The Psychological Self as Actor,Agent,and Author

Abstract

The psychological self may be construed as a reflexive arrangement of the subjective “I” and the constructed “Me,” evolving and expanding over the human life course. The psychological self begins life as a social actor, construed in terms of performance traits and social roles. By the end of childhood, the self has become a motivated agent, too, as personal goals, motives, values, and envisioned projects for the future become central features of how the I conceives of the Me. A third layer of selfhood begins to form in the adolescent and emerging adulthood years, when the self as autobiographical author aims to construct a story of the Me, to provide adult life with broad purpose and a dynamic sense of temporal continuity. An integrative theory that envisions the psychological self as a developing I–Me configuration of actor, agent, and author helps to synthesize a wide range of conceptions and findings on the self from social, personality, cognitive, cultural, and developmental psychology and from sociology and other social sciences. The actor–agent–author framework also sheds new light on studies of self-regulation, self-esteem, self-continuity, and the relationship between self and culture.