564 vI. SELF‑ AND S OCIAL P ROCESSES
theorists have offered numerous definitions, 
there is no consensual framework for con -
ceptualizing the various aspects of the self. 
Some researchers embrace the theoretical 
richness of the field, whereas others bemoan 
its conceptual muddiness. One source of 
confusion is that “the self” refers not to a 
single entity but rather to myriad structures 
and processes (Leary, 2004). Consider the 
example of happiness. One aspect of the 
self is the feeling or experience of happiness. 
This conscious experience is what philoso -
phers refer to as qualia  or sentience.  A sec -
ond aspect is the conscious recognition that 
my feeling of happiness belongs to me—it is 
I who feels happy. As Flanagan (1991) ob -
served, “Thoughts, feelings, and the like do 
not sit around disembodied. All thoughts 
and feelings are ‘owned,’ that is, all thoughts 
and feelings occur to someone” (p. 31). A 
third aspect refers to attentional focus—I 
can be aware (i.e., conscious) or not aware of 
my current state of happiness. For example, 
I could be feeling happy but not pay atten -
tion to this, because I am focused on skiing 
down the mountain. Finally, I can have a 
stable representation of myself as happy; for 
example, I can think of myself as a generally 
happy person. These four examples are only 
a sampling of the many ways researchers 
have defined the self.
Self‑Awareness and  Self‑Representations
Despite the complexity of the self literature, 
all of the extant definitions fall into two basic 
classes of phenomena: (1) an ongoing sense 
of self-  awareness and (2) stable mental repre -
sentations. These two aspects of the self cor -
respond to James’s (1890) classic distinction 
between the self-as-  perceiver (the “I”) and the 
self-as-  object of perception (the “Me”). Fig -
ure 26.1  shows some of the phenomena that 
relate to these two aspects of the self. What 
unites the different conceptions listed under 
ongoing sense of self-  awareness  is a view of 
the self as an active agent that processes in -
formation and regulates behavior. Our ongo -
ing sense of awareness is the one psychologi -
cal phenomenon for which we seem to have 
direct and irrefutable evidence—  we all know 
what consciousness feels like from the inside. 
As Farthing (1993) notes, “Casual introspec -
tion seems to reveal a self: the unique entity that is the perceiver of our perceptions, the 
thinker of our thoughts, the feeler of our 
emotions and desires, and the agent of our 
actions” (p. 139). Self-  awareness  refers to a 
particular form of consciousness in which 
the object of attention is the self. Thus, I can 
be conscious that I am talking, but my con -
sciousness becomes self-  consciousness when 
I reflect on the fact that I am not speaking as 
lucidly as usual. Our self-  awareness provides 
us with an ongoing status report about what 
we are sensing, feeling, and thinking in the 
moment, and allows us to conceive and make 
use of internal representations of our own 
knowledge, abilities, and actions (Dehaene, 
Lau, & Kouider, 2017). The aggregate of 
these inputs may be what generates a sense 
of self in humans—  the feeling of ownership 
over our own agency.
A second class of self phenomena in -
volve stable mental representations  (see 
Figure 26.1). The self as mental representa -
tion (“Me”) is a product of reflexive activ -
ity rather than the reflexive activity itself 
(“I”). These mental representations can be 
of the person as a physical, psychological, 
social, or moral being in the past, present, 
or future. In many ways, self-  representations 
are no different than representations of any 
other objects in the natural world, including 
chairs or zebras.Ongoing Sense 
of Self-AwarenessStable Self-
Representations
•	“I”
•	Self as subject
•	Self as perceiver
•	Self-awareness
•	Self-consciousness
•	Subjective 
experience
•	Sentience
•	Phenomenology
•	Qualia
•	Agent/homunculus
•	Self-monitoring
•	Global availability•	“Me”
•	Self as object
•	Self as perceived
•	Self-representation
•	Self-concept
•	Self-knowledge 
(semantic memory)
•	Linguistic/symbolic 
self
•	Self-schema
•	Self-theories
•	Ideal/ought/possible 
selves
FIGURE 26.1. Two classes of self phenomena.