaos (Kohut & Wolf, 1978, p. 414).
What Kohut refers to as primary disturbances of the self: the psychoses, borderline states, and
the first years of life. However, abundant research on the outcomes of unhealthy selfobject
relations has demonstrated that these early patterns almost always inflict indelible injuries on the
experience of self.
Insecure attachment styles are typically cultivated within a milieu marked by pervasive
invalidation. In the analysis of BPD, this experience cannot be trivialized, especially when it
occurs in conjunction with trauma. Borderline individuals report a high prevalence of childhood
sexual abuse, and while the link between these phenomena has been substantiated as correlative,
precise knowledge of the factors that drive this relationship remains incomplete. However,
trauma research has demonstrated the powerful influence that ones social context has on the
choice to remain silent or to disclose traumatic experiences, and how these decisions affect
With regard to BPD, a recent study by Hong et al. (2011) investigated the impact of
Their results suggested that individuals perceived and anticipated CSA-specific invalidation at
the time of disclosure, as well as a pervasive environment of general invalidation, were better
When children are raised in invalidating environments, the expectations they form about
themselves in relation to others will reflect the discouraging interactions that have constituted
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their autobiographical experience, as well as the accompanying anxiety, distrust, impulsivity,
and paranoia that have become habituated adaptations to real or imagined abandonment.
In most cases, the social context that surrounds a traumatic event, and the victims
perceptions of that social context, can be as significant for personal identity as the trauma itself.
Dissociative identity disorder and borderline personality disorder are two forms of identity
pathology that often involve antecedent trauma, and it could be argued that, while trauma is one
precipitant for the onset of DID and BPD, the damaged self that evolves from a childs social
sphere, before or alongside trauma, is the greatest predictor of these self disorders.
perceptions of self are trauma-based symptoms that often operate in conjunction, we should not
take this common symptomatology to mean that victims of trauma can fit so seamlessly into
diagnostic criteria. The idea of a prototypical victim is misguided; as this section of our review
has shown, the variables that shape the trauma-based etiologies of DID and BPD almost always
originate in phenomena outside the realm of the trauma in question and, once amalgamated with
the impact of the traumatic event, effectuate pathology that has previously been either active or
dormant. Diagnostic symptom constellations are but one feature of the study of traumaa
discourse which, in general, puts forward far more convolutions than certainties.
The elaborate and compound process through which victims interpret and accommodate
themselves to trauma begins to unravel when one takes a narrow analytical perspective in order
these alternations of scopein looking at the subtleties of discrete events as well as the wider
social and historical contexts in which they are rootedthat brings clarity to the study of trauma.
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For example: prolonged traumatic experiences such as warfare have inflicted post-traumatic
stress on millions of war veterans, and while PTSD symptoms are relatively uniform, PTSD
sufferers are not. Understandings of PTSD and war veterans are fortified by micro-level analyses
of the details pertaining to the particular warfactors such as whether recruitment was
compulsory or voluntary; the veterans personal beliefs about war (pre-combat and post-
combat); the normative meaning of war in ones nation; the perceived quality of ones own
service: i.e., the veterans level of responsibility, the power attributed to the veterans rank, and
how well the veteran fulfilled personal and social expectations; and the collective response
towards the veteran upon his/her repatriation (e.g., condemnation, reverence, or reticence from
the public and/or within ones family) are some of the variables that mold the veterans memory
of war experience, and thus mold his/her self-concept of what it means to be a war veteran.
These considerations, many of which are applicable to other forms of trauma, are remarkable in
that they are all created by and subsumed under social constructions.
The final section of this review will address these socially structured facets of trauma
through an analysis of the significant interplay that occurs between the individual and the
collective after upheavals and displacement. When both personal and collective identities are
fractured, when ones home is lost, when meanings associated with place are destroyed, how
does the notion of personal identity change? And where can one find threads of temporal
continuity? These are some of the questions that will be investigated in the following pages.
Afterward, this writing will conclude with remarks on matters left uncertain due to the limited
scope of this review, suggestions for future research in the domain of personal identity and
memory, and a brief discussion of implications for identity continuity and fragmentation in
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II. Identity and Remembrance in the
Wake of Collective Trauma
A brief glance backwards in history can attest to a number of mental illnesses that are
encapsulated in time and place, with clusters of symptoms derived from and ossified in cultural
systems and symbology (Horwitz, 2002). A cascade of women who displayed identifiable
Disorder epidemic, which erupted shortly after the publication of Sybil in 1973. These
movements are not coincidental. While these disorders propagated rampantly, they were entirely
bounded by context, each with a definitive commencement and cessation. From the perspective
stipulated symptoms, brazen and ostentatious, border on absurdity. However, these examples
reveal with candor the staggering extent to which human suffering manifests in conformity with
systems of social meaning. Suffering is boundless, but is it possible that internal beliefs and
outward expressions of identity discontinuity are bred by culture, as portrayals of the prevailing
In his novel, The Book of Laughter and Forgetting (1979), Milan Kundera writes, The
struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting (p. 4). One may
between people whose views embody either the dominant or the subdued, the political or the
pervasive invalidation for victims of trauma. In cases of collective trauma, there are at least three
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running narratives of experience that are enmeshed and seek negotiation: first, there is an
individuals personal reactions to and perceptions of trauma; second, there are the responses of
close othersfamily, friends, and fellow victimswho are in some way involved in the event;
third, there is the public discourse surrounding the eventthe dominant or normative system that
communicates the accurate interpretation and memory of the event; the normal victims
response; and what the event signifies for the individual, the community, and the nation.
Edna Lomsky-Feder (2004) has made in her analysis of Israeli veterans interpretations of the
1973 Yom Kippur War. Her contention is that, within the life stories of war veterans, personal
memory is embedded within, designed by, and derives its meaning from a memory field that
offers different interpretations of war. Yet this memory field is not an open space, and the
remembering subject is not free to choose any interpretation he wishes (p. 1). While narratives
are formulated in respect to the conditions of the surrounding memory field, this memory field is
framed by the conditions of time and place, of history, legacy, and national ideology. The
meanings of war are cultural products, and the dominant voice that Lomsky-Feder identified in
the Israeli interviewees narratives of the Yom Kippur War was a cultural message of war as a
normalized experience. In many of their stories, the veterans drew attention to the traumatic
impact that war has on their community, generation, or nation, but gave no accounts of how the
experience war had influenced them personally or otherwise denied that the war had
significantly inhibited them from moving on in their lives. Thus, the assertion that war is
traumatic, as well as its antipodethat war is not traumaticwere frequently proffered within a
single narrative.
Lomsky-Feder noted three cognitive solutions that the interviewees commonly used in
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their narratives in order to bridge the conspicuous gap between the traumatic national memory of
war and their normalized personal memory: removal of the war from the personal story;
banalization of the war experience; and reference to a friend as a different behavior model. (p.
12). In removing the war from the personal story, the interviewees elevated their traumatic
experiences from a personal to a collective level (for example, one veteran stated, It was a very
traumatic event for everyone living in this country . . . but not on a personal level. It wasnt like
personal experiences (p. 12)). These tactics were most evident in the stories of noncombat
soldiers, who linked their self-proclaimed marginal positions to their nontraumatic personal
memories of war, because they were not really there and were not real participants.
The banalization of the war experience was also used to reduce the separation between
collective and personal memories. Minimizing the importance of the experience and treating it as
a natural part of life, the narrators convey their war experiences as fixed in time and place: a
temporary experience, after which ones life moved on. One veteran naturalized the war
experience by comparing it with birth: Were all shell-shocked, he said. Theres nobody
whom the war didnt affect in one way or another. But that doesnt make any difference, its like
The third coping strategy for veterans attempting to lessen the gap between the collective
traumatic war memory and the unaffected personal war memory was the story of a friend who, in
contrast to the narrator, was influenced by the war. In their accounts, these friends were always
combat soldiers, many of whom underwent far worse experiences than the narrator and whose
reactions to the war were extreme and unusual enough to warrant psychological treatment.
These descriptions illustrated the cultural exceptions entitled to combatants for their
nonnormative behavior due to the prestige of their cohort. However, Lomsky-Feder notes that
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the implicit message within these stories about friends is: Mine is the normal reaction.
The 63 interviewees who participated in Lomsky-Feders research were Israeli men, born
between 1952 and 1954, who represented the social elite of highly educated urban dwellers and
their political creed, these veterans inherited a memory field that limited their interpretations of
war. The model of hegemonic military masculinity propounds war as a heroic experience for
men and as a meaningful contribution to the collective. War veterans who meet these social
requirements are entitled to interpretations of war that will be highly valued because of their
acculturated position in the social hierarchy. Thus, they have the power to redefine the normative
criteria of war in the memory fieldto express a critical stance with legitimacy. At the same
time, however, their membership in the hegemony limits the possibilities of interpretation and
recollection in order to ensure the continuity of the proper memory (p. 23). The interviewees
narratives encapsulate the capacity for movement in this relationship between social power and
the distributive criteria of memorywhile these veterans continue to demonstrate their military
masculinity through their voiced belief in war as a necessity and their affirmations of personal
unaffectedness. The narrators displace the trauma of war from their private lives, and instead
integrate the trauma of war to the national discourse by illustrating its effects on others in the
the personal: private recollection, interpretation, and trauma are systems rooted in social context.
Indeed, as sociologist Anselm Strauss has written, Identities imply not merely personal histories
but also social histories . . . If you wish to understand persons . . . you must be prepared to view
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temporal matrix not simply of his own making, but which is peculiarly and subtly related to
something of his own makinghis conception of the past as it impinges on himself (1959, p.
164).
While most of the material in this review has accentuated the individual as the vital
representative of personal identity, owing to his/her role as the remembering self, the agent of
habit, the architect of meaning, the author of the life story, and the sole adjudicator of the
continuous I, these absolute statements do not preclude the high decisive social mold from
which the individual originates, evolves, and ultimately vanishes. Kundera, Lomsky-Feder, and
Strauss separately convey the same axiom: that all that one can define as personalidentity,
belief, judgment, etc.is irrevocably created in relation to, though not necessarily in accordance
with, ones social world. Additionally, we could argue that an individuals social world
includes both experiential and historical elements of influence: there is the experience of self
within a culture and the recognition of the self as a symbol of cultural legacy. In states of
inordinate distress, such as in the aftermath of shared traumatic events, these interwoven threads
can become tangled when a single event, mutually experienced among people of a culture,
results in a countless number of divergent interpretations, of which only a handful are publicly
recognized and validated, while the rest are muted. The distinctions between I and the other,
private and public, fact and opinion, and reality and illusion are brought to the foreground of
significance after collective trauma, and while the contrasts between them acquire clarity,
the truth of the event varies according to context, and individual testimonies of experience are
In cases when trauma is perpetrated by one individual against another, there are two
principal memories of the experience, and thus two versions of the truth. If the victim seeks
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therapeutic support, the general treatment approach will encourage the victim to reflect on his or
her memory of the experience and hopefully form an interpretation of the event that enables its
reintegration into ones life story as a coherent segment of the whole. The victims personal
undertaking of recreating experience and meaning is the central passage to the reclamation of the
past and the restoration of continuity. By contrast, the hasty and constrained interpretations that
are voiced in the wake of collective trauma, by political groups, social leaders, and other
dominant forces inside and outside the victimized community, enhance the individuals internal
confusion by widening the gap between the perceptions of the self and the other.
defy logical explanation and dissolve notions of truth and order on multiple fronts. As a
consequence, most victims of these expansive tribulations are left with disorganized memories of
experience and a dearth of outlets for personal expression; since there are few adequate words to
suppressed. When victims emotional wounds are neglected or withheld, their experiencesstill
fragmented and incoherentare forced underground, and while they are inevitably propelled
forward by time, their atrophied identities erase the experience of self from this temporal
movement. Moreover, the children of future generations are born bereft of their origins, but are
nonetheless forced to bear the weight of a cultural past that is abstract, misapprehended, or
unintelligible.
paramount for victims and their children to reclaim the past. In itself, the past does not make the
present meaningful; it is the internally recognized, collectively understood, and openly expressed
representation of the past that brings meaning to the present. A plurality of voices, publicly
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acknowledged and memorialized . . . can be a beneficial trigger for a delayed morning, as well as
experiences that are beyond description, and while words will never sufficiently convey the
damage caused by trauma, their transmission will ensure that the event is recognized as an
historical reality and, perhaps more importantly, that its effects are recognized as expansive
that victims memories will reverberate across generations. When personal and cultural
memories of trauma are detached from consciousness or entombed by silence, experiential time
the dual processes of reflection and articulation bring a necessary level of social validation to
personal experience, which brings a corresponding level of meaning to the relationship between
past trauma and present conditionthe temporal self. When the past is realized as a source of
insight, the victim is able to discover and rediscover continuities in the life story.
Conclusion
As the matters of this review are perennial, and in many ways inscrutable, fascinations, it
is fitting that we conclude with the acknowledgment of surviving uncertainties and new
developments in this debate on memory and personal identity. In 2008, The National Institutes of
Health (NIH) spent $5.2 billion, almost twenty percent of its total budget, on brain-related
projects (Carey, 2009). Increased interest and funding in the field of neuroscience have allowed
scientists to make important new discoveries and contributions in brain research. However, with
the elevated attention paid to genetic engineering and enhancement, disease prevention and cure,
and the processes, molecules, and mechanisms of the memory system, the brain has become a
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depersonalized entity. The brains behind brain research have capitalized on highly advanced
technologies that have enabled an alarming degree of human control over facets of human
biology that could previously be studied only as congenital phenomena. Particularly in the
Western medical domain, biotechnologies that are used to rectify disease have been further
exploited for purposes of human enhancement, eugenics, and the movement toward
restricting genetic vagaries, subverting our assumption of autonomy, and trivializing the role of
biotechnology have brought lasting implications for the epistemology and meaning of self
and identity.4
Our understandings of self, identity, and memory are transforming beyond the realm of
scientific research. The technological capabilities that the Internet has made available for public
consumption have in turn devised an alternative notion of human existence, at once both
page: ones name, date of birth, hometown, current location, sexual orientation, relationship
status, education, employment, interests, activities, photos, videos, notes, registers of online
social interaction, personal status updates, and a hyperlinked list of friends are documents of
life and identity that individuals disclose to a virtual network of over 800-million users.
The aggregate of data that one stores in this network essentially functions as an external
memory system. As visual representations of the past, we can click through images and be
4See Sandel (2007) for an insightful analysis of the bioethics of genetic engineering and its impact and the values
we ascribe to human nature.
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reminded of when and where events occurred and who was present. In typed comments, we can
elaborate on the circumstances surrounding an image and make public appraisals of ourselves
and others in the scene (e.g., Oh my God. I cant believe I used to dress like this!) that receive
instantaneous social feedback (e.g., I know! Your style has changed, but you still gotta love that
summer of 96). These visual representations comprise rich and familiar source information for
our brains, functioning as visual retrieval cues for the memories associated with the images.
The self continuity function of Facebook was magnified on December 15, 2011, when the
companys developers officially launched Timeline, a new feature that allows users to
chronologically assemble momentous photos and videos, influential friendships, favorite text
exchanges, location updates, and other past activities and personal information. A Timeline
profilewhat Facebook co-founder Marker Zuckerberg describes as the story of your life
displays a cover photo at the top of each users profile screen that s/he has selected as
demonstrative of who s/he is. Below the image is a visual graph of highlighted experiences,
automatically summarized and categorized, edited and revised by the individual (Chapman,
2011). The Timeline feature may be used by the individual as an important and meaningful
repository for personal and collective memory. However, despite the truth documentation of the
pictures taken, the events encountered, and the words written, few would claim that their
The information that one chooses to make public on Facebook may be characterized as
curated self-representations or fragments of identity. The reason why Facebook users may
perceive continuity in their personal Timelines is because they have lived the experiences
attached to the artificial narratives and have internally orchestrated the union of these memories
long before they existed in digital form. In this way, the factual exhibition of self continuity is no
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less fabricated and selective than the individuals subjective reality of its existence. The evidence
is on the web page, but it needs human consciousness to be actualized. Conversely, humans who
societyhave shifted in the past decade, as well as the question of how human beliefs about
identity, memory, and continuity may change in the future. While the postmodern view has been
explored, as well as the influence of technology, this discussion would greatly benefit from
further psychological research in both theoretical and empirical realms. A full investigation of
these matters far exceeds the breadth of this review, but their relevance merits some speculative
considerations, which will serve as the closing remarks of our review on the temporally
continuous self.
Despite the recent lack of formal discourse on continuity theory, patterns of contemporary
American praxis are readily available to us, which we may use to explore the ways in which
personal identity is being conceptualized in our twenty-first century cultural milieu. Each of us is
at once a participant and a spectator in the fluctuations of American sensibilities, and it would
not be outlandish to assert that a great deal of human action and interest in the United States is
propelled by the value that dominant voices ascribe to vanity, in the forms of affluence, fame,
and power. These brazen messages are communicated by the media to an incessant degree. The
underlying tenor of this ideology, which is neither hidden nor explicitly stated, is that these
dreams of personal glory can ostensibly be achieved if one possesses the traits of egoism and
tenacity. The mass media constitutes the social hegemony, and its highly sexualized,
materialistic, and future-oriented perspective has caused a severe concomitant depreciation in the
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practice of self-reflection. With temporal sight fixed on the futureon how one can ameliorate
the present self and garner happiness through the acquisition of commodities and mindless
Here is a somewhat hyperbolical example of how this American ideology can be reflected
in practice: A young woman from a small town moves to Los Angeles, gets breast implants, goes
on a raw food diet, frequents the local paparazzi hot spots, and begins networking among the
reigning socialites in popular night clubs, all in the hopes of reaching celebrity. These behaviors
suggest that this woman wants others to perceive her in a way that differs from how she believes
others have perceived her in the past. The perception of self continuity is meaningless, and at
times unwelcome, to individuals who are attempting to abolish their past conceptions of selfto
become a different person. Reflection may perhaps only become valuable to this woman when
she receives social feedback that confirms her ideal identity status: if she reaches celebrity, her
autobiography can serve as an emblem of redemption: the story of how a plain Jane from
Oklahoma became Paris Hiltons best friend, released her own fragrance line, and married a film
variant model of our countrys longstanding ethos of the American Dreamwhich, at its core,
ascribes virtue to the common mans dogged hunger for change that is conducive to
The American obsession with symbols of personal enhancement (for example: obtaining
frequent and ample social recognition, procuring objects earmarked for social elites, idealizing
the notorious and deriding the pedestrian, compulsively attempting to overshadow the feats of
others, promoting hedonism as glamorous, etc.) emanates from a moral code that is on the cusp
87
American society; if anything, such egocentric modes of conduct have become ironically
commonplace. In 1979, historian and social critic Christopher Lasch published, The Culture of
social development of the American narcissist. Thirty-three years later, this zeitgeist described
The mass media, with their cult of celebrity and their attempt to surround it with glamour and
excitement, have made Americans a nation of fans, moviegoers. The media give substance to
and thus intensify narcissistic dreams of fame and glory, encourage the common man to identify
himself with the stars and to hate the herd, and make it more and more difficult for him to accept
the banality of everyday existence (Lasch, 1979, p. 21).
that the narcissists overt displays of conceit and grandiosity are both motivated by and entirely
contingent upon the presence and validation of others. Pathological narcissists are not vain
because they love themselves; they are vain because they need others to love them. Likewise,
their self-interest is spurred by the need for others to take interest in them. The symptoms of
narcissism are manifest inversions: they directly correspond with needs of love, empathy, and
admiration that have historically been met with absence, negligence, or injury. The narcissist,
through his/her preoccupation with the self, is outwardly conveying the reality of a self that,
inwardly, does not exist. Lasch does not judge the narcissistic trends in America as pathological
because they are normative behaviors based on distorted social representations of truth and
value. In a culture of egotism and mass consumption, it may be that individuals recognize their
personal continuity, but are either unmoved or dissatisfied by this perception. For those who
fixate on future prospects, the new and improved, and whats hot and whats not, the
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In the beginning of this review, the foundation of our discussion of identity and memory
was built from William James ideas about the consciousness of self and personal identity as
an aggregate of all that the self can deem ones own, or I. In Principles of Psychology, James
describes the warmth of familiarity that is felt when one reflects on personal memories. This
warmth, he suggests, derives from a sense of self-possessionof looking back in time and
recognizing that ones history, in thoughts, actions, and emotions, are imbued with a perception
self continuity and ownership. James uses a metaphor of a herder and his cattle to depict the
present thinking self and the collection of selves in his possession. The owners cattle are each
branded as members of his herd, and each brand . . . is the mark, or cause of our knowing, that
certain things belong-together (1890/1950, p. 337). Within this unified stream of selves, No
beast would be so branded unless he belonged to the owner of the herd. They are not his because
they are branded; they are branded because they are his (p. 337).
When Lasch writes of the common mans contempt of the herd, he is surely referring to
the general masses. However, would it be possible for the common mans
narcissistic identifi[cation] with the stars to be taken figuratively, as the relinquishing of his
own herd or, in others words, the abandonment of the continuous I? We may think about this
conjecturally, in the context of a dystopian society when behavioral continuity is the exception
rather than the rulewhen the self hinges not on memory, but on momentary strivings to satisfy
impulses, to cohere with the present idealized object, and to liberate oneself from the temporal
bounds of habit, remembrance, and expectation. If the perception of self continuity is the crux of
personal identity, as this review has ventured to illustrate, we must ask ourselves if the notion of
personal identity would exist in a world where all herds of cattle are branded, but owners have
89
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