1
UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY
The Memetic Self: Understanding the Self Using a Visual
Mapping Technique
by
Lloyd Hawkeye Robertson
A THESIS
SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL
FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE
DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
DEPARTMENT OF APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY
CALGARY, ALBERTA
JANUARY, 2009
© Lloyd Hawkeye Robertson 2009 Library and Bibliotheque et 1*1 Archives Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du Branch Patrimoine de I'edition
395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A0N4 Ottawa ON K1A0N4 Canada Canada
Your file Votre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-49622-0 Our file Notre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-49622-0
NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives and Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par Plntemet, prefer, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans loan, distribute and sell theses le monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, worldwide, for commercial or non sur support microforme, papier, electronique commercial purposes, in microform, et/ou autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats.
The author retains copyright L'auteur conserve la propriete du droit d'auteur ownership and moral rights in et des droits moraux qui protege cette these. this thesis. Neither the thesis Ni la these ni des extraits substantiels de nor substantial extracts from it celle-ci ne doivent etre imprimes ou autrement may be printed or otherwise reproduits sans son autorisation. reproduced without the author's permission.
In compliance with the Canadian Conformement a la loi canadienne Privacy Act some supporting sur la protection de la vie privee, forms may have been removed quelques formulaires secondaires from this thesis. ont ete enleves de cette these.
While these forms may be included Bien que ces formulaires in the document page count, aient inclus dans la pagination, their removal does not represent il n'y aura aucun contenu manquant. any loss of content from the thesis. Canada Mapping the memetic self
PERMISSIONS
In presenting this thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Calgary, I agree that the libraries of this university may make it freely available for inspection. I further agree that permission for copying of this thesis in any manner, in whole or in part, for scholarly purposes may be granted by the professor who supervised my thesis work or, in her absence, by the Head of the Department of Applied Psychology or the Dean of the College of Graduate Studies and Research. It is understood that any copying or publication or use of this thesis or parts thereof for financial gain shall not be allowed without my written permission. It is also understood that due recognition shall be given to me and to the University of Calgary in any scholarly use which may be made of any material in my thesis. Requests for permission to copy or to make other use of material in this thesis in whole or part should be addressed to:
Head of the Department of Applied Psychology University of Calgary Calgary, Alberta, Canada
11 Mapping the memetic self
ABSTRACT
This study examines how the self may be represented visually, taking into account temporality and empowerment over self change. A diverse sample of eleven volunteers participated in co-constructing visualizations or maps of themselves during a series of interviews over a nine month period. The resultant maps consisted of units of interlocking culture called memes, plus themes that emerged from the data. The maps resonated with 10 of the 11 participants. Analysis of the maps supported the conceptualizations of William James, in that the self includes elements of constancy, volition, and uniqueness. The analysis of the memetic maps also supported Alfred Adler's view that the self includes a need for production, intimacy, and social interest. An additional necessary emotive component to the self was postulated.
Implications for the use of this mapping technique in the theoretical understanding of the self and in counselling psychology are discussed.
in Mapping the memetic self
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
A short four years ago Dr. Nancy Arthur introduced herself to me as my "temporary" faculty advisor with the suggestion that I would want to select a permanent research supervisor after I learned my way around the University of Calgary. Nancy, I am honoured that you agreed to become my permanent research supervisor. Without your guidance and nurturing encouragement, my task would have been arduous indeed.
Dr. Marilyn Samuels supervised my practicum at the International Student Center and the
Native Center on campus before agreeing to be on my supervisory committee. Thank you,
Marilyn, for agreeing to partially delay your retirement to do this. Your support and suggestions were always appreciated; and I intend to follow your latest suggestion to offer training to others on my self-mapping technique.
I still have an early e-mail from Dr. Tom Strong pointing to serious philosophical differences between us, but still he agreed to serve on my committee. Tom, I was never able to completely convince you as to the efficacy of a memetic perspective, but your detailed questions forced me to review, research and strengthen my arguments. The comprehensiveness of my thesis I owe to you.
This adventure began with discussions my cousin, Lonna Kirkpatrick, and I had on the application of the concept of the meme to psychology. It was Lonna who suggested that I should obtain my PhD at the University of Calgary. I would also like to thank my sister, Sharon
Romanow, who forgave me for not applying to the University of Manitoba and who helped me with the final edit of this paper. Thanks, as well, to all my family who showed an interest in my work, provided places for me stay, and sustained my spirit with encouragement. Mapping the memetic self
Thank you to my friend and former partner, Millie Goulet, who loaned me her laptop when mine crashed and was always ready to discuss the nature of the self, especially with respect to aboriginal people. I would also like to give a special thanks to elders Clarence DeBruyne,
Louisa Sanderson and Mike Mercredi who struggled to understand what I was up to, and made suggestions on how this research might be useful to our community.
I would like to thank the Alberta ACADRE Network and the Saskatchewan Health
Bursary Program for their financial support. I would also like to thank Bill Mussel and the
Native Mental Health Association for helping me develop my ideas by accepting conference presentations on precursors to this study with respect to suicide and community development.
The N.M.H. A. was also the first professional association to accept a presentation on the results of this research. Your personal encouragement and the support of your family has been appreciated, Bill.
Most importantly, I would like to thank the participants to this research who shared intimate details of their lives so that we could better understand how selves are structured and how those structures may be represented. I marvelled to my teen-aged daughter, Teela, that you are such a wonderfully diverse and insightful group of individuals. After I recounted something from each of your stories she said, "Dad, everyone has a fascinating story if you listen so that they can get it out."
I hope I have listened well.
v Mapping the memetic self
VI Mapping the memetic self
CONTENTS
THE MEMETIC SELF i
PERMISSIONS ii
ABSTRACT iii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iv
CONTENTS Error! Bookmark not defined.
TABLE OF FIGURES xv
CHAPTER1: THE PROBLEM OF SELF 1
The Call of this Research: An Overview 2
The Domain of Inquiry 4
The Purpose of this Study 5
The Potential Significance of this Study 6
Research Questions 7
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 8
Current Perspectives on the Self 9
The Stable Self 10
The Adlerian Self 11
A Quantitative Study Into the Stability of Self 17
Self-Stability in Counselling 18
Implications of Studies Into the Stable Self 21
The Neurological Self 22
The Feeling of Me 23
Split Brains and Split Selves 24
vii Mapping the memetic self
Measuring Brain Activity 26
Limits to the Interpretations of the Neurological Data 27
The Self in Society 29
The Constructivist Self 29
The Socially Constructed Self 33
The Social Constructionist Alternative 39
Situating the Self Through Mapping 50
Directions Provided by Considerations of the Self in Society 60
Composite Models of the Self. 60
The Objective and Subjective Self 62
Research Into the Jamesian Model of Self 63
Combining James with Social Construction 69
The Memetic Self 70
The Qualities of Memes as Units of Culture 70
The Self as a Complex of Memes 72
Selected Studies Using the Concept of the Meme 74
An Evolutionary Account of Self 80
Cultural Relativism with Respect to the Self 88
Critiques of Modernity 89
The Buddhist Experience of Self 91
Examinations of the Self in Selected Collectivist Cultures 93
A Comparison of Inuit and Western Approaches to Counselling 95
Unresolved Issues Flowing From the Literature 97
viii Mapping the memetic self
CHAPTER 3: METHOD 101
General Methodological Considerations 101
Conceptual Framework 106
Trialling the Proposed Research Method 108
Selection of the Participant Population Ill
Data Collection, Analysis and Management 113
Preparation and Refinement of Memetic Maps 114
Ethical Considerations 117
CHAPTER 4: INDIVIDUAL REPRESENTATIONS OF EACH SELF 118
Tina 118
Tina's First Interview 118
Tina's Second interview 123
Tina's Third Interview 128
Trevor 129
Trevor's First Interview 129
Trevor's Second Interview 135
Trevor's Third Interview 139
John Blonde 140
John Blonde's First Interview 141
John Blonde's Second Interview 145
John Blonde's Third Interview 150
Judy 151
Judy's First Interview 151
ix Mapping the memetic self
Judy's Second Interview 155
Judy's Third Interview 159
Pangloss 159
Pangloss' First Interview 160
Pangloss' Second Interview 166
Pangloss' Third Interview 171
Fredelle 173
Fredelle's First Interview 174
Fredelle's Second Interview 177
Fredelle's Third Interview 180
Chantelle 183
Chantelle's First Interview 183
Chantelle's Second Interview 187
Chantelle's Third Interview 191
Magdelynn 193
Magdelynn's First Interview 193
Magdelynn's Second Interview 198
Magdelynn's Third interview 202
Brent 204
Brent's First Interview 204
Brent's Second Interview 209
Brent's Third Interview 214
Nick 217
x Mapping the memetic self
Nick's First Interview 217
Nick's Second Interview 220
Nick's Third Interview 224
Maomao 226
Maomao's First Interview 226
Maomao's Second Interview 231
Maomao's Third Interview 234
CHAPTER 5: COLLECTIVE RESULTS 235
Data Related to the Research Questions 236
Resonance of the Memetic Mapping Process with Felt Experience 236
Transitions Impacting on the Self Prior to the Commencement of this Study 239
Changes to Selves Over the Period of the Study 249
Self-empowerment from Memetic Map Building 251
Common Themes in Self-construction Between Participants 253
Central Aspects to Self: Animation, Remembering and Feeling 254
The Jamesian Objective Self 258
The Participant Experience of Self-constancy 259
The Need for Feedback in Self-construction and Maintenance 262
Family, Community and Individuation 264
The Sense of Being Human 266
Human Happiness and Transcendental Goals 268
Judge, Jury and Executioner 271
Chapter Summary 272
xi Mapping the memetic self
CHAPTER 6: DISCUSSION 274
Participant Cognitions, Feeling and Insights 275
Constancy, Community and Memory in the Maintenance of the Self 275
Constancy, Distinctness and Volition 279
The Emotional Base of the Self 283
The Self as a Narrative 285
Implications of This Research On Our Understanding of Self 287
The Jamesian Self 288
The Adlerian Self 291
Building on the Work of James and Adler 293
Benefits of Using a Memetic Approach in Mapping the Self 294
Implications of the Results to Counselling 298
The Self in Community 302
A Culturally Inclusive Self Paradigm 303
Limitations 306
Recommendations for Future Research 311
Summary and Conclusions 313
REFERENCES 317
APPENDIX A: QUESTIONS USED BY KWIATKOWSKA 342
APPENDIX B: SELECTED QUESTIONS FROM DAMON & HART (1988) 343
APPENDIX C: A SAMPLE OF OPEN ENDED QUESTIONS USED IN THIS STUDY 345
APPENDIX D: EXPLORE YOUR 'SELF' 346
APPENDIX E: THE RECRUITMENT SCRIPT 347
xii Mapping the memetic self
APPENDIX F: CONSENT FORM 349
APPENDIX G: NOTES FOR TINA SHOWING DEFINING MEMES 352
Sample Segmentation and Coding For the Meme "Mother" 352
Memes Identified in Tina's Self 356
Memes Added After the Second Interview 361
APPENDIX H: NOTES FOR TREVOR SHOWING DEFINING MEMES 363
Memes Added Following the Second Interview 370
APPENDIX I: NOTES FOR JOHN BLONDE SHOWING SELF-DEFINING MEMES 371
Memes Added Following the Second Interview 376
APPENDIX J: NOTES FOR JUDY SHOWING SELF-DEFINING MEMES 378
Memes Added After the Second Interview 384
APPENDIX K: NOTES FOR PANGLOSS SHOWING SELF-IDENTIFYING MEMES 385
Memes Added After the Second Interview 395
Appendix L: NOTES FOR FREDELLE SHOWING SELF-DEFINING MEMES 396
Memes Added After the Second Interview 401
Memes Added After the Third Interview 402
APPENDIX M: NOTES FOR CHANTELLE SHOWING SELF-DEFINING MEMES 403
New memes added after the second interview 409
APPENDIX N: NOTES FOR MAGDELYNN SHOWING SELF-DEFINING MEMES 410
Memes added after the 2nd interview 418
APPENDIX O: NOTES FOR BRENT SHOWING SELF-DEFINING MEMES 419
New memes added as a result of our second interview 425
New memes added as a result of Brent's third interview 426
xiii Mapping the memetic self
APPENDIX P: NOTES FOR NICK SHOWING SELF-DEFINING MEMES 427
New memes added after the second interview 431
Memes added after the third interview 431
APPENDIX Q: NOTES FOR MAOMAO SHOWING SELF-DEFINING MEMES 432
New memes that resulted from second interview 437
Endnotes 438
xiv Mapping the memetic self
TABLE OF FIGURES
Figure 1. A graphic representation of the conceptual framework informing this study showing the
process of making the implicit self explicit, mapping that self and relating the map back to
the co-researcher's lived experience 107
Figure 2. A memetic map of the self of a university student displaying relational forces between
memes and the number of times (in brackets) each meme was referenced during the
interview 108
Figure 3: Memetic map of the self of a university student with memos attached to two memes
indicating the structure of those memes 109
Figure 4: Memetic map of Tina resulting from the segmentation and coding of her initial
interview showing the number segments coded for each meme (in brackets) 120
Figure 5: Revised Memetic map of Tina resulting from her second interview 126
Figure 6: Memetic map of Trevor resulting from the segmentation and coding of his initial
interview showing the number segments coded for each meme (in brackets) 130
Figure 7: Revised memetic map of Trevor resulting from his second interview 137
Figure 8: Memetic map of John Blonde resulting from the segmentation and coding of his initial
interview showing the number segments coded for each meme (in brackets) 142
Figure 9: Amended memetic self-map of John Blonde following his second interview 146
Figure 10: Memetic map of Judy resulting from the segmentation and coding of her initial
interview showing the number segments coded for each meme (in brackets) 152
Figure 11: Revised memetic map of Judy resulting from her second interview 156
Figure 12: Memetic map of Pangloss resulting from the segmentation and coding of his initial
interview with the number segments coded for each meme in brackets 161
xv Mapping the memetic self
Figure 13: Revised memetic self-map of Pangloss with amendments flowing from his second
interview 168
Figure 14: Memetic map of Fredelle resulting from the segmentation and coding of her initial
interview with the number segments coded for each meme in brackets 175
Figure 15: Revised memetic self-map of Fredelle with amendments flowing from her second
interview 179
Figure 16: Revised memetic map of Fredelle with amendments flowing from her third interview
181
Figure 17: Memetic map of Chantelle resulting from the segmentation and coding of her initial
interview with the number segments coded for each meme in brackets 185
Figure 18: Revised memetic self-map of Chantelle with amendments flowing from her second
interview 189
Figure 19: Memetic map of Magdelynn resulting from the segmentation and coding of her initial
interview with the number segments coded for each meme in brackets 195
Figure 20: Revised memetic self-map of Magdelynn with amendments flowing from her second
interview 200
Figure 21: Revised memetic self-map of Magdelynn with amendments flowing from her third
interview 203
Figure 22: Memetic map of Brent resulting from the segmentation and coding of his initial
interview with the number segments coded for each meme in brackets 205
Figure 23: Revised memetic self-map of Brent with amendments flowing from his second
interview 211
xvi Mapping the memetic self
Figure 24: Revised memetic self-map of Brent with amendments flowing from his third
interview 216
Figure 25: Memetic map of Nick resulting from the segmentation and coding of his initial
interview with the number segments coded for each meme in brackets 218
Figure 26: Revised memetic self-map of Nick with amendments flowing from his second
interview 221
Figure 27: Revised memetic self-map of Nick with amendments flowing from his second
interview 225
Figure 28: Memetic map of Maomao resulting from the segmentation and coding of her initial
interview with the number segments coded for each meme in brackets 228
Figure 29: Revised memetic self-map for Maomao with amendments flowing from her second
interview 233
Figure 30: Four levels of cultural organization with random memes flowing between each level
277
xvii Mapping the Memetic Self
CHAPTER 1: THE PROBLEM OF SELF
Theorists have discussed self-concept (Adler, 1927/1957; Meador & Rogers, 1979;
Vleioras & Bosnia, 2005), self-esteem (Brave Heart, 2003; Ellis, 1979; Lent, 2004), self- actualization (Maslow, 1987; Peck, 1978; Ventis, 1995) and even self-validation (Ishiama,
1995). Eric Erikson (as cited in Corey & Corey, 2003) said, "The ability to form intimate relationships depends largely on having a clear sense of self (p. 98). William Bridges (1980,
2001) tied his theory of adult transition to changes in this "self. Despite its central importance to psychology, little has been done to detail and map the concept of self in individuals.
This research is an attempt to make conscious the self that lies at the core of constructs such as self-concept, self-esteem, and self-actualization. Specifically, it involved the exploration of the felt selves of a group of participants and the experience of these participants in the process of mapping and applying these self-maps to their lived experiences. Participants in this research were invited to share who they were in rich detail. Units of culture were identified from transcripts of their conversations and these units, called memes, were graphically displayed on
"maps," which were then reviewed by these same participants for resonance. It was hoped that this research would add to our knowledge of the nature and structure of the self, and that it would provide a bridge uniting theory with practise. It was also hoped that the methods used in this research could be adapted by counsellors to assist them in visualizing the dynamics present in the change effort required by individual clients. The use of memetic maps may enable clients to see themselves in new ways that can empower them to make decisions to effect change, thus engaging them in the change process.
1 2
The Call of this Research: An Overview
My interest in this field of study flowed from my professional involvement with a suicidal girl in northern Saskatchewan. This girl had been referred to me by another therapist who had used cognitive-behavioral therapy with little positive effect. She had also been prescribed antidepressant medication, but this too had proven ineffective. Cognitive-behavioral therapy has proven efficacy with respect to the treatment of unipolar depression and post traumatic stress (Devilly & Spence, 1999; Dozois, 2002; Warwar & Greenberg, 2000), but the nature of the therapeutic relationship can affect outcomes (Horvath & Symonds, 1991; Hyer,
Kramer, & Sohnle, 2004; Ryum & Stiles, 2005), therefore, I also attempted a cognitive- behavioral intervention with this youth. She was cooperative and participated in both therapy and behavioral "homework" assignments with little effect. I used Eye Movement Desensitization and
Reprocessing on early childhood events that which she stated were traumatic, with little change in her suicide risk profile. Finally, using a notion proposed by Blackmore (1999) of the self consisting of units of culture called memes, and combining that suggestion with my own background in lifeskills coaching, I suggested to this youth that we prepare a self-map of herself using a modification of a lifeskills exercise called "ten persons I am." She was asked to name and prioritize ten roles that she played (e.g. daughter, lover, student), ten things she believed to be true, ten things she liked about herself and ten things she would change about herself if she could. The items from each column that overlapped were coalesced and the remaining items were placed on a large sheet of paper displaying those that were related to each other. We found that one item, "depressed person," was core to who she was with the largest number of links to other items. I called those items memes. We set about establishing a new core, "human rights activist," which united some memes (e.g. kid's rights, animal rights) that had led to outbursts 3 fuelled by her anger. We then developed a plan whereby she would shift some memes (e.g writer, angry person) from a depressed person focus to a human rights focus. We set about eliminating other memes that surrounded "depressed person", such as "ugly." Over the course of about seven months, the new core we had developed became increasingly central to her self definition while those memes surrounding and presumably supporting her "depressed person" meme became fewer in number. We were then able to eliminate "depressed person" from her identity and reframe it as an emotional state that may sometimes affect us without it being who we are. She subsequently scored within the non-clinical range on a standardized test of suicide risk and therapy was terminated. A year later, her mother called to say that the youth was doing well in her new school with new friends and had a grade point average in the 90s.
This intervention was not well-grounded in theory. In a sense, it involved a desperate act of a therapist who had tried what he knew without effect and did not believe he could, in good conscience, re-refer this girl once again. I had little idea about the structure of the self. I used the term "meme" without understanding its structure or how one meme might be able to exert an attractive force on another, and I suspected my method of mapping was inadequate: too directive and idiosyncratic. I understood, however, that the self is central to whom we are and my previous training in psychology and social work had given little concrete grounding in this concept. I was inspired to undertake this research and began applying to universities with that goal in mind. I set out to answer two fundamental questions: "Can this self be mapped in a way that has meaning for those engaged in the mapping process?" and "May this process lead to increased self- understanding and empowerment?" It was hoped that the answers to these questions would increase our understanding of how the self is structured in the minds of individuals, thereby providing psychologists with another tool to better understand and assist their clients. 4
The Domain of Inquiry
Practical context. It was hoped that the tool of memetic self-mapping, when developed sufficiently, would enable counsellors to visualize the dynamic process needed to effect client change. As a form of psycho-education, it was to allow clients to see themselves in a way that could empower them in effecting self change.
Theoretical context. This research united elements of neuro-psychology, social constructionism, Adlerian Psychotherapy, and cognitive-behavioral thought in its model of how the self is constructed. These approaches were seen as complimentary, each describing the phenomena from a different perspective. Although this paper used the following practical definition of the self while examining these perspectives, the method used (transcendental realism) allowed for the modification and elaboration of such definitions during the course of the research:
By 'self we commonly mean the particular being any person is, whatever it is about each
of us that distinguishes you or me from others, draws the parts of our existence together,
persists through changes, or opens the way to becoming who we might or should be.
(Seigel, 2005, p. 3)
Social context. In line with the theoretical context of this study, the self was viewed as the core of a worldview that may be presented as "individual culture". This individual culture is embedded within family, community and societal cultures; thus, this study sought to advance our knowledge of how cultures impact on the self with resultant increases in multicultural understanding and the dynamics inherent in the acculturation process.
Research context. The assumption of the method used in this research is that there is a reality independent of one's interpretations. Research is a process of approximating that reality 5 by testing hypotheses, inducing patterns from data, understanding phenomena through rich descriptions, and fusing our knowledge with those of others to develop syntheses. The beginning of such research is recognizing subjectivity and contextual effects that are embedded within interpretation. This research may be viewed as an exploratory and interpretive study with the goals of describing, with the aid of a mapping technique, the participant experience of self, and relating that experience to existing theoretical understandings.
Discursive/linguistic context. Richard Dawkins (1976) defined the term "meme" as an elemental unit of culture that is capable of being transferred from one brain to another. Robles-
Diaz-de-Leon (2003) elaborated a certain architecture for the meme that includes constructive, affective and behavioral components. It is within this linguistic context that this research is situated, and in my opinion, it is this formulation that allows for the possibility of mapping the self with some hope for trustworthiness and authenticity. In short, the richness inherent in the concept of the meme gives us the potential for producing self-maps that have sufficient depth as to resonate with those for whom those maps are produced. "Resonation," in this context, refers to a feeling that a individual graphic representation or "map" corresponds closely or harmoniously with who they were.
The Purpose of this Study
This study had three main purposes:
1) To develop an understanding of how the self of participants may be represented
visually in a way that resonates with them;
2) To assess how child and adult transitions may be reflected in current maps of the self;
and, 6
3) To better understand whether the participants in the study experienced a sense of
empowerment as a result of the process.
These three purposes were united in this study to reflect the dynamic nature of the self.
A map may be seen as a static representation in a moment of time, the utility of which may be determined by contextual flow between past and anticipated future events. Thus, the self-map envisioned in this research was a momentary representation of an evolving dynamic. By examining past self-transitions and feelings of empowerment associated with possible future transitions, we sought to situate individual self-maps temporally with some sense of their potential utility.
The Potential Significance of this Study
It was envisioned that with the success of this study, counsellors would be able to avail themselves of an additional psycho-educational tool to empower clients in their self-change efforts. While considering their transitional history that led to a current self, clients may be empowered to engage in the consideration of possible future selves. The potential for memetic self-mapping extends beyond counselling to examining similarities and differences in self- definition between genders, cultures, and minority groupings. Of particular interest, for multicultural counsellors, is the assessment of cross-cultural differences in self-definition between individualist and collectivist cultures. Thus, while this study has the practical goal of developing a system of visually representing the self, it must be grounded in current theoretical understandings with the corollary that some understandings may be supported, privileged or extended as a result of this research. 7
Research Questions
My major research question was, "How do people experience co-constructing maps of their self-identity using a memetic process?" Four sub-questions flowed from this general question:
1) What cognitions, feelings and new insights, if any, present during the co-construction
of self-maps?
2) What cognitions, feelings and new insights, if any, present on the completion and
review of these maps?
3) How do participants in this process relate the co-construction of their self-maps to
childhood and adult transitions they may have experienced?
4) What feelings as may relate to empowerment or lack of empowerment, present during
a discussion of the felt meaning of these memetic self maps? 8
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
Descartes is frequently seen as the father of both modern science and contemporary understandings of the self (Seigel, 2005; Taylor, 1989). Cartesian dualism with its separation of the body from the mind or soul (Descartes, 1643/1990), was firmly grounded in the traditions of the Roman Catholic Church which, in turn, built on classical Greek philosophy (Doherty, 1999;
Wilson, 1997). Both Aristotelian and Platonic schools equated the self with the soul or mind which was, in turn, seen as a spiritual force animating a physical being (Hutcheon, 1996; Seigel,
2005; Taylor, 1989). The Aristotelian man had vegetative, sensitive and intellectual souls, which collectively corresponds to our modern idea of self with its bodily, relational and cognitive elements. Platonic souls, however, were unidimensional spirits from a higher world trapped in bodies of matter (Doherty, 1999). Descartes( 1643/1990) reasoned that this soul could observe the world with detached disinterest because it was not of the world, it was of God. Thus,
Cartesian dualism separated the mind from the world on both logical and religious grounds
(Pickering & Skinner, 1990). Descartes (1643/1990) held that the body was subject to the laws of nature and could be studied scientifically while the soul or mind was beyond scientific study.
Although Charles Taylor (1989) argued that the Platonic "Ideas" are qualitatively different from the Cartesian "ideas," both Plato and Descartes viewed the mind or soul as the activating and animating agent in a duality.
Western thought subsequent to Descartes divided "soul" from "mind," with the term
"soul" referring to a religious entity beyond the scope of science, while the study of the "mind" was deemed to be the realm of psychology (Hutcheon, 1996; James, 1890). The self then became understood as a psychological representation of who we are, although the existence of indexical pronouns suggests that people developed mental representations of themselves much earlier (Gazzaniga, 2000; Harre, 1989; Jaynes, 1976). As James (1890) surmised, "The thought is the thinker... for if my thinking is confused, I am confused: if my thought is blocked, I am blocked"
(p. 401).
This review focuses on psychological perspectives of the self from the time of James.
Current perspectives are grouped within the categories of stable, neurological, constructivist, behaviourist, and social constructionist selves. This is followed by the attempt to develop a comprehensive or composite model of the self grounded in the work of William James. A memetic perspective is examined for its compatibility to unite with various perspectives in forming an integrated conceptualization of the self. This is followed by an examination of attempts to represent or "map" the self within context. The chapter concludes with the examination of the multicultural implications of considering the self to be a cultural construct.
Current Perspectives on the Self
Rom Harre (1991) despaired at the difficulties inherent in the study the self:
"The self that manages and monitors its own actions and thoughts is never disclosed as
such to the person whose Self it is. It is protected from even the possibility of being
studied empirically by its very nature. Whenever it tries to catch a glimpse of itself it
must become invisible to itself, since it is that very self which would have to catch that
very glimpse. It is known only through reason. It is never presented in experience." (pp.
52-53)
The purpose of this review is not to trace the philosophical debates involving dualism and monism that have their roots in early Greek thought, but to review research into the self during the modern era. Much of that research draws on the work of William James (1892/1999), who made a seemingly secular reply to the dualism of Descartes (1643/1990) by postulating the 10 complementary existence of an objective "me" coupled with a subjective "I" in a singular self.
The Jamesian "I" and "me" were seen to be different sides of a unitary self that could at once observe and be observed. James' (1892/1999) notion that the subjective "I" includes elements of continuity, distinctness and volition has become the basis of much research into the self (Damon
& Hart, 1988; Kwiatkowska, 1990; Leary & Tangney, 2003). Since the Jamesian self includes that which may be seen to be me, and that which Harre (1991) had difficulty seeing, it remains an encompassing definition, and it provides a framework within which modern perspectives of the self may be situated. Another theorist whose ideas about the structure of the self have also affected modern conceptualizations of the self is Alfred Adler, and we begin with his model of a self whose stability may need to be challenged.
The Stable Self
The idea that the self exhibits stability has received considerable support (Blustein &
Noumair, 1996; Corey & Corey, 2003; Jopling, 2000; Savickas, 2001). One of the fundamental principals of Adlerian psychotherapy is that this inherent stability must be challenged in therapy
(Dinkmeyer, Pew, & Dinkmeyer, 1979; Mosak, 1979; Thomas & Marchant, 1993). A characteristic, like stability, cannot be discussed without reference to that which is stable or open to change; therefore, it is necessary to discuss Adler's conceptualization of the self as a totality.
This is followed by two investigations into the stability of the self. Kwiatkoska (1990) tested the notion that the selves of children entering school would exhibit decreased self-stability due to this transition. Bridges (1980, 2001) returned to the theme that self-stability was problematic in dealing with adult transitions. 11
The Adlerian Self
The indivisible individual. Adler called his school of thought "Individual Psychology", from the Latin word "individuum", meaning the indivisible individual. He referenced western philosophic thought in describing his view of the self:
Individual psychology goes beyond the views of philosophers like Kant and the newer
psychologists and psychiatrists who have accepted the idea of the totality of the human
being. Very early in my work, I found him to be a unity! The foremost task of Individual
Psychology is to prove this unity in each individual - in his thinking, feeling, acting; in
his so-called conscious and unconscious - in every expression of his personality. (Adler,
1967, p. 69)
In the Adlerian view, the self is best understood as a working and stable unity. Dividing this self into conceptual subcategories, in effect creating multiple selves, is not useful as such sub-categorization leads to a pseudo-dynamic masking the direction of that unity. Therapy, from this perspective, is more about assisting individuals to reach their potential than it is about balancing unconscious forces and neurotic tendencies.
Once the client understands that his actions, cognitions and feelings are consistent with an underlying unitary belief system, then that system is challenged in therapy. The self consisting of "the convictions I have about who I am" (Adler as quoted in Mosak, 1979 p. 58) was considered to be core to the client's "worldview," and both self and worldview exhibited stability over time. Adler (1927/1957) declared that the "secret goal" of childhood, which involved the child compensating for being in an inferior position, was identical with his attitude in maturity;
"In short, it was proven with astonishing clarity that, from the standpoint of psychic movements, 12 no change had taken place" (p. 17). An adult self is recognizable from its childhood antecedents with a resultant sense of continuity.
The drive for perfection. There is, according to Adler (1967), an innate process of striving for perfection that may be used to engage the client in developmental transitions of the self. It was this declaration, that human beings are born with a teleological impulse, that led Albert Ellis to proclaim Adler as "one of the first humanistic psychologists" (Mosak, 1979 p. 51). This belief is also one of the most difficult for Adler to defend. There clearly are individuals who do not appear to be striving for perfection. To Adler these individuals are discouraged. Therapy is a process of encouragement that allows the client to regain this sense of striving which, in practical terms, means having the confidence to become the best that they can be.
The insecure individual. Adler (1927/1957) identified four motivations that lead to mistaken goals exhibited by insecure or discouraged individuals: attention, power, revenge and withdrawal. People whose motivation for behavior is attention getting have the belief that they are only important when they are noticed by others. It was painful for such individuals to be not noticed as children. They may have engaged in annoying or disruptive behaviors to gain the attention they crave. The behaviors may cease, briefly, with correction, but even punishment is acknowledgement of existence, hence the behaviors begin anew. Adults have different ways of satisfying a need for attention; however, the goal remains the same. It was this dynamic that led
Adler to declare that the "secret goal" of childhood remains as the individual matures to adulthood. Similarly, the goal of people motivated by power is the feeling of security obtained by having power over others. Those whose motivation is revenge 'know' that they have significance when they engage in vengeful acts for real or imagined wrongs. 13
Adler's fourth insecure motivation, withdrawal, appears to be unlike the other three in that the goal of such an individual is not to establish significance but to become invisible. As
Adler's student, Rudolph Driekurs, put it, "The seemingly stupid child is frequently a discouraged child who uses stupidity as a means of avoiding any effort whatsoever" (1964 p.
63). Recognizing this inconsistency in Adler's model Driekurs reframed "Withdrawal" to
"Display of Inadequacy" with the suggestion that the discouraged individual is activity showing his inabilities to lessen performance anxiety and to force others to do for them (pp. 63-65). While this reframing of Adler is clever, and can demonstrably be seen to apply to some individuals, it fails to account for the possibility that there may be some who genuinely want to withdraw from society without the hope that others will do for them.
The therapeutic process. Psychotherapy, as opposed to mere counselling, necessarily includes a review of childhood experiences to produce insight into the client's "secret goal"
(Driekurs, 1964; Mosak, 1979). Rational and behavioral means are then used to assist the client to a more self-secure level of functioning. Sometimes a client's "secret goal," when it is consciously understood, can be incorporated into a socially useful plan. For example, a person whose belief had been that significance is achieved only when one is noticed could become an entertainer. On the other hand, the goal of therapy is help ensure that self-significance is achieved whether the individual receives attention or not.
Adler took the position that the client is the expert on his or her self (Ansbacher &
Ansbacher, 1956). Behavioral 'homework' assignments given to the client were viewed as the collaborative effort of at least two experts working together - the therapist who was understood to have some expertise in the change process and the client. Later, the two experts evaluate the results of behavioral intervention and jointly plan subsequent experiments to further conscious 14 goals based on the secure motivations exhibited by the client's ideal self. In the end, the client must gauge success because only the client can be responsible for change.
The self in gestation. To understand the individual, we must understand the family that nurtured the developing self of that individual. The family atmosphere may, for example, be authoritarian, rejective or inconsistent. Trauma may have occurred. Alternatively, families may be supportive, loving and nurturing. It is not so much the actual events that affect the child's self- definition, but the child's interpretation of those events:
But, although children may be good observers, they are often very poor interpreters; that
is, they come to conclusions about themselves and life that are based on faulty judgments.
As they create their guidelines and establish their blueprints for the future, children tend
to operate with an 'only if absurdity. For example, a child may conclude 'Only if I am
pleasing (or in control, or comfortable, or good, or competent, or right), can I really
belong.' (Dinkmeyer et al., 1979 p. 19)
A child is in an inferior position, and the child's goal is to compensate for that weakness by establishing a role within the family. An oldest child, reared in an authoritarian family that emphasizes educational achievement, will likely attempt to embody those values. The second oldest will be forced to find a niche not already occupied by the oldest. If the second oldest believes the situation is not fair, s/he may pursue the goal of bringing forth awareness of injustice, or the child may rebel. These goals of childhood tend to become fixed patterns as life goals. These goals, in turn, are situated within a general framework for understanding reality
Adler called "worldview".
Adler answered the observation that children growing up in the same family have different personalities with the astute observation that they really do not grow up in the same 15 family (1929 pp. 192-196). The oldest child is in a family where he or she had been an only child. The second oldest is never in that situation. Adler observed that oldest children tend to be more achievement orientated and conservative, while second oldest children tend to be more rebellious with respect to the family constellation. Often the eldest and the third eldest will form alliances against the middle child. The youngest tends to be in the "most favoured" position and may become manipulative.
Research has supported Adler's theory of birth order with respect to the intergenerational transmission of values (Kulik, 2004), gender (Koch, 1956), and Myers-Briggs typology
(Stansbury & Coll, 1998). Frank Sulloway demonstrated that later-born scientists were "7.3 times more likely to support scientific innovation than was his own eldest sibling" (1996 p. 51).
He also demonstrated that while members of scientific elites tended to be firstborn, those that led
Kuhnian paradigm shifts in science were usually laterborn.
The relativistic subjectivity ofworldview. Although we may engage in reality testing with varying degrees of success, our perception of the world and of our place in it is necessarily imperfect. Our worldview acts as a cognitive filter through which our experiences are mediated;
"...the facts of one's life are not as important as one's perception of those facts. It is assumed that each individual perceives the world in a unique fashion" (Adler quoted in Thomas & Marchant,
1993 p. 8).
Adler believed that all behavior is purposeful. By understanding the client's worldview, we come to understand the purpose of his or her behavior. A worldview that is faulty is defined as one that leads to self-defeating behaviors. Once the client's worldview and associated mistaken behaviors and goals are brought into the client's consciousness, change can begin to happen. It is this relativistic aspect of self that allows for its re-engineering. An individual who 16 lacks a feeling of self-efficacy, for example, can reframe his or her self-definition to recognize a greater sense of empowerment. This self construction is not entirely internal, but appears to depend on interaction with others (Jopling, 2000; Martin & Sugarman, 2001).
As we have seen, Adler viewed the self as a unity, comprised of biological and cultural factors, and mental health, ultimately, manifests itself in social interest (Mosak, 1979). Social interest stemmed from our relative weakness as individuals. We are dependant on the collectivity to thrive; therefore it is in our interest to promote the collective well-being (Adler, 1967). The remaining two pillars of Adlerian holism are work and intimacy. Work is defined as doing things that have utility as defined by our selves. We need to take pride in what we do. Intimacy includes recognizing emotion in our selves and being able to communicate that emotion to trusted others.
Limitations of Adler's approach. Adler's concept of the self has been summarized as: a
"highly personalized, subjective system through which a person interprets or gives meaning to his experiences.... he is a self-conscious individual, who is capable of planning and guiding his actions with full awareness of their meaning for his own self-realization" (Hamachek, 1971, p.
50). Adler based his understanding of the self on his own experience as a therapist. Without denying this experience, it may be that he was looking for early determinants of 'soul life' because he was heavily influenced by his own unhappy childhood. His conviction of a childhood-determined structure, coupled with the act of looking for evidence covering a temporal distance of years, almost guaranteed finding such evidence. Hence, we cannot be sure from Adler's (1927/1957, 1929, 1967) testimony how universal his findings are, nor can we be certain with respect to generalizations he made with respect to his own clients. The structure of the Adlerian self, including the key element of self-stability, requires confirmation and possible extension from further research. 17
A Quantitative Study Into the Stability of Self
Kwiatkowska (1990) hypothesized that the onset of elementary school education would challenge two dimensions that underlie the sense of personal identity: continuity and distinctiveness. She hypothesized that the selves of children entering school would display instability as compared to the selves of pre-school children. Her terminology displays the relatedness between Jamesian "continuity" and the Adlerian notion of self-stability. The research is included in this discussion because it speaks to that stability and not to the more comprehensive Jamesian model presented later in this chapter.
Recognizing epistemological dangers inherent in forced choice instruments,
Kwiatkowska developed a semi-structured interview format using open-ended questions (see appendix A) to assess self-concept in 102 six and eight year-olds. Responses were coded for those that indicated self-concept change, self-concept stability, self-concept change and stability, and no response. Using the z statistic, the null hypothesis was not rejected for either the
'change' or the 'stability' categories but older children were more likely (to a .05 level of confidence) to indicate both options in one answer. The answers were then re-coded for those that indicated the child was the same as others, and those that were different. The null hypothesis was rejected with respect to the older children who more likely to indicate a difference between themselves and their peers (z=2.97, p<.01). The study also measured self-esteem by having children pick a circle in a column of circles, totalling the numbers who picked each circle and using correlational (t-scores) comparing the two groups. It was concluded that self-esteem decreased with age (t=2.444, p<.02).
By including continuity and distinctness in her study, Kwiatkowska (1990) avoided the problem of self-concept studies that focus on only the most measurable aspect of the self, the 18
Jamesian 'me' (Katona-Sallay, 1990; Oosterwegel & Oppenheimer, 1990). Finally, her findings side-stepped the frequent charge of postmodernists that quantitative scientific findings are inherently subjective (Gergen, 2001; Neimeyer, 1995; Strong, 2002) - the results were contrary to her expectations. She found that despite the personal turmoil of leaving a home environment the elementary children maintained and even enhanced a stable sense of self.
Kwiatkowska's (1990) method was not without limitations. She avoided the usual paper- and-pencil self-esteem instruments by having the children select a circle from a column of five circles to represent themselves. She reasoned that children who selected uppermost circles would have higher self-esteem than those who selected circles lower in the column. The assumption that 'up' is better is an individual one and separates a global concept (self-esteem) from the contexts in which that concept may be applied. The statistical analysis literally indicates that the older children were more likely to pick a lower circle in the context of the interview, the meaning of which is a matter of interpretation. Her method of analyzing the open-ended questions used in her study involved counting answers that she placed into one of four categories without measuring the strength, quality, or direction of those answers. The responses "I always like a joke" and "I behave better than most children" were equally indicative of stability in this study.
While we may agree this study demonstrates that something associated with the self was stable, we are left unsure as to how that something corresponds to a total self even at the level of childhood development.
Self-Stability in Counselling
Stability of the self in vocational counselling. In his work with adults at the level of career and vocational counselling, Savikas (2001) noted a self-stability with respect to dispositions which represent a "core structure" that "influences construing and interpreting the world" (p. 19
306). He offered Holland's (1997) RIASEC model of personality types as "a practical structure for identifying the personalogical and vocational results of an individual's efforts at self- organization" (p. 306), and suggested that these personality types have shown longitudinal stability in his field. Trait research such as that advanced by Holland (1997) and Savikas (2001) begins from premise that the self is a collection of personality characteristics such as shrewdness and friendliness that are based in genetic inheritance and life experience. Edley (1993) identified the trait perspective with an enduring self and contrasted it with an identity perspective where the self is defined according to one's roles. Thus, the stability that Savikas (2001) reported was based on one perspective and other perspectives are possible.
An ethno-graphic account of personal transition. Bridges (2001) saw the stability of the self as a problem. He had become expert in transitions while working with clients, and developed the idea that transitions involve the feeling of being in limbo, in a "neutral zone," while "a new self is gradually being formed" (p. 3) and this feeling leads people to resist beneficial transitions.
He reported, however, that he did not really 'know' transitions until he experienced the infidelity of his wife, and her subsequent death.
The only way you acquire this kind of knowledge - which is called 'wisdom' to
distinguish it from that which is acquired in the ordinary way - is to have gone through a
profound life-transition, or rather to go through a number of them in the process of aging.
Only after you have done that do you see the old world with new eyes and understand it
in depth, (p. 183)
Bridges (2001) proposed a three-stage model of transition, beginning with an ending, living through a neutral zone, and ending with a new beginning. He further postulated that transitions can be developmental, in the sense that the individual makes a conscious decision to change his or her self in some ways, or they may be reactive to an unforeseen crisis or events where the direction of self-change is imposed by circumstance. He predicted that in those reactive cases the individual will tend toward minimal change to maintain the stability of the self.
He suggested to his clients that they resist the tendency to self-stability:
I had always told my clients that if you let go of only the external (the person and the
relationship itself), but didn't let go of the internal associations that had come to cluster
around it, you would just find another person or relationship and attach the same homes,
fears, dreams, and beliefs to that one. That way, you would go through a change but not a
transition-and you could count on ending up right back where you started.(p.59)
Bridges (2001) suggested that people in transitional situations would be advised to let go of their subjective realities and identities so as to create more effective worldviews and selves.
Transitions take longer than change because the former involves the development of "a replacement reality and a new self (Bridges, 2001 p. 3).Once we have said goodbye to our old self, we will be in a neutral zone, a condition similar to grieving, while the new self is being constructed. "The most significant transitions involve a time in hell" (Bridges, 1980 p. 156).
Elders, who have achieved wisdom by having gone through the transitional processes themselves, may serve as guides to others.
The notion that transitions involve a change to the self would resonate with those
Adlerians (Mosak, 1979) who draw a similar distinction between therapy and counselling: therapy involves a change to the self, while counselling involves changes to behavior without more fundamental changes to the individual. Bridges' observation that people often "prefer to make changes so they won't have to make transitions" (2001 p. 17), might also find some favor 21 with Adlerian therapists, although Bridges (2001) seems to be suggesting total self change while in Adlerian therapy the changes to the self are more incremental.
Implications of Studies Into the Stable Self
Subjective and anecdotal experience whether explicit, as in the form of auto-ethnography, or implicit as in Adler's (1927/1957) research, may become narrowly focussed with the researcher coming to identify with a particular viewpoint to the exclusion of other equally valid interpretations. Essentially, this type of reporting leaves us unsure as to what we have. We cannot know whether the experience is generalizable, nor can we know what elements in the experience produced what effect. For example, it may be that the Adlerian success in psychotherapy has little to do with the discussion of birth order and much to do with the process in which the discussion is embedded.
All of the research reviewed in this short selection into the stable self, whether qualitative or quantitative, has been partial and open to subjective perceptual limitations. It has been suggested that auto-ethnographies have value if they resonate in some way with readers
(Bochner, 1997; Ellis & Bochner, 2000). Similarly, we have the testimony of numerous clients who have reported that they feel helped by Adlerian psychotherapy (Mosak, 1979; Wampold,
2000) regardless of the mechanism involved. Still, results that are counter-intuitive, such as those reported in the Kwiatkoska (1990) study, can be powerful and research should allow for such
'surprises'.
A self that exhibits sufficient stability may be mapped in the manner proposed by this research, and transitional changes to that self may also be noted. The proposal to explore participant's experience of self-mapping, with a focus on incorporating personal recollections of transitions, allows for the examination of questions of self-stability beyond that afforded by 22 personal anecdotal methods while avoiding the constraining influence of prior categorization common to quantitative methods.
The Neurological Self
Wilder Penfield (1975/1990) was the Montreal neurosurgeon who first demonstrated that stimulation of particular areas of the neocortex can lead to motor activity, while the stimulation of other "interpretive" areas leads to "the sequential record of consciousness, a record that had been laid down during the patient's earlier experience" (p. 119). Penfield noted that irrespective of the area of neocortical stimulation and the result, the patient, lacking agency, also lacked the sense that his or her self was involved in the process:
"When I have caused a conscious patient to move his hand by applying an electrode to
the motor cortex of one hemisphere, I have often asked him about it. Invariably his
response was: I didn't do that. You did.'... When I caused the record of the stream of
consciousness to run again and so presented to him the record of his past experience, he
marvelled that he should be conscious of the past as well as the present.... He assumed at
once that somehow the surgeon was responsible for the phenomenon, but he recognized
the details of his own past experience." (p. 123)
Penfield (1975/1990) failed to find the (Jamesian 'I') self located anywhere in the brain.
He concluded, "There is no place in the cerebral cortex where electrical stimulation will cause a patient to believe or decide" (p 124). While memory may be stimulated, and self-concept resides in memory, and while Penfield's patients were conscious that they were recounting their personal memories, it was still not 'they' who were, in some important sense, 'doing it'. Computer-like, they were a mechanism subject to the will of an operator. Penfield's (1975/1990) quest to find the location of the self somewhere in the brain reminds us of Descarte's (1643/1990) belief that 23 the soul is located in the thalamus. Both failed to visualize the possibility that the self, soul or mind may not be a physical thing in a location but a process or product of mental activity.
The Feeling of Me
The neurological self research of Damasio (1999) involved careful observations taken while working with patients who suffered from Alzheimer's, epilepsy, akinetic mutism, and anosognosia. His observation that "Consciousness may be separated from wakefulness and low- level attention but it cannot be separated from emotion" (pp. 15-16) was based on observations of patients in care without controlled conditions. His observation that there are two types of self, an autobiographical self necessary for reflective thinking, and an emotion-based "proto-self," that is "a transient entity that is ceaselessly re-created for each and every object with which the brain interacts" (p. 17) is an interpretation of the behaviors of a unique set of people. Damasio's
(1999) answer to the question "Why do we have a self?" is that it is not essential for life but that a knowing self "is good for extending the mind's reach and, in so doing, improving the life of the organism whose mind has that higher reach" (pp. 302 - 303), is based on his own reflectivity and not on that of his patients who exhibited little of this quality.
Neurological research is often thought to be quantitative and Damasio's (1999) identification of four neural centers (two limbic and two neocortical) by which the body unconsciously maps out its states falls within this tradition. His suggestions that this mapping creates a "proto-self, a feeling of a "me" and a "not me", and that this moment-to-moment feeling necessitates self-definition are experientially based interpretations, not unlike the process used by Adler (1927/1957) in developing his theories. Damasio's statement, "You know that you exist because the narrative exhibits you as protagonist in the act of knowing," (p. 172) has a qualitative ring to it. 24
Bjorklund & Blasi (2005) provided support for Damasio's position by noting that theory
of mind develops at about the same time and in the same sequence in most children around the
world. They reasoned, "This relatively narrow age range and its likely universality are consistent
with the domain-specificity perspective of Evolutionary Psychology, supporting the existence of
a series of highly specialized modules that develop over the preschool years" (pp. 840-841
Within the tradition of Western philosophical thought, Damasio's (1999) proto-self is a neurological analogue of Kant's "transcendental self - that which must have prior existence so that self-recognition can occur in the mirror of experience. Kant (in Seigel, 2005) called the
structure that results from this experience the "empirical self, while Damasio referred to it as an
"autobiographical self based on a personal narrative. Both turned Descartes (1643/1999) on his head in that the latter viewed the cogito and self as functions of a soul that came to inhabit and direct a physical body, while the former viewed the conscious self to be the result of the activity of that same body.
Split Brains and Split Selves
Gazzaniga (2000) reviewed a series of experiments in which he was involved that were based on the severing of the corpus callosum in adult subjects. This allowed the experimenters to communicate visually with each hemisphere without the other hemisphere being aware of that communication. In one such experiment, conducted with fellow neurosurgeon Roger Sperry, the patient's left hemisphere was shown a chicken and his right hemisphere was shown a snow fall.
Each hemisphere was asked to select a picture from a group of pictures that went with what they saw. The left hemisphere picked a claw and the right picked a snow shovel. When presented with both choices and asked why he made those choices patient P.S. stated, "Oh, that's simple.
The claw goes with the chicken and you need a shovel to clean out the chicken shed." (Gazzaniga, 2000, Studies on Consciousness, para. 5). The patient's left hemisphere did not have to integrate snow into its explanation because it was not aware of the card showing a snowfall.
Similar experiments with three other patients showed a left hemispheric ability narrate a plausible story from disconnected pieces of information.
Pinker (2002) concluded this research demonstrated that each hemisphere generates a
"self," with the left weaving a coherent but often false account of behavior. He described the unified self as an "illusion", and said that Gazzaniga and Sperry had "literally cut the self in two" with each hemisphere exercising "free will without the other one's advice or consent". He added,
"Even more disconcertingly, the left hemisphere constantly weaves a coherent but false account of the behavior chosen without its knowledge by the right," and he generalized the results suggesting, "The conscious mind - the self or soul - is a spin doctor, not the commander in chief." (p. 43).
Gazzaniga (2000) offered an interpretation of his results that differed from Pinker's
(2002). He described the left hemisphere as "a device that begins by asking how one thing relates to another", and suggests that such a device "cannot help but give birth to the concept of self.
Surely one question the device would ask is, "Who is solving all these problems? Let's call it
'me'-and away it goes!" (Implications, para. 16). No selves were severed in this research because the self is a product of left hemispheric activity.
In a related experiment, Wolford, Miller & Gazzaniga (2000) flashed pictures of red and green cards at left and right hemispheres of two patients who had their corpus callosi severed in treatment for epilepsy. The trials were conducted in five blocks of 100 trials each with 75% of the cards flashed being red. Patients were told that the cards would appear in random order, and that they should try to predict the next card. Patient J.W.'s right hemispheric guesses varied 1.38 26 standard deviations from the pattern presented in the previous set to a 95% confidence. The criterion for the left hemisphere was 0.651 +/- 0.036. For patient V.P., the criterion for the right hemisphere was -1.83 +/- 0.25 and the left was -0.31 +/- 0.033. In summary, both came close to matching the pattern previously shown with the left hemisphere while their right hemispheres tended to repeat the same answer. In the authors' interpretation, the right hemispheres chose a strategy of picking the red cards ensuring a 75% success rate while the left hemispheres adopted a strategy of finding a pattern even though they had been told there was no pattern. Gazzaniga's
(2000) further interpretation was that the self results from a left hemispheric attempt at interpretation. His data, however, is somewhat more limited in its scope. Two individuals who suffer from epilepsy were shown to respond differently to a two-choice predictive matching task when using their left as opposed to their right hemispheres. Gazzaniga's further interpretation is an extrapolation that is consistent with the data, but its relevance to people whose corpus callosi are not severed is a matter of interpretation.
Measuring Brain Activity
Using positron emission tomography, Craik, Moroz, Moscovitch, Stuss, Winocur, et. al.,
(1999) demonstrated how trait adjectives referenced under four separate PET scan conditions resulted in a unique pattern of neocortical activation under self-referencing conditions. While this experiment involved whole-brained individuals, it cannot show that the pattern of neocortical activation actually is the self.
Also using a PET scan technology, Schwartz & Begley (2002) found that "thinking about moving produced brain changes comparable to those triggered by actually moving" (p. 217).
They inferred that physical changes in brain depend on attention focussed on a particular activity, and not necessarily the physical performance of that activity. They concluded, "The role of attention throws into stark relief the power of mind over brain, for it is a mental state
(attention) that has the ability to direct neuroplasticity" (p. 339).
By measuring electromyogram changes in subjects, Libet (1985) found that an act, as measured by muscle tenseness, typically begins approximately 250 milliseconds before the decision to act, as measured by cerebral activity, is made. Libet concluded, "There is no separate self jumping into the synapses and starting things off. My brain does not need me" (p. 226).
Libet (1999) left room for free will, however, by suggesting that the self still has time
(approximately 150 milliseconds) to veto an act once the process has started. An interpretation of
Libet's work was offered by Susan Blackmore (1999):
The implication is that consciousness does not direct the action. Conscious awareness
comes all right, but not in time. The hand is removed from the flame before we
consciously feel the pain. We have whacked the tennis ball back before we can be
conscious of it coming towards us. We have avoided the puddle before we were
conscious of its existence. Consciousness follows on later. Yet we still feel that T
consciously did these things, (p. 227)
Limits to the Interpretations of the Neurological Data
Penfield (1975/1990) could not find any one area in the neocortex that triggered a sense of self, and when movement or memories were triggered by neocortical stimulation the patient invariably reported that he or she was not doing the moving or remembering, it was the physician who was "doing it" (p. 119). This does not preclude the possibility that the self exists elsewhere1. An interpretation of his experiments is that a sense of willing is tied to the sense of self and that self does not reside in any one location in the brain. 28
Damasio's (1999) theory that the self is an autobiographical construct grounded to the body by emotion is consistent with Penfield's work, but his theory is an interpretation of what is normal by observing patients who are abnormal with respect to the self, and therefore cannot preclude other possible interpretations. The work of Gazzaniga (2000) and his various confederates faces a similar limitation. People do not normally walk around with severed corpus callosi and even if the suggestion that the self is a result of left hemispheric activity is correct, there is no way of knowing whether the self so produced is the same in individuals with unsevered brains. While it has been established that the self imputes after-the-fact intentionality in certain laboratory conditions (Gazzaniga, 2000; Libet, 1985; Wolford et al., 2000), there can be no certainty that this applies to all conditions. It is possible, for example, that the self is capable of before-the-fact intentionality when engaged in reflectivity.
In summation, the neurological research cited supports the notion that the self does not reside as a homunculus somewhere in the brain and may exist as a result of brain activity. Such a view would be consistent with Adler's definition that "The self is the convictions I have about who I am." (as quoted in Mosak, 1979, p. 58). On the other hand, the research also supports the interpretation that the stability of the self may be an illusion, an after-the-fact interpretative rationalization. In any case, the characteristics of a self that exists outside of the brain are beyond the reach of neuroscience.
This proposed research called for an examination of that self that exists in mental operations beyond the normal reach of neuroscience but remains bound by physical and genetic limitations inherent to the human condition. The notion that autobiographical construction may, indeed, be grounded in left-hemispheric interpretation is compatible with the approach used, but such a mental construct would be bounded by the societies in which interpretive selves emerged. 29
The Self in Society
White (1969/1990) said, "Culture is the name of a flow of things and events dependent upon symboling considered in an extra-somatic context.... this means that we must have a new science: a science of culture rather than a science of psychology if we are to understand the determinants of human behavior" (p. 182). This section deals with differing perspectives that situate the self within culture. Constructivists (Neimeyer, 1995; Snow & Anderson, 2003;
Torres, 1990) have emphasized the role the individual has in constructing this self from a menu of possibilities provided by society. Classical behaviorists (Chambless & Goldstein, 1979;
Johnson-Laird, 1988/1990) have taken the apparently opposite view that the self is constructed by the cultural environment surrounding it. Social Constructionists (Shotter, 1997; Wortham,
2001) have emphasized a relational perspective wherein our selves create and are created by culture. We conclude with a survey of attempts to map the self in society (Hartman, 1995;
Lewin, 1943), and these attempts largely flow from constructivist, behavioral or social constructionist perspectives. This section concludes with a discussion of the implications a cultural self would have for cross-cultural perspectives.
The Constructivist Self
Another way of saying the self is the result of left hemispheric brain activity is that we interpret our selves into being. A number of writers, independent of neuroscience, have suggested that we interpretively construct our selves in the form of a narrative (Botella &
Herrero, 2000; Hoyt, 2002; Wortham, 2001). Savickas (2001) elegantly combined narrative, plot, self-reflectivity, agency, and continuance in one schema:
These internalized narratives of the self usually include reflective descriptions about how
the individual adapted to tasks and traumas. These narratives do more than explain where 30
individuals have been and who they hope to become. By constructing a plot, the
narratives address the question of 'Who am I?' The plot explains how they are agentic and
to whom they feel connected. These stories of competence and connection impose a
narrative structure on lived experience, one that explains the purpose and meaning of
life.... The narratives...provide a purposeful self-history that explains how the self of
yesterday became the self of today and will become the anticipated self of tomorrow, (pp.
309-310)
While grounded in his experience in vocational counselling, the Savickas (2001) model has not been tested outside that context. It is not a study per se, but a result of his own reflectivity with unknown applicability beyond his field. Its strength as an interpretation is consistent with existing research, including research which points to an element of stability within self, and to neurological connectivity. It combines two qualities of the Jamesian T (agency and constancy) with autobiographical narrative. Not all constructivist research has been so inclusive.
The main goal of Torres (1990) study of 60 middle class Madrid children was "to describe the course by which children become progressively able to consciously understand themselves and to encode their own characteristics" (p. 32). Torres had children (age 5-9) play a
'hide and seek game' involving dolls and a cardboard house while they related themselves to the game. Self-descriptors were recorded and categorized. Torres observed that psychological characteristics were included in the self-descriptions of older children but this did not correspond with a simultaneous reduction in the use of physical descriptors.
A weakness the qualitative Torres (1990) study shares with many quantitative studies into self-concept (Katona-Sallay, 1990; Oosterwegel & Oppenheimer, 1990), is it focuses exclusively on what James (1892/1999) called the objective self (the Jamesian 'me'). The self as a totality 31 may exhibit different qualities. Further, the observations made may be valid only in the context of the game the researcher had the children play. Finally, the observation, that older children made more psychological self-descriptors than younger children, was not backed by a statistical analysis and, in any case, may be relevant only to the cultural context within which the children were raised. In addition, the Torres (1990) study fails to speak to the possibility that the children were not self-constructing at all; perhaps it was their cultural environment doing the constructing.
Snow & Anderson (2003) tackled this issue of self-construction at variance with the cultural environment, in a study of how people at the bottom of the status system in U.S.
America, the homeless, construct their selves. They engaged in a four-month ethnographic study that revealed a tendency to assert individual identities, in opposition to the social identities attributed to them by a largely unsympathetic public. To construct these identities, homeless people would distance themselves from other homeless, define themselves as part of subgroups that had some unique history (e.g. the "hippie tramps"), embrace 'street honor' (e.g. giving up a job if it meant giving up street friends), embellish personal histories, and/or engage in personal fantasies. The researchers kept statistics on the coping mechanisms used by subgroups of homeless (outsiders, straddlers, recent dislocates) in developing comparisons. For example, the recent dislocates were more likely to distance themselves from all homeless, while straddlers and outsiders would distance themselves from specific groups of homeless (X = 41.88, df = 6, p
<.001). Combining their qualitative observation with such statistical comparisons, Snow &
Anderson (2003) concluded "Many of the homeless are active agents in the construction and negotiation of identities as they interact with others. They do not, in other words, passively accept the social identities their appearance sometimes exudes or into which they are cast" (p. 32
156). The researchers viewed the results as a challenge to Maslow's hierarchy of needs: "Our observations suggest that the salience of such cognitive concerns is not necessarily contingent on the prior satisfaction of physiological survival requisites. Instead, such needs appear to coexist, even at the most rudimentary levels of human existence" (p. 157).
While we cannot know how much impact the researchers had on the homeless they studied, or the amount of embellishment that was prompted by their presence, their use of comparative statistics lends credence to their interpretation. For example, their observation that half the recently dislocated homeless engaged in fantasy while only 10% of the long-term homeless did, lends support to the idea that these homeless were sharing something of their felt selves with the researchers and that they were not responding according to some researcher-set pattern. While Snow & Anderson (2003) built a convincing case that the homeless constructed selves at variance with the 'othering' imposed on them by the macro-society, they did not address the issue of how much of this apparent self-construction resulted from sub-cultural norms. It may not be that the individual self-constructs so much as identifies with a construction provided by a subgroup that in turn filters out competing constructions.
Demonstrating that self-construction has applications to counselling psychology,
Charmaz (1990) used a method she called constructivist grounded theory to study social psychological themes that cut across diverse chronic illnesses. She reported that patients were helped by operationalizing a dialectical self that monitored and externalized messages from the physical self.
It is as if dialogue and negotiation with ultimate validation of the physical self takes
place.... The development of the dialectical self illuminates the active stance that some 33
people take toward their illnesses and their lives. In short, the dialectical self helps people
to keep illness in the background of their lives, (pp. 1171-1172)
Charmaz (1990, 2000) used two definitions of the word 'self in finding dual selves. Like
Pinker (2002), she ascribed a self to an entity (in Pinker's case, the right hemisphere, in
Charmaz's case, the physical body) that does not evidence consciousness. The self of consciousness she labels 'dialectical', and it is this self that gets revised with the help of a therapist.
Self-construction is not entirely an internal or intentional process, but appears to depend on interaction with others (Gergen, 1996; Jopling, 2000; Martin & Sugarman, 2001). The constructivists cited in this paper assume agency without consideration of its limits or from whence it comes. It could be that they assume agency to be a quality of being. If it were true that we were born with an agentic self then that self should have a location such as Descarte's
(1643/1990) pineal gland. Yet, neurological research has failed to find such an agentic self. If the self is a product of our thinking then it, along with the component of agency, is tied to our experiential base and our culture in some ways. This realization led to a renewed examination of the role of culture in the creation and maintenance of the self. Similar to the Adlerians who believe that psychotherapy is a process of assisting the client to change their selves (Mosak,
1979), constructivists believe that we create our selves from a menu of possibilities. The reverse of the constructionist perspective is one that considers self-creation to be illusion: classical behaviorism.
The Socially Constructed Self
"Individuals are moulded to a pattern over which they had no control" (Michel Foucault quoted in Seigel, 2005 p. 624). 34
In 1965, Kenneth Gergen (1996) discovered that he was able to manipulate the self- esteem of university students. Shocked by the implication that the self has no voluntary agency, he ran from quantitative research. His concern that this doctoral research supported the idea that the self is a mere repository of others' attitudes is based on at least two overgeneralizations: 1) that a measure of social effect on one aspect of self, self-concept, translates into a rule about the total self; and, 2) that the context of his research (university students in controlled conditions with a subject matter that was not necessarily seen by them as fundamental or "core" to themselves) did not impact on the results. From this foundation Gergen (1996) made a further assumption, that the method of quantitative research constrains results to support deterministic interpretations.
Classical behaviorists take a deterministic view with respect to social construction:
"Every behavior is considered to be completely determined by antecedent factors, leaving no room for cherished philosophical notions such as free will" (Chambless & Goldstein, 1979, p.
232). With this view "The self represents a functionally unified system of responses" (p. 238), which, using the concept of self as explored in this paper, means no self at all. Are behaviorists merely selfless entities conditioned to utter environmentally determined responses? Chambless &
Goldstein (1979) side-step this question by asserting that none of us will ever know what reality is, which if literally true (thus dismissing the notion of approximate objective reality), would mean that none of us have any basis for making any such propositions. Even though we may not have the logical basis to make truth statements, "The contingencies necessary for self-descriptive behavior are arranged by the community" (B.F. Skinner, 1957, quoted in Hutcheon, 1996, p.
410). The self is a culturally constructed entity. Morality, in Skinner's view, is that part of this unified system that forgoes current reinforcers to avoid future aversive consequences or accepts current aversive consequences for the sake of a future reinforcer.
Stem completion to measure self-esteem. The idea that forced-choice and semantic differential scales constrain the answers of those whose self-concepts are to be measured is well recognized in the literature (Damon & Hart, 1988; Kwiatkowska, 1990). Recognizing the danger of imposing a such a paradigm on research subjects, Smollar & Youniss (1985) used stem completion to assess contextually specific self-esteem. Eighty subjects divided equally in four age groups completed sentences like "When I am with my close friend of the same sex (mother, father) I am ." Responses to these open-ended questions were then coded using a system of content analysis that allowed new codes to emerge from the data. The resultant eight categories: 1) content; 2) extroverted; 3) sociable/cooperative; 4) intimate / sensitive; 5) spontaneous; 6) capable/serious; 7) hostile / withdrawn; 8) anxious met with an inter-rater agreement of 0.94. Following a statistical analysis that included correlations between categories, context and age of the subjects, along with an analysis of variance, the researchers concluded that preadolescents reported changes in self with regard to increases in sociability and cooperation while late adolescents and young adults indicated increases in intimacy and sensitivity. They concluded, "Within the context of close-friend relations, conceptions of self undergo a qualitative change from preadolescence to adolescence. The self-concept of the adolescent incorporates a view of self as an intimate, sensitive, and spontaneous being" (p. 254).
Self-concept in parental contexts showed differences: "The close-friend relation is clearly differentiated from parent-child relations by the relatively high frequency of descriptions of self as intimate/sensitive and spontaneous and the relatively low frequency of descriptions of self as capable/serious, hostile/withdrawn, and anxious" (p. 257). It is not surprising that many adolescents would complete the stem "When I am with a close friend I am..." differently than "When I am with my mother I am...." This result could be interpreted to suggest that self-concept, like Gergen's (1996) self-esteem, is manipulated by those around us. On the other hand, the structure of the stems chosen for completion suggests a definition of self-concept that will change with context and also constrains the result. A stem such as, "When I am with my friend, my mother or my father, I am..." would likely have resulted in different responses. It may be the definitions of self-esteem and self-concept are sufficiently fluid that research into these concepts is invariably constrained by the paradigm from which the researcher operates. Participants in the research then respond with that part of their selves most appropriate to the researcher's definition.
Self efficacy. The concept of self-efficacy implies an individual sense of empowerment over environmental constraints (Bandura, 1991, 1999; Wiedenfeld et al, 1990). Caprara et al.
(1998) tested the hypothesis that perceived self-efficacy to resist peer pressure for high-risk activities is related to transgressive conduct. They surveyed 324 adolescents (aged 14-18 yrs) rating their self-regulatory efficacy, openness of communication with parents, and their involvement in delinquent conduct and substance abuse. The researchers used "structural equation modeling" to conclude that a high sense of efficacy served to ward off negative peer influences and this was accompanied by increased open communication with parents.
The method used by Caprara et al. (1998) involving the administration of five efficacy- based questions such as "How well can you resist peer pressure to drink beer, wine, or liquor?" were answered by adolescents 14 to 18 years of age according to a five point self-rating scale.
They were also administered seven questions, again using a five-point self-rating scale, with respect to how they kept their parents informed of their activities. Transgressive behaviors were 37 measured by using the Delinquency Subscale of the Achenbach and Edelbrock (1978) Child
Behavior Checklist. Substance abuse was measured on a two-point self-disclosure scale. The researchers developed a matrix by computing correlational coefficients for each of six variables: self-efficacy, openness (male), openness (female), monitoring, delinquency, and substance abuse. A negative correlation (-.54, p<.001) was found between self-efficacy and delinquency, while a positive correlation (.45, p<.001) was found between delinquency and substance abuse.
"Structural Equation Monitoring" involved combining measured variables with significant positive correlations to form "latent variables". Thus, delinquency and substance abuse were combined to form a latent variable labelled "antisocial", and male and female communication with mother and father were combined to form "communication". Perceived self-efficacy had a correlation of -.68 (male) and -.48 (female) with the latent variable "antisocial". Communication was positively correlated with perceived self-efficacy (.39, .36) but negatively correlated with
"antisocial."
The concepts of delinquency and even self-efficacy are diffuse, fluid and culturally driven. As Lent (2004) suggested, judgments of well-being and pathology are, ultimately, socially constructed. On the other hand, had the subjects in the Caprara et. al. (1998) study who scored higher on the delinquency measure, operated from a conscious conceptualization of delinquency at variance from that of the dominant cultural society, then their sense of self- efficacy could be expected to be at least as high as those who measured low on the delinquency scale. This consideration lends support to the notion that within the context of the culture in which the study was framed, self-efficacy is linked to more open communication and pro-social behaviors in youth. In any case, the Caprara (1998) study belies Gergen's (1996) fear that quantitative research necessarily implies a deterministic result. However, at least one constraint 38 is evident in the research cited: Quantitative research must focus on something specific that is measurable. This suggests potential difficulties in viewing the self as a unified whole, and in determining relationships between various parts, all with an eye to cultural relativity.
Applied behaviorism. Behavioral conditioning in the form of classical and operant conditioning has been used in the treatment of performance anxiety (Rodebaugh & Chambless,
2004), alcoholism (Trimpey, 1996), trauma (Devilly & Spence, 1999; Gerrity & Solomon, 2002), and conduct problems (Bloomquist & Schnell, 2002). Adlerians take advantage of a similar process by allowing for "homework assignments" that have the effect of conditioning clients to new habituations (Dinkmeyer et al., 1979; Driekurs, 1964). This conditioning process is supplemented with a collaborative cognitive approach. On the other hand, Warwar & Greeberg
(2000), following their review of the literature, concluded that behavioral techniques by themselves may be as effective as combined cognitive-behavioral techniques. This interpretation would imply that a self, capable of higher order cognitive thought, is not needed, at least for those conditions for which a purely behavioral approach has shown efficacy. Vygotsky (in
Wertsch, 1988) may have resolved this issue by positing the emergence of a new psychological process, in this case the development of cognitive processes above those that may be explained by a behavioristic model, necessitated new explanatory principles that operate at the new level of development. Thus, behavioral techniques should be effective for those conditions that are themselves a result of conditioning, and it would be expected that cognitive methods would be less effective for those specific conditions. Conversely, behavioral means may not be as effective in dealing with those conditions for which cognitive thought involving a sense of self emerged. 39
The Social Constructionist Alternative
While James (1892/2003) said, "Man has as many social selves as there are individuals who recognize him" (p. 122), it was George Herbert Mead (1934/2003) who suggested that both the self-as-object and the self-as-subject owed their existence to social construction:
The individual experiences himself...indirectly, from the particular standpoints of other
individual members of the same social group, or from the generalized standpoint of the
social group as a whole to which he belongs. For he enters his own experience as a self or
individual, not directly or immediately, not by becoming a subject to himself, but only in
so far as he first becomes an object of himself just as other individuals are objects to him
or in his experience; and he becomes an object to himself only by taking the attitudes of
other individuals toward himself within a social environment or context of experience
and behavior in which both he and they are involved (p. 126).
Research into self-efficacy (Bandura, 1999; Bandura, Barbaranelli, Caprara, & Pastorelli,
2001; Wiedenfeld et al., 1990; Witkiewitz & Marlatt, 2004) failed to conclusively settle the determinism vs. free will debate. Self-efficacy may be, in Shelly Taylor's (1989) words, "a positive self-enhancing illusion" that promotes mental health and pro-social (but culturally determined) behavior (p. 7). Gergen (1996) declared the issue to be ideological, and he favored an ideology of communalism, interdependence, and participatory decision-making favored by constructionists.
Constructionism has been seen as an alternative to behaviorism in the educational context
(McCowan, 1996). We construct meaning from what is known and this "makes students active participants in knowledge construction" (p. 405). The argument becomes somewhat circular when applied to the concept of the self. We select beliefs about our selves from a menu provided by culture, and these beliefs are compatible with 'what is known', that is existing knowledge about our selves. The self is both created by and the creator of culture (Blustein & Noumair,
1996; Shotter, 1997).
This interdependent self extends the constructivist position by providing an explanation as to why some humans cling to negative self-definitions that bring them emotional distress instead of simply constructing better selves. It also provides an explanation as to why many humans subsume their selves to the will of religious or ideological collectivities (Fromm, 1969;
Goldhagan, 1996; Grosswiler, 1998). Eric Hoffer (1966) suggested the core of this tendency has to do with negative self-definition: "The frustrated follow a leader less because of their faith that he is leading them to a promised land than because of their immediate feeling that he is leading them away from their unwanted selves" (p. 110) Tom Strong (2000) recognized this social constructionist "dark side," of "selves at the mercy of their social circumstances" (p. 82). The self is a relational construction that is context specific and is negotiated between the individual and the "other" (Botella & Herrero, 2000; Haley, 2002; Shotter, 1997; Strong & Zeman, 2005).
In such a view the self would not necessarily exist within the individual. "As Tappan (1999) has argued, 'the self is situated neither psychologically or socially, but dialogically - as a function of the linguistically mediated exchanges between persons and the social world that are the hallmark of lived human experience" (Neimeyer, 2002, p. 52).
Wilcke (2002) commended hermeneutic phenomenology to social work research, and reviewed her own research involving refugee women from the former Yugoslav province of
Bosnia and Herzgovena. From Husserl, she attempted to gain a "glimpse the phenomenon in its immediacy as it is experienced before the phenomenon has been overlaid with explanations as to causes or origins" (Historical Background, para. 1). From Heidegger, she sought a method of 41 interpretation which anticipates the future while encompassing the person's past and present seeking to understand "a totality of meaning in all its relations"(Hermeneutic Circle, para. 2).
Avoiding constraints using hermeneutics. Wilke's (2002) respondents included 10 refugee women over the age of 18. She transcribed a taped interview with each in which they were asked open-ended questions such as "What is the experience of a woman refugee from the former Yugoslavia?" and "What helped you survive the experience?" The questions were used as guideposts with interviews individualized according to the experience and interests of the interviewee. Transcriptions were organized into clusters of meanings and were reviewed with the research participants, in the fashion of the hermeneutic circle, in a second series of interviews which sought to deepen the researcher's understandings. With deepened understanding, she sought to tell their stories. She focused particularly on the image of one young mother who left her home, infant under one arm and umbrella in the other (because it was raining) intent on visiting a relative for a few days, never to return. She noted that some of the respondents did not define themselves as refugees, and the research method used did not constrain them to respond from that perspective. Instead, the method allowed respondents to present themselves as people living full and complex lives.
While this research is true to the notion that the self is a narrative defined according to our unique histories, and while it offers the insight that the 'othering' of the researcher (in this case defining these women as refugees) is not necessarily the self-definition of the participant, little is offered that is generalizable. We are left with interesting stories of unknown utility.
Rennie (2000) suggested that too much caution expressed as reluctance to give rein to subjectivity can result in 'missing' the life of the experience under study, while giving undue rein 42 expresses the life of the analyst more than that of the respondents. It may be that Wilke (2002) exercised undue caution.
The Heideggerian controversy. The Heideggerian self "cannot stand outside one's pre- understandings and historicality of one's experience" (Laverty, 2003, p. 14). Interpretation gives life a narrative structure. "In the hermeneutic view, a basic fact about humans is that they care about whether their lives make sense and what their lives are amounting to" (Richardson &
Fowers, 1997, p. 282). Since there can never be any one correct interpretation (Patton, 2002), the challenge is to "enlarge the scope of our interpretation" (Packer, 1989, p. 106). "One engages in a hermeneutic approach to data in order to derive a better understanding of the context that gives it meaning" (Rudestam & Newton, 2001, p. 40). Although the hermeneutic approach has received considerable support as a research method, the philosophy Heidegger's espoused has not been without controversy.
For Heidegger, modern mankind lives in an insipid, deteriorated condition (Habermas,
2005). He taught that phenomenology as hermeneutics is the process of self-understanding that is possible for 'Dasein', a true ontological being as opposed to the self of modernity (Johnson,
2000). Twentieth century German fascism, he believed, would help address the resultant
"spiritual crisis of the times" (p. 7). For Heidegger truth is relative; it is only present within a finite historical context (Johnson, 2000). The hermeneutic circle is a spiral of deepening understanding as one proceeds through repeated cycles of induction and deduction or, as Rennie
(2000) suggests, induction and abduction. For Heidegger, the liberation of the self cannot be accomplished through intelligent thought:
Intelligent calculation is oriented towards objects and places them at man's disposal. Its
levelling grasp brings all things down to one level: extension and number are its predominant dimensions. For this thinking, "ability" no longer means extravagant
expenditure out of lofty abundance, but the sweaty performance of a routine. This
thinking, which follows the laws of traditional logic, cannot understand the question
about Being [Nach dem Sein], let alone develop it, because logic is itself grounded in an
answer to the question about what it is [nach dem Seienden], an answer that closes off
Being from the very outset. [...] The degeneration of thinking to intelligence can only be
overcome by thinking that is more primordial, (quoted in Habermas, 2005, para 4)
Thus, for Heidegger, intelligent thought is degenerate, as is modernity. In a speech given as rector to the university at Freiberg he declared, "Revolutionary reality is not something that exists already (etwas Vorhandenes), but, by its essence, something that has still to develop, something in gestation" (quoted in Joris, 1989 II, para. 16). This new reality involved the
German people "finally coming into their historical destiny, totally inside of and guided by the state" (para. 18).
There has been considerable debate with respect to the connection between Heidegger's hermeneutics and his fascism (Habermas, 2005; Johnson, 2000; Joris, 1989). On one extreme it could be argued that the ideology led to the methodology or vice versa; on the other hand, it could be argued that Heidegger's fascism was a personal 'quirk' with no connection to his methodology. In his own hermeneutic textual analysis of Nazi and pre-Nazi documents,
Goldhagen (1996) concluded that anti-Semitic fascism was not an aberration in Germany, but was a reflection of long-standing cultural norms grounded in religiously held values. Irrespective of the extremes, it can be seen that the relativism inherent within hermeneutics failed to guard against the fascism that was part of Heidegger's relational and contextual being. If the self were socially constructed, this would be an example of its 'dark side'. Voicing a similar concern about the relativism inherent in the hermeneutic approach,
Doen (1998) said, "The great systems of thought like religions, ideologies and philosophies, come to be regarded as 'social constructions of reality.' these systems may be useful, even respected as profoundly true, but true in a new, provisional, postmodern way" p. 381. He warned that a problem with relativism is that account of 28 million aboriginals killed as a result of U.S.
American colonial expansion, "can no longer be taken as objective truth" (p. 382), thus aiding the colonizers.
Narrative analysis in social construction. Patton (2002) delineated a progression between hermeneutic inquiry and narrative analysis: "Hermeneutics originated in the study of written texts. Narrative analysis extends the idea of text to include in-depth interview transcripts, life history narratives, historical memoirs, and creative non-fiction" (p. 115). Narrative analysis shares with hermeneutics assumptions of relativity with respect to our constructions of reality and the need to imbed interpretations in context. Discourse analysis emphasizes the negotiated meaning co-constructed by two or more actors working collaboratively. Typically, conversations are recorded verbatim with notes taken on what is said, how it is said, what is not said, affect, and other indicators of meaning.
According to Shotter (1997), the self is the product of an inner dialogue relying on the structure of discursive practices within the framework provided by culture. "It is only in the personal relation of persons that personal existence comes into being" (p. 122). For researchers in the narrative tradition we are the beliefs, arranged in the form of a personal story, that we hold to be true for our selves, and these are a product of our interactions with each other. As such, we operate within the constraints of our social interactions, in effect we negotiate our selves with those around us. Polkinghorn (1995) said, Plots function to compose or configure events into a story by: (a) delimiting a temporal
range which marks the beginning and end of the story, (b) providing criteria for the
selection of events to be included in the story, (c) temporally ordering events into an
unfolding movement culminating in a conclusion, and (d) clarifying or making explicit
the meaning events have as contributors to the story as a unified whole, (p. 7)
Gubrium & Holstein (1998) state that the material from which personal stories are constructed are provided by culture, and that the stories change dependent on context. They note, for example, that institutions have their own agendas and preferred plot lines, but they insist that the individual continues to exercise agency in choosing the particular story that fits with him or her in any given context.
In narrative analysis, the researcher develops or discovers a plot that displays linkage between data elements. Events are configured to show how they advance a plot, but the plot remains an interpretation. Polkinghorn (1995) warns, "Researchers engaged in narrative analysis need to be attuned to their contributions to the constructive aspects of their research and to acknowledge these in their write-ups" (p. 19).
According to Widdicombe (1998), power, knowledge production, and institutional practise work together to produce multiple discourses with the resultant self in constant flux.
"Conversation analysis implicates a thoroughly social view of selves embedded in social action and interaction" (p. 203). Edwards (1998) explains how conversation analysts view self categorization:
Self categorizations, like categorizations of other people and of everything else, are
discursive actions done in talk, and performative of talk's current business. So the best
way to examine them is to find how they are used, and what kinds of discursive business they do, on and for the occasions when they are deployed. Further, there is no
explanatory primacy given to self categorizations, as a psychological starting point for
how everyone sees the world, (p. 17)
Widdicombe (1998) states that categories are inference-rich and as such must be evaluated within individual and group contexts. "Social identities cannot simply be assumed; instead, we need to be sensitive to ways that group membership and non-membership are negotiated, rejected or achieved" (p. 70). Zimmerman (1998), in studying the role of social identities in communication, reproduced a transcript of an attempted conversation between a caller and a professional complaint-taker where the caller refused to take on the role of client and the complaint-taker refused to give up the role of professional. When neither proved willing to give up the script associated with their chosen role, discourse proved impossible. Zimmerman concluded, "Discourse identities furnish the focus for the type of discourse activity projected and recognized by participants, what they are doing interactionally in a particular spate of talk" (p.
92).
Hopper (2003) revealed how we may conform to roles, and the identities associated with those roles, given to us by society. He transcribed and analyzed interviews with 30 recently divorced individuals. He attempted to piece together a longitudinal component to the study by extrapolation of information gathered during interviews by: 1) noting historical accounts; and 2) comparing people who were at different stages of their divorce temporally. He found, prior to the decision to divorce, roles were confused with both parties frequently voicing similar concerns.
When one person made the decision to divorce, the discourse changed, "Whatever the specifics of their situations, initiators generally articulated a vocabulary of individual needs and non- 47 initiating partners invoked a vocabulary of familial commitment... The two vocabularies emerged only after the decision to divorce was made" (pp. 258-259).
Both parties typically selected certain information and interpreted other information to substantiate their position. The initiators of divorce presented a narrative that made their decision seem legitimate and inevitable. The non-initiators invoked a moral vocabulary of opposition which made the divorce painful and contentious. Hopper concluded, "The motives-as-rhetoric thesis begins to suggest that the course-of-relations stories divorcing people tell are also defining rhetorics; as such, developmental views of divorce may be artefacts of the ways in which divorcing people make sense out of chaos and ambiguity" (p. 257).
Wortham (2001) suggests that a self emerges as a person adopts characteristic positions with respect to others, "While telling their stories, autobiographical narrators often enact a characteristic type of self, and through such performances they can become that type of self" (p. xii). Using textual transcriptions of discussions, interviews, and newscasts, Wortham (2001) analyzed a class in Spartan history, the autobiographical story of a woman named Jane, and the news coverage Dan Rather gave U.S. president George Bush with respect to alleged inconsistencies in Bush's account of his reasons for going to war against Iraq. Wortham (2001) said a teacher in the Spartan history class "spoke with the voice of a (modern) welfare critic" (p.
38) in defending the custom of leaving sickly babies to die outside Sparta; Jane had two selves - one passive and vulnerable, the other active and assertive; and Rather made Bush speak with the voice of a criminal defendant. Alternate interpretations are possible. The class transcript indicates that the teacher in question was attempting to speak with the voice of an ancient
Spartan leader. Jane, from her teenage years to midlife, consistently presented herself first as a victim and then as an assertive individual in stressful situations. An Adlerian interpretation that 48 she had one self that exercised two favoured coping strategies based on her worldview is also plausible. Finally, if in fact Bush was less than forthright about his adventures in Iraq, then his defensiveness when questioned was to some degree his own voice.
The research reviewed in this section is respectful of peoples' contexts and views. Three studies (Zimmeran, 1998; Hopper, 2003; Wortham, 2001) convincingly related roles to context or location, but failed to distinguish between roles and self. This removes the Jamesian subjective self, particularly the elements of continuity and distinctness, from consideration constraining the research accordingly. Further, Wortham (2001) failed to give evidence as to why his interpretations should be favored. If there is no objective reality, then there can be no such evidence.
Philosophical problems associated with social constructionism. The Adlerian self shares much with social constructionism; it is co-constructed between the individual and his environment beginning in the family constellation but extending through community and societal influences. Alder was, perhaps, the first to recognize the relativistic nature of this societal influence. In his debate with Freud, for example, he suggested that female feelings of inferiority were not tied to "penis envy", but to the patriarchal culture of his time in which women were undervalued (Mosak, 1979 p. 49). It is this relativistic aspect of self that allows for its re- engineering. An individual who is lacking in feelings of self-efficacy, for example, can reframe his or her self-definition to recognize a greater sense of empowerment. Adler (1927/1957) agreed with those who have suggested that self construction is not entirely internal, but depends on interaction with others (Jopling, 2000; Martin & Sugarman, 2001). Despite the utility of a social constructivist position, some theoretic problems have remained unresolved. 49
Social constructionism provides an answer to the constructivist dilemma as to why people would construct, and then cling to, dysfunctional selves. Concomitantly it attempts to reply to the notion that we are socially determined. There is an unresolved tension in social constructionism between the unfettered free will implied in constructivism and the determinism implied in behaviourism. Richardson and Fowers (1997) seem to be speaking of constructionism when they suggest that postmodernism sets forth the "ultimately implausible view" that the self is
"determined by historical influences", yet is "radically free to reinterpret both itself and social reality, for it own self-invented purposes" (p. 280).
Zimmerman concluded, "Discourse identities furnish the focus for the type of discourse activity projected and recognized by participants, what they are doing interactionally in a particular spate of talk" (p. 92). Such a dialogic self, situated in relationships that are "ours, not just mine" (Shotter, 1989, p. 144), would lack stability. There would be as many selves as the roles and contexts in which we find ourselves. Further, as Foucault has noted, inequality characterizes the relationships between individuals and between classes of individuals (Foucault,
1982/1997; Foucault, Becker, Fornet-Betancourt, & Gomez-Muller, 1984/1997). The negotiation of selves, in such situations, has to be one-sided leading to an effective convergence of behaviorist and social constructionist positions. "Not so," they reply with metaphors that are difficult to visualize: "In a postmodern world the self s story forges ahead, but also follows in its own wake" (Holstein & Gubrium, 2000, p. 215). Shotter (1975) paraphrased James in stating that the self has a "strange dual nature, as both agent and other in action" (p. 93). Harre (1989) complained that the Cartesian homunculus keeps re-appearing and located the source of that reappearance in indexical pronouns. Seigal (2005) suggests, with more than a hint of irony, that constructionists are inferring a Cartesian-like dualism: Anyone who pictures the self as tightly wrapped up in the cocoon of its social or cultural
relations necessarily locates the consciousness that can theorize such containment outside
it, thus simultaneously calling forth a different kind of self, ready to take free light on
wings whose anatomy descends from pure reflectivity, however much it has been pre-
configured as life or some mysterious absent presence, (pp. 649-650)
Richardson and Fowers (1997) echoed that postmodernism sets forth the "ultimately implausible view" that the self is "determined by historical influences", yet is "radically free to reinterpret both itself and social reality, for it own self-invented purposes" (1997 p. 280).
Acknowledging the influence of culture while assuming, in constructivist fashion, agency within that culture has led to a contradiction. Tittle (1996) summarily asked, "By the time one can choose, it might be argued, one already has an identity....Who is the self that chooses to revise?
From what position of power and privilege are the alternatives understood?" (p. 10). A viable model for researching the self must go beyond equating the self with the roles we play and include consideration of the Jamesian T.
Situating the Self Through Mapping
The literature reviewed in this paper was grouped into seven major overlapping perspectives by which the self may be understood. The picture emerged of a self that is complex and difficult to understand as a totality. Commenting on the problem of system complexity in the field of social work Hartman (1995) explained:
In dealing with almost continual information overload, cognitive processes tend to
operate analytically: to partialize, to abstract parts from wholes, to reduce, and to
simplify. Although this makes data more manageable, it does damage to the complexity
inherent in reality. Ways of conceptualizing causation have tended to be particularly 51
reductionist as reality is arranged in chains of simple cause and effect reactions. Such
linear views reflect the limitations of thought and language rather than the nature of the
real world, where human events are the result of transactions among multiple variables.
(p.112)
Hartman (1995) advocated drawing a map or a graphic representation in which the interrelated parts could be understood holistically. Similarly, Miles & Huberman (1994) suggested that conceptual frameworks in qualitative research be displayed graphically, as opposed to textually, allowing the researcher "to work with all the information at once" (p. 22).
This section reviews attempts to display complex data related to the exploration of the individual.
Mapping determinants of behavior. In a text outlining "field theory," Kurt Lewin (1931) focussed on play, emotion, speech, and expression as environmental and psychological indicators that allowed for the prediction of behavior in children. Weighted vectors were produced showing the influence of external and internal factors that would produce a response. Lewin said that if the factors were sufficiently known and mapped as part of a dynamic process, behavior could be accurately predicted. Social facts were regarded as real as physical facts, and negative and positive valence was assigned to items based on what Lewin (1931) termed "psychological field forces" (p. 94). His theory was not met without controversy and 18 months after the publication of this text Lewin (1933) replied to a competing conceptualization:
A main conceptual difference between our theories is, I think, that Tolman, starting from
situations with comparatively few degrees of freedom, is basing the general theory of
psychological movements on the idea of choice between paths with different subordinate
demand-values. I, on the other hand, starting from free-field situations, use as a basis the concept of force or force-field, characterized through vectors .... Above all, the task of
analysis, for me, seems not to be to find 'mechanisms' 'behind' the psychobiological field,
but to determine the dynamical facts of the psychobiological field in such a way that one
can derive logically all of the possibilities of actual behavior, (p. 319)
Lewin (1933) did not speculate on unconscious drives or forces which determine the psychological make-up of the individual; he was more interested in assessing the present psychology of the individual and mapping vectors which illustrate the interplay between that psychology and the surrounding environment. Knowledge about the psychological and environmental forces, and the interplay between the two, allow for the determination of possible behavioral responses. It was not clear whether Lewin modified his stance from predicting behavior (1931) to deriving logical possible behaviors (1933) because of the complexity of the variables which made up such predictions or due to some element of non-logical randomness inherent within the individual.
Lewin (1943) declared that field theory was not properly a theory at all because it was not falsifiable. He explained, "Field theory is probably best characterized as a method: namely, a method of analyzing causal relations and of building scientific constructs" (p. 294). The recognition of the necessity of a fair representation of the multitude of interdependent factors was said to be a step in the method of field theory. This complexity was magnified by having to take into account the psychological past, present and future of the individual:
It is important to realize that the psychological past and the psychological future are
simultaneous parts of the psychological field existing at a given time t. The time
perspective is continually changing. According to field theory, any type of behavior 53
depends upon the total field, including the time perspective at that time, but not, in
addition, upon any past or future field and its time perspectives, (p. 303)
Lewin found that the complexity he envisioned resulted in more dimensions than could be adequately represented diagrammatically. Mathematics is not so constrained and he attempted to find formulae that would represent his multi-dimensional perspective:
The field theoretical principle of contemporaneity in psychology then means that the
behavior b at the time t is a function of the situation S at the time t only (S is meant to
include both the person and his psychological environment), bl = F(Sl). (Lewin, 1943, p.
297)
"F" in this formula represents the social and psychological fields that the individual brings to a situation "S" at any given moment in time "t." To determine the properties of any given field one must take into account the history and present functioning of the individual as may be determined by diagnostic testing. The psychological past and the anticipated psychological future are simultaneous parts of the psychological field at any given moment in time.
The individual sees not only his present situation; he has certain expectations, wishes,
fears, daydreams for his future. His views about his own past and that of the rest of the
physical and social world are often incorrect, but nevertheless constitute, in his life space,
the 'reality-level' of the past. (p. 303)
Further, "t" does not represent the field or situation at a particular moment as, "The adequate description of a situation at a moment is impossible without observation of a certain time-period" (p.300). Therefore, "t" must be calculated using vectors that show the velocity and direction of change over time. He suggested that a change at point "x" could be calculated from the formula dx/dt where "d" represents the differential and consideration of "t" must include the two points of time between which the differential is observed.
Allport (1947) said that Lewin took a "middle course" in the nature vs. nurture debate by incorporating both personality and environment into a situational field as viewed by the participants themselves. In this model, cultural effects are decisive in conduct, "but only in so far as these categories of social structure are actually transmuted into effective forces with the behavioral environment, through the needs and perceptual processes of the individual" (p. 5).
Kariel (1956) said that Lewin's "obvious humanitarian interest bore no relation to his methodology" (p. 281). Although Lewin was committed to liberal democracy in the workplace, the classroom, and society at large, his method showed how democratic institutions could be more effective in controlling the individual's behavior than autocratic ones:
He (Lewin) committed himself to the increasingly familiar experimental approach that
values a power field with functionally related and thoroughly interdependent
components. Using this field as model, he graded existing social orders as to the degree
of integration of their parts-designation the most fully integrated as democratic. The
maintenance of a democratic field requires leadership qualities which will create a mood
by which consensus and maximum productive co-operation are achieved. To exalt this
function of leadership is to disparage institutions for the adjustment of interests which
liberal-democratic theory has traditionally supported, (p. 281)
Kariel's (1956) concern was that at its core, Lewin's methodology was deterministic with behavior dependant on environmental and psychological forces. In principle, such methods could be used to implant a pre-determined result in a situation that appeared democratic. This appeared to be just such a result when Lewin and Lippit (1938) demonstrated that the production 55 of workers (in this case grade 5 and 6 students) was higher in a setting run democratically that one run by autocratically.
Lewin's (1931, 1933, 1938,1943) project was not to understand the self of the individual but to understand those forces that shape the behavior of that individual. From a purely behaviorist point of view, the self is not relevant to equations predicting future behavior except as a repository of past conditioning (Chambless & Goldstein, 1979). Lewin (1943) took into account the effects of past conditioning by including the dimensions of the remembered past and anticipated future into his model. On the other hand, from a purely behaviorist standpoint, the
Lewin & Lippitt (1938) result should not have occurred as the system of rewards and punishments would have general applicability in both democratic and autocratic situations. There must have been some element, within the psychological make-up of the individuals studied, that led them to work more efficiently and cooperatively in the democratic setting. Lewin & Lippitt
(1938) were not concerned with finding such an element; they were concerned with studying experimentally the differential effects of democratic and autocratic work environments. Lewin
(1930, 1938, 1943) is open to charges of determinism because his equations left out the possibility of a self containing volition in which will could reside.
Eco-mapping. Eco-maps were originally graphic representations of the systems at play in a social work client's life, although Vodde & Giddings (2000) adapted it for use with social work practicum students. In commending the use of these maps to social work, Hartman (1995) explained,
Social workers, in attempting to understand their traditional unit of attention - the person
in his total life space over time - faced with an overwhelming amount of data.... An ecological metaphor can lead social workers to see the client not as an isolated entity for
study, but as a part of a complex ecological system, (pp. 112 - 113)
Hartman (1995) explained that the construction of these maps begins with the nuclear family system or household drawn in a large circle at the map's center typically with squares to depict males and circles to depict females. Connections are shown to relevant systems that interact with the family such as extended family, friends, organizations and government agencies. These connections have become standardized with thicker lines indicating a stronger relationship, curvy or red lines indicating that the system is a stressful relationship, arrows pointing to the client indicating that the system primarily influences the client, arrows pointing to the system indicating that the client primarily influences the system, and arrows pointing both direction indicating a two directional flow of influence. Hartman (1995) recommended that eco- maps be used along with genograms to increase the social worker and client's understanding of the systems involved:
Just as the eco-map can begin to portray and objectify the family in space, so can the
genogram picture the family system through time, enabling an individual to step out of
the system, examine it, and begin to gain a greater understanding of complex family
dynamics as they have developed and as they affect the current situation.... A genogram
is simply a family tree that includes more social data. (p. 118)
In the adaptation proposed by Vodde & Giddings (2000), the social work practicum student is presented at the center of an organizational structure with connecting system lines drawn to individuals within that organization. Additional relationships are drawn to individuals outside of the agency in which the student was placed if they impact on the success of the practicum experience in some way. The eco-maps are then used to increase the student's 57 understanding of their experience and to assist them in problem solving within the context of complex organizational systems.
Eco-maps, as understood in this account, remind us of the social environment mapped by
Lewin (1943). The addition of the genogram suggests an element of Lewin's "psychological past" without the recognition that such pasts are subjectively understood. There is no attempt to predict behavior based on forces emanating from the environment or from the psychological past, therefore eco-mapping avoids the implications of determinism. The self is presumed to exist with agentive qualities, but no attempt is made to map that self; therefore, the relationship between individual selves and the environmental forces that impact on it are not understood.
Mapping in career counselling. Cahill & Martland (1996) reported that they use self- maps as an adjunct to career counselling with clients invited to write a description or draw a map to illustrate the nature, causes and possible resolutions of career problems. Typically, a circle representing the person would be placed in the center of a map which would then be surrounded by issues, both internal and environmental, impacting on their career choices. Cahill
& Martland said such narratives or maps would likely be sketchy, paradoxical or contain statements that were contrary to the clients' behaviour. Clients were encouraged to reflect on their narratives or maps and to revise or elaborate on them as needed to increase their utility in building self-understanding, problem solving and career alternatives. By the end of the counselling process clients were expected to be able to articulate problems and resolutions associated with career goals linking past, present and future.
Mapping, in this example, served to provide an outline for a narrative self-story related to one aspect of the individual - his or her career. Cahill & Martland (1996) attempted to help clients narrate a richer and more complete story so as to make choices that were in keeping with 58 the aspirations and resources of the individual. Thus, the self that was being mapped was not a general theory of one's self, but a representation of certain aspects of that self in relation to possible careers - a social self. A strength of the approach Cahill & Martland (1996) advocated is it allows for the client to account for cultural, environmental and situational differences not addressed by standardized instruments. It also allows for client empowerment in self-definition and, perhaps, self-revision.
Shepard & Marshall (1999) used the idea of mapping to illustrate possible future selves in a group of 42 adolescents aged 11 to 13. Possible selves were defined as cognitive manifestations of goals, aspirations, values, and fears. All participants used their "imaginative capacity and self- reflection... to create a set of hoped-for, and feared future selves" (p. 38). Specifically, they were asked to respond to the following prompts: "Think about what you hope to become" and "Think about what you fear, dread, or don't want for yourself." The responses were placed on flash cards and maps of these possible future "selves" were cooperatively prepared illustrating the relative importance of the hoped-for or feared self, self-efficacy as related to this hoped-for or feared outcome, outcome expectancy, and steps needed to achieve the desired outcome or prevent the feared outcome. Forty-three percent of respondents presented an occupational hoped-for outcome while 13% wanted possessions such as a computer. The largest percentage of feared outcomes (23%) involved safety concerns while 15% mentioned relationship concerns such as losing a family member or never getting married.
The "selves" mapped by Shepard & Marshall (1999) present as possible future items in the Jamesian objective self. For example, while becoming a computer owner might be a desired outcome, it would hardly constitute the entire self of the individual at any given moment in time.
The exercise in estimating self-efficacy in achieving future goals might speak to the volitional component of James' (1890) subjective self, but not to other components of that self. The act of developing a future self from a menu of possibilities reminds us of a social constructionist approach, again with the presumption of agency.
The self-mapping used in these examples of career counselling remind us of the "mind mapping" technique that has been used in educational settings (Budd, 2004; Weeks, 2002). The self-as-knower is placed in a central position in such maps linked to what is known, often including self-characteristics. Mind-mapping, in this sense, has also been used in cognitive- behavioral therapy to provide a flexible case summary that helps to prevent important parts of the case from being over-looked (Williams, Williams, & Appleton, 1997). In these examples, some aspect of the self is given centrality but remains undefined. The map produced from these exercises was designed to aid the visualization of the self within a context or environment. In using this technique in the context of career planning, Shepard & Marshall (1999) and Cahill &
Martland (1996) were, like Lewin (1943) and Hartland (1995), using a graphic display to illustrate an issue of complexity. A core self, however, was assumed and not mapped.
Mapping the self memetically. There is general agreement that the self is a complex cultural construct (Harre, 1984; Lock, 1981/1990; Mead, 1912/1990). Such an entity would be constructed of cultural units (Blackmore, 1999; Donald, 2001; Price, 1999), and such units could be graphically displayed. A number of terms have been promoted as names for those cultural units, among them: "mnemotype", "idene", "sociogene", "concept" and "culturgen" (Wilson,
1999, p. 148), but the term "meme" has increasingly come to predominate in the lexicon of those who wish to talk about such cultural units (ibid.). Dawkins' (1976) contribution was to suggest these cultural units had certain attractive and repellant properties coupled with behavioral or phenotypic implications for the individual. This allows for the possibility of preparing maps which include those aspects of the self that were assumed in the field theory,
eco-mapping and mind mapping approaches while maintaining the environmental connections
emphasized by all three. Research, involving the preparation of such maps, will necessarily
involve both an exploration into the nature and structure of the self, and an exploration into the
nature and structure of the memes of which the self is composed.
Directions Provided by Considerations of the Self in Society
For those focusing on societal influence on the construction of the self, the locus of control ranged from the determinism of classical behaviorism to the free will of the constructivism with social constructionism taking a position on the free will side of a continuum.
Attempts at mapping focused on environmental determinants of behavior modified by psychological characteristics, which may be heritable. For those taking a determinist position, the self is non-existent, an illusion. Those taking a position allowing for self-determined construction failed to postulate a mechanism whereby self-determination may occur without the assumption of a homunculus. It was hoped that the memetic approach used in this study would allow for the mapping of a self affected by societal forces while allowing for the exploration of the nature of the will or volition that appears to emanate from within.
Composite Models of the Self
There is research supportive of each perspective reviewed in this paper. There is a stability connected to at least some aspects of self (Adler, 1927/1957, 1929, 1967; Holland,
1997; Kwiatkowska, 1990). Neurological research suggests that stability may be based on emotion, a feeling of what happens (Damasio, 1999) and that left-hemispheric activity serves to narrate a story or rationalization supporting that feeling (Gazzaniga, 2000; Libet, 1985; Wolford et al., 2000). That narrative is self-constructed (Charmaz, 1990; Snow & Anderson, 2003), but 61 the free will implied by that empowerment (Wiedenfeld et al., 1990) is restricted to some degree within cultural boundaries (Caprara et al., 1998; Hopper, 2003; Wortham, 2001), or it may be illusory (Chambless & Goldstein, 1979; Taylor, 1989). While remaining cognisant of the limitations inherent in each methodology, the pervasive suggestion is that perspectives should be combined in some ways that unite or balance those perspectives.
Although Adler (1927/1957, 1929, 1967) was discussed in the section dealing with the stability of the self, his work was referenced again constructivist, behaviorist and social constructionist approaches. Adlerians draw upon the ability of clients to change their selves in some ways, drawing on a "striving for perfection" drive. Adlerians use behavioral techniques with clients in the form of "homework" assignments, and they use a social constructionist perspective with respect to the construction of the childhood self from the culture of the family.
Adlerian psychotherapy may be viewed as an attempt to develop a composite self before the existence of the competing schools of thought necessitated that consideration.
Jopling (2000) attempted to gain such a balance by combining self-inquiry and culture.
"My project of reflective self-inquiry and reflective self-evaluation presupposes the ability to wield a communally shared fund of concepts and contrastive distinctions..." (p. 139). The suggestion appears to be that while the self may indeed be determined, at least partially, by narrative influences dependant on culture, there is also a certain stability to the self that precludes pure randomness.
The self was one of four pillars in Schlossberg, Waters & Goodman's (1995) "4S" model of factors that influence the ability of an individual to cope with life transitions. The self was defined as including personal characteristics socioeconomic status, gender, age, state of health and ethnicity, and psychological resources such as ego development, outlook including self- efficacy and values as represented by religious beliefs and cultural norms. The other pillars in this model included "situation", "support" and "strategies". Thus, the self was defined in terms that were potentially verifiable within a contextual situation that included coping skills.
Seigal (2005) suggested the self has physical, cultural and reflective dimensions, and he grounded this view in the Western, particularly British, philosophical tradition: "Locke,
Mandeville, Hume, and Smith.... recognized, if only implicitly, that the self was a compound of bodily, relational, and reflective elements.... None regarded the self as independent of social relations" (pp. 166-167). Reflectivity may be a prior condition of agency, but our thinking is, if not determined by, heavily dependent on the twin environmental influences of biology and culture.
There has been widespread recognition of the need to develop a comprehensive or encompassing vision of the self. This section begins by discussing attempts to develop that vision using James' (1890, 1892/1999) dichotomy of the self that is simultaneously objective and subjective. This is followed by consideration of how a memetic perspective may add to a developing comprehensive model. No comprehensive model of the self can be developed without consideration of issues of cultural diversity, and we conclude this section with a discussion of cross-cultural issues associated with the self.
The Objective and Subjective Self
Harre (1991) attempted to resolve the apparent dichotomy between the stable self and the social constructionist self by positing a singular "Self-1" accompanied by "Selves-2" within the person. The idea of agency along with the sense of continuity is embedded in "Self-1." "Selves-
2" are based on observed behavior and accompany the different roles individuals play in the course of their lives. Long before the controversy Harre (1991) addressed, James (1892/1999) 63 described the self as a duplex consisting of both subject and object, partly known and partly knower. The subjective "I" consists of that which observes while the objective "me" consists of those qualities that the "I" observes in himself. The objective qualities of self are contextual:
Properly speaking, a man has as many social selves as there are individuals who
recognize him and carry an image of him in their mind. To wound any one of these his
images is to wound him. But as the individuals who carry the images fall naturally into
classes, we may practically say that he has as many different social selves as there are
distinct groups of persons about whose opinion he cares. He generally shows a different
side of himself to each of these different groups.(James, 1892/2003 p. 122)
Mead (1934) reasoned, "The attitudes of the others constitute the organized ME and then one reacts toward that as an I" (p. 176). He said that the self is a cognitive structure that is not present at birth, but is developmental with the child's early social precepts being "partial selves - or 'me's' which are quite analogous to the child's perceptions of his hands and feet, which precede his perception of himself as a whole" (Mead, 1912/1990, p. 198). A unitary self then develops from a combining of these social selves into a "generalized other" which may be viewed as internalized social control but is necessary in the development of mind or intelligence (Mead,
1934).
Research into the Jamesian Model of Self
Hart & Damon (1985) proposed adding reflectivity to the elements of continuity, distinctness and volition included in the Jamesian T. They subsequently (Damon & Hart, 1988), used quantitative and qualitative methods to study the development of the self in youth age six to fifteen. They began with the individual's self-definition, the domain of the Jamesian 'me.' Measuring the objective self. Rejecting existing standardized scales, Damon & Hart
(1988) used open-ended questions like "What are you like?"; "Why is that important?"; "What are you not like?"; "What kind of person are you?"; and, "What are you especially proud of about yourself?" (pp. 67-69). These questions were used to introduce areas for conversation. For example, the question "What kind of person are you" led to one respondent replying, "I believe in world peace," which led to the follow-up question "Why is that important?" (p. 69). The answers to these questions were then coded for physical, active, social and psychological responses reflecting distinctions made by James in his outline of the objective self's constituents.
It was expected that each of the four categories would be present at some level at all age groups.
The authors posited a complementary hierarchy of age-related complexity for each categorization: categorical identifications, comparative assessments, inter-personal interpretations, and systematic beliefs and plans. They cautioned that this hierarchy of conceptualization would reflect social-contextual, that is, cultural conditions, and that other sequences were possible, even likely.
Subjects were placed at a modal level of 1 to 4 within this hierarchy dependent on the level of complexity and conceptualization involved in their answers to the 'me' (objective self) questions, and these answers were coded for physical, activity, social, and psychological responses. The researchers found a positive correlation between age and modal level at each of the three testing times (r=.48, p<.001; r=.67. p<.001). From year to year, subjects tended to rank in the same order relative to other subjects with respect to modal response from test one to test two and from test two to test three (r=.33, p<.01; r=.49, p<.001). A one-tailed test of statistical significance revealed a tendency to change in a positive direction (i.e. in increasing complexity) when change occurred in individual responses (p<.001). Damon & Hart (1988) conclude that 65 this data shows "the regular and predictable nature of self-concept development between the ages
4 and 18" (p. 109).
In a strict sense, we found little stability: Only 14 subjects organized their ideas about
themselves in the same way at the end as at the beginning of our 3 years of testing. But
the observed changes were not random. Indeed, they were quite predictable in light of
developmental theory: A change in modal level of self-understanding was almost always
to the next higher level, and this change was initially heralded by a gradual increase in
the percentage of reasoning characteristic of the higher level, (p. 115)
Assessing the subjective self. Damon & Hart (1988) also used a system of open-ended questions with respect to the Jamesian T. The agentive self was assessed with questions like
"How did you get to be the way you are?" (p.71). Continuity of self was assessed with questions like "If you change from year to year, how do you know it's the same you?" (p. 74). Questions like "What makes you special?" and, "What makes you different from everyone else you know?"
(p. 76) were taken to measure the quality of distinctness. Again, interpretive levels were assigned responses. For example, level one of the Agency component was described as "Supernatural, biological, or social forces determine the existence or formulation of self (p. 70). By this categorization, the behaviorists described earlier in this paper were operating from the lowest level of Agency! Level 4 of Agency was described as "Personal or moral evaluations of life possibilities influence the existence or formation of the self." An example of a Level 4 response to the question "How did you get to be the way you are?" was, "Well, I decided to be kind to people because I've seen lots of kids hurt other kids' feelings for no reason, and it's not right or fair. Nobody should try to hurt another person's feelings or be mean to them" (p. 71). With this interpretative template, Damon & Hart (1988) found the three self-as-subject components at all age levels but they reported a gradual movement toward increasing levels of sophistication in communication. Continuity and distinctness tended to develop sequentially with the initial sense of continuity in childhood commonly attributed to unchanging self- characteristics. By adolescence, this belief in the absolute stability of self-characteristics becomes "untenable" (p. 129).
Damon & Hart (1988) admitted that they had difficulty creating "developmentally interpretable responses for the self-as-subject components" (p. 126). They reported, however, a sense of continuity and distinctness develops in an ordered sequence that is preceded by parallel understandings of the objective self. Measurement of continuity and distinctness was accomplished by two raters using the split-half method with an inter-rater agreement of 0.84. The raters found a high correlation (.60) between age and developmental level of continuity for the second and third testing (r=.60; r=.54). The third testing (at three years) resulted in correlations between continuity and distinctness of r=.55 and continuity and self-as-object of r=.59. They noted, "During childhood, the sense of identity - continuity and distinctness - is attributed to unchanging self-characteristics.... However, the rapid cognitive, social, and physical changes that accompany adolescence makes this belief in the absolute stability of self-characteristics untenable" (p. 129). The correlation between age and developmental level of agency for the second testing time was r=.48, p<.0001, (df=71) and for the third testing time was r=.53, px.OOOl, (df=46). Agency did not correlate significantly with the development of continuity.
They concluded that a sense of agency develops through four progressive levels: 1) self- development is seen as non-volitional; 2) the self's own wishes and desires are considered sufficient to control the evolution of self; 3) self-formation is conceived as a process that occurs 67 within a social matrix; and 4) "one's volitional control of self-formation derives from deeply held personal values or philosophies" (p. 136).
Recognition of cross-cultural concerns. In an attempt to pre-empt possible criticism that these findings could be culture-bound, Damon and Hart (1988) replicated their study in a Puerto
Rican fishing village. They reported similar general findings to their main study, although Puerto
Rican children were more concerned about relational effects and less concerned about the relative superiority of their actions. Concerns the research had forced responses into pre-existing categories, and the statistical analysis used to demonstrate longitudinal change was constrained by this categorization, were not addressed. Specifically, the researchers took seven elements representing two characterizations of the self (objective and subjective), and developed questions from the standpoint of each of these elements. They coded responses to those very same elements, thus ignoring the possibility that other elements could have more accurately reflected the individual's self or that there may be an interpretive relationship between elements. They tested those elements for change in the longitudinal portion of the study (at 18 months and 3 years).
Concerns with respect to Damon & Hart. The observation by Damon & Hart (1988) that the subjective self-elements were foreshadowed by parallel conceptual development within the objective self suggests a self-interpretive factor at play. Further, by Hart and Damon's (1985) admission, their measure of the Jamesian T is incomplete with respect to the element of self- reflectivity. Given that they had recommended inclusion of reflectivity to the subjective self, it is surprising they did not attempt to assess it. Their conclusions imply that the reflective self is subsumed within the agentive self, a reasonable position on the basis that thinking cannot be separated from agency. This, however, begs explanation as to why they felt it necessary to posit reflectivity as a separate subcategory initially. Arguably agency is necessary for self-reflective change but not sufficient. It is possible to be self-reflective without having any intention to change.
Further criticism of the Damon & Hart (1988) study comes from a social constructionist perspective. While suggesting that volitional control comes from deeply held values and philosophies, no consideration is made of a process of negotiation and regeneration within one's social environment that would lead to such values. A related concern is that the method of research did not allow new categorizations to come out of the data that could have identified such a process. Finally, despite anticipating questions of cultural relativity, the researchers failed to completely address those questions with their Puerto Rican replication. Puerto Rico is a U.S. colony and its culture is European based. The replication of the study in a more collectivist culture which is not tied to the imperial power economically would have given more robust results. In any case, the use of pre-set categorizations could lead to apparent replication through a failure to recognize alternatives.
While triangulation of quantitative and qualitative methods may increase a study's power and scope (Elliot, Fischer, & Rennie, 1999; Mays & Pope, 1995), engaging in quantitative analysis with inadequate conceptualization may lead to an inability to interpret research in meaningful ways (Borg & Gall, 1985). The study by Damon & Hart was not designed to test the adequacy of the Jamesian self, it assumed that adequacy and attempted to use it to test a hypothesis of developmental transition. We are left with results that are difficult to interpret.
There may be some aspects of self which are developmental, but we cannot know if the elements used adequately describe them, or how those elements relate to a total self. We need a structural grounding of the self before we can test elements of that self in relation to each other. 69
Combining James with Social Construction
As we have seen, Harre (1991) attempted to resolve the apparent dichotomy between the stable self and the social constructionist position by positing a singular "Self-1" accompanied by
"Selves-2" within the person. Harre later (1998) added the idea of "Selves-3" which is how others perceive us with the resultant effect of extending the self into social discourse. Harre
(1984) embedded the Self-1 in languaging involving indexical pronouns: " T, the first person pronoun, does have a referential force to a hypothetical entity 'the self, in much the same way that the gravitational term g refers to a hypothetical entity, the gravitational field" (p. 82). The T then develops a theory about who we are. Like theories in the natural sciences, these theories of self can be amended with further evidence, but, unlike natural science theories, we tend to become who we think we are.
Missing from these accounts of a composite self is an understanding of how cultural and genetic factors interact to produce a self that is at once determined and self-determined. Agency implies free will. The assumption of Plato, Descartes and Kant that this will was divinely given ignores the fact that any such will is subject to the parameters of the giver and is thus not truly free. Although James insisted the subjective and objective were two sides of the same self, the dualistic nature of the language used allows for the perception of a homuncular construct, which, as Harre (1989a) noted, keeps reappearing due to the grammar of indexical pronouns. Further,
James failed to propose how agency could have emerged independent of a divine giver. I propose to now explore a mechanism whereby culture may interact with a composite self and how 'will' could have evolved from such materialist beginnings. 70
The Memetic Self
The models of the self constructed by Adler (1927/1057, 1929) and James (1890,
1892/1999) have been reflected in the perspectives of the self presented in this literature review.
It is possible to entertain the notion that a singular comprehensive model of the self is evolving which will gain widespread recognition across schools of psychological thought. It has been proposed that the self is a collection of interlocking units of culture called memes (Blackmore,
1999; Kenyon, 1993). Although the idea that the self is a cultural construct is not new (Donald,
2001; Hermans, 2003; Shotter, 1997), little has been done to show how units culture may combine to form selves. This section deals with the memetic perspective with a view on how it may contribute to our growing understanding of the self.
The Qualities of Memes as Units of Culture
After noting that culture changes far more rapidly than genetic inheritance, evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins (1976) coined the term "meme" to represent a small unit of imitation or replicable culture. He suggested that these memes have sufficient fecundity, fidelity and longevity to compete with other memes and complexes of memes (memeplexi) within a 'cultural soup'. Mutations, he suggested, could bring unexpected results: "Scholars of the Septuagint started something big when they mistranslated the Hebrew word for 'young woman' into the
Greek word for 'virgin', thereby coming up with a prophecy 'behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son" (1976, p. 18).
Steven Pinker (1997) chided Dawkins, "A complex meme does not arise from the retention of copying errors. It arises because some person knuckles down, racks his brain, musters his ingenuity, and composes or writes or paints or invents something" (p. 209). Dawkins
(1982) anticipated Pinker by suggesting that cultural evolution may be "Lamarckian" (p. 112)", 71 intentionality, combined with creativity, may lead to a dynamic within cultural evolution that involves the passing on of deliberately acquired characteristics. Stephan Jay Gould (1996) agreed with Dawkins on the efficacy of cultural evolution, and such evolution is Lamarckian, but he characterized Dawkins as being a "determinist." Dawkins (1976, 1999) has maintained a spirited defence of free will that has spanned more than two decades; therefore, it is likely that Gould's
(1996) concern stems from a misreading of Dawkins, and this misreading supports an argument that there exists attractive forces between memes. Dawkins is an evolutionary biologist with a speciality in genetics and a penchant for using terms such as 'replication' when talking about cultural units. These memes (evolutionary biology, genetics, replication) have connotative meanings of 'determinism' with accompanying negative emotional valence in the minds of some, regardless of what Dawkins actually said on the subject. Thus, this interaction between
Dawkins and Gould may be used as an example of the utility of using a memetic perspective in analyzing discourse.
Defining memes as "the smallest complex ideas capable of replicating themselves with reliability and fecundity," Dennett (1991, p. 201) suggested that human consciousness is a huge complex of such memes. Since our minds have a finite capacity, such memes would be in a
Darwinian struggle for "mind space". He subsequently added that memes, to be successful, need only replicate, and this replication would not be directly tied to our own survival as human beings (Dennett, 1995). A simple melody or advertising jingle that comes, unbidden, into our minds is obviously a good replicator. The phrase "Play it again, Sam" is a better replicator, and is, therefore, commonly 'remembered' in place of the actual phrase "Play it Sam, for old time's sake" in the classic movie, Casablanca. A suicide cult that results in the death of its members does not result in the death of the associated cult-memeplex if the murder/suicide has the effect 72 of spreading the memes involved to other minds. Dennett (1996) suggested that memplexi are a kind of life form in an ecosystem of human minds called culture whose replicatory interest exists independent of our individual or collective interest as a species. He agreed with Dawkins (1976,
1986) that we have the potential 'will' to resist memetic determinism, but added that memeplexi thrive by convincing us to abandon our sense of reason except for mundane purposes.
The tension between the view that successful memes or constellations of memes convince us to abandon reason, and the view that we have free will, reminds us of the social constructionist position of recognizing the power and influence of culture while simultaneously insisting on the individual's power to self-construct. Tittle's (1996) plaintive question, "Who is the self that chooses to revise?" could be directed equally at Dawkins and Dennett. Fortunately, memeticists have addressed precisely this question.
The Self as a Complex of Memes
Taking the idea that we each have multiple drafts of reality in our brains at any given moment and that the one draft that gains primacy is the 'reality' of which we are aware (Dennett,
1991), Carlton University's Timothy Kenyon (1993) suggested that the self is the 'center of gravity' of a complex narrative:
The self is an abstract homuncular construct, comprising at one level of description a
constellation of memes, and at another level a succession of memes that serially dominate
as the virtual captains of the organism. The self is seemingly unified over time in virtue
of the relation between present virtual captains and past ones, and in virtue of a certain
kind of compatibility obtained between temporally distinct meme constellations in a
single body. (p. 62) 73
Kenyon is not attempting to revive the notion of a homunculus, and he cleverly avoids the problem of infinite regress that notion implies. By using Dennett's (1991, 1996) concept of
'multiple drafts of reality', and applying that concept to the self he is, in a sense, actually agreeing with those postmodernists (Neimeyer, 2002; Strong, 2005; Shotter, 1997) who have postulated the existence of multiple selves. With the idea of a narrative center of gravity that presents as a 'homuncular construct' uniting various memetic 'captains of the organism' he allows for feelings of temporal constancy. Kenyon is able to unite those who argue for the stability of the self, with those who argue for social constructionist selves, by using the idea that memes exert differentially attractive forces on other memes (Dawkins, 1976). Such attractive forces would give some stability to memetic structures, but neither Dawkins nor Kenyon suggest a source of this attraction. There has been agreement, however, that memes include cognitive and behavioral dimensions (Csikszentmihalyi, 1993; Dawkins, 1986; Robles-Diaz-de-Leon, 2003), and it would be reasonable to infer that such an attractive force flows from the affective and connotative meanings associated with each meme as held within the mind of the individual.
Thus, in a bygone era, the memes for "love" and "marriage" went together like the memes for
"horse" and "carriage". The affect and connotation associated with particular memes will vary between individuals thus, at one level of abstraction, it is we that are binding particular memeplexi together through our emotive understandings, but we do so within the framework of our cultural experience.
Independent of Kenyon, Susan Blackmore (1999) developed the theme that the self is an interlocking complex of mutually attractive memes she termed a "selfplex". The Blackmorian selfplex is virtually identical with Damasio's extended or autobiographical self, and both are consistent with Adler's definition of the self as "the convictions I have about who I am" (cited in 74
Mosak, 1979, p. 58), with the important distinction that Blackmore (1999) viewed those convictions to be illusory. She represents a group of memeticists who, like classical behaviorists, believe we are genetically and culturally determined. Boyd and Richardson (2000) based their critique of Blackmore on the observation that memes are often systematically transformed during transmission - a process unlike natural selection. While this observation may be interpreted as evidence against Blackmore's determinism, the authors allow for the possibility that multiple processes including something like natural selection shape human culture. In short, memes are not perfectly analogous to genes.
Since Blackmore, the concept of the meme has been used to explore contagion in suicidal behavior (Marsden, 2001), environmental activism (Robles-Diaz-de-Leon, 2003), negative reciprocity (Freidman & Sing, 2004), and community response to youth suicide (Robertson,
2004). E. O. Wilson (1999), who coined a competing term for use in socio-biology, conceded,
"The Dawkin's 'meme' has gradually replaced such synonyms as 'mnemotype', 'idene',
'sociogene', 'concept' and 'culturgen' in describing this phenomena" (p. 148).
Selected Studies Using the Concept of the Meme
Although a memetic self was conceptualized prior to this research, such a self had not been studied using individual participants. None-the-less, some memetic studies had implications for this work.
The meme in participatory environmental research. Using the definition of 'meme' as a unit of cultural transmission containing a specific substantive message, and following consultations with villagers bordering a protected rainforest in central Mexico, Robles-Diaz-de-
Leon (2003) created 'environmental memes' such as the following: 75
"Limpio" (Clean) Would you like to have a clean town? Everything is better if we make an effort. Pick up the garbage off the streets. You know the truth about the environment. Talk to others about it. (p. 31)
Robles-Diaz-de-Leon's (2003) study was an investigation into differential public participation in dealing with local environmental issues using a memetic approach. The issues identified by people in four separate villages included garbage in the streets, grey water, burning plastics and the lack of recreational usage. The researcher identified the predominant issue in each village based on information from informants in a preliminary interview. For example, 80% of the interviewees in the village "A" identified garbage in the streets as an issue in their town, so that became village A's issue. Similarly, Village B was selected for recreation issues, C for grey water, and D for burning plastics. A fifth village was used as a control. As a pre-test, the researcher measured the amount of garbage in the streets, grey water, burnt plastics, and recreational use in each of the five villages.
The researcher selected a different intervention in each village to deal with the environmental issue. In village A she organized a public meeting where the "Limpio" meme was co-constructructed. In village B she developed a similar memeplex, without a public meeting, promoting recreational use, and this memeplex was advertised on posters placed in public locations. In village C she organized a participatory meeting to discuss the issue of grey water without the specific development of a relevant memeplex. In village D the issue was raised
(burning plastics) in poster form without a public meeting and without memeplex construction.
Robles-Diaz-de-Leon (2003) recounted the amount of garbage, recreational use, grey water, and burning plastics after a three-month interval and compared the change in each with that of the control village using a variance-covariance matrix with significance to a .05 level of confidence. For example, the amount of garbage in the control village increased from 5.46 units per street to 7 units during the course of the study. Only in two villages did the amount of garbage decline: the one which involved the participatory (Limpio) meme construction, and the village where the issue of burning plastics was raised. In both cases the variance from the control village was considered significant (p=.0064; p=.0066).
Village B had the lowest rate of recreational usage at the pre-test, but after the distribution of memetically based posters, had the highest (p=.0403 as compared to the control).
No other village recorded a significant variation in recreational usage from the control. None of the towns associated with the remaining two issues (grey water and burning plastics) differed from the control in terms of variance at the post-test.
Robles-Diaz-de-Leon (2003) concluded that the most successful method of aiding people to change their behaviors involved the use of memetics (p. 123). While this observation was consistent with the results that only the targeted interventions involving memetics (participatory meeting plus memetics and memetics alone) produced the intended results, it does not explain the result of one village, targeted for the issue of burning plastics, that produced a significant difference with respect to garbage in the streets. This suggests that there were other confounding variables for which the study could not control. It may be that there pre-existed more informal leaders willing to act on environmental issues in some villages as opposed to others. It may be that the issues varied in magnitude from village to village. Finally, although a designer meme (or memeplex) containing affective and behavioral components was passed on in the two villages where such memes were introduced, the study does not speak to the cognitions those villagers had in either disseminating or in receiving those memes. We do not know how the villagers 77 related the memetic messages to themselves, or how their prior notions of self-agency may have affected the results.
Replicatory power in urban legends. Heath, Bell, & Sternberg (2001) examined the effect levels of disgust and other emotions, have on meme propagation on the internet. In an initial study, 63 university undergraduates rated 17 urban legends, drawn from a data base of
112, for emotion-inducing content on a 7-point Likert scale that covered eight emotions. They were also asked whether they would pass that story on. Those stories that would be passed along evoked reactions of interest ([beta] = .49. p<.01), surprise ([beta]=.24,p.<.05) and disgust
([beta]=.27,p<.05).
In a second related study, researchers manipulated the capacity of stories to evoke disgust by varying the content. For example, in one story a man opens a cola beverage and: 1) notices a dead mouse at the bottom; 2) drinks some beverage before noticing a dead mouse at the bottom; or 3) ingests part of the mouse before noticing it. Forty-two undergrads were asked to read 12 such stories and rate them as low, medium and high-disgust stories with a resultant inter-rater agreement of .92. The participants were asked whether the story was true, plausible, and whether it would make them change their behavior. Participants reported that they were more willing to pass along stories rated highly disgusting (p.<.05) but with no increased significance between a reported willingness to pass on a story that was thought to be true, plausible or likely to change behavior.
In a third variation of this study, three researchers independently rated 76 stories for the 7 following disgust motifs (coefficient alphas are given in brackets): unusual sexual activity such as bestiality (.96), contact with bodily substances such as feces or urine (.88), violations of hygiene (.76), ingestion of inappropriate food such as rats or bodily substances (.96), violations 78 of the body (.84), contact with proscribed animals (.93). These motifs were then applied to the results of experiment #1 with the result that those stories that had more disgust motifs were more likely to be passed on ([beta] = .26, p<001).
The Heath, Bell, & Sternberg (2001) study lends support to the argument that memetic propagation is aided by associated emotions such as disgust. The study was based, however, on what a university sample said they would do, not on actual behavior. It may be that the nature of the experimental model influenced participants to state that they would pass on stories when, in fact, they may not. Further, urban legends, while containing only a few memes, are really short narratives - memeplexi. This means that there are likely a complex of emotions connected to each story, some positive. One such emotion, mentioned by the authors, might be thankfulness that the content of the story had not happened personally. Another emotion might be a feeling of superiority to those involved in the story. Another confounding variable might involve the motives of those passing stories along. The authors suggest the possibility that people desire to bond with others who feel the same way. It is possible that for some there may be a moral point.
For example, it may be that fundamentalist Christians who believe that Halloween is an evil holiday would be more likely to believe, and pass on, stories about contaminated Halloween candy. In summation, there are several uncontrolled variables associated with this research making interpretation of the findings difficult.
Memetic priming for suicide. Marsden (2001) tested the suicide contagion hypothesis that exposure to a suicide meme will increase suicide risk. Since ethical considerations precluded direct experimentation, he resorted to exposing the concept of suicide in a controlled fashion to
67 adult internet users and comparing their estimates of the suicide risk of a hypothetical distressed student to those of a control group. These estimates were coded numerically on a five 79 point Likert scale, where a '5' meant that the distressed student would very likely commit suicide and a '1' represented the opinion that suicide was not at all likely. The means of the experimental and control groups were 2.42 and 1.77 respectively which were statistically significant - (F(l,65)
= 11.79, p< .001).
Marsen (2001) subsequently suggested that those susceptible to suicide contagion should be those with a reduced residual capacity to spread culture, that is, those who become socially isolated and culturally disenfranchised. His experiment neither supports nor disconfirms that suggestion. Indeed, his experiment is not literally about suicide at all; it is about the interpretation we may give to a set of facts given our prior exposure to information. Such information primes our interpretation in a particular direction. It is a leap to suggest this is evidence of a suicide contagion meme that increases suicide risk.
Expanding the concept of the meme. Each of these three studies varied in their definition of the concept "meme." Robles-Diaz-de-Leon (2003) said, "Memes are ideas that are self- disseminating and self-protecting that have a certain architecture to their presentation" (p. 31).
The example of her "Limpio" meme extended the notion of Dawkins (1976) in that it contained more than one behavioral suggestion (to pick up the garbage and to talk to others), and it seemed designed to appeal to an agentive self by asking, "Would you like to see a clean town?" (Robles-
Diaz-de-Leon, 2003 p. 31). Heath, Bell, & Sternberg (2001) equated memes with very short stories, but they added the element of emotion to their propagation. Marsden (2001) defined the meme as an object of contagion thus leaving himself open to Coyne's (1999) criticism that memetics involves a tautology. All three, however, expanded the definition of meme beyond
Dawkins' (1976) definition as an elemental unit of culture like "arch" or "liberty." From the
Dawkins' perspective, the three studies involved small groups of interlocking memes, with the 80 implication that it may be impossible to study memes in isolation, but only in a relational context. In summation, the memetic approach has been used to unite aspects of the stable and social constructionist approaches with a strong suggestion of behavioral determinism.
An Evolutionary Account of Self
Damasio (1999) said the process of the body monitoring its internal states, necessary for homeostasis, creates a feeling of 'me' as opposed to 'not me' giving us the ability, for example, to react to external sources of pain. This evolved characteristic is present in animals without the capacity for selfhood which, while not purely a function of brain capacity, requires brains sufficient to hold such a cognitive structure.
Blackmore (1999, 2000) speculated that memetic evolution now drives genetic evolution in humans. She noted that our brain size far exceeds that which would be required for evolutionary advantage over our nearest rivals and the necessity that all human babies are born prematurely as compared to other hominids. She suggested that early humans developed the capacity to transmit memes by use of language and other forms of imitation, and those who were better at holding and transmitting memes were more desired as sexual partners. Memetic structures of increasing complexity required larger brains, thus, like a peacock's tail feathers, human brain size, once it obtained the capacity to hold memes, continued in an evolutionary spiral until a maximum was reached beyond which further increase would result in intolerable mortality levels. Coyne (1999) replied that the human brain reached its present volume approximately 500,000 years ago while the proliferations of language-based memes would have begun 30,000 to 50,000 years ago"1. Recent research has suggested that beneficial mutations have occurred to genes affecting brain development within the past 50,000 years (Gilbert, Dobyns, &
Lahn, 2005) with a change to the ASPM gene occurring as recently as 5,800 years ago 81
(Abraham, 2005), but it is difficult to link individual mutations with phenotype and any attempt to do so on this evidence would be speculative. Irrespective of the accuracy of Blackmore's speculation, since selfplexi are not simply a function of brain size, early humans would have developed selves at some point subsequent to their carrying capacity to do so.
In his hermeneutic analysis of early Greek literature, Julian Jaynes (1976) noted pre-
Homeric Greeks were not conscious of a self and were, therefore, unable to exercise self-agency.
His most controversial suggestion was when events happened, for which their culture had not developed a pre-programmed response, increasing levels of impotent distress led to right hemispheric activity. The resultant visions were interpreted as messages from the gods leading to new behaviors. With a different interpretation of similar data that included an added examination of early Egyptian culture, and using a definition of mind to mean a cognitive structure that allows for the notions of objectivity and reason, David Martel Johnson (2003) said the early
Greeks and Egyptians did not have minds. Once the mind, so defined, evolved in a particular population, its adaptive efficacy led to its replication in other populations. Jaynes' (1976) 'self is situated within the cognitive structure Johnson (2003) calls 'mind'. The power of these interpretations stems from the implications provided by the idea that self and mind are culturally evolved entities. As Harre (1984) commented:
Even if Jaynes' claim...to have identified the moment at which mankind invented self-
consciousness as the experiential aspect of novel practices of self-ascription of
responsibility for and sources of intentions to perform actions as sometime between the
composition of the Illiad and the Odyssey is fantasy, the fact that his claim is clearly
intelligible (and might conceivably be defensible) demolishes the necessary universality 82
aspect of Kant's claim. To put it crudely, we learn to be conscious, and may amongst our
fellow humans learn to be conscious, to organize experience, in different ways. (p. 145)
The idea that the self has both agentive and cultural qualities has been widely accepted
(Adams, 2003; Arthur, 2004; Hutcheon, 1999). It would be expected that the self in individualistic cultures may be different from the self in collectivist cultures (Lent, 2004; Tang,
2001). On the other hand, acculturation is highly individualized with respect to both direction and degree (Arthur, 2003; Berry, 2002; Marin & Gamba, 2002; Organista, Organista, &
Kurasaki, 2002). In any case, the dichotomization of culture between individualist and collectivist is too simplistic as all cultures represent a balance between autonomy, community and, perhaps, divinity (Pinker, 2002; Waldram, 2004). The range of personalities within cultures and the individualization of acculturation effects (Berry, 2002; Organista et al., 2002; Phinney,
2002), reinforces the notion of agency in the consideration of individual selves. The contribution of Jaynes (1976), reinforced by the work of Johnson (2003) with respect to the construct of objectivity, is the cultural adaptation of self, including the ability to observe one's objective self with a sense of continuity and distinctness, was necessary to gain a sense of agency. Thus, the notion of William James (1892/1999) that the objective and subjective selves cannot be separated, is confirmed, and the difficulty of Damon & Hart (1988) in finding defining questions for the subjective self that did not lead back to the objective self is explained: the two aspects of self co-evolved and are tightly dependent on each other. This cultural adaptation was so successful in improving problem solving and goal orientated planning that the self was quickly replicated in all cultures, but with differing cultural manifestations. Thus, while in Japanese culture, the self outside of the group is considered incomplete (Cross & Gore, 2003;
Rosenberger, 1992), there is still a self whose relationship to the collectivity is defined. 83
A memetic perspective allows us to understand and interpret this cultural evolutionary process. A hominid evolved with the capacity to retain cultural memes learned through imitation.
Groups of interlocking memes, memeplexi, evolved that governed complex behavior. An individual might have a collection of memeplexi leading to different phenotypic behavior triggered by different contexts or situations, and these behaviors were likely, but not necessarily, related to whether or not they increased the individual's probability of survival. Eventually, a memeplex evolved representing the self and this allowed individuals to see themselves both as objects within a larger context and as activators and animators within a variety of contexts. This, in turn, allowed for an even more complex cognitive structure - mind. If Jaynes (1976) and
Johnson (2003) are right, this advance in cultural evolution occurred relatively recently in human history.
Memes and free will. As we have seen, Blackmore (1999, 2000) aligned her understanding with behavioral determinism. Free will, along with the self we think we have, is an illusion. In such an understanding these illusions evolved as clever creations associated with particular memes, or clusters of memes, so as to enhance their replicatory power in competition with other memes. If we think we have a self and that our responses are freely determined decisions of that self, then we become emotionally committed to the memeplexi behind those responses, even to the point of subsuming those imagined selves to the will of religious or ideological collectivities. Dawkins (1976, 1982, 1986, 1999) was mistaken, we cannot override our selfish genes and our equally selfish memes, we can only be buffeted about by competition between competing memeplexi and the dictates of our genes. There is, however, an alternate memetic view that situates the self in mind and supports the notion of free will. Both camps within memetics, determinist and non-determinist, agree that once our
ancestors developed a capacity for imitation, memetic transference became possible.
Increasingly, complex clusters of memes governed behavior, but these memeplexi evolved
algorithmically in Darwinian fashion - there was no self to guide the process. Eventually,
however, a selfplex evolved that became preserved in a culture or cultures1" by patterns of social
discourse including grammatical changes to language such as the use of indexical pronouns
(Blustein & Noumair, 1996; Cross & Gore, 2003; Harre, 1984). This change meant that
individual selves no longer had to evolve algorithmically, but could be learned as part of normal
maturation that included language acquisition. With the existence of the self, objective thinking became possible, and according to Dawkins (1976, 1999), it became possible to transcend
genetic and memetic determinism.
This evolutionary conceptualization of self eliminates the need for either a Cartesian
homunculous (Descartes, 1643/1990) or a Nietzschean cosmic will (Seigel, 2005). It is the
Damasian (1999) 'feeling of me' or 'proto-self that allows us to recognize our reflection in a cultural mirror and this recognition leads to cognitive reflectivity. Free will occurs with the
capacity to understand our subjectivity by objectifying ourselves to our selves. With this
capacity we have the potential to make choices at variance with both genetic and memetic pressure. Developmental transitions are a function of this free will, and the enhancement of the
capacity for free will is the definition of counselling for client empowerment. In the larger context, free will (even with the proviso that no will can be totally unencumbered) means that
Lamarckian, as opposed to Darwinian, cultural evolution is possible.
It is the possibility of Lamarckian evolution that confounds Blackmore (1999). Such evolution is not dependent upon random mutation but on purposive change. In the metaphor of 85
Johnson-Laird (1988/1990), the self is a software package that allows the organism to stand outside of itself bracketing presumptions in Husserlian fashion. While all aspects of an individual's horizon of understanding may not be so accessible (Laverty, 2003), some aspects are
(Rennie, 2000). It is the resultant approximation to an objective reality that allows the individual to make choices at variance with his or her genetic and memetic dictates. Put simply, without the concept of objective reality that the concept of self makes possible, Blackmore's (1999, 2000) determinism must stand.
Writing half a century before Dawkins (1976) coined the term "meme," Vygotsky (1939,
1986, 2004; Wertsch, 1988) offered a perspective that incorporates behavioral explanations, while accommodating the emergence of higher cognitive processes brought about by the mastery of the means of cultural behavior and thinking. Briefly, conditioning processes lead to a
"natural memory" which we share with other animals. The historical development of humans, however, "went beyond the limits of psychological functions given to them by nature and proceeded to a new culturally elaborated organization of their behavior" (Wertsch, 1988 p. 25).
These "higher mental functions," including consciousness, have social origins and are governed by a different set of rules than the more primitive primal functions. Elementary functions continue to generate behaviors based on behavioral principles, but a second possibility exists whereby stimulation may be self-generated through the use of artificial internal stimuli that become the cause of behavior. Human behavior continues to be shaped by conditioning processes in the environment, and since culture has become part of the human environment behavior could be shaped by that environment using the same deterministic mechanisms. There exists, however, another level of organization that may also determine behavior, and it would be within that level of organization that will would be found. 86
Memes and the construction of narratives. Vygotsky's (2004) suggestion, "Every product of the imagination, stemming from reality, attempts to complete a full circle and to be embodied in reality" (p. 41) has a memetic flavor. He held that our creative and imaginative processes are based in experiential reality interpreted through culture with units of that culture grouped and extended in novel ways, and these interpretive creations then cause the creator to experience a feeling of agony when those creations are not then embodied in reality. Vygotsky (1986) viewed the creation of these narratives to be an example of a higher mental process based on the context, motivations, needs, interests and history of the individual. The suggestion that the narratives then create an emotional response that demands a behavior suggests that the individual is not entirely in control of the process.
Csikszentmihalyi (1993) defined "flow" as a process of losing your self in an activity, that is, not being self-aware with an increased reliance on intuitive responses. If one's self is not present in the construction of a narrative, who or what is controlling the process? The answer has to be found within the memes themselves. If, as Dawkins' (1976) suggested, memes exert a differentially attractive force on other memes, the presence of one such unit of culture may attract a connect piece of culture without conscious effort on the part of the narrator, then both flow and Nietzsche's observation that "A thought comes when it wishes, not when T wish."
(quoted in Seigel, 2005 p. 550) is explained. A memetic flow would still bear some relationship to the individual within whose mind the flow occurred. If Price (1999) used the metaphor of the self and its worldview as a landscape to describe that relationship:
A meme in fact, is like the single raindrop. It falls with others upon a pre-formed
perceptual landscape. Isolated thoughts gather together in a string - a pattern of co
existing memes - which we might compare to a few drops congregating together in a 87
splash of water. With sufficient mass the splash of water starts to flow into streams and
rivers which are, if we like, the connectors between the raindrops and the pools and lakes,
if not the oceans, of our thoughts. (3, para. 3)
Despite the landscape provided by worldview, the passive nature of flow may allow for the unexamined creation of antisocial, alcoholic, sexist, racist or terrorist narratives, each demanding a Vygostskian embodiment in reality. Recognizing this dark possibility,
Csikszentmihalyi (1993) recommended that the individual place mental parameters over flow: "If you achieve control over your mind, your desires, and your actions, you are likely to increase order around you. If you let them be controlled by genes and memes, you are missing the opportunity to be yourself (p. 290). The self is recognized as an entity capable of critically evaluating and directing memetic flow. We are returned to the hard work of evaluating the results of our creative and imaginative processes by evaluating those results against some objective standard.
As we have seen, Doen (1998), suggested that narrative therapists revisit the notion of objective reality. From a memetic perspective, narrative construction could become a means whereby memes replicate themselves in the minds of passive individuals who then act on the basis of those narratives. Memeticist and philosopher Daniel Dennett (1991) explained, while discussing his multiple drafts of reality thesis, "Narratives are under continual revision, there is no single narrative that counts as the canonical version" (p. 136). It may be possible for the self to use objective criteria in constructing and revising its criteria or in making conscious multiple drafts of reality and selecting from amongst them. If the self is understood as simply a narrative, then it is difficult to visualize how such a narrative could be capable of establishing objective primacy over other such narratives. Alternatively, if we view the self not as a narrative, but as an 88 evolved cultural structure that replicated within populations because of its efficacy at reducing subjective perceptions, then it may be just the vehicle to hold in check both imaginative and relativistic excess. On the other hand, if the self were a cultural structure, it would be affected, if not determined, by cultural grand narratives. Such grand narratives would define "truth" and, conceivably, the self that is capable of holding truths. The resultant implication of relativism needs to be considered in the study of the self.
Cultural Relativism with Respect to the Self
Some writers have suggested that the self is a modern invention (Foucault, 1982/1997;
Holstein & Gubrium, 2000; Taylor, 1989), while others (Cross & Gore, 2003; Frow & Morris,
2000; Gergen, 1996) have pictured the individualistic self as unique to western culture. In support of a dichotomy between individualist and collectivist selves, Blustein & Noumair (1996) suggested that while western societies view the self as unitary and stable, non-western societies view it as flexible and varied. On the other hand, none of the German, French and British philosophers in Seigal's (2005) review of post-Cartesian European thought regarded the self as independent of social relations. This would imply that if there are differences between individualist and collectivist selves, those differences may be more of emphasis than of structure.
On the other hand, the notion that the self is a cultural construct would imply that cultures with different histories could exhibit variation with respect to the structure and nature of the self. This examination of the literature with respect to these issues of cultural diversity begins with critiques of the modern western self. This is followed with an examination of Buddhist thought on the self and a review of descriptions of the self from selected collectivist cultures. Finally, a comparison between Inuit and western counselling methods is reviewed with resultant implications for their respective understandings of the self. Critiques of Modernity
The amoral self. In Charles Taylor's (1989) view, the modern western self is a composite of the rationalism of Descartes and the romanticism of Rousseau. He complained, "The life of instrumental reason lacks the force, the depth, the vibrancy, the joy, the elan of nature. But there is worse...the instrumental stance toward nature constitutes a bar to ever attaining it" (1989, p.
383). With the influence of Rousseau, "The source of unity and wholeness which Augustine found only in God is now to be discovered within the self" (p. 362). Taylor (1989a) recommended that each self have a moral grounding:
To know who you are is to be orientated in moral space, a space in which questions arise
about what is good or bad, what is worth doing and what is not, what has meaning and
importance for you and what is trivial and secondary, (p. 28)
Taylor's (1989a) perspective may have been prompted by a longing for an outside power greater than ourselves to lift us to imagined heights beyond which we are otherwise incapable.
Still, he reminds us that man is a moral animal, and he implies that non-western cultures may better represent that morality in their cultural selves.
The empty self. Cushman (1995) described the nineteenth-century American bourgeois self as "individualistic, hardworking, moralistic, frugal and emotionally restricted" (p. 62). In the manner of Foucault (1982/1997), he tied this self to the requirements of industrial capitalism.
As capitalism changed to a consumer economy, personality replaced character as an essential component of self. The need to attend to the details of one's public performance, implied in the development of personality, created the ideal consumer. Such an empty self "experiences a significant absence of community, tradition and shared meaning" and interprets "the absences, loneliness, and disappointments of life as a chronic, undifferentiated hunger" (p. 79). Both 90 advertising and psychology attempt to heal this self perpetuating the consumer economy.
Cushman's analysis of psychology is based on this consumer metaphor:
"(Heinz) Kohut described a world in which, ideally, children develop in part by using
their parents - by consuming, metabolizing, and then leaving them.... Throughout one's
life, others 'show up as commodities; the individual is pictured as consuming others and
metabolizing their good qualities, in order to accomplish the building of the masterful,
bounded, feeling self" (p. 272).
In criticizing psychology for necessarily being limited by the means of production,
Cushman (1995) ignored the arguments of Adler (1927/1957, 1967) and Fromm (1969) who did integrate history and social forces in their practices. None-the-less, the assumption that the self necessarily has specific qualities such as individualism or consumerism needs to be avoided in a culturally inclusive psychology.
Self as a linguistic construction
"There could be no process by which our words for how we felt could get meaning by an
inner attention to our own states, like a kind of pointing.... Unless there were public
criteria for their correct use by others, they could never be talked to or learnt by
themselves.... Learning vocabulary later put to first-person use must be achieved in
contexts where the learning (I) is the second person (you) to you, the instructor" (Harre,
1989a, p. 25).
In keeping with his theory that the self is a linguistic construction, Harre (1998) said that certain pathologies of self could be treated by the teaching of locally valid grammars. It is sobering to consider that psychologists may be replaced some day by English teachers, or that grammar could become a staple in a psychologist's 'bag of tricks.' A strength of this notion is 91 that cultural difference in self construction should be reflected in language. For example, the fundamental gender difference in Cree is not between sexes but between animate and inanimate.
There is thus no pronoun in Cree for 'him' or 'her' but there are pronoun forms for animate objects or beings as opposed to that which is considered inanimate. This difference in language construction could be expected to translate into differences in self-representation from those
English speakers whose fundamental linguistic gender difference is male versus female.
If we view language as a reflection of the culture in which it is based, then it is through language that self possibilities are both constrained and expressed. Donald (2001) summarized,
"Any given culture is a gigantic cognitive web, defining and constraining the parameters of memory, knowledge and thought in its members" (p. xiv). Thus culture defines and constitutes the boundaries of the self (Lock, 1981/1990); it not only delimits the "assemblage of interpretive possibilities" (Holstein & Gubrium, 2000, p. 161), it creates the interpreter.
Self as illusion. Blackmore (2002) criticized James' assumption that a stream of consciousness exists consisting of temporally ordered mental representations. Referring to neurological research into the color phi phenomenon (Dennett, 1991) she concluded that consciousness is constructed backward from a focusing loci. An implication of this position is that the temporality assumed in the Jamesian T might be a variable cultural construct. Her further implication, that the self is an illusion, speaks to her background as a Buddhist. An examination of that tradition provides a non-western focus on the self.
The Buddhist Experience of Self
Drawing on the work of Rhys Davids, who translated the writings of Gotama Siddhattha from the original Pali text, Hutcheon (2001) quotes the founder of Buddhism: 92
"Since neither soul nor aught belonging to soul can really and truly exist, the view which
holds that this I who am 'world', who am 'soul' shall hereafter live permanent, persisting,
unchanging, yea abide eternally: is not this utterly and entirely a foolish doctrine?" (p. 5).
In this text, Siddhattha is debunking an idea apparently already present in 6th century
B.C.E. Indian culture, that there is an immortal soul associated with the indexical first person pronoun. While Theravatan Buddhists follow the Pali texts, the Mahayana tradition accepts as inspired, Vedic translations. From this tradition, Tibetan monk Sogyal Rinpoche (1993) writes:
"Two people have been living in you all your life. One is the ego, garrulous demanding,
hysterical, calculating, the other is the hidden spiritual being, whose still voice of wisdom
you have only heard or attended to." (p. 120)
Rinpoche (1993) is clearly not using the term 'ego' in the Freudian sense as the source of reason balancing conflicting demands of the superego and id. Instead, he assumes the presence of two selves in the individual: one false and one true, which reminds us of the humanistic search for an "authentic self (Edley, 1993). Buddhism evolved further as it crossed the Sea of Japan.
Kabat-Zinn (1994) offered the following explanation of the Zen Buddhist doctrine of 'no-self:
"No-self does not mean being a nobody. What it means is that everything is interdependent and that there is no isolated, independent core 'you" (p. 238).
A self must be present in a culture to necessitate its negation. Kabat-Zinn's (1994) explanation is not a total negation as it leaves open the possibility of a relational self constructed in language. Another western practitioner of Zen, Alan W. Watts (1963), suggested that the concept of self was never totally eliminated from Buddhism:
"The Supreme Self, is always just beyond its own control of itself. In the words of the
philosopher Shankara: 'The Knower can know other things, but cannot make Itself the 93
object of Its own knowledge, in the same way that fire can burn other things but cannot
burn itself.... This, then, is why the way of the Buddha is, at one moment in history, a
way of complete withdrawal from maya, the cosmic game, and, at another, the way of the
Bodhisattva who lays aside the endless peace of nirvana to return into the cycle of birth-
and-death..." (pp. 88, 89).
It appears, from this discussion, that the suggestion that the self is a purely European construct is mistaken. Buddhism encountered the concept of self in all of the cultures to which it adapted. In its Mahayana form, Buddhism carried with it a version of self that was either essentialist (as in the notion of a true self) or linguistically constructed.
Examinations of the Self in Selected Collectivist Cultures
The Japanese self. It has been suggested that Japanese is one collectivist culture that may be contrasted with a more individualistic North America (Cross & Gore, 2003; Rosenberger,
1992). According to Rosenberger, the word for self in Japanese, 'jibun', implies that the self is not an essentiality apart from the social realm. By itself a Japanese self is linguistically a fraction
- becoming whole only when occupying one's place in a social unit. Cross & Gore (2003) agreed suggesting that the Japanese language reflects and promotes the idea that the person is known by and understood in terms of meaningful contexts and relationships. They also noted less use of indexical pronouns in Japanese as compared to U.S. American culture.
Group identification in East Asian women. It has been reported that Korean mothers spend 1/3 of the time talking to their children about their past as compared to U.S. American mothers (Cross & Gore, 2003). Further, East Asian women are more likely to define themselves in terms of group membership as compared to U.S. women who are more likely to define themselves in terms of close relationships (mother, wife, best friend). Lent (2004) suggested that self-esteem, measured as self-satisfaction, was found to relate more highly to global life satisfaction in individualistic than in collectivistic nations while relationship harmony was found to be a better predictor of life satisfaction in a collectivistic context.
Comparing white and black South Africans. In a study of 615 undergraduate students using self-report questionnaires, Heaven, Simbayi, Stones, & Roux (2000) compared the values of white Afrikaners with black South Africans. Multiple regression analyses showed that the social identities for self-identified Afrikaners were mainly linked with ethnic language
(Afrikaans) and religion. Among self-identified black South Africans, however, social identities were more encompassing, including the notions of global citizen and South African. The researchers concluded that the values measured implied different identities founded on different ideological objectives.
Immigrant selves in British Columbia. After working with immigrants and foreign students, Ishu Ishiama (1995) suggested that the subjective impact of cultural relocation involves a threat to one's validation system with a resultant undervalidation of self. The self is both constructed and maintained within a cultural milieu, and it begins to deteriorate when not reinforced by familiar cultural interactions or when confronted by unfamiliar cross-cultural interactions that challenge assumptions upon which the originating self was developed. The resultant undervalidation or invalidation of self may lead to feelings of insecurity, discomfort, abandonment, self-depreciation, incompetence, helplessness, alienation and/or meaninglessness.
Ishiama (1995) suggested that grief work may be necessary to assist some clients facing cultural dislocation. This suggestion is in keeping with Bridges' (1980, 2001) model that grieving is a transition stage during which a new self is constructed. 95
Variations on a cultural theme. All cultures examined in this section seem to require a self, but the expression of self may vary. The dichotomization of culture between individual and collectivist may be too simplistic as all cultures represent a balance between autonomy, community and, perhaps, divinity (Pinker, 2002; Waldram, 2004). Seta, Schmidt, & Bookhout
(2006) examined this theme using Cheek's Aspects of Identity Questionnaire to divide a sample of 165 U.S. American introductory psychology students into two groups: those with higher personal identity and those with higher social identity. They used the median score on the scale as the cut off between the two subsamples. Participants were then shown a videotape of a discussion between actors identified as Greek and non-Greek, and they were asked to give an opinion as to why a targeted Greek expressed the opinions he had in two settings: conflict and consensus. As predicted, those who scored higher on for social identity tended to cite group membership (Greek) as the source of the targeted male's opinions while those who scored higher for personal identity tended to cite individual personal characteristics [F(2, 120) = 4.13. p =.02].
An implication of this finding is that there may be considerable variation within cultures with respect to individualism and collectivism. Although there must be commonalities that allow us to recognize a group of people as a culture, we need to make allowance for the range of possibilities within those cultures and the individualization of acculturative effects (Berry, 2002; Organista et al., 2002; Phinney, 2002) if we are to build a culturally inclusive psychology of the self.
A Comparison oflnuit and Western Approaches to Counselling
Korhonen (2002) used grounded theory, merged with phenomenology, to compare Inuit counselling (helping) practises with western counselling methods. Specifically, she segmented and coded the transcriptions of 17 Inuit elders and five younger Inuit who were involved in counselling or helping their people who had been interviewed using an open-ended unstructured format; and she used the same coding procedure on 17 counselling textbooks plus selected works of Adler, Bandura, Beck, Berne, Ellis, Glasser, Harris, Lazarus, May, Perls, Rogers, and Wolpe.
She reported that axial coding of the texts produced the following broad categories: 'building a relationship', 'information-gathering', 'counsellor characteristics' 'goal-setting' and 'choosing interventions'. The transcripts of the Inuit elders and helpers produced the following broad categories: 'values,' 'counselling relationship,' and 'strategies.' The codings produced unexpected agreement between theorists::
The depth of the seminal theorists' influence in and agreement with this model was
unexpected.... The unanimity of the holistic view of the client, and emphasis on
acceptance of client perceptions and decisions in all aspects of the process - problem-
definition, goal-setting, choice of interventions, etc. - was unexpected. Multicultural
counselling seems to be a holistic, integrative, client-centered process identical to
conventional counselling, (p. 277)
The level of agreement between western and Inuit methods was also unexpected:
Effective counselling in both a traditional Inuit framework and with younger Inuit seems
also to be a client-centered approach based on trust, understanding and acceptance of
client individuality, needs and context, with affective and cognitive interventions
perceived as especially helpful, and decisions based on client choice, (p. 279)
Korhonen (2002) reported that she had been aware of the pragmatic and adaptive nature of traditional Inuit life because she had worked with the Inuit Taspiriit (a self-government institution of the Inuit) previously; however, the stress that both elders and younger Inuit placed on the empirical assessment of reality and truth, and the priority of reason were new findings for her. She also did not expect the strong emphasis the Inuit placed on individual context, action 97 and choice because she had been "influenced by the literature which often cites reason/cognitivism, innovation/future-orientation, and individualism/independent action as features not typical of non-Western or traditional cultures" (p. 279).
With respect to the traditional collectivist nature of Inuit culture, Korhonan (2002) reported, "All group members were expected to follow the rules that affected group survival, but decisions about other life matters were very much individually based. Non-interference in individual and family matters was generally a norm" (p. 207). Three dominant themes about humanity emerged from the data: that human beings are essentially similar; that each person is nevertheless unique; and that humans are thinking beings whose ability to reason is their most important tool for long life. She added, "The elders all make clear their belief that humans seem to have an innate and individual core of personality, a unique self, that influences action and thought" (p. 213).
Although it is reasonable to suggest that there will be differences in values and emphasis between cultures, Korhonen (2002) reminds us that there also may be similarities across cultures.
Good research involves a quest to identify similarities as well as the difference.
Unresolved Issues Flowing From the Literature
A young child is asked "Who are you?" and s/he smiles sweetly and points toward her body. Instinctively he follows the dictum, "I don't have a body, I am my body" (Pinker, 1997).
Science has led an assault on Platonic dualism (Damasio, 1999; Hutcheon, 1996; Pickering &
Skinner, 1990), and any consideration of the self must acknowledge a unity. The concept of self that is discussed in this paper is a body-based autobiographical representation. It takes into account certain genetic and biological underpinnings, but since the seat of the self has not been located in the brain (Penfield, 1975/1990), it remains a cognitive structure. The self has been variously described as stable (Adler, 1927/1957), multiple (Hermans,
2003), contextual (Cross & Gore, 2003), self-constructed (Botella & Herrero, 2000), socially constructed (Neimeyer, 2002), saturated (Gergen, 1991) and illusory (Blackmore, 1999). Stable, neurological, constructivist, behavioral and social constructionist perspectives were presented in this literature review with each demonstrating efficacy in understanding the self and in contributing to the art of counselling. A comprehensive model of the self must account for each perspective.
Models of the self associated with the work of Adler (1927/1957, 1929) and James (1890,
1892/1999) have been reflected both in schools of psychology and in research into the self.
While built on the notion that the self is a relatively stable structure, Adlerian Psychotherapy utilizes cognitive and behavioral interventions in a change effort involving self-construction from a menu of possibilities embedded within culture. The Jamesian self is built of subjective and objective elements also embedded within culture. The element of constancy that is part of the Jamesian subjective self is analogous to the Adlerian sense of self-stability. The Jamesian elements of volition and uniqueness are implied by the Adlerian supposition of the ability to self- change. The Adlerian suggestion that a functional self includes elements of productivity and intimacy could be reflected in the "activity" and "social" elements of the Jamesian objective self.
Thus, the Adlerian and Jamesian models are not mutually exclusive, and may be viewed as the basis of a common understanding of the self that has been emergent within psychology. Both the work of Adler (1927/1957, 1929) and James (1980, 1982/1999) were based on introspective analysis of anecdotal evidence with resultant concerns with respect to comprehensiveness and generalizability. Concerns have been raised that this conceptualization of the self, as volitional and individual, is ethnocentrically culturally bound (Cross & Gore, 2003; Cushman, 1995; Rosenberger, 1992). Questions about the comprehensiveness and general applicability of the
Jamesian / Adlerian self remain.
Groundbreaking research was attempted on the development of the adolescent self
(Damon & Hart, 1988), but that research was itself grounded in the model of self proposed by
James and the results were thereby constrained by the categories available in that model. Further, their attempts to answer cross-cultural concerns by replicating their study in a Puerto Rican village failed to answer concerns that the model of the self from which they operated could not be generalized to collectivist cultures. Although their research demonstrated a developmental process related to self within the categorical constraints available, there is a need to understand the selves of individuals unconstrained by earlier conceptualizations, and to compare the results of that research to the models of the self current in the literature.
Attempts to map the self (Hartman, 1995; Lewin, 1943; Shepard & Marshall, 1999) have focused on environmental determinants with some attention to roles that may be thought of as constituting part of the Jamesian objective self, but these attempts have not included representation of the structure of the self as a unity that includes subjective dimensions. This failure to map the whole individual may be the result of inadequate technology available to those who wish to describe how an individual may be constituted from elements of culture. A memetic approach may allow the portrayal of such a structure in units of culture while maintaining compatibility with major aspects of each of the perspectives presented in this review.
Martin and Sugarman (2001) suggested that different perspectives could be accommodated in one model:
Self is an ever changing, dynamic process of understanding particular being. This said
self, as a core necessary aspect of personhood, is related to particular identity, embodied 100
being, and deliberative, reflective agency in ways that give it an existential and
experiential grounding. This grounding ensures some necessary degree of stability within
an overall pattern of processural change, (p. 107)
Making explicit the tacit understanding of the self implicit in Martin and Sugerman's account would increase the ability of counsellors and clients to visualize the change effort required in self-construction and re-construction while suggesting strategies for meeting self- change goals. The creation of visual representations or "maps" of the self would represent a concrete way of realizing this goal. If the self is a cognitive structure, then such maps of the self would consist of units of culture. The utility of such maps would be determined by how well they represent self. The major research question informing this paper, "How do people experience co- constructing maps of their self-identity using a memetic process?" involved recognition of these considerations and informed the selection of the method used. CHAPTER 3: METHOD
The exploration of the self in this research involved preparing representations of the selves of participants by isolating defining memes from detailed self-descriptions. It was anticipated that by using the concept of the meme, the self could be mapped in a way that represents both its stability over time and its capacity for change. The self was conceptualized as a fluid and richly complex construct, and it was not certain that maps constructed in this manner would resonate with peoples' lived experience. The rich and thick descriptions required of research participants in describing themselves suggested a qualitative methodology.
A number of qualitative methods were considered that commended themselves to the needs of this research including hermeneutic phenomenology, grounded theory, and discourse analysis. The method selected, transcendental realism (Miles & Huberman, 1994), allowed for the incorporation of useful elements of these other approaches. The general methodological considerations that led to the development of a specific applied approach is presented along with the accompanying conceptual framework that guided this research. Selection of the participant population, data collection and method of analysis flowed from these initial methodological considerations.
General Methodological Considerations
The richness of the self-descriptions sought in this research, the conceptualization of the self as an interpretation of lived experience, and the need to return to participating individuals to refine, elaborate and correct their descriptions, all suggest a hermeneutic approach (Laverty,
2003; Patton, 2002). On the other hand, the concept of an objective self with the implication there is an objective reality that we may approximate in some ways, is not consistent with
Heideggarian philosophy (Johnson, 2000; Laverty, 2003). While aspects of the hermeneutic approach were considered applicable to this research, the philosophical stance associated with the method would have detracted from any results obtained. None-the-less, the depth of involvement required of the participants to this research and the fact that only they could decide if the resultant maps have resonance with their lived experience indicated that they should be referred as co-researchers, a label with a distinctly hermeneutic flavor. The possibility of combining aspects of hermeneutics with realist methodologies was considered. David Rennie
(2000) said one such realist approach, grounded theory, necessarily applies a hermeneutic approach:
When interviews are used as the mode of inquiry, the analyst already has a sense of the
text given by a respondent even before it is transcribed. Moreover, the act of transcribing
it deepens the understanding of it so that, irrespective of whether or not the text as a
whole is read and reread prior to the analysis of its particulars, the analyst has a sense of
the meaning of the text as a whole. Thus, the hermeneutic circle is entered. In other
words, the understanding of the whole of the text influences the understanding of a part
of it, and the understanding of each part in turn influences the understanding of the
whole. This circling of part to whole and back again results in progressive understanding
that, in principle, is non-ending, although, hopefully, it reaches a kind of stability... (p.
484)
In recommending the triangulation of Heideggerian hermeneutics with grounded theory,
Wilson & Hutchinson (1991) suggested that hermeneutics reveals uniqueness of shared meanings while grounded theory serves to anchor those meanings to a conceptual framework. If hermeneutics involves the interpretation of lived experience, and if we wish to make knowledge statements, then it is necessary to ground those interpretations to an objectivist understanding while acknowledging relativistic limitations to a realist approach. If we accept Rennie's (2000) description of hermeneutics as involving alternating cycles of induction and abduction, then it is those imaginative processes that need this grounding.
Grounded theory has been used in research into the self. Charmaz (1990) found that the separation of a 'dialectical self from the 'physical self assisted in helping patients keep illness in the background of their lives. Marsden (2002) used a grounded theory approach to construct
'meme maps' of consumers' felt associations to the terms 'healthy-living', 'natural', and 'well- being'. But while grounded theory has demonstrated efficacy in research into the self and in research involving memetic construction, the fact that I already had a general theory of the self from which to draw would seem to preclude the use of this method (Glaser, 1992, 2002; Strauss,
1987). A further concern voiced by Conrad and Reissman (as cited in Charmaz, 2000) was that
"fracturing" data limits understanding, because "grounded theorists aim for analysis rather than the portrayal of subjects' experience in its fullness" (p. 521). Both analysis and an understanding of the experience of self, in its fullness, were required by this research. On the other hand, if we use Harre's (1989) concept of the self as being a theory about who we are, then each participant would be co-constructing a new individualized theory, with as much fullness and richness to which they may individually be disposed. From this perspective, the method of grounded theory would have some application, but would it still be grounded theory?
Wortham (2001) used a method of discourse analysis to create diagrams and common themes from dialogue, contextual cues, indexicality and voicing in an effort to gain an in-depth understanding of the interaction of individuals. While this method would be valuable in determining the internal structure of personal memes, the risk of this approach is that the primary researcher becomes the expert in deciding what the participant / co-researcher's self looks like. This risk could be minimized by using the interview-as-negotiated-text technique advocated by
Fontana and Frey (2000). With the co-researcher given the final say on interpretations with respect to self-maps, his or her voice is preserved.
While narrative and discursive methods speak to an element in this study, the conceptual framework within which the study is embedded is larger. Perhaps a useful analogy presents from the work of Frow and Morris (2000) who state, with respect to methods employed in their study of media influence on cultural evolution in Australia, "Cultural studies (as opposed to ethnography) tend to make greater use of techniques of textual analysis, to make use of a greater diversity of sources, to make more eclectic use of methodologies" (p. 329). The conceptual framework of this proposal includes the idea that the self consists of interlocking memes, which are replicative units of culture. In effect the self with its surrounding worldview or cognitive schema consists of a culture of one. Krai and Burkhardt (2002) declared that a purpose of cultural psychology is to study of the of link between culture and mind. If cultural studies are so broad as to justify greater diversity and eclecticism than is the norm in other kinds of qualitative research then the same logic should hold true to studies of the self.
Elements of hermeneutic inquiry, grounded theory and discourse analysis have been found useful in considering methodologies to inform this research, yet all of these methods also contain philosophical assumptions that would constrain the work. Patton (2002) observed,
"Being pragmatic allows one to eschew methodological orthodoxy in favor of methodological appropriateness as the primary criterion forjudging methodological quality recognizing that different methods are appropriate for different situations" (p. 72). On the other hand, a unified praxis ensures consistency and coherence while lending authenticity to the results. Miles and
Huberman (1994) attempted to build a method that was philosophically and methodologically consistent while at the same time acknowledging, "To us it seems clear that research is actually more of a craft than a slavish adherence to methodological rules. No study conforms exactly to a standard methodology; each one calls for the researcher to bend the methodology to the particularities of a particular setting" (p. 5).
Miles and Huberman (1994) described their approach as "transcendental realism" explaining "Reality exists independent of one's interpretations, and dependable knowledge claims, including claims of causality, can be made from systematically gathered and analyzed qualitative data. At the same time, participant meanings and contextual effects must be taken into account" (quoted in Morrow & Smith, 2000, p. 206). This position is consistent with the understanding that the creation of the self that allowed for self-objectification also allowed for objective inquiry. None-the-less, Miles and Huberman (1994) also hold that "In epistemological debates it is tempting to operate at the poles. But in the actual practice of empirical research, we believe that all of us - realists, interpretivists, critical theorists - are closer to the center with multiple overlaps" (pp. 4-5).
In recommending the use of astringent or descriptive codes, interpretive or pattern codes and graphic representation, Miles and Huberman (1994) give the appearance of offering a method similar to grounded theory. On the other hand, they do not believe that it is possible to bracket ones' ideas, theories and hypotheses, and that the central question in research is, "How do I permit data to elaborate, correct, and extend my ideas?" (p. 155). In this sense, their method is to grounded theory as hermeneutics is to phenomenology. Miles and Huberman's (1994) recommendation that data be returned to participants for clarification and elaboration leading to increasing depth of understanding and interpretation reminds one of the hermeneutic circle.
Finally, Wortham's (2001) method of discourse analysis that includes creating diagrams and finding common themes from dialogue appeared compatible with Miles and Huberman's (1994) method of graphic representation and interpretive coding.
In summation, the method of Miles and Huberman was considered philosophically consistent with the parameters of this research, and it offered the flexibility to incorporate modifications unique to the demands of this study. Thus, it allows for the interpretative methods inherent in a hermeneutic approach that may lead to a deepening understanding of context and recognition of participant voice while grounding it in the assumption of a reality that exists outside those interpretations. It avoids the suggestion of fracturing and narrowly construing data contained in criticisms of grounded theory while providing a method of identifying and representing memes that make up the self. It is open to methods of discourse analysis in elaborating those memes while providing a general framework from which to investigate more enduring aspects of self. In addition, it has received wide support as a reputable method (Fielding
& Lee, 1998; Morrow & Smith, 2000; Rudestam & Newton, 2001).
Conceptual Framework
"A conceptual framework is the current version of the researcher's map of the territory being investigated" (Miles & Huberman, 1994, p. 20). My conceptual map involved an integration of the work of Adler (1927/1957, 1929, 1967), Damasio (1999), and Blackmore
(1999, 2000). Specifically using Adler's definition that "the self is the convictions I have about who I am" (Mosak, 1979, p. 58) and with reference to the work of Damasio (1999) that provides a neurological basis for the self, I proposed to use the concept of the meme (Dawkins, 1976,
1986) to co-construct maps of the selves of a sample of volunteers. My conceptual framework is represented graphically in Figure 1. 107
Figure 1. A graphic representation of the conceptual framework informing this study showing the process of making the implicit self explicit, mapping that self and relating the map back to the co-researcher's lived experience
In keeping with the model provided by Miles and Huberman (1994), I expected that this conceptual framework could evolve as the study progressed. For example, I suspected that the issue of intentionality, which is not represented in Figure 1 (although it may be subsumed under
'lived experience'), may have a role to play in the development of the self. While my conceptual framework included the idea that a memetically sound representation of the self may be produced, the contents of the individual self-maps are not preconceived.
Harre (1989) described the self as a theory "in terms of which a being orders, partitions, and reflects on its own experience and becomes capable of self-intervention and control" (p.
404). The core task of this research involved each co-researcher presenting their individual and unique theory of themselves, which were then represented in memetic map form, perhaps making their implicit theory of self explicit for the first time. 108
Trialling the Proposed Research Method
Rudestam and Newton (2001) recommended piloting instruments and procedures prior to their use in qualitative research. Using an open-ended format beginning with the statement,
"Tell me about yourself," this method was piloted with a University of Calgary graduate student during the development of this research proposal. The taped transcript was segmented with each segment given a label that described its content. Those labels were equated with memes, were linked in a pattern that seemed subjectively logical, and were presented back to the participant for discussion. Her self-map is reproduced in Figure 2. As this mapping exercise was only a prototype, a cycle of repeated interviews was not completed.
Figure 2. A memetic map of the self of a university student displaying relational forces between memes and the number of times (in brackets) each meme was referenced during the interview. 109
The numbers in brackets in Figure 2 show how many times the named meme occurred in the transcript. Attractive force between memes was inferred from the participant narrative, for example, she described her dog as her friend whom she cared for, but that she felt guilty leaving it for long hours while she was at university. Thus "dog owner" was linked to "friend,"
"nurturer" and "guilty" memes. The broken line between the memes "Catholic" and "Eve" represents repulsion between two memes. "Eve" represents a certain way of being at variance with her Catholic upbringing, and the repulsive force between the two introduces an element of instability into her self. The participant said she feels as though she cannot give up either the Eve or Catholic memes. The individualized nature of each meme is illustrated by the memos attached to two memes, "Eve" and "child" in Figure 3.
Figure 3: Memetic map of the self of a university student with memos attached to two memes indicating the structure of those memes. 110
For many people, their meme for 'child' would represent happiness and nurturing. In this case, the memo attached to child indicates a negative affect. The memo attached to 'Eve' indicates that this may be an area of developmental transition. Schlossberg, Waters, & Goodman
(1995) suggest that "A transition...results in changed relationships, routines, assumptions, and roles" (p. 27). Such transitions may result in changes to the self or changes to behavior without change to the self. Bridges (1980, 2001), however, said that a change only counts as a transition if it results in a change to the self, and that is the position adopted by this research. Using the
Bridgesian conceptualization, it was thought that transitions may be used to track the dynamic nature of the self. It was thought that this student, for example, may wish to seek an accommodation between her Catholic upbringing and the new values that she has identified as
'Eve'. Subsequent conversation indicated that she had begun a process of such accommodation under a more generalized umbrella, 'spirituality'.
As a result of this trial, it was decided that the concept of the meme needed a more precise definition serving to differentiate it from other ideas and descriptors. Using the notion that memes exhibit a particular architecture (Robles-Diaz-de-Leon, 2003) it was proposed that structure of the meme as understood in this research exhibits a referent to a commonly understood meaning and a behavioral dimension (Dawkins, 1976) along with an affective dimension (Heath et al., 2001). A fourth connotative dimension was added as a result of this trial after it was noted that the participant connected some memes such as her conservative values to
Catholicism, connotatively.
In summation, in this research memes are defined as having four necessary dimensions: referent, connotative, affective and behavioral. It was decided to accept Dawkins' (1976, 1982) definition of a meme as an elemental unit of culture as opposed to one that equates it with a short Ill story (Heath et al., 2001; Robles-Diaz-de-Leon, 2003). In this way the self could be studied as a narrative consisting of units of culture called memes.
Selection of the Participant Population
Participants were recruited using print advertising and posters supplemented by presentations made to classes and community groups in a process of purposeful random sampling. The recruitment advertisement template for both print advertising and 5" by 9" posters appears in Appendix D. Print advertisements were placed in the La Ronge weekly newspaper and University of Calgary student newspaper and posters were distributed in both La
Ronge and the university. Presentations describing the research and inviting participation in that research were made to classes at a community college centered in La Ronge and the University of Calgary. The following community groups and organizations were contacted and invited to advertise for participants to this research: The International Student Center (U. of C), the Native
Center (U. of C), The Calgary Humanist Association, and the Northern Teacher Education
Program (La Ronge). Potential participants were invited to contact the writer by e-mail or by telephone.
No one in on-going counselling was considered for the role of participant in this research so as to help ensure the selves being studied would not be in the state of transition implied by that process. To ensure that a collaborative process was respected minimizing power differentials between researcher and participants, only adults at least 18 years of age were be selected for this study. Potential participants were read a Recruitment Script (Appendix E) to ensure that they understood the purpose, procedures and time commitment required in this research.
To enhance the credibility and authenticity of the results, a balance was sought for gender, ethnicity and socio-economic status in recruitment selection. Similarly, some balance 112 was sought between urban and rural populations and for education level. It was also considered beneficial to have participants from traditionally collectivist cultures as well as individuals form more individualistic (western) cultures. Participant selection ended when the level of diversity required by this study was met.
In total 26 people applied to be participants in this study. The first three applicants to apply to be participants in this research were accepted: a Metis woman in her twenties, an
Amerindian woman in her forties and a Caucasian male in his forties who identified himself as a humanist. In the interest of diversity it was decided to reject people who had similar characteristics of people already accepted into the study. Those who were subsequently accepted included a transsexual, a woman of joint Canadian - U.S. American citizenship who became a professional boxer, a woman who became paralyzed as a result of an accident, a woman of Metis and Caucasian ancestry who did not identify with either ancestry, a Caucasian male in his thirties who identified himself as a Catholic, an Amerindian male his twenties, a Caucasian male in his fifties who identified with Aboriginal Spirituality, a Russian male in his twenties, and a Chinese woman in her twenties. The Amerindian female withdrew from the study prior to the first interview.
Those not included in the study included two aboriginal women who were personal friends of the researcher, the husband of one of the participants already accepted into the study, one Amerindian woman who was of the same age cohort as the one initially accepted, three middle-aged Caucasian men, a Caucasian woman of the same age cohort and humanist views as a woman already accepted, and two university students who were thought to have similar characteristics to some of the female university students already selected. Four international students applied after the number of participants accepted had reached eleven, one more than the 113 maximum proposed in the research proposal, and after a majority of the initial interviews had been held. All of these late applicants were Caucasian, a racial group already well-represented in the study. It was also noted that all four of these applicants were women and that gender balance had already been achieved. Thus, the increased diversity that might have been obtained by a more international sample was balanced by considerations related to race and gender as well as practical difficulties in adding on to a study already in process.
Data Collection, Analysis and Management
All participants participated in three cycles of data collection over a seven-month period.
All interviews were audio taped, and initial interviews were transcribed and analysed with the aid of a qualitative software package. The research involved the following steps:
1. Using an open-ended semi-structured interview format, the participants' self-
narratives were recordedv;
2. The self-narratives were transcribed, and those transcriptions were segmented and
coded. Initial descriptive codes were examined for four memetic dimensions
(referent, connotation, affect and behavior). Memoing was used to identify
connotative, affective and behavioral dimensions attached to each meme. Themes
(interpretive codes) were noted as they appeared to relate to relationships among
memes;
3. Data obtained from step 2 was displayed in figure form following the procedure
recommended by Miles & Huberman (1994), and these figures were called
"memetic self-maps;"
4. These graphic displays were presented to the participants individually during a
second interview for the purpose of confirmation, elaborating and correcting, and 114
the self-maps were then revised to more accurately reflect each participant/co-
researcher's lived experience;
5. Ways in which various aspects of the participant's maps reflected their actual
lived experience, including developmental transitions, were explored through
open-ended questioning during their second and third interviews;
6. The second version of their memetic self-maps were presented to participants
during their third interviews with the invitation to confirm, elaborate or correct
those maps;
7. Feelings of empowerment directed toward self-change (and any "blocks" to such
change) were explored by the participants using open-ended questioning during
the third interview.
Preparation and Refinement of Memetic Maps
Initial Procedure. Participants were asked to talk about their selves with prompt questions available (see Appendix C) for use if needed to generate full and rich self-descriptions.
The open-ended conversational style allowed for a full exploration of themes. The initial interviews lasted one to two hours and produced from 13 to 25 pages of transcript. The transcripts were then divided into segments representing units of thought, and those segments were coded for the main ideas in those units (descriptive coding). Descriptive codes were then examined for the set of properties used in this study to define memes. Those codes that did not fit the definition of a meme were either discarded or included as properties of existent memes. It was possible for one segment to be coded for more than one meme. Memes appearing in the same segment were considered connected unless the participant was contrasting those memes.
Memes that referred to other memes explicitly or implicitly in their referent, connotative, 115 affective or behavioral dimensions were also considered connected. The combination of having a finite number of categories (memes) that were connected to some, but not all, other such categories allowed for a mapping of those categories. Such maps were prepared by the researcher to be returned to the participants in a second interview.
Second Interview. Similar to the process involved in a hermeneutic circle, data collection and analysis proceeded in a cyclical fashion alternating between induction and abduction for the duration of three phases. During phase one, the researcher collected information, segmented and coded data, and prepared initial memetic maps. During phase two, the researcher returned to the individual participant co-researchers to co-construct revised memetic maps using new data provided by them. Participants were invited to discuss ways that their map could be strengthened, and, they were invited to elaborate on issues that came to mind while viewing their maps. They were invited to reflect on things that happened in their past that helped make their present selves. They were invited to share any new thoughts or feelings about who they are as a result of developing this map of themselves, and from discussing it. They were asked if there had been any changes that had occurred since the first interview and whether looking at their map lead them to think of changes that they would want to make to their selves.
Third interview: In similar form to the second interview, the participants were shown, and then asked to comment on their second self-map. They were asked for any new insights they may have had with respect to themselves, and whether any changes occurred to who they were since the previous interview. They were also asked to elaborate, clarify or explain ideas previously expressed that were not adequately understood by the researcher. They were asked about their feelings of empowerment and whether those feelings had stayed the same, increased 116 or decreased as a result of their participation in this research. They were also invited to share any other impacts this research may have had on them.
Timelines. The first phase of this project began in January, 2007 with the distribution of print advertising and posters (see Appendix D). Initial interviews began in February and the process of transcribing, segmenting and coding of those initial interviews continued while further interviewing was completed. The first versions of the memetic self-maps were completed by
May, 2007. At that time, the memetic maps completed in Phase One were returned to the participants for verification and amendment. Concomitantly, participants were asked to elaborate on any changes that had occurred to their selves in the time frame between the first and second interviews. As a result of those interviews the participant self-maps were revised, and a third round of interviews began in August, 2007 with the purpose of improving further the trustworthiness of those maps. In addition, open-ended questions were presented inviting participants to discuss possible future developmental transitions.
Qualitative computer software. The qualitative software used in this study, Analysis
Software for Word-Based Records (AnSWER) was developed by the Center for Disease Control,
Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention (U.S.A.) to coordinate and conduct large-scale, team-based analysis projects. Although it was developed for large-scale studies using multiple researchers, this public domain software is designed with sufficient flexibility that it was easily adapted to the needs of this study. Each participant's data was entered into the software as a separate project within a larger study. This allowed each participant's self narrative to be segmented and coded individually without reference to the other participants while allowing for later group comparisons. Computerized systemization allowed for procedures that were consistently applied to the development of participant self-maps and for audit trails documenting how concepts, 117 theories, and hypotheses were developed. The AnSWR analysis uses code and source data to categorize segmented text. Coding involved carefully reading through the textual data, identifying ideas about viewpoints and experiences, creating codes to help mark similar data, and then assigning codes to like data. In this program, text segments can be broken down into subunits, called embedded or nested text segments, linked with other segments, or they may stand alone. The program allowed for the clustering of coded segments in the form of interpretive or pattern codes thus developing a hierarchy of relationships. Notes were attached to each astringent code to describe its memetic properties.
Ethical Considerations
All participants signed a consent form to participate after having read a summary of the research proposal and their role in that research (Appendix F). I summarized the scope of the research to help ensure their understanding, and answered any questions they had, prior to their consent to participate. Participants were encouraged to choose a pseudonym to help ensure the confidentiality of their information, and all but one participant chose to exercise this right.
Permission was obtained to use non-identifying direct quotes in the dissertation. Participants were notified of their right to withdraw from the project at any time, and that any tapes or notes made prior to their decision to withdraw would be destroyed provided that the decision to withdraw was made prior to their review of their first self-map. All taped interviews used in the study were kept in a locked filing cabinet, and all computer records were protected by a password. These provisions are to be maintained for five years at which time all such records will be erased. 118
CHAPTER 4: INDIVIDUAL REPRESENTATIONS OF EACH SELF
Eleven applicants were accepted as participants in this study ranging in age from 24 to 59 with an average age of 37.3. Eight of the participants in the sample were resident in Calgary and three were resident in La Ronge. Four participants were university students, six were employed away from the university, and one was unemployed. The sample was equally divided by gender: five females, five males and one transsexual. With respect to nationality, eight were Canadian, one was Chinese, one was Russian, and one had joint Canadian - US American citizenship. The racial composition included seven Caucasians, two people of North American aboriginal ancestry, one Chinese, and one person whose mother was Metis and father was "white" who identified herself as simply "Canadian."
The self-maps, while under construction, represented eleven separate research projects.
The participants were co-researchers in the sense that they had the final say as to when their individual map adequately represented themselves, if at all. These constructions, along with participant reaction to the process of co-construction, are presented individually in this chapter.
The results were then grouped for all participants in a search for commonalities, and these are presented in Chapter 5.
Tina
Tina was a married Metis female in her 20s. In addition to raising three children (four by the end of the study), she was employed part-time at a janitorial position.
Tina's First Interview
When initially asked to tell the researcher about herself (February 3, 2007), Tina gave her age, the number of children she had, her marital status, and the fact that she likes to clean. She said that talking about herself was very hard, but her responses gradually lengthened producing 119
15 pages of transcript. This transcript was divided into segments, and the segments were coded for memes. A total of 23 memes were applied 70 times to 52 segments. Memes appearing in the same segment were considered connected unless the participant was contrasting those memes.
Memes that referred to other memes explicitly or implicitly in their referent, connotative, affective or behavioral dimensions were also considered connected. By comparing descriptive codes with these four dimensions and by connecting related memes, a map of Tina's definition of her self was artfully created and is reproduced in Figure 3.
Familial core. The meme "mother" was found in 11 segments in Tina's initial transcript.
Tina ascribed maternal responsibility for the safety and care of children to this meme. Her behavior associated with "mother" included ensuring that her children are safe, cared for, attend school, and have many toys. She engaged in excessive worry for her children's safety, and this led to extensive restrictions on what they were allowed to do. The meme "mother" is illustrated by being connected to memes for caring, anxiety, and paranoid.
There is an interpretive factor in the identification of memes. For example, it may have been possible to add a meme for "toy-giver" to Tina's self-map. On the other hand, "toy giver" was only mentioned once in the interview and that was in relation to the meme "mother" with the resultant interpretation that ensuring her children had many toys was subsumed as part of Tina's behavioral definition of what it means to be a "mother." The list of segments coded for "mother," along with notes related to the definition of Tina's meme "mother," and rational related to connecting that meme with other memes in Tina's self-map is reproduced in Figure G. Also reproduced in Figure G is the list of all of the memes used in Tina's self-map including their four dimensions. Figure 4: Memetic map of Tina resulting from the segmentation and coding of her initial interview showing the number segments coded for each meme (in brackets)
One characteristic of motherhood, according to Tina, is love. But this is also an emotion associated with being a daughter and a sister, and is also applied to other children not her own.
Had Tina described herself as a "lover," then that might have qualified as a meme in its own right, but she did not. On the other hand, "love" is very much a theme in her life, so this theme called an "interpretive code" in the model suggested by Miles and Huberman (1994) but referred 121 to as a "thematic code" in this context, is represented in her self-map as a box. Themes do not necessarily exhibit the four central characteristics attributed to memes (referent, connotative,
affective and behavioral), but they may represent a characteristic or quality common to a group or cluster of memes. Other thematic centers represented in Tina's map include "Family Person",
"Decent Person", "Empowered" and "Learner".
The meme "mother" had such force in Tina's self that it saved her from binge drinking on two occasions. Tina was known as a "partier" as a teenager. She rebelled, left home, dropped out of school, experimented with drugs and drank to excess. She reported, "Getting pregnant made me sober up and smarten up." One of Tina's children died, and in her grief she began binge drinking again. "I got into alcohol really, really bad, probably months straight. I was only sober for 2 days." Then she discovered that she was pregnant again: "The only time that I actually changed was when I found out I was pregnant, and then I had to, I couldn't drink. I couldn't go out. I couldn't do all that stuff, so I actually had to sit down and relax."
All four segments in which Tina described herself as paranoid were associated with her children. She would not allow her children to play in the bush behind their home. Her husband slept on a couch so that she could be close to their baby at night. She awoke frequently to listen to her baby breathing. She worried when her children were out of sight. Her anxiety was also associated with motherhood. It is possible that that the words "paranoid" and "anxiety" represented the same meme in this instance, and the decision to code the two as separate memes was subjectively based on the understanding that Tina had previously been diagnosed as having an Anxiety Disorder, therefore part of her self-definition was someone who suffers from this condition. At the time of this study, she was no longer taking medication or counselling for anxiety. When she recognized panic symptoms, she would go into a separate room and talk or will herself out of it. Thus her anxiety was also associated with her sense of empowerment.
The second most referenced meme in Tina's map is "wife," and connections were formed between it and memes for budgeter, cleaner and open-minded. She admitted to "spoiling" her husband:
"My best friend... lives on the farm, she grows her own grain, makes her own butter,
makes her own bread, takes care of her man, stuff like that. I like doing that. I just won't
let my husband touch my vacuum cleaner; I like cooking for him. I don't think he's ever
done laundry. I just enjoy doing that for him. I enjoy cleaning and taking care of my
household. My best friend... thinks I spoil (her husband) too much, and I know I do, and
she says that makes him lazy, and I know it does, but I don't care."
"Wife" is also connected to the interpretive or thematic codes "Family Person" and
"Love." These two themes with their surrounding memes were presented as the core of who she was. Tina reported that she places considerable pressure on her self as a result of her status as a family member and the importance she places on that role. The presence of connected
"budgeter," "cleaner" and "mediator" memes suggested that for her just being is not enough, there are behavioral roles associated with being a family member that must be fulfilled.
The "mother" meme is also connected to the interpretive or thematic code "Decent
Person." It seemed to be of considerable importance to Tina that she sees herself as such a person, and the fact that she takes the duties associated with motherhood seriously marks her as a decent person. The meme that is most closely associated with the theme "Decent Person," however, is "open-minded." It was coded for just five segments but had associative connections with seven adjoining memes. For example, Tina has the role of mediator in her family of origin 123 because she can see alternative points of view, a quality that she defined as part of being a decent person. This quality of being open-minded leads her to care for and befriend people of minority status. It has led her to be against stereotyping, and this "anti-stereotyping" meme led her to defend students who have been stereotyped negatively by teachers. She also defended gays and lesbians from negative stereotyping. She said being open-minded enhanced her ability to "get along with" her husband. It also contributes to her belief in education, and although she does not have a lot of formal education, she read extensively and made education a priority with her children. The link between "mother" and "education" was missed on this initial self-map but was included in a subsequent version.
Self as animator. Another center in Tina's self-map was that of being an animator defined by Tina as someone who gets things done. This meme was only mentioned explicitly in two segments, but it was implied in her self-characterizations as being "stubborn," a "budgeter," and as being a self-directed learner. The capacity for self-animation implies the interpretive theme
"Empowerment" which, as we have seen, may be connected to her meme "anxiety."
Tina's Second interview
Tina was shown her initial memetic self-map on May 8, 2007, three months after her initial interview. Her initial reaction was that it was a good representation of who she is. While looking at that map, she mentioned that she is a "yeller." Her children listen to her husband when he talks normally, but that she has to yell for them to listen. In response to this information, I added a meme "yeller" to her memetic map which was attached to "mother." I considered merely adding this as a descriptor of what it means to be a mother, but I obtained the sense from Tina that this is not how she would define mother. Tina said that she was different, in some ways, from our interview three months earlier.
She said she was not as paranoid as she used to be, and that she was no longer trying to please everybody. Tina said she was giving her husband chores at home, and he was helping out with things like laundry, and she allows him to do the laundry in his own way. She noted that her husband had begun bottle-feeding their baby. These changes, and her new capacity to say "no" allowed her more time to relax, and she realized that she never had time to do so before. She said she is now working part-time to help out with finances, and this has forced her to get up earlier resulting in her having breakfast with her eldest son. He told her, "I like it when you have breakfast with me mom." This led her to realize she had been sleeping in, partly because she had been "a little depressed." She also said she cried during her recent birthday. She had worked "so hard" to make everyone else's birthday special, but she had to buy her own birthday cake and make her own food.
Additional empowerment. As a result of this new information, we added memes for "self changer" and "assertive" to Tina's self-map with "self changer" connected to "animator,"
"mother," and "wife." This indicated that she felt empowered to make changes to her roles as mother and wife. Dotted lines were used to indicate connections with "wife" and "assertive" indicating that these changes were at a preliminary stage, in her estimation. A dotted line between "self changer" and "assertive" was used to indicate that she still relapses into non- assertive behavior, as indicated by her response to the failure of her family to adequately remember her birthday. We added a meme for "pleaser" indicating that she takes care of others' needs but often neglects her own, and we attached this meme to "Decent Person" as the core of this tendency to please others is the feeling that she is a good person when she engages in this behavior. This was connected to "assertive" (with a dotted line) because Tina appears to have recognized the implications of at least some of this behavior, and she was taking some steps to ensure her needs are recognized and met. These changes, along with others made as a result of this second interview, are shown on Tina's amended self-map (Figure 4).
The addition of emotion. Figure 4 reflects increasing complexity in Tina's self-map with the most striking addition being an emotive element beyond that afforded by the memes themselves. This addition resulted from Tina's discussion about how she handles anxiety attacks.
She admitted that she could not take her children to a mall because of social anxiety, yet she said she does not like the way she feels on medication because she "should be feeling everything."
With further questioning she said, "Because that is part of life. To feel is part of life.... That's who I am." Tina said that a repertoire of emotions such as "sad, happy, mad, confused, distant," are necessary to feel human. "People are supposed to feel to learn, to grieve, to feel excitement," she added. Tina admitted to bouts of depression and guilt that prevents other emotions from surfacing. When these emotions are overpowering, she hides from others and attempts to generate positive thinking. The repertoire of accessible human emotions is represented by a bar at the bottom of Tina's self-map with green arrows flowing to and through various memes that are frequently triggered, or in turn trigger, these emotions. A second bar is represented above the base bar representing the depression and guilt that block other emotions. A yellow line is drawn from that bar to the "self-changer" meme indicating that when she is depressed her capacity for self-change is diminished. A new meme: "hider of negative feelings" was added, connected to
"pleaser." 126
gay Jrtenib rule player
btatMiiit- lit •MtfrH,!IIlg it)
/ eduuUioa X open \ |
tjeamer {4fvar
lmjspetjdcttt BdfcftJ;
I mjiowered
ujil J pre, n i
Figure 5: Revised Memetic map of Tina resulting from her second interview 127
Additional self-disclosure. Subsequent to this discussion of feelings, Tina said she was bi sexual, and she thinks more like a guy than like a woman. She finds that "straight" women are judgmental and controlling while men are more accepting of her. She added that lesbians are easier to get along with than straight women because, "they know who I am." She has to play a role with straight women and generally, "I have to be different around different people." Her husband has not been jealous of her male friends, but he has been jealous of a female friend. Tina said her sexuality contributed to her open-mindedness. She added, "When me and (her husband) did our vows we made sure that 'faithful' was not in there because that's not realistic." Her husband has had sex with a female friend with her approval, but she said that if he was to lie and sneak around, that would "break my heart." As a result of this discussion we added a "bi-sexual" meme to Tina's map with connections to "guy friends," "open-minded," "role-player," and "anti- stereotyping." We added "role-player" to the self-map connected to being bi-sexual. The meme
"open-minded" was elaborated to include reference to an open marriage.
Tina was invited to elaborate on her self-description as "stubborn." She replied, "I like my house in a certain way; it's my way or the highway." Tina believes her children are a reflection on her, and they have to be well mannered. She blames when people do not live up to her expectations. As a result of this elaboration, we moved the meme "stubborn" to a somewhat more central location in her self-map and added a directional arrow from "stubborn" to "blamer" indicating a tendency to blame when she does not get her way.
Tina was invited to elaborate on her notion that having children had profoundly changed her twice. She was asked if there was anything that happened in her childhood that led to this value of placing her newborn's needs so much in the forefront. Tina replied, "Before I had kids it was all about me. I didn't care about anyone else. I learned it wasn't about me - it was about him. If I didn t take care of him no one else would." When reminded that not all women change their lifestyle when they discover that they are pregnant, Tina said that she did not want her children on welfare and dropping out of school. She said she was lucky that she came from a good family that valued children. As a result of this discussion, we incorporated the idea that a mother who values her children is both a loving and a decent person by drawing connections between these memes.
When invited to share new thoughts or feelings, or ways of seeing herself as a result of developing her self-map Tina replied, "After the first interview my head was so clear. It was relaxing. I was clear-headed for a good two days after that." She went on to say that she realized that different things made her who she was.
In answer to the question, "Does looking at this map of yourself lead you to think of changes that you would want to make to your self?" Tina replied, "I am going to spend more time on me and not try so hard to make everyone else around me happy." She said she plans to become more assertive, to say "No" more and to take relaxing baths, "For at least 15 minutes."
She started working and said she likes bringing money into the house and buying things with her own money. She added that the guilt she feels when she relaxes, and the fact that relaxing reminds her of depression, inhibits these changes.
Tina's Third Interview
This session occurred on September 8, 2007, exactly seven months after the first session and four months after the second. Tina suggested that the revised map "pretty much" summarized who she is, and that she had no new thoughts or feelings associated with the map which she described as "pretty cool." She said she hasn't changed, despite the fact that she was now pregnant with her fourth child, and she said that she is the same person she has "always been." As a result of her pregnancy, she was seeking a transfer to a less demanding job, and she and her husband were looking for a bigger house. Her pregnancy led her husband to taking on more chores. She explained with a smile, "When I'm pregnant I get spoiled." She anticipated, however, that with the birth of her new baby she will have less time for herself.
Tina said that the process of participating in this research had neither empowered nor disempowered her, but she had always considered herself an empowered person. The process of this research made her think about who she is and how she sees herself. It made her think about things she wanted to change, such as having negative feelings, being a blamer, being paranoid and being a smoker. On the other hand, she was aware of these negatives before the research and would have likely been working to change them anyway. She said the positive things about her included being a wife, a mother and a cleaner, and while she is proud of these things, "you can always do better." She said no further changes to her self-map were necessary.
Trevor
Trevor was a single Amerindian male in his twenties. He had no children and was employed full-time as an addictions worker.
Trevor's First Interview
Trevor's first interview, March 20, 2007, produced 13 pages of single spaced transcript that was then divided into 110 segments. Thirty-eight memes were identified as applicable to these segments, and they were applied a total of 145 times. Some segments were coded for more than one meme. Memes appearing in the same segment were considered connected unless the participant was contrasting those memes. Memes that referred to other memes explicitly or implicitly in their referent, connotative, affective or behavioral dimensions were also considered connected. The memes along with the number of segments that were applied to each meme (in 130 brackets), and the connections with other memes were placed in a memetic self- map reproduced in Figure 5.
Figure 6: Memetic map of Trevor resulting from the segmentation and coding of his initial interview showing the number segments coded for each meme (in brackets)
Retrospective narrative construction. There is no clear starting point in Trevor's memetic self-map, or perhaps there are numerous potential starting points. Someone with a strong sense of chronological order might start with the gender roles he learned in childhood taking care of two 131 younger siblings in a small Saskatchewan city while his elders drank. An essentialist might start with the core of who he is, an empowered person whose sense of self-worth is tied being active.
A psychologist might be tempted to start with "self-esteem," coded for more segments than any other meme (10) on his self-map. I started with the interpretive or thematic code "Rememberer" because Trevor talked about himself in storied form, and the stories he recounted seemed to provide meaning and direction. In the following exchange Trevor talked about how the memories become "learnings" that ground him in who he is:
Lloyd: What is in you that stays the same?
Trevor: What is in me that stays the same? I think that what it is, and actually I had a
discussion about this with one of my friends, she was actually an ex-streetworker, and she
has changed her life around, was the experiences, the experiences stay the same I think.
Lloyd: So do you mean the memories are the same, you know its you because, you have
the same memories of, of your growing up last year as you do this year?
Trevor: Not only that, it's there, but also what you learnt, the learnings.
Lloyd: The learnings?
Trevor: Ya! Ya know, it's like a little kid learning to walk. He's still a little kid, just
because he can walk does not mean he is any different. He can expand on it, right, and
you can expand on and add things on to it, maybe he will run, maybe he will jump,
maybe he'll skip, swim or bike. It all adds on to it, but it's still the same.
Nine segments of the initial interview were coded for the meme "learner." Much of
Trevor's learning is informal and introspective: "I learned about myself from myself. And I often quite thought something that I say quite often, 'It's a shame that our eyes are always looking outward, because we'll find real answers inside ourselves." "Learner" is connected to the development of beliefs and an empowering ability to act on those beliefs:
I am a drum keeper, a pow-wow drum, and ya know, my Indian name is 'Against the
Wind' and that. I got that name when I was young, and what that meant was I was always
going against some beliefs; I would be strong enough to stand up for what I believe,
basically.
There is another, but possibly related, interpretation on how Trevor received his Indian name:
The whole reason why I got that name was because my Uncle , who is not a
traditional native guy, observed me when I was kid, and I would always piss against the
wind. And that is how I got my name, and that's pretty much who I am. It's more like, ya
know, I am more stand-up. That's why I enjoy my work. I feel there is a need for my HIV
work up here, is because it's not a popular thing, people don't like talking about it.
Individuality. Trevor said that everyone is unique in the way they experience and interpret events, and that is what gives us our individuality. Given the direction provided him by his Indian name, it is perhaps not surprising that Trevor has incorporated a meme into his self that we labelled "unique experiencer." Trevor said that he welcomes new experiences, such as this research, and he welcomes the opportunities to change himself that come with these unique experiences. He remembered being the child of an alcoholic with the result that he became both
"cautious" and a potential alcoholic. By identifying himself as a "potential alcoholic," Trevor consciously works to ensure that he does not become a practicing alcoholic. He related this to his self-identification as an addictions worker. He said being an addictions worker "was me trying 133 make sense of myself and my childhood." He added, "I noticed patterns of my life where I would go out with alcoholics, and there are things I wanted to address."
Categorizing self-esteem as a meme. Trevor's "cautious" meme includes a tendency to discount other peoples' compliments, a trait associated with low self-esteem. He associated caution with both introversion and with being single, and his unhappiness with these two aspects of himself led him to examine his own self-esteem. While "self-esteem" might not ordinarily be thought of as a meme, in this case it represents the quality of feeling positive about oneself, and it is something that Trevor has worked on frequently by drawing on his Indian name, using positive affirmations, and by challenging himself to attempt new behaviors. Trevor said he made
"self-esteem" into part of who he is to diminish the effects of those parts of his self that are self- critical or cautious. As a youth and young adult Trevor bolstered his self-esteem through his involvement in martial arts, but more recently he has worked on accepting compliments and in engendering pride in both his accomplishments and in who he is.
Punishing wrong-doers. A "Self-evaluation" theme was added to Trevor's self-map touching on self-esteem but including positive and negative connotation and affect in a variety of other memes including "cautious," "arrogant," "self-critical," "loves kids," and "human." He recognized an "intimidator" component related to his anger. In one example, he chased a "John" with a baseball bat. In another, he threatened a father who had hit his (the father's) child in a shopping mall. In his evaluation these methods of curbing the behavior of wrongdoers was ineffective and potentially self-defeating. He has since cultivated more subtle methods of intimidation.
Trevor traced the anger he has over people who abuse children and women to his childhood experience of protecting his younger siblings. He learned the roles of "man," 'protector, "parent" and "big brother" that were consistent with a gender role of "judge, jury and executioner." He found that he had to discard some parts of his gender role: "As a person, as a man, I had to relearn its okay to cry, its okay to laugh, its okay to be happy. You don't need to be this big stoic Indian."
Trevor's gender-based role as a protector of women and children led to a further self- identification: "I am a big Indian, and no one is really going to mess with a big Indian." This, in turn, led to an interest in his aboriginal heritage:
So then I thought, 'What's it mean to be Indian?' and I thought, 'warrior', so I did some
research, and I realized back in the old days we used to go on vision quests, so I went on
a vision quest, and that's where the answer to that question came from, was when I went
on a vision quest.
Trevor embraced Taoism as well as aboriginal spirituality. He said he learns from both traditions, and these learnings guide his behaviors and relationships with others.
On becoming more human. Trevor has a history of dating women who were drug abusers, and one such woman left a memory and learning on the nature of being human. She was on prescribed medication for a mood disorder, but she stopped taking her medication. As Trevor recalled, "Those pills were stabilizing her mood but that's not what she wanted. Many times she told me that she stopped taking the pills because she wanted to feel something; she wanted to feel human and those pills did not allow her to do that."
Trevor befriended prostitutes to help them "be able to feel again, being able to think about things other than their addiction." He saw even their lies as signs of progress toward humanness "because one has to feel something such as fear in order to prompt the lie."
Eventually he decided that it was not his job to help female alcoholics and street-workers find 135 their humanity, but the theme remained: Being human has to do with feeling, including protective feelings that justify intervention, and without normal feelings then one isn't fully human. The traditional male role is not fully human because it restricts the expression of feeling, while dependency on drugs necessarily negates a quality of humanness for the same reason.
Being human also includes a capacity to act and to engage in social relationships with others.
Thus relationships may confirm one's humanity with the result that Trevor felt incomplete when single.
Trevor's attempts to restore the humanity of others may be seen as the reflection of a powerful urge toward animating solutions to problems. This meme "animator" is also reflected in his attempts at self-change, his preoccupation with monitoring and improving his self-esteem, his behavior associated with his anger, his advocacy for youth, and his pride in his accomplishments at work. A meme for self-directed learning completes a circle of who he is with an animator meme at its core. His drive toward doing led me to label a meme, evidenced by his behavior in performing "guerrilla theater" on a doctor to illustrate that doctor's over-prescription of drugs to aboriginal people, as "aboriginal activist." This was not a term Trevor had used, but it was one that he embraced in our second interview.
Trevor's Second Interview
Trevor said the inclusion of the meme "aboriginal activist" in his self-map "was almost prophetic" because, although he would have not given himself that label at the time of our initial interview 2.5 months previously, he had become politically active in the interim at both the band and community levels. "Aboriginal activist" was a label I suggested for a constellation of factors that included referent, connotative, affective and behavioral components (see Appendix H) flowing from some actions and his interpretations of those actions. In one case, for example, 136
Trevor recalled visiting a doctor with ambiguous complaints to see if he would be prescribed anti-depressant medication. His interpretation, which in part flowed from his involvement with a woman who resisted such medication, was that doctors over-prescribe to treaty Indians. Trevor had not been aware of the "aboriginal activist" label until our second interview. He now said his activism, based on the need to eliminate poverty, "was like igniting a fire that keeps me focussed on something bigger than myself."
Trevor's general reaction to his initial memetic self-map was, "It's an awesome picture... damn good in fact." He said his self is constantly changing, and since the first interview he had been developing his arts - guitar, poetry, and song writing - to a greater level than before. His writing was from an "activist" perspective, critical of society and greed. His "singleness" also changed as he was now dating, but he was worried that his new girlfriend drinks and uses drugs.
He said that he was not as cautious as he had been earlier in the year, as was evidenced by his dating and his activism. He said the overweight meme, which fairly reflected his view of himself
2.5 months ago, was no longer self-representative. After some negotiation he suggested the word
"big" more fairly represented his current representation of himself.
A developmental transition. It seemed that "Rememberer," "activist," "empowerment / animator," and "caring" had all converged to create a new meme, "artist" within Trevor's self.
Directional arrows from the initiating centers were added to show this relationship. In addition, the meme "single" was changed to "dating," but this was flagged to indicate that he still views himself as single and is not sure about the longer-term nature of this dating relationship. Dotted lines connecting "single / dating" to "child of alcoholic" and "cautious" are used to indicate the changing relationship between these memes. A new directional connection between "dating" and
"self-esteem" was used to indicate his dating had a positive effect on his self-esteem, and the 137 meme was moved to recognize its relationship to "Humanness." We changed the name of the
"overweight" meme to "big," and we changed the connection between "big" and "cautious" to a dashed line indicating change was happening to that connection. These changes are among the revisions added to Trevor's second self-map (Figure 7).
Figure 7: Revised memetic map of Trevor resulting from his second interview Humanness and emotion. Trevor said it was important to validate himself as a human being by being in a relationship. He said street-workers also need relationships to validate their humanity, but they are prevented from doing so by the nature of their occupation. They cannot allow themselves to feel in their sexual relationships and they cannot allow themselves to trust people "on the street." Denying or repressing their human emotions, they become less human in some important sense. People who are prescribed mood-modifying drugs are inhibited chemically in their capacity to feel. Trevor added that male gender-roles restrict men's capacity to feel emotions, and this also restricts their humanity. Trevor developed his humanness by recognizing and choosing to experience his emotions.
"Humanness" presented as a theme in this interview that impacted or triggered a number of memes in his self-constellation. As a result, a "Humanness" theme was added to Figure 6 that circles his self-map. "Humanness" had already been present as an interpretive code, but the beige directional arrow flowing from it incorporates the idea that this is a theme that serves to bind a variety of aspects of his self with particular emphasis on emotive and behavioral components within "protector," "big," "child of alcoholic," "dating," "artist" and "caring."
Refinement of social interest. Trevor's animating impulse led him to attempt to redress perceived wrongs with such aggression that he described himself as "capable of being an asshole." Recognizing that his behavior in using his size, training and arrogance to intimidate others was a denial of their humanity and his own, Trevor decided to modify his behavior. This decision indicates his "self-changer" and "learner" components to his self may over-rule initial intimidator tendencies and further suggests self-empowerment.
Trevor advised that he had become more of a political activist at the band and community levels over the 2.5-month period between first and second interviews. The "aboriginal activist" meme was made more central by adding connections to "empowerment," "artist," and "self- changer." His interest in eliminating poverty was added to his definition of this "aboriginal activist" meme.
Trevor's Third Interview
Trevor said his second self-map (Figure 7) was an accurate reflection of who he was. He said he had not realized how complex he was, and looking at the map helped him focus on areas that he would like to re-visit such as Taoism, "big," "introvert," and his gender roles. A number of events had happened to his life during the three-month period from the second interview that challenged his thinking about his own mortality. He was in a serious auto accident, his uncle stabbed his father with a knife, and his grandmother became sick. Trevor said he appreciated being human even more, and he became less cautious with increased awareness that the time one has to do and accomplish is finite. He said what we, as humans, really "own" is our feelings and experiences, and these must be successfully cultivated during our limited time. He said he views himself as being a part of humanity and, "it is more important to exist rather than figure out why
I am here."
While his father was in hospital unconscious from stab wounds, Trevor told him that he forgave him for being "a lousy father," and that he loved him. He thought his father heard this because now their relationship is better with father-son bonding occurring. Trevor said he had been very angry with his uncle, but later he thought, "If a tiger attacked a deer would you blame the tiger?" He explained his analogy by observing that his uncle was an alcoholic and an illicit drug user, and his father was trying to get him to "sober up." His uncle's reaction was the reaction of an alcoholic and a drug user, not a fully human person. Although he still could not trust his uncle to act humanely, Trevor moved beyond his initial rage. Trevor was hospitalized following an auto accident, and the woman he had been dating visited to ask him for money. This led to Trevor re-evaluating and ending their relationship. He formed the opinion that she was using him as an enabler in her abuse of alcohol and other drugs.
Trevor said the relationship served to get him "out of his shell" and he was, by this third interview, seeing another woman who did not drink and who seemed "to fit the bill." He said he is now looking for commonalities in a relationship and asked, "If you have nothing to talk about what's the point of being in a relationship?" Reflecting on this he said alcoholic women would
"come on" to him, and he mistook this for interest in him. They came to him "like a bee to honey," and he had been attempting "to use honey to attract butterflies."
Trevor said there was a time when he was very young that he was disempowered, but as a child he sometimes gave adults "the illusion" they wanted, if it served his purposes. He said he remembered being intimidated by his teachers in early grade school, but then in grade 4 and 5 he started to "become bad" to find out what he could do and what limits there might be to his rebelliousness. Trevor said participating in this research had made him more able to make changes in himself because seeing "the map" helped him visualize possible changes. He explained, "I look at it. I go home. I live, but I think the map is in my head, and I think that maybe I should not see myself as a big intimidator."
John Blonde
John Blonde (JohnB) was a Caucasian male in his fifties in a common-law marriage to an aboriginal woman. He was also the father of an adult child. His ancestors emigrated from
Germany to Canada and settled in a German-Catholic community in Saskatchewan. He was employed in a professional capacity. 141
John Blonde's First Interview
Racism led to questioning Catholicism. JohnB began by talking about racism as it affects aboriginal people. He suggested that young children are open to playing with anyone, but they may learn racist stereotyping from their families and schools as had happened to him growing up in a "typical German-Catholic community". This was JohnB's only reference to his German heritage, but eight out of a total of 79 interview segments were coded "Catholic". His stance against racism appeared to be a theme that affected much what he did, and it was related negatively to his Catholic upbringing. In high school he had his first experience knowing a non- white, non-Catholic person, and this experience led him to question the church's teachings:
If you're not Catholic you can't get to heaven; maybe some Anglicans have a shot at it
but no one else could. How the church has almost maintained its power is through
ignorance; and a lot of people, they just followed it, because the priest, the pope was
infallible.
Challenging the church's authority over spiritual matters led to a more general life theme,
"Challenger of authority" which was seen in the memes: "cynical", "inquisitive" and
"independent thinker." This progression from German-Catholic to "Challenger of authority" is pictured in Figure 8.
"Independent thinking" was a focus of as many segments (8) as "Catholic." JohnB recalled that when he was in the first grade his mother, who was a caretaker at the school, would periodically break into the school records to see how he was achieving in relation to the other students. If he wasn't at the top of the class, he would be given extra lessons at home. He told his mother, "That's wrong and you're telling me not to lie, and not to break into things and not to 142 steal but you are doing it." She replied that her focus on his education made it different, but he did not agree.
Figure 8: Memetic map of John Blonde resulting from the segmentation and coding of his initial interview showing the number segments coded for each meme (in brackets)
Developing self-empowerment. JohnB was born with a clubfoot. Despite accepting the label "cripple," he drove himself to overcome his physical limitations in sports, thus displaying a competitive spirit associated with an initial sense of empowerment. Sixteen segments of the transcribed interview were coded for "animator." Although initially this animator meme was 143 associated with challenging church and parental authority and with becoming a competitor in sports, later it also became associated with social activism and self-change. He introduced non- native friends to aboriginal people to overcome negative racial stereotyping. He pursued education as a means to self-empowerment. He set out to overcome his natural shyness. In the course of this animation, he found that he played different roles in different situations. Although this may be thought of as empowering, it also gave him the sense that who he is, is contextually dependent. Since he appeared to be different in different contexts, JohnB worried that there was no real person behind his animator self, that in some sense he was non-existent. Feelings connected to these thoughts may have contributed to the depression he felt in one part of his life.
JohnB found that at work he played a different role than in social situations. As a supervisor of others, he was placed in an authoritative role requiring him to direct, educate and evaluate with competence. Conversely, he described himself as "a social idiot," and he avoided being with people when not at work often to the point of not answering his telephone. Low social self-esteem is pictured in Figure 8 as connected to evasiveness and being a shy.
JohnB developed an anti-racist theme to his life early, and one of the ways this theme manifest in his self-definition was in community development. His attempt to educate non- aboriginal friends about the native condition is pictured as part of the meme "aboriginal activist," but he also defined himself as a multicultural activist:
The value system that I have is everyone should have a right to their own religion, to their
own beliefs to their own culture, and as a matter of fact I value that as being Canadian,
because we always say we're a mixing pot, well lets start showing it. Let's start showing
compassion. JohnB's activism on aboriginal issues and his community development efforts suggested an impulse toward compassion and caring. Six segments were coded for caring, and the meme was presented next to a more general theme labelled "Empathetic." His roles as a mentor and as a person concerned with the social environment of aboriginal people ("social environmentalist - abor.") were thus linked.
Resolving a spiritual quest. JohnB's appreciation of aboriginal spirituality was connected to his Catholic upbringing. He reasoned, "If anything, maybe the aboriginal is purer in that they don't have the big cathedrals, and they don't have the pope and the governing structure and all of it. So I think it has in some sense a purer spirituality." In JohnB's understanding aboriginal spirituality involved the belief in a god known as "The Creator," but this is really the same god as is worshipped by Christians. He suggested that Christianity represents a corrupted form of aboriginal spirituality:
I think where Christianity has gone astray is that we have fell from... going way back
hundreds of years, when Christianity went across Europe basically raping, plundering,
pillaging, they say Christianity was basically a land grab, but Christians even from the
beginning of time, have been very powerful, have ruled with money, with power over
people. I don't think like that was the intent at the beginning of it, that it was people that
took the power on and became very corrupt much like governments, and that is missing
from aboriginal spirituality.
JohnB continued to refer to himself as a Catholic, but he defined his spirituality by connecting with nature and through mystical experiences in aboriginal ceremonies such as the sweat lodge: 145
It seems strange that a little white boy is going to sweats, and jokingly I call them spooks
and I'm going, 'Oh, they are back in there, the spooks like me' but the spirits seem to
come to me always more than even aboriginal people.
John Blonde's Second Interview
JohnB reviewed his self-map two months and 10 days after the initial interview. He agreed that his beginning was centered on the German-Catholic side of the draft self-map (Figure
8), and that he became a challenger of authority subsequent to that beginning, and these elements eventually evolved into his worker-social self. He added that the items on the right side of the map (e.g., Catholic, crippled), followed by items on the left (e.g., work), "pushed" the center (the animator-empowered core) to happen. He suggested there already is a chronology in the map, and there are three or four selves are contained in the map with him reverting to a particular
"self dependent on context. He agreed with the suggestion that the empowered center seems to unite the other selves.
Multiple selves. As a result of this insight selves 1, 2 and 3 were added to represent the different "persons" JohnB presents in different contexts with the core "animator-empowered" complex common to all three (see Figure 9). The notation that this core would not have developed without the first two "selves" was added to JohnB's animator meme (see Appendix I). 146
Rememberer
C-JL>
c0mmmv Individualizing memes. JohnB said the fact of his German ancestry did not influence his affect or behavior with the result that "German" was eliminated as a meme. Given that memetic self-maps represent a changing self at a particular time, and given that JohnB did not believe in much Catholic dogma, it was possible that the meme "Catholic" should also not appear on his self-map. When asked why he had referred to himself as a Catholic, JohnB said he still viewed himself as a kind of generalized Christian who believes that Aboriginal Spirituality is closer to original Christian teachings, but he had used the term "Catholic" reflexively because that is how he was raised. One interpretation of this conversation is that JohnB made a mistake, and the meme coded "Catholic" should be given a different label. Such an interpretation would flow from an assumption that there are meanings essential to certain terms, and that to be a Catholic one must believe in, for example, the infallibility of the popes. Another interpretation is that the meme which has been labelled "Catholic" in JohnB's self evolved, but that the label remained. He spontaneously thinks of himself as a Catholic with the understanding that early Christianity is compatible with modern aboriginal spirituality. Following this second interpretation, "Catholic" remained a meme in JohnB's self-map, but its connotative meaning was amended to include the idea of a generalized primal Christianity. Disputing a connotation of shyness. Eight segments of the initial interview were coded "shy," but JohnB said this over-represented its importance as to who he was at the time of the interviews. He became far less shy as he grew older, but the fact of his shyness was mentioned a number of times because it had an important effect on his development in a variety of areas. It was explained that the number of times a meme is mentioned is not directly correlated to the importance or centrality that meme may have, although it is true that often those parts of the self that are mentioned more frequently have more felt importance at the time of the discussion. While the number of connections between "shy" and other memes on the map (5) seemed to imply a centrality that is no longer accurate, JohnB's shyness was still apparent in his social and work situations. He said, for example, that he feels more comfortable in smaller, more intimate groups. To represent a decrease in shyness over time, broken lines replaced solid links between "shy" and three memes that no longer evidence shyness to the degree to which it once occurred. The connections with empowerment remained solid in the revised self-map because it was JohnB s own sense of empowerment that allowed him control over his shyness. The solid link between "shy" and JohnB's "caring-empathetic" core remained because it was through the memory of his shyness that he connects with, and sometimes defends, people who are themselves overly shy. Un-meming frustration. JohnB also objected to the coding of "frustrated" as a meme. Three segments had been coded "frustrated" from our initial interview. Two of these segments referred to his becoming frustrated when attempting to improve his community, and the third involved encounters with arrogant people. He said he was not a frustrated person, but he would sometimes become frustrated in certain situations, and he elaborated that this occurred when he was challenging authority and when he was defending aboriginal rights. He suggested that "frustration" was not a behavioral trait but a personality trait. "Frustration" was not a meme, by which he defined himself, but an emotion he sometimes felt in certain contexts, therefore it was eliminated as a meme in the second version of his self-map. His notion that frustration is related to personality traits suggested that a menu of emotions were embedded in his personality. A bar representing the emotions that he highlighted was added to the base of his self in Figure 9. Diffuse arrows were then drawn connecting these emotive options to memes that may elicit an emotive response. The missing meme of competitiveness. JohnB said "competitiveness" was missing from his self-map. He suggested that he has always had this quality, and that it shows up in sports, recreation and social events. His competitiveness even enters into his community involvement, and his frustration is tied to people not "jumping on board." He added that he has competed in sports throughout his life, and sports continue to play a role in his life. As a result of this information, memes for "competitive" and "sports" were added to his revised self-map. Elaborating spirituality. I noted that JohnB had not mentioned spirituality until I asked, at the end of our first interview, "Is there any else that you can add that would help in letting me know who you are? Is there anything we've missed?" I asked if he reflexively hid his spirituality from all but his closest friends. He replied "True," and added, "I need to see closeness to share it. Unless people know me very well, they don't get into my inner bubble." I concluded from this that spirituality appears to be a theme that originates on the Aboriginal Spiritualist / theist / storyteller side of his mind and directly influences his activism and animator centers without always being apparent to others. A "spirituality" thematic code was added to JohnB's self map with a thematic line of a different color emanating from it to indicate that, while present, it is not always visible to those with whom he interacts. JohnB's spirituality contained many references to nature, and he said (in our first interview) that he sometimes likes nature more than he likes people. He elaborated in this interview that people can get very frustrating "because they have the ability to think and to stand you up." He said nature is "somewhat predictable," and violence in nature, as in a storm, can be beautiful, but violence in people is "quite ugly." He added that it is easier to see yourself as part of a bigger process, if in awe of nature. This idea of identifying with something that is transcendent was incorporated within JohnB's conceptualization of aboriginal spirituality. Developing social interest. JohnB said he would like to have all his thoughts and experiences and be 30. He clarified he would not want to be younger if it meant losing those experiences. One of the things he would change in himself, if he could, would be the art of being able to influence people more with respect to community development. He said community development is becoming more of a passion, and he shared the hope that other "boomers" will also want to work to make the world a better place. As a result of this portion of our discussion, "Rembemberer" was expanded to be a thematic code as well as a meme to JohnB's self-map. John Blonde's Third Interview While noting his revised self-map (Figure 9) is complex and difficult to follow, JohnB said "it captures everything." When asked if he had any new insights as to who he was, he said, "I thought that was your role!" He said he is biased when it comes to who he is, and by asking others one would get a different perspective. He had no new insights and no new changes happened to him since the second interview four months previous. JohnB said growing up in rural Saskatchewan influenced his development because children in his day had to make their own entertainment. For him this meant frequent hikes into the bush. Nature then became something he cherished and he was predisposed by his childhood to living in a small community surrounded by nature. During the second interview JohnB said his animator core had developed from "challenger of authority" and "worker" themes. When asked to talk about a time when he did not have such an animator core, he said growing up in a rural community whose structure is based on authority leads to poor self-confidence, withdrawal and shyness and feelings of disempowerment. He added, "Then you get your job and you have no choice but to develop that (sense of empowerment)." He said he did not know from where that "spark" comes that leads some to question authority. JohnB reported no change in his ability to developmentally change his self as a result of his participation in this research. He felt the map reflects who he thinks he is, but he would be more interested in my perspective. He said he was also interested in comparing his self with others in the final report. 151 Judy Judy was in her fifties, a widowed mother of one and a career civil servant nearing retirement. Her mother was aboriginal from a Metis community in Saskatchewan while her father was non-native. She was raised in Alberta. Judy's First Interview In her initial interview, February 21, 2007, Judy described herself as responsible, mature, fun, kind, friendly, loyal, smart, and a pet lover. Further discussion revealed that each of these descriptors involved decision-making. Decision-making implies a decision maker, and I asked her if the decision maker changes over time, how she knows it is still her. She replied it is a feeling that it is still her, and the decisions that she makes "feel right." I surmised that a "Feeling of Me" formed the basis of who Judy is, and this is represented as a bar at the base of Figure 10. From this base flows a sense of decision-making empowerment, and this sense of empowerment leads to animation. Five out of 68 segments were coded for the meme "animator." In total 31 memetic codes were used 91 times. Two memes in conflict. "Animator" implies a sense of empowerment, but Judy also talked about her life having been partly a product of environmental forces driving her in particular directions. For example, "worker" was mentioned in seven segments, but she felt that early experiences forced her into a particular career path. There is a tension, therefore, between the two memes "animator" and "environmentally driven," and this tension was represented in this map as an orange arrow with arrowheads pointing in both directions. Both memes were flagged to represent the idea that neither is operative all of the time. reeling ot Me ,..,IIMI.^„I.,J..I.^ ill Figure 10: Memetic map of Judy resulting from the segmentation and coding of her initial interview showing the number segments coded for each meme (in brackets) "Animator" also appeared to be a theme in Judy's life affecting or being part of such memes as "self-changer," "intelligent," "reflective" and "independent thinker." She said intelligence "gives me some ability to do what I want. It gives me a more interesting life, and it's probably not for everybody, but it gives me some ability to understand what's going on around me, and I value it." This theme was represented by a grey directional arrow emanating from "animator." The importance of remembering. Judy talked about herself as a rememberer in six segments, but the theme of remembering seemed to permeate her entire self. By remembering reflectively, she said, we can gain an understanding of who we are and why. This helps her to become resilient when facing life's challenges. One becomes more mature as one collects experiences, and this allowed her to become more of a family person. Her memories of interactions with people in poverty led her to become a social activist. Her memories helped her establish lasting friendships. Even the body, she said, develops memory from repeated use, as when neural pathways become entrenched. This general theme of memory is represented by three diffuse arrows emanating from "rememberer" and proceeding in different directions throughout Judy's self-map. The social self. A third theme represented in Judy's self-map is "Social Being." This theme was not also coded as a meme but was inferred from her discussion of contexts in which she is humorous, kind, a friend, a family person, a role player, a community member and a humanist. Defining herself as "the family connector," she saw herself as the person who brings family together socially. As a role player, she differentially applied skills such as levity, seriousness, and responsibility to various contexts with the purpose of enhancing the well-being of others. Judy also talked about what she is not. She is not severe. She would get feedback from her friends such as "When I first met you, you were really scary because you looked so severe," but she never accepted that definition of herself. Although she admitted to being non-expressive, especially in her younger years, she defined herself as friendly. As she has grown older, she has begun to show her friendliness more by becoming animated, making eye contact, smiling and talking more, so people will see "what has been inside all along." But she still has difficulty with small-talk: I hate the trivial. When people are, you know, in social gatherings and they are talking about silly nothing things, I can't do that. I am very bad at that. You know, if you want talk about something serious, I'm your man. If you want to talk about TV... its pointless. I'm not a good social chit-chatterer. Defining herself by what she is not. Despite having experienced a successful career spanning decades in which she rose to management positions, Judy did not define herself as a social worker. She does not always agree with how her job does things, and she finds the root causes of social ills to be broader than her profession appears willing to acknowledge. She said she had wanted to be an artist or a lawyer when she was younger, but she "fell into" social work as a young single-parent who needed an income. This is reflected in the meme "environmental driven" in her self-map. While acknowledging that she is "quite good at" her profession, she insisted that is not who she is. Judy is also not a "Catholic" despite being raised in the Roman Catholic Church and having attended a separate school taught by priests and nuns. She began questioning Roman Catholic teachings in grade 10 when a priest presented instructions, as church law, on how long and in what way couples could kiss each other. She remembered thinking, "This is crap," and she 155 thought that if this teaching was wrong, other church teachings may also be wrong. She decided she was the kind of person who needed evidence, as opposed to faith, to believe something, and she decided the very idea of a god was not logical. On the other hand, she had her daughter baptized soon after her birth in case she was wrong. Judy's Second Interview Defining herself by what she is not, continued. Judy had not described herself as Metis in our first interview. She explained she was "as Canadian as you can get." Although Judy's mother was from a Metis community in Saskatchewan, she did not identify as Metis because she wasn't raised in that community and was not assimilated into a Metis culture. She said people presumed she was Caucasian, but she has been open about her Metis heritage. She said, "Blood does not drive you. For me the Metis part is overwhelmed by a lot of things." She hoped it may someday be possible to simply define oneself as "Canadian." I added a "Canadian" meme attached to both "meaning-maker" and "reflective" on her self-map in Figure 11. Judy also said she would not define herself as a humanist. Although she had recently joined an association of humanists because they shared similar views, she found such labels to be unhelpful or misleading since some people do not know, or have a distorted view, of what a humanist is. The label of the meme was, therefore, changed to "non-theist." Her decision to join an organization of non-theists is represented in Figure 11 by her meme "community" to which the "non-theist" meme is connected. Defining her genuine self. Judy said she did not think she had changed in the five-month interval since our first interview. A constant with her is "genuine" which she defined as recognizing "the good, bad and indifferent within self." The idea of genuineness was added to her "Feeling of Me" base. She added that maturity involves knowing ones' self, believing in 156 ones' self, and in making an effort to relate to others in positive ways. These ideas were added to her "mature" meme. Social Being [ reding I*) Me iiKlmlmg a son-*: of being «hv« and thai lijure b a genuine peiAoii thai m4> be ih$ "Kind" had been added as a meme on Judy's initial self-map, but it had not been fully developed with connotative, affective and behavioral characteristics. Judy explained it was not a word she uses a lot because it is part of empathy and compassion; it does not mean a lot on its own. As a result of this information, "kind" was deleted as a meme. A review of her first interview revealed references to compassion in Judy's definitions of pet lover, friend, empathetic, caring and activist. "Compassion" was added to Judy's revised self-map as a theme uniting different aspects of her self and incorporating the idea of kindness. Judy had said she can be a "pain in the butt." In this interview she elaborated, "I would be a pain in the butt about things I believe in, things that people need to take into account but they don't." She described a conflict involving two supervisors who failed to acknowledge the situation with the result that resolution was impossible. She intervened to force a resolution. This "pain in the butt" dimension seemed to include elements of "caring" and "animator." As she brought this element of caring to her work, a link between "caring" and "work" was added. Childhood determinants of self. Judy had mentioned being "parentified" several times during our initial interview in reference to her having taken care of younger siblings in her family of origin. It was not added as a meme in the initial draft because it was not clear that this was a way that she defined herself - it may have only been a historical causal factor. During this session, she added that she tends to take a parental interest in the form of becoming protective toward people to whom she is not related. As a result of this conversation a new meme "parentified" was placed in her self-map connected to "responsible" and "environmentally driven" with the latter meme connected to "resilient." The direct link between "environmentally driven" and "responsible" was eliminated as it was not needed, the new meme "parentified" provides a mechanism whereby such a relationship may occur. The meme "single" was added and attached to "environmentally driven" after Judy explained that she preferred that term "single" to "widowed." Pleasure and meaning in life. While discussing her own mortality, Judy explained basic necessities, such as having a home, are important, but accumulated possessions would give her no pleasure at all. In answer to the supplementary question "What is important?" she answered: "Awareness that you are alive, that everything that happens is meaningful and that you have the opportunity to experience it. Fun is important but possessions are not." As a result of this interaction, "meaning maker" was added to her self-map and attached to "reflective." The sense of being alive was added to the baseline "feeling of me" upon which her self is built. Judy said the meme "humorous" was more important to her than was reflected by its being mentioned just once during the first interview. She explained, "It is something that I always enjoyed; then I recognized its power." As an example, she created a photograph of her shaking her finger with the caption: "Don't you think of putting your dishes there," and placed this in the staff coffee room. This proved to be an effective and inoffensive way to get employees to take responsibility for their dirty dishes. The power and utility of "humorous" was acknowledged by extending the "animator" theme to include "humorous." A directional arrow from "humorous" to the interpretive or thematic code "Social Being" was added with the implication that "humorous" becomes a quality associated with themes emanating from that code. Judy explained she has had more than three decades of experience in her profession, and she wants to give others the benefit of that experience, so they could then become proactive and make change faster. As a result of this insight the idea of using mentoring to further social goals was added to the definition of the "mentor" meme. Judy s Third Interview Judy reported no changes to her self since the second interview a month earlier. She had no new insights about who she is. She explained it is more difficult to say what you are, as opposed to what you do. For example, when people ask, "What do you do?" she finds it simpler to reply that she is a social worker, but then she added, "That is not me!" She said that no one wants to know her deeply, so an exercise such as this is useful in developing self-knowledge. Judy said the quality of self-empowerment was always present in her even though, as a child, she was encouraged to listen and do as she was told. When she was divorced, she discovered there were things that she did not know how to do, but she could learn to do them. She didn't remember a time when she felt overwhelmed, and she recalled that when she was 6, while berry-picking, she led an older girl who "fell to pieces" to safety during a hailstorm. Judy said the process of participating in this study reminded her that she is stronger than what she might sometimes think. She believes she has the resources to do what she wants to do, and her change from devout Catholic to non-theist reflected this. Her action in taking her grandchildren to a church to appreciate the music demonstrated, "I don't have to throw out everything. That which is beautiful I can appreciate." She defined herself, from this experience, as empowered as opposed to reactive. She said the self-map represents her, and it is somebody she wants to be. She finds the capacity for self-directed change empowering. No changes to Judy's self-map were effected as a result of the third interview. Pangloss Pangloss presented as a Caucasian stage-hand in his forties. He was in a common law marriage and had no children. He was a Canadian citizen born and raised in British Columbia but living and working in Alberta. 160 Pangloss' First Interview Pangloss' initial interview (February 1, 2007) resulted in coding 49 memes applied 142 times to 89 segments of text. The meme with the highest frequency (11) was "rememberer" followed by "animator" (10) and "moralist" (10). According to Pangloss, we are determined but also limited by our memories. His memories defined others as well as himself: My parents were both drinkers. I knew that I wouldn't finish high school if I stayed at my parent's house. They were split up by then, but I would go from house to house on a 6- month basis by grade 11. They were hostile to education... So I moved out, and I had this East Indian landlord. This (was a) Sikh fellow, and he had a bunch of conditions for me staying. There was one that I attend every day of school unless I was sick, and if was sick I had to stay in the house, and that my grades had to either stay the same or get better, and if they got worse, I had to move back in with one of my parents... very paternalistic, very masculine environment, but every day he asked me, 'What did you learn today?' and I had to come up with something. Although memories may be self-defining, Pangloss noted what gets remembered is part of a subjective process. He used metaphor to convey both this subjectivity and the feeling of self- constancy that accompanies his memories: It's like a running relay race in a way; things get handed off in a way. From time to time I remember the things that matter, and forget those things that don't. I've forgotten most of my life, so like a relay race the baton of memories gets handed on from time to time. Pangloss recognized that his memories define himself, and therefore the meme represented by "rememberer" has a formative and maintenance role with respect to other memes. It is presented as having a close relationship with "metaphor maker," "story teller," "self- 161 critical," "learner" and "moralist," but other self-defining memes are also remembered. Recognizing this distinctiveness, "rememberer" was embedded in a diamond shape in Figure 12. Figure 12: Memetic map ofPangloss resulting from the segmentation and coding of his initial interview with the number segments coded for each meme in brackets 162 The right to exact retribution. The role of moralist appeared to provide a grounding from which Pangloss's worldview flows. He has become angry when people take advantage of or humiliate others, and he has expressed moral outrage when other peoples' rights are not respected. He internalized a moral injunction to model good behavior and increase the world's happiness, a goal that he connected to defining himself as a humanist. Yet, he has not always lived by his own moral code, and this has resulted in considerable self-criticism. When someone acts with cruelty toward another, Pangloss said he feels a compulsion to act cruelly toward them in front of others, so they will be humiliated. Thus, "moral" is presented as linked to "protector" by a meme for "angry" that may, at times, be reflected as moral outrage. Pangloss shared a narrative that illustrated the potential of his outrage: I saw my sister and there was blood coming out of her ear. I come from a violent family, and I knew what that meant immediately and her reaction to me, which was a distrust and disdain and kind of hatred that I'm a guy. I picked up on that, that it was probably was my drunk brother-in-law that I never really liked. His name was Mel. My father was downstairs. I went upstairs and made sure my nephew was fine. I dragged Mel downstairs by the shirt, not loud I was quite calm, I was quite slow but I weigh 220 and I just ridden my bike 22 km. I had big legs. He was a radio reporter; he didn't have much of a chance resisting me. I'm physically imposing, so I brought him down the stairs. My father had just seen my sister; no words have been said. This is a very vocal house, but nobody said anything. It's eerily quiet, and I brought him into the middle of the living room downstairs, my dad's room, and there was a 30-30 Remington, a deer hunting rifle, my dad had it, it was up on the wall. I grabbed the rifle; I went to my dad's bedroom and I got the bullets. I loaded it completely with bullets... I put a bullet in the chamber and I cocked it, my dad held Mel and I spoke for the first time. Now my dad never let me take the lead, he was the cop; he was in charge, and I told Mel if he wanted to live he would turn around right now and walk out the front door, and not look back, and that the gun would be trained on him until he was out of sight. Pangloss said he would have killed a man without remorse had the man not followed his exact instructions to leave. Pangloss' roles as protector and intimidator were activated even though he was not particularly close to his sister. This incident also illustrated an "animator" meme that is also connected to his "opinionated," "outspoken," "activist," "perfectionist," "mentor" and "community developer" roles; but, more generally, it points to the interpretive code "Empowered Self as a theme that permeates his being. Social interest. The meme, "community developer" points to social interest but also contains an element of reciprocal altruism. Pangloss found he is "a heck of a lot happier" when he focussed on making his neighbourhood and his world better instead of focusing on what he called "short term gains for myself." He reported that, ""Every day I am ready willing and able to make a positive difference in somebody's life," thus "community development" is linked to memes for "kind" and "caring" as well as "anti-racism" and "anti-stereotyping." The interpretive code "Social Self represents a side of Pangloss that is intensely interested in interacting with others. This interaction is also linked to "embracer of life" as in the following metaphor: "If I am not having fun with every revolution of the pedals then I shouldn't be on the bike." Pangloss embraced life flexibly: The world is larger than me. The agenda of the outside world is so much bigger than me. Today could have been a good day if, on the way home, my bus had been hit by a truck, and I was in the hospital, and I missed the dinner, it could still have ended up being a good day, it would just be a different adventure. The idea of flexibility involves accepting chaos. He said that if you hold onto your goals in the face of changing circumstances, "not only will you be thwarted, but you'll piss everybody off around you... as the field changes, change your target." Thus, flexibility enhances empowerment along with the enjoyment of life. This relationship between "flexibility" and "Empowered Self is reflected in Pangloss' self-definition as a role player. Being self-aware and inconstant. Flexibility leads to what Pangloss called "some weird kind of continuum" of existence. He said he is mostly not hateful, selfish or racist, but that he can be all of these things. While this "continuum of possibilities" could be applied to all memes, it appeared to apply more to some, and those memes were flagged so as to indicate that they were not always operative. Thus, he sees himself as "anti-racist" in a majority of contexts, but he is not always anti-racist. An implication of this "continuum of possibilities" is that in certain contexts he could be substantially a different person. He admitted to being aware of such changes in his self, but he also admitted to times when he is not self-aware. Introspection following a suicide attempt as a teenager led Pangloss to become "incredibly self-aware." This included the mutability of memory: "This moment, right now, oh yeah, it's me looking at you. Tomorrow, I'm going to have a memory of looking at you." He pondered, "What is this thing that is experiencing stuff?" He concluded that he is only partially self-aware, but that awareness includes being self-critical, a learner, a humanist, heterosexual, sensual, having independent beliefs and having unique experiences. Although no one trait or characteristic is uniquely his, Pangloss said the combination makes him unique, but that uniqueness is contextual: 165 You wanna know what makes me unique, it depends on who you compare me too. Compare me to a whole bunch of people who were raised Anglican and taught Sunday school, and were kicked out of the church, and got a philosophy degree, and became stage hands after a TV career, we would all be the same. You know it depends... what makes me unique? Throw me into Niger and I'll tell you that it's my big belly, my height and my white skin. Throw me in women's studies at SFU and I'll say it's the testes, you know, throw me on stage and I'll say it's that I read books without pictures, (laughs) sorry that's a bad thing to say, there is a high level of illiteracy in stagecraft. This self-awareness and the memes associated with it gave Pangloss a sense of having a "private self," such that he could become a "community of one," living the rest of his life with books and having his groceries delivered. He reported he is, with his failings, proud of who he is. In particular, he is proud of his curiosity and willingness to change his mind in the face of contrary evidence. This "proud" meme is presented in Figure 12 as producing affect in his "Private Self," his remembrances, stories, metaphors, opinions and the focus of his empowered self. His "Empowered Self theme is presented as permeating his entire being, but it is grounded in the values he applies, and it activates and animates his social self. Within these themes, a number of memes are in conflict. For example, Pangloss' "egalitarian" meme may be in conflict with his "protector" meme with the latter requiring him to place himself in a superior role over others. Similarly, his "intimidator" meme may be in conflict with "non-aggressive," and "moralist" may be in conflict with "flexible." Pangloss' Second Interview Pangloss reported that he was nervous and excited about this interview, "I woke up with tense stomach muscles...how would he assess me?" The question in his mind was whether the assessment would be ingratiating or whether I would say things he did not like. He drew an analogy of an argument between persons A and B with A winning. Who benefits? He explained that Person B benefits because he gets to discard or change some things about himself. He concluded after a review of his initial memetic map that this "assessment" was ingratiating. He reported surprise that he did not see "vindictive", "arrogant", "vain" or "self-centered" in his self-map. He said he did not think he hid these things from the researcher. Returning to the theme of exacting retribution. When asked to give an example of his vindictiveness, Pangloss talked about peeing on the grave of an aunt after her funeral, and telling her he would do so when she was still alive. He said this gave him the feeling of having punched a bad person in the nose. He was angry with her, not because of the way she treated him, but for how she treated other relatives. He also mentioned destroying the tax records of an employer, and then calling Revenue Canada to accuse them of tax evasion. The employer had docked two other employees' wages when they pulled people out of a burning car and had to be themselves hospitalized. "Vindictive," in his mind, equated with rough justice. Arrogance reportedly goes with vindictiveness because the latter implies being "judge, jury and executioner." Pangloss said he does not consult with the people being wronged; he just acts. In answer to a question about who made him the protector of wronged people, Pangloss replied that he tends to be more sceptical and introspective than people around him. Thus, he has a "leg up" on most, and while his superior knowledge or ability may be fact, knowing that fact is arrogance. Still, he maintained that he does not want to put himself above anyone else, and he "cannot stand people who are arrogant." The memes "moralist," "protector," "intimidator" and "aggressive" seemed to flow from the incident Pangloss had described in our first interview involving his assault on his sister's ex- partner. The second interview revealed that these memes were not sufficiently negative to represent him the way that he represents himself. Memes for "vindictive," "arrogant," and "vain" were connected to "moralist", "intimidator" and "aggressive" in a revised self-map represented in Figure 13. Pangloss' insistence that he be seen negatively in some ways suggested a thematic quality to his meme "guilty" and a thematic line was created binding the above mentioned memes to each other. The new meme "vindictive" is in tension with the meme "empathetic," so a tension line was drawn between the two. "Arrogant" is contrasted with "egalitarian," but a tension line between "protector" and egalitarian already accounts for this contradiction (with the understanding that the Panglossian "protector" already connotes arrogance). Memes such as "caring," "unselfish" and "angry" were flagged to indicate that he does not always exhibit these characteristics. He was not always empathetic or vindictive, so these memes were also flagged. Everything matters. This second interview (July 1) occurred exactly five months after our initial interview, but Pangloss was unable to voice changes to his self that had occurred over that time. He said that he is still "unreasonably happy and surrounded by love." A "Love" theme connecting "sensual", "embracer of life", "heterosexual", "monogamous" and "brother" was added. He also suggested that everything is a test, it always matters, and this awareness makes him laugh: "If everything matters, then I matter, you matter, the squirrel that sneaks into my kitchen matters. He recalled that a previous girlfriend believed that weekends didn t matter, that it was "time off and she spent her weekends, and their bank account, on cocaine. j, Empowered »--"••*" V Self 'J [typirw «i| *- [ proujd Figure 13: Revised memetic self-map of Pangloss with amendments flowing from his second interview Pangloss was impressed by Sun-Tzu's first dictum: "No battle plan ever survived first contact with the enemy," but Taoism is too naturalistic for him. He suggested that he is more comfortable with existentialism because it emphasizes personal choice and it is "out of fashion" as he enjoys being contrarian. As a result of this information, the idea of being contrarian was added to his "animator" meme. It was also noted that a belief in one's ability to choose is essential to the idea of empowerment. In explaining how he is demanding, Pangloss said he applies a "yardstick" to everyone he comes into contact with, and he expects them to live up to their capabilities. He recognizes that his perception could be wrong, but he demands that people "be human" in their dealings with others. He admitted this is being "judge and jury," but he insisted that everyone judges others all the time and, "As grown ups we are supposed to make moral evaluations." He added on this point that people think of him as "an asshole." He then recounted an injustice involving an employer not paying for overtime until he spoke up. This information was added to Pangloss' "demanding" meme, which was then connected to "arrogant." It was noted that Pangloss showed understanding for some people who made poor decisions as a result of life circumstances, such as his parents, yet he has been demanding of others. He suggested that the past is prologue but not destiny. The sins of his deceased aunt occurred over decades when she was surrounded by love, yet she remained devoid of gratitude. He pitied her for cheating herself out of joy, and wondered if a 12 year-old boy could see she was wrong, why could she not see it? He concluded she was bad, and some people are "just bad," and that "we are fools to think otherwise." "We can all choose redemption," he said, but some people refuse to make that choice. Pangloss excused his parents' abuse because they did 170 the best they could with what they knew in difficult circumstances. He did not extend the same to his aunt because she could, in his estimation, have behaved better. A humanist perspective. Pangloss explained that a humanist viewpoint is centered on a non-supernatural world with special emphasis placed on reason and dialogue, which evokes a secular ethic of maximizing happiness. He said reason and dialogue can solve most human problems, and we can learn to live together. He said humanism could accommodate religion. "The western spiritual ethic," he suggested, "is too heavily dependent on punishment in another realm," but a humanist ethic involves being good simply because one wants to be good. Pangloss suggested if he were not a humanist, he would have a narrower worldview and would be less concerned with personal ethics. As a result of this information, the ideas of opposing supernaturalism, but supporting reason, dialogue, ethics and goodness were incorporated into his "humanist" meme. Links were added between "humanist" and "intellectual," and between "humanist" and "empathetic." Pangloss said he models good behavior and tries to increase happiness in the world. This idea of modelling good behavior was added to his "moralist" meme. A social interest theme was added to his self-map. Pangloss said that being heterosexual "narrows my sexual behavior but not my ability to love." He loves both men and women and finds there is a strong correlation between liking someone and finding them attractive. As a result "Love" was added as a theme that permeates various aspects of his self. With respect to his feeling of being a "community of one," and that he could live the rest of his life with books and groceries delivered, Pangloss explained he sometimes struggles to pick up the phone when someone calls. Sometimes, he has to remind myself that he is in a relationship and that he has to share with his partner. A daydream of his is to win a lottery 171 permitting him to "peddle around in countries that are warm." A conflict or tension line was added between "Social Self and "loner" in his self-map. Pangloss' Third Interview Pangloss was interviewed a third time on October 1, three months after the second interview and eight months after our initial one. Pangloss had reviewed his revised self-map (Figure 13) and the definitions of the memes that made up his self-map (Appendix K) in advance of the interview. "What struck me" he said, "was how indelibly uninterested I was in finding out from someone else what I am." Pangloss said he pays attention to himself only to the extents of its utility. He is not interested in himself as a subject in its own right. He said, "I was determined to convince you that there were negatives in my personality, so I presented an inaccurate picture." Pangloss was invited to make the picture more accurate. Pangloss expressed the concern that if meme-making depends on qualities that are extrinsic, then it cannot represent those elements of self that are intrinsic of which he is not aware. He shared that he can exaggerate things to the point of dishonesty, using examples that re- enforce whatever image he wishes. "All is marketing," he said. Pangloss had shared that he was looking for some kind of independent "assessment" that would serve to cut through the "marketing." During this interview, he agreed it was logically possible to describe a self without assessing it, but he added, "This flies in the face of a million years of human evolution." He asserted that we evolved to make judgements, often in crisis situations, with minimal information. He did not have a concern about my judgement of him at the beginning of this research, but now he decided he likes me, and my opinion of him matters; therefore, he wanted to present himself in a positive light. On the other hand, he did not want to lie about himself because then what is liked is the lie and not the reality. Positive statements may be seen as step in negotiating a relationship "like courtship," he said, and there exists a fine line between the reality and the lie. Further, his self-mage will be partly dependent on whether or not he is having a good day. While this line of reasoning adds to the tentativeness associated with this and every other self-map, this variability is already encompassed by Pangloss' "continuum of possibilities" meme. In answer to the question, "Is being ingratiating dishonest?" Pangloss suggested that being ingratiating is natural. If it is not supplication or submission, then it is not dishonest. For example, he thinks that marijuana is a "wonderful thing," and he would not deny it to others despite the fact that he does not use it due to his allergies. Pangloss explained he was using "ingratiating" in a non-pejorative sense meaning to present oneself in a positive light. When asked how he resolves contradictory elements within his self, Pangloss replied: "I don't know that I have to resolve conflicts between contradictory parts of my nature. I am utilitarian in my ethics. I want to know the effects of my actions. Sometimes I think that bad behavior deserves retribution. Justice is something that has to be enforced by every member of society. Pangloss said individual members of society sometimes have to step in and exact retribution even though we would like others to take care of it. Some matters, such as cranky neighbors, are not police matters. This view may be in conflict with his egalitarian value but, "Being an adult involves holding two contradictory ideas in your head and not needing to resolve them." This answer also combines values held in what was referred to as his "Grounded Self with a compulsion to act that drives his "Empowered Self." When asked to recount from where this sense of empowerment came, Pangloss reviewed the story (first presented in his second interview) of his attempted suicide. A girl, to whom he had made love, had sex with another youth the following night. He swam into the Pacific thinking that if he was too tired to swim back he would drown, but some friends in a canoe saw him, presumed that he was caught in the tides, and paddled out to save him. He did not remember them pulling him into the canoe. While in hospital he thought that the reason he tried to kill himself was he had been living for the approval of others. He observed that everyone was as wretched as he was. He became more selfish, and this led him to become more generous toward others. He noted that the more he knows himself the easier it is to understand others. I gathered that increased empowerment resulted from increased self-awareness, coupled with an awareness that others were like him in some important ways. None-the-less, Pangloss declared, "I have never been a good sage to understand how I make changes in my life... I am not my own grand subject. The key to happiness is finding something greater than your self and dedicating yourself to it. The outward focus is far more interesting to me. I would rather ask someone else how they are." Pangloss said he "came out" of the process of this research as he thought he would, "complicated, contradictory and confusing." He explained this is why he is sometimes frustrating to his friends. He said he likes the way he is, and he would have to be an ideologue to be simple. "I am not an ideologue and that makes me feel better." Freddie Fredelle identified herself / himself as a Caucasian with some aboriginal heritage who is transsexual. S/he was not in a romantic relationship at the time of these interviews, and s/he did not have any children. S/he was in his/her late fifties, and was unemployed at the time of this study although s/he had previously been employed in the oil industry. S/he is referred by her preferred gender, female, for the balance of this study except when she referred specifically to 174 that part of her self that was male. Despite this convention, Fredelle was careful to emphasize that transgenderality incorporates both female and male personas. Fredelle's First Interview Fredelle presented two themes within her self that were pictured as being in opposition to each other: a male side she named "Fred" and a female side she named "Fredelle." These two themes are represented by boxes in Figure 14 with those memes associated with each lying in the general area of the thematic persona. In all, twenty-seven codes were applied 123 times to 100 segments of transcribed text. Thirty of these 100 segments were coded for the meme "feminine." She reported: There's absolutely nothing female or feminine about my physicality, so the only part of me that is genuinely feminine is the mental and consequently the spiritual, the emotional, the results of my mental activity. That is were my femininity resides; my goal is to be female and feminine, it's not necessarily to pass as a female and be feminine. To Fredelle, the qualities of being loving, sensitive, and caring are feminine. She said her sexual development was from a feminine perspective, and she wanted to relate to her lover in a feminine way, as opposed to an aggressive, dominant, and strong masculine way. She admitted, however, that her idea of femininity exists in her own mind, and she cannot state that women, generally, share this idea: Now, I can never know how another woman feels, just no one can know how other women feel. She can only assume that the other woman feels the same as she does because of... when I think of myself as a woman, I see a person who is sensitive to things that are of a sensual nature, a self-loving sensual nature. 175 Figure 14; Memetic map ofFredelle resulting from the segmentation and coding of her initial interview with the number segments coded for each meme in brackets Freddie's concept of "feminine" is largely coterminous with her "Fredelle" persona, so the two are pictured in Figure 14 as overlapping. Other memes associated with being feminine include being cooperative, hopeful, non-aggressive and multicultural. "Multicultural" includes acceptance of diversity and difference while "male society" enforces rigid conformity. Sabotaging success as a male. The male side of her self, represented by "Fred," featured negative memes such as "depressed," "bald," "old" and "mortal." She viewed the parts of herself that are "unavoidably masculine" as "dead weight." This understanding led to ritualized self- defeating behaviors: I don't wanna be a success as a man, that's for sure. I will do whatever it takes to not succeed as a man, and I know that is a conscious decision on my part, but it might be an unconscious decision in that I've never allowed myself to succeed openly in social or business or even romantic things. I've always wanted to sabotage Fred... "Transsexual" is presented as the core meme uniting the "Fred" and "Fredelle" personas in one self. She views it not as a sexuality but more as a "transgenderality," having fantasized being passive and feminine with both male and female partners. She tried, unsuccessfully, to be "gay" because, from her perspective, gays are accepted in most situations in society. She concluded, however, that transsexuality is core to her being - the source of her uniqueness, creativity and learning. She decided to work for societal change, so transsexuals may gain the rights that homosexuals have attained. Empowerment. Social activism implies a sense of empowerment, and eight segments were coded for an "animator" meme from the initial interview. This sense of empowerment was related to Fredelle's "coming out," presenting her transsexuality to her church. Having gained acceptance in the Unitarian congregation, she began organizing a transsexual presence in other forums such as the annual "gay pride" parade. Although this event represented a positive transition, the act of undermining herself to deny success under her "Fred" persona also represented a kind of empowerment. "Roleplayer," on the other hand, was defined by Fredelle to be disempowering, as she was felt compelled to play a role due to her physical man-form. Other self-defining memes that imply empowerment included "intellectual," "community member," and "leader." In defining herself as an intellectual, Fredelle stated she prefers the world of ideas to manual labor. Her transsexuality contributed toward independent thinking that, in turn, contributed toward her atheism. None-the-less, she felt a need to avoid isolation and cultivated her self as part of a community. That need for community has been, in part, served by her membership in the Unitarian Church. Recently, she has been both building the transsexual community and speaking out for transsexual rights - activities that suggested incorporation of a "leader" meme into her self. Fredelle's spirituality involved a belief in the interconnectedness of nature and community and is linked to her involvement in the Unitarian Church and her definition of multiculturalism. In two of three segments she linked her spirituality to her atheism that, in turn, allows for a universal force that is without awareness. Fredelle's Second Interview Fredelle said her initial self-map accurately depicted the disproportionate imbalance between her two centers: Fred and Fredelle. She noted that Fredelle contains "all the good things about me," and she concluded that she would be a better person to have lost Fred, "I would be just as complete as I am now but unburdened." She said Fred is connected with being depressed and a misfit and added, "Nature is not necessarily just. Nature cares only about reproduction of species; it cares nothing for quality of life. Nature screwed me up with this Fred stuff." Developmental change. She said she had an orchidectomy during the five month interval between the first and second interviews, and reported that "tears of joy were going down my face" with the removal of the first testicle. She considered her testicles to have been an insult to her, and with their removal she felt more like taking care of her body. Her impulse to engage in 178 self-defeating behaviors was reduced; she explained, "No testicles will benefit from my efforts to help myself." She noted there is nothing her self-map about health maintenance or self-care, but with the surgical change came a feeling of self-nurturing. As a result of this information, the meme "self-changer" was added to Freddie's self-map situated between "animator" and "transsexual" in Figure 15. The solid line connecting "animator" with "self-defeating" was changed to a dotted line reflecting the change that she is no longer attempting to sabotage "Fred" by neglecting his/her health. Further, a meme for self- nurturing was added to the map connected to Fredelle and to "self-changer." A tension line was drawn connecting "self defeating" and "self-nurturing." Although Fredelle plans to go to Montreal to have Gender Reassignment Surgery, she could be happy with a penis as she does not find the penis as offensive as testicles. After an operation to remove her penis she will be physically a female with an artificial vagina, but she said she will still be a transsexual because of her history and memories. This was her first indication that memories are essential to her self, and a meme for "rememberer" was added to her self-map with thematic lines emanating from it to various parts of her self. A never-ending conflict. Fredelle said she cannot resolve the dichotomy of Fred and Fredelle and become both simultaneously. Fred is understood as "the enemy" while, "There is enough in Fredelle to be a complete human being, and you cannot combine the two." A two- arrowed yellow line was added indicating conflict and tension between Fred and Fredelle. The "I" that is often identified with the animating principle, is viewed to be on the Fredelle side of the ledger. There can be no battle between the two because Fred has no animating "I." As a result of this consideration, the arrow connecting "animator" to "self-defeating" was changed to a 179 directional one since there is no sense in which the Fred side is part of, or has access to, "animator." Despite this consideration Fredelle admitted: The real me was both the Fred and the Fredelle. They formed a committee that could not get along. A hidden controller was a result of that conflict. I may still have some conflicts in the future, but the conflicts will have shifted from being internal to external. Fredelle can now take on anything the world throws at her. She is no longer being undermined by Fred. interview Social interest through activism. Fredelle reported that she was working on her skills as an editor and writer, and she wants to do business over the internet. This will allow her more freedom to be herself than did her previous occupation in the oil industry. She said she wants to educate people to understand and accept transgendered people, and that was one of her motivations in consenting to this research. She asserted that transsexuality is a "mental thing" that can be accommodated: "If you can't change the mind to suit the body, then change the body to suit the mind." As a result of this information "activist" was added as a meme connected to "animator" and "transsexual" on her self-map. Fredelle also reported she does not define herself by her emotions but attempts to recognize and transcend those emotions so that they will not govern her. The changes she is making to her physical self will allow her to role play a more feminine Fredelle, but she added, "I don't want to be a transvestite, I just want to be me." A connecting link was added between "role player" and "feminine." Fredelle's Third Interview Fredelle reviewed her revised self-map approximately five weeks after her second interview. She noted that a wig is not the same thing as a hairpiece which is permanently attached to the scalp. "Wig wearer" was changed to "hairpiece wearer" on the self-map. This change, and others flowing from this third interview, are represented in Figure 16. New emotional awareness. During her second interview, Fredelle said emotions were not properly part of the self and were to be monitored and controlled by a rational mind. She had experienced intense anger illustrated by her happiness that her father's line dies with her because "He was a vicious man." Consequent to her orchidectomy, Fredelle reported feeling free of her past with a concomitant openness to emotion. As and example, she reported "tears of happiness" when observing a young boy at a mall. She now associated her former less emotional self with maleness, and she described her new emotional functioning as a "wonderful time of change." A 181 bar representing a menu of emotions was added to her self-map (Figure 16). A diffuse arrow was drawn from "feminine" to this bar identifying it as her perceived source for her newly awakened emotional functioning. menu of emotions Figure 16: Revised memetic map ofFredelle with amendments flowing from her third interview Fredelle was asked for the significance, if any, of her signing her e-mails as "Fred. She explained she signs her name according to how she feels "at the moment," and she may not have felt "particularly feminine at the time." She explained she is "adopting" a Thai girl, at-risk for forced sex-trade activity, through "World Vision," and she is doing it as "Fred" because "it is easier this way." Since losing her testes, she added, "it doesn't matter as much whether people refer to me as Fred or Fredelle. The big push to get rid of my maleness is not as great as it was." She explained that her testes had been oppressive just by existing, "Nature wants you to reproduce. I am getting back at nature because I am now non-reproduceable. I wanted to force nature to say 'I screwed up when I put Fredelle into a male body." New hope in femininity. Fredelle said what empowers her is knowledge, confidence, courage and vision and this resulted in a new-found optimism. She noted that one day after she turned 57, having had quadruple bypass surgery, it occurred to her that "life is too short to allow the corporation to dictate who I was." She told many more people about her transsexuality and enjoyed her body more. She explained that to feel the feminine aspects of her body, such as her long hair, are a wonderful experience. She said the army shaves the heads of soldiers to remove their individuality, but she, with her hair, has reclaimed hers. She described short-haired people as "mean and vicious," and suggested that long hair represents love. She said this empowerment was recent and involved rejecting "the Fred memes." Fredelle said spirituality equates with connectedness, and all things on her feminine side can be used in building this spirituality. She found that she can now look at a woman and admire her without physical sexual consequences. Previously she would become aroused and would masturbate, which she viewed as a physical price for attraction adding, "To me it was hell to be sexual." As a result of this information a new meme "sensual" was added to her self-map incorporating both her sexuality and her sensuality in appreciating the feminized aspects of her body. 183 Freddie said that the experience of participating in this research "empowered me to be physically free." Turning 60 symbolically allowed her the freedom to change, and she felt no obligations to the past anymore. She explained that the night before this interview she installed a bathroom cabinet, and the lyrics to a Phil Oakes song came to her, "I want to give all that I have to give; cross my heart and hope to live." She noted that he hadn't been putting the effort into life, but now she is, "I see myself as a woman at the beginning of her second life." This resulted in a new commitment to life that had been developing over the past few months. Previously she had viewed life as a sentence; now she pictured herself as an adventurer "throwing everything I got into it." She said she was feeling empowered and courageous, and these feelings serve to activate her "unique," "learner," "animator" and "intellectual" centers. She said counselling had been helpful. It had been a condition of participation in this research that participants not be in counselling, but she explained that she entered counselling between the first and second interviews because she needed to talk to someone. Chantelle Chantelle was a Caucasian female in her twenties with dual citizenship: Canadian and US-American, and she had lived in both countries during her formative years. She enrolled at the University of Calgary following her release from prison. Although her only child was in foster care, she took an active interest in that child and referred to herself as a single parent. Chantelle's First Interview Chantelle began our initial session on February 19, 2007 by talking about her aspirations as a student in counselling psychology. She said she was interested in studying the experience of hope in women's prisons. She also described herself as a boxer, having recently turned professional following eight successful years at the amateur level. She said she loves most sports, 184 and she mentioned she had won a four-year baseball scholarship to Colorado State University out of high school, but she had failed to take advantage of that scholarship. She said her clients in the prison system tend to relate well to sports analogies, but for her sports also represents a stress release. In total 33 unique codes were applied 86 times to 46 segments of text from Chantelle's initial interview. Five of these 46 segments were coded for "student" while six segments were coded for "athlete." Both memes represented positive roles for Chantelle that re-enforced her self-image as having a potential for success within society. A new beginning through athletics. Chantelle said her self-definition as an athlete was central to her "turning her life around." "Athlete" became part of her self-definition before she became a student, and it gave her the confidence to become a student. Both "athlete" and "student" are united by "proud" in Figure 17 as these represent roles in which she has been successful and were related as a source of her pride. "Athlete" is illustrated with links to "determined," "counsellor," "worker," "animator" and "aggressive," and it is shown in a box illustrating it as both a thematic code and as a meme. It was considered to be a theme in that she carries some of the attitudes of an athlete, for example, competitiveness, to other aspects of her life. Volition and change. "Animator" was also represented as both a meme and a theme within Chantelle's self, and she provided examples of animation within moralist, activist, athletic, learner, family and self-changer contexts. A blue thematic arrow was drawn from "animator" through the following memes: "aggressive", "athlete", "determined" and "overextended". This drive to accomplish, she said, came from her spirit which in turn was a function of certain emotion-related constants such as being good-hearted, being driven to learn, 185 and having a passion or drive to "keep going" despite obstacles. These underlying drives are represented in Figure 17 as being present in a bar at the base of her self with directional arrows flowing from that base to "spirit" and then to "animator." Chantelle understood this spirit as a constant that cannot be taken away or "stolen," and it is represented by a diamond within her self to illustrate that meme's special place in her self-construct. t'.irwiimi g ,\l-rmne.l inipii'j-e w Imrc h, imt"-'H|UHif wcperk'nce-a potion aritri\sn-k.et;pjj;nin£ j i - - - IT Figure 17: Memetic map of Chantelle resulting from the segmentation and coding of her initial interview with the number segments coded for each meme in brackets 186 "Self-changer" as a self-defining meme was mentioned in more segments than any other (12). She reported that initially she became good at sports as an outlet for her anger, but now she plays because she wants to excel. She credited her pregnancy with her decision to stop criminal activity and to become successful in legitimate ways: I think the biggest thing in my life was my son and he is 7 now, just turned 7, and I would say that he was kind of like my saviour that ah, when I found out I was pregnant it was something to... look, it changed my view on life, like suddenly I wasn't just being reckless and just living for myself and I actually, I needed to start caring about something, and he provided that for me, so like when he was a baby I wanted to do everything I could to be a good person and live well, stay off drugs, get an education, that kind of stuff. Although her son was taken into foster care, Chantelle continued to build a life for herself with the hope of reuniting with him in a family. Reflectivity and self-criticism are two elements connected to her change effort, but the drive for self-change runs as a theme through much of her life and is pictured as flowing through her "intelligent," "determined," "serious," "responsible," "ex-con" and "counsellor" selves. Developing a "Work Self was a planned, developmental change for Chantelle, and she reported it involved the realization that she could succeed by pursuing socially acceptable goals while, in some sense, remaining the same person: So the changes come from pursuing goals and achieving them and learning and just growing as a person, so maybe becoming wiser would change, my knowledge would change, but my personality would still be the same. Using athletical metaphors. Separate memes for "worker" and "counsellor" were defined, and each was recorded in five segments, but in Chantelle's usage, the two terms were often 187 interchangeable. Hence, the two memes were drawn as overlapping in Figure 16. She has drawn on her athletic background to aid in her counselling: It's one thing to watch it on TV, but its another thing to actually to be in the ring, take the pain and deliver and stay focussed, and ahh, if you kind of put that in terms of life, a lot of these people have been through some painful past and you know, they're able to take that but also to have some positive energy about their life and move forward, and using some of those like similarities between sports and life, it's definitely helpful. Memory not only served Chantelle in her work, but it provided a feeling of constancy in a life marked by change. In each of the four segments coded "rememberer" she is the person who was the central actor, and this appeared to give a sense of constancy. She explained, "I don't think my personality, or like my, the things that actually make me, me, those don't change." Although it was only coded for one segment, the meme "responsible" represented a quality that persists cross-contextually: Wherever I am whether it's school, work, home, sports, whatever, like I am very dedicated to what I am doing, and if I take something on I will see it through, so I believe in commitment, dedication with that I try to be; I know I am a fairly serious person... Chantelle's Second Interview Chantelle's second interview occurred on July 2, 4.5 months after the first. She noted that both "humble" and "proud" appeared on her initial self-map, and she recalled that at one time her pride involved being arrogant, overconfident and rude, but that began to change when she was 18 or 19. She discovered that she could be proud without "throwing it in others' faces." While noting that being proud in a non-aggressive way was necessary to her self, she said she would move "proud" to the outside of the map and move humble more toward the inside to show the 188 relative importance she placed on being humble. An attempt was made to accomplish this change, however her pride was connected to her roles as athlete and student, and it was associated with her determination to succeed. It was held in place by those memes and without those connections she would cease to be proud. Put another way, moving "proud" to the outside of her self would necessitate that she devalue her accomplishments as a student and as an athlete in some way so that those two memes would also not play so central a role in who she is. Acknowledging that "humble" is more central to Chantelle's being than was originally represented, I shifted it toward the interior of her self-map, and a unidirectional arrow was drawn connecting it with "proud " to represent how the latter meme is moderated by the former (see Figure 18). Concomitant with this change, a broad thematic arrow flowing from "self-changer" was connected to the memes for "humble" and "egalitarian." This was considered consistent with her history of moderating how she expresses her pride to others. A second change to Chantelle's memetic self-map involved drawing a thematic link flowing from "animator" to learner to self-changer before continuing to areas of her self affected by her change efforts. This change better reflected the source of her will to change - the belief that not only were the changes to become a better person good in themselves, but she also had the power to effect these changes in her self. In addition, the theme "animator" was expanded to include the concept of empowerment. Re-evaluating family connections. Chantelle said one of her brothers had died since our interview four months earlier, and this had resulted in a re-evaluation of how she relates to family. She felt guilty she was not more connected to her family - torn between wanting to be there for her family and distancing herself from negative and co-dependent (drug related) relationships. While this reflective thought could be precursor to further developmental change 189 to her self, it is evident that Chantelle was motivated by moral considerations that are sometimes in conflict. A new meme "moralist" was added to her map that includes the idea that she avoids actions that would support the bad behavior of others. Her self-map was amended to show a tension between "moralist" and "family person." Ci'iManr* Lett Uwiugh unijal. uig h,iv.k.pnmrui feol'iigi t'Ood-liewwJ, ifuit* trvtapn, to jriiejtifctite, - Figure 18: Revised memetic self-map of Chantelle with amendments flowing from her second interview A drive to perfection. Chantelle was asked what drives her to take on more than she can reasonably expect to handle (represented by the meme "overextended"), and to excel at all she attempts. She replied that she has a lot of energy, and that if she happens to "take a night off she finds herself "sitting at home" wondering what to do with herself. She said her mission is to make her life count for something, to do as much as she can as well as she can. She tries to do something positive each day, but not necessarily work related. Recreational activities with friends such as rafting "count" while passive activities that do not build relationships like watching TV do not count. To some extent this view was represented by "a passion or drive to keep going" in Chantelle's "underlying constants" bar. Her self-map was elaborated by adding "making life meaningful through activity" to that bar and by adding the explanation "felt through underlying background feelings" after the word "constants." In addition the meme "activity" was added to a cluster that includes "overextended" and "overachiever." "Activity" was not defined as the same as "activist" which implies a direct social purpose. The activity meme, as felt by Chantelle, may be defined as valuing purposeful action with the connotation that she is deficient or worth less when inactive. The importance of having energy. Chantelle had mentioned being young during our first interview, and she returned to that theme in the second. She explained that being young means opportunity and energy. It also means that sometimes she has to prove herself and display her competence to older people. "Young" is contextual; her baseball peers call her "an old fart" because she does not drink or party with them. She would like to be older, so she could fit in better in certain contexts, but she likes the energy of being young. As a result of this information the meme "young" was amended to add the connotation of energy and it was linked to the activity meme thus moving "young" to a more central location. "Ex-con" was moved to the periphery as it appeared that "young" was more central to her current self-definition. When asked what future changes she would make to her self Chantelle replied, "I kind of like my map; it fits in with who I am. I like the bottom part, the constants, the passion to keep going." She went on to suggest that she does not like the phrase "impulse to learn" and would change that to "drive to learn." She would move "good person" more toward the inside. She said that in the future she would like to reduce athletics in importance, especially as it is related aggressiveness and competitiveness, while maintaining an active but less intense athletic life. "Impulse to learn" was changed to "drive to learn" in Figure 18. In addition "good person" was moved toward a more central location while maintaining its contact with "parent" and "kind." Chantelle's Third Interview Chantelle reviewed her revised memetic self-map on August 9, five weeks after her second interview. She commented, "It's how I would describe myself, it's perfect." When it was pointed out that I felt I was unable to move the "pride" meme to the outside of her map because the aspects of herself in which she felt pride kept that meme closer to a central part of her self, she replied that it made sense to her. She said she had associated pride with a negative connotation, and she appreciated that the directional arrow from the meme "humble" representing her attempts to dampen the effect of pride on her behavior. When asked if she had any new insights about who she was, Chantelle said her spiritual aspect is strong, and she has had time to reflect on this. She is torn between connecting with family and keeping her distance, and she has decided to keep her distance due to their use of illicit drugs. She had explained this to her brothers. She hadn't talked to her parents, and she emphatically stated that she would not be talking to them. These insights were already represented in Chantelle's revised map (Figure 18) with a tension line drawn between "family person" and "moralist" and with her spirit represented at the base of her self-map. Her sense of family was, at the time of this third interview, more associated with her son than with her siblings and parents. "Empowerment" was noted as a theme on Chantelle's self-map. She said she was not empowered as a child, and she had been a "shy foster kid." She stopped going to school and ended up on a course that resulted in series of convictions. She said that the process of "getting clean," going to jail, having her son, and then starting school contributed to her self- empowerment. Finding her own passions and doing positive things built her energy. She started boxing "from and angry place," but then she realized that she was good at it, and this contributed to her sense of empowerment. A counsellor had also helped her to realize that she was "worth something." Chantelle was asked whether there had been any changes in her ability or willingness to make changes to her self as a result of her participation in the process of this research. She replied she had been thinking about this question a lot. She considered her values and how they connect with her life. She did not think she will change much with respect to her values, but she intends to not let things "bug her" as much. She will gradually de-emphasize sports in her life as she ages. Two months prior to this third interview, she suffered a torn tendon and was forced to lie on a couch for a week. The period of inactivity resulted in her becoming depressed, but when she went back to work her mood became "instantly better." She would like to change this reliance on activity, but she did not feel more empowered to make such changes as she was already "fairly empowered" prior to her participation in this research. Magdelynn Magdelynn was a Caucasian of Canadian citizenship in her thirties and a student at the University of Calgary. Her father was a mixture of Polish and English while her mother was a mixture of French and Scottish. She identified herself ethnically as "Canadian." She lost the use of her legs following a motorcycle accident necessitating the use of a wheelchair. Magdelynn's First Interview When asked to describe her self, Magdelynn said, "I see myself kind of all these fractured pieces, like it's almost like a pie, a pie chart." She described herself as having a "Forest Gump life" where she "just kind of floats along wherever the breeze takes me." She used to be different: Before I crashed my motorbike and ended up in my chair I was very goal orientated, like I had this to do and that to do, and right before my crash, I just kind of completed all these things from my 5 year plan like, got my education degree finally, and like, was teaching and was like, 'Okay, I've finished the end of this, now what?' so I was in the process of trying to think what I was going to do for the next 5 year plan, and then I crashed my bike... This first interview segment about having a "Forest Gump life" was coded as "environmentally driven" and "flexible." The accident led to a transition in her self that resulted in the qualities represented by these two memes rise to greater prominence. She went on to explain that while family has always been important to her, she realized after the accident it is not something you develop in a "five year plan," but it is something that you live and "it happens." Rebuilding her self with athletics. More segments (17 out of 93) were coded for "athlete' than any of the other forty codes applied to those segments, yet this too was a product of her "Forest Gump life." She had not defined herself as an athlete prior to her accident. She had played hockey, but she did not see herself as being skilled in that sport. After the accident with the help of a friend, she found wheelchair basketball: I'm not a quad, but I am not really paraplegic either, because I do have these two limbs, but I don't have any balance, so I can use my limbs if I'm not falling over and smashing my head on a table or whatever is in line for me to hit. So anyway, haphazardly I just kind of found wheelchair basketball, and it was like, "This is the greatest" because you could strap yourself in your chair, and the chair is made so it doesn't flip over very easily so I was, ahh, I could play this... After playing wheelchair basketball for a year and a half, she was invited to try out for the Canadian national team. She decided to "test the waters" to see where this "Forest Gump life" took her. The second largest number interview segments (12) were coded "gimp:" I prefer to call myself a gimp rather than like, disabled because in my mind when you think of disabled, disabled alarms can't do anything; like, it doesn't function. So I don't see myself as disabled 'cause I can do a whole lot of things that able-bodied people can't do, or would not even think of trying to do... A relationship between "gimp," "athlete," "environmentally driven" and "flexible" is illustrated in Figure 19. "Environmentally driven" along with overlapping memes for "context dependent" and "role player" form a "Relativistic" core that may not have been present prior to her accident. This core allows flexibility in taking advantage of her "Forest Gump" 195 opportunities. Figure 19: Memetic map of Magdelynn resulting from the segmentation and coding of her initial interview with the number segments coded for each meme in brackets The thick link between "gimp" and "athlete" illustrates a strong relationship (associations in more than two segments) in Magdelynn's account of her self. There is also a strong link between "gimp" and "anti-stereotyping." She said many people act as though disabled people are "incapable, incompetent and hard of hearing." Her angry response was to aggressively challenge these attitudes, and she admitted the increased post-accident emphasis she placed on "intelligent" was, in part, a reaction against the prejudicial attitudes she faced. Magdelynn's self-identification as a "gimp" reinforced her self-identification as a "unique experiencer." She believed no one is quite like her, and no one would experience events in quite the same way. She was proud of both her uniqueness and her athletic accomplishments - both animated by a competitive spirit. An interpretive or thematic code was added to this section called "Active Competitor," a theme that was also evident in her perfectionism. The meme with the third largest number of segmental codings (8) is "intense," and it represents a quality necessary for success as an athlete, but Magdalynn brings this quality to life generally. She said she is driven by her goals, and this intensity has led her to become an "overachiever" as an athlete, daughter and worker. This led to her self-description as an anxious person - if she does not get everything done then she feels that there is something wrong with her. Her anxiety is also connected to her self-image as disorganized: She attempts to do many things simultaneously with the result that she does not get everything accomplished to her self- expectations with the connotation that she is lacking in organizational skills. Her intensity was also connected to her self as an animator. She said she was not a spectator but a player. She was also action-orientated in other ways: When she disagreed with a bureaucratic decision about what type of wheel chair was appropriate for her, she appealed the decision and overcame bureaucratically set regulations. This "animator" self is also reflected in her roles as a worker, counsellor, learner and daughter. The remembered stories that she told herself re-enforced her self-image as an achiever and gave her a sense of constancy midst environmental forces dictating change. In the act of remembering, Magdalynn used metaphor such as her self-description as a "fractured pie" at the start of our initial interview. Defining her religious views. Magdelynn was raised Roman Catholic. She was baptized as an infant, confirmed as a youth, went to church with her family, and was sent to an all-girls Catholic school in Saskatchewan which she described as, "like way out in the middle of nowhere." After her accident her parents had pastoral care people come to see her on a regular basis, but she reported that their prayers did not affect her in a positive way. She reported she would humor them because she was "too tired and weak to fight anybody." She continued, however, to have a belief by faith that there is a supreme being: I always believed that there is something out there, I don't know if it's, like the Catholic god 'cause I could not understand why, like the Catholic Church wasn't tolerant of, say people with a different sexual orientation. That bugged me and I was like, "You say you're all fine and good and you're like shunning all these different people. Why is this?" so I was like, "it doesn't make any sense because something is supposed to be all loving, why are people getting discouraged and getting pushed away, and then when you have Catholic priests who are like, traumatizing little kids. What is that?" Like, I could not wrap my head around that for anything, so I thought, "I am out of here." I quit this. So I don't... so I only go to church with my mom and dad kind of to appease them, but I do believe in like, karma or like I don't know if I believe in destiny, but I believe, well I guess, destiny and faith are sort of the same thing, but I do believe there is something you can't see or feel, well maybe you can emotionally feel a connection, but there is something out there that impacts what you do. Magdelynn presented with a theistic belief in eight segments but sometimes expressed it as a hope, "I have a hope that there is, like the higher power is all-loving and there is an absolute acceptance of people." Her spirituality was connected to her theistic belief or hope: "I'm spiritual because I believe that there is something else. There is just not the physical entities that are walking around here." She actualizes her spirituality by being good to others, "just because it feels better." "Caring" is shown as connected, in Figure 20, to "theist," "daughter," "counsellor" and the overlapping themes that were also coded as memes: "Family Person" and "Relationship Builder." While family has always been important, Magdelynn admitted to not attending to her family relationships for periods of time as she intensely pursued other interests. Her meme as a relationship builder is also actualized in her preference for team sports. She described herself as "intensely loyal," and said she enjoyed team sports for the comradery. A number of themes are presented as binding various aspects of Magdelynn's self in a unitary whole. The "Achiever" theme is pictured, in Figure 19, as running through "learner," "self-changer," "gimp" and "athlete." "Rememberer" runs through "metaphor maker," "independent belief," "spiritual," "Catholic," "friend," and "Relationship Builder / Family Person." "Relationship Builder" and "Family Person" themes are pictured as extending through "daughter," "caring," "sister" and "athlete" memes. Figure 19 also represents how Magdelynn felt fractured. Tension lines were drawn between "rigid" and "flexible;" "relationship builder" and "achiever;" and, "relationship builder" and "adaptive/context." Magdelynn's Second Interview Magdelynn began this interview, which occurred 4.5 months after the first, by reporting that there had been a shift from her emphasis in achieving in sports to achieving in relationships, especially within her family. Her emphasis on achievement in learning remained unchanged. A conflict between her roles as an athlete and as a family member had left her feeling "fractured" at the time of our initial interview with both her mother and boyfriend feeling neglected. Concomitantly, her basketball team had been "too rigid" in scheduling, so she stopped playing for the national team. As she still played recreationally, she continued to see herself as an athlete. A mind mechanism for change. Magdelynn's initial self-map allowed for changing priorities. Her animator meme, central to the achievement theme, was shown as connected to family and learning as well as to sports. Her meme "self-changer" connected to flexibility which, in turn, connected to "adaptive / context" within a "Relativistic" cluster, which is also connected to athlete. Thus, a mind mechanism was represented whereby she was able to make the changes she outlined between the first and second interviews without making substantive changes to her self; however, her decision to reduce the time spent on sports reduced the tension between "adaptive (to) context" and "relationship builder," therefore the line of tension between the two was removed in her revised self-map (Figure 20). Magdelynn reported she had become less rigid, but she still wants things "just so" in her house. She began spending more time with her boyfriend and her family with the result that she felt less fractured. She developed more confidence in allowing others to know who she is with the result that she became less of a role player. The link between "athlete" and "rigid" was deleted, and the link between "rigid" and "self critical" was changed to a dashed line indicating less association between the two. A link between "rigid" and "perfectionist," an association suggested by her wanting things "just so," was added. The meme "adaptive - context" was modified to reflect feeling is less "fractured." Figure 20: Revised memetic self-map ofMagdelynn with amendments flowing from her second interview Magdelynn said she would add "sexual" to her meme-map with the connotation that she viewed her sexuality as connected to being attractive, life-giving and complete. A new "sexual" meme was added to Figure 20 represented as coming from her body using a directional arrow, but pictured as also connected to "Family Person" and "Relationship Builder." 201 Religious and spiritual beliefs expanded. Magdelynn explained that her belief in a higher power allows her be confident in the future despite her realization that she cannot "do everything under the sun." Thus, she expressed faith that everything will work out, or if not, it is all part of some master plan that explains why, somehow, it is not supposed to work out. She wanted to feel nurtured by that higher power, and she wanted the children she is working with to have that feeling as well. She believed, however, that the Roman Catholic Church is too rigid and not consistent in their capacity to care for others. She said that without her spirituality she would be angry and self-centered. This response was anticipated in Magdelynn's initial self-map with connecting lines drawn between "theist" and "caring," "anxious" and "relationship builder." With this information, however, the link between "Catholic" and "Relationship Builder" was moved to connect "Relationship Builder" and "theist." Links were also added connecting "spiritual" to "kind" and "friend." I obtained the sense that in her internalized theistic and spiritual belief Magdelynn was reaching out with her mind to some understanding beyond both her physical limitations and the limitations of a materialist interpretation of nature. This led to a new interpretive or thematic code labelled "Transcendence" that was pictured in Figure 20 as feeding both her theistic and spiritual selves. A significant other. At the end of this interview, Magdelynn suggested adding another meme to her self-map: "significant other" reflecting her role as a partner to her boyfriend. She said he provides a calming and supportive influence that allows her to be how she feels inside, "I have somebody who watches my back so I can be soft." She reciprocated by listening, supporting and laughing with him. She reported dreams of having a family. A new meme, "significant other," was added to Figure 20 connected to "sexual," "Family Person," "Relationship Builder," and "Friend" Magdelynn's Third interview Approximately six weeks after the second interview, Magdelynn said that her second self-map was closer to who she is, and that the new "Transcendence" interpretive code "hit the nail on the head." She added that she wants to make a mark on the world, to leave a legacy, and this desire accompanies the theme of transcendence. Becoming less context-dependent. Magdelynn changed her metaphor in describing her self. She said she now sees herself more as a mobile with different pieces that move and rotate as a unit than as a "fractured pie." She felt more in balance with her real values being more consistently applied across contexts. Thus, when she was in Toronto playing basketball, she learned that she was more comfortable and less stressed by refusing to play a role that involved drinking and partying. The links between "role player" and "athlete," "environmentally driven" and "flexible," and "adaptive context" and "disorganized" were eliminated in recognition of the weakening influence of the Relativistic cluster had on her total self. These changes are reproduced in Figure 21. Magdelynn said she had a drive to achieve all of her life, and she suggested it may be a function of being a first-born child. She explained she is still "very much a role player," and although, when it is mapped on paper, "it appears kinda connected," she still feels fractured at times. She said she wants to be the same person "no matter what." This feeling of being uncomfortable with context dependency, and the suggestion that she would like to be the same person across contexts, implies a feeling that there should be a unitary self whose constancy is reflected in her memories. As a result of this interpretation, a "Feeling of Self theme was attached to "Rememberer." Figure 21: Revised memetic self-map of Magdelynn with amendments flowing from her third interview Brent Brent was a "third or fourth generation" male in his thirties who described himself ethnically, "Canadian." He was Caucasian and single at the time of this research. Brent's First Interview A core theme Brent presented was "rememberer." More segments (13) were coded for "rememberer" than any of the other 30 memes applied 119 times to 74 segments of text. Brent explained who he was through a series of remembered narratives on which he would reflectively dwell. His memories and the importance he placed on them led to his becoming a "packrat." So much space was taken in his house with memorabilia that he did not have space for usual household furniture such as sofas and chairs. He found he could dispose of items if he first took their picture so as to ensure the memory of the item was preserved. The "rememberer" meme is pictured as a diamond in Figure 22 so as to signify its importance as a theme. Links connect it with "reflective," "animator," "student," "storyteller" and "self-changer," but a thematic line was also drawn to other aspects of himself such as "self-aware," "friend," "caring," "family member," and "packrat." Taking issues seriously, self lightly. Another theme recurrent within Brent's narrative of his self was represented as "Takes self lightly." This theme was closely associated with "humorous," which was represented behaviorally in self-depreciating humour and as a theme in his roles as a student, teacher, friend, leader and broadcaster. This quality helped him embrace his baldness, and it contributed generally to his ability to change himself. It was a quality he brings to reflective thought, which he said helps keeps his thoughts "in balance." He credited his reflectivity with developing a "long view" of the world especially with respect to environmental 205 issues. He said the quality of taking himself lightly helped preserve relationships and reduce stress. Figure 22: Memetic map of Brent resulting from the segmentation and coding of his initial interview with the number segments coded for each meme in brackets Being an environmentalist gave purpose to Brent's life and was associated with a drive to understand the world around him. This theme is represented in Figure 22 as "attempts to understand," and is associated most closely with "empathetic," "flexible" and "positive spirit." As an example, Brent recounted his attempt to understand the action of a former girlfriend who had ended their relationship after she saw his house. He recognized her values as different from his, and he resolved to deal with some aspects of his "packrat" behaviors that others found off- putting. The meme "flexible" was a relatively recent addition to his self: I am much happier than I was then. I think by letting that rigidity go I'm able to be flexible with myself, be patient with myself, be understanding, allow myself to fail, ah, allow myself to move on and particularly with other people.... Sometimes I change my mind, and I am not sure what I believe and I certainly have in the course of many years, but I used to wonder about that. I thought we had to be one way. I was a little more rigid in my thinking when I was younger. The theme "Attempts to understand" is associated with empathy and flexibility and is drawn to connect disparate elements of his self including "environmentalist," "teacher" and "animator." Brent honed a sense of himself as an empowered "doer." Being an athlete is important to him, but he was also an elected leader in his cycling association, has taught classes in swimming, was an activist in promoting environmentally sustainable lifestyles and has held leadership positions within the environmental movement. "Animator" is also connected to "teacher," "broadcaster," "self-esteem" and "family member" in his self-structure. Re-establishing family links. Brent said he has not felt close to his family. As a youth, his parents did not understand him and were not proud of him. He adopted a "punk rocker" lifestyle and became "heavily into environmentalism." He did not use Styrofoam or plastic cutlery and rarely ate beef because of the high energy demands and wastefulness of these products. He did not establish a career until he was in his 30s and lived a frugal existence. He has not sent his family Christmas or birthday cards, but he recently began talking to his parents "almost weekly." His mother always says "I love you," and sometimes he will say, "I love you too." He eschewed 207 flowers because they die. He was not close to his one brother. "Family member" is represented as having a link to "animator" in Figure 22 because he has controlled the amount and nature of the contact with his family; but it is his memories that give "family member" a continued place in his self. Brent shared that he would like to have a child of his own some day if he could find a suitable partner. His had begun to worry about his status as a single male: I think I romanticize a role as a boyfriend because I do, quite frankly, I think that that is a role I would like to play, but I haven't played it for any significant length. I have never had a relationship for over 10 months in my life, and that starts to surprise me as I come into my late 30's. Brent had not been in a romantic relationship for a two and a half year period prior to his participation in this research. He said he had not been ready for a relationship and did not know how to meet eligible women. Then he met someone on the internet: I was on Lava Life, and you have to buy credits in order to, in order to communicate with the other person anymore than simply sending them a smile as it were, and I thought about it for awhile because you can exchange a smile for free and I thought I am a bit... I question these things. I question Lava Life. I thought I preferred to meet someone the old fashioned way, but this woman was fairly good looking, I thought, and I liked her profile and what she had written about herself. I actually bought some credits. We met. We had a great time. She, ah, I thought she was quite attractive. I thought we were on the same wave-length, and we started dating, and that was quite shocking to me actually because I had never been on a second date. Brent said he believed that his "packrat" tendencies and being overextended contributed to her decision that they were not compatible. This led him to re-examine some aspects of his self. Because of this determination to change his single status, "single" was connected to "animator" in Figure 22. Building belief in self. "Self-esteem" was used as a label for a meme developed within Brent's self that represents the quality of thinking positively about his existence and his ability to affect the world around him, and it is pictured as being connected to "good person" and his roles as a broadcaster, athlete and teacher. He reported that he had not developed the level of self- esteem he needed to pursue a career as a teacher until he was well into adulthood: I was in a swim class at the U of C and I was simply taking courses because I wanted to stay active, and a teacher that I had, the swim instructor who is a prof here at the U of C, she said to me at the time, she saw me swimming and she said, "Have you ever swam masters?" and I had, and I said, "Ya, I did when I was in Thunder Bay, my old school," and she said "You ought to consider teaching swimming," and I thought, "Wow, she thinks I am good enough to teach," and then bugles started blowing, then I started to think... "Wow, I can do that." She instilled in me this confidence that I didn't have, and maybe I was struggling with esteem at the time, but I thought, "Wow, I can do that. And maybe I'll go into coaching as well, and get my coaching certification," and suddenly I started pursuing that, and I became a swim instructor and cycling coach. Subsequent to some successful coaching experiences Brent enrolled in a college of education to become a professional teacher. Although he had only taught full-time for one year prior to his participation in this research, he identified himself as a teacher in ten segments, the 209 second most common reference to himself in the initial interview. He said he brings two distinctive qualities to his students: his sense of humour and his drive to understand others. Representing multiple "selves." To better represent his self, Brent's self-map was constructed to include three sides or "selves:" a feeling self that included such memes as "caring," "empathetic" and "positive spirit;" an active self that is centered on the meme "empowered animator;" and, "self characteristics" such a "bald" and "single." These three "selves" do not represent separate selves, but were meant to be fully integrated aspects of who he was. Brent's Second Interview Brent's initial comment, after reviewing the first draft of his self-map 4.5 months after his first interview, was the map represented him well, but he would connect "positive spirit" and "good person" more tightly, and that he would also connect "good person" with "environment." He said "good person" represents a theme that runs through a number of memes in his self-map. It was, therefore, defined as a thematic center (as well as a meme) in his revised self-map (Figure 23) with thematic lines connecting it to "activist" and "environmentalist" in one direction, and "positive spirit," "empathetic," "friend," "caring" and "kind" in the other. With this revision, an "empathetic" theme connecting with "environmentalist" was not needed and was removed. The interpretive theme "Attempts to understand" was incorporated into Brent's definition of "good person" and "empathetic." Put simply, this revision recognized that Brent's empathetic self flowed from his attempts to be a good person rather than the reverse. Relationship with religion. Brent explained that to teach in a Catholic system you have to get a priest's letter documenting your faith. This was a problem for him because he had not been living the Catholic faith nor had he been attending church. His old high school motto was "goodness, discipline and knowledge," and it so happened that the school to which he applied had the same motto. He suggested this motto represented his personal connectedness to the divine, yet he had the feeling that the vice-principal probably knew that his faith was not as strong as it needed to be. Brent explained that he does not accept a lot of Catholic dogma. He said the church should be more progressive on environmental issues: "If we are not environmental how can we care for the sick because the environment is making them sick." In his understanding one could still be Catholic and hold views at variance with official church doctrine. He believed his activity in favor of environmentalism is evidence of a positive spirit. A good person, he explained, reflects on what he does and considers other peoples' feelings with respect to outcomes. Brent said many Catholics are good people and you can trust them, but many miss the broader picture: the connection between being stewards of the planet and environmentalism, but he admired their sense of community. He did not feel part of that community because he is not devout, and he is a member of the environmentalist community which is not, generally, Catholic. Although Brent would not describe himself as a devout Catholic, he was raised in that church and still defined himself as a Catholic, in some sense; therefore, "Catholic" was added to his revised self-map connected to "family person." A tension line was drawn between "Catholic" and "environmentalist" illustrating a conflict between the two. A meme for "community" was added, connected to "environmentalist" in recognition of his appreciation of community and a desire to be part of one. The meme "good person" was amended to include the idea of reflecting on one's owns actions in consideration and respect of others. 211 Characteristic Figure 23: Revised memetic self-map of Brent with amendments flowing from his second interview Brent also said he would add "radio listener" to his self-map connected to "learner." He explained that he listens to CBC regularly for both news and music. He would also add another meme, "music", to his self-map. Music represents, for him, activism, empowerment, storytelling and at times, humor. He noted this kind of music is most likely found on CBC Radio. Memes for "radio listener" and "music" were added. The meme for "music" was linked to "activism" and "empowerment" and was placed along a thematic line emanating from "humor." The "Rememberer" theme line was extended to connect with "music." Attempts to understand himself in relation with others. Brent noted inconsistency in others. He used the example of a teacher who recycles newspapers, but gathers paper from his classroom to garbage it without recycling. To Brent, this suggested the teacher was not totally committed to the environment. The fact that Brent would take note of this discrepancy and interpret it in a way that reflects on the other teacher's commitment, suggests a certain rigidity connected to environmental issues. A meme for "rigid" was added to his self-map and connected to "environmentalist." This meme may be understood as being in conflict with another aspect of his self, "flexible;" therefore, a tension line was drawn between the two. Brent explained that the woman he met on the internet (mentioned in the first interview), forced him to look at himself. She had said she had felt uncomfortable in his house because it was cold and was without furniture. He had made progress in becoming less of a packrat and in cleaning and renovating the house, and this process accelerated after they stopped dating. Brent subsequently met and dated another woman who owned a dog. He bought the woman a dog brush to deal with the dog shedding. He also insisted that she should stop smoking. In turn, she accepted the mess at his house, but he was attempting to make his home more welcoming and liveable. Brent still defined himself as single because he was not married, and despite his desire for family, he noted that he struggles with making a commitment. This information re-enforced the notion that a "rigid" meme exists in tension with a "flexible" meme within Brent's self. A link was drawn between "rigid" and "family member" since Brent had described his family of origin as "very oppressive" when he was a teenager, and this was a source of his own rigidity on certain issues. Brent's parents established a joint account with him to help him purchase a townhouse but, "Even now I wasn't able to tell them I bought a new car. I was afraid my parents would not approve because I lost money on the trade-in." He shared the worry his parents may not respect his decisions. This information also supports the interpretation that "flexible" was not an actual theme that runs through his self-map but is a reflection of his empowerment, so I reversed the thematic arrow connecting the two. This allowed thematic arrows to radiate from "empowerment" to "self-changer" and to "packrat," a meme that he is changing on the belief that he is empowered sufficiently to accomplish that change. The meme "family member" was modified to reflect an internal conflict between wanting to become closer to his family and resisting that change. Brent elaborated on his difficulty in disposing of the items that filled his house. He explained that if he gives up these items he may lose the memories associated with them, but he discovered taking pictures of such items helped empower him to throw them away. He had problems disposing furniture, paper, books, notes to himself, and even clippings from his hair after haircuts. Newspapers represented an extended memory. He documented his life with tapes, photos, and papers. This information demonstrated how essential "rememberer" was to his self- definition. Brent said a friend of his, a fellow cyclist, was murdered the November before the interviews associated with this study began. He said he had begun sensing the deceased person's presence, and this scared him. He woke up in the middle of the night prior to this second interview afraid that he would see a ghost. Brent said he felt guilty when another cyclist said the deceased "could be an asshole sometimes," because he found himself agreeing. He began thinking about what people might come to understand of him, if he died. He noted that while the deceased believed in cherishing each day, he was also filled with a deep-seated anger. Brent appeared to be recognizing his own mortality and his potential legacy as he pondered the meaning of the death of his friend. Cognitive and emotional dissonance was expressed over this potential transition; however, it was not clear the direction such a transition would take in effecting change to his self. Brent's Third Interview Brent's third interview occurred one month after the second. He said his frugality came from his parents who were "too concerned with saving." He also shared the insight that his sense of community came from people who were activists on environmental issues. He was involved with a student newspaper and part of the cycling community, and he organized races as part of that community. His radio show promotes activism. He said that he is also part of a teaching community. As a result of this information, his participation in his cycling and teaching communities were added to the behavioral aspect of his "community" meme. Brent said that for 7 years he did not have a television, and he felt good about this decision, but the internet had now replaced the potential television had for unprofitably occupying his time. He described the internet as "a strange addiction," and he suggested he is more productive without a computer. Signs of Brent's frugality had been interpreted as a function of his environmental concern for the planet in the preparation of the first and second versions of his self-map, but this new information suggested that his frugality with respect to the purchase of possessions and the expenditure of his time constituted an ethic related to his upbringing. Although compatible with environmental activism, such frugality could exist 215 independently. Thus, a meme for frugal was added to a third version of Brent's self-map linked to both "family" and "environmentalism" (Figure 24). Brent said the quality of taking himself lightly had its roots in elementary school. He enjoyed making people laugh, and he saw this as an effort to make people like him. He was shy when he went to high school, but he discovered that almost everyone else was also shy. This knowledge gave him the courage to take risks and be humorous. While attending university, he noted that the people he respected took themselves lightly. He also learned to appreciate there are multiple perspectives, and he tried to replace a tendency toward rigidity with the understanding that people are merely doing the best they can with the knowledge they have. Brent credited his mother for instilling within him the idea of self-empowerment by insisting that he take responsibility for his actions. He said his sense of empowerment increased during university, "When I said I would do something they expected you to do it." He became interested in the power of positive thinking and discovered he could empower himself in sports by reaching inside and finding an inner strength. Brent had thought his ideas of goodness came from the Roman Catholic Church; then he met people at university that were respectful, empathetic and loving without being religious. He tended to find these good qualities within activist communities - people working for the greater good. He decided he wanted to be a good person with the added understanding that one did not have to be a Catholic to be such a person. 216 Figure 24: Revised memetic self-map of Brent with amendments flowing from his third interview Brent discovered taking himself lightly helped him to be genuine. In grade school he used to be funny for the sake of being funny, but later he understood there is a time and place for humor. He has seen humorists who are "over the top," yet are able to treat others with respect, but he has difficulty understanding or respecting comedians who denigrate others. He added that the quality of taking himself lightly has allowed him to be more transparent in his relationships. A direct link was added between "Good Person" and "Takes self lightly," to give greater emphasis to the relationship between the two. Reflecting on his self- map, Brent said that he was happy to see himself with identified characteristics to which he can add. "It feels empowering that I can continue to work on my self. It feels empowering. It's like me, but it's not strictly me either." Brent added that he changes with the seasons: Summer is a time for athletics and living in the moment while winter is a time for reflectivity and inner growth. Nick Nick was an ethnic Russian, born in Kazakhstan but raised in Siberia. He was in his twenties and married without children. He was a student at the University of Calgary when he participated in this research. Nick's First Interview Ten of Nick's segments (out of 41) were coded "animator," and he said he finds individuality in action: "You have a choice to behave like an ordinary man or behave like a little bit different from ordinary man, ... you have chosen how to behave yourself; it's more interesting." Nick linked his animator self with a competitive spirit: "Everybody wants to be best. Sometimes you can find a man that is better than you. Ok, you should develop your skills more to be competitive, to be such a man." Six segments were coded "competitive" while an equal number were coded "self-changer," "If I see I'm not right in some situation it's like ok, I know the quality which I should develop." These memes: "animator", "competitive", and "self- changer" are shown as linked in Figure 25 where they form the core of a representation of Nick's self. Lnuinavjouv pnxe^e* ao^a^ed - \ u .. f i-jf A, i Figure 25: Memetic map of Nick resulting from the segmentation and coding of his initial interview with the number segments coded for each meme in brackets The thematic code "Empowerment' also applies to Nick's competitive, self-changer, adaptive and spirit selves. Nick said he uses his intelligence or cleverness to adapt to new situations. Nick defined his spirit as positive and enthusiastic with a confidence in his own empowerment, and this spirit has carried him through difficulties. Nick said he carries his competitiveness into his social self. "Social Self is pictured in Figure 25 as a thematic code inferred from his "learner," "worker," "student," "husband," and "friend" selves. He said he incorporates a humorous aspect of himself in social situations, and he acts differently according to context, which also makes him a role player. Playing different roles can change how he defines himself, thus "role player" was linked to "self-changer." Recognizing environmental determinants. A counterpoint to Nick's empowerment is his sense of being "environmentally driven." As an example of being driven by context, Nick said that he is a more calm in Canada than he was in Russia due to Canada having a more relaxed culture. Initially frustrated, he learned that Canadian culture moves "at it's own pace," and he learned to pace himself accordingly. In figure 24 a directional arrow was drawn connecting "environmentally driven" with "self-changer" as the environment effects self-change through a feedback mechanism. "Environmentally driven" is also linked to "reflective" because through reflectivity he comes to understand the nature of his environmentally driven self, and thus comes to have some sense of control over the process. Searching for the subjective self. "Reflective" forms a focal point that is connected to "intelligent," "thinker," and "rememberer." An interpretive or thematic code "Awareness" was inserted into Figure 25 to illustrate a self-perceived result of a process involving these capacities. Nick reflected on who he was: Who can tell you what me is me? For example, my interior voice of course it's me.... for example who can prove what you is you? You asking yourself, 'is it true what who is me who I can remember when I was 3 years old, is it me again?' and you know because your interior voice is what tells you. On further reflection, Nick revealed that his interior voice flows from an unconscious process accessed through feeling. This base as to who he is was drawn as a bar at the bottom of his self-map with a directional arrow from that unconscious feeling to "interior voice." This interior voice lets Nick know he is the same person while exercising different aspects of his self across temporal and situational contexts. A directional arrow was drawn from "interior voice" to "rememberer." It was Nick's view that this inner voice, reflecting internal feeling states, tells him what memories to access. "Rememberer" is also represented as a theme that connects to "reflective," "environmentally driven," "role player," "student" and "learner. Nick's Second Interview It had been approximately 5.5 months since the initial interview. Nick's first comment, on reviewing his self-map created from that interview, was that the pieces may be thought of as fitting together like parts to a narrative or story. He said there was not enough about his social self in the map, and it should be represented as more central to who he is. He described himself as a "social guy with many friends." He also suggested that his spirit included a drive to try new experiences. As a result of this new information, a new meme "friend," was added to the map (Figure 26) connected to "role player," "humorous" and "Social Self." "Social Self was moved so that it connected with a thematic line flowing from "rememberer." A link was added between "spirit" and "unique experiencer." 221 Unootiscioui.picxijssesactes.tedttiraftgKteHnij; MIllllWlMfcH——a——WIIMIIMIIlllllinil IIMl Mill ' lllrtll llllll1IIIIIIIIl*M^B When asked if any changes had happened to who he was since our first interview, Nick said that he was now calmer. He said he had been in cultural shock on arriving in Canada, and he had been frequently angry at delays that were not of his doing. Bureaucracies did not appear 222 willing to solve mistakes involving payroll. Irrespective of these difficulties and his reaction to them, he does not define himself as an angry person, but he now considers himself to be less angry than he was five months previously. He accommodated himself to a different system or way of doing things. These changes did not involve the incorporation of new memes into his self, but they spoke to his adaptive and reflective selves thus a linkage was added between the two. The constant indivisible individual. Nick said he had a feeling of constancy through temporal and contextual change and asked, rhetorically, whether it was possible for him to know if his self was different than it had been. He replied that he could not be cognisant of such difference. Although he may feel differently at times, since he is owning the feeling, that which does the owning gives a feeling of constancy, and he would be unaware if that which does the owning changed. He noted that no one part constituted himself, that he speaks of "my arms," "my body," and "my mind." He noted the implication that he, the owner, exists independent of his possessions including his body parts. He concluded that he was "a closed system that is indivisible," and that which observes and is capable of objectifying parts of his self is associated with his "interior voice" that informs him of his feeling of constancy and his objective self. Thus, the explanatory phrase "observes objective self was added to "interior voice" in Figure 26. Life goals. Nick described happiness as "a background goal." He said that you need to be happy to obtain all of your other goals. For example, if one of your goals is to be a leader, you cannot achieve that goal unless you are happy with yourself. In reply to a supplemental question asking whether the happiness of others is a goal for him, Nick said if people in his environment are not happy, he cannot be happy, so he will attempt to cheer others so that he can be a happy person. Nick said he would not describe himself as a happy person, and he cannot ever tell if he 223 has reached his goal of being a happy person. He described happiness as a process goal but not as an ultimate goal. He said you cannot have but one goal in life because once you reach it, there is nothing left. To Nick the central question for everyone was, "Okay, what can I do in this life?" To Nick this translated as, "What do I need to do... to be happy?" Finding meaning and purpose are two ways of becoming happy. Nick said he knows when his accomplishments are sufficient to make him happy because he feels it, a feeling translated by his inner voice. "Happiness" was not represented in Figure 26 as a meme that describes who he is but is drawn as a goal to which he aspires, and it was drawn as overlapping with "interior voice" to represent that this aspect of himself carries on a dialogue letting him know how proximate this goal is. A thematic line was drawn from "interior voice" through "happiness," "spirit," "learner" to "Social Self to represent how success in these associated realms are tied to his primary goal. The self in relationships. Nick had said he could be rigid, tough and good during the first interview and he was asked to give examples. He said that he is sometimes rigid when he and his wife have different views. He is tough when sometimes she fears a new experience, and he pushes her into that experience. Sometimes, when he tries to be good to her and says "don't worry," she thinks he is still pushing her. He said he is trying to be attentive to her feelings. This behavioral description was added to Nick's "husband" meme. Nick said he feels that it is too calm in Canada, and he would like more stimulation in the form of gathering new experiences to aid in his motivation. This information, the element of seeking new experiences, was added to Nick's "unique experiencer" meme. Nick said he needs positive feedback with regard to his social self in order to be happy. This is how he knows if he is successful, yet he would like to not be defined by the feedback; he wants to have internal knowledge defining himself positively. This would involve him becoming less environmentally dependent and being, essentially, the same person regardless of context. This sentiment is reflected in the thematic connection between "Happiness" and "Social Self." The directional arrow between "environmentally driven" and "self-changer" was reversed indicating Nick's intention of becoming less environmentally driven. Nick's Third Interview Nick said he had gained self-insight from his participation in this research. In an exercise as part of a university course during the two month period between the second and third interviews, he discovered that he is humorous, intellectual and open-minded - all qualities that are already represented on his self-map. He said it is interesting to get feedback from others on who he is, but added it would be good to not have to depend on others for one's opinions, and his quality should be added to his map. As a result, a meme for "independent" was added to Nick's self-map and represented in Figure 27. The connotation of this meme was that dependent people do not respect their own opinion and are not strong. Nick noted that during Lenin's time 20% of the Russians were revolutionary while 20% were conservative. Lenin was said to have described the 60% who were neither as "muddy water." Nick said he respected conservatives more than those without opinions. The "independent" meme was linked to "unique experiencer," "empowerment," and "self-esteem." Nick complained that Canadian bureaucracy is too slow, and people in it do not want to work and do not want to understand. In Russia you can give bribes and complain to get people moving but not in Canada. Nick said the Canadian system is too inflexible. He attempted to accomplish his goals efficaciously, but when he explained his deadlines to Canadians, they do not want to speed up. He said he does not want to spend his time doing other peoples' jobs. 225 -•DiumjHjqgs. friend. husband (li role pliiyei \/_ -— (3) V Figure 27: Revised memetic self-map of Nick with amendments flowing from his second interview 226 The frustration Nick felt with the Canadian pace is related to his sense of animation. He said this sense of being empowered came from his childhood when he had pneumonia, but he refused to restrict his physical activity. When sent to Russia from Kazakhstan, he became involved in cross-country skiing and running. He learned that if you are good you could do many things. As a student in Russia, he thought that it would be good to see the world, and his academic chair suggested that he go to US America. Although many people had difficulty obtaining visas after 9/11, he was successful. This illustrated his sense that if he "anticipates" something, it will happen. He suggested his sense of empowerment came from inside himself, but it was developed by his experiences. He reported that there had been no change to this sense of empowerment as a result of his participation in this research. He described this experience as novel and unique, and he had gained in his ability to talk about and explain himself. Maomao Maomao was a young woman in her twenties from a city in the interior of China. She was unmarried and without children. At the beginning of her participation in this study she was a student at the University of Calgary, having been in Canada for 2.5 years. By our second interview she was employed as a bank systems analyst in Calgary. Maomao's First Interview Maomao initially responded to the invitation to tell the researcher about herself by talking about the city in which she was born and raised. She said she was from the middle city of the middle province of China, and the city, Xi'an, had been the capital of ancient China on thirteen separate occasions. She mentioned several local historic and cultural attractions, and she suggested the interviewer visits her city if he ever travels to China, and in particular, he should take the bus to travel along the city's ancient walls. Maomao also talked about her parents and 227 her extended family in the city and their occupations. She also talked about her elementary, middle years and university education. She said her thesis at the University of Calgary involved the application of computer graphics to Chinese calligraphy. This led to a discussion of her grandfather who also lives in Xi'an and is a famous Chinese calligrapher. She talked about the teachings her grandfather gave her. There are, apparently, several techniques of doing Chinese calligraphy, and she talked about the problems of simulating even one of those techniques with a computer program. She talked about how she finally found an algorithm sufficient for two- layered brush strokes on Chinese grass paper, and how she successfully defended her thesis based on this technique in 2006. She was awaiting convocation in June 2007, and she hoped her parents would be able to come from China to attend. At this point she permitted the interviewer to ask a second question. Maomao's initial statement as to who she was is summarized in some detail because it presents a core of what she felt a person, not of her culture, should know to better understand her. She felt it was important for the interviewer to know something about her city of origin. She both identified with and had pride in that city, and this is represented in her initial self-map (Figure 28) as "territorial" representing, not possessiveness, but identification. "Territorial" was interwoven repeatedly with family. Seventeen out of 82 segments were coded for "Family person," and this coding was linked to "territorial" in Figure 27 as a theme as well as a meme. Maomao's role as a student was emphasized in her initial statement and the meme "student" was coded for 14 segments of her total initial interview. It is linked strongly with family as her family directed her student career including both her areas of study and the location of those studies. I -\eti\e Silt A Love of, pride w paients and dog, background (wdudfiys hpjw eitj) i& aixantqit IWlH »•!••— hill «»«*MM^riMWM«MM«WMMItBil«M»W«M«WMM«awaMW^I>MW^«««^ Figure 28: Memetic map ofMaomao resulting from the segmentation and coding of her initial interview with the number segments coded for each meme in brackets A deferent family member core. More segments (19) were coded for "deference" than "family member," although the two are linked. The label, "deference," stands for a self- definition as a deferent person, someone who submits to the decisions of significant others. Maomao said even small decisions, such as what to wear, were made by her parents, particularly her mother, prior to her leaving home. Her decision to major in computer science was not hers; she does not particularly like the subject. Her interests were in astronomy and medicine, but her elders selected a different course for her, and she respected their wisdom on the subject. Maomao said she panicked during her first two days in Canada because she had no ready access to her parents, but with the help of her landlord she obtained a cell phone and a computer, and the parental contact was re-established. Even her dissertation topic involved deference to another - her supervisor. She reported, "I still cannot make decision, so found like before, I want to listen to the command." When the decision of a significant other differs from her wishes, she feels sadness, but when peers enforce a decision she does not like, she feels anger. She said being a deferent person does not bring her happiness: I found that maybe 20 years of my life it's just I am like a robot. I just listen to the command, but at that time I found it hard to make a decision myself, and I found it so hard, for even just a very simple, very easy things. "Deferent" was associated with her anger when denied what she wants, and it was also linked to "metaphor maker" as a result of her self-description as a robot. She also saw deference as a consequence of being an only child and of her role as a daughter: Like they (her parents) care too much. Like even here (in Calgary), even now I'm like back home; I have to call my parents to tell my parents that I am back home now so my father will be not worried. If I forgot to call my father, he call me. Maomao said her role as a good daughter involves more than deference: The other thing I want because I hear a lot, friends ask me to go to like to the Ontario, or eastern like Toronto, or some other places for travel together, but I don't, I didn't go with them because I want to travel with my parents. 230 A sign of self-empowerment. Another meme coded for a large number of segments (12) was "pet lover." Buying a dog while living in Beijing was the first major decision she recalled making without being deferent to anyone else: Before I graduate from Lanzhou University which is my undergraduate study, my dream is, I can have a dog. I dream is not like a cat or a lot of money, but its I can have a dog, and after I graduate I found a job at Beijing, and I have my own small room, and so I buy a dog, and it's a very small one, it's Peking dog. Maomao developed a familial relationship with her dog that involved interdependence: It is very cold in Beijing. It's a lot of, it's a very big wind, so where I was thinking my dog is waiting for me and is so hungry and so lonely at my home, I would feel very strong, energetic and do not feel so cold. I just ride my bicycle very fast, and when I go back home my dog is always waiting for me. Added significance accrued to Maomao's first independent act because her father was not particularly fond of dogs. None-the-less, she was able to convince her parents to accept the dog when she returned from Beijing, and when she left for Canada she entrusted them with the dog's care. The dog died, but Maomao recounted a story she heard about her father losing 20 lbs in his grief after the dog disappeared. Her father bought her another dog and gave that dog the same name, Maomao. Losing her first dog, however, led her to change the way that she treats other people, "They should be treated good to everyone because one day you will lose them." Maomao also showed a tendency to be self-critical by blaming herself for the death of her first dog even though she was not in the country. She also derided herself for her difficulty in making decisions, for displaying anger, and for being impatient. "Self-critical" combined with "self-change" to create action, and this supported an animator meme. She investigated taking 231 astronomy at the University of Calgary. She devised a plan to go back to her old university in China before letting her parents know that she was returning, so they will not have an opportunity to insist that she spend all her time in her home city. She explained, "The thing is I cannot ask my parents exactly what I want because they would not allow me to do something, and I am old enough, I think." Her capacity to be self-critical led to a degree of self-awareness and the ability to think reflectively about who she is. She analyzed her memories with an awareness of her history of deference, her difficulties in making decisions and her self-centeredness. She also remembered her travels and her curiosity in exploring new places coded in Figure 28 as "inquisitive." She remembered the things she has changed, and would like to change, about herself, and she remembered her first dog. Thus, her memories helped to unite various aspects of herself depicted as a thematic line flowing from "Rememberer." Tensions within the self. Maomao's account suggested potential conflict between her "animator" and "deferent" memes. This tension was pictured in Figure 26 by an orange double- headed arrow showing repulsion between the two. A similar tension line is pictured between "friend" and "self-centered," and between "self change" and "environmentally driven." These lines of tension display a conflict between her Passive and Active selves with Maomao's "Passive Self better developed. Maomao 's Second Interview On reviewing the self-map created from her first interview, Maomao said her passive self was far more prominent than her active self. She recalled her mother always helped her prepare for examinations while other students were responsible for their own studies. The relative importance of her passive self was already represented on the map with "deferent" and "family" memes having more prominence with more links than her animator meme. In the 5.5 months since the first interview, Maomao's parents had arrived from China for her convocation and an extended visit. Maomao said she looked for work when she graduated because her mother insisted and "nagged" her about it "every day." Maomao said she now defined herself as a worker and less of a student than prior to graduation. A new meme "worker" was added to Figure 29 which was linked to both "deferent" and "student." "Student" was moved to the periphery. Given her level of passivity, Maomao suggested that "environmentally driven" should be represented more central In her map. The tension line between "environmentally driven" and "self-changer appeared inappropriately placed as it appeared, from this new information, that "environmentally driven" acted to suppress her "animator" capacity resulting in the increased emphasis on the passivity that Maomao reported. None-the-less, the animator meme remained imbedded in Maomao's self-definition as she reported a capacity to act independently under certain circumstances, and she has resented her desire for direction saying that she felt like a robot in some ways. It is possible that such feelings could be a cross-cultural effect, but she said she also had this robot-like feeling during her time at Lanzhou University before coming to Canada. She also said she would have looked into ways of pursuing her interest in astronomy had she stayed in China. Une of. pride in paruils und dog backgfoup(l.tm0udwglioaiec)ty)iKai.o^sioiu a • - -'• • ..'•••• •--„•„ • ' *- . <•. .1 Figure 29: Revised memetic self-map for Maomao with amendments flowing from her second interview By the second interview, Maomao was working and had her own apartment. She had complained, during the first interview, that the Canadian family she had stayed with drank too much, but she had made some "church friends" who did not drink. She said she had stayed with the drinking family because she liked the girl who lived in the home, and the mother of the girl was very nice. Maomao said she now considers herself to be a Christian, and "church people" say that you should help other people because it is the good thing to do. She said in China goodness is defined by the law. The "church people" also taught her to pray, and she said she found prayer to be helpful when she is under stress. As a result of this information, a new meme for "Christian" was added to her map linked to "self-changer" and "caring." Maomao 's Third Interview Maomao reviewed her revised memetic self-map approximately two months after her second interview. She agreed once again with the prominence given her passive self. Now that she had her own apartment and her parents had returned to China, she reported more of her time was being spent at home on the internet, watching television and listening to music. She said although she feels comfortable in a passive role, she can, with effort, be self-activated and she had began to decide for herself whether she would return home or stay and study while still a university student. Although she realized that she can make decisions on her own, she said she prefers not to do so. Being deferent allows her to do other things because she does not have to take the time to gather all the information she needs to make a good decision. She said her parents enjoyed their time in Canada, and they planned to return the following summer. They approved of her conversion to Christianity, and they had attended church services with her. Maomao reported no change in her ability to decide on and make changes to her self as a result of her participation in this research. She said she now looks at herself in a different way and has more of an idea of her self. She would like to change some "bad habits;" for example, she thinks that staying at home all day is not good for her. She said she is also more aware of her personality and how she affects others, particularly her parents and her friends. CHAPTER 5: COLLECTIVE RESULTS This study developed an understanding of how the self of participants may be represented visually in a way that resonates with them. The major research question was, "How do people experience co-constructing maps of their self-identity using a memetic process?" from which four sub-questions flowed: 1) What cognitions, feelings and new insights, if any, present during the co-construction of self-maps? 2) What cognitions, feelings and new insights, if any, present on the completion and review of these maps? 3) How do participants in this process relate the co-construction of their self-maps to childhood and adult transitions they may have experienced? 4) What feelings as may relate to empowerment or lack of empowerment, present during a discussion of the felt meaning of these memetic self maps? In addition to these questions, the research benefited from an unanticipated longitudinal effect flowing from the six to eight month period between the first and third participant interviews that prompted the following supplemental question: 5) In what ways may the selves of individuals have changed over the six to eight-month period in this study? Four specific areas of inquiry were proposed dealing with resonance, early transitions, changes to the selves of individuals over the course of this study, and feelings of empowerment that may have arisen from participation in this process of this research. Answers to these questions are discussed in the sub-section dealing with data related to the research questions. 236 Two of the sub-questions (1&2) were more open-ended allowing for an inductive review of general themes that flowed from the data. These themes are discussed later in this chapter. Data Related to the Research Questions It was expected that all of the participants would comment on each of the four specific areas of inquiry investigated by this research: map resonance, developmental transitions, changes to the self over the course of the study, and self-empowerment related to participation in the mapping process. Each participant was invited to comment on each of these areas, and all made reference to earlier transitions that helped them become who they were without being prompted to do so. Some participants (Tina, Trevor, Fredelle, Chantelle, Brent, Maomao) commented positively about how well their maps resonated with their felt experience prior to such an invitation. Resonance of the Memetic Mapping Process with Felt Experience One of the three main purposes of this study was to develop an understanding of how the self of participants may be represented visually in a way that resonates with them (p. 4). If people whose selves are so mapped feel that the resultant maps adequately represent them in some ways, then there is some hope the process may lead to increased understanding of those individuals. Such resonance, if widespread, would suggest the utility of a memetic model applied to our theoretical understandings of self. It was anticipated the level of felt resonance voiced by participants would be lower on initial self-map drafts, with their level of resonance increasing on subsequent co-constructed refinements. None-the-less, one participant's reaction (Trevor), on being presented with an initial draft of his self-map, was that it was an "awesome picture" and "damn good in fact." In all, seven of the participants indicated that their initial self-map drafts resonated with them in some ways; two indicated their self-maps did not resonate with them, while the remaining two did not give a clear indication of resonance or non-resonance. Three participants identified clusters of memes as "mini-selves" that combined to make up a whole. JohnB traced the developmental evolution of such a "mini-self centered on a "Challenger of Authority" theme, to a Worker / Social self, with the subsequent development of an Empowered "core" self. Fredelle said her initial map accurately reflected the imbalance between two such mini-selves: "Fred" and "Fredelle." Maomao made a similar reflection on the imbalance between her Passive and Active selves. After stating that her initial self-map was a "good representation," a fourth person (Tina) shared an aspect of her self she may not have felt comfortable discussing during our initial interview - her bi-sexuality and its relationship with her husband. The two participants said their initial self-maps failed to recognize important aspects of their selves. Pangloss said his initial map was ingratiating because it did not reflect certain negative characteristics such as vindictiveness, arrogance, vanity and self-centeredness. Nick voiced the opinion that his initial self-map failed to reflect his social self - an aspect of himself he considered crucial to who he was. All participants participated in a process of refining and developing their maps to better reflect who they felt they were. The amended self-maps were presented at the beginning of their third interviews. Ten of the participants reported the resultant maps resonated with them in some ways. Six of these said the maps required no further revision. JohnB said his map "captures everything." Chantelle declared, "It's how I would describe myself, it's perfect." Trevor said the map was an "accurate reflection," and Judy said her map did not need changes other than "fine- tuning," but she did not suggest further changes at the time. Tina said her map was "pretty cool" 238 and added that no further changes were necessary. Maomao again reflected on how the map accurately reflected an imbalance between her passive and active selves. Two participants said their self-maps resonated with their personal experience, and they proposed further changes not involving the addition or subtraction of memes, but involving changes to the existing structure. Magdelyn said a new interpretive code for transcendence (added after the second interview) "hit the nail on the head," but she noted she had decided to become less relativistic in keeping with the view that she should be more congruent with her "real self," and she gave examples of how she was accomplishing this task. As a result, her self- map was amended further to show fewer links between her relativistic cluster and other aspects of her self. Fredelle noted that a wig is not the same thing as a hairpiece; therefore the meme labelled "wig wearer" was changed to "hairpiece wearer." Brent and Nick found areas of personal resonance with their revised self-map, but they proposed further memetic revisions. Brent added a meme for "frugal" to his self-map, which linked with both "Catholic" and "environmentalist." Nick said he had gained the insight from his self-map to add a meme for "independent." One participant failed to report resonance between his self-map and his personal experience of having a self. Pangloss, having reviewed both his revised self-map (Figure 12) and the definitions of the memes that made up his self-map (Appendix K) said, "What struck me was how indelibly uninterested I was in finding out from someone else what I am." He also questioned the accuracy of some of the information that went into preparing his self-map, particularly the information given in the second interview: "I was determined to convince you that there were negatives in my personality so I presented an inaccurate picture." On the other hand, he also admitted he wanted the researcher to like him, so this affected his presentation in 239 some ways. He said he pays attention to himself only to the extents of its utility, but that he came out of the process of this research as he thought he would: "complicated, contradictory and confusing." In summation, a majority of participants reported resonance with their initial self-maps before they had an opportunity to participate in the co-constructive activity of revising those self- maps. All but one participant reported resonance after participating in that co-constructive process. The one participant who failed to report resonance with his self-map said he had presented an inaccurate picture of himself to the researcher. Transitions Impacting on the Self Prior to the Commencement of this Study One of the research questions of this study was, "How do participants in this process relate the co-construction of their self-maps to childhood and adult transitions they may have experienced?" An assumption of this question is, who we are changes over time, and an effective method of mapping the self should reflect those changes. This recognition of prior transitional change suggests a fluidity that contrasts with a view the self is something set at birth or soon after. Each participant was able to recall such transitions, and those events, combined with their interpretations of them, were relayed to the researcher in the form of narratives or remembered self-defining stories. Although most of the participants (10) were unfamiliar with the concept of the meme prior to the study, during the course of the study all were able to point to memes present and operative in their selves, and they related those memes to developmental transitions. Ten of the eleven participants related personal accounts of how they overcame adversity. For example, JohnB was born with a clubfoot, and this led to the expectation he would be non- athletic. He refused to accept this limitation, and his reaction to his disability resulted in the 240 development of certain aspects of his self that continued to be operative for more than half a century: I think that was quite critical in who I became to be because I wasn't supposed to play and I wasn't supposed to walk well, and I think there was the determination to do it this, and some of the things I did I'd come home from school and basically.... because you're not supposed to be doing that, how many times are you gonna hurt yourself, and I think it just gave me more determination to do it. JohnB was able to trace his determination and his competitiveness, found on his self- map, to his childhood reaction to his disability. He said he used a similar determination to overcome his natural shyness in particular contexts. The parenting style in which he was raised also influenced his development. He described his parents as emotionally abusive with the result that he reacts negatively to people who are arrogant and authoritative stating: "I'll tune you out or I will pick my times to get even. I can be somewhat revengeful..." JohnB credited his experience of moving to the north (of Saskatchewan) and becoming exposed to cultural diversity with changing from being a conservative Catholic to a more liberal and accepting individual: "There are aboriginal, Metis; extremes of wealth.... in La Ronge one can play on a team with a cop, a drug dealer, aboriginals, executives - and they all get along." Although his cross-cultural experiences in northern Saskatchewan may have effected some changes to his worldview, he was primed for those changes by the childhood experience of having a non-Christian, non-Caucasian friend who was, in his opinion, as entitled to go to Heaven as he was. JohnB said he stayed in a "really, really bad marriage for 18 years" because of his own deficiencies as a "social idiot." The antidote for personal failings is change, a concept he learned to embrace: 241 A lot of people don't like changes, be it personality, be it family, be it jobs. What I mean, they're terrified of change. I find life extremely boring and routine if you don't constantly change, or try and implement change because as soon as something, as an example, if you got something at work, and you're goin', "This system really works." You have to look at ways to make it better, even if it's really working. There is always something you can do to improve it. I think in our personal lives we have to look at that too. Judy also used a rational process while still a youth to question the Catholic values in which she was raised. A priest presented, as church dogma, the notion that kissing was permissible "as long as it was above the neck and did not last longer than one minute." She felt that this teaching was "completely ridiculous," and reasoned that if one teaching was not true, there might be other church teachings that were also not true. She recalled, "It all fell away like wet Kleenex:" I think it (religion) gave me that sense that there was meaning; there was purpose. There was you know, a god that watches every sparrow fall which, I like that idea, but soon began to think that's not true. How come just me gets helped by this god and all these people in the rest of the world are on their own? Judy also described herself as "painfully shy" in childhood. This shyness led her to appear stern when she was not, and she described herself as more of an observer than a participator. She credited a job as a carhop with the incidental effect of curing the extreme shyness she felt, although she continued to be cautious in her presentation style. Magdelynn credited her tendency toward overachievement with accompanying self- criticism, to being the oldest in her sib-line. She also experienced a rational process to leave Catholicism as a youth. She reported growing up going to church every Sunday. She was baptized, confirmed, and took catechism but she thought, "This does not may any sense to me, like whatever." In particular, she questioned why the Roman Catholic Church would shun homosexuals while tolerating priests who abused children. She was sent to an all-girls Roman Catholic boarding school in Saskatchewan, and she "went through the motions" expected of her until her graduation. Magdelynn reported that her motorcycle accident had resulted in more acceptance of environmental determinants. She described herself as having a "Forest Gump life," in which she accepted the directions given by those determinants. She began to define herself as an athlete because she had the opportunity to become an athlete, but this transition was connected to the intervention of a valued friend: I was upset a lot and quite suicidal, I guess, until one of my friends, a new friend that I made, who was in a chair he was like "You were an athlete before; you can still be an athlete," and I was like "What are you talking about? That don't make any sense to me." He said, "You have the heart and drive and determination to be as active as you were, and you still have that. You just have to find a different sport. You have to find a sport that works for you now." Brent also experienced a questioning of the Roman Catholic faith in which he was raised. In particular, he questioned the church's lack of attention to environmental issues. On the other hand, he maintained the belief one can remain a Catholic while not accepting certain aspects of church dogma. On this basis he continued to present himself as a Catholic, and he accepted an appointment at a Roman Catholic school. A more profound transition experienced by Brent involved a change in self-definition from someone who lacked academic ability to someone who could succeed in academic circles. 243 He credited this transition to the suggestion of a swimming coach, who was also a university professor, that he could teach swimming. This encouragement led to successful experiences as an instructor and coach which, in turn, led to his enrolment at a college of education. He re interpreted his earlier academic failures to an understanding that he had not known how to study at the time. Brent also acknowledged a parental influence, attributing his frugality to their influence. He credited his mother with instilling in him his sense of empowerment. Brent used the ending of a relationship as the catalyst for change. A woman he had been dating said she did not feel comfortable at his house. He noted the house was cold, it did not have a couch, and she was ill at the time. He resolved, after the relationship, to reduce his packrat behaviors and to make his house more visitor-friendly. Fredelle described a tormented childhood involving repeated degradation by other boys and her father. She recalled: "I was generally treated as someone who was a fag and lower than them and not respected." She was generally friendless, and she avoided situations of potential ridicule. This was complicated by a bad stutter: I also stuttered very badly; I mean so badly that it was a physical problem. I'd be shaking my head up and down; you would think I was having a seizure if you saw me. I'd be struggling so hard to get that sound out that my jugular veins would be sticking out. I'd be shaking my head; it was a horrible thing. I recall sitting at the supper table trying to talk, and I was sitting against the wall. I'd be banging my head against the wall trying to get a sound out, and I felt like a freak. Fredelle accepted the label "freak" with the interpretation that being born into a male body was the cause of her freakiness. She became intensely angry with her male side and "nature" for uncaringly causing her so much pain. Fredelle's "coming out" represented self- 244 acceptance, a transition that was associated with therapy. The Unitarian church provided a community of support in which she began displaying her femininity more widely. Nick said his sense of being empowered came from his childhood when he had pneumonia, but he refused to restrict his physical activity. When sent to Russia from Kazakhstan, he became involved in cross-country skiing and running, and he learned, "If you are good you could do many things." As a student, he thought it would be good to see the world, and his academic chair suggested that he go to US America. Although many people had difficulty obtaining visas after 9/11, he was successful, and this led to the interpretation that if he "anticipates" something, it will happen. He suggested that this sense of empowerment came from inside himself, but it was developed by his experiences. Maomao reported that in her formative years even small decisions such as what to wear were made by her parents, particularly her mother. She attributed this parental influence with the development of her "Passive self that dominates the rest of her being. She experimented with independent decision-making and discovered that she does have that capacity, but she felt that the benefits of remaining passive outweighed the benefits of active independent decision-making most of the time. External pressure from friends who have criticized her for being selfish has caused her to re-examine her self and her relationships to family and friends. Tina reported she compulsively cleans the homes of family and friends when visiting. She traced this behavior to her desire to gain childhood approval from her mother: "When I was little I used to make my bed, and it would have no creases in it whatsoever, and I used to run over to my mom and show her. I was so proud of myself that I made my bed like that" 245 Tina said the death of a sister she had just begun to know led her to separate herself from her parents: That was the first time that I had to ever deal with death when my sister died, and that was, that's a big thing that me and my family don't talk about very much 'cause it was an affair and they decided not to tell us about it, and when I was in grade 7 one of my friends that I hung out with, her sister was my sister as well, but she was told not to tell me, so we grew up in high school, a good 2, 3 years she didn't say anything, and then I was hearing impaired, I am hearing impaired, and I seen her at the fair, and she goes "Tina this is you're sister," and I thought she said, "This is my sister," so I shook my own sister's hand and walked away from her the first time I met her, just hurt her completely, and my dad was freaking out 'cause he saw the whole thing from afar and he ended up telling me that night that was my actual sister, and then she was alive, I got to know her for 2 years and she passed away. The day after she left the house she got in a 4 wheeling accident in Beauval, so I only got to know her for 2 years around there around 2 years, and we don't talk about that much in the house, not at all. The secrecy and pain associated with her father's promiscuity led her accept the idea of an open marriage with her husband, and to be accepting of diversity, generally. Tina credited the death of a child with becoming more anxious and paranoid, and with her relapse into a pattern of binge drinking. Pregnancy led her away from binge drinking on two occasions. On both occasions powerful behavioral injunctions associated with motherhood resulted in her choosing a sober and more responsible lifestyle. Her response when asked from where those behavioral injunctions came was, "I dunno, I guess I was brought up right!" 246 The birth of a child also prompted Chanetelle to begin changing her self in some ways. Although she lost her son to foster care, she hoped to reunite with him when able to care for him properly. Reflectivity and self-criticism were two elements connected to her change effort, but these memes were present prior to the birth. She explained: I think that life is based on change and if you don't have a goal, if you're not striving, you just become stagnant and I think that is where a lot of unhappiness comes from because without our dreams then what do we have? Chantelle stopped being a drug user, arrogant and overconfident, and she replaced those memes with "intelligent," "determined," "serious," "responsible," "ex-con" and "counsellor" memes to her self. Trevor traced his introversion to being abandoned in the bush by his father when he was a child. His role as a protector also stemmed from his family of origin: "When my dad would drink or when anyone else would drink I would be the protector of the youngest ones, and that sort of shaped my role, sort of shaped how I became a man." He traced the anger he feels when he finds people abusing children or women to this childhood role as a protector of his younger siblings. While he no longer intimidates people by threatening physical violence, the anger at perceived injustice remains, and this may have been a factor in his more recent course of political activism. The childhood transition involving emotionally (and often physically) absent parents contributed to a number of memes that remained as part of his self including: "angry," "protector," "intimidator," and "man." Trevor modified his expression of these memes through a series of developmental transitions that included self-reflections and an appeal to both Native and Taoist spirituality. These transitions involved what Trevor called "learnings," for example he reported that he had to learn to accept his emotions, "As a person, as a man, I had to relearn its okay to cry, its okay to laugh, its okay to be happy. You don't need to be this big stoic Indian." Pangloss also traced his anger over injustice to a dysfunctional family of origin characterized by alcoholism and physical abuse. He recounted a series of stories involving violent or vengeful acts against a sister's spouse, a former employer, and an aunt. He bullied bullies, and argued it is his right and duty to do so. He also engaged in a series of developmental traditions beginning with his decision to leave home, while still in high school, so he could pursue an education. In another transition, he left broadcasting to become, in his words, "a stage hand." He still defined himself as an intellectual, and he quoted Sun-Tzu's The Art of War as saying "No battle plan ever survived first contact with the enemy" in support of his flexible attitude to life and a self-map full of obvious contradictions. In summation, all of the participants talked about transitions, both developmental and unplanned, that reflected who they were as represented in their self-maps. All of the transitions involved relationships with other people, narratives recounting events, and interpretations of those events. JohnB's relationship with a high school classmate who was non-Christian led to his questioning of church doctrine, and his relationships with a diversity of northern people led to his acceptance of diversity. Trevor's relationship with an uncle resulted in his gaining a thematic Indian name. Both Judy and Maomao said the criticisms of friends had resulted in self- examination leading to changes in behavior. Encouragement that Brent received from a swimming instructor led to his teaching career. A friend encouraged Magdelynn to play wheel chair basketball, which led to an invitation to play for the national women's team. Pangloss was coached through high school by a paternalistic Sikh who viewed his education to be of 248 paramount importance. Two participants (Tina and Chantelle) experienced lifestyle changes prompted by the birth of children. The transitional narratives of eight people involved changes or revisions of religious belief. Four (JohnB, Judy, Magdelynn and Brent) were raised as Roman Catholic but found themselves questioning that faith. JohnB replaced faith in Catholicism with a belief in Aboriginal Spirituality, which he viewed as close to original, pre-Catholic Christianity. A Catholic meme remained in his identity, although it was redefined in way unique, personal way. Judy became an atheist with a value system similar to that of secular humanists, but she declined to refer to herself as a humanist. Magdelynn no longer identified with Catholicism, but she remained a theist. Brent still viewed himself as Catholic, but he rejected the doctrine of papal infallibility and other church teachings. Trevor embraced Aboriginal Spirituality after defining himself as "a big Indian," and exploring for himself what it meant to be aboriginal. Taoism also resonated with his reality. Pangloss was raised Anglican and became a humanist. Fredelle described his family of origin as "nominally Christian,' and despite his involvement in the Unitarian Church, described himself as an atheist. Maomao described her upbringing as non-religious, but she became a member of a Chinese Christian church after her arrival in Canada. Six individuals reported their participation in sports had resulted in developmental changes to their selves with improvements to their self-esteem and sense of empowerment. Trevor and Chantelle reflected aggressive feelings in their choice of martial arts and boxing. JohnB and Nick overcame physical challenges to excel at sports in childhood with the learned consequence that with determination they could succeed in meeting their goals. Brent discovered that he had both leadership and teaching skills through his participation in swimming and cycling. Magdelynn did not define herself as an athlete until after her accident, and her success in wheelchair basketball was linked to her refusal to define herself as disabled. All six individuals generalized their success in sports to include a sense of empowerment in academics. Changes to Selves over the Period of the Study The average length of time between the first and third interviews in this study was 6.6 months with a range of 5.6 to 8.0 months. This afforded the opportunity to ask if there had been any observed changes to the selves of the participants during the course of the study. Four participants with an average age at the beginning of the study of 35.8 reported such changes while the remaining seven participants (average age 38.1) did not identify any such changes. Three participants identified changes to their selves between the first and second interview with the average length of time between those interviews 3.7 months. The average length between the second and third interviews for the two people reporting changes during that time span was 1.9 months. The average length of time between the first and second interviews for all participants was 4.3 months while the average length of time between the second and third interviews was 2.3 months. The changes occurring to participant selves between the first and second interviews involved developmental transitions. Tina said she had decided to become less paranoid and more assertive with her change effort aided by the comments of a son. Trevor recast his "overweight" meme as the less pejorative "big." He also created a new memetic center for himself, "artist," from the convergent effects of other memes. Finally, he began dating and reported resultant increased self-acceptance. Magdelynn said she had become less rigid and less of a role player between her first and second interviews with resultant improved familial and romantic relationships. Magdelynn reported, by her third interview, that she viewed herself as a "mobile" instead of a "fractured pie," and this permitted her to be more consistent with her "real self." Despite having an orchidectomy between the first and second interviews, Fredelle reported no immediate changes to her self. The removal of her testes was viewed as a physical change allowing her body to conform with an already feminine self. Fredelle reported becoming more emotional between her second and third interviews, however, in a way that suggested their incorporation into her self. This change reversed her earlier opinion that emotions were not properly part of the self. With her changes she gained self-acceptance: I think Fredelle is a wonderful person, and I am proud that I have liberated Fredelle, that she is completely free to roam within my, my beingness. I don't fight Fredelle, I don't try to, and I used to years ago when I was younger. Trevor had reported another change to his self between his first and second interviews - he had become a political activist, and he was surprised to find that "political activist" already appeared on his initial self-map. That meme presented, during our initial interview, from Trevor taking direct action against a doctor who may have over-prescribed medications to aboriginal people, and by threatening men who use prostitutes. More formal political action at the band and community level during the course of this study seemed to flow from his earlier orientation. This result was not interpreted as a change to Trevor's self, but the phenotypic manifestation of a meme that was already present. Brent had been shaken by the murder of a fellow cyclist immediately prior to the commencement of this study. He said he felt the deceased person's presence, awaking during the night afraid of seeing a ghost. Brent said he felt guilty after agreeing with another cyclist that the deceased "could be an asshole sometimes." He began thinking about what people might come to understand of him if he died. He displayed increased awareness of his own mortality and his potential legacy. While this reflection could result in self-change, none had yet resulted. 251 In summation, both planned and unplanned changes occurred to the selves of some of the participants during the course of this study. Some of the changes (Tina and Magdelynn) were prompted by the comments of significant others. One change (Fredelle), was the unforeseen consequence of a behavioral action thought to be consistent with a pre-existent self. One behavioral change (Trevor's political activism) was a new behavior consistent with an already existent aspect of his self. Finally, the majority of participants (7) reported no changes to their selves during the course of this study. One (Brent) reported conditions by which such change might be expected, but these changes had not become manifest during the 5.6 months of his participation. Self-empowerment from Memetic Map Building It was recognized that the process of participating in this research could affect the participants in some ways, and one of those ways could be their sense of empowerment, particularly as it related to their ability or willingness to plan developmental transitions to their selves. During the third interview participants were asked: I am interested in knowing how the process of participating in this research may have impacted on you. For example, you have made a number of changes to your self during the course of your life. Do you feel, as a result of participating in this process, more able to decide on and make changes to who are? Less able? About the same as before? Five participants said they felt more able to make developmental changes after their participation in this research. Five other participants said there had been no change in their self- empowerment with four stating that they had been empowered to make such changes. The remaining participant (Pangloss) said he did not understand how he came to make changes in his life. Trevor and Brent said visualizing their selves in map form helped them to identify changes and to make those self-changes at a faster rate than would otherwise have occurred. Brent noted, however, that his sense of self-empowerment was instilled in him by his mother. Judy said the self-map represented her, and it is somebody she wants to be. She said the capacity for self-change was empowering. Fredelle said the experience "has empowered me to be physically free." Magdalynn said seeing her self represented on paper makes it appear "kinda connected" instead of fractured, and that is how she wants to be - the same person across contexts. On the other hand, Magdelynn suggested her capacity to be an animator and achiever rose from her status as a first-born child; although the visual mapping exercise was empowering in some ways, a drive to empowerment existed within her from a very early age. Those that reported no change in their empowerment to make self-change from this exercise tended to see empowerment as an innate characteristic. Tina and Nick said they had been empowered from early childhood. JohnB identified his tendency to challenge authority as part of his drive for self-empowerment, but he was not positive that this is an innate characteristic: I don't know. I questioned from as far back as I can remember. What makes some people question? I don't know. If anything, it may be a function of personality, something you are born with. But then brothers and sisters should be similar but they are not. Conversely, Chantelle reported she was not empowered as a child, she had been a "shy foster kid," and she stopped going to school and ended up on a course that resulted in a series of convictions, as a result of lack of empowerment. She said the process of "getting clean," going to jail, having her son, and then starting school all contributed to her self-empowerment. She said boxing and counselling both contributed to building a sense of empowerment. In short, once Chantelle's sense of empowerment reached a certain threshold, it was not possible to become more empowered - either you have it or you do not have it. Maomao said she looks at herself in a different way as a result of her participation in this research, but that has not resulted increased self-change ability. She maintained she had the ability to change her self, and would contemplate changing some "bad habits" such as staying at home too much. She did not wish to make more fundamental changes to her self, and she recounted some of the benefits of remaining deferent. Pangloss had difficulty relating to the question as to whether he felt more or less empowered to make self-changes: I have never been a good sage to understand how I make changes in my life. What I got from this is that I am not my own grand subject. The key to happiness is finding something greater than your self and dedicating yourself to it. The outward focus is far more interesting to me. I would rather ask someone else how they are. In summation, ten participants said that they had the ability to make changes to their selves while the remaining participant said he did not understand how he makes such changes. Some participants (5) believed their participation in this research increased their capacity for self-change. Six participants said that an empowering drive that could effect self-change existed within them from an early age. Common Themes in Self-construction Between Participants "Meme" was defined as an elemental component of culture including referent, connotative, affective and behavioral dimensions. The label given a particular meme is both interpretive and subjective. Other labels are possible, and memes carrying the same label may, effectively, be different memes. Thus, the comparison of memetic themes in the constructions of selves across individuals is necessarily an interpretive exercise with the meaning of each meme embedded within the context of the individual self. A second limitation of this method of comparison relates to ascertaining the strength of memes within the self and with respect to the self-maps of others. For example, JohnB referenced his "shy" meme eight times during our initial interview, which represented the second highest number of segments so referenced at that time, yet "shy" while present, was not particularly important to his current self-definition. Conversely, a low segmentation count may not reflect substantive importance. Tina, for example, referenced "animator" only twice during our initial interview, but it was connected to six different memes and themes including "stubborn," "budgeter," "cleaner," "anxious," "independent belief and "Learner." Thus, "animator" may be more central to her self-definition than the low reference count would otherwise indicate. If the comparison of the internal strength of memes is problematic, the comparison of such strengths between individuals is more so. A low meme count in one individual as compared to another may only indicate that the first individual was less verbose, although a comparison of internal ratios between individuals may have some interpretive value. Despite these limitations, a presupposition of this research is that people do influence each other with respect to the menu of memes available for self-definition. Thus, common themes in memetic construction are not only possible but also likely. Despite the difficulties inherent in the exercise, an attempt to sort the data was made on the basis of some possible themes. Central Aspects to Self: Animation, Remembering and Feeling The self-maps of every participant included a meme labelled "animator." Remembering was included in every self-map as either a meme or a theme inferred from a cluster of memes. Emotion, additional to that provided for in the definition of the term "meme," was incorporated into each participant's self-map, but not necessarily in the form of memes or themes. Since these three aspects of self, animation, remembering and feeling, were found on each self-map they may be viewed as central to the participants' general definition of themselves. Animator. The consistency in the label "animator" applied to each participant self-map had to do with researcher preference: I suggested the label to identify a meme wherein the participants identified themselves as someone who engaged in planned purposive action to achieve goals. The connotation and affect of this activity varied considerably. JohnB, Trevor, Pangloss and Nick ascribed a positive affect, linking it to their self-esteem, while Maomao did not view the activity as particularly desirable. "Animator" was referenced by JohnB and Nick more than any other meme. In Pangloss' self-map "animator" was the core of a large cluster of memes that as a unit were labelled his "Empowered Self." Trevor's animator meme formed the hub of his self connecting with eleven other memes in spoke-like fashion. "Self-changer" was referenced 12 times during Chantelle's initial interview compared with 7 references to "animator;" however, it was connected to "animator" which flowed from her spirit and which, in turn, flowed from the emotive base of her self. Further, "self-changer" may be viewed as the animating principal turned inward. Thus, "Empowerment," a theme closely associated with "animator" may be viewed as the core of who she is. Five participants (Tina, Fredelle, Magdelynn, Brent and Maomao) identified memes or themes other than "animator" more often, and this suggested the possibility these other memes were more central to their self-definition. For example, nine segments were coded for "wife" and eleven were coded for "mother" in Tina's initial interview, and together with other memes they formed a cluster with the thematic code "Family Person." Thus, "Family Person" presented as 256 more central in her self-map. Similarly, Freddie's self-map was more centered on "feminine" and "transsexual" while Magdelynn emphasized "athlete" and "gimp." Brent emphasized "rememberer" and "teacher" while Maomao's "Family Person" formed the core of her self-map. No one meme or theme appeared to be central or dominant in Judy's self-map, although "animator" appeared to be in a favored position flowing from a "Decision-Maker / Empowerment" theme that in turn flowed from a "Feeling of Me" base of her self-map. On the other hand, Judy moderated or limited her animator self by declaring it was not always operative, and she placed it in opposition to "environmentally driven" which she referenced an equal number of times. Magdelynn, Chantelle and JohnB modified the effect of their animator memes in similar fashion. Magdelynn found she had a "Relativistic" cluster of memes that included "environmentally driven," "context dependent," and "role player" - all of which served to reduce her sense of empowerment. The relative importance of this cluster declined during the course of this study as she attempted to apply a more consistent self cross-contextually. Chantelle identified a "determined" meme working in opposition to "animator." JohnB also found he could be context dependent, and he worried this could mean he was "non-existent." Although all of the participants incorporated a meme for animator with an accompanying theme of empowerment in their self-maps, most tempered their animator memes in some ways. This served to recognize they may, at times, passively accept limitations environmental or contextual limitations to their empowerment. None-the-less, "animator" and "Empowerment" formed the core of some participants' being. Rememberer. While it may appear axiomatic that the content on these self-maps are a product of memories, only seven participants identified themselves as having a meme labelled "rememberer." Four of these had their rememberer meme concomitantly named a theme as a 257 cluster of associated memes also implied conscious memory, and two additional participants developed "Rememberer" as a thematic code without identifying it as a specific meme in their self-construction. Judy's "Rememberer" cluster included the memes "reflective," "mentor," "old," "independent thinker" and "mature," but the theme also appeared to unite other disparate aspects of her self. Similarly, Pangloss' "rememberer" meme centered a cluster that included "metaphor maker," "storyteller," "self-critical," "learner," "empathetic" and "moralist," but it a factor in the maintenance of other aspects of his self. Maomao's "rememberer" was directly linked to "reflective," "deferent," and "inquisitive," but as a theme it linked "traveller," "storyteller," "self-change" and "pet lover." Brent's "rememberer" was directly linked to "storyteller," "self- esteem," "self-changer," and "student," but as a theme it bound other aspects of his self including "family member" and "packrat." His "packrat" meme appeared prompted by an inability to dispose of items that were associated with personal memories. A "remember" meme was not identified in Trevor's self, but a "Rememberer" theme was inferred from his storytelling approach in developing his "self change", "unique experiencer" and "learner" memes. JohnB talked about the importance of his memories during our second interview, and as a result of that discussion "Rememberer" was added as a theme on his self- map. "Independent belief and "learner" memes could be taken to imply a rememberer theme in Tina's self, but such a theme was not developed in her self-map. In summary, although the act of remembering was necessary to share narratives, the conscious importance of "rememberer," as a role, varied between participants. While some participants consciously identified themselves as rememberers, the memes of others included the act of remembering as implicit parts of their definitions. 258 The emotive self. Although not prompted to, every participant incorporated emotions into their self-maps beyond the affective component included in the definition of the term "meme." Trevor and Tina said the ability to feel a full range of emotions was essential to being human, and Tina placed those emotions at the base of her self-map. Judy placed a "Feeling of Me" at the base of her self, while Magdelynn had a "Feeling of Self theme attached to her "rememberer" meme. Nick based his "interior voice" on an "unconscious process accessed through feeling." JohnB and Chantelle placed a range of emotions at the base of their maps. Brent identified an entire section of his self as his "feeling self." Pangloss developed "proud" and "angry" into memes. Maomao placed love and pride in her parents, dog, her home city and her extended family at the base of her self-map, and she described these as constants that would never change. Although she initially denied a place for emotions in her self-construction, Fredelle placed "Menu of Emotions" at the base of her self-map during her third interview with the interpretation this represented an assertion of her feminine self. In summation, seven participants placed emotions at the base of their self-maps while an eighth, Trevor, declared that the ability to feel was essential to being human. A ninth participant, Brent, declared that he had "Feeling Self that encompassed a large part of who he was, and a tenth, Magdelynn attached a "Feeling of Me" theme to a "Rememberer" theme. The eleventh participant, Pangloss, developed two emotions into self-defining memes. The Jamesian Objective Self The self-maps of participants were examined for the four basic components of the Jamesian "me" - physical, social, active and psychological. Maps containing memes referencing some physical attribute were indicative of a physical self. Memes placing the participant in a social community were seen as evidence of a social self. Memes that included activity as part of their definition, such as "athlete" or "protector," were interpreted as evidence of an active self. Memes referencing personality, cognition or feeling were deemed to be evidence of a psychological self. Using this system of categorization all participants had both active and psychological selves. Ten of the eleven (the exception being Fredelle) incorporated social selves into their being. Eight of the eleven (with the exceptions being Pangloss, Nick and Maomao) incorporated aspects of their bodies into their self-definitions. Considerable variation in emphasis was involved. Brent labelled one side of his self as his "active self," emphasizing the role activity plays in his self-definition. "Active competitor" was a theme uniting a cluster of memes in Magdellyn's self. A side of Pangloss's map was labelled "Social Self, and "social" was considered as a theme in the selves of JohnB, Judy and Nick. Magdellyn's self had the related theme "Relationship Builder." The converse of an active self would be passive, and Maomao's passive self included the major part of her self-definition. In addition to Maomao, the selves of Nick, Magdellyn and Judy contained memes labelled "environmentally driven." In summation, all four aspects of the Jamesian objective self were found in the maps of the participants, but only the active and psychological selves were found in all of them. Further, the active self was modified by a passive or "environmentally driven" self in four of the participant self-maps. The Participant Experience of Self-constancy All eleven participants in this research admitted to feelings of constancy. Seven said there is a constant, permanent, or essential self, while two implied as much. Two participants (Nick and Magdelynn) said there was a "sense of constancy," leaving open the possibility that such a feeling may not reflect the actual state of affairs. Both JohnB and Pangloss suggested there is some essential or "true" self by recognizing their subjectivity and by asking the researcher to find objective truths about their selves. Judy referred to a genuine self, but qualified it by making it experiential - the constant self is dependent on entrenched neural pathways. "The genuine," she emphasized includes recognition of the "good, bad and indifferent" within one's self. Brent agreed, finding he could bring an authentic, constant self to different contexts. He said he once thought he had to be a different person in different contexts, for example, a "strict disciplinarian" within the context of teaching, but he now is essentially the same across contexts. JohnB said, "I can't even imagine how I would be different... Because it wasn't the path I chose. Maybe I would have ended up in Calgary as an oil company executive." He then suggested he may have not been happy in such a scenario. He reported the feeling that regardless of his earlier choices, he would have eventually settled in some northern community similar to the one in which he actually does reside. Similarly, Fredelle could not see herself as substantively different in some core or essential way. She said she will always be a transsexual regardless of the changes she makes to her body because of her memories. She said she could not have been other than transsexual unless she had been born into a female body. Chantelle and Trevor viewed memory as a vehicle that builds constancy. The core earlier memories, including what Trevor called "the learnings," remain and provide a stable self in a life marked by change. Chantelle saw herself as central actor in her memories and she concluded, "I don't think my personality, or like my, the things that actually make me, me, those don't change." She also said her spirit would never change: What can never change in me? I would say just spirit, ya know, ah like you can't, I just think you can't steal my spirit, or take it away, you could beat me down, but you'd never take my spirit... Chantelle said putting up a front leads one to appear inconstant or context-determined. Two participants (Maomao and Tina) implied that there was a constant self. Maomao said her true self was passive while admitting that this self was a product of upbringing, and Tina said she avoided taking medications for anxiety or depression because those feelings represented who she "really was." Nick said, despite feelings of constancy, it would not be possible for him to know whether the self-as-knower really was constant - he could not be cognisant of changes occuring at that level. The feeling of constancy could be an illusion. Despite this qualification, Nick echoed the Jamesian "I" when he said his inner voice told him he was the same person across contexts. Magdelynn didn't know what, if anything, was in the middle connecting her "fractured pieces," but she said her body gives her a sense of constancy. Like Nick, she was not sure that this constituted a permanent or essential self. In summation, nine participants either referred to a constant or "true" self, or implied the existence of one. Six of these individuals referred to their memories as a source of constancy. Two of those suggesting the existence of a constant or true self (JohnB and Tina) implied that there were self-characteristics with which they were born. While admitting to feelings of constancy, two participants (Nick and Magdelynn) suggested that these feelings could be illusory. 262 The Need for Feedback in Self-construction and Maintenance Social feedback has been cited as necessary for self-construction and self-maintenance (Gergen, 1996; Ishiama, 1995; Kang, Mann, & Kawakami, 2006). In this study, attempts were made to limit such feedback from the researcher due to the risk of influencing or contaminating the result; none-the-less, two participants (JohnB and Pangloss) explicitly invited such feedback. JohnB said, "You should assess me," and he suggested that he was more interested in the researcher's perspectives on who he was than his own. He said that he was also interested in comparing his self with other participants. Pangloss said he was nervous and excited about his second interview, "I woke up with tense stomach muscles...how would he assess me?" The question in his mind, he explained, was whether the assessment would be ingratiating or whether the researcher would say things he did not like. Although it was explained that it was not the researcher's role to assess the selves of participants, Pangloss returned to the third interview with the same objective in mind. When such feedback was again not forthcoming, he became less interested in the project. Although she did not request such feedback, Chantelle modified her understanding of her self in response to comments from the primary researcher. During her second interview, she requested that her "proud" meme be moved to the periphery of her self because she did not view pride as a positive characteristic, and she was trying to be less proud. When I said I was unable to move the meme because "proud" was linked closely to her "athlete" and "student" memes, she acknowledged that pride was important to her ability to achieve. She thus modified her definition of "proud," while also including the dampening effect of a new meme, "humble" in her selfplex. Other participants acknowledged the effect of feedback from significant others to their self-definitions. Tina reported that her son's statement, "I like it when you have breakfast with me, mom, led her to realize that she had been "a little bit depressed," and she should change that aspect of her self for the benefit of her children. Another interpretation would be the feedback from her son was an acknowledgement of worth that, in itself, began to lift the depression. With either interpretation, the feedback from her son had a significant felt impact on how she defined herself. Trevor's most powerful remembered feedback was from an uncle who gave him his Indian name, "Against the Wind," but he continued to report the importance of feedback from close friends. During the course of this study, Magdelyn accepted feedback from her boyfriend and her mother that she was not spending enough time with them, and this influenced her decision to reduce her athletic activities with the result she felt "less fractured." Brent used feedback from a former girlfriend to find ways to reduce his "packrat" self, and to become more flexible in understanding and accepting the values of others. Nick said feedback from Canadians, whom he described as from "a more relaxed culture," led him to become "more calm," at least within the Canadian context. Maomao said feedback from friends who had called her "selfish" led her to re-evaluate how she treats other people. This, in turn, connected to an emerging "self- changer" meme within her self. The feedback participants reported receiving was often evaluated and re-interpreted by them. Judy's friends and colleagues had given her feedback that she appeared harsh or "severe." This was not how she defined herself and she refused to define herself in this way. She evaluated her behavior, however, and she changed her behavior to more closely match her self-image as a caring, compassionate and fun-loving person. As a boy, Fredelle was taunted and abused by other boys who reacted to his femininity. This particularly harsh feedback led to negative self- evaluations that were only changed with the help of the feedback inherent in counselling. 264 In summation, all eleven participants reported that receiving feedback from others had led to changes in themselves. There was some indication this feedback is evaluated by source with psychologists an accepted feedback source by at least three participants and family members providing significant feedback for two others. Feedback was not always accepted in the form presented. Family, Community and Individuation The self-maps of ten participants contained memes associated with family, and six of these contained memes indicating a connection with community. One person (Fredelle) failed to incorporate either family or community into her self-map, but she mentioned involvement with the Unitarian Church. Although a meme for "Unitarian" could have been developed, this was not how she identified herself during the three interviews that were afforded her. As discussed previously, two participants (Tina and Chantelle) credited their pregnancies, coupled with the values they placed on family, with their decisions to change their selves in some positive ways. Trevor and Judy saw themselves as "parentified" due to their childhood experiences of raising younger siblings, and they carried values they learned from the experience into their adult lives. Judy described herself as "the family connector," bringing family members together who would otherwise remain relatively isolated from each other. Despite an unhappy marriage, JohnB maintained his family connection through his daughter whom he continued to mentor in adulthood. Pangloss reported a desire to defend family members, even those with whom he was not particularly close. Magdelynn reduced her athletic involvement to spend more time with her family and her partner with the result that she felt "less fractured." Brent said he did not feel close to his parents, but he was making an effort to reconnect with them through "almost weekly" contact, and he reported a desire to raise a family himself. "Family person" was 265 the second most recorded meme in Maomao's self-map, and it was closely linked to the most mentioned meme on her self-map - "deferent." Six participants said they were raised in families that were dysfunctional in some ways with neglect, alcohol, drug abuse, and physical and sexual abuse reported. Five of these six (Trevor, Judy, Pangloss, Brent and Chantelle) felt the importance of family irrespective of their personal negative experiences with their families of origin. Six participants said community was important to them. Trevor identified with the aboriginal community, and after identifying himself as "a big Indian," began learning traditional Cree ways. JohnB identified with the community where he resides including people from all racial and ethnic groups, and he attempted to improve their lives through a process of community development. Judy attempted to find a "community of like-minded people" with whom she could communicate. Maomao joined a Christian church and reported a sense of community within. Magdelynn said she favored team sports because of the comradery involved while Brent was active socially and in leadership positions with the local environmentalist and cycling communities. Fredelle was the only participant who failed to develop a meme related to being a family member in her self-map. Her bitterness toward her father was illustrated by her happiness that her father's germ line ended with her. Pangloss, who also reported a dysfunctional family of origin, showed an ambivalent connection to family by excusing the conduct of his parents while stating that he would be happy to be "a community of one." Conversely, he placed a moral responsibility of the individual to family and community. Family and community may be viewed as collectivizing institutions that tend to assimilate individuals toward a norm, yet all participants except one asserted their uniqueness. Each of these 10 said that no other person could have the totality of their collection of experiences and qualities. Judy said her combination of experiences and values was situated within a specific extended family, so family identification aided in her sense of uniqueness. Pangloss shared a combination of contradictory characteristics such as his "outspoken bravado mixed with humility" leading to his sense of uniqueness. Magdelynn described herself as being "the most gimped," having "the most heart," and being "the most tenacious" of anyone she knew. Brent and Maomao first mentioned negative qualities or indicators (for Brent his singleness, for Mao her anger), and then added a collection of positive attributes, the combination of which made them unique. Trevor volunteered that even if someone else had exactly the same experiences, each would still be unique because their perceptions of those experiences would differ. Only Tina was ambivalent when asked, "Do you see yourself as a unique person?" She replied, "Kinda." Then she added that she was more open-minded than most people. The Sense of Being Human A majority of participants (7) said there were some qualities of being human, and it was possible for a person to be lacking in such qualities. The four remaining participants implied as much in their self-maps. Tina refused to take medication for anxiety disorder prior to the onset of this study because she wanted to feel human even if that meant embracing painful feelings. To not have that capacity to feel emotions was to be less human in some sense. Trevor echoed the same sentiment in suggesting street prostitutes reduced their capacity to feel, and with it an element of their humanness, in order to do their work. He supported a former girlfriend's attempts to "be human" by giving up antipsychotic medication so she could experience, more fully, human feelings such as love. Trevor also suggested that severe alcohol and drug abuse might affect this quality of being human. He explained the actions of an uncle, an alcoholic, who had attempted to kill Trevor's father with the analogy, "If a tiger attacked a deer would you blame the tiger?" To be human then, is to be responsible for one's actions, and drug use may turn one into something less. Tina and Trevor equated being human with a capacity to feel human emotions like fear, sadness and love. When Pangloss demanded people "be human," he was also referring to emotions, but he added an entitlement by virtue of being human: There's a certain level of civility, compassion and consideration that all people are entitled to just by virtual drawing breath. That means that we have an obligation to honour those rights that everybody has, so when I see somebody else treating people in a less than equal manner or in a less than honorable manner, moral outrage would be my response. The implication is that the objects of Pangloss' moral outrage are not entitled to civility, compassion or consideration, and are therefore less than human. Judy agreed being human involved experiencing emotions, but she added that her humanism included an element of community, and she also valued intelligence. Thus, to be human has emotional, intellectual and social components. Judy gave effect social interest by engaging in activism to eliminate poverty. Brent also voiced the importance of community and social interest, and he gave effect to those considerations by being part of an environmentalist community and by embracing an environmentalist campaign to save the planet. In total seven participants indicated that community was important to them, but only Judy and Brent connected that need with "humanness." 268 Fredelle said she learnt, from her experience as a transsexual, "being human is multidimensional and one can't put humanity into boxes." Nick agreed being human is a totality and suggested it is "a closed system... not divisible." For these two, the quality of "humanness" involved a complex holistic system. Such a view could incorporate the notion that emotion and community are necessarily elements of humanness. This left four participants (Maomao, Magdelyn, Chantelle and JohnB) who did not discuss the quality of humanness in their interviews. Three of these four (Maomao, Chantelle and JohnB) presented human feelings as the base of who they were on their self-maps. The remaining participant, Magdelyn, had an interpretive code "Feeling of Self connected to her meme "rememberer" in her final self-map. Maomao, JohnB and Magdelyn also emphasized the importance of engaging in community in their self-maps. In summation, all of the participants said there was some quality or qualities essential to be being human, with emotions being the most often mentioned such quality. Seven participants had human feelings or emotions represented at the base of their self-maps. The remaining four had feelings represented in their self-maps as either themes or memes. One of these (Brent) identified a group of memes he described as his "feeling self." Other qualities that were held to be essential by some participants included a sense of community, social interest, civility and reason. Human Happiness and Transcendental Goals Seven participants mentioned the importance of happiness to the human condition. Tina and Trevor both said that happiness was one of a repertoire of emotions we must be able to feel in order be fully human. Trevor said he had repressed his emotions when learning his gender role, and he had to learn that it was okay, as an adult male, to be happy. Fredelle also identified an inability to feel happiness with being male. She identified her tears of happiness at observing a young boy at a mall with her feminine self. Maomao said her experience of being deferent does not bring happiness. This statement implies that happiness was a goal or a desirable condition. Nick described happiness as a "background goal," implicitly present, in the development of all other goals. Attainment of a goal must make you happy for the goal to be worthwhile. Both Brent and Pangloss also assumed that happiness is a goal for everyone. Brent said if people are not happy, then they want to be happy, and he found himself to be happier once he became less rigid in his expectations of others. JohnB, Judy, Chantelle and Magdelyn did not mention happiness in their interviews. This does not mean they necessarily disagreed with the notion that happiness is important to the human condition. JohnB shared feelings of "elation" when successful in his roles as a community developer and activist. Feelings of elation may be related to feelings of happiness. Judy said fun was important while possessions are not. It may be that "fun" is also related to happiness. Similarly, if Chantelle were successful in re-uniting with her son, that would make her happy, and the growth and satisfaction Magdelynn felt in her romantic relationship made her happy. In summation then, seven participants talked about the importance of human happiness when they were not prompted to do so. No one took an opposing view. Transcendent happiness. Pangloss said acting to increase the world's level of happiness in some way makes him happy. He summarized, "The key to happiness is finding something greater than your self and dedicating yourself to it." He found "something greater" in the common good and in moral purpose: "I have to be good, even if nobody else is; I have to be good because it s important to me. I understand the Tightness of doing the right thing, doing the right thing for its own sake." Fredelle also implied transcendence with her belief in an interconnectedness with nature or a universal force which provided her with meaning and purpose. JohnB also talked about interconnectedness with nature which was coupled with a belief in something bigger than our selves. Trevor explained his political activism "was like igniting a fire that keeps me focussed on something bigger than myself." For Magdelynn, as well as JohnB, that which was bigger than our selves was embodied in a creator-god who gave them assurance events would work out according to some benign plan. Magdelynn connected this belief with a desire for nurturance. In speaking about the special needs children with whom she works, she said: I would love for them to able to just, like enjoy just being, and know that they are cared for, and nurtured, so ya, I guess maybe, where I hope that there is a higher power that we can be nurtured, we can allow others to care for us once in awhile, and be confident that ya, I can relax and just feel joy. All of the six (four theists and two atheists) who said some transcendental purpose or understanding informed their lives, engaged in active behaviors to benefit the lives of others. Trevor strove to eliminate poverty and risky sexual behavior contributing to AIDS. JohnB pursued a course of community development and inter-racial education. Pangloss attempted to increase human happiness by using his skills as a writer to give voice to those who do not have a voice in society and by defending those that could not defend themselves. Fredelle sought to extend transsexual rights while Magdelynn sought to have the strengths of people with disabilities recognized. Brent worked toward the greater good on environmental issues. 271 Three participants who did not mention a transcendental purpose also engaged in activities to help others. Tina defended students to teachers, cared for children not her own, and educated people about gays and lesbians. Judy mentored and educated others to challenge the root causes of poverty neglected by her profession. Chantelle decided to use her own experience as an ex-convict to help empower others in the prison system to make changes in their lives. Although Maomao did say she was actively engaged in activities to help others, she reported being motivated to join a Christian church by a desire to do good. Nick also implied a social interest when he said he could not be happy if his friends were not happy. In summation, most participants in this study said that increasing human happiness and engaging in social activism to help others were personal goals. These goals were often interconnected. A majority (6) connected these goals to a feeling of transcendent purpose. Judge, Jury and Executioner Three participants representing the majority of the male participants said it was their role or duty to assess a situation, lay blame, and take action against the person so blamed. Trevor reported feeling it was his duty to confront and intimidate "Johns" and parents who abuse their children. As he grew older, Trevor said he was less likely to use physical violence to exact retribution, but he would use more sophisticated methods that still counted as intimidation. JohnB equated arrogant and forceful people with the mental abuse he had received from his parents, and he said he could be vengeful when confronting those people as an adult. He admitted, "That's one type of person that I will go out of my way to attack," but he also admitted to personal arrogance in certain contexts, such as in his role as a supervisor. The "wrongdoers" subject to Pangloss' wrath were those that used, manipulated or humiliated others who could not defend themselves. In such instances, Pangloss said it was his 272 duty to intervene not just in the defence of those so victimized, but to exact a kind of "rough justice." Thus, he destroyed the tax records of an employer that had acted unfairly toward two other employees, and then called Revenue Canada to accuse that employer of tax evasion. He has humiliated those who humiliate others, publicly. While admitting his assumption of vindictive power assumes a kind of arrogance, Pangloss said judging was a necessary part of the human condition, with all having a duty to act on their judgements to ensure wrongdoers are punished. The retribution approach may be contrasted with that used by Judy. 'She made negative judgements about immature people stating, "They're selfish. They can be cruel.... They can be bad family people; they can be bad employees; they can be bad employers. They can be self- destructive. They can be poor friends." Her response was not to punish the offenders, but to attempt to educate them and to change environmental conditions so that good behavior would be rewarded. In summation, while there may be evidence that people generally make judgements about other people, some of them negative, some males (3) but no females, said it was their role or duty to exact retribution on at least some wrongdoers. Chapter Summary All of the participants related stories of childhood and adult transitions contributing to making them who they were at the time of the study. Ten of the eleven reported that their self- maps resonated with them. The same ten reported that they felt empowered to make future changes to their selves with five of these stating that they had felt so empowered before the study commenced. A majority (7) reported no changes to who they were over the time frame of the interviews. In addition to the directed areas of interest, several common themes emerged from the data. First, all participants included emotional functioning in their self-maps beyond the affective 273 dimension of memes. All participants included a self-animating function that spoke to volition, and all engaged in the act of remembering while constituting their selves. All three aspects of the Jamesian subjective self (constancy, uniqueness and volition) were reflected in the self-maps of the participants, but only the psychological and active elements of the Jamesian objective self were uniformly present. All of the Adlerian self needs (production, intimacy and social interest) presented in the participant maps. The maps included recognition of the need for feedback from others with two of the participants asking for such feedback from the researcher. Other themes present in a majority of self maps included the belief that some qualities were needed to be fully human, and human happiness is a worthwhile goal with such happiness often linked to a transcendental goal. A majority of males saw the need, in some circumstances, to take individual action to punish wrong-doers. 274 CHAPTER 6: DISCUSSION In this research study, two experts participated the development of each self-map: the primary researcher who was considered to be "expert" in a method of developing such maps, and each individual participant who was the expert on who s/he was. The participants were given primacy on the content of their maps, so they could have properly been called co-researchers with respect to self-map construction. Given this level of participation and direction, it would have been surprising if the final product did not resonate with their lived experience in some ways, and comments like, "It captures everything," (JohnB) "It's how I would describe myself, it's perfect," (Chantelle) or "It is an awesome picture," (Trevor) were not totally unexpected. If the brain "constructs a mental model of our own bodies and the self that seems to inhabit it" (Beyerstein, 2006, p. 21), then the reaction of the participants in seeing their selves represented graphically is one of self-recognition and possibly validation. A number of multidimensional models of the self have been proposed (Ishiama, 1995; Kenyon, 1993; Schlossberg et al., 1995) with the one developed by James (1892/1999) providing the focus of considerable research and discussion (Hart & Damon, 1985; Hermans & Hermans-Jansen, 1995; Mead, 1934/2003). The participants in this study served to confirm and extend that model. The following section focuses on their thoughts, feelings and insights paying particular attention to commonalities impacting on our understanding of the nature and structure of the self. This is followed by the direct application of their experience on two understandings of the self: Jamesian and Adlerian. The utility of using a memetic model in mapping the self is then considered followed by a discussion of the possible uses a memetic self-mapping approach may bring to counselling. Limitations and recommendations for future research are discussed prior to concluding remarks about the significance of this research. Participant Cognitions, Feeling and Insights Miles and Huberman (as quoted in Morrow & Smith, 2000) said, "Dependable knowledge claims, including claims of causality, can be made from systematically gathered and analyzed qualitative data. At the same time, participant meanings and contextual effects must be taken into account" (p. 206). Although claims of causality were not made in this paper, the presence of common items and the linkages between those items suggested the presence of certain structures within the self. Constancy, Community and Memory in the Maintenance of the Self All of the participants reported feelings of constancy, and they relied on their memories of self in support of such feelings. All, with the exception of Freddie, reported a social self, and Fredelle said her involvement with the Unitarian Church helped affirm her identity. This accords with the work of Ishiama (1995) who concluded that culturally relevant community validation is necessary in the maintenance of a stable self. The suggestion is that constancy, community and memory must be present in some form for the fully constituted self, and these elements are related to each other in some ways. "Constancy" is defined as a feeling that some essential or recognizable aspect of the self has temporal stability. "Community" is defined broadly to include relationships with family and friends. "Memory" is defined as the act of recalling self-defining incidents. A feeling of self-constancy was reported by all eleven participants. Trevor located that constancy within his memories: Regardless of future changes, his memories would remind him that he is the same person who grew up in an underprivileged neighborhood of a small 276 Saskatchewan city. Nine other participants also presented with the act of remembering developed into either a meme or theme, and all participants engaged in the act of remembering when explaining who they were. Two of these (Magdelynn and Nick) questioned whether their feelings of constancy were illusory with Nick adding that if he became another person, he would have no way of knowing because his memories would necessarily change. Self-constancy was thus linked to memory and memory may be imperfect. Each participant recalled childhood and adult transitions which they were able to relate to items on their self-maps with the inference those transitions helped make them who they became. While ten participants named family as component to they are and six named community, all of the remembered transitions involved relationships with other people. This relationship between others and one's own self is not surprising if we view the self to be cultural creation (Leary, 2004; Lock, 1981/1990; Mead, 1912/1990). Such a cultural construct would be linked to family, community and societal networks, and a self so constructed would be dependent on those encompassing networks for self-validation (Ishiama, 1995). The relationship between cultural levels of organization is pictured in Figure 30 with arrows representing memes travelling between levels. While the individual is influenced by family, community and societal cultures, s/he also influences each of the other levels of cultural influence in a process of negotiation and re-construction. Thus, lines illustrating memetic influence are pictured as flowing both inward, toward the individual, and outward from the individual. Some memes are rejected or repelled at each level, for example Judy rejected of the notion that she was "severe" even though that quality was attributed to her by family and friends. It is likely that information supportive of existing memes within the mature self will be retained while information in opposition to one's self definition will be rejected supporting Dawkins' 277 (1976, 1982, 1986) notion that memes exhibit attractive and repellent forces with respect to other memes. It is likely, therefore, that if one's self contains a meme for "poor learner," the suggestion from family and friends that one is a capable learner will be discounted or minimized. Thus, the sense of constancy that is needed for self-maintenance is served, and memory selectivity may serve a role in maintaining that sense of constancy. As James (1890) said, "Selectivity is the very keel on which our mental ship is built" (p. 680). Figure 30: Four levels of cultural organization with random memes flowing between each level As was illustrated by the example of Brent, a "poor learner" self-definition may be changed but such developmental change may require an extra-ordinary intervention. All the participants reported feedback from others led to changes in themselves with six reporting that their memories served to preserve their sense of constancy amidst change. Those memories then provided the self with a grounding allowing them to situate and accept change. Although the dynamic pictured in Figure 30 may be interpreted to imply that family, community and society are the sources of change, Ishiama (1995) demonstrated that when immigrants to Canada were without a supportive cultural community, their self-stability weakened. My own examination of Indian Residential Schools (Robertson, 2006) resulted in the suggestion that the removal of Amerindian children from their cultural communities led to similar problems of self development and self maintenance. If the self is a cultural construct, a supporting community may be needed to reinforce and maintain self-defining memes and a sense of constancy. Six participants said participation in sports resulted in positive developmental changes. Such participation implies involvement in a sporting community, and interactions between the self and such communities could be tracked using the model presented in Figure 30. If our community supports the notion we are capable and respected competitors, then our self is supported in evolving along that direction. Similarly, the effects of family, churches and researchers on participants could also be understood using this model. Community and memory form a complex system that both defines and maintains the self while allowing for change. The resultant sense of constancy may be a necessary condition for that self-maintenance, and this supports those noting a stability of self (Adler, 1927/1957, 1929, 1967; Holland, 1997; Kwiatkowska, 1990). We know we exist because the community surrounding us supports that existence, and our memories, encoded in cultural units provided by community and society, translate our choices and lived experience into an objectifiable record. Thus, both the subjective and objective self are interdependent in a way that confounds the 279 dualism of Descartes (1643/1990) with both supported, limited, and extended into the families and communities within which they formed. As Charles Taylor (1989) opined, "The significant others are not simply external to me; they help constitute my own selfhood" (p. 509). Constancy, Distinctness and Volition Constancy along with volition and distinctness were elements of the Jamesian subjective self. While constancy could exist without the presence of the other two, it is difficult to imagine volition without an element of distinctness or individuation implying that a person, separate from others, is carrying out a particular act. In their developmental study of children and youth Damon & Hart (1988) found evidence young children attribute both continuity and distinctness to unchanging innate characteristics, and they are non-volitional. As we have seen, constancy may be confirmed by the identification of characteristics common to past and present selves (Chantelle, Magdelynn, Maomao, JohnB), or it may involve the preservation of unique remembrances (Trevor, Brent, Pangloss, Judy, Fredelle). Distinctness gradually evolves to include reference to unique subjective experience while, agency becomes attached to personal and moral evaluations (Damon & Hart, 1988). It has been suggested a self that includes individual agency is a western invention (Cushman, 1995; Foucault et al., 1984/1997). In this study volition or agency was represented by the terms "animation" and "empowerment," and participants were invited to share what, if anything, made them unique individuals. Every participant, including those from non-western (Amerindian and Chinese) cultures, incorporated an animator meme capable of individual volition into their self-maps, and they stated they felt individually unique in some ways. The only participant who appeared ambivalent about her uniqueness was Metis - an aboriginal people who are historically a combination of European and Amerindian ancestry. All of the participants voiced narratives as to how they overcame adversity in becoming who they were. They also recalled initiating developmental changes to themselves. For example, eight reported changing their religious beliefs motivated by a desire to become better people in some ways. The remaining three told stories of how they had initiated change to become better parents and/or spouses. This would seem to support the research purporting to demonstrate self- efficacy (Bandura, 1999; Bandura et al., 2001; Wiedenfeld et al., 1990; Witkiewitz & Marlatt, 2004), but self-efficacy may be, in Shelly Taylor's (1989) words, "a positive self-enhancing illusion." Maomao's self-depiction as a programmed robot fits with this latter interpretation. Her decision to become a Christian could have flowed from her earlier programming where both goodness and action were other-defined. Without the direct support of her family and community, she was open to finding a substitute family and community to give moral direction within the new (Canadian) context. On the other hand, although she preferred to not make her own decisions, she did not consult with her parents prior to her religious conversion. It is as though her self's maintenance needs initiated an act of volition that would not be countermanded by consultation with the usual authority figures. Thus, we are presented with a picture of an other-determined self acting independently to maintain itself in some ways. It may be that this combination of determinism and volition is cross-cultural. Fredelle said she had attempted to live as both a heterosexual male and as a "gay," but she was unsuccessful in both attempts. While sexuality may have a biological connection (LeVey & Hamer, 1994; Whitam, Diamond, & Martin, 1993), Fredelle demonstrated an ability to fight her own biology when she took hormonal treatments to enlarge her breasts, and when she engaged in an operation to remove her testicles. One interpretation flowing from this is Fredelle's transsexual self sabotaged those prior attempts to integrate into the heterosexual and 281 gay communities. The language used here betrays a false dichotomy. If Fredelle's self is transsexual then Fredelle is transsexual and there is no other entity within her self to oversee the earlier changes she attempted. "Fred" was simply a repository for unwanted characteristics - it had no will of its own outside of male hormonal functions. The core of Fredelle's transsexual self must have felt innate - an unchanging constant. All of the participants were able to recount childhood transitions contributing to the development of their selves. This supports the notion the self develops experientially from units of culture associated with those experiences. Thus, the self begins within the embryo of the family and is refined as the individual expands into the community. Evolutionary change is likely with such an entity as memes are modified, new memes compatible with existing self- defining memes are added, and old peripheral memes are discarded; however, fundamental change involving the construction of a new self would be extremely difficult. There would be no one internally to oversee such a construction as the existent self that would occupy this role is itself the object of deconstruction. Chantelle provided an example of relatively slow evolutionary change to her self. She started boxing as an outlet for her anger, and she confirmed her ability by defeating opponents. A counsellor also assisted in building a sense of self-empowerment resulting in small changes to get her off the street. She expanded her horizons by deciding to become a better mother and a counsellor within the corrections system, and she began making choices to meet these goals. Each change built on her existing self with accumulative effect. The evolutionary change was Lamarkian (accumulated change based on deliberately acquired characteristics) as opposed to Darwinian (accumulated change based on the survival value of random mutations). 282 Brent gave another example of gradual evolutionary change to his self. He had defined himself as having low academic ability as a result of academic failure; however he believed he was good at certain sports. A swimming instructor, who he respected, suggested he coach swimming. He found he both liked and enjoyed coaching, and this led to considering a career as a teacher. His subsequent success led to him to reinterpret the cause of his earlier academic failures. After this success he began re-establish contact with his family of origin. The universality of an animator meme within the participant population is consistent with Jayne's (1976) argument the self is a culturally evolved structure that proved to be so successful in empowering people, it replicated in all cultures. Pangloss noted, for example, that the more he knows himself the easier it is for him to understand others. Having a self allows us to "mind read" by placing ourselves in the shoes of the other. Volition allows us to examine and thus improve our selves, and is evidenced by memes showing us as animators in action. The physical entity, the body, can act or react without the self, but the existence of a map or theory about who we are allows us to approach life's issues and problems in new ways. In Vygotskian (1939, 1986) fashion, the new dynamics afforded by self- creation creates a different set of rules than those inherent in classical behaviorism. It may be the ability for conscious volitional action requires a sense of constancy and a sense of uniqueness. Although every participant's self had a center of animation and empowerment, none had centers that corresponded with constancy or uniqueness. Thus, when we look for those centers in the manner of Harre (1991), we cannot find them. It is possible constancy and uniqueness are illusions necessary to animate the entire self-structure. It is also possible these two Jamesian elements are related to a Damasion (1999) "feeling of me." From the information supplied by 283 the participants to this research, this subjective self is known through feeling. Perhaps the subjective self is primarily a felt experience. The Emotional Base of the Self None of models of the self presented in the literature review included an emotional component (Adler, 1927/1957; James, 1892/1999; Lewin, 1943; Schlossberg et al., 1995). Mead (1934) seemed to echo a consensus: "The essence of the self is cognitive; it lies in the internalized conversation of gestures which constitute thinking" (p. 173). None-the-less, following the trialling of the method used in this study, it was decided to include an affective component in the definition of each meme. The suggestion individualized affect is one of the properties giving memes a differential attractive force with respect to other memes was supported in the literature (Freidman & Sing, 2004; Goleman, 2006; Heath et al., 2001). All of the participants in this study included an emotional aspect to their self-maps additional to this affective component of memes. Ten made reference to an emotional self or a menu of emotional states, while the self of the eleventh participant (Pangloss) contained memes developed around two emotions: "proud" and "angry." The presence of just two emotions might be interpreted as being stereotypical of male western gender, and it may not be coincidence that Pangloss was also the only participant to not identify with his self-map. Damasio's (1999) conclusion, "Consciousness may be separated from wakefulness and low-level attention but it cannot be separated from emotion" (pp. 15-16) implies emotion is necessarily part of a conscious self. The inclusion of a menu of possible emotions by seven of the participants in their self-maps, implies this capacity for feeling is central to who they are, and two (Trevor and Tina) stated the capacity to feel emotion was essential to being human. Damasio (1999) anticipated this response: We know that we have an emotion when the sense of a feeling self is created in our minds. Until there is the sense of a feeling self, in both evolutionary terms as well as in a developing individual, there exist well-orchestrated responses.... (p. 279) It has been suggested that an understanding of emotions is central to understanding the mind (Goleman, 1995; Hill & Williams, 2000; Salovey & Mayer, 1990). Minsky (2003) said emotions are not simply additions to thoughts, but each emotional state presents as a distinctly different way to think. Those participants (7) who displayed a menu of emotions at the base of their self-maps, with diffuse arrows emerging from that base to activate different sets of memes according to the emotion felt, provided a mechanism whereby Minsky's notion could be effected. Thus, narratives that are constructed depend on the emotions activating particular memes that form the themes of retrospective stories. Mayer & Salovey (1997) proposed a model of emotional intelligence centered on a person's skill in recognizing emotional information and carrying out abstract reasoning using that information. They explained, "The ability model of emotional intelligence requires the idea that emotion makes thinking more intelligent and that one thinks intelligently about emotions" (p. 10). Emotionally intelligent people are, in their estimation, aware of their emotions, regulate their emotions, and use those emotions to inform their thinking. While the results of this research can neither confirm nor deny this specific understanding, they do support the general notion that cognition about one's self is closely tied to one's emotions. The mind consists of emotive and cognitive factors and the addition of an affective dimension to each meme was not sufficient, in the felt experience of the participants, to account for how they defined themselves. The Self as a Narrative All of the participants explained who they were by telling or retelling a series of anecdotal stories in which they were the central character. These stories had a beginning and end with events selected to illustrate whatever point the teller was attempting to make. For researchers in the narrative tradition, we are the beliefs, arranged in the form of a personal story, that we hold to be true for our selves, and these are a product of our interactions with each other (Day & Tappan, 1996; Miller, 1996; Wortham, 2001). All of the participants in this study told narratives about themselves. Three participants, (Pangloss, Trevor and JohnB) recounted narratives where they judged the actions of others to be reprehensible, determined a fair level of retribution, and enforced that retribution on the offenders. Pangloss developed this into a philosophy whereby everyone's duty as a human being is to judge the behaviors of others and bring negative pressure on them if they fail to act rightly. Wortham (2001) said, A self emerges as a person repeatedly adopts characteristic positions, with respect to others and within recognizable cultural patterns in everyday social action. Because the positioning that partly constitutes the self depends on social contexts that shift over time, and on the unpredictable counterpositioning of others, the self is an ongoing, open-ended, and often heterogeneous construction, (p. 12) Trevor modified his behavior in exacting retribution from perceived wrongdoers by staying within legal limits, perhaps because of the predictable counterpositioning of the legal system, but also because he perceived the values of those with whom he identified put limits on the kind of retribution that was acceptable. The self-stories of each participant illustrated a meme or a theme that involved a group of memes. The resultant self-maps allowed a glimpse of what might be thought of as a "super-narrative," but unlike the anecdotes used to develop them, the 286 maps were not linear. There were many possible entry points or beginnings that may be selected on the basis of context, purpose or focus. Thus, the narratives voiced were retrospective stories grounded in the self-structure at hand. Several participants said they were context dependent to some degree with some (Chantelle, Magdelynn, Trevor, Judy) seeking to present a consistent self across contexts while others (Pangloss, JohnB) felt more comfortable with diversity in their context-linked presentations. Contained within the grand narratives of the self were remembered stories of feeling, constancy, community, volition and individuation. Within that broad framework was room for variation including cultural variation. The maps of five participants, JohnB, Chantelle, Trevor, Pangloss and Nick, showed an animator meme with an empowerment theme at the core or most central part of their selves. Their stories showed a predisposition to act deliberatively and forcefully when meeting life's challenges. The maps of Tina, Fredelle, Magdelynn, Brent and Maomao showed other centers more core to their felt being. Their lives, as interpreted from their stories, reflected these differences. In Maomao's self, the animator meme was present but not culturally valued. The emphasis she placed on family, community, duty and deference has been identified as a cultural norm (Mac, 2006). All participants acknowledged the importance of feedback from others in validating their self-constructions suggesting self-making is more than a retrospective concoction. Participants looked for evidence in the form of validation from significant others within their communities. This suggests a need to ground one's subjective experiences and interpretations in feedback and support having some objective base. Citing the work of Libit (1985) and Dennett (1991), Blackmore (2002) argued the stream of consciousness (James, 1890) is an illusion created as a retrospective story concocted when we focus our attention on something. With this understanding, the selves of the participants were narratives concocted from memories once I focused their attention by asking the question, "Who are you?" If the conscious self at any given moment is such a retrospective story, or group of retrospective stories, then the importance of memory in constructing and re-constructing such stories is paramount, and the need for a grounding to ensure that the self so constructed feels to be true is explained. Implications of This Research on Our Understanding of Self Two models of the self appeared repeatedly in the literature: that of Adler (1927/1957, 1929, 1967) and of James (1890, 1892/1999). The conceptualization of James has been used in both theoretical discussions into the nature of the self (Leary & Tangney, 2003; Mead, 1934/2003), and in quantitative (Damon & Hart, 1988; Kwiatkowska, 1990) and qualitative research into the self (Hermans & Hermans-Jansen, 1995; Hopper, 2003; Snow & Anderson, 2003). The Adlerian model has had considerable influence in counselling and therapy. Jones and Lyddon (1997) said, "In a dialogue between Adlerians and constructivists, we believe that three notions shared by both camps may provide some paths for integration: teleology and meaning, contextualism, and holism" (p. 206). Dowd (1997) said both Adlerian Psychology and Cognitive Therapy are collaborative involving both cognitions and behaviors. In addition, "Adlerian Psychology has always included a social dimension to human activity that Cognitive Therapy has only recently begun to include" (p. 217). In their textbook on Rational Emotive Therapy, Dryden, Neenan & Yankura (2001) quote Albert Ellis in acknowledging: "Adler (1927) was the first great therapist to really emphasize inferiority feelings - while RET similarly stresses self-rating and the ego anxiety to which it leads. Like Adler and his Individual Psychology, RET also emphasizes people's goals, purposes, values and meanings. RET also follows Adler in regard to the use of active directive teaching, the stress placed on social interest, the use of a holistic and humanistic outlook, and the employment of a highly cognitive-persuasive form of psychological treatment, (p. 5) Boeree (2006) suggested that Maslow and Rogers owe much to Adler and added, "Students of personality theories have noted that the theorists called Neo-Freudians — Horney, Fromm, and Sullivan -- should really have been called Neo-Adlerians"(Discussion, para. 1). Given their respective influence on theoretical understandings and practice, the results of this research were used to confirm and extend the Jamesian and Adlerian models of the self. The Jamesian Self This study supported the conceptualization of James' subjective self (1890, 1892/1999) and extended that conceptualization to include an element of emotiveness. James' (1892/2003) notion that there are as many social selves as there are social contexts received limited support from this study. While several participants admitted to being different in some ways according to context, only one (Pangloss) suggested this was a preferred way to be. A majority (Judy, Chantelle, Magdelynn, Brent, Maomao, Trevor, Tina, Fredelle) sought consistency across contexts, suggesting the sense of constancy is a felt need in the objective as well as the subjective self. Hart & Damon (1985) proposed adding reflectivity to the elements of Jamesian 'I,' but they failed investigate that possibility in their subsequent research (Damon & Hart, 1988). Only five of the participants in this study identified a meme in their self-maps labelled "reflective." While this does not negate the idea others could also be reflective when required, it fails to support the notion that reflectivity is necessarily part of the self. It is possible reflectivity could be present, like the act of remembering, as a skill without being part of one's self-definition. The discussion of constancy and memory by various participants illustrated a capacity to reflect on who they are. Even Tina, who did not identify "rememberer" as a meme in her self map, reflected on aspects of herself such as her bi-sexuality, and these reflections informed her worldview. If the self evolved as a cultural adaptation permitting the individual to objectify himself and others so as to increase his range of potential responses (Jaynes, 1976; Johnson, 2003), then a capacity for self-reflective thought would flow from that evolution. Different rules may apply to the subjective, as opposed to objective, parts of our selves. If memory is necessary to build an objective self, it may be that we are subjectively rememberers without consciously identifying ourselves as such. Similarly, we could be reflective thinkers, subjectively, without having an objectively held meme carrying that label. As Leary and Tangney (2003) suggested, "Some phenomena - such as long-term planning, choking under pressure, self-conscious emotions (such as shame and guilt), self-verification, and deliberate self-presentation - simply cannot occur in animals that are unable to self-reflect" (p. 3). Damon & Hart (1988) also investigated the application the Jamesian "me" to their subjects, and although they found evidence of physical, active, social and psychological selves, they had assumed the existence of these categories prior to their study, and they asked questions aimed at eliciting self-statements with respect to each. For example the question, "What are you especially proud of yourself?" was meant to elicit statements about subjects' psychological selves. No questions were designed to elicit an assumptive response in this study, none-the-less all four categorizations were found within the self-maps of a majority of the participants. On the other hand, Fredelle did not include a meme about her social self on her self-map despite her involvement in the Unitarian Church and the transsexual communities. This may indicate a consciously held social self is not necessary, or it may mean Fredelle's self is an aberration, and future counsellors would be advised to work with her in the development of a social self. Three participants, Maomao, Nick and Pangloss, did not include memes representing their physical selves in their self-maps. This indicates we do not need to include reference to our bodies in our self-definition, consistent with the approach of Charmaz (1990) whose participants dealt with their physical illnesses by not incorporating their physical selves into what Charmaz termed their "dialogic selves." The Jamesian model of the self may be interpreted to imply a duality between objective and subjective selves, although James (1892/1999) attempted to avoid such an implication by describing the total self as a duplex that is partly known and partly knower. He declared, "The thought is the thinker.... The only pathway that I can discover for bringing in a more transcendental thinker would be to deny that we have any direct knowledge of the thought as such" (James, 1890, p. 401). The existence of a knower is inferred from what is known. Thus, the qualities of the knower: constancy, uniqueness and volition must also be inferred. This allows for the possibility of other inferred qualities, such as "reflective thinker" of which the individual may not be aware. This, in turn, allows for the possibility of unconscious aspects to the self. Within this context, the suggestion of two participants (Pangloss and JohnB) that the researcher assess them or provide them with information on who they were, takes on added significance. They were asking for assistance in making the unconscious conscious. The method of mapping the self used in this study did not divide the self into objective and subjective parts with each part studied separately in the manner of Damon and Hart (1988). Instead, that which was objectively known was set out as memes with inferences labelled as themes, often with thematic arrows extending to a range of memes and clusters of memes within the self. Thus, empowerment was inferred from acts of directed animated behavior. This way of representing the self pictorially appears consistent with James' (1890, 1892) original conceptualization. The Adlerian Self As we have seen, Adler (1927/1957, 1929, 1967) viewed the self as a social construction beginning in childhood and accompanied by the development of a model of how the world operates. He referred to this mental model as a "worldview." The goals formulated to protect the self in childhood tend to remain the goals of adulthood insuring a certain stability to the self. Mistaken goals such as attention, power, revenge or withdrawal may inhibit the development of work, intimacy or social interest within the individual thus keeping that individual from achieving his or her potential. He also postulated a "drive for perfection" that compensates for early childhood feelings of inferiority. Although Adler's definition of the self is one based on cognition, his inclusion of love or intimacy in his model suggests a recognition of the emotional needs of the individual (Boeree, 2006; Mosak, 1979). Further, his "striving for perfection" drive (Adler, 1967) which, as Boeree (2006) has suggested, is very similar to the modern concept of self-actualization, seems to be driven by an emotional need. That striving received support from this study as all participants reported developmental changes meant to improve themselves in some ways. Adler's (1929) notion of the stability of the self was supported by this research although two of the participants noted that their feeling of continuance may be illusory. None-the-less, every participant was able to narrate childhood experiences helping to determine who they became. Alder's (1967) tripartite division of the healthy self into work, love and social interest was partially supported by this research. Every participant named aspects of themselves related to work or production, and love or intimacy. All eleven participants engaged in activities satisfying Adler's notion of social interest, and six of these related their activities to a transcendental purpose - the need to serve a purpose or cause bigger than themselves. Where Adler was not supported was in the implication these three areas were sufficient in themselves. We have already seen, for example, how we seem to need a sense of distinctness or uniqueness related to our selves. Adler and nature of free will. Some researchers and writers have noted that humans have periodically subsumed their selves to the will of religious or ideological collectivities (Fromm, 1969; Goldhagan, 1996; Grosswiler, 1998). Implying the existence of free will, Eric Hoffer (1966) suggested this has to do with negative self-definition: "The frustrated follow a leader less because of their faith that he is leading them to a promised land than because of their immediate feeling that he is leading them away from their unwanted selves" (p. 110). If the self is socially constructed then these "unwanted selves" were not the making of those who "possess" them, therefore their "choice" in following charismatic and totalitarian leaders was predestined by the creating culture. Blackmore (1999) took an unequivocal stand: "Each selfplex gives rise to ordinary human consciousness based on the false idea that there is someone inside who is in charge.... Free will, like the self who 'has' it, is an illusion" (p. 236). If there is no free will then Adler's psychology collapses. Genetics provides the hardware and memetics provides the software governing our thoughts and perceptions according to heritable (physical and cultural) programming. We are automata performing our routines each in our own separate "reality". Dawkins (1976) took a different view: We have the power to defy the selfish genes of our birth and, if necessary, the selfish memes of our indoctrination. We can even discuss ways of deliberately cultivating and 293 nurturing pure, disinterested altruism - something that has no place in nature, something that has never existed in the whole history of the world. We are built as gene machines and cultured as meme machines, but we have the power to turn against our creators. We, alone on earth, can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators, (p. 215) In Dawkins' view, while the self may be a memetic artefact of brain activity, it is none- the-less real, albeit as a non-material formation. Self-understanding, coupled with an objective understanding of the genetic and cultural factors, allows us to make real choices. If we can make such choices, then we can strive to reach our human potential, a striving Adler viewed as innate. Building on the Work of James and Adler The models of James (1890, 1892/1999) and Adler (1927/1957, 1967) were not mutually exclusive. James' interest was in developing a theoretical model meant to encompass both objective and subjective aspects of the self while Adler's focus was on therapy. Thus, Adler implied a teleological purpose in his striving for perfection or self-actualization drive. Such a drive could be interpreted as compatible with James' volition, as could Adler's "social interest" although the latter also implies embeddedness in community. James' subjective self element of uniqueness or individuation has no direct counterpart in the Adlerian formulation, but Adler may have implied as much in discussing the totality of the individuum. Similarly, the Adlerian concepts of work (production) and love (intimacy) have no direct counterparts in the Jamesian formulation, but could be included in the active, social and psychological aspects of the objective self. In summation, the Jamesian and Adlerian models of the self are complementary and could be viewed as different perspectives of an evolving social sciences model that may be extended to include reflectivity (Hart & Damon, 1985; Mead, 1934; Seigel, 2005). This research also gives support to the suggestion this model should be extended to include emotive, as well as cognitive, elements. This research supports the hope that the basic structures of the self delineated apply to individuals from collectivism as well as individualist, cultures. The use of a memetic approach allows us to visualize how such a self is extended into family and community. Benefits of Using a Memetic Approach in Mapping the Self Although the self has long been considered to be a cultural construct (Harre, 1984; Mead, 1912/1990; Taylor, 1989), the technology of visualizing the self as units of culture was not well developed, and resultant attempts to map the self focused on environmental or psychological forces (Hartman, 1995; Lewin, 1943; Shepard & Marshall, 1999) with implications of environmental or endogic determinism (Wilson, 1995). The concept of the meme allows us to visualize the self as units of individualized culture within a framework of environmental and genetic forces. Self-maps prepared using this technology displayed structured internal relationships and relationships between those cultural units and similar units found within surrounding familial and community cultures. Thus, a dynamic structure may be represented without firm boundaries between the inner and the outer while concomitantly maintaining a sense of stability. This memetic perspective is interactionalist, compatible with those who emphasize the impact the external environment in constituting the self (Lewin, 1931; Lock, 1981/1990; Mead, 1934), and those would extend the self into the social environment (Hermans, 2003; Shotter, 1997). With the Jamesian/Adlerian model of the self supplemented by a memetic perspective, we may examine how particular aspects of that social environment interact with particular aspects of the self. The example of Brent replacing a "poor learner" meme with a "learner" meme illustrated one such memetic transition. 295 Although Dawkins (1976) was not the first to give a name to elemental units of culture (Wilson, 1999), he was the first to suggest these units exert attractive and repellent forces, but his discussion about the nature of memes was included in a book primarily devoted to genetics. Dawkins (1982) clarified the differences between memes and genes "may prove sufficient to render the analogy with genetic natural selection worthless or even positively misleading" (p. 112). It fell to others (Blackmore, 1999; Dennett, 1995) to develop the concept of the meme more fully. Health's (2001) research suggested an affective quality to meme propagation while Robles-Diaz-de-Leon's work (2003) implied a connotative effect. This research demonstrated how all four qualities assigned to memes could serve to exert attractive qualities on other memes signifying linkages. For example, the memes for "wife," "daughter" and "cleaner" in Tina's self-map involved the behavior of cleaning house. Therefore, behaviorally, the three were linked providing support for each other's presence in Tina's self. The affect associated for both "wife" and "mother" was love with "love" identified as a unifying theme in Tina's self. The two memes were thus united thematically. Both "intelligent" and "learner" memes in Nick's self map included the connotation of empowerment, hence the two were linked to an empowerment theme in his self-map. Similarly, the referent meaning associated with both "daughter" and "only child" in Maomao's self-map involved being a child, providing a rationale for linking the two. These examples illustrate how a memetic perspective allows for a rationale in linking units of culture within the self that was not available to earlier attempts at self mapping (Hartman, 1995; Lewin, 1943; Shepard & Marshall, 1999). Dawkins (1976) also said memes exhibit qualities of repulsion. Repulsion between memes was illustrated in this research by using lines of tension. As an example, Brent's self-map is drawn with a tension line between memes for "flexible" and "rigid" illustrating a conflict between these two cultural units. Given the tendency toward a stable self (Adler, 1927/1957; Damasio, 1999; Kwiatkowska, 1990), we would expect the self would normally have few such lines of tension. Memes not compatible with an existing self would be expelled, ceasing to be part of the person's self-definition. Thus, Brent's self resisted the notion he was a learner for much of his adult life, and a developmental transition was required to change that understanding of himself. Judy, Magdelynn and Maomao made references to an authentic self, and Magdelynn said she experienced less dissonance when she succeeded in becoming the same person across contexts. Thus, a certain stability is explained using a memetic perspective while simultaneously explaining the person's ability to change over time. Change in the individual's self and worldview are related to a menu of possibilities provided by culture (Harre, 1998; Hermans, 2003; Marin & Gamba, 2002). Arthur (2003) found that international students may not be consciously aware of such changes while living in Canada even though the changes may be of sufficient magnitude to become problematic upon their return to their culture of origin. The memetic perspective, presenting memes as being available in a surrounding "cultural soup" integrating with existent memes within a self affecting one's worldview, provides explanatory power for this process of observed change. Mapping the self may also offer insights for predicting which changes would likely be assimilated from an adoptive culture and which memes would be repelled. The structure of memes examined in this research was highly individualized. For example, the selves of four participants included a meme labelled "proud" in their maps. The narratives of all four of these participants included reference to accomplishments, generating feelings of pride, resulting in memes representing the concept of a proud person. For Trevor, Pangloss and Magdelynn, "proud" was either connected to "self-esteem" or it generated feelings 297 of self-worth. In Chantelle, it connoted arrogance and was something to be tempered with humility. In Trevor "proud" connoted potentialities for further accomplishment while in Pangloss and Magdelynn it connoted being a good person in some ways. For Pangloss, being proud was connected to internal characteristics such as being open-minded and curious. With Magdelynn, "proud" included being "the most gimped" and being able to transcend her disability with tenacity. Each example of a "proud" meme was different from the others in some ways. It is possible no two memes with the same label were exactly the same for any of the participants. The concept of the meme as having a variable structure avoids implied essentialism. If the content of most memes will be uniquely tailored to the individual in some ways, then few, if any, memes will be copied exactly from one individual to the next. Existing memes may be modified during discourse either through a process of negotiation or through repeated exposure to alternate definitions presented in the form of differing perspectives. Do memes have sufficient copying fidelity to be considered replicators? Gabora (2004) said memes, or assemblages of memes such as worldviews, are primitive replicators like polymers whose self- assembly arises, not through coded instructions, but through chance molecular interactions that preserve a certain structure. Thus, the cultural unit of replication is not the meme but the associative pathway of ideas that create structured networks of memes. A similar structure of the self presented across a diverse sample of participants in this research, supporting Gabora's (2004) notion it is the structure that is replicated. On the other hand, memes do not have the structural integrity of atoms, and they do not actually move from one location to another with the resultant implication that some notion of replication is necessary to account for their dissemination. It could be that no analogy with the physical world can be exact, and we are creating new languaging to understand what happens in this non-material universe. 298 It is not sufficient to suggest "the agent is constituted by language" (C. Charles, 1989a, p. 509). Unless we can understand from whence we have agency, then our models of self, including any culturally inclusive models of self, are incomplete. The technology of memetics allowed us to visualize how culturally mediated notions of animation and empowerment could come to inhabit the selves of individuals, and how resultant notions of self-agency are then incorporated into the worldviews of individuals. In summation, the use of the concept of the meme allowed us to represent a large amount of individualized data in non-linear fashion. The selves so pictured exhibited a capacity for representing both stability and change. The memetically-mapped selves in this research were holistic unitary structures that incorporated both objective and subjective dimensions. The selves were not necessarily pictured as discrete, but may be seen to extend into the cultures surrounding them. Finally, an implication of this research is the self cannot be adequately represented by memes alone. Each participant self included non-memetic structures such as an emotive base and inferred Jamesian subjective themes. Implications of the Results to Counselling If a function of the left cerebral hemisphere is to generate a plausible narrative from often disconnected pieces of information (Gazzaniga, 2000), then it should be possible to construct a better narrative when the old one does not suffice. Put another way, if the self is a theory as to who we are (Harre, 1989), then with new information it should be possible to construct a better theory. The prescription in a rational-emotive training manual might be eclectically true across models of therapy: "It is desirable for counsellors to help their clients to construct new 'theories' about themselves and the world..." (Dryden et al., 2001). While counsellors come from different orientations, and no one school has been shown to be significantly superior to others (Wampold, 2000), the method of preparing memetic self-maps described in the paper appears to be compatible with a spectrum of such approaches. As Korhonan (2002) found: All the (Western/Modern) theorists believed in the interrelatedness of emotion, thought, and behaviour, and in inseparability of the client from his social context. All interventions therefore involve affect (emotion), behaviour/action, cognition (thoughts, perceptions, assignment of meaning, use of language, etc.), and recognition of the individual as social being. Most interventions, however, focus on one major aspect for change, with the expectation that the others will inevitably change as well (p. 151). Thus, a map of the self displaying individualized emotion, thought and behavior, all within a social context, should prove beneficial to counsellors trained in a variety of western traditions. The use of the concept of the meme in these maps allowed for consideration of individual differences in linked cognitive, connotative, and emotive meaning. The participant reports of resonance with their resultant self-maps suggest the possible utility this method in counselling. The following possible benefits to building therapeutic relationships are suggested: 1. The process of preparing the maps recognized the participant as an expert in him or herself, and this helped establish collaborative equality; 2. Rapport was developed quickly to the extent that by the second interview two participants (Tina and Magdelynn) shared sensitive details about their personal lives they had initially avoided; 3. The act of participating in the map-making exercise reminded participants of prior interpretive choices they had made in response to transitional experiences with the implication they could make other choices; 4. Memetic self-map co-construction increased the sense of empowerment in some participants; 5. The visual representation of the self allowed researcher and participant to place contemplated changes in perspective with respect to the entire self; 6. Absence of items identified as common to selves (continuity, volition, individuation, productivity, intimacy, social interest, feeling) may be "red- flagged" by the therapist for further examination; 7. Recognition of attractive forces existent between individual memes, and the placement of memes with respect to other memes may lead to the development of effective strategies for self-change. Potential benefits from the use of memetic self-mapping to counselling include the development of collaborative counsellor-client relationships, increased rapport, empowerment for self-change, a holistic perspective on the self-structure, hypotheses for strengthening the self, and strategies for effecting change. These potential benefits commend themselves to an Adlerian approach of proving the unity of the individual to the client so that s/he understands the consistency of his actions, cognitions and feelings with an underlying belief system, so a challenging of that belief system can begin. Strategizing self-change. The account of the suicidal girl (Chapter 1: The Call of This Research) provided an example of using mapping to develop a strategy for self change. In this example the client's self-map showed a "depressed person" meme at the core of her identity surrounded by a cloud of memes feeding depression. Put another way, the surrounding memes served to hold "depressed person" in place making the person resistant to treatments focussing directly on the depressed state. Further, were it possible to remove "depressed person" through medication or other means, then the client may experience a feeling of non-existence which would serve to bring back the depression while increasing a sense of hopelessness and the risk of suicide. It proved fruitful to collaboratively assist the client in developing a new positive center, related to social interest, compatible with existing memes that would serve to keep that center in place in the person's self. That new center was supported by memes already existent in the client's self including "animal rights," "children's rights," "feminist" and "Wiccan." A suggestion flowing from this research is new memes could be constructed therapeutically around the idea of empowerment, family or some other area that needs strengthening but already has some support from memes existent within the self. In this study, the researcher identified a meme he labeled "aboriginal activist" in Trevor's self before the participant consciously defined himself in this way. That meme, acting in concert with other memes already existent, produced yet another new meme, "artist." Trevor's example suggests that the process of self-change in this manner is not unusual, and it may be a process counsellors can use to assist clients in generating developmental transitions. Memetic mapping may be used to develop strategies to weaken supports for problematic core memes that are difficult to remove by direct action. For example, the suicidal girl saw herself as a writer, but she wrote from her depression. She was encouraged to write in support of her new "human rights" center to give voice to other aspects of her self. Similarly, she was encouraged to re-direct her anger externally in ways that would promote social interest. Still other memes, peripheral to the depression, were eliminated entirely. For example, she saw herself as ugly but "ugly" was not supported by a large cluster of memes, so it was possible to have her perform "homework" assignments designed to challenge that belief. Although this study did not involve deliberate interventions to change the selves of individuals therapeutically, we witnessed Tina decide to become less of a "pleaser" by practicing assertiveness skills, and we saw Magdelynn deciding to become "less fractured" and more consistent across contexts. With "depressed person" receiving less support from surrounding memes in the suicidal girl's self, it became possible to re-frame it, not as a self-defining meme, but as one emotion among many people sometimes feel. If we view the self as purely a cognitive structure, then at this point we eliminated depression from the suicidal girl's self. The participants to this research, however, insisted on including emotion in their self-definitions beyond the affective dimension attributed to memes. Tina's self had the most intricate representation of emotion where depression and anxiety could serve to block other emotions. She insightfully defined her task as ensuring that she continued to have the capacity to feel all emotions. The selves of all the participants involved a balance of individual units of culture, thematic drives, and a range of emotions. The Self in Community The suggestion the self needs reinforcement from a supportive community in its own maintenance (Ishiama, 1995; Lepine & Baerveldt, 2006) was supported by this research. All participants in this study recalled how significant others helped to determine who they became, and once we become a certain person, others treat us as accordingly for self-stability to be maintained. In addition to knowing clients as individuals, psychologists would be advised to build awareness of the community and familial forces impacting on the self of the client. The self need not be supported by the dominant norms in society. Snow & Anderson (2003) demonstrated how the homeless in their California study constructed selves at variance with dominant stereotypes while interacting in communities of homeless. In this study, Fredelle found a community of people organized around the Unitarian Church supportive of her self- definition as a transsexual. Judy found a community of like-minded humanists. Tina found that lesbians and men were more accepting of her bi-sexuality than "straight" women, so she eliminated straight women from her closest community of friends. If we view therapy as a process of change, then the change the client seeks must be supported by his or her communities. The model used in this study shows the self interconnected with and extended into familial, community and societal cultures (see Figure 30). Using this model, counsellors and clients may identify communities that reinforce beneficial memes within the structure of the self while avoiding identification with communities detrimental to those memes. Interaction between the individual and the community is pictured as bi-directional. The selves of individuals extend into the communities of which they are apart, and they become part of the culture of those communities. This supports Adler's (1927) notion that social interest is really a form of self-interest, and by improving our community cultures we lend support to our selves. A Culturally Inclusive Self Paradigm The history of colonization and domination by the "West" may, in part, explain the underutilization of counsellors, usually Caucasian, by international students (Arthur, 2004; Jacob, 2001), Asian-Americans (Tang, Fouad, & Smith, 1999), and aboriginal peoples (Dolan, 1995; Mitchum, 1989; Poonwassie & Charter, 2001). The practice of psychology has been pictured as a Western invention promoting a particular ethnocentric characterization of self (Blustein & Noumair, 1996; Cushman, 1995; Moody, 1999). If the profession were to promote some capitalist or Christian memes as essential to a healthy self, then the charge of ethno- centrism in counselling would hold. Minority clients have responded to culturally responsive counsellors with a greater willingness to return to counselling, more expressed satisfaction with the process, and greater depth of disclosure (Ponterotto, Fuertes, & Chen, 2000). Modern counselling psychology would be demonstrably ethno-centric if it were shown that most counsellors were not culturally responsive. Korhonen's (2002) study compared the elements of good counselling between generic and multicultural counsellors, and she found both involved recognizing and accepting the uniqueness of the individual, gaining knowledge of the other person in social context, using appropriate verbal and non-verbal communication, using community resources and the client's natural support systems, building a supportive client/counsellor relationship, and working together to develop goals and interventions. She concluded: The examples demonstrate what seems to be consistently evident in the literature: ineffective multicultural counselling is in fact ineffective counselling. Nowhere was I able to find examples in which the effective generic counsellor strategies were demonstrated as being inappropriate. Nowhere was I able to find examples which showed a competent (emphasis hers) generic counsellor as being inappropriate. An example of incompetent counselling can only be proof of the inappropriateness or ineffectiveness of incompetent counselling, (p. 181) This research supported the notion that the self is not a western invention, but exists with a similar structure in collectivist as well as individualist cultures. Cultural differences focused on the valuing placed on different parts of that structure, for example, Maomao not valuing her animator / empowered self or on culture-specific memes, for example, Trevor self-identifying with aboriginal spirituality. Although some schools of psychology place considerable emphasis on client empowerment with respect to making choices (Adler, 1967; Ellis & Harper, 1997), one could be consistent with these approaches and support a client's decision, like Maomao, to not use her animator self, with the provision she may make other choices in particular circumstances. Cultural and genetic factors have interacted in such a way to produce a self that is at once determined and self-determined. The evolutionary advantages of having a self, as defined in this paper, are sufficient to suggest people of every culture must have a sense of who they are and their agentive place in that culture. The self then becomes their theory of who they are (Harre, 1984), and living in a culture becomes a matter of discursive negotiation with others on the basis of this theory. The role of the counselling psychologist is to assist the individual in making that implicit theory of self explicit. Once voiced, the client takes agentive control over the very formulation that allows that control. The combination of the structural qualities of self - distinctness, continuity, individuality, community, even agency itself - becomes his or her own. Emphasis is placed on the understanding of meaning from the client's point of view. This self-as- a-theory conceptualization has the effect of broadening any individualistic assumptions inherent in James' formulations on the self, and of satisfying Widdicombe's (1998) concern, "Social identities cannot simply be assumed; instead, we need to be sensitive to ways that group membership and non-membership are negotiated, rejected or achieved" (p. 70). The moral self. Taylor (1989) reminded us that we have a moral sense that constitutes an important part of who we are, and that we cannot depend on the self, stripped of its moral sense, to constitute its own moral goods. A danger of relativism, he contended, is that morality ceases to be part of the discussion. The notion we need a moral order to inform our actions and to exalt 306 the human spirit has received support in the literature (Coloroso, 2006; Hutcheon, 1999; Somerville, 2006), and from the participants in this research who either talked of the need to be part of something greater than themselves, or demonstrated such a belief by their actions aimed at benefiting the greater good. A possible danger of counsellors discussing moral questions could involve the imposition of a dominant cultural moral narrative on members of a minority culture. Harre (1989) pointed out that the T, or in other languages the relevant first-person inflection, "is used to perform a moral act, an act of commitment to the content of the utterance in the appropriate moral universe" (p. 26). Morality can be understood both memetically and discursively as a process embedded in culture involving negotiation between the inner culture of the self and the outer culture of the many. With such an understanding, a counsellor could invite discussion of the process by which a client constitutes his or her moral goods without imposing a 'higher will,' colonial fashion. Limitations The problem of self-selection. People who volunteer to talk about themselves may have different characteristics than those who do not volunteer to talk about themselves. They might be expected to exhibit higher levels of assertiveness and self-confidence. Such characteristics could speak to feelings of empowerment and the volunteer's level of social activism. All the participants to this study expressed an interest in, or were engaged in, action to make the world a better place for others. It may be that there are people who do not have this orientation, and they may not be predisposed to volunteer for this kind of research. Further, participants may have come to the research with a personal agenda additional to their desire to further human knowledge. Fredelle admitted she wanted to bring greater public understanding to the condition of transsexuality, and she hoped this study would gain a wide 307 circulation to further that aim. This motivation could have affected her presentation. While no other participant stated they wished to propagate a particular point of view, belief systems were presented. For example, Brent voiced a commitment to environmentalism and JohnB voiced support for native spirituality. While it was important that participants share strongly held beliefs because that is part of who they are, it is unclear how, if at all, a commitment to the propagation of some beliefs may have affected their overall presentations. The problem of researcher influence. The qualities of the researcher can and do affect outcomes (Elliot et al., 1999; Polkinghorn, 1995; Zolner, 2003). While the method used in this study attempted to minimize this risk through non-directiveness and open-ended questioning, researcher effects on the participant sample could not be negated totally. For example, Tina took two sessions before she was willing to share that she was bi-sexual. Had I been more or less engaging, more or less enthusiastic about my topic, or more or less accepting of diversity, the results would have varied. She may not have been willing to share aspects of her self with another researcher whom she perceived differently, and alternatively there may aspects of herself she was inhibited from sharing due to the qualities I brought to the research. Similarly, Magdelynn waited until her second session before discussing aspects of her sexuality. In part, she was prompted by a deepening relationship with her boyfriend, but physically disabled people sometimes avoid the topic with able-bodied as many treat them as non-sexual beings. There could have been a process of "feeling out" the researcher's attitudes to negotiate what was permissible in discourse; in fact, it would have been surprising if this process had failed to materialize with any of the participants (Strong & Sutherland, 2006). The extent to which the participant's presentations were inhibited by the researcher's presentation remains unknown. The problem of dual roles. Frank (2000) warned, "The risk of reducing the story to a narrative is that of losing the purpose for which people engage in storytelling, which is relationship building" (p. 355). In ordinary discourse, the storyteller is building a relationship with the listener; therefore, the interaction between teller and listener needs to be assessed with the understanding the story will necessarily change in some ways depending on the social objectives of the participants in the discourse. Although the relationship between client and therapist or researcher involves non-ordinary discourse which permits the reduction of a story to a narrative, people are social beings and they want to be liked, respected and acknowledged. When Maomao introduced me to her parents who were visiting from China, she was engaged in a social act. When Tina proudly showed off her newborn, she was extending a relationship. When Nick empathized with the researcher's cold during one interview, he was committing an act of friendship. Pangloss admitted attempting to convince the researcher of his negative qualities during the second interview session, but was motivated by wanting the researcher to like him during the third. The relationship between the researcher and individual participants influenced the presentation of both. A second potential dual relationship was exemplified by Pangloss who said he wanted the researcher to assess him in some ways even after he was told it was not the researcher's role to do so. It may be he was hoping the researcher would provide him with some insight into himself. In any event, he put forward a series of personas that may have represented himself in some ways, but were insufficient to generate a resonant reflex. While the process of building a self- map using this method does not always produce a result that resonates, it may be that the failure to produce a resonating map has to do with participant / client characteristics that inhibit self- understanding or self-disclosure. The researcher effect on participant presentation, illustrated by Pangloss's dilemma once he decided he liked me, supports the notion of those who say we are a product of negotiation between others and ourselves within contexts (Charmaz, 1990; Hermans, 2003; Neimeyer, 2002). If we tend to become the person we present to others, then who we are is a result of innumerable such negotiations since infancy. Yet, while most participants wanted to present an accurate picture of themselves, they were invariably selective using memories that are reconstructed routinely (Ingram, 2005; Loftus & Ketcham, 1994; Todd, Hertwig, & Hoffrage, 2005). While relationship building may interfere with complete data collection, had I responded to these acts of relationship building in a cold and clinical way the relationship still would have evolved, but it would have evolved in a different direction. The process of interviewing involves social restraints and permissions, and a cold and clinical interviewer establishes a different set of restraints thereby affecting the discourse and the resultant data from that discourse. While little can be done to completely avoid the effect of relationship, its effect needs to be understood and incorporated in the interpretation of the results. The problem of subjective interpretation. The method of Transcendental Realism (Miles & Huberman, 1994) involves three basic steps with respect to manipulating the data: 1) data reduction, 2) data display 3) conclusion drawing and confirmation. In the process of data reduction, segments of text are coded and placed in "conceptual bins" with other like segments. For example, in this research all segments that showed volition were put in a bin labeled "animator." The various bins were then examined for the requisite referent, connotative, affective and behavioral dimensions, and if those dimensions were identified, then a representative meme was added to their self-map. The relationship of such memes with other 310 memes was illustrated using proximity, lines of attraction, and themes governing internal relationships. At each level of categorization and analysis the researcher was making decisions subjectively. The maps were then brought back to the participants as a check against this subjectivity, but the researcher continued to have considerable influence over the process. An example where another researcher could have come to a different conclusion involved Trevor's self-esteem meme. Ordinarily, self-esteem would not be considered a meme but an inferred construct describing how the individual habitually responds to life's challenges. In Trevor's case, it appeared he monitored his self-esteem separate from the activities in which he was engaged, engaged in specific behaviors such as positive self-talk in building his self-esteem, and took satisfaction in process with the connotation that he was a better person for it. On that basis, I made the judgement to declare it a meme. Another example where I used my subjective judgment involved the placement of Chantelle's "proud" meme. "Proud" had negative connotations associated with her aggressive behavior earlier in her life. She had taken steps to not be proud in that sense when she decided to "live straight." On the other hand, it appeared from her transcript that she was legitimately proud of her accomplishments as an athlete and as a student. It was not possible to move "proud" to the periphery of her self and maintain its connection to those central memes. Another researcher might have eliminated "proud" as a meme altogether and considered it as an affect of the two initiating memes. At the time, however, I modified "proud" by showing a directional relationship between it and "humble." Not only are the relationships between memes subjectively defined, but sometimes it is not clear what is a meme and what is a mere descriptor. Limitations inherent in mapping. Pangloss said his self-map did not resonate with him. Given that he viewed the process as an assessment of himself, and he changed or shifted his 311 presentation during each of the three interviews, this result is not surprising. Although the map represented some aspects of himself, which he shared, it did not represent the "real" Pangloss. Maps are just a representation of a much larger territory; therefore, there will have been much that has been missed with respect to each of the participants. Participant identification with their self-maps through resonance suggests some authenticity and potential utility, but many details and internal relationships will have been missed, leading to a necessary tentativeness in their use. Methodological limitations. The small sample size and qualitative method used allowed for the elaboration of the participant's experience of self without the promise of a new general theory. Although the results may be said to lend support to particular propositions, and while the method may be considered as a possible heuristic for future research, more research is required. Recommendations for Future Research Theoretical understandings. This work supported and extended the constructs of the self developed by James (1890,1892/1999) and Adler (1927/1957, 1929), and to some extent served to unify those constructs. The suggestion the self is a retroactive story concocted to fit a particular stimulus (Blackmore, 2002) needs a fuller examination. Some aspects of the self-as- theory may be falsifiable, while other aspects may be "just-so stories" concocted to give the illusion of constancy, uniqueness or volition. One specific area recommended for further investigation is the notion that reflectivity is a necessary component of self. Although a result of this research was that reflectivity is not necessarily present as a meme in the self, it is possible that reflectivity, like the broad area of emotion, could be necessarily present in some non- memetic way. Although the self was represented from individuals from collectivist as well as individualist cultures, this research was not designed to study cross-cultural issues related to self- 312 construction. While there may be a basic structure to the self, the importance placed on certain aspects of that structure and their relationship to other aspects of the self might be expected to vary between cultures. In addition it is expected there would be cultural differences in memes available for incorporation into the self. The method used in this research may be used in such cross-cultural comparisons. In addition, research into ethnic, class and gender difference within and between cultures could benefit from this approach. Practical applications. One of the stipulations of this research was that participants could not be in therapy as the selves of such persons could be in transition with resultant flux or instability associated with the self. Research is needed on the selves of specific client populations to investigate how their selves may differ from the norm, and how those differences may be interpreted so as to inform treatment strategies. Counsellors need to be able to respond to clients in a timely fashion. The time and effort involved in mapping the self using the methods of this research may be prohibitive. It may be possible, however, to use the perspective of the self developed in this paper to develop a system of mapping individual selves using deductive means. Such a method might involve the counsellor asking the client a series of questions based on aspects of the self that are universally or generally present and placing those answers on a flexible template as may be found in a computer program. Research is needed to determine if such maps would also resonate with clients, and whether they would contain information useful for the counselling process, or whether a deductive process would constrain individuals unduly resulting in unreliable or inadequate information. 313 Summary and Conclusions This research studied the structure of the self using the concept of the meme. Although the suggestion the self consisted of memes had been made previously (Blackmore, 1999; Kenyon, 1993), no attempt had been made to demonstrate how these units of culture would fit together to form a self with the qualities attributed to it in the literature. Indeed, although the idea that the self was a cultural construct has received wide support (Harre, 1998; Mead, 1912/1990), and although attempts had been made to map the self in relation to environmental forces (Hartman, 1995; Lewin, 1943), no attempt to show how units of culture might be connected in the formation of a self was found in a search of the literature. Those participants whose selves were mapped using this method typically experienced a feeling of resonance on review of those maps, and this was taken to indicate those maps reflected them in some important ways. The results supported models of the self proposed by both James and Adler, suggesting that these models are not mutually exclusive and may be combined to form a dominant psychological model of the self. This research added a memetic perspective to that model. Three components of the Jamesian subjective self were found in this study: constancy, volition and individuality as were the three components of the Adlerian self: production, intimacy and social interest. In addition, all the participants in this study incorporated emotion or feeling into their self-maps separate from and in addition to the affective dimensions of the memes within those selves. A majority of the participants incorporated the role of rememberer into their self but all engaged in the act of remembering. Remembering is likely a condition of having a self, although a meme for rememberer may not necessarily be incorporated into it. Similarly, the notion that reflectivity is a necessary component of the self (Hart & Damon, 1985; 314 Seigel, 2005) was not supported by this research, but it is possible people with selves carry on this activity without labelling themselves as reflective or understanding that they are engaged in reflective behavior. Participants from both collectivist and individualist cultures exhibited a similar structure of the self, and this included a feeling of constancy with antecedents dating back to childhood. Self-change occurred in histories of all of the participants, and they were able to detail environmental events that helped determine who they became. The initial self was established in childhood and further change was evolutionary. Despite a feeling of constancy, different roles represented by memes or clusters of memes were enacted in differing contexts. Participants communicated their selves to others by means of a series of stories or narratives that, while linear in fashion, contained information about themselves which when assembled in map-form took on a non-linear appearance. Elements of this research support those who have argued for self-constancy (Adler, 1927/1957; Seigel, 2005), behavioral determinism (Blackmore, 1999; Chambless & Goldstein, 1979) social constructionism (Gergen, 1996; Shotter, 1997), and those who hold that the self is a narrative (Hermans & Hermans-Jansen, 1995; Wortham, 2001). In addition the results of this research were compatible with a neuro-scientific perspective suggesting the self is a product of left-hemispheric activity creating unifying stories out of units of information (Craik et al., 1999; Wolford et al., 2000). A model of the self consistent with the approach used and the results found in this paper, suggests it is a cultural construct grounded in genetic inheritance. The child is taught to have a self as part of the process of language acquisition by care-givers who supply the child with wishes, needs, intentions, wants and who interact with the child as if it had them (Harre, 1984). 315 Thus, the self of the child is other-determined. Later the child expands on this self by incorporating cultural units from his or her environment, but these cultural units or memes are almost always consistent with his previous self, so the menu of possibilities for self-change is restricted from the total number of possibilities in the surrounding cultural universe, and the evolution of the self is not totally self-determined. This restriction, while limiting possibilities, helps to preserve the self's sense of constancy. Countering this conservative tendency is what Adler (1967) called a "striving for perfection" which involves becoming a recognized and competent person within one's cultural or sub-cultural group. Counsellors may appeal to that drive by opening consideration of new possibilities. Some of the properties of the self such as the need for intimacy appear to be grounded in biology (Campbell & Ellis, 2005; Goleman, 2006), but other properties such as the need for distinctness may flow from the logic of having a self. If a person does not have a sense of being an individual, unique in some sense from others, then that person will be unable to act independently. The loci signified by the indexical pronoun "I" will have been lost. The sense of individuality is likely a perquisite for volition or the capacity to engage in purposive behavior, and this capacity speaks to the evolutionary cultural advantage of having a self. Although there may be universal constants associated with having a self, the strength, application, and even the desirability of having those qualities will vary culturally. The method of memetic self-mapping described in this paper is compatible with a spectrum of counselling theories. From a Kuhnian perspective there are no theories of counselling in psychology because psychology is a pre-paradigmic proto-science (Kuhn, 1970b). This implies that we really have models of counselling drawn from different perspectives. It may 316 be that a unified model of the self is emerging in our field. It is hoped that the addition of a memetic perspective to that model will enrich its application to both theory and practice. 317 REFERENCES Abraham, C. (2005, September 9). Is your mind changing? Scientists think so. Globe and Mail, p. Fl. Adams, M. (2003). Fire and ice: The United States, Canada, and the myth of converging values. Toronto: Penguin. Adler, A. (1927/1957). Understanding human nature (B. Wolfe, Trans.). New York: Fawcett. Adler, A. (1929). The science ofliving.New York: Greenberg, Publisher. Adler, A. (1967). Superiority and social interest: A collection of later wn'n'ng^.London: Roultlege and Keagan Paul Ltd. Allport, G. W. (1947). The genius of Kurt Lewin. Journal of Personality, 16(1), 1-10. Ansbacher, H., & Ansbacher, R. (1956). The individual psychology of Alfred Adler.New York: Basic Books. Arthur, N. (2003). Preparing international students for re-entry transition. Canadian Journal of Counselling Psychology, 37(3), 173-185. Arthur, N. (2004). Counselling international students.New York: Plenum. Bandura, A. (1991). Self-efficacy conception of anxiety. In R. Schwarzer & R. Wicklund (Eds.), Anxiety and self-focused attention (pp. 89-11-). New York: Harwood. Bandura, A. (1999). A sociocognitive analysis of substance abuse: An agentic perspective. Psychological Science, 10(3), 214-217. Bandura, A., Barbaranelli, C., Caprara, G. V., & Pastorelli, C. (2001). Self efficacy beliefs as shapers of children's asperations and career trajectories. Child Psychology, 72(1), 187-206. Berry, J. W. (2002). Conceptual approaches to acculturation. In K. M. Chun, P. B. Organista & G. Marin (Eds.), Acculturation: Advances in theory, measurement, and applied research (pp. 17- 38). Washington, DC, US: American Psychological Association. 318 Beyerstein, B. (2006). Hallucination and belief: Seeing is believing is seeing. Humanist Perspectives, 39(3), 19-24. Bjorklund, D. F., & Blasi, C. H. (2005). Evolutionary developmental psychology. In D. M. Buss (Ed.), The handbook of evolutionary psychology (pp. 828-850). Hoboken, NJ, US: John Wiley & Sons. Blackmore, S. (1999). The meme machine.Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Blackmore, S. (2000). The power of memes. Scientific American, 283(4), 64-69. Blackmore, S. (2002). There is no stream of consciousness. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 9(5/6), 17-28. Bloomquist, M. L., & Schnell, S. V. (2002). Helping children with aggression and conduct problems: Best practices for intervention.New York: Guilford Press. Blustein, D. L., & Noumair, A. (1996). Self and identity in career development: Implications for theory and practice. Journal of Counseling & Development Retrieved February 22, 2005, 2005, from http://80-web25.epnet.com.ezproxy.lib.ucalgary.ca:2048/citation.asp Bochner, A. P. (1997). It's about time: Narrative and the divided self. Qualitative Inquiry, 3(4), 418- 438. Boeree, C. G. (2006). Personality theories.Shippensburg, PA, US: Shippensburg University. Borg, W. R., & Gall, M. D. (1985). Educational research: An introduction (4 ed.). New York: Longman. Botella, L., & Herrero, O. (2000). A relational constructivist approach to narrative f/iera/ry .Barcelona, Spain: Ramon Llull University. Boyd, R., & Richardson, P. (2000). Meme theory oversimplifies how culture changes. Scientific American, 283(4), 70-72. 319 Brave Heart, M. Y. (2003). The historical trauma response among natives and its relationship with substance abuse: A Lakota illustration. Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, 35(1), 7-13. Bridges, W. (1980). Transitions: Making sense of life's changes. Reading, CA, US: Addison-Wesley Publishing. Bridges, W. (2001). The way of transition: Embracing life's most difficult moments. Cambridge, MA, US: Da Cappo. Budd, J. W. (2004). Mind maps as classroom exercises. Journal of Economic Education, 35(1), 35-46. Cahill, M., & Martland, S. (1996). Soft systems: Non-hierarchical evaluation of career counselling. Guidance and Counselling, 2(3), 15-19. Campbell, L., & Ellis, B. J. (2005). Commitment, love, and mate retention. In D. M. Buss (Ed.), The handbook of evolutionary psychology (pp. 419-446). Hoboken, NJ, US: John Wiley & Sons. Caprara, G. V., Scabini, E., Barbaranelli, C, Pastorelli, C, Regalia, C, & Bandura, A. (1998). Impact of adolescents' perceived self-regulatory efficacy on familial communication and antisocial conduct. European Psychologist, 3(2), 125-132. Chambless, D. L., & Goldstein, A. J. (1979). Behavioral psychotherapy. In R. J. Corsini (Ed.), Current psychotherapies (2 ed., pp. 230-272). Itasca, IL, US: F. E. Peacock Publishers. Charmaz, K. (1990). Discovering chronic illness: Using grounded theory. Social Science and Medicine, 30, 1161-1172. Charmaz, K. (2000). Grounded theory: Objectivist and constructivist methods. Handbook of Qualitative Research. N.K. Denzin and Y.S. Lincoln. Thousand Oakes, CA, US, Sage Publications: 509-536. Coloroso, B. (2006). Just because it's not wrong doesn't make it right: From toddlers to teens, teaching kids to think and act ethically.Toronto: Viking Canada. Corey, M. S., & Corey, G. (2003). Becoming a helper.New York: Brooks / Cole. Coyne, J. A. (1999, April). The self-centred meme. Nature, 398, 767-768. Craik, F. I. M., Moroz, T. M., Moscovitch, M., Stuss, D. T., Winocur, G., Tulving, E., et al. (1999). In search of the self: A positron emission tomography study. Psychological Science, 10(1), 26-34. Cross, S. E., & Gore, J. S. (2003). Cultural models of the self. In M. Leary & J. P. Tangney (Eds.), Handbook of self and identity (pp. 536-564). New York: Gilford Press. Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1993). The evolving self: A psychology for the third millennium.New York: Harper Collins. Cushman, P. (1995). Constructing the self, constructing america: A cultural history of psychotherapy.Cambridge, MA, US: Perseus. Damasio, A. R. (1999). The feeling of what happens: Body and emotion in the making of consciousness.New York: Harcourt. Damon, W., & Hart, D. (1988). Self-understanding in childhood and adolescence.Cambridge, MA, US: Cambridge University Press. Dawkins, R. (1976). The selfish gene.Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Dawkins, R. (1982). The extendedphenotype: The gene as the unit of selection.Oxford, UK: W.H. Freeman. Dawkins, R. (1986). The blind watchmaker.hondon: Penguin Books. Dawkins, R. (1999). New reflections from Richard Dawkins on chapter 11 of "the selfish gene". Retrieved March 15, 2005, from http://www.rubinghscience.org/memetics/dawkinsmemes.html Day, J. M., & Tappan, M. B. (1996). The narrative approach to moral development: From the epistemic subject to dialogical selves. Human Development, 39, 67-82. Dennett, D. C. (1991). Consciousness explained.Boston: Little, Brown. 321 Dennett, D. C. (1995). Darwin's dangerous idea: Evolution and the meanings oflife.New York: Simon and Schuster. Dennett, D. C. (1996). Kinds of minds: Toward an understanding of consciousness.New York: Harper Collins. Descartes, R. (1643/1990). Meditations on the first philosophy and the principles of philosophy. In J. Pickering & M. Skinner (Eds.), From sentience to symbols: Readings on consciousness (pp. 10-20). Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Devilly, G. J., & Spence, S. H. (1999). The relative efficacy and treatment distress of emdr and a cognitive-behavior trauma treatment protocol in the amelioration of posttraumatic stress disorder. Journal of Anxiety Disorders 13(1) Retrieved March 1, 2005, from http.7/80- www.sciencedirect.com.ezproxy.lib.ucalgary.ca:2048/science Dinkmeyer, D. C, Pew, W. L., & Dinkmeyer, D. C. J. (1979). Adlerian counselling and psychotherapy.Monterey, CA, US: Brooks / Cole. Doen, R. E. (1998). The king is dead; long live the king: Narrative therapy and practicing what we preach. Journal of Family Process, 37(3), 379-385. Doherty, E. (1999). The Jesus puzzle: Challenging the existence of an historical Jesus. Ottawa, ON: Canadian Humanist Publications. Dolan, C. A. (1995). A study of the mismatch between native students' counselling needs and available services. Canadian Journal of Counselling, 29(3), 234-243. Donald, M. (2001). A mind so rare: The evolution of human consciousness.New York: Norton. Dowd, E. T. (1997). A cognitive reaction: Adlerian psychology, cognitive (behavior) therapy, and constructivistic psychotherapy: Three approaches in search of a center. Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy, 11(3), 215-219. Dozois, D. (2002). Cognitive therapy in clinical depression: Structure, specificity and stability, First Annual Meeting of the Institute for Neurosciences, Mental Health and Addictions.Montreal: Institute for Neurosciences, Mental Health and Addictions. Driekurs, R. (1964). Children: The challenge.New York: Hawthorne Books. Dryden, W., Neenan, M., & Yankura, J. (2001). Counselling individuals: A rational emotive behavioural handbook (3 ed.). London: Whurr Publishers. Edley, N. (1993). Prince charles - our flexible friend: Accounting for variations in constructions of identity. Text, 13(3), 397-422. Edwards, D. (1998). The relevant thing about her: Social identity categories in use. In C. Antaki & S. Widdicombe (Eds.), Identities in talk (pp. 15-33). London: Thousand Oakes. Elliot, R., Fischer, C. T., & Rennie, D. L. (1999). Evolving guidelines for publication of qualitative research studies in psychology and related fields. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 38, 215-229. Ellis, A. (1979). Rational-emotive therapy. In R. Corsini (Ed.), Currentpsychotherapies (2nd ed., pp. 185-229). Itasca, NY, US: Peacock Publishing. Ellis, A., & Harper, R. A. (1997). A guide to rational living (3rd ed.). Hollywood, CA, US: Wilshire Book. Ellis, C, & Bochner, A. P. (2000). Autoethnography, personal narrative, reflexivity. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 733-768). Thousand Oaks, CA, US: Sage. Fielding, N. G., & Lee, R. M. (1998). Computer analysis and qualitative research.London: Sage Publications. Fontana, A., & Frey, J. H. (2000). The interview: From structured questions to negotiated text. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 645-670). Thousand Oakes, CA, US: Sage. Foucault, M. (1982/1997). Technologies of the self (R. Hurley, Trans.). In P. Rabinow (Ed.), Ethics: Subjectivity and truth (Vol. 1, pp. 223-252). New York: New Press. Foucault, M., Becker, H., Fornet-Betancourt, R., & Gomez-Muller, A. (1984/1997). The ethics of the concern of the self as a practice of freedom (P. Aranov & D. McGrawth, Trans.). In P. Rabinow (Ed.), Ethics: Subjectivity and truth (Vol. 1, pp. 281-301). New York: New Press. Frank, A. W. (2000). The standpoint of storyteller. Qualitative Health Research, 10(3), 354-356. Freidman, D., & Sing, N. (2004). Negative reciprocity: The co-evolution of memes and genes. Evolution and Human Behavior, 25(3), 155-173. Fromm, E. (1969). Escape from freedom (24 ed.). New York: Avon Books. Frow, J., & Morris, M. (2000). Cultural studies. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of Qualitative Research (pp. 315-334). Thousand Oakes, CA, US: Sage. Gabora, L. (2004). Ideas are not replicators but minds are. Biology and Philosophy, 19(1), 127-143. Gazzaniga, M. S. (2000). Cerebral specialization and interhemispheric communication: Does the corpus callosum enable the human condition? Brain, 137(1), 1293-1326. Gergen, K. J. (1991). The saturated self: Dilemmas of identity in contemporary life.New York: Basic Books. Gergen, K. J. (1996). Social psychology as social construction: The emerging vision. In C. McGerty & A. Haslam (Eds.), The message of social psychology: Perspectives on mind in society (pp. 113- 128). Oxford, UK: Blackwell. Gergen, K. J. (2001). Psychological science in a postmodern context. American Psychologist, 56(10), 803-813. Gerrity, E. T., & Solomon, S. D. (2002). The treatment of PTSD and related stress disorders: Current research and clinical knowledge. In A. J. Marsella, M. J. Friedman, E. T. Gerrity & R. M. Scurfield (Eds.), Ethnocultural aspects of posttraumatic stress disorder: Issues, research, and cinical applications (pp. 87-104). Washington, DC, US: American Psychological Association. Gilbert, S. L., Dobyns, W. B., & Lahn, B. T. (2005). Genetic links between brain development and brain evolution. Nature Reviews Genetics, 6(1), 581-590. Glaser, B. G. (1992). Basics of grounded theory analysis: Emergence vs forcing.Mill Valley, CA, US: Sociology Press. Glaser, B. G. (2002). Conceptualization: On theory and theorizing using grounded theory. International Journal of Qualitative Methods Retrieved March 29, 2005, from Goldhagan, D. J. (1996). Hitler's willing executioners: Ordinary Germans and the holocaust.New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional intelligence: Why it can matter more than I.Q.New York: Bantam. Goleman, D. (2006). Social intelligence: The new science of human relationships.New York: Bantam. Gould, S. J. (1996). The mismeasure of man (Revised ed.). New York: Norton. Grosswiler, P. (1998). The method is the message.Montreal: Black Rose Books. Gubrium, J. F., & Holstein, J. A. (1998). Narrative practice and the coherence of personal stories. The Sociological Quarterly, 39(1), 163-187. Habermas, J. (2005). Habermas on Heidegger: Excerpts from Habermas' review from the Columbia University Press edition. Heiddeger Reading Room Retrieved February 18, 2005, from http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/habermasonheidy.htm Haley, T. (2002). The fit between reflecting teams and a social constructionist approach. Journal of Systemic Therapies, 21(1), 20-40. Hamachek, D. E. (1971). Encounters with the self.New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Harre, R. (1984). Personal being: A theory for individual psychology.Cambridge, MA, US: Harvard University Press. Harre, R. (1989). Language games and texts of identity. In J. Shotter & K. J. Gergen (Eds.), Texts of identity (pp. 20-35). London: Sage. Harre, R. (1989). The self as a theoretical concept. In M. Krausz (Ed.), Relativism: Interpretation and confrontation (pp. 389-411). Notre Dame, IN, US: University of Notre Dame Press. Harre, R. (1991). The discursive production of selves. Theory and Psychology, 1(1), 51-63. Harre, R. (1998). The singular self: An introduction to the psychology of personhood.London: Thousand Oakes. Hart, D., & Damon, W. (1985). Contrasts between understanding self and understanding others. In R. Leahy (Ed.), The development of the self (pp. 159-177). Orlando, FL, US: Academic Press. Hartman, A. (1995). Diagrammatic assessment of family relationships. Families in Society: The Journal of Contemporary Social Services, 76(2), 111-122. Heath, C, Bell, C, & Sternberg, E. (2001). Emotional selection in memes: The case of urban legends. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 81(6), 1028-1041. Heaven, P. C. L., Simbayi, L., Stones, C, & Roux, A. L. (2000). Human values and social identities among samples of white and black South Africans. International Journal of Psychology, 35(1), 67-73. Hermans, H. J. M. (2003). The construction and reconstruction of dialogical self. Journal of Constructivist Psychology, 16(2), 89-130. Hermans, H. J. M., & Hermans-Jansen, E. (1995). Self-narratives: The construction of meaning in psychotherapy.New York: Guilford Press. Hill, C. E., & Williams, E. N. (2000). The process of individual therapy. In S. D. Brown & R. W. Lent (Eds.), Handbook of counselling psychology (3 ed., pp. 670-710). New York: John Wiley and Sons. Hoffer, E. (1966). True believer (First Perennial Library Edition). New York: Harper & Row. Holland, J. L. (1997). Making vocational choices: A theory of vocational personalities and work environments (3 ed.). Odessa, FL, US: Psychological Assessment Resources, Inc. Holstein, J. A., & Gubrium, J. F. (2000). The self we live by: Narrative identity in a postmodern world.New York: Oxford University Press. Hopper, J. (2003). The rhetoric of motives in divorce. In J. A. Holstein & J. F. Gubrium (Eds.), Inner lives and social worlds: Readings in social psychology (pp. 255-267). New York: Oxford University Press. Horvath, A. O., & Symonds, B. (1991). Relation between working alliance and outcome in psychotherapy: A meta-analysis. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 38(2), 139-149. Hoyt, M. F. (2002). How I embody a narrative constructive approach. Journal of Constructivist Psychology, 15, 279-289. Hutcheon, P. D. (1996). Leaving the cave: Evolutionary naturalism in social-scientific thought.Waterloo, ON: Wilfred Laurier University Press. Hutcheon, P. D. (1999). Building character and culture.Westport, CT, US: Praeger. Hutcheon, P. D. (2001). The road to reason: Landmarks in the evolution of humanist thought.Ottawa, ON: Canadian Humanist Publications. Hyer, L., Kramer, D., & Sohnle, S. (2004). CBT with older people: Alterations and the value of the therapeutic alliance. Psychotherapy: Theory, Research, Practice, Training, 41(3), 276-291. Ingram, J. (2005). The theater of the mind: Raising the curtain on consciousness.Toronto: Harper Collins. Ishiama, F. I. (1995). Culturally dislocated clients: Self-validation issues and cultural conflict issues and counselling implications. Canadian Journal of Counselling, 29(3), 262-275. Jacob, E. J. (2001). Using counsellor training and collaborative programming strategies in working with international students. Journal of Multicultural Counselling and Development, 29(1), 73- 91. James, W. (1890). The principles of psychology (Vol. 1). London: Macmillan. James, W. (1892/1999). The self. In R. F. Baumeister (Ed.), The self in social psychology: Key readings in social psychology (pp. 69-77). New York: Psychology Press. James, W. (1892/2003). The me and the I. In J. A. Holstein & J. F. Gubrium (Eds.), Inner lives and social worlds: Readings in social psychology (pp. 121-122). New York: Oxford University Press. Jaynes, J. (1976). The origins of consciousness in the breakdown of the bicameral m/ra/.Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Johnson-Laird, P. N. (1988/1990). A computational analysis of consciousness. In J. Pickering & M. Skinner (Eds.), From sentience to symbols: Readings in consciousness (pp. 165-170). Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Johnson, D. M. (2003). How history made mind: The cultural origins of objective thinking.Chicago: Open Court Books. Johnson, P. A. (2000). On Heidegger.Belmont, CA, US: Wadsworth Thomson Learning. Jones, J. V., & Lyddon, W. J. (1997). Adlerian and constructivist psychotherapies: A constructivist perspective. Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy, 11(3), 195-209. Jopling, D. (2000). Self knowledge and the self.London: Routledge. Joris, P. (1989). Heidegger, france, politics, the university. Pages Personelles de Michel Fingerhut Retrieved February 18, 2005, from http://www.anti-rev.org/textes/Joris89a/ Kabat-Zinn, J. (1994). Wherever you go, there you are: Mindfulness meditation in everyday life.New York: Hyperion. Kang, S.-J., Mann, N., & Kawakami, K. (2006). The effect of social inclusion and self-esteem on assimilation to social categories, Canadian Psychological Association Convention.C&lg&ry, AB: Canadian Psychological Association. Kariel, H. S. (1956). Democracy unlimited: Kurt Lewin's field theory. The American Journal of Sociology, 52(3), 280-289. Katona-Sallay, H. (1990). The characteristics of adolescents' self-concept. In L. Oppenheimer (Ed.), The self-concept: European perspectives on its development, aspects, and applications (pp. 97- 106). Berlin: Springer-Verlag. Kenyon, T. (1993). Memes, parfit, and the construction of self. Carlton University, Ottawa, ON. Koch, H. J. (1956). Sissiness and tomboyishness in relation to sibling characteristics. Journal of Genetic Psychology, 88, 231-244. Korhonen, M.-L. (2002). Inuit clients and the effective helper: An investigation of culturally sensitive counselling. University of Durham, Durham. Krai, M. J., & Burkhardt, K., J. (2002). The new research agenda for a cultural psychology. Canadian Psychology, 43(3), 154-162. Kuhn, T. S. (1970b). Reflections on my critics. In I. Lakatos & A. Musgrave (Eds.), Criticism and the growth of knowledge (pp. 231-278). London: Cambridge University Press. Kulik, L. (2004). The impact of birth order on intergenerational transmission of attitudes from parents to adolescent sons: The Israeli case. Journal of Youth & Adolescence, 33(2), 149-157. Kwiatkowska, A. (1990). Sense of personal continuity and distinctivenes from others in childhood. In L. Oppenheimer (Ed.), The self-concept: European perspectives on its development, aspect, and applications (pp. 63-74). Berlin: Springer-Verlag. Laverty, S. M. (2003). Hermeneutic phenomenology and phenomenology: A comparison of methodological and historical considerations, International Journal of Qualitative Methods. Leary, M. (2004). The curse of the self.Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Leary, M., & Tangney, J. P. (2003). The self as an organizing construct in the behavioral and social sciences. In M. Leary & J. P. Tangney (Eds.), Handbook of self and identity (pp. 3-14). New York: Gilford Press. Lent, R. W. (2004). Toward a unifying theoretical and practical perspective on well-being and psychosocial adjustment. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 51(4), 482-509. Lepine, C, & Baerveldt, C. (2006). Cultural identity in practice: Beyond attitudes and self- identification, Canadian Psychological Association Annual Convention.Calgary, AB: Canadian Psychological Association. LeVey, S., & Hamer, D. H. (1994). Evidence for a biological influence on male homosexuality. Scientific American, 49, 44-49. Lewin, K. (1931). Environmental forces in child behavior and development. In A handbook of child psychology (pp. 94-127). Oxford, UK: Clark University Press. Lewin, K. (1933). Vectors, cognitive processes, and mr. Tolman's criticism. Journal of General Psychology, 8,319-345. Lewin, K. (1943). Defining the 'field at a given time.' Psychological Review, 50(3), 292-310. Lewin, K., & Lippitt, R. (1938). An experimental approach to the study of autocracy and democracy: A preliminary note. Sociometry, 1, 292-300. Libet, B. (1985). Unconscious cerebral initiative and the role of conscious will in voluntary action. Behavioral & Brain Sciences, 8(4), 529-566. Libet, B. (1999). Do we have free will? In B. Libet & A. Freeman (Eds.), The volitional brain: Towards a neuroscience of free will (pp. 47-57). Charlottesville, NC, US. Lock, A. (1981/1990). Universals in human conception. In J. Pickering & M. Skinner (Eds.), From sentience to symbols: Readings on consciousness (pp. pp. 218-223). Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Loftus, E., & Ketcham, K. (1994). The myth of repressed memory: False memories and allegations of sexual abuse.New York: St. Martin's Press. 331 Mac, L. (2006). A qualitative inquiry into the experiences of Chinese immigrant children in Canada: Adult reflections on childhoood experiences, Canadian Psychological Association Annual Conference.Calgary, AB: Canadian Psychological Association. Marin, G., & Gamba, R. J. (2002). Acculturation and changes in cultural values. In K. M. Chun, P. B. Organista & G. Marin (Eds.), Acculturation: Advances in theory, measurement, and applied research (pp. 83-94). Washington: American Psychological Association. Marsden, P. (2001). Is suicide contagious? A case study in applied memetics. Journal ofMemetics Retrieved February 22, 2005, from http://jom-emit.cfpm.org/200l/vol5/marsden p.html Marsden, P. (2002). What 'healthy-living' means to consumers: Trialling a new qualitative research technique. International Journal of Market Research, 44(2), 223-234. Martin, J., & Sugarman, J. (2001). Is the self a kind of understanding? Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior, 31(1), 103-114. Maslow, A. H. (1987). Motivation and personality (3rd ed.). New York: Harper and Rowe. Mayer, J. D., & Salovey, P. (1997). What is emotional intelligence? In P. Salovey & D. J. Sluyter (Eds.), Emotional development and emotional intelligence: Educational implications (pp. 3- 31). New York: Basic Books. Mays, N., & Pope, C. (1995). Qualitative research: Rigour and qualitative research. British Medical Journal, 311, 109-112. McCowan. (1996). Educational psychology (Canadian ed.). Toronto: Allyn and Bacon. Mead, G. H. (1912/1990). The mechanisms of social consciousness. In J. Pickering & M. Skinner (Eds.), From sentience to symbols: Readings on consciousness (pp. 192-197). Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Mead, G. H. (1934). Mind, self and society.Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Mead, G. H. (1934/2003). The self. In J. A. Holstein & J. F. Gubnum (Eds.), Inner lives and social worlds: Readings in social psychology (pp. 125-130). New York: Oxford University Press. Meador, B. D., & Rogers, C. R. (1979). Person-centered therapy. In R. Corsini (Ed.), Current psychotherapies (2nd ed., pp. 131-184). Itasca, NY, US: Peacock Publishing. Miles, M. B., & Huberman, A. M. (1994). Qualitative data analysis: An expanded sourcebook (2 ed.). Thousand Oakes, CA, US: Sage. Miller, M. E. (1996). Ethics and understanding through interrelationship: I and thou in dialogue. In R. Josselson (Ed.), Ethics and process in the narrative study of lives (Vol. 4, pp. 129-147). Thousand Oakes, CA, US: Sage. Minsky, M. (2003). What comes after minds? In J. Brockman (Ed.), The new humanists: Science at the edge (pp. 197-213). New York: Barnes & Noble. Mitchum, N. T. (1989). Increasing self-esteem in native-american children. Elementary School Guidance and Counselling, 23, 266-271. Moody, R. (1999). Challenges and transformations: Counselling in a multicultural context. International Journal for the Advancement of Counselling, 21, 139-152. Morrow, S. L., & Smith, M. L. (2000). Qualitative research for counseling psychology. In S. D. Brown & R. W. Lent (Eds.), Handbook of counselling psychology (3rd ed., pp. 199-230). New York: John Wiley and Sons. Mosak, H. (1979). Adlerian psychotherapy. In R. Corsini (Ed.), Current psychotherapies (2nd ed., pp. 44 - 94). Itasca, NY, US: Peacock Publishing. Neimeyer, R. A. (1995). Limits and lessons of constructivism: Some critical reflections. Journal of Constructivist Psychology, 8, 339-361. 333 Neimeyer, R. A. (2002). The relational co-construction of selves: A post-modern perspective. Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy, 32(1), 51-59. Oosterwegel, A., & Oppenheimer, L. (1990). Concepts within the self-concept: A developmental study on differentiation. In L. Oppenheimr (Ed.), The self-concept: European perspectives on its development, aspects, and applications (pp. 9-22). Berlin: Springer-Verlag. Organista, P. B., Organista, K. C, & Kurasaki, K. (2002). The relationship between acculturation and ethnic minority mental health. In K. M. Chun, P. B. Organista & G. Marin (Eds.), Acculturation: Advances in theory, measurement, and applied research (pp. 139-162). Washington, DC, US: American Psychological Association. Packer, M. J. (1989). Tracing the hermeneutic circle: Articulating an ontical study of moral conflicts. In M. J. Packer & R. B. Addison (Eds.), Entering the circle: Hermeneutic investigation in psychology (pp. 95-117). New York: State University of New York. Patton, M. Q. (2002). Qualitative research and evaluation methods (3 ed.). Thousand Oakes, CA, US: Sage. Peck, M. S. (1978). The road less travelled..New York: Simon and Schuster. Penfield, W. (1975/1990). The mystery of the mind. In J. Pickering & M. Skinner (Eds.), From sentience to symbols: Readings on consciousness (pp. 118-126). Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Phinney, J. S. (2002). Ethnic identity and acculturation. In K. M. Chun, P. B. Organista & G. Marin (Eds.), Acculturation: Advances in theory, measurement, and applied research (pp. 63-82). Washington, DC, US: American Psychological Association. Pickering, J., & Skinner, M. (1990). From sentience to symbols: Readings in consciousness.Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Pinker, S. (1997). How the mind works.New York: Norton. Pinker, S. (2002). The blank slate: The modern denial of human nature.New York: Penguin. Polkinghorn, D. E. (1995). Narrative configuration in qualitative analysis. Qualitative Studies in Education, 8(1), 5-23. Ponterotto, J. G., Fuertes, J. N., & Chen, E. C. (2000). Models of multicultural counseling. In S. D. Brown & R. W. Lent (Eds.), Handbook of counseling psychology (3 ed., Vol., pp. 639-669). New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Poonwassie, A., & Charter, A. (2001). An aboriginal worldview of helping: Empowering approaches. Canadian Journal of Counselling, 35(1), 63-73. Price, I. (1999). Steps toward the memetic self, Journal ofMemetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission (Vol. 3, pp. 75-80). Rennie, D. L. (2000). Grounded theory methodology as methodical hermeneutics: Reconciling realism and relativism. Theory and Personality, 10(A), 481-502. Richardson, F. C, & Fowers, B. J. (1997). Critical theory, postmodernism, and hermeneutics: Insights for critical psychology. In D. Fox & I. Prilleltenski (Eds.), Critical psychology: An introduction (pp. 265-283). London: Sage Publications. Rinpoche, S. (1993). The Tibetan book on living and dying.New York: Harper Collins. Robertson, L. H. (2004). Youth suicide: A community response. In W. J. Mussel (Ed.), A matter of life: Suicide, addictions and mental health.Calgary, AB: Native Mental Health Association of Canada. Robertson, L. H. (2006). The residential school experience: Syndrome or historic trauma. Pimatisiwin: A Journal of Aboriginal and Indigenous Community Health, 4(1), 1-28. 335 Robles-Diaz-de-Leon, L. F. (2003). A memetic /participatory approach for changing social behavior and promoting environmental stewardship in Jalisco, Mexico. University of Maryland, College Park, MD, US. Rodebaugh, T. L., & Chambless, D. L. (2004). Cognitive therapy for performance anxiety. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 60(8), 809-821. Rosenberger, N. (1992). Japanese sense ofself.New York: Cambridge University Press. Rudestam, K. E., & Newton, R. R. (2001). Surviving your dissertation: A comprehensive guide to content and process (2 ed.). Thousand Oakes, CA, US: Sage Publications. Ryum, T., & Stiles, T. C. (2005). The predictive validity of therapeutic alliance for outcome in psychotherapy: A pilot study. Tidsskrift for Norsk Psykologforening, 42(11), 998-1003. Salovey, P., & Mayer, J. D. (1990). Emotional intelligence. Imagination, Cognition and Personality, 9,185-211. Savickas, M. L. (2001). Toward a comprehensive theory of career development: Dispositions, concerns, and narratives. In F. T. L. Leong & A. Barak (Eds.), Contemporary models in vocational psychology: Volume in honor of samuel h. Osipow (pp. 295-320). Mahwah, NJ, US: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Schlossberg, N. K., Waters, E. B., & Goodman, J. (1995). Counselling adults in transition: Linking practice with theory (2nd ed.). New York: Springer. Schwartz, J. M., & Begley, S. (2002). The mind and the brain: Neuroplasticity and the power of mental force.New York: Regan Books. Seigel, J. (2005). The idea of the self: Thought and experience in western Europe since the seventeenth century.Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Seta, C. E., Schmidt, S., & Bookhout, C. M. (2006). Social identity orientation and social role attributions: Explaining behavior through the lens of the self. Self and Identity, 5(4), 355-364. Shepard, B., & Marshall, A. (1999). Possible selves mapping: Life-career exploration with young adolescents. Canadian Journal of Counselling, 33(1), 37-54. Shotter, J. (1975). Images of man in psychological research (Vol. 4). London: Sage. Shotter, J. (1989). Social accountability and the social construction of 'you'. In J. Shotter & K. J. Gergen (Eds.), Texts of identity (pp. 133-151). London: Sage. Shotter, J. (1997). The social construction of our inner selves. Journal of Constructivist Psychology, 10(1), 7-24. Smollar, J., & Youniss, J. (1985). Adolescent self-concept development. In R. Leahy (Ed.), The development of the self (pp. 247-266). Orlando, FL, US: Academic Press. Snow, D. A., & Anderson, L. (2003). Salvaging the self. In J. A. Holstein & J. F. Gubrium (Eds.), Inner lives and social worlds: Readings in social psychology (pp. 139-160). New York: Oxford University Press. Somerville, M. (2006). The ethical imagination: Journeys of the human spirit.Toronto: House of Anansi Press. Stansbury, V. K., & Coll, K. M. (1998). Myers-briggs attitude typology: The influence of birth order with other family variables. Family Journal: Counseling & Therapy for Couples & Families, 6(2), 116-122. Strauss, A. L. (1987). Qualitative analysis for social scientists.Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. 337 Strong, T. (2000). Review of "the self we live by: Narrative identity in a postmodern world" by James A. Holstein & Jaber F. Gubrium. Gecko: The Journal of Deconstruction and Narrative Ideas in Therapeutic Practice, 3, 81-85. Strong, T. (2002). Collaborative 'expertise' after the discursive turn. Journal of Psychotherapy Integration, 12(2), 218-232. Strong, T., & Sutherland, O. (2006). Conversational ethics in therapeutic dialogue: Discursive considerations, Canadian Psychological Association Annual Conference.Calgary, AB: Canadian Psychological Association. Strong, T., & Zeman, D. (2005). 'Othering' and 'selving' in therapeutic dialogue.Unpublished manuscript, Calgary, AB. Sulloway, F. J. (1996). Born to rebel: Birth order, family dynamics, and creative lives.New York: Pantheon Books. Tang, M. (2001). Applying social cognitive career development theory to Asian Americans, Annual Conference of the American Psychological Association.Sm Francisco: American Psychological Association. Tang, M., Fouad, N. A., & Smith, P. L. (1999). Asian Americans' career choices: A path model to examine factors influencing their career choices. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 54, 142-157. Taylor, C. (1989). Sources of the self: The making of the modern identity. Cambridge, MA, US: Harvard University Press. Taylor, S. E. (1989). Positive illusions: Creative self-deception and the healthy mind.New York: Basic Books. Thomas, C. R., & Marchant, W. C. (1993). Basic principles of Adlerian family counselling. In O. C. Christensen (Ed.), Adlerian family counselling.Minneapolis, MN, US: Educational Media Corporation. Tittle, P. (1996). Rational basis of identity: Toward cultural anarchy. Humanist in Canada, 29(3), 6- 11. Todd, P. M., Hertwig, R., & Hoffrage, U. (2005). Evolutionary cognitive psychology. In D. M. Buss (Ed.), The handbook of evolutionary psychology (pp. 776-802). Hoboken, NJ, US: John Wiley & Sons. Torres, B. G. (1990). Development of self-descriptions in the context of play: A longitudinal study. In L. Oppenheimer (Ed.), The self-concept: European perspectives on its development, aspects, and applications (pp. 31-44). Berlin: Springer-Verlag. Trimpey, J. (1996). Rational recovery: The new cure for substance addiction.New York: Pocket Books. Ventis, W. L. (1995). The relationships between religion and mental health. Journal of Social Issues, 51(2), 33-48. Vleioras, G., & Bosma, H. A. (2005). Predicting change in relational identity commitments: Exploration and emotions. Identity, 5(1), 35-56. Vodde, R., & Giddings, M. M. (2000). The field system eco-map: A tool for conceptualizing practicum experiences. Journal of Teaching in Social Work, 20(3/4), 47-69. Vygotsky, L. S. (1939). Thought and speech. Psychiatry: Journal for the Study of Interpersonal Processes, 2, 29-54. Vygotsky, L. S. (1986). Thought and language (A. Kozulin, Trans.). Cambridge, MA, US: MIT Press. Vygotsky, L. S. (2004). Imagination and creativity in childhood. Journal of Russian & East European Psychology, 42(1), 1. Waldram, J. B. (2004). Revenge of the windigo: The construction of the mind and mental health of North American aboriginal peoples..Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Wampold, B. E. (2000). Outcomes of individual counselling and psychotherapy: Empirical evidence addressing two fundamental questions. In S. D. Brown & R. W. Lent (Eds.), Handbook of current psychotherapies (pp. 711-739). New York. Warwar, S., & Greenberg, L. S. (2000). Advances in theories of change and counselling. In S. D. Brown & R. W. Lent (Eds.), Handbook of counselling psychology (3rd ed., pp. 571-600). New York: Wiley and Sons. Watts, A. W. (1963). The two hands of god: The myths of polarity.New York: G, Braziller. Weeks, F. H. (2002). Behaviour problems in the classroom: A model for teachers to assist learners with unmet emotional needs. Dissertation Abstracts International Section A: Humanities & Social Sciences, 63(1 -A), 89. Wertsch, J. V. (1988). Vygotsky and the social formation ofmind.Cambridgc, MA, US: Harvard University Press. Whitam, F. L., Diamond, M., & Martin, J. (1993). Homosexual orientation in twins: A report on 61 pairs and three triplet sets. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 21(3), 187-206. White, L. (1969/1990). Four stages in the evolution of minding. In J. Pickering & M. Skinner (Eds.), From sentience to symbols: Readings on consciousness (pp. 173-182). Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Widdicombe, S. (1998). But you don't class yourself: The interactional management of category membership and non-membership. In C. Antaki & S. Widdicombe (Eds.), Identities in talk (pp. 52-70). London: Sage. Widdicombe, S. (1998). Identity as an analysts' and a participants' resource. In C. Antaki & S. Widdicombe (Eds.), Identities in talk (pp. 191-208). London: Sage. Wiedenfeld, S. A., Bandura, A., Levine, S., Oleary, A., Brown, S., & Raska, K. (1990). Impact of perceived self-efficacy in coping with stressors on components of the immune system. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59(5), 1082-1094. Wilcke, M. M. (2002). Hermeneutic phenomenolgy as a research method in social work. Currents: New Scholarship in the Human Services, 1(1) Retrieved January 20, 2005, from http://fsw.ucalgary.ca/currents/wilke/wilke.htm Williams, C, Williams, S., & Appleton, K. (1997). Mind maps: An aid to effective formulation. Behavioural & Cognitive Psychotherapy, 25(3), 261-267. Wilson, A. (1995). Mapping the mind in relational psychoanalysis: Some critiques, questions, and conjectures. Psychoanalytic Psychology, 12(1), 9-29. Wilson, A. N. (1997). Paul: The mind of the apostle.New York: Norton. Wilson, E. O. (1999). Consilience: The unity of knowledge.New York: Vintage Books. Wilson, H. S., & Hutchinson, S. A. (1991). Triangulation of qualitative methods: Heideggerian hermeneutics and grounded theory. Qualitative Health Research, 1(2), 263-276. Witkiewitz, K., & Marlatt, G. A. (2004). Relapse prevention for alcohol and drug problems: That was zen, this is tao. American Psychologist, 59(4), 224-235. Wolford, G., Miller, M. B., & Gazzaniga, M. S. (2000). The left hemisphere's role in hypothesis formation. Journal ofNeuroscience, 20(RC 64), 1-4. 341 Wortham, S. (2001). Narratives in action: A strategy for research and analysis.New York: Teachers College Press. Zimmerman, D. H. (1998). Identity, context and interaction. In C. Antaki & S. Widdicombe (Eds.), Identities in talk (pp. 87-106). London: Sage. Zolner, T. (2003). Going back to square one and finding its a circle: (not) doing university research in Indian country. Pimatisiwin: A Journal of Aboriginal and Indigenous Community Health, 1(1), 92-116. APPENDIX A: QUESTIONS USED BY KWIATKOWSKA (1990, p. 65) 1. Have you changed since you were little? 2. Perhaps you haven't changed? 3. What has changed in you? 4. What hasn't changed? 5. Will you change when you grow up? 6. In what respect will you become different? 7. In what respect won't you change? 8. What never changes in you? And (with respect to self-comparisons with peers) 1. Are you like other children? 3. Are you different from other children? 3. In what respects are you like them? 4. In what respects are you different 343 APPENDIX B: SELECTED QUESTIONS FROM DAMON & HART (1988) The following questions and probes were typically asked with respect to Jamesian elements of self, but the answers were categorized according to internal content of those answers which may not have reflected the intended direction of the interviewer. Physical/active/social self - "What are you like?" "Why is that important?" What are you not like?" Psychological self - "What kind of person are you?" "What are you especially proud of about yourself?" Agentive self - "How did you get to be the way you are?" Continuity of self - "If you change from year to year, how do you know its the same you?" Distinctiveness of self - "What makes you special?" "What makes you different from everyone else you know?" Answers were assessed and coded according to content. Answers indicating physical and material attributes were coded "physical", those describing the self in terms of typical activities are coded "active self-scheme". Situating the self in terms of association with family, friends, or other membership category was defined "social", and describing the self in terms of moods, thoughts, feeling, and attitudes were coded "psychological". Each coded response was then rated according to four levels: 1. Categorical identifications 2. Comparative assessments 3. Inter-personal implications 4. Systematic beliefs and plans 344 Coding and assignment of levels proceeded in a similar fashion for the self-as-subject elements with the expection of "agency" answers which were assigned the following levels of ranking: 1. External uncontrollable factors determine self 2. Efforts, wishes and talents influence self 3. Communication and reciprocal interatction influence self 4. Personal and moral evaluations influence self APPENDIX C: A SAMPLE OF OPEN ENDED QUESTIONS USED IN THIS STUDY 1. How would you describe yourself to explain who you are? 2. What are you like / not like? 3. What kind of person are you? 4. What are you especially proud of about yourself? 5. How did you get to be the way you are? 6. What major events happened that led to changes in who you are? 7. If you change from year to year, how do you know its the same you? 8. What makes you a unique person, distinct from others? APPENDIX D: EXPLORE YOUR 'SELF' 'Self-esteem' 'Self-concept' 'Self-empowerment', what is this 'self those counsellors keep talking about? I am interested in exploring that self with people who would like to know themselves better, or would like to share who they are for the purposes of research. Participants will engage in three interviews and will help construct maps of themselves. All who contribute to this research will be able to discuss the results with researcher, and will have their names entered for a valuable draw. Interested? Contact: Lloyd Robertson, Ph.D. Candidate Division of Applied Psychology Faculty of Education University of Calgary (403) ###-#### lhrobert @ ucalgary.ca Thank you. APPENDIX E: THE RECRUITMENT SCRIPT The Memetic Self: Understanding the Self Using a Visual Mapping Technique Participant Recruitment Script Introduction: Hello. My name is Lloyd Robertson and I am a Ph.D. candidate in the University of Calgary's Counselling Psychology program. Thank you for contacting me about my research project. This project has been approved by the University of Calgary's Conjoint Faculties Research Ethics Board. Purpose and procedure: The purpose of this research is to increase our understanding of the self. I will be asking people to tell me who they are in some detail. If you agree to be part of this research then, together we will prepare a map of your self and you will tell me how well that map resonates or works for you. I will ask you to share any past events, that come to mind, that may have contributed to making you who you are today providing you are comfortable sharing those events. I will also ask you about any changes you may wish to make for your self in the future. Are you still interested in participating? If 'no', thank them for their time. If'yes': Time commitment: I will meet with you on at least three separate occasions over a period of five to six months. On the first occasion I will gather demographic information such as your name, age, gender and racial or cultural identification and will review a consent form with you which will need to be signed permitting the research to proceed. I will ask you to tell me who you are and may ask you some questions to help gather enough information. The conversation will be audio taped. After our first session I will review the tape and will take the main points from the tape while trying to understand how those points fit together. I will prepare a map showing how everything might fit together and will go over that map with you in our second session. You will then tell me how to make a better map of yourself. I like to think of participants as co-researchers because you are the expert on your self and together we will be exploring ways to represent your self in a way that has meaning for you. During our third session I will ask you how that revised map feels to you and what has remained constant and what has changed about your self between map making session. I will also ask what, if any, past events may have led to the map looking like it does, if there are any future changes you would like to make to yourself, and if the exercise has helped you to decide on those changes. Each of the three sessions should take from one to three hours. Confidentiality: Please understand that your participation in this research is voluntary and confidential. Only my supervisor and I will have direct access to the information you provide. Furthermore, any specific information regarding your interviews to be quoted in professional publications will be attributed to your pseudonym and only non-identifying information will be used. All information from the research will be kept in a locked cabinet for five years and will be permanently destroyed at that time. If you decide to withdraw from the study before completion any information you have provided will not be used, and will be destroyed immediately. 348 Benefits and risks: In addition to helping counsellors to understand the self better, you may gain some self-understanding. There are no unusual risks associated with this research, however it is possible that the self-reflection involved could lead to emotionally charged remembrances. Should this happen and should you wish to seek counselling for such remembrances, provision has been made for a referral to local counselling services. Confidentiality and participant wishes are respected, however, if any participant discloses that they intend self-harm or that they intend to harm a child, I cannot keep these things secret. Closing questions: 1. Do you have any questions about this research and your role in it? 2. Would you like to proceed as a participant / co-researcher in this research? APPENDIX F: CONSENT FORM Name of Researcher, Faculty, Department, Telephone & Email: Lloyd Robertson, Ph. D. Candidate, Division of Applied Psychology, Faculty of Education Phone: (306)425-9872; E-mail: [email protected] Supervisor: Dr. Nancy Arthur, Division of Applied Psychology, Faculty of Education Title of Project: The Memetic Self: Understanding the Self Using a Visual Mapping Technique This consent form, a copy of which has been given to you, is only part of the process of informed consent. If you would like more details about something mentioned here, or information not included here, you should feel free to ask. Please take the time to read this carefully and to understand any accompanying information. The University of Calgary Conjoint Faculties Research Ethics Board has approved this research study. Purpose of the Study: The purpose of this research is to increase our understanding of the self. In agreeing to be part of this research, you agree to tell me who you are in some detail, and together we will use this information to prepare a map of your self. What Will I Be Asked To Do? You are invited to share information about your self during interviews. Together we will prepare a map of your self and you will tell the researcher how well that map resonates or works for you. You will be asked to share any past events that may have contributed to making you who you are today providing you are comfortable sharing those events. You will also be asked about any changes you may wish to make for your self in the future. You will be interviewed on three separate occasions. On the first occasion you will tell the researcher who you are and you may be asked some questions to help this process. With your permission, the conversation will be audio taped. After our first session the researcher will review the tape and will take the main points from the tape while trying to understand how those points fit together. He will then prepare a map showing how everything might fit together and will go over that map with you in your second session. You will be invited to tell the researcher how to make a better map of yourself. During the third session you will be asked how that revised map feels to you and what, if any, past events may have led to the map looking like it does. You will also be asked if there are any future changes you would like to make to yourself, and if the exercise has helped you to decide on those changes. Each of the three sessions should take from one to two hours. Your participation in this research is voluntary and you may withdraw from the study at any time. If you decide to withdraw from the study before your information is used to prepare a self-map, any information you have provided will not be used, and any records of that information will be destroyed immediately. After your self-map is prepared it will be used with those of other participants and will not be destroyed although you still have the right to formally withdraw from the study. 350 What Type of Personal Information Will Be Collected? Should you agree to participate, you will be asked to provide your gender, age and ethnic or cultural background and then to share as much about how you define your self as you can. To help ensure confidentiality you will be asked to select a pseudonym that will be used to identify you during the interviews. If you agree to this study please check the following: I grant permission to be audio taped: Yes: No: I wish to remain anonymous, but you may refer to me by a pseudonym: Yes: No: The pseudonym I choose for myself is: You may quote me providing you refer to me by my pseudonym Yes: No: I wish to review a summary of the results of this research prior to publicacition Yes: No: Are there Risks or Benefits if I Participate? In addition to helping counsellors to understand the self better, you may gain some self- understanding. There are no known risks associated with this research; however, if any participant discloses that they intend self-harm or that they intend to harm a child, it is the law that these things be reported. If, during the course of this research, a participant experiences distress and is in need of counselling, such services are available. In La Ronge, Mental Health Services at Mamawetan Churchill River Health Region (phone: 306-425-4836) have agreed to take referrals, and their services are free of charge. The University of Calgary offers a confidential counselling service to all current students. Students may receive three sessions free per academic year. The Counselling Centre is located at MacEwan Student Centre - Room 375 and will accept either walk-in or telephone calls (220-5893) to make an intake appointment with a counsellor. No payment will be provided for taking part in these interviews; however, participants will have their name placed in a draw for a $200.00 prize. What Happens to the Information I Provide? Only the researcher listed on this form and his supervisor will have direct access to the information you provide. Any specific information regarding your interviews that may be quoted in publications will be under your pseudonym, and no identifying information will be used. All physical information from the research such as audio tapes will be kept in a locked cabinet for five years and will be permanently destroyed at that time. Non-identifying electronic information will be stored in a computer data base protected by password and will be destroyed at the same time. Signatures (written consent) Your signature on this form indicates that you 1) understand to your satisfaction the information provided to you about your participation in this research project, and 2) agree to participate as a research subject. 351 In no way does this waive your legal rights nor release the investigators, sponsors, or involved institutions from their legal and professional responsibilities. You are free to withdraw from this research project at any time. You should feel free to ask for clarification or new information throughout your participation. Participant's Name: (please print) Participant's Signature Date: Researcher's Name: (please print) Researcher's Signature: Date: Questions/Concerns If you have any further questions or want clarification regarding this research and/or your participation, please contact: Lloyd Robertson, Ph.D. Student, Division of Applied Psychology, Faculty of Education Ph: (306) 425-9872; E-mail: [email protected] And Dr. Nancy Arthur, Division of Applied Psychology, Faculty of Education Ph: (403)-220-6756; E-mail: [email protected] If you have any concerns about the way you've been treated as a participant, please contact Bonnie Scherrer, Ethics Resource Officer, Research Services Office, University of Calgary at (403) 220-3782; email: [email protected] A copy of this consent form has been given to you to keep for your records and reference. The investigator has kept a copy of the consent form. APPENDIX G: NOTES FOR TINA SHOWING DEFINING MEMES Sample Segmentation and Coding For the Meme "Mother" A transcript of Tina's initial interview was divided into 52 segments and each segment was given at least one code word identifying a key aspect of the segment. The segments coded with the same words were then grouped together in the same "bin" and emergent characteristics were examined in comparison with the structure used in defining meme, and words satisfying that definition were retained as memes. Eleven of the segments from Tina's initial transcript were coded for the meme "mother." Those eleven segments are reproduced here along with the rational for defining "mother" in the way it was presented, and for the connections between "mother" and other memes. Segment #5 coded for "mother" and "self-changer" In answer to the question: "What made you change (to stop partying)?" Tina answered, "Having kids, you have no choice but to grow up.... The first one fell in my lap, so I didn't plan the first one, he just kinda dropped in my lap; I guess you could say." Notes: A meme for "self-changer" was not added until after Tina's second interview when she developed the idea of self-changing into a meme. After she discovered she was pregnant with her first child, she decided to become more responsible. I understood from her account that any decent expectant mother would have done the same. Segment #14 coded for "animator" and "mother" "I get compliments, people telling me, "Oh, you've got such really good kids, well mannered," and they never say, "What?" they always say, "Pardon me , please and thank you," we're really hard on them, really strict. We don't let them do much, not as much as, like they wanna go play in the bush. They can't do that. I used to be able to when I was a kid, but I won't let my kids go in there. I just., they always have to be around me to make sure I know they're safe, and, yeah, I'm very proud of the way they turned out." Notes: This segment is about Tina's role as a mother, but it also places her in control over her children. This suggested a link between "mother" and "animator." This segment connotes motherhood with responsibility, and behaviorally she is responsible for their safety. The phrase "they always have to be around me" may imply anxiety although the segment itself is not about anxiety. Segment #33 coded for "independent belief," "mother" and "sister" "I have pictures of (a son that died of crib death) and I have pictures of (a sister who died two years after she met her) all over the house, and I don't think he (her father) likes that, but I don't care I don't take them down." Notes: This segment was suggests a link between Tina' role as a mother and her assertion of independent belief to her father. "Mother" and "Sister" were linked thematically through "Love" and "Family Person." Segment #34 coded for "paranoid" and "mother" "I only got to know my son for 6 months, 25 days and I only knew my sister for 2 years, so yeah, you take every moment in. I think that's why I'm so paranoid with him (her newest baby) as well, he won't sleep by himself, I have a baby heart monitor, breath monitor, I just won't leave him alone." Notes: This segment suggested a link between "paranoid" and "mother." The suggestion of parental responsibility and the need to ensure for her child's safety is made. Segment #35 coded for "paranoid" and "mother" "There's nothing gonna happen to him, nothing at all. The only thing I don't have is a video camera monitor, and actually that's something I'm thinking about getting too, so he can sleep in the room by himself without me freaking out going in there every 5 minutes so. Notes: The link between "paranoid" and "mother" was re-enforced along with a responsibility to ensure that "nothing is gonna happen...." Segment #38 coded for "daughter," "mother," "sister" and "wife." "Love for my kids, the way I feel about my mom and dad, sister, brother, husband my kids, and uh, the way I love them and take care of them, pamper them, make sure they're ok, I don't think that will ever change about myself, I'll always have that, that bond with them, and I don't think that will ever change." Notes: This segment tied Tina's roles as daughter, mother, sister, and wife together with the themes of love and family. Segment #42 coded for "mother" "I take the kids out, if they're nice. I don't spoil them to the fact that I give them whatever they want, but they do have a lot of stuff that a lot of kids don't have, like games and systems like they probably have every game system available, except for PlayStation. They got 2 Xboxes, 1 Xbox 360, a computer in their room - they just have lots of stuff lots and lots of stuff Notes: This segment speaks to her role as a mother. She wants to shape their behavior, not spoil them, but ensure that they have toys, games and computers Segment #43 coded for "mother" and "reader" "I read to them all the time, and if they don't have a new book to read they get bored easy and they have shelves , shelves and shelves of book's from when I was little, that I read to them all the time, and I continually have to buy books, cause they need to read different stories and stuff like that. They are, I guess I'm being a lot like my dad spoiling my kids that way too." Notes: This segment suggests that it is a parental responsibility to read to children. The link between "mother" and "reader" was missed during the construction of Tina's map. Segment #44 coded for "education" and "mother" "I'm very, very hard on my kids. Most kids come home, and a lot of parents don't care. They let them do whatever, go play games. My kids aren't allowed to have friends during the weekday. They have to come home do their chores, do their homework, have a bath, get ready for bed, go to bed." Notes: This segment refers to parental responsibilities to ensure that children are provided with a lifestyle conducive with their success in school and in learning to be responsible. The parental role includes caring for their children and ensuring that their lifestyle needs are met. Segment #45 coded for "mother" "They're just constantly "Mom, mom, mom, let's do this, can I go to the grocery store with you? Can I do this with you?" and like my 6 year old likes to make a groceries list. We always did that. I made half the list, and he makes half the list and I send him off to the grocery store. He'll go and get whatever is on the list, and stuff like that. He's pretty good at that, but we haven't been doing much of that lately 'cause I have to make sure he's fed, and then I have to go rush to the grocery store, and when I'm in the grocery store, that's when I usually have a panic attack, 'cause then I'm usually thinking, "Oh, I gotta go home, what If he's crying? what if he's freaking out? He can't cry for so long." and then, so a lot of time, he doesn't get to go with me 'cause I'm in a rush, rush mode, and I have to try and rush to get home. Notes: This segment speaks to parental responsibilities for teaching children to be responsible and to ensure they are fed. Reference to a "panic attack" coupled with questions about whether or not he may be crying was interpreted as providing evidence of a link to anxiety. 356 Segment #47 coded for "education" and "mother" "Like he always does his homework he's sits there and do his homework for 2 hours after school, and most kids won't even do that, and he will and... 'cause you have to be on a schedule and stuff like that. My 6 year old he's not into homework yet, but next year it will be starting. Notes: This segment links education with role as mother to support that education. A link between "education" and "mother" is suggested along with a maternal responsibility coupled with behaviors to support their education. Memes Identified in Tina's Self The terms that are flush left in bold refer to interpretive themes and they are followed by the memes that led to those interpretive codes. The terms that are flush left without being highlighted in bold were identified as memes. Terms may be memes and themes simultaneously in which case they are in bold but followed with referent, connotative, affective and behavioral descriptions. The numbers beside the memes record the number of segments coded for a particular meme that appeared in the transcript of the first interview. Family Person Love Mediator (1) REFERENT: Mediates between family members to resolve conflict CONNOTATION: Role as peacemaker, associated with being open-minded AFFECT: Caring for others BEHAVIOR: Listens to others, talks to them about feelings, helps them to see other points of view Sister (5) REFERENT: Having brothers and sisters CONNOTATION: Siblings are very important AFFECT: Caring, love BEHAVIOR: Embraces siblings, including a sister she had not known Daughter (3) REFERENT: Has biological parents CONNOTATION: Implies duty such as caring for, cleaning AFFECT: Love BEHAVIOR: Cleans house for parents, ensures they have food Mother (11) REFERENT: A biological fact associated with bearing children CONNOTATION: Maternal responsibility to those children to shape their behavior and ensure their future success AFFECT: Love, caring, valuing of children BEHAVIOR: Ensures that her children are safe, cared for, read to, go to school, are given toys Anxious (2) REFERENT: Suffers from anxiety / panic attacks (1-2 times per month) CONNOTATION: There is something wrong with her AFFECT: Distress BEHAVIOR: Goes by herself and talks herself out of bouts of panic / anxiety Blamer(l) REFERENT: To identify and hold responsible those responsible for wrong-doing CONNOTATION: Tina has the right to hold others, even her parents, responsible for their actions AFFECT: Anger BEHAVIOR: Blames parents for not accepting her half-sister, blames self for the crib-death of one son Paranoid (4) REFERENT: Excessive concern over the safety of her children CONNOTATION: Mothers are responsible when bad things happen to their children AFFECT: Worry BEHAVIOR: Monitors children continually, won't allow them to play in the bush behind their house Not in Shape (2) REFERENT: Overweight CONNOTATION: Not attractive AFFECT: Disappointment, mild disgust directed toward her body BEHAVIOR: Wishful, plans future activities to get in shape Wife (9) REFERENT: The spouse of a husband CONNOTATION: Must cater to her husband AFFECT: Love, purpose, pride (in relationship) BEHAVIOR: Cooks, cleans, manicures her husband Cleaner(5) REFERENT: Cleans, straightens CONNOTATION: By cleaning she is a good person AFFECT: Feeling of pride, accomplishment BEHAVIOR: Compulsively cleans homes, her own, her parents, friends Budgeter (2) REFERENT: To plan for the use of limited resources CONNOTATION: Is responsible, can make adequate determinations AFFECT: Purpose and pride BEHAVIOR: Pays bills, budgets for family, organizes resources for extra-curricular activities for children, organizes resources to provide for her children Decent Person Caring (3) REFERENT: A feeling that suggests the well-being of others is important to one's self CONNOTATION: Decent people care about others AFFECT: A feeling of closeness and responsibility for others BEHAVIOR: Cares for parents by taking care of their needs, doesn't like mean people who stereotype, describes self as decent and caring Open Minded (5) REFERENT: Accepts people of different cultural and religious beliefs, orientations and practices CONNOTATION: All people are good, connects open-minded with a willingness to talk about feelings, decent people are open-minded AFFECT: Easy-going acceptance BEHAVIOR: Welcomes people of different religious perspectives, sexual orientations, cultures into her home; accepts that her husband may have additional (but approved) sexual liaisons Kids (1) REFERENT: Young humans who are not yet adults CONNOTATION: Children have primary importance AFFECT: Loves all children BEHAVIOR: Welcomes all children into her home, takes children in who have no place to Outgoing (2) REFERENT: Willing to interact with others in an open way CONNOTATION: People may be trusted to the degree necessary for honest interaction AFFECT: Liking others BEHAVIOR: Welcomes others into her home, will talk to and show friendliness to others Guy Friends (1) REFERENT: Has more male friends than female CONNOTATION: Men are easier to get along with AFFECT: Feels comfortable around men BEHAVIOR: Relates more readily to men (except for lesbian and bi-sexual women) Anti-stereotyping (1) REFERENT: Judging others based on some external criteria CONNOTATION: Decent people do not stereotype others AFFECT: Doesn't like people who stereotype, feelings are deepened by the experience of having been stereotyped by teachers, strait women BEHAVIOR: Engages verbally with those who stereotype including teachers who have pre-conceived notions about how a particular student should perform Gay Friends (1) REFERENT: Having homosexual / bisexual friends CONNOTATION: Being open-minded she values others for who they are AFFECT: Pride in being more open-minded than others in the community BEHAVIOR: Cultivates gay friends, defends their right to be who they are Empowered Animator (2) REFERENT: Believes that she can carry out plans to achieve goals CONNOTATION: Doing and being responsible shows importance, implies security AFFECT: Feeling of place, responsibility for people for whom she cares BEHAVIOR: Takes responsibility for certain tasks, controls the conduct of her children, cleans, budgets, shops Learner Education (4) REFERENT: Formal learning as defined by the education system CONNOTATION: A good mother pursues what is important for her children AFFECT: Pride, responsibility BEHAVIOR: Insists her children have good study and homework habits Reader(2) REFERENT: Someone who reads CONNOTATION: Reading is a valuable activity AFFECT: Desire to read, and to ensure her children read BEHAVIOR: Reads to her children, ensures that they read at home as well as at school Independent Belief (1) REFERENT: To have believes different from others, particularly family of origin CONNOTATION: Makes getting along with others easier, means talking about one's feelings AFFECT: Positive feeling about self BEHAVIOR: Welcomes others of differing views, cultures, orientations Stubborn (1) REFERENT: Obstinate and unmoving in certain opinions CONNOTATION: Likes own way, implied self-centeredness AFFECT: Unease with connotative meanings of "stubborn" BEHAVIOR: Insists on getting her way about things that matter to her, particularly with respect to her children, holds on to cherished beliefs Memes Added After the Second Interview Yeller REFERENT: One who yells to enforce compliance CONNOTATION: She will not be listened to by her children if she talks to them in her normal voice, has less authority, therefore than her husband AFFECT: Frustration BEHAVIOR: Continues to admonish her children in a loud voice when she wants to be taken seriously Self-Changer REFERENT: One who consciously and deliberately makes changes to the self CONNOTATION: She is in control of who she becomes AFFECT: Empowerment BEHAVIOR: Is making changes with respect to her roles as wife, mother, smoker, and paranoid Assertive REFERENT: One who expresses thoughts and feelings appropriately in a way that they are heard. CONNOTATION: Those thoughts and feelings are worthy of expression AFFECT: Satisfaction BEHAVIOR: Is asserting needs to family Pleaser REFERENT: Looks after others' needs to the exclusion of her own CONNOTATION: She is a good or decent person when she puts others' needs ahead of her own AFFECT: Anger and frustration when her own needs are neglected BEHAVIOR: Cries, usually in private, when her own needs are not met Hider of Negative Feelings REFERENT: Hides negative emotions from others CONNOTATION: Negative feelings are bad, and it is her duty to prevent others from seein such unpleasantness. AFFECT: Aloneness BEHAVIOR: Will hide in her room when feeling down. Bi-sexual REFERENT: A person who is sexually attracted to both sexes CONNOTATION: Thinks "like a guy," finds that women "play head games." AFFECT: Feeling of separateness from most women BEHAVIOR: Role plays expected behaviors for "straight" women, but defends sexual minorities (gays, bi-sexuals) Role-player REFERENT: To play a role appropriate to a given context CONNOTATION: She would not be accepted if some women knew her "true" self, there is a true or essential self AFFECT: Feels uncomfortable while playing a role, feels more comfortable with men generally BEHAVIOR: Plays the role of "straight" with straight women APPENDIX H: NOTES FOR TREVOR SHOWING DEFINING MEMES The terms that are flush left in bold refer to interpretive themes and they are followed by the memes that led to those interpretive codes. The terms that are flush left without being highlighted in bold were identified as memes. Terms may be memes and themes simultaneously in which case they are in bold but followed with referent, connotative, affective and behavioral descriptions. The numbers beside the memes record the number of segments coded for a particular meme that appeared in the transcript of the first interview. Rememberer learner (9) REFERENT: Learns from reading, experience, meditation CONNOTATION: There is a reality that can be learned and can guide behavior, and gaining resultant understandings helps self-esteem, problem solving. AFFECT: Satisfaction BEHAVIOR: Reads, reflects on experiences and on self Self-changer (4) REFERENT: Cultivating changes to who he is CONNOTATION: Accepts that change is a constant AFFECT: Welcomes change BEHAVIOR: Seeks ways of self-improvement unique experiencer (3) REFERENT: To experience events in a uniquely individual way CONNOTATION: Everyone experiences their experiences in a unique way based on their own histories and learnings AFFECT: Feelings of individuality BEHAVIOR: Accepts his own individuality, resists pressure to conform Child of Alcoholic (2) REFERENT: Having one or more parents who are alcoholic CONNOTATION: Trevor was damaged or incomplete and is a potential alcoholic AFFECT: Wariness, caution BEHAVIOR: Avoids alcohol Potential alcoholic (3) REFERENT: Could become alcoholic CONNOTATION: If he starts to drink he may be powerless to stop AFFECT: Fear BEHAVIOR: Avoids alcohol Pessimist (2) REFERENT: Expecting something bad will happen when celebrating CONNOTATION: Positive accomplishments do not last, they lead to something negative AFFECT: Fear of acknowledging milestones BEHAVIOR: Minimizes the significance of positive milestones, does not celebrate birthdays Cautious (4) REFERENT: Avoids risk-taking CONNOTATION: The world is dangerous, people are insincere, Trevor is not worthy AFFECT: Suspicion, self-depreciation BEHAVIOR: Questions the motives of those who give compliments, avoiding opportunities particularly in the area of relationships Self Evaluation Self esteem (10) REFERENT: Feeling positive about yourself CONNOTATION: With positive self-esteem Trevor is able to accomplish more and build a better life AFFECT: Satisfaction in having found ways to develop better self-esteem BEHAVIOR: Monitors self-esteem, engages in positive self-talk, refers to his Indian name, "Against the wind" as a source of self-esteem self critical (1) REFERENT: Being critical of one's accomplishments CONNOTATION: He is not good enough AFFECT: Distress BEHAVIOR: Habitually says to himself that he could have done it better overweight (3) REFERENT: Weighing more than average for one's height CONNOTATION: Overweight people are less desirable in some ways AFFECT: Concern BEHAVIOR: Attempts to talk himself out of concern "if I lose weight, I lose, if I gain, I gain, nothing I can do, Nothing to start worrying over," recalls that muscle is heavier than fat; reminds himself that he is reasonably healthy and fit healthy (1) REFERENT: Is in shape, has muscle tone, is flexible, good immune system CONNOTATION: Is living a worthy and healthy lifestyle AFFECT: Positive self-esteem, does not worry about weight BEHAVIOR: Maintains an active lifestyle introverted (1) REFERENT: Finds interacting with people in social gatherings a challenge CONNOTATION: To relax and be oneself in groups is dangerous in some way AFFECT: Tires when around people for a period of time BEHAVIOR: Attends social events, but likes being alone martial artist (2) REFERENT: Studies karate CONNOTATION: Strength, independence AFFECT: Pride in self BEHAVIOR: Trains daily proud (4) REFERENT: Proud of accomplishments, past and present CONNOTATION: Past accomplishments are an indication of potentialities AFFECT: Feels good about self BEHAVIOR: Engages in a lifestyle which he defines as healthy and positive, he remembers accomplishments single / dating (3) REFERENT: To be single is to not have an intimate partner as a girlfriend or spouse CONNOTATION: Having a girlfriend or partner is necessary to be complete as a human AFFECT: Loneliness, self-depreciating when alone BEHAVIOR: Seeks a suitable partner; by the second interview Trevor had begun dating. Being in a relationship, he said, is a form of self-validation Gender Role man (3) REFERENT: To have male characteristics CONNOTATION: Men have a responsibility to look out for women and children, and to hide their feelings AFFECT: Caring, sense of responsibility, anger with those who use or abuse others BEHAVIOR: Advocates for children, looks out for prostitutes, attempts to be a role model protector (9) REFERENT: To defend others CONNOTATION: Some people need protection, and Trevor has an obligation to provide that. AFFECT: Concern, anger at those who use and abuse those in need of protection BEHAVIOR: Befriends street-workers, children; has used his size and threatening gestures against wrong-doers big Indian (7) REFERENT: A large aboriginal male CONNOTATION: Appears threatening, is someone people "don't mess with" AFFECT: Pride BEHAVIOR: Uses size and the implication of threat to effect change, but has been modifying his own self image as an Indian person to become more fully human aboriginal (2) REFERENT: Descended from the original inhabitants of the American continents CONNOTATION: To be aboriginal is to have "aboriginal beliefs" like the medicine wheel AFFECT: Pride in ancestry BEHAVIOR: Undertakes aboriginal activities like vision quests, follows a medicine wheel view of balanced life intimidator (3) REFERENT: Intimidates others with his size CONNOTATION: Abusive, bullying AFFECT: Ambivalence - likes that he is defending and protecting, but recognizes that he is being a bully BEHAVIOR: Scares others who are perceived as wrong-doers. hostile (3) REFERENT: A deep seated anger directed toward individuals empowered by "the system" take advantage of the disempowered CONNOTATION: Johns, abusive parents and the medical establishment take advantage of those without power and are worthy objects of hatred AFFECT: Hatred, anger BEHAVIOR: Used size and threatening behaviors to intimidate wrongdoers arrogant (1) REFERENT: To feel better or superior than others CONNOTATION: Trevor has superior knowledge or moral claims that allow him to challenge wrong-doers AFFECT: Hostile with "the system" coupled with a feeling of superiority to those who are part of the system but have been exposed by him BEHAVIOR: Experimented on a doctor to confirm his understandings parent (2) REFERENT: Having children to care for and raise, CONNOTATION: The younger siblings were his children and are a primary responsibility AFFECT: Love, concern, responsibility, duty BEHAVIOR: Protects and guides his siblings loves kids (7) REFERENT: Loves children, regardless of race CONNOTATION: Children are innocent, precious, deserving of happiness AFFECT: Love BEHAVIOR: Listens to, protects, nurtures big brother (3) REFERENT: Having a younger brother and a sister CONNOTATION: Duty toward, described as "big brother" AFFECT: Love mixed with responsibility BEHAVIOR: Protects and guides, is a role model leader(3) REFERENT: Others follow his words or example CONNOTATION: Is worthy of being followed and has a responsibility to provide leadership AFFECT: Ambivalence as to whether he is worthy or good enough to be followed BEHAVIOR: At times he accepts that others, particularly his brother and sister, follow him; but he does not assert himself in that role Humanness / human (7) REFERENT: A person, a member of a species with cognitive, affective and behavioral potentialities CONNOTATION: Without normal feelings and relationships then one isn't fully human but one can learn to be fully human AFFECT: Experiences a full range of feelings BEHAVIOR: Seeks to reform society to increase peoples' humanness, intervenes to protect children, cultivates being kind, seeks relationships with others. kind (4) REFERENT: To recognize the needs of others and assist them in meeting their needs CONNOTATION: Kindness leads to a better world AFFECT: Feels good about self BEHAVIOR: Took prostitutes out for coffee, treated them "like humans," listens to children and youth with problems, encourages them. caring (8) REFERENT: Cares for people, particularly social outcasts and children CONNOTATION: Street-workers are dehumanized through societal attitudes, but they can choose to change with support from people who care, adults are entitled to take assertive, even aggressive steps to defend children AFFECT: Empathy for those victimized, pride in taking action based on this caring BEHAVIOR: Befriends street-workers, takes them for coffee, lunches; defends children, even those he does not know, from parents and others who may neglect or abuse them. Empowerment / animator (7) REFERENT: To make things happen, to stand up for his beliefs CONNOTATION: Responsibility to make oneself and others feel better AFFECT: Caring for self and others, sense of responsibility to act BEHAVIOR: Attempts to effect change in self and others, gives attention to others, acts consistently on the basis of his beliefs Worker (4) / Addictions worker (4) * Except for one segment, all worker segments were synonymous with "addiction worker" segments therefore they may be viewed as the same meme REFERENT: Is an addictions / HIV worker CONNOTATION: Gains pride in his work; "More than just a job" AFFECT: pride and emotional commitment to the job BEHAVIOR: Is conscientious, puts entire self into this work youth advocate (1) REFERENT: Speaks for, defends children and youth CONNOTATION: Children and youth are in need of advocacy, and Trevor has a right or obligation to fill that role AFFECT: This role gives some satisfaction, frustration BEHAVIOR: Trevor has, at times, become intimidating in his advocacy relater to youth (1) REFERENT: Relates with youth meaningfully and well CONNOTATION: Some things in Trevor's background helps him to understand and relate to troubled youth AFFECT: Appreciation of some of the negative experiences in his background BEHAVIOR: Engages youth at a personal level aboriginal activist (4) REFERENT: To engage in social and political action to improve conditions in the aboriginal community CONNOTATION: Ignorance and exploitative power relationships have contributed to current conditions that deny aboriginal people their humanity AFFECT: Hostility to social structures that contribute to systemic racism, ignorance on the part of both native and non-native peoples. BEHAVIOR: Performs "guerrilla theater" on doctors, educates community members about HIV/AIDS. By the second interview he began incorporating activism into his poetry and song writing. Has added a concern about eliminating poverty on-reserve. 370 Spirit Helpers aboriginal spiritualist (6) REFERENT: A form of religiously held belief identified with traditional aboriginal teachings CONNOTATION: To be aboriginal is to identify with these beliefs AFFECT: Appreciation of self-identity BEHAVIOR: Has gone on a vision quest, goes to sweats, powwows, attempts to live his life by the medicine wheel concept Taoist (4) REFERENT: Follows Taoist teaching CONNOTATION: Taoist meditation helps him to better understand himself and the world AFFECT: Feels more in touch with self BEHAVIOR: Studies Taoist teaching, meditates meditator (2) REFERENT: Practices a form of meditation associated with Taoism CONNOTATION: Meditation assists him in becoming more aware of himself, for example, learning that he is a potential alcoholic AFFECT: Feelings of greater self-understanding BEHAVIOR: Incorporates Taoism into his aboriginal spirituality Memes Added Following the Second Interview Artist REFERENT: One who uses creativity to produce works of aesthetic value CONNOTATION: May release inner feelings and may influence others through his art AFFECT: Release of emotion such as caring, feeling of empowerment BEHAVIOR: Uses (guitar) music, song and poetry to express social activist themes APPENDIX I: NOTES FOR JOHN BLONDE SHOWING SELF-DEFINING MEMES The terms that are flush left in bold refer to interpretive themes and they are followed by the memes that led to those interpretive codes. The terms that are flush left without being highlighted in bold were identified as memes. Terms may be memes and themes simultaneously in which case they are in bold but followed with referent, connotative, affective and behavioral descriptions. The numbers beside the memes record the number of segments coded for a particular meme that appeared in the transcript of the first interview. Challenger of authority Catholic (8) REFERENT: Someone who has been baptised into of the Roman Catholic church and/or is an adherent of that church CONNOTATION: Catholicism has strayed from the original teachings of Christianity in some ways and is, therefore, not a pure form of Christianity AFFECT: Cynicism with respect to current Roman Catholic dogma, but respect for primal Christian teachings BEHAVIOR: Questioning of Roman Catholic values particularly as they may relate to racist or intolerant attitudes but identification with what is perceived as original Catholic values that predate church structure. Independent thinker (8) REFERENT: Someone who is capable of arriving at beliefs independent of the authority or peers CONNOTATION: Authorities color what is true according to their own agenda and what is taught as truth should be examined critically AFFECT: Feeling of competence in determining truth, cynicism with respect to popular truths BEHAVIOR: Questions "everything" Inquisitive (1) REFERENT: To be curious about the nature of things, to find out for himself how things work CONNOTATION: Existing understandings may be incomplete or wrong and there is value in knowing how things work AFFECT: Suspicion that popular knowledge may be false or incomplete BEHAVIOR: Challenges existing understandings Cynical (2) REFERENT: Distrusts other peoples' motives, intentions, judgement CONNOTATION: Views others, their motives and opinions, as suspect AFFECT: Feelings of separateness, distrust BEHAVIOR: Examines what the say carefully, questioning others, keeps to himself, sometimes likes nature more than people Aggressive (1) REFERENT: Retaliates against people who are perceived as arrogant CONNOTATION: Arrogant people deserve to be punished or exposed AFFECT: Vengeful feelings BEHAVIOR: Attempts to get even by verbal sparring, will put down arrogant people or make them appear foolish Arrogance (3) REFERENT: Assumed superiority over others CONNOTATION: Arrogant people deserve to be put in their place AFFECT: Upset, anger BEHAVIORAL: Reacts in an aggressive manner to people who are arrogant, attempts to expose and humiliate them, but admits he can be arrogant in the work context Empowered Animator (16) REFERENT: Self empowered to attempt to influence others and to control his own future CONNOTATION: Others need to be influenced to build a better community, society; self needs to overcome obstacles AFFECT: Caring for self and others BEHAVIOR: Involves himself in proactive measures to build community, takes on difficult tasks Crippled (3) REFERENT: Born with a clubfoot CONNOTATION: Not as able as others AFFECT: Anger and frustration at suggestion of not being able to do what others do BEHAVIOR: Redoubles efforts to show that he can overcome this disability Determined (1) REFERENT: A persistent refusal to accept limitations CONNOTATION: The individual is responsible for making himself what he wants to be AFFECT: Impatience with self BEHAVIOR: Refusal to accept limitations, to drive self Self change agent (6) REFERENT: The capacity to change and develop CONNOTATION: Change is positive AFFECT: Life is more interesting if change is involved BEHAVIOR: Seeking to cultivate change Role player (1) REFERENT: Plays different roles dependent on context CONNOTATION: There may be no "real" person AFFECT: concern BEHAVIOR: Continues to play roles, but is evasive if people try to get too close Contextually dependent (1) REFERENT: Changes to meet roles CONNOTATION: Has more than one self AFFECT: Feels as though he is a different person in different situations BEHAVIOR: Shows a different person in different contexts Non-existent (1) REFERENT: In the middle on personality tests, comes out not one way or the other, can choose how to be CONNOTATION: Does not really exist AFFECT: Concern BEHAVIOR: Expresses concern that he can "flip" and become a different person in different contexts. Educated (3) REFERENT: To have completed courses of learning CONNOTATION: Educated people are more likely to have increased understanding of others and social conditions and will more likely be successful, therefore it is valuable, a good AFFECT: respect for education BEHAVIOR: Pursued education, respects education in others Aboriginal Spiritualist (6) REFERENT: A form of religious belief involving sweat lodges, smudging and a creator CONNOTATION: Aboriginal spirituality is a purer form of spirituality than Christianity AFFECT: Emotional identification with aboriginal spirituality BEHAVIOR: Does not go to church but seeks spirituality in nature, and in visions at sweats Social Self Shy (8) REFERENT: Not feeling comfortable around others CONNOTATION: Perhaps it is not safe to trust others AFFECT: A feeling of aloneness BEHAVIOR: Avoiding others, keeps parts of self from others, often does not answer the phone when at home Low self esteem (2) REFERENT: Capacity for self-assurance CONNOTATION: Need to have it for good mental health AFFECT: Conflicted, proud of having overcome problems to become the person he is today, still feels he has too little self-esteem in some contexts. BEHAVIOR: Isolates self from others when not at work, likes being alone, yet interacts and plays roles when he feels that it is important to do so. Evasive (2) REFERENT: The quality of being less than forthright with people CONNOTATION: People may take advantage if you are open about certain kinds of information AFFECT: Caution, wariness BEHAVIOR: Decides on what another needs to know and when they need to know it, while not lying will be circumspect about other matters Worker Adaptive - Context (1) REFERENT: Changes to meet roles CONNOTATION: Has more than one self AFFECT: Feels as though he is a different person in different situations BEHAVIOR: Shows a different person in different contexts; doesn't think that he is one person but will slip into various roles dependent on context Role player (3) REFERENT: Plays different roles dependent on context CONNOTATION: There may be no "real" person AFFECT: concern BEHAVIOR: Continues to play roles, but is evasive if people try to get too close Trustworthy (1) REFERENT: Doing what one commits to do. CONNOTATION: A person who says what he will do has honor AFFECT: Builds positive feelings about self BEHAVIOR: Files commitments and gets them done, however, time frame is not necessarily a factor Empathetic (also linked to being anti-racist) Caring (6) REFERENT: Concern for the well-being of others CONNOTATION: Social conditions are deteriorating, people, especially youth, will suffer AFFECT: Concern, worry BEHAVIOR: Increased individual effort on recreation board and various committees to develop community Anti-racist Social environmentalist - Aboriginal. (3) REFERENT: Admits social problems within aboriginal peoples, but believes that environment has led to these problems CONNOTATION: Correcting environmental problems will reduce social problems AFFECT: Empathy for aboriginal peoples BEHAVIOR: Attempts at educating non-aboriginals about environmental constraints affecting behavior Aboriginal Activist (2) REFERENT: Racism stems from lack of exposure to aboriginal people, and from closed, rigid thinking. CONNOTATION: Non-native people need more exposure to increase their understanding and to steps to mitigate the effects of racism. AFFECT: Empathy for aboriginal peoples BEHAVIOR: Attempts to educate non-native people Multicultural activist (1) REFERENT: Promotes acceptance and valuing of different cultures within the Canadian context CONNOTATION: Acceptance of others' unique beliefs, religions, cultures is a good that if often not recognized but should be promoted as part of the Canadian national fabric AFFECT: Pride in multicultural ideals, frustration with those who oppose those ideals BEHAVIOR: Promotes multiculturalism as a Canadian value Mentor (5) REFERENT: To coach someone CONNOTATION: He has knowledge, skills or experience to share AFFECT: Feels positive about contributing to society's future through mentoring BEHAVIOR: Seeks out mentoring relationships and in particular mentors his daughter who is going to university. Community Developer (4) REFERENT: Attempts to help make his community healthier CONNOTATION: Community is important to people AFFECT: Frustration when people do not appear to sufficiently desire a sense of community BEHAVIOR: Organizes, educates, motivates Memes Added Following the Second Interview Competitive REFERENT: The quality of competing with others CONNOTATION: Self is enhanced by winning AFFECT: Aggression BEHAVIOR: Competes in sports, social situations, community development Sports REFERENT: Physical activity governed by a set of rules involving an element of competition CONNOTATION: By winning JohnB demonstrates that he is able, and this demonstrations aids in his self-definition AFFECT: Pride BEHAVIOR: Engages is sports enthusiastically 377 Rememberer REFERENT: The act of recounting what has happened in the past CONNOTATION: Remembering his thoughts and experiences are essential to who he is AFFECT: Assurance of knowing who he is thru his memories BEHAVIOR: Remembers and reflects on his history 378 APPENDIX J: NOTES FOR JUDY SHOWING SELF-DEFINING MEMES The terms that are flush left in bold refer to interpretive themes and they are followed by the memes that led to those interpretive codes. The terms that are flush left without being highlighted in bold were identified as memes. Terms may be memes and themes simultaneously in which case they are in bold but followed with referent, connotative, affective and behavioral descriptions. The numbers beside the memes record the number of segments coded for a particular meme that appeared in the transcript of the first interview. Empowered decision maker animator (5) REFERENT: Takes action to improve conditions, apply appropriate strategies to different contexts CONNOTATION: One can control ones' future to some extent thru direct action AFFECT: Empowerment, decisions "feel right" BEHAVIOR: Plans activities to effect specific outcomes activist (1) REFERENT: Advocates for environmental change to eliminate poverty and its effects on clientele CONNOTATION: Many social problems are environmentally determined AFFECT: Compassion BEHAVIOR: Advocates on behalf of client groups, mentors new social workers on limitations of their profession in dealing with poverty role player (2) REFERENT: Responds differentially and appropriately to different situations CONNOTATION: Role-playing is the process of applying different parts of herself to different situations with the implication that she remains the same person AFFECT: Empowerment BEHAVIOR: Applies skills such as levity, seriousness, and responsibility, differentially resilient (1) REFERENT: Quality of rebounding from life's disappointments and disadvantaged conditions CONNOTATION: May be related to growing up "parentified" in a dysfunctional family. AFFECT: Positive spirit, confidence BEHAVIOR: Confident in ability to cope, exercises a variety of strategies to overcome obstacles self changer (2) REFERENT: The self changes in response to life experiences CONNOTATION: Change happens, some directed and planned, some not AFFECT: Openness to change BEHAVIOR: Plans developmental changes, reflects on changes that have happened Social Being family person (3) REFERENT: Is a grandmother, mother and daughter CONNOTATION: Familial roles has primacy with respect to life AFFECT: Cherishing of family BEHAVIOR: Describes self as "the family connector," she initiates action to have the family come together in communication and common activity friend (5) REFERENT: A friend is loyal, trustworthy, consistent, open and honest CONNOTATION: Expects loyalty, trust and kindness from friends AFFECT: Loyalty, closeness BEHAVIOR: Attempts to be a friend to others and shows this by being animated, making eye- contact, being interested in peoples' lives, not just the work, and by playing board / role playing games with some friends humorous (1) REFERENT: Being able to laugh in appropriate situations CONNOTATION: Enjoyment in life, share friendships AFFECT: Joy BEHAVIOR: Plays group games like Balderdash to generate shared humour mature (5) REFERENT: Being responsible, unselfish, caring for other people, filling commitments and avoiding self-destructive behavior CONNOTATION: mature people are capable of true friendships and good family relationships; they believe in themselves AFFECT: satisfaction in having maturity BEHAVIOR: attempts to display maturity in her relationships, and to make an effort to relate to others in positive ways responsible (5) REFERENT: To do good and be reliable CONNOTATION: Includes protective and leadership qualities AFFECT: Feels better about herself by being responsible BEHAVIOR: Is responsible as a supervisor of employees self esteem (1) REFERENT: Appreciates self and her abilities CONNOTATION: Exercising responsibility in situations where others were older and better educated led to increases in self-esteem and concomitant self-empowerment AFFECT: Empowerment BEHAVIOR: Practices being responsible and competent which, in turn, preserves her self- esteem pet lover(3) REFERENT: Owns a dog to whom she is emotionally attached CONNOTATION: Pet lovers are more compassionate, empathetic, than the general population. Being a pet lover demonstrates loyalty, commitment and responsibility AFFECT: Love and caring BEHAVIOR: Takes care of her pet's physical and emotional needs non-theist (4) REFERENT: Atheist, agnostic and/or humanist CONNOTATION: Has an alternative non-theistic belief system to the Catholicism in which she was raised AFFECT: Identification with "similarly minded people" BEHAVIOR: Joined a humanist organization to be with "like-minded people" community member (1) REFERENT: To be part of a community of like-minded people CONNOTATION: Community is a necessary part of being human AFFECT: Felt isolated from Christians due to her humanist beliefs BEHAVIOR: Joined a humanist organization recently to be part of a community of like- minded people, but refrains from calling herself a humanist Environmentally Driven (5) REFERENT: Circumstances can control opportunities, experience determines who we are, we must accept our own mortality CONNOTATION: We are not in complete control of our outcomes AFFECT: Regret at lost opportunities, acceptance of mortality, appreciation of life BEHAVIOR: Attempts to achieve a balance involving those things we may control and those things we cannot control. body(l) REFERENT: Physical basis for self, neural pathways become more rigid giving a feeling of self that has constancy CONNOTATION: The physical basis of self provides a grounding and an explanation as to why we are as we are AFFECT: Security that the self remains despite changes BEHAVIOR: Proceeds from the basis of having one unitary self overweight (1) REFERENT: Weighs more than the social norm for her height CONNOTATION: Her health and appearance would be better served if she were thinner AFFECT: Mild concern BEHAVIOR: Is dieting and exercising worker (7) REFERENT: Has had a long career as a social worker CONNOTATION: Resents the connotation that she is a social worker just because that is the job she does AFFECT: Is responsible in her job but not challenged BEHAVIOR: Supervises, trains, works with clients (but not in a "social worky" kind of way). cautious (3) REFERENT: displays caution when discussing certain topics socially, sizes people up to determine what their interests and attitudes are. CONNOTATION: Peoples' negative opinions can be damaging AFFECT: caution BEHAVIOR: Only discusses certain topics with people she knows well. empathetic (3) REFERENT: Attempts to understand clients and workers with compassion CONNOTATION: Empathetic understanding is necessary to help others AFFECT: Understanding, sympathy for others' positions BEHAVIOR: Develops this quality, in part through having a pet caring (1) REFERENT: Cares for the well-being of others, particularly those disadvantaged by society CONNOTATION: To some extent those who are disadvantaged are environmentally determined, their condition is not their fault AFFECT: Compassion BEHAVIOR: Advocates on the behalf of the disadvantaged mortal (2) REFERENT: Death is inevitable CONNOTATION: Material possessions and fun are not important as end goals in life AFFECT: Pensiveness BEHAVIOR: Reflects on what is important or not; establishes priorities based on mortality Rememberer (6) REFERENT: Recounts life experiences CONNOTATION: By remembering reflectively we can gain an understanding of who we are and why. AFFECT: Satisfaction comes with understanding BEHAVIOR: Actively remembers events, often in story-form, reflects on lessons to be learned from those events reflective (6) REFERENT: To thinks deeply about issues and concerns and to relate those issues to past experience CONNOTATION: Associates reflectivity with intelligence. AFFECT: Seriousness BEHAVIOR: Prefers talking about "serious" issues; displays difficulty engaging in frivolous conversation; reflects on transitions and re-evaluates herself on the basis of those transitions (e.g. widowhood). intelligent (6) REFERENT: Ability think, to understand, to solve problems CONNOTATION: The quality she values most, gives her what she wants AFFECT: Empowerment BEHAVIOR: Cultivates intelligent friends, nurtures her own intelligence through reading, reflective thinking independent thinker (3) REFERENT: To have thoughts and beliefs that are at variance with prevailing norms CONNOTATION: Human reason is better than accepting revealed truth AFFECT: Empowerment with respect to ones' values, beliefs BEHAVIOR: Decided, while still an adolescent, that Catholic teachings about salvation could not be true and this set her on a course to think independently from the church or her parents. old (3) REFERENT: When younger, Judy felt older than her age, now (in her late fifties) she feels as old as she is and enjoys the opportunity to mentor those who weren't born when she started working CONNOTATION: Feeling of oldness generates an inhibition on fun, but associating with younger partiers allowed her to "loosen up." AFFECT: Responsibility, feeling of having wisdom, sometimes less enjoyment BEHAVIOR: Tends to act in a responsible manner that includes deferring gratification and hedonistic self-interest mentor (1) REFERENT: To train young social workers in their profession CONNOTATION: Life experiences may be passed on to the benefit of workers and clients, and the process of doing so is fun, is a method of social action AFFECT: Satisfaction in passing on accumulated wisdom, sometimes "feels like a dinosaur" BEHAVIOR: shares experiences, wisdom; trains new entrants into the field. Memes Added After the Second Interview Parentified REFERENT: To have taken the role of parent with respect to raising younger siblings and incorporating that role into who you are CONNOTATION: Resilient, protective, responsible AFFECT: Concern with being overly protective, responsible at times BEHAVIOR: Takes a parental, protective role with others to whom she is not related Single REFERENT: Not having a spouse or partner CONNOTATION: Preferable to "widow" as the latter definition "requires an explanation" AFFECT: Resignation BEHAVIOR: Has re-ordered her life to the fact of being single, exercises coping strategies Canadian REFERENT: Being a citizen of Canada CONNOTATION: To have a mixture of genetic heritages that reflects the Canadian mosaic AFFECT: Pride BEHAVIOR: Does not self-identify as Metis because she was not raised Metis culturally, identifies herself as having Metis ancestry within a larger framework of being Canadian APPENDIX K: NOTES FOR PANGLOSS SHOWING SELF-IDENTIFYING MEMES The terms that are flush left in bold refer to interpretive themes and they are followed by the memes that led to those interpretive codes. The terms that are flush left without being highlighted in bold were identified as memes. Terms may be memes and themes simultaneously in which case they are in bold but followed with referent, connotative, affective and behavioral descriptions. The numbers beside the memes record the number of segments coded for a particular meme that appeared in the transcript of the first interview. rememberer (11) REFERENT: To recall past events CONNOTATION: We are determined but also limited by our memories AFFECT: Provides a feeling of constancy and self-awareness BEHAVIOR: Remembers things that are important to remember, forgets most of what happened engages in reflective thinking, and reflectively realizes the mutability of memory empathetic (2) REFERENT: To understand sympathetically the actions and feelings of others CONNOTATION: Understands that people (including his parents) can be hurtful or may make poor decisions as a result of life conditions that determine their perceived options AFFECT: Feeling of understanding and peacefulness with memories of being physically abused BEHAVIOR: Accepts people that he would otherwise judge negatively due to their bad behavior metaphor maker (2) REFERENT: Creates metaphors that have meaning for him CONNOTATION: Metaphors illuminate key elements or relationships in his life AFFECT: Pleasant self-satisfaction BEHAVIOR: Applies metaphors as part of reflective thinking storyteller (1) REFERENT: Creates and tells stories to identify who he is CONNOTATION: We create our selves, in part, by telling others who we are AFFECT: feeling of constancy, identity BEHAVIOR: Tells elaborate stories to convey meaning Empowered Self animator (10) REFERENT: Makes decisions, develops strategies and implements plans CONNOTATION: Is capable of making things happen according to his own agenda AFFECT: Empowerment BEHAVIOR: Walked away from harmful drugs, implements his agenda, attempts to make every day "right," punishes wrong-doers, assists people he decides are worthy activist (1) REFERENT: Uses skills as a writer and a journalist to "give voice" to those deprived of that voice by society CONNOTATION: It is his duty to give voice to the disadvantaged AFFECT: Empathy BEHAVIOR: Writes, tells peoples' stories outspoken (2) REFERENT: Gives voice to his opinions CONNOTATION: It is a duty to speak what one believes to be true. AFFECT: Satisfaction BEHAVIOR: Attempts to give voice to others (social interest) opinionated (2) REFERENT: Develops strong opinions CONNOTATION: There are wrongs in society and opinions matter in relation to those wrongs AFFECT: Magnifies emotions BEHAVIOR: Animates self, leads to outspokenness demanding (1) REFERENT: Applies a "yardstick" to others as to what their capabilities are and the extent to which they meet those capabilities CONNOTATION: Is competent judge whether others are living up to their capabilities, and that such judgements are moral in nature AFFECT: Feels justified, self-righteousness BEHAVIOR: Makes judgements and then acts on those judgements by engaging in supportive, or alternately, punishing behaviors. perfectionist (1) REFERENT: To do or accomplish at the highest standard possible CONNOTATION: Failure to produce at the highest possible standard is a waste of life AFFECT: Stress, lack of satisfaction BEHAVIOR: Works hard to produce and excel mentor (1) REFERENT: To train / coach individuals in his craft CONNOTATION: Mentoring provides a personal legacy AFFECT: Being worthwhile, having part of himself continue on through others BEHAVIOR: Is planning on having his own theater where he will mentor others remembered (1) REFERENT: To be remembered with fondness CONNOTATION: Being remembered is a sign that his life has had meaning AFFECT: Feels a need to develop a legacy BEHAVIOR: Plans to develop mentoring relationships protector (7) REFERENT: Protects, defends others CONNOTATION: Some people lack the skills or the opportunity to defend themselves from social abuse and it is Pangloss's duty to intervene in those situations AFFECT: Anger at those who would abuse others socially and emotionally BEHAVIOR: Attempts to humiliate offenders in a public way brother (2) REFERENT: Having a sister CONNOTATION: A special, primal relationship is enjoyed with family AFFECT: Love of, primacy of family BEHAVIOR: Protects family at all costs intimidator (2) REFERENT: To make others fearful CONNOTATION: Those that have fun at other peoples' expense deserve to be bullied AFFECT: Satisfaction in giving those that deserve it their comeuppance. BEHAVIOR: Bullies those that deserve it in front of others and obviously; intimidates others usually with his intelligence and wit, but has threatened with a rifle 388 Grounded Self moralist (10) REFERENT: Must avoid hurting others, should help others, must not lie to self or others CONNOTATION: There are principles that are higher than expediency, must be good even if no one else is AFFECT: Outrage when people act immorally, guilt when oneself does so. BEHAVIOR: Actively promotes moral activity, attempts to punish those who act immorally, describes self as "a moral stick up the ass." guilty (3) REFERENT: To feel responsibility and remorse for reprehensible conduct CONNOTATION: Pangloss is not good enough, does not meet acceptable standards of moral conduct AFFECT: Shame, self-blame BEHAVIOR: Attempts to avoid negative recrimination by reducing behavioral moral lapses. Is more considerate of other peoples' feelings and is faithful due to guilt, needs to make amends, find redemption monogamous (3) REFERENT: Faithful to his spouse CONNOTATION: Faithfulness is a moral imperative. AFFECT: Loving BEHAVIOR: Remains monogamous, describes self as "faithful as RCA Victor" angry (1) REFERENT: People who take advantage and/or humiliate others leads to an anger response CONNOTATION: People have "one chance" to get a good life and anger is generated by people thwarting others' lives. AFFECT: Hostility BEHAVIOR: Intervenes, derides wrong-doers, writes about issues egalitarian (5) REFERENT: Sees people as fundamentally equal CONNOTATION: We have an obligation to honor all peoples' rights and when Pangloss becomes a "boss" then in some sense he is failing to honor these equality rights AFFECT: Moral outrage when peoples' rights are not respected, self-abasement when it comes to advancing his career interests BEHAVIOR: Actively defends people who have been wronged, fails to advance his own career interests if it means not being "one of the guys." humanist (2) REFERENT: Being self-aware, comprehending the consequences of his actions from a human as opposed to a supernaturalist perspective. CONNOTATION: Reason and dialogue are essential in resolving human problems including existential ones AFFECT: Concern about personal ethics BEHAVIOR: Engages in dialogue and does good because he wants to be good, attempts to maximize peoples' happiness (and punish those that make people unhappy). self-critical (3) REFERENT: Lies to self by rationalizing and by deliberately forgetting things that are too painful to remember CONNOTATION: Forgetting and rationalizing show deficiency of character AFFECT: Shame, guilt BEHAVIOR: Castigates self for lying to self humble (4) REFERENT: Holds himself back from advancement or recognition CONNOTATION: Tells self that he does not deserve special recognition AFFECT: Frustration when he sees people with less qualifications or ability advancing past him BEHAVIOR: Backs away from the limelight after obtaining it non-aggressive (1) REFERENT: Not aggressive in pursuing his career as a stage hand. CONNOTATION: Describes himself as "everyone's second choice" in Calgary AFFECT: May affect self-esteem negatively BEHAVIOR: Thinks he should be more aggressive in pursuit of career goals cautious (1) REFERENT: Is overly when considering career advancement opportunities CONNOTATION: Having a permanent full-time position means a commitment having a working relationship with the same people long-term, and this may involve unpleasant or stressful relationships AFFECT: anxiety associated with the longer-term commitment a full-time job would entail BEHAVIOR: Avoids long-term work commitments Private Self self-aware (3) REFERENT: To be aware of why one thinks, feels, does certain things CONNOTATION: Leads to understanding and empowerment but also awareness that he is not always "self-aware" AFFECT: Satisfaction in having self knowledge BEHAVIOR: Reflects on his own actions, motivations, feelings and asks "what is this thing that is experiencing stuff?" continuum of possibilities (2) REFERENT: To define oneself, not in absolute terms but by a range of possibilities that encompasses both thesis and antithesis CONNOTATION: It may not be possible to truly define one's self AFFECT: Comfort in ambivalence BEHAVIOR: Weighs possibilities within a variety of contexts before choosing a course of action, allows for emotively driven reflexive reactions that may not be the ones he would have reflectively chosen. self-changer (4) REFERENT: The capacity to change in a positive way CONNOTATION: We have the capacity to become better people AFFECT: Positive optimism BEHAVIOR: Cultivates compassion, empathy heterosexual (1) REFERENT: Is attracted, sexually, to women exclusively CONNOTATION: He is one of the few people "straight as an Alberta highway." AFFECT: The idea of having a sexual relationship with another man strikes him as funny. BEHAVIOR: Avoids homosexual relationships sensual(2) REFERENT: Appreciating sensory input and appreciating the sight, feel, texture, smell of food, wine, clothing and breasts CONNOTATION: Something that develops with age AFFECT: Appreciation of sensual input BEHAVIOR: Buys natural fibres, good wine. Texture is important in clothing and food. unique exeriencer (3) REFERENT: The combination of experiences and attributes makes him unique CONNOTATION: Individuality or uniqueness is important to one's sense of self AFFECT: Sense of uniqueness, self BEHAVIOR: Is comfortable displaying a combination of traits that are often confusing and contradictory independent belief (2) REFERENT: Describes self as a "community of one" on such beliefs as the value of monogamy. CONNOTATION: Courage to live by one's idiosyncratic beliefs is valued AFFECT: Pride BEHAVIOR: Maintains minority beliefs, but is open to new evidence loner (2) REFERENT: Values being alone with his books without human company CONNOTATION: Human company is stressful AFFECT: Wistfulness BEHAVIOR: Plans for time by himself learner (2) REFERENT: Learning is exalted as a worthy goal in itself CONNOTATION: Self-worth is connected to his ability to learn, and valuing learning is a constant across context AFFECT: Pressures self to maximize learning BEHAVIOR: Monitors self to see if he paid attention, learned, asks himself as he goes to bed if he is less stupid then when he got up. intellectual (1) REFERENT: Well informed on a variety of subjects, thinks deeply CONNOTATION: Knowing is an important aspect of being human AFFECT: Pride in effort to know BEHAVIOR: Well read, enjoys intellectual discussions proud (3) REFERENT: Experiencing satisfaction and self-esteem over his ability to contribute to others' well-being, in his curiosity and in his open-mindedness to good argument CONNOTATION: He is a good person when he engages in pride-producing activities AFFECT: Positive self-worth BEHAVIOR: Pursues his curiosity, challenging his own opinions while finding ways to give effect to his social interest open minded (1) REFERENT: Open to changing his mind on the basis of new evidence. CONNOTATION: Open-minded people are superior to those who are not AFFECT: Pride in intellect and ability to modify his beliefs on the basis of new evidence BEHAVIOR: Listens to different arguments, has changed his beliefs on the basis of "a good argument." Social Self embracer of life (5) REFERENT: He must enjoy / appreciate each moment including times of misfortune, life is enjoyed by increasing happiness in the world CONNOTATION: Life that is not embraced is not truly lived AFFECT: Pleasure BEHAVIOR: Lives each moment, finds happiness in changing circumstances, brings happiness to others caring (6) REFERENT: Considers others' agendas, emotional and physical needs CONNOTATION: Others' happiness is important for ones' own AFFECT: Happiness in giving to others BEHAVIOR: Brings people together, ensures that they know they are appreciated "Every day I am ready willing and able to make a positive difference in somebody's life." kind (5) REFERENT: Recognizes and make allowance for others; to avoids cruelty CONNOTATION: Kindness must be a constant regardless of context, people are not allowed to be cruel to others AFFECT: Happiness, sense of accomplishment in increasing happiness BEHAVIOR: Endeavours to bring people together increasing relatedness, defends those that need defending unselfish (4) REFERENT: Attempts to increase the measure of happiness in the world by sharing CONNOTATION: The well-being of others is essential to ones' own AFFECT: Pleasure in successfully sharing with others, distress at the realization that he is sometimes selfish BEHAVIOR: Attempts to not control other peoples' agendas, supports others in their efforts decent(2) REFERENT: Everyone has a spark of decency within them that includes being noble, honorable, and self-sacrificing. CONNOTATION: People must act in recognition of that spark of decency AFFECT: Treats people with regard BEHAVIOR: Gives people the opportunity to show decency, assists people (including people who are more advanced in his occupation) without credit, wishing them well. community developer (3) REFERENT: Works to make his neighborhood and world better, a function of reciprocal altruism CONNOTATION: Focussing on making one's neighborhood and community better one becomes healthier, happier AFFECT: Feeling positive about one's capacity to contribute BEHAVIOR: Attempts to make the world a better place by making a difference for individuals anti-racist (1) REFERENT: To actively challenge racist notions and behaviors CONNOTATION: Racism is within all of us, and sexism and ageism as part of racism AFFECT: Concern, anger BEHAVIOR: Reflects on his own tendency to be racist, attacks those who overtly practice racism anti-stereotyping (1) REFERENT: Equates stereotyping on the basis of age and gender with racism CONNOTATION: All people are racist AFFECT: Guilt, anger BEHAVIOR: Monitors himself, and when he finds himself noting the other persons' race, age or gender when they engages in bad behavior, feel guilty flexible (8) REFERENT: Changes plans to suit circumstances CONNOTATION: Conditions change and people must change to meet those conditions to be happy AFFECT: Empowered to meet differing conditions BEHAVIOR: Open to change, practices spontaneity role player (2) REFERENT: Plays different roles in different situations CONNOTATION: Role-playing does not say anything about the role player as a person, certain qualities like kindness and learning are embedded and constant in all roles AFFECT: Adaptability feels empowering BEHAVIOR: Applies roles to different contexts Memes Added After the Second Interview vindictive REFERENT: Vengeful with a desire to hurt CONNOTATION: "Rough justice" is a natural consequence of some behaviors AFFECT: Satisfaction and guilt BEHAVIOR: Develops hurtful scenarios to punish people who have harmed people who Pangloss values and whom he perceives as being less able to exact punishment themselves arrogant REFERENT: Assuming one's own superiority with respect to others CONNOTATION: Others are not as capable as Pangloss in some important ways AFFECT: Guilt at knowing that he is more able than others BEHAVIOR: Acts as "judge, jury and executioner" in exacting punishment of those who ignore the rights of others vain REFERENT: Conceited, having an exaggerated sense of his own importance CONNOTATION: Self-centeredness AFFECT: He is conflicted with his egalitarianism and despairs at being to resolve that conflict BEHAVIOR: Believes that he knows better than others and acts on those beliefs to bring "justice" to those who are guilty of bad behavior 396 Appendix L: NOTES FOR FREDELLE SHOWING SELF-DEFINING MEMES The terms that are flush left in bold refer to interpretive themes and they are followed by the memes that led to those interpretive codes. The terms that are flush left without being highlighted in bold were identified as memes. Terms may be memes and themes simultaneously in which case they are in bold but followed with referent, connotative, affective and behavioral descriptions. The numbers beside the memes record the number of segments coded for a particular meme that appeared in the transcript of the first interview. transsexual (11) REFERENT: Being born with the body of one sex but having the gender of the opposite sex CONNOTATION: Nature made a terrible mistake AFFECT: Alternates from being angry with nature and/or her male body to feeling fortunate for her femininity and the uniqueness that transsexuality affords BEHAVIOR : Expresses femininity selectively dependent on context, advocates for transsexual rights and a greater understanding of transsexual people unique (3) REFERENT: A combination of characteristics centered on her transsexuality is what makes her unique CONNOTATION: Her uniqueness results in a deeper understanding of the world than would have been the case had she not been transsexual AFFECT: feeling of individuality and pride in that individuality BEHAVIOR: fights to establish Fredelle as ascendant because she feels that is who she is, but intends to maintain her unique history experiential learner (1) REFERENT: Learns about self and about human nature from the experience of being transsexual CONNOTATION: Views transsexuality as a gift AFFECT: Appreciative BEHAVIOR: Reflects of the experience of transsexuality, intends to write to share her experiences with others misfit (2) REFERENT: Does not fit in with society, not accepted CONNOTATION: It is the male-dominated world that is causing her suffering AFFECT: Unhappy with the treatment she receives, but is accepting of her transgenderality BEHAVIOR: Refuses to accept societal stereotypes, finds ways to express her femininity in safe contexts Freddie feminine (30) REFERENT: Having a set of characteristics associated with the female gender CONNOTATION: Femininity is good, is passive, sensual and caring (in contrast with masculinity) AFFECT: Feels a need to protect and accentuate the feminine, feels feminine BEHAVIOR: Encourages friends to acknowledge her femininity, tries to be "feminized" as much as possible. non-aggressive (1) REFERENT: Not forceful in competing with others CONNOTATION: Aggression equals violence, forcing, competing and is masculine AFFECT: Caring BEHAVIOR: Attempts to build unity as opposed to conformity fortunate (1) COGNITIVE: Transsexuality is considered a gift CONNOTATION: Transsexuality is his source of creativity and uniqueness AFFECT: Thankfulness, self-acceptance BEHAVIOR: "Coming out," sent a letter to his friends celebrating her transsexuality hopeful (1) REFERENT: Thinks that positive things may happen influenced by his effort CONNOTATION: Can influence his future in a positive direction AFFECT: positive empowerment BEHAVIOR: Plans to develop a future more in keeping with who she is, perhaps involving new career on the internet multicultural (3) REFERENT: Acceptance of diversity CONNOTATION: Letting people be who they want to be, accepting difference AFFECT: Feeling positive about the possible celebration of diversity, frustration with "male" society that would deny that BEHAVIOR: Talks to others about the importance of building acceptance of diversity Empowered animator (8) REFERENT: To engage in purposeful behavior including self-expression CONNOTATION: Self-expression is essential to her being AFFECT: Concern that failure to express her femininity would lead to a feeling of being destroyed BEHAVIOR: Expresses femininity in any way s/he can while balancing survival needs, displays creativity, influences others thru writing, finds ways to influence society to accept transsexuality writer (3) REFERENT: To write to be creative or to earn a living CONNOTATION: Freedom from having to role play "male" to earn a living, increased self- expression AFFECT: Hope for the future BEHAVIOR: Is developing skills in writing, imagining possibilities intellectual (2) REFERENT: One who prefers the world of ideas to manual labor CONNOTATION: Being an intellectual gives more freedom to the self AFFECT: Hopefulness that intellectual pursuits will bring about more freedom and opportunities for self-expression BEHAVIOR: Reads, talks to other intellectuals. independent belief (1) REFERENT: To have beliefs at variance with those generally accepted by society CONNOTATION: There is a positive moral effect to having well-thought out independent belief AFFECT: Feels positive about having the capacity for independent belief BEHAVIOR: Developed positive beliefs about self despite societal sanctions, wants to talk about transsexuality, has to restrain himself from expressing himself in inappropriate contexts. 399 atheist (4) REFERENT: Does not believe in a creator-god, but he allows for an impersonal universal force that is without awareness CONNOTATION: We have a unity with the universe that transcends religion AFFECT: Feels positive about having independent beliefs that bring understanding and comfort to herself BEHAVIOR: Self describes as an atheist, identifies with a oneness with the universe spiritual (3) REFERENT: When she goes out into nature she feels and interconnectedness with everything which she defines as spirituality CONNOTATION: There is a unity, and therefore a meaning for everything AFFECT: Feeling of connectedness, solace BEHAVIOR: Joined the Unitarian Church, seeks unity in diversity community member (2) REFERENT: Member of the Unitarian and transsexual communities CONNOTATION: May build diversity through community AFFECT: Feeling of connectedness with others BEHAVIOR: Presents transsexual true self to the communities that accept her leader(3) REFERENT: Would like to be a leader in a "non-male" way (not aggressive or domineering), but as a speaker and enabler CONNOTATION: "Leadership" has the connotation of masculinity which is to be avoided AFFECT: Wants to enable his community but is ambivalent about being called a leader BEHAVIOR: Speaks and writes passionately Fred man (9) REFERENT: To have male physical characteristics. CONNOTATION: Was born into the wrong body, views it as his "physical limitations." AFFECT: Distress over male characteristics, to live as a man would be intolerable BEHAVIOR: Rebels against his/her own maleness, attempts to feminize her body "I see that some parts of me are unavoidably masculine. Not that they're bad, but they're kinda like baggage or dead weight that I have to carry around with me." role player (6) REFERENT: Role plays being a man in certain contexts CONNOTATION: Having to role-play is disempowering AFFECT: Disgust, anger with having to role play BEHAVIOR: Attempts to maximize his opportunities for displaying her feminine self cautious (2) REFERENT: Being careful to avoid situations that might be problematic CONNOTATION: The world is a dangerous place AFFECT: Fear BEHAVIOR: Avoids situations that could bring about humiliation or physical abuse, role- plays being a man in certain contexts self-defeating (12) REFERENT: A wish to endanger one's self, or ensure failure CONNOTATION: Her physical or male self is not worthy, and any success of Fred is a victory for Fred and a defeat for Fredelle AFFECT: Ambivalent about taking care of self BEHAVIOR: Failure to take care of her health needs, sabotages opportunities for advancement (although she reported the abatement of this tendency following the removal of her testicles) depressed (2) REFERENT: A low level depression that is always present CONNOTATION: This condition is unbeatable and is connected with a thwarted need to express her femininity AFFECT: depression BEHAVIOR: engages in self-defeating behaviors old (4) REFERENT: Having lived the majority of one's life CONNOTATION: mortality, imperfection AFFECT: concern about age, feeling that it is unfair that Fredelle should have lived so little in all the time she has inhabited a male body BEHAVIOR: attempts to mask age mortal (1) REFERENT: Suffers physical ailments, has become more aware of her mortality following heart surgery CONNOTATION: There are limits to what can be accomplished, and limited time in which she can express herself AFFECT: Determination to live her remaining years as true to her "real" self as much as she can BEHAVIOR: Accepted a settlement for leaving an occupation with the oil industry, is attempting to establish a new career in a venue that is more accepting of her transsexuality, is proceeding with gender re-constructive surgery bald (3) REFERENT: Has lost most of the hair on top of her head CONNOTATION: Growing old, being male AFFECT: Distress BEHAVIOR: Wears a hairpiece hair piece wearer (3) REFERENT: May change her look by wearing a hair piece. CONNOTATION: Her natural baldness is negative, long hair is associated with femininity and sensuality AFFECT: Feels good with hair piece BEHAVIOR: Wears a hair piece to cover baldness, plays with, strokes her hair Memes Added After the Second Interview self-nurturing REFERENT: To take care of oneself both physically and mentally CONNOTATION: A healthy body is required for a healthy mind AFFECT: Pleasure with her body providing it is "Fredelle's" body BEHAVIOR: With the removal of her testes she experience increased awareness of and interest in exercising and having a healthy diet self changer REFERENT: Changes oneself to meet her (transsexual) image of her self CONNOTATION: Has the power to affect her physical body to remove elements of maleness AFFECT: Affirming BEHAVIOR: Underwent an operation for the removal of her testes with the result that she cares more for her body now and is practising self-nurturing behaviors 402 activist REFERENT: Fights for the rights of transgendered people and for their acceptance into society CONNOTATION: It is possible to gain rights and understanding for the transgendered AFFECT: Empowerment, finding meaning in her transsexuality BEHAVIOR: Speaks to her church, participates in "gay pride" activities, writes articles published on the internet Memes Added After the Third Interview Sensual REFERENT: Gratification of the senses CONNOTATION: To enjoy the femininity of oneself and others without becoming sexually aroused is spiritual AFFECT: Enjoyment and fulfilment BEHAVIOR: Enjoys the sensations of her body, particularly her breasts and her long hair; finds pleasure in appreciating the physical natures of other women APPENDIX M: NOTES FOR CHANTELLE SHOWING SELF-DEFINING MEMES The terms that are flush left in bold refer to interpretive themes and they are followed by the memes that led to those interpretive codes. The terms that are flush left without being highlighted in bold were identified as memes. Terms may be memes and themes simultaneously in which case they are in bold but followed with referent, connotative, affective and behavioral descriptions. The numbers beside the memes record the number of segments coded for a particular meme that appeared in the transcript of the first interview. spirit (2) REFERENT: A drive to keep going coupled with ardour, persistence, vigour, courage, firmness of intent, and a drive to grow CONNOTATION: Life can "beat her down" but it can never take her spirit AFFECT: Confidence BEHAVIOR: Tackles life's challenges with confidence, determination and courage animator (7) REFERENT: Takes action to meet goals CONNOTATION: People have a responsibility to act AFFECT: Self-empowerment BEHAVIOR: Ensures that goals are met, including goals for self-change, and that people are treated in morally appropriate ways family person (2) REFERENT: Has 10 siblings and describes herself as close to them CONNOTATION: Family is of such importance that she would do almost anything for her siblings AFFECT: Caring, identification with family BEHAVIOR: Maintains contact, gives time to family kind(l) REFERENT: Gives of time and self to family and others CONNOTATION: One gives of oneself to those one is close to and this is evidence of being a moral person AFFECT: Giving, caring BEHAVIOR: Drops what she is doing to help others activist (2) REFERENT: Acts to improve social conditions CONNOTATION: It is important to act in the social interest AFFECT: Compassion, assertiveness BEHAVIOR: Advocates for those, such as clients lacking in "voice," to ensure they are treated in ethical and beneficial ways aggressive (1) REFERENT: Pursues goals with intensity and vigour CONNOTATION: Does not believe being aggressive is necessarily bad AFFECT: Pride in reaching goals BEHAVIOR: Works hard and competitively to reach goals, is on the "aggressive end of assertiveness" in obtaining goals leader(1) REFERENT: Has set up a network of self-help groups for women parolees with narcotics issues CONNOTATION: Has contributed something meaningful as a result of her experience on the inside of the prison system, and this is a moral good, identification with a higher purpose AFFECT: Self-actualization, enjoyment BEHAVIOR: Continues to set up groups, train facilitators, and administer the program. caring (1) REFERENT: Compassion for those in difficult circumstances, e.g. jail CONNOTATION: Being sentimental AFFECT: Concern BEHAVIOR: Displays concern, voices support, tries to see people for who they are outside of their circumstances moralist (1) REFERENT: Has a code of what is right and wrong CONNOTATION: It is necessary to stand up for one's moral beliefs AFFECT: Assertiveness BEHAVIOR: Confronts those that act immorally overextended (2) REFERENT: Takes on new tasks, sets new goals in multiple settings (athletics, studies, personal growth) without recognition of time limitations CONNOTATION: Must do well in a variety of settings AFFECT: Burnout, distress BEHAVIOR: Redoubles her efforts, attempts to manage her time more effectively overachiever (2) REFERENT: Sets high goals within multiple settings CONNOTATION: Must achieve in each realm AFFECT: Burn-out, distress BEHAVIOR: Is always active, difficulty relaxing self-critical (1) REFERENT: Takes on multiple activities and expects to excel in each CONNOTATION: She is deficient in some way for not excelling or for burning out AFFECT: Distress BEHAVIOR: Criticizes herself for her lack of time management skills athlete (6) REFERENT: Is a professional boxer, excels at baseball, plays "all sports except soccer and swimming." CONNOTATION: Connotes empowerment, ability to compete AFFECT: Pride, confidence BEHAVIOR: Engages in many sports, but most prominently as a professional boxer determined (3) REFERENT: Dedication to pursuing an outcome whether good or bad CONNOTATION: Determination shows inner strength and character AFFECT: Pride in persistence BEHAVIOR: Doggedness in completing what she starts proud (1) REFERENT: Proud of accomplishments as a student and as an athlete CONNOTATION: Associated with arrogance AFFECT: Ambivalence, self-recognition is associated with arrogance BEHAVIOR: Demonstrates accomplishments through action and determination, but attempts to minimize displays of pride self changer (12) REFERENT: To change one's self in developmental ways CONNOTATION: Has a capacity to change but the change may be prompted by circumstance AFFECT: Confidence in ability to change as circumstances demand BEHAVIOR: Changed self from being a drug user, being arrogant, overconfident and putting on a front at work to being "a person;" reflects on situations and changes approaches to meet those situations; is working to "lighten up," to spend more time on relationship building and to have better time management rememberer (4) REFERENT: Recalls events when starting work, university, in correctional facilities CONNOTATION: She is the person who was the central actor in these memories, giving constancy AFFECT: Assurance of constancy BEHAVIOR: Remembers those things that assert who she is and holds these memories open to reflection reflective (2) REFERENT: To think and analyze about what is happening and change to better meet goals CONNOTATION: Has the power to respond to and learn from new situations AFFECT: Empowerment BEHAVIOR: Monitors own behavior and history; used reflective thought to analyze her initial approach when working at a correctional facility and this reflection led to changes in approach, attitude learner(3) REFERENT: Learns about self and others from a combination of studying and reflection on experience CONNOTATION: The self and peoples' motivations are understandable and their study is worthwhile AFFECT: Satisfaction with increased understanding BEHAVIOR: Studies, reflects, has a strong need to learn or investigate that presents as an independent motivation and is a constant across contexts student (5) REFERENT: Is a graduate student in applied psychology with an interest in women's prisons CONNOTATION: She has the intelligence and an ability to excel in the "straight" world AFFECT: Self-confidence BEHAVIOR: Studies, learns how people function intelligent (1) REFERENT: Ability to learn and do well in studies CONNOTATION: Academic success leads to the suggestion that she is intelligent AFFECT: Self-esteem, self-empowerment BEHAVIOR: Takes classes, interacts with people she sees as intelligent, attempts to succeed in intelligent, socially appropriate ways. parent (1) REFERENT: Biological fact of bearing a child CONNOTATION: There is maternal responsibility in having a child AFFECT: Love of child BEHAVIOR: Decided to turn her life around when she had a son, stopped her life of crime, attempted to become a better role model good person (3) REFERENT: To strive to be good, the core of which is being honest and truthful CONNOTATION: Everyone has the capacity for goodness AFFECT: Empathy for others, nurturing toward self BEHAVIOR: Attempts developmental progress toward an ideal of goodness believes that she has always been "good at heart." work self worker (5) REFERENT: Works as a counsellor in corrections CONNOTATION: Meaning and satisfaction accompanies useful and productive work AFFECT: Higher self-esteem BEHAVIOR: Is creative and innovative in implementing programs and in applying life experiences including sports analogies to her work counsellor (5) REFERENT: Counsels at a men's prison CONNOTATION: Counselling may make a meaningful contribution to people making better decisions AFFECT: Pride in work mixed with a certain humility BEHAVIOR: Brings personal experience including experiences with sports and personal involvement with corrections to the counselling process young (1) REFERENT: To be younger than clients with whom she works, to be "young at heart," to be in her 20s. CONNOTATION: Energy plus a certain amount of cockiness that should be guarded against AFFECT: Humility BEHAVIOR: Is now aware of some of her experiential limitations as well as the strengths she brings to counselling, endeavours to fill each day with meaningful activities ex-con (2) REFERENT: Has served a prison sentence CONNOTATION: Is aware of prisoners' lives in a way that other counsellors may not be AFFECT: Confident in her ability to relate effectively to prisoners BEHAVIOR: Works in a prison setting, uses her life experience. egalitarian (2) REFERENT: Believes that we are all equal in some sense CONNOTATION: Everyone has a right to respect and consideration AFFECT: Empathy with those who are disadvantaged BEHAVIOR: Resists those who appear to operate from a hierarchical model humble (2) REFERENT: Reluctant to talk about those accomplishments that make her proud CONNOTATION: Talking about one's strengths shows a reprehensible self-centeredness AFFECT: Embarrassment when talking about self BEHAVIOR: Tendency to avoid putting herself forward genuine (3) REFERENT: To be "real," to not put on fronts, to show who you are, defines self and then lives by that definition CONNOTATION: There is a genuine person that is the same or "real" across contexts AFFECT: Stability of personality BEHAVIOR: She attempts to show who she really is in different situations responsible (1) REFERENT: To meet commitments, to be dependable CONNOTATION: This is a quality of a good person AFFECT: Self-esteem BEHAVIOR: Formulates goals and intensely pursues them serious (1) REFERENT: Emphasizes the importance of completing her commitments CONNOTATION: Levity detracts from the seriousness of the task AFFECT: Sombre disposition in fulfilling commitments BEHAVIOR: Works hard to meet goals, commitments New memes added after the second interview Moralist REFERENT: The quality of being moral, making moral judgements and abiding by those judgements CONNOTATION: Has a duty to support moral behavior in others with the corollary that she does not support immoral behavior AFFECT: Guilt including being torn between wanting to be supportive of family members and refusing to support their addictions BEHAVIOR: Avoids actions that would support illegal and immoral behaviors in others including family members Active REFERENT: A felt need to engage in purposeful activity CONNOTATION: Time that is spent in purposeless activity or no activity is wasted AFFECT: Self-recrimination when not active BEHAVIOR: Attempts to accomplish something every day to make each day meaningful APPENDIX N: NOTES FOR MAGDELYNN SHOWING SELF-DEFINING MEMES The terms that are flush left in bold refer to interpretive themes and they are followed by the memes that led to those interpretive codes. The terms that are flush left without being highlighted in bold were identified as memes. Terms may be memes and themes simultaneously in which case they are in bold but followed with referent, connotative, affective and behavioral descriptions. The numbers beside the memes record the number of segments coded for a particular meme that appeared in the transcript of the first interview. rememberer(5) REFERENT: Reflects on past events CONNOTATION: Reflection can help build better relationships and a better self AFFECT: Empowerment as an active shaper of the future BEHAVIOR: Engages reflectively in memories which are structured as stories that have a theme indicating something about who she is metaphor maker (2) REFERENT: Uses metaphor to better understand complex phenomena CONNOTATION: Metaphors lead to understanding the interactive whole AFFECT: Satisfaction and empowerment with increased understanding BEHAVIOR: Returns to the metaphor when needing to understand self: a fractured pie, a mobile storyteller (2) REFERENT: She recounts sequential stories involving past events CONNOTATION: We are our narratives AFFECT: Feelings of constancy, uniqueness, and morality BEHAVIOR: Engages in storytelling behaviors with friends and family Family Person (2) REFERENT: Having parents and a sister CONNOTATION: Family is important in its own sake AFFECT: Cherishes family, takes pleasure in interacting with family BEHAVIOR: Takes time to communicate with family, build a closer relationship with her sister daughter (6) REFERENT: Has biological parents CONNOTATION: Being a daughter implies relationship and duties AFFECT: Regret at not being a better daughter previously BEHAVIOR: Is taking time to ensure positive interactions with her parents sister (3) REFERENT: Having a sibling CONNOTATION: Should be close to one's sister AFFECT: Caring, regret for earlier sibling rivalry BEHAVIOR: Plans strategies for connecting with sister, increasing the bond between the two Catholic (1) REFERRENT: To identify with or be a part of the Roman Catholic Church CONNOTATION: Catholicism is like race, once born into it you are always, in some sense, one even if your beliefs have changed AFFECT: Ambivalence BEHAVIOR: Attends church with parents to please them, tolerates people praying for her when in the hospital, disagrees with some teachings such as the church position on homosexuality independent belief (5) REFERENT: To adhere to beliefs based on one's own reason independent of an authority CONNOTATION: People have the capacity to arrive at truths independent of sanctioned or popular teachings AFFECT: Feeling of individuality BEHAVIOR: Broke with the Catholic church of her upbringing because she decided that she did not agree with many of the Catholic teachings, attempts to draw lessons from experience; current beliefs are based on evidence provided by personal experience, theist (8) REFERRENT: Belief in a god CONNOTATION: The higher power has determined the outline of what is going to happen giving Magdelynn the assurance that events will unfold in a positive and purposeful way, and that everything happens "for a (pre-determined) reason" AFFECT: Decreased anxiety and pressure to perform BEHAVIOR: Increased ability to relax, helps others without the injunction that she will know the outcomes or be perfect in her interventions spiritual (2) REFERENT: Feels there is something bigger that is not physical CONNOTATION: That which is bigger has sentience and determines reality in some ways and may be defined as "God" AFFECT: Feeling of connectedness with the spiritual and with God BEHAVIOR: Defines own spiritual beliefs that may be at variance with any existing religion but incorporates god-belief caring (5) REFERENT: Concern for helping others, particularly children; wants to increase peoples' happiness CONNOTATION: Others are worthy of being helped AFFECT: Empathy, concern BEHAVIOR: Finds meaning in helping children who have been traumatized kind (2) REFERENT: Quality of caring for the well-being of others CONNOTATION: Associates kindness with belief in a "higher power" AFFECT: Connectedness with and empathy for others BEHAVIOR: Considers the well-being of others and modifies actions to increase that well- being Relationship Builder (4) REFERENT: Developing trusting, caring relationships CONNOTATION: Relationships (with family, friends, boyfriend, teammates) are essential for well-being AFFECT: Caring for, loyalty to others BEHAVIOR: Chooses activities that allow for the opportunity to build relationships, for example, team sports, is automatically loyal to friends, family and team mates; expects that this loyalty will be shown in supportive behavior and that it will be reciprocal friend (2) REFERENT: Defines people as friends with whom she has more intimate relationships than mere acquaintances CONNOTATION: Friendship relationships involve loyalty and reciprocality AFFECT: Feels that she has a community of support, worries that she does not have sufficient time to maintain friendships BEHAVIOR: Keeps commitments, schedules activities with friends, attempts to juggle time between commitments to include friends, exhibits what she calls "irrational loyalty" toward friends responsible (3) REFERENT: To meet one's commitments, expectations CONNOTATION: A "good person" is also a responsible person AFFECT: Worries that by taking on too much she is not fulfilling her commitments and is thus irresponsible BEHAVIOR: Attempts to be "responsible" by working harder, has plan to limit commitments to a more reasonable number, is responsible across contexts. self-critical (5) REFERENT: Thinking that she is exhibiting irresponsible behavior or that she is not good enough in some ways CONNOTATION: Failure to meet commitments suggests lack of integrity, excessive rigidity affects relationships and the well-being of others AFFECT: Distress, guilt BEHAVIOR: Castigated self for being 10 minutes late to an interview (with the principle researcher), for being rigidly negative about a teammate, for letting the basketball team down by not scoring rigid (2) REFERENT: To be firm to the point of being almost absolute in her beliefs CONNOTATION: Rigidity may represent unfairness to others AFFECT: Self-criticism, self-depreciation BEHAVIOR: Forms opinions quickly and once she has a negative opinion about someone, she has a hard time changing that opinion, selectively noticing behaviors that reinforces that opinion, believes that this is a quality that never changes Achiever overachiever (1) REFERENT: Has multiple goals and wants to accomplish them all quickly CONNOTATION: Failure to meet goals quickly represents a deficit of character AFFECT: Distress BEHAVIOR: Has difficulty relaxing, engages is self-criticism intense (8) REFERENT: Need to excel as an individual, especially in sports CONNOTATION: Self-worth is defined by a drive to succeed which includes elements of competitiveness and tenacity AFFECT: Stress to perform, inability to relax BEHAVIOR: Pushes self to excel, attempts a great many things, challenges her self and others, exhibits difficulty in relaxing animator (5) REFERENT: Wants to learn and to do a great many things, is active in a self-directive way CONNOTATION: Believes that it is through doing that she has meaning, and that she is, to a large extent, the creator of her future AFFECT: Feeling of aliveness while doing, learning; pride in her accomplishments BEHAVIOR: Is assertive when obtaining what she needs and believes she is entitled to, is a "fabulous problem solver," has difficulty saying "no" to worthwhile suggestions with the result that she frequently "runs out of time" worker (2) REFERENT: To engage in purposeful and valued activity for which one may or may not obtain remuneration CONNOTATION: One's work is a reflection of who one is AFFECT: Takes pride in her work, but has concern that she may be too fragmented to do good work and that this reflects on her integrity BEHAVIOR: works with disadvantaged children, but may also define work more broadly to include unpaid productive labor, is learning to not take on too much counsellor (3) REFERENT: To assist individuals to make decisions and effect changes in a self-determined way, is similar to coaching CONNOTATION: Has value independent of potential remuneration AFFECT: Pride in work BEHAVIOR: Works with special needs children who have been traumatized, identifies herself as a counsellor learner(3) REFERENT: To modify understandings from experience, especially within a structured setting CONNOTATION: Learning is a goal across contexts AFFECT: Feels confident in ability to learn and learning generates feelings of self-worth BEHAVIOR: Pursues learning opportunities across formal and informal learning contexts student (3) REFERENT: One who learns a body of knowledge CONNOTATION: Learning is a sign of intelligence which is a sign of self-worth AFFECT: Pride BEHAVIOR: Enrolled in university, studies on her own on topics of interest intelligent (3) REFERENT: To be able to assimilate learned material and experiences efficiently CONNOTATION: Intelligence allows one to achieve and is a valued attribute independent of her physical disability AFFECT: Positive feelings of self-worth, felt need to prove her self to herself BEHAVIOR: Pursues higher education with more vigour than before her accident to prove that she is capable Active Competitor athlete (17) REFERENT: To participate and systematically refine skills in a sport CONNOTATION: Being an athlete involves both a level of skill and a connection with a supportive community and is a way to prove oneself AFFECT: Pride BEHAVIOR: Has continued and increased athletic goals choosing team sports due to her interest in building relationships perfectionist (1) REFERENT: To strive for the highest possible standard, to be dissatisfied with less achievement CONNOTATION: Failure to achieve to the maximum of one's ability shows lack of integrity AFFECT: Stress to perform, self-criticism over inability to achieve in all areas of her life BEHAVIOR: Engages in hard intensive work, often to the exclusion of other priorities gimp (12) REFERENT: To be of a different physical shape or form from the norm CONNOTATION: Prefers the term "gimp" to "disabled" or "crippled" because she can accomplish a many things, often to a greater degree than the so-called "able-bodied" AFFECT: Frustration over physical limitations but pride in overcoming adversity BEHAVIOR: Sets goals, competes, has something to prove as an athlete and as an intellect unique experiencer (2) REFERENT: Identifies herself as a "gimp" to emphasize her uniqueness CONNOTATION: Finding individuality is important for who she is AFFECT: Uniqueness is connected to a feeling of individuality BEHAVIOR: Emphasizes her individuality to her friends including referring to herself as "you friendly neighborhood gimp" even though this makes some of them uncomfortable body(l) REFERENT: A genetically based physical entity CONNOTATION: Gives a sense of constancy, basis of who she is AFFECT: Identification with her body but frustration over its limitations BEHAVIOR: Pushes her body to its limits, emphasizes what she can do as opposed to her limitations anti-stereotyping (4) REFERENT: To be opposed to assumptions of the limitations of others based on their race, gender or disability. CONNOTATION: People who exhibit stereotypical attitudes both limit and insult those to whom those stereotypes are applied AFFECT: Anger BEHAVIOR: Aggressively challenges stereotypical attitudes verbally and by example aggressive (1) REFERENT: To assert oneself with respect to others in an energetic way CONNOTATION: The assumptions of the so-called "able bodied" need to be challenged but this activity includes an element of spite AFFECT: Pride in asserting self BEHAVIOR: Works harder at being an athlete now than before her accident, challenges the able-bodied who ask "How can you be an athlete?" with suggestions like, "Jump in that chair and let's go, and I will kick your butt any day of the week." angry (2) REFERENT: Being upset to the point of action CONNOTATION: Anger is an appropriate response to prejudicial and unfair people AFFECT: Anger BEHAVIOR: Stereotypical attitudes, especially as those assuming that she is incapable because of her wheelchair, triggers angry verbal responses proud (3) REFERENT: Positive feelings as connected to attributes and qualities she displays CONNOTATION: Her contributions help others and her tenaciousness in responding to her disability means that she is a better person in some ways AFFECT: Positive feelings of self-worth BEHAVIOR: Redoubles her efforts work with special needs children, looks for evidence that she is "the most gimped" and defines herself as a "gimp with heart," emphasizes her tenacity and intensity Relativistic environmentally driven (2) REFERENT: Being driven by circumstances CONNOTATION: Not in control, disempowered AFFECT: Helplessness BEHAVIOR: Accepts changing circumstances adaptive - context (5) REFERENT: Changes to meet various roles in life that are, in part, driven by environmental demands CONNOTATION: Is a different person in each of these roles / contexts (initial interview) but is the same person in some ways (subsequent interviews) AFFECT: Feeling of being fragmented (initial interview), but feels that there is an authentic real self (subsequent interviews) BEHAVIOR: Shows a different self in different contexts, seeks to be the same person across contexts disorganized (2) REFERENT: To be frequently late, attempting unsuccessfully to do many things simultaneously CONNOTATION: She is lacking in organizational skills AFFECT: Mild distress BEHAVIOR: Attempts to do more, work harder, engages in self-criticism anxious (1) REFERENT: Worries about the possibility of getting everything to which she feels committed, completed CONNOTATION: If she does not get everything done then there is something wrong with her AFFECT: anxiety, worry BEHAVIOR: redoubles efforts, is self-critical role player (3) REFERENT: Plays different roles in sports, friendships, family CONNOTATION: Different roles are demanding and time consuming (friend, daughter, athlete, student), and may lead to a "fractured self AFFECT: feels conflicted, that she is not doing enough to maintain friendships, family BEHAVIOR: maintains high energy level, has a difficult time relaxing flexible (3) REFERENT: Being able to change and adapt to different circumstances CONNOTATION: Not totally but partially in control AFFECT: Confusion, adaptation BEHAVIOR: Accepts changing circumstances, uses intensity to build on opportunity, "tests the waters" to realize opportunity self-changer (2) REFERENT: To direct changes to one's own self CONNOTATION: "A work in progress," cannot control the environment but can control self, change is a fact of life, it is necessary to adapt, modify AFFECT: Sense of some control BEHAVIOR: Consciously adapts to changing circumstances, chooses goals and changes her self to meet those goals, for example, becoming the kind of person that would make a good mother (goal: having a family) Memes added after the 2n interview Sexual REFERENT: Being feminine, having heterosexual desires CONNOTATION: Attractive, life-giving, being complete AFFECT: Calming, love BEHAVIOR: Shows more confidence and is more intimate with her boyfriend. significant other REFERENT: A partner with a boyfriend CONNOTATION: Has someone who "watches (her) back so (she) can be soft"; a future family AFFECT: Calm enjoyment, anticipation of family BEHAVIOR: Listens, supports, laughs; accepts a calming support from her boyfriend 419 APPENDIX O: NOTES FOR BRENT SHOWING SELF-DEFINING MEMES The terms that are flush left in bold refer to interpretive themes and they are followed by the memes that led to those interpretive codes. The terms that are flush left without being highlighted in bold were identified as memes. Terms may be memes and themes simultaneously in which case they are in bold but followed with referent, connotative, affective and behavioral descriptions. The numbers beside the memes record the number of segments coded for a particular meme that appeared in the transcript of the first interview. Rememberer (13) REFERENT: A person who recalls past events CONNOTATION: Remembering is essential to one's self AFFECT: Anxiety that loss of memory will result in the loss of some aspect of self BEHAVIOR: Reflects on his past and how he has come to be, collects items that are associated with remembered aspects of his self, takes pictures of those items before he can bring himself to throw them away storyteller (2) REFERENT: Verbally recounts stories about his personal experience CONNOTATION: Stories inform us as to who we are and create a connection with others AFFECT: Pleasure, lightness BEHAVIOR: Tells stories to himself and others including in them recognition of humour packrat (4) REFERENT: To keep items that have symbolic or associative value that are otherwise of little use and would be given or thrown away CONNOTATION: Memories are fragile and when one loses them one loses a part of one's self AFFECT: Distress at having to dispose of items BEHAVIOR: Filled a house with a garage and basement with various items, but discovered that if he takes a picture of an item that he can keep, he has an easier time disposing of it reflective (7) REFERENT: To thoughtfully consider actions and their affect on the earth and on other people CONNOTATION: It is necessary to be responsible for one's actions and to carefully consider how one's actions affect others AFFECT: Feeling of responsibility, concern BEHAVIOR: Moderates behavior to reduce negative impacts, he also reflects on his own behavior to increase self-understanding inquisitive (2) REFERENT: Curiosity about the world CONNOTATION: It is good to explore, to understand and to gain new knowledge AFFECT: Pleasure, self-satisfaction BEHAVIOR: Explores self, relationships, the physical world learner(1) REFERENT: To modify understandings from experience and study CONNOTATION: He can learn and new knowledge is worthwhile AFFECT: Joy, finds he enjoys learning more as he gets older BEHAVIOR: Reads non-fiction articles, but not usually books family member (4) REFERENT: Having parents and a brother CONNOTATION: There is a duty to communicate with family, but there is also a risk of disapproval. AFFECT: Some emotional connection but with ambivalence BEHAVIOR: Sent mother a plant, sometimes will say, when his mother says she loves him, "I love you too;" talks to parents almost weekly by phone, had mother on his radio show, hides details of his life from his parents Taking self lightly humorous (9) REFERENT: To be able to laugh, especially at oneself, affectionately CONNOTATION: Life foibles need not be taken too seriously, humour helps put events in perspective AFFECT: Appreciation of self BEHAVIOR: Uses humour in situations that could be distressing, maintains an internal humorous dialogue, laughs at the incredible 421 Active Self empowered animator (6) REFERENT: Takes individual action independent of the expectation of those around him, CONNOTATION: The mind is empowered to effect change, there are no mistakes only feedback AFFECT: Feels empowered BEHAVIOR: takes independent action, applies Neuro-linguistic Programming activist (2) REFERENT: To take action to meet some political objective, in his case the goal of a sustainable environment CONNOTATION: People collectively and individually have the power to effect change AFFECT: Concern for the planet, positive feelings at being able to take action to effect environmental change BEHAVIOR: Educates others to take action to reduce the effects of global warming, monitors his own lifestyle to ensure that he is living a life that is environmentally sustainable environmentalist (6) REFERENT: Concern that humans are polluting the environment and using energy in unsustainable amounts CONNOTATION: Unnecessarily polluting and wasting energy is immoral, irrespective of the damage to ecosystems, consumerism is consuming without consideration AFFECT: Concern, anger over consumerism BEHAVIOR: Tries to recycle as much as possible, reduces pollutants he puts into the atmosphere, but has moderated his approach to allow himself (occasionally) to eat beef, use Styrofoam containers and own a car athlete (6) REFERENT: To engage in athletic activity CONNOTATION: Adds meaning to life, is a constant that is always there that helps identify who he is AFFECT: Status, self-esteem, pride BEHAVIOR: Engages in cycling, hockey and swimming leader(3) REFERENT: To occupy positions of leadership in organizations, and to lead by example informally CONNOTATION: Brent has knowledge, perspective and skills that can benefit others AFFECT: Pride of accomplishment, confidence in capacity to have a positive impact on others BEHAVIOR: Is president of a cycling association, hosts an environmentalist / cycling radio program, encourages others by example and by word to engage in physical activity and environmentally friendly practices student (3) REFERENT: Learning a body of knowledge CONNOTATION: Being a student requires intelligence AFFECT: Enjoys success at being a student BEHAVIOR: Obtained a degree in education as an older student, and this success led to him defining himself as a student with an attitude of embracing life-long learning teacher (10) REFERENT: Teaches for a career CONNOTATION: Identifies with being part of the teaching community AFFECT: Pride and purpose in teaching BEHAVIOR: Attempts to be a humorous and creative teacher broadcaster (2) REFERENT: A radio talk show host on the campus station CONNOTATION: Has a message to be shared with others AFFECT: Commitment, pride BEHAVIOR: Has produced this show for 10 years overextended (2) REFERENT: Involved in so many projects that some cannot be accomplished with timeliness CONNOTATION: Worth as a person is reflected, in part, in activity AFFECT: Pride in accomplishment, distress or sadness with respect to having left some projects (such as putting on hold organizing his house) that have had negative consequences on past relationships BEHAVIOR: Sets priorities with some projects placed on hold Attempts to understand (and identify with others) empathetic (3) REFERENT: Understanding and appreciating the understandings of others CONNOTATION: Others have legitimate perspectives based on their experiences, and goodness appears in various forms AFFECT: Acceptance of others BEHAVIOR: Attempts to be appreciative of others motives and understands others with sympathy for their positions, engages in dialogue to gain that understanding caring (1) REFERENT: Quality of being compassionate CONNOTATION: Other people are entitled to compassionate concern AFFECT: Identifies with others, accepts others BEHAVIOR: Nurtures friendships, avoids putdowns of others kind (1) REFERENT: Being considerate of others in words and actions CONNOTATION: Kindness is a universal good AFFECT: Caring BEHAVIOR: Is considerate of his parents, makes allowances for those with whom he disagrees, ensures that his humour does not involve implied "put-downs" of others affable (3) REFERENT: Talkative, friendly, willing to self-disclose CONNOTATION: Friendly communication is growth enhancing AFFECT: Pleasantness BEHAVIOR: Engages others, is socially active friend (1) REFERENT: Is loyal to people identified as friends CONNOTATION: Brent is worthy of friendship AFFECT: Closeness BEHAVIOR: Cultivates friends, identifies with an (environmentalist) community of friends but is affable and friendly with people outside that community flexible (7) REFERENT: Changes his mind, is more flexible in his thinking, is not stubborn CONNOTATION: Sometimes is not sure what he believes, but has become more moderate with respect to his environmental views, beliefs are tentative to some degree AFFECT: Happy with flexibility BEHAVIOR: Is less dogmatic in his interactions with people than he remembers having once been, allows for change to his value system Self Characteristics single (6) REFERENT: Does not have a girlfriend or spouse CONNOTATION: There is something missing in his life AFFECT: Concern BEHAVIOR: Thinks about becoming a father, Seeks a partner using the internet bald(l) REFERENT: Losing hair CONNOTATION: May be less attractive to women AFFECT: Mild concern BEHAVIOR: Was distressed about baldness but has now embraced it self aware (2) REFERENT: To be aware of why one does or thinks certain things CONNOTATION: Self-awareness leads to greater understanding and empowerment AFFECT: Feeling of mild elation associated with transcending ignorance BEHAVIOR: Reflectively thinks about self, associates experience with theory with a certain tentativeness, "I like to think I live consciously." positive spirit / resilient (1) REFERENT: Looks at life with a spirit of hope and optimism and sees this as a constant in who he is regardless of circumstance CONNOTATION: Life can always be worthwhile AFFECT: Hope BEHAVIOR: Engages in environment, builds possibilities selfnurturer (1) REFERENT: Is patient and understanding with self, allows for failure CONNOTATION: Value and self-worth is not defined by perfection, this allows for more flexibility and understanding when dealing with others AFFECT: More loving towards self BEHAVIOR: Practices being less rigid in his thinking self-esteem (4) REFERENT: The quality of thinking well or positively about himself CONNOTATION: Positive self-esteem is necessary for success in life AFFECT: Confidence and assurance BEHAVIOR: Reflects on past successes and positive influences, finds within the assurance to succeed in the present; appreciates self, but does not take himself too seriously self changer (6) REFERENT: To engaged in developmental changes to one's person CONNOTATION: Change is positive if it accompanies self-awareness AFFECT: Confusion when he is not sure what he believes BEHAVIOR: Pursues reflective self-understanding, reflects on the changes that has happened since he held rigid environmentalist views, changes to his packrat habits, plans future changes good person (1) REFERENT: One who conducts himself in a way that makes the world a better place CONNOTATION: There is goodness inside of him and others are worthy of receiving that goodness AFFECT: Positive self regard BEHAVIOR: Attempts to understand others and leave a positive influence on the world, reflects on his own actions in consideration of the well-being of others New memes added as a result of our second interview Catholic REFERENT: A member of the Roman Catholic Church CONNOTATION: Roman Catholics are members of a community that strives for an understanding of goodness AFFECT: Consternation in that he does not adhere closely to Roman Catholic teachings BEHAVIOR: Believes that one can be Catholic without embracing all church dogma, attempts to find common ground with Catholicism using the motto "goodness, discipline and knowledge." Community REFERENT: The desire to be part of a community of people that share some commonality CONNOTATION: Communities are supportive and "community" is an ideal to which people should aspire AFFECT: Closeness to others in the felt community BEHAVIOR: Admires the Catholics for their sense of community; feels that he is part of an environmentalist, cycling and teaching communities and takes a personal interest in other community members Rigid REFERENT: A tendency to be set in one's beliefs and ways CONNOTATION: Has the capacity to assess others according to a personal standard but this can lead to unfair expectations AFFECT: Feelings of superiority, BEHAVIOR: Firm in his definition of what a commitment to environmentalism is and assesses others' commitment, or lack of it, according to this template; has firm views as to what a romantic partner should be like and works to ensure that such partners conform to that standard Music REFERENT: Melodious sound used to express ideas and/or emotions CONNOTATION: Represents activism, storytelling and, at times, humor AFFECT: Empowerment BEHAVIOR: Listens to this style of music, particularly on CBC. New memes added as a result of Brent's third interview Frugal REFERENT: The quality of avoiding wasteful expenditure of time or resources CONNOTATION: Wastefulness is an evil to be avoided while frugality is a good in itself AFFECT: Rewards self with positive esteem when practising frugality, concern over the reaction of others to what they may perceive as excessive frugality BEHAVIOR: Pursues environmentalist goals compatible with frugality, attempts to educate others with respect to its virtue. APPENDIX P: NOTES FOR NICK SHOWING SELF-DEFINING MEMES The terms that are flush left in bold refer to interpretive themes and they are followed by the memes that led to those interpretive codes. The terms that are flush left without being highlighted in bold were identified as memes. Terms may be memes and themes simultaneously in which case they are in bold but followed with referent, connotative, affective and behavioral descriptions. The numbers beside the memes record the number of segments coded for a particular meme that appeared in the transcript of the first interview. Interior Voice Awareness rememberer (5) REFERENT: One who recalls past events CONNOTATION: Memory is essential for a continuity of self, there is a "me" that is involved in the act of remembering, "I am because I have a history" AFFECT: Assurance of continuity of self BEHAVIOR: Remembers a self-history unique experiencer (1) REFERENT: A receptacle of qualities that in their combination is unique CONNOTATION: A sense of uniqueness is necessary in the composition of self AFFECT: Feeling of originality BEHAVIOR: Acts as a unique individual in different contexts. Seeks new experiences. thinker (4) REFERENT: Someone who recalls, reasons, reflects CONNOTATION: Someone who thinks is sentient and alive AFFECT: Empowerment, being CONNOTATION: Takes note of his capacity to think, actively recalls important events, reflects on those events reflective (5) REFERENT: Analyzes situations, performance using feedback from others CONNOTATION: Self and capacity is not just known, must be ascertained by some means AFFECT: Empowering feeling of self-animation BEHAVIOR: Seeks feedback, combines this feedback with memories in coming to conclusions self-esteem (1) REFERENT: Estimate of abilities / capacities CONNOTATION: Needs feedback from others to confirm abilities AFFECT: Concern, some anxiety BEHAVIOR: Actively listens for feedback from others environmentally driven (2) REFERENT: To be determined by one's environment CONNOTATION: Feedback from others is a determining factor on who we are AFFECT: Acceptance of the fact of feedback as an influencing factor BEHAVIOR: Reflectively analyzes environmental feedback in attempting to moderate its influence, is a more calm, less driven person in Canada as a result of differential feedback Empowered animator (10) REFERENT: Purposeful, a problem solver, a maker of choices, to create CONNOTATION: Is clever when he uses intelligence to problem solve and make money AFFECT: Belief in self, positive hopeful spirit BEHAVIOR: Attempts to solve a variety of problems for his benefit, plans his work career with a view to succeeding in a competitive universe competitive (6) REFERENT: To compete to be the best CONNOTATION: Competition is a natural part of a successful life AFFECT: Intensity, desire BEHAVIOR: Competition is a lifestyle choice that influences his choice in a career (management). He is also competitive in social situations worker (2) REFERENT: To engage in paid labour CONNOTATION: One's work career defines one's self in important ways and provides purpose to one's life AFFECT: Hopeful in future, stress over making the best career decisions BEHAVIOR: Is taking classes, courses, making plans for developing or working with a technology company learner (1) REFERENT: Modifies behavior and understandings based on past experiences CONNOTATION: Learning is an empowering activity AFFECT: Interest in surroundings, events and the perceptions of others BEHAVIOR: Actively attempts to learn from others' experiences, reflects on his own experiences, enrols in programs aimed at building knowledge intelligent (5) REFERENT: To be clever, to use intelligence to solve problems CONNOTATION: Intelligence is a source of empowerment AFFECT: Pride, confidence BEHAVIOR: Uses his intelligence or cleverness with each opportunity adapting to different situations adaptive (2) REFERENT: Modifies behavior to maximize rewards in different contexts CONNOTATION: One must adapt to succeed AFFECT: Confidence in ability to meet goals in different contexts BEHAVIOR: Seeks new experiences in different contexts, has adapted to differences in Canadian culture spirit (1) REFERENT: A positive disposition that includes being interested in those things around him, tackling problems with confidence and enthusiasm, a drive to experience new things CONNOTATION: Nick is an empowered person with the ability to build his life AFFECT: Confidence BEHAVIOR: Tackles life with enthusiasm. self changer (6) REFERENT: Changes self developmentally CONNOTATION: Has the capacity to become the person he wants to be AFFECT: Self-assurance in his ultimate future BEHAVIOR: Reflects, plans, implements plans for self-improvement Social Self role player (3) REFERENT: Plays different roles in different contexts according to the demands of the situation CONNOTATION: Can play roles and still be the same individual AFFECT: Empowerment BEHAVIOR: Plays roles of student, entertainer, husband husband (1) REFERENT: Is married CONNOTATION: To be a husband involves a particular gender-referenced role that includes leadership and decision making AFFECT: Responsibility, caring BEHAVIOR: Ranges from rigid to tough to good: rigid when he believes he is right, tough when he pushes her to overcome a fear of new experiences, and good when he is attentive to her feelings student (1) REFERENT: Studies and is formally engaged in learning CONNOTATION: Being a student is a competitive exercise AFFECT: Inquisitiveness, competitiveness BEHAVIOR: Engages in competitive learning, assembling as many "points" as possible humorous (2) REFERENT: To act "a little bit crazy," to make people laugh CONNOTATION: Associates this form of making fun with childhood AFFECT: Happiness, joy BEHAVIOR: Attempts to be "a little bit different" to amuse himself and others 431 New memes added after the second interview friend REFERENT: To know, like and trust someone CONNOTATION: Sharing commonalities and common activities; being able to rely on others AFFECT: Liking, happiness BEHAVIOR: Endeavours to plan activities with friends, does favours for friends. Memes added after the third interview Independent REFERENT: Does not want to depend on others' opinions. Does things by himself in a good way. Does not want others to influence his opinions or spoil his mood. CONNOTATION: Dependent people do not respect their own opinion. They are not strong. AFFECT: Self-respect BEHAVIOR: Nick tries to convince, persuade people as to his opinions. He seeks unique experiences from which to build those opinions. 432 APPENDIX Q: NOTES FOR MAOMAO SHOWING SELF-DEFINING MEMES The terms that are flush left in bold refer to interpretive themes and they are followed by the memes that led to those interpretive codes. The terms that are flush left without being highlighted in bold were identified as memes. Terms may be memes and themes simultaneously in which case they are in bold but followed with referent, connotative, affective and behavioral descriptions. The numbers beside the memes record the number of segments coded for a particular meme that appeared in the transcript of the first interview. Passive Self daughter (14) REFERENT: Has biological parents and is an "only child" CONNOTATION: It is necessary to be a good daughter and follow the wishes of one's parents AFFECT: Pride in family, impatience with constrictions BEHAVIOR: Depends on parents for decision making only child (3) REFERENT: Is the only child of her parents CONNOTATION: This places extra demands on her to be a good daughter AFFECT: Resignation BEHAVIOR: Usually complies with parents expectations territorial (6) REFERENT: Identifies with her home city of Xi'an CONNOTATION: Her city of birth is an important element of who she is AFFECT: Pride in her city BEHAVIOR: Extols the virtues of the city of her birth family person (17) REFERENT: having parents CONNOTATION: parents are wiser, must be listened to, family is essential to self-definition, love of parents will never change AFFECT: respect for parents, pride in their accomplishments, has no pride as an individual but has pride as part of her family BEHAVIOR: obedience, deference student (14) REFERENT: Has been going to school for most of her life as directed by her parents CONNOTATION: Her role is that of student but it is of less importance than being part of a family AFFECT: Pride in academic accomplishment BEHAVIOR: Studies hard, partly in deference to her parents unique experiencer (1) REFERENT: A combination of characteristics (being nice to others, a female in a male dominated profession, refusing to laugh at others) makes her unique CONNOTATION: There can be only one Maomao AFFECT: Individuality BEHAVIOR: Acts as though she is an individual by owning her experiences environmentally driven (2) REFERENT: Being determined by circumstances that surround us CONNOTATION: She is not in control of certain aspects of her personality such as her anger AFFECT: Acceptance of who she is, reduces the stress of self-criticism BEHAVIOR: Being angry is in part a result of training from her parents and in part a genetic effect stemming from her mother's genes. This understanding reduces her drive to change herself pet lover (12) REFERENT: Has owned two dogs CONNOTATION: Her dogs are members of her personal family AFFECT: Love, attachment BEHAVIOR: Cares for her dogs when in China, mourns the loss of her first dog, looks at pictures of her dogs on her computer storyteller (1) REFERENT: Creates narrative memories even of events she did not witness CONNOTATION: Life may be understood and may be given meaning through the stories we create AFFECT: Assurance, understanding BEHAVIOR: Recounts stories that place others in roles that fits with Maomao's understanding, for example, her father mourning the loss of her first dog caring (1) REFERENT: Cares for animals and for the feelings of friends and family CONNOTATION: The feelings and well-being of particular animals are important to her and the lessons learned may be extended to people AFFECT: Sadness, sensitivity BEHAVIOR: Watches animal movies, frequently cries at the sad part, reflects on her self-centeredness toward people friend (3) REFERENT: A friend is close and helpful CONNOTATION: A friend should be there for you AFFECT: Caring, assumption of helpfulness BEHAVIOR: Maintains friendships over physical and temporal distance but becomes angry when she feels the friend is not listening or caring insufficiently deferent (19) REFERENT: Submission to the authority and judgement of parents, thesis advisor, church people CONNOTATION: Others with experience and authority know best AFFECT: Reduced dissonance in decision making, but frustration when personal desires are overlooked BEHAVIOR: Has difficulty making decisions, seeks others to direct her in the absence of her parents Active Self rememberer (7) REFERENT: Remembers family, her home city, her dog CONNOTATION: Memories are important in grounding her, maintaining her identity, while in Canada AFFECT: A collage of feelings including happy and sad BEHAVIOR: Reviews pictures to aid in memory for hours at a time reflective (2) REFERENT: To remember and reflect on past experience CONNOTION: She has the capacity to analyze and pass judgement on herself AFFECT: Self-awareness BEHAVIOR: Reflectively analyzes memories, with attention to examples of deference to others self aware (1) REFERENT: A quality of knowing one's self including the reasons for one's behavior CONNOTATION: Can look on herself from a more objective vantage point AFFECT: Understanding, sadness BEHAVIOR: Expresses awareness that she has difficulty making decisions herself, that she is self-centered, and has difficulty recognizing the needs of others, contemplates modifying her behavior is some ways self-critical (4) REFERENT: Holds self responsible when things go wrong CONNOTATION: Misfortune is her responsibility AFFECT: Sadness, regret, self directed anger BEHAVIOR: Blames self, even for events that happened when she was out of the country self-centered (4) REFERENT: Concerned with her interests, has difficulty recognizing the interests of others CONNOTATION: Recognizes the connotation that she is selfish but denies this is the case AFFECT: Distress BEHAVIOR: Believes she is self-centered from the feedback she has received from friends, she blames the fact of being an only-child for being self-centered angry (5) REFERENT: Becomes angry easily CONNOTATION: Anger is a defect of personality AFFECT: Concern BEHAVIOR: Attempts to self-analyse the reasons for her anger and to not be angry animator (4) REFERENT: Sometimes follows her own will in investigating possibilities CONNOTATION: There is a self will AFFECT: Self-determination, rebelliousness BEHAVIOR: Investigated taking astronomy at U. of Calgary despite parents directives, attempts to accomplish something every year, planned returning to China for a visit without telling her parents to ensure that they could not control her agenda dreamer (1) REFERENT: Thinks of possibilities with respect to astronomy, writing science fiction, imagining possible worlds CONNOTATION: These possibilities are luxuries that she may be able to afford, but dreaming about them in the present gives her pleasure AFFECT: Pleasure, hope BEHAVIOR: Plans possibilities, thinks unpractical questions when given the opportunity metaphor maker (2) REFERENT: Uses the metaphor of the robot to describe and to understand who she is CONNOTATION: She lacks free will, desires the command AFFECT: Does not like her robot self, yet finds comfort in it BEHAVIOR: Begins to make decisions in small ways, but seeks the direction of others while depreciating her "robot-like" nature self change (5) REFERENT: Plans to change to become more patient, less angry, more active CONNOTATION: She can become a better person AFFECT: Hope BEHAVIOR: Self analyzes, plans change inquisitive (2) REFERENT: Has a curiosity about how other people live CONNOTATION: Peoples' cultures are subject of relativistic influences that can be observed AFFECT: Curiosity BEHAVIOR: Travels to different provinces and countries observing and comparing traveler (2) REFERENT: Loves to travel to different provinces, countries CONNOTATION: Is an explorer, experiencer, gatherer of memories AFFECT: Curiosity, adventure BEHAVIOR: Travels and takes many pictures when she travels New memes that resulted from second interview Worker REFERENT: To work at a job for pay CONNOTATION: Must be familiar with the work environment and related fields AFFECT: Pressure to perform BEHAVIOR: Works fast, sometimes brings work home, engages in extra work-related reading. Christian REFERENT: Someone who believes in the teachings of Christianity CONNOTATION: Christianity teaches that people should help others because it is the good thing to do AFFECT: Pleasure and assurance that she is a good person BEHAVIOR: Attends church, prays, is helpful with other people Endnotes I Penfield thought that his inability to find a self in the cerebral cortext was evidence that a supernatural soul inhabits the body. II During he 19th century Jean Baptiste Lamarck proposed an model for evolutionary change in opposition to Charles Darwin's 'natural selection'. Lamark's theory of acquired characteristics suggested that traits or skills developed by an organism during its lifetime could, to some degree, be passed on to its offspring. Thus a horse-like animal stretching its neck to eat leaves in a tree would pass on a slightly longer neck to its offspring, with the result that in enough generations a giraffe species would evolve. This theory of evolution, as applied to the physical world, was discredited with Mendel's discovery of the gene. Dawkin's is suggesting, however, that when someone "knuckles down, racks his brain, musters his ingenuity, and composes or writes or paints or invents something" the cultural evolutionary process is Lamarckian; we see further, not because we stand on the shoulders of giants, but because we have benefited from a long series of incremental culturally transmitted changes. III Blackmore's (1999) conceptualization is based on a longer-term view of hominid evolution - approximately one million years, and uses the notion that memes can be spread by imitation without language. On the other hand Coyne (1999) is undoubtedly correct in his supposition that languaging has the potential to create more memes by many orders of magnitude, and if memes were to have affected brain size it would likely have occurred as a result of that increase in their prevalence. IV The study of the evolution of early Chinese science would provide an interesting comparison to Johnson's (2003) analysis of early Greek science. v See Appendix C for a series of open-ended questions based on those used by Damon & Hart (1988), but without their accompanying system of coding which has been criticized as excessively rigid (Wortham, 2001).