TABLE OF CONTENTS

Volume 3   Number 1      Fall 2008

Are You Like This...Or Just Behave This Way?
Katrin Kullasepp
Tallinn University, Estonia
pp. 69-92   (pdf)
     

ABSTRACT.  Becoming oneself occurs always within the context where intra-psychological functioning is interdependent with the inter-personal social world. Chaudhary (2008) stresses importance of culture and distinguishes human activity in its different forms that guide common features of identities among members within the same society—as in the case  of a person’s orientedness towards others in India. The question that emerges is how to explain construction of varieties of selves around a central dimension --self-other orientation-- within a similar socialization environment.  Identities involve features that represent tendencies which are in opposition to these that dominate within the given society at the given time. Chaudhary’s target article explores the Self-Other-Group dynamics and its role in individual-culture integration in developmental processes. Here I provide an additional—intra-psychologically focused-- look at the construction of context-based identity. In order to complement Chaudhary´s discussion on monologicality within the dialogical frame, I bring in a focus on ambivalence and demonstrate how it constitutes a core resource in the dynamics of dialogical self.

 
   

Keywords:  dialogical self, identity construction, hindrance as opportunity, as-if ambivalence