576 vI. SELF‑ AND S OCIAL P ROCESSES
tion but were later used for flying (Gould, 
1991). However, it seems unlikely that the 
self is an exaptation, because the environ -
mental features (e.g., complex social inter -
action) that created selection pressures for 
self- awareness and self-  representations in 
our ancestral environment and continue to 
exist in our current environment.
Finally, the self may be a full-  fledged 
adaptation that is part of our genetic pro -
gramming. If self-  related processes serve 
an adaptive function, then the mechanisms 
that underlie these processes should be hard -
wired into the brain, which seems to be the 
case, as noted previously. The strongest ver -
sion of this evolutionary account is that the 
brain has an evolved module governing as -
pects of the self, such as self-  awareness and 
self- deception, just as it seems to have for 
language acquisition (Pinker, 1997). More 
likely, humans have a genetic blueprint for 
the basic components of the self, but the self 
is assembled through interaction with the 
current environment. It is possible that we 
share with other great apes the same neu -
rologically rudimentary self, but through 
language development and complex social 
interaction we simply do more with the raw 
materials. This position nicely integrates 
universalist and cultural relativist positions 
on the self.
The assumption that the self is an adapta -
tion leads to the questions: What function 
does it serve? What reproductive or survival 
advantage is conferred by the capacity to re -
flect on one’s internal states and form stable 
self- representations?
Why Do We Have a Self? What Are  
Its Adaptive  Functions?
How did the self facilitate survival and re -
production during our evolutionary his -
tory? The two core aspects of the self, self- 
awareness and self-  representation, can be 
seen as adaptive solutions to the complex so -
cial problems that emerged when our ances -
tors began living in large, flexibly structured 
social groups. Individuals who survived 
and reproduced in our ancestral environ -
ment were able to navigate an intricate so -
cial system in which they had to negotiate 
dyadic and group-level coalitions, address 
cheating and detection of cheaters, deal with intergroup and intragroup (particularly in -
trasexual) competition, and undertake novel 
coordinated activities with other equally 
flexible and complicated human beings. In 
such a dynamic and complex environment, 
the adaptive strategies used by other animals 
(e.g., instinct and automated behavioral pat -
terns) would not be sufficient.
How does the self help an individual solve 
these adaptive problems? In our view, the 
various functions of the self can be sub -
sumed within four broad categories: self- 
regulation, information processing filter, 
understanding others, and identity process -
es. Below I describe each category and dis -
cuss how it is linked to adaptive outcomes.
Self‑Regulation
One unique aspect of human nature is that 
we are goal directed, and not only toward 
proximal goals such as finding food but 
also long-term goals such as planting crops, 
finding relationship partners, and parenting 
our children. These long-term goals are rep -
resented in the self system as various forms 
of self-  representations—  ideal selves (e.g., 
“to be a good husband”), possible selves 
(e.g., “to be a good parent”), dreaded selves 
(e.g., “to become like my mother”), and so 
on. These goal representations serve as ref -
erence points for self-  regulation, motivat -
ing us to engage in behaviors that move us 
toward the attainment of desired identities 
and away from undesired or feared identi -
ties; they function as both goals to be pur -
sued and standards against which outcomes 
are measured.
Self- awareness also plays a role in self- 
regulation, providing a sense of volition 
that facilitates goal-  directed behavior and 
a means to evaluate goal-  relevant outcomes 
(e.g., awareness of discrepancies between 
actual and ideal selves). Self-  awareness pro -
vides a mechanism for greater flexibility of 
response in a social environment filled with 
competing and often conflicting goals; it 
allows us to monitor and regulate not only 
our overt behavioral responses but also our 
internal responses (e.g., fear, shame, opti -
mism) to external stimuli and circumstanc -
es. Self-  awareness, according to Dehaene et 
al. (2017), endows humans with the capacity 
for “global information availability,” allow -