Society in the self: a theory of identity in democracy 9780190687793, 9780190687823, 0190687827

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Society in the Self

Society in the Self A Theory of Identity in Democracy

H U B E RT J.   M . H E R M A N S

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1 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America. © Oxford University Press 2018 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmited, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permited by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Hermans, H. J. M., author. Title: Society in the self : a theory of identity in democracy / Hubert J. M. Hermans. Description: New York, NY : Oxford University Press, 2018. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identiiers: LCCN 2017038163 | ISBN 9780190687793 (hardcover : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Self—Social aspects. | Group identity. | Identity (Psychology) | Democracy. Classiication: LCC BF697.5.S65 H47 2018 | DDC 302.5/4—dc23 LC record available at htps://lccn.loc.gov/2017038163 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America

To my parents who, although they passed away a long time ago, are still living and guiding me in the intimate regions of my self and To my peers at primary school who, by their bullying behavior, unwitingly stimulated me to explore alternative routes in my life

Learning in a democracy is a continuing dialogue, both between people and within the self, and a dialogue assumes diferent and even contrasting positions. – he author

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

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Introduction: he Democratic Organization of Self and Identity 1. he Dynamics of Society-in-the-Self

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2. Positioning and Democracy in the Self

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3. Positioning and Democracy in Teams and Organizations 4. he Positioning Brain

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5. Social and Societal Over-Positioning: he Emergence of I-Prisons 203 6. Heterogenizing and Enriching the Self

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7. Dialogue as Generative Form of Positioning

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8. Dialogical Democracy in a Boundary-Crossing World:  Practical Implications 353 Glossary 399 References 401 Index 417

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

“Isn’t it time to stop this continuous writing of yours?” is a question oten asked me as an emeritus professor ater 40 years of working as a psychologist and social scientist at the Radboud University of Nijmegen. In my answer, I used to quote the Belgian novelist Hugo Claus who, in a television interview at the occasion of his 70th birthday, was confronted with the same question. He briely replied, “You can also ask me to stop breathing.” When I refer to this anecdote, people usually respond with a smile of understanding. I want to express my deep appreciation and gratitude to a special circle of friends and colleagues who have greatly inspired me to develop the positioning theory outlined in this book or have given their valuable contributions during the process of writing. I have been blessed to work with three commenters, Agnieszka Konopka, Annerieke Oosterwegel, and Peter Zomer, who have read all chapters in detail and given their extremely useful critical remarks. Moreover, ater each chapter they profoundly discussed with me the shortcomings of the initial texts and enriched me with numerous suggestions for improvement. Peter was very keen on conceptual clarity and consistency of the argument through all sections and chapters of the book. Annerieke had a sharp eye for the luency and “rhythm” of the text and helped me to link the present theory with other streams of thought. Agnieszka stimulated me to strive for a balance between reason and emotion and between verbal and nonverbal aspects of the theory. Usually, writing a lengthy book is the job of a hermit. However, thanks to the intense interest and unusual devotion of these dear colleagues, I had the feeling that they co-traveled with me through the emerging space of the book. heir (critical) way of understanding my texts deepened also my understanding of myself. I also feel indebted to neuropsychologists Marc Lewis and Herman Kolk, two internationally recognized colleagues from the Radboud University, who were willing to check chapter  4 in which I  have made an atempt to explore ix

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what positioning theory can learn from recent developments in neuroscientiic research. heir comments have stimulated me to sharpen and reine some of the neurological concepts relevant to the exposition of the theory. Apart from the commenters who have directly contributed to this book, I feel the need to express my gratitude to several colleagues and friends who have inspired me during the years preceding the writing of this book. Although the list could be long, I limit myself to a selected group of persons: My late friend and colleague Harry Kempen, a cultural psychologist, with whom I  published the irst article (American Psychologist, 1992)  and book (Academic Press, 1993) on dialogical self theory, always impressed me with his unique capacity to think across the boundaries of (sub)disciplines, a git that helped me to ind unexpected linkages between previously unrelated phenomena. hroughout the years of our cooperation, we felt located in a ield of tension between two streams of thought: one European and philosophical and the other American and empirical. his area of ambiguity greatly motivated us to explore linkages between divergent or contradicting approaches. During 25  years I  cooperated, as a co-therapist, with Els Hermans-Jansen, with whom I developed the self-confrontation method, published in our book Self-Narratives (1995). Applying the method in her independent practice gave me the opportunity to witness the oten dramatic changes in the selforganization of clients at turning points in their lives. Each client opened for me a new universe of meaning and, at the same time, each new client was a threat to my theory! Els also gave me the opportunity to apply a new method in her practice, the Personal Position Repertoire (PPR) method, which stimulated the further development of dialogical self theory, from which the present positioning theory is an ofspring. Jaan Valsiner coined the term “promoter sign” in 2004, which led me to introduce the notion of “promoter position” as one of the central concepts in the present theory. Moreover, Jaan stimulated me to launch the International Journal for Dialogical Science, to which he was willing to contribute as associate editor. In this context, I am also very grateful to Vincent Hevern, another co-editor who did the painstaking job of managing the journal. he contribution of Agnieszka Konopka was already mentioned. I feel the need to further express my gratitude for our stimulating cooperation in preparing and writing our book Dialogical Self heory (2010) and in giving many conference presentations and workshops together. She advised me to include the very useful spatial concept of I-prison in the theory. As a Buddhist, she taught me how to develop a “beginner’s mind,” a precious git that helps me to look at familiar people, objects, and even texts as if I see them for the irst time and retain an open perspective.

Acknowledgments

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here are four Japanese colleagues who provided the opportunity to spread the work of my colleagues and me in their country:  Masayoshi Morioka and Tatsuya Sato from Ritsumeikan University, Shinichi Mizokami from Kyoto University, and Reiko Nakama from Fukushima University. Masayoshi, Shinichi, and Reiko translated the irst book on the dialogical self (1993) in Japanese. Presently, Tatsuya and Masayoshi are inishing the Japanese translation of our 2010 book on the same subject. I am very indebted to three editors of international journals who gave me, together with changing teams of researchers, space to publish a series of special issues on the dialogical self:  Robert Neimeyer, editor of the Journal of Constructivist Psychology; Henk Stam, editor of heory & Psychology; and Jaan Valsiner, editor of Culture & Psychology. hey provided my collaborators and me with an ideal forum to spread our ideas. here were several colleagues with whom I had the privilege to cooperate in organizing the biennial international conferences on the dialogical self: Michael Katzko in Nijmegen, he Netherlands (2000); Leni Verhofstadt in Ghent, Belgium (2002); (late) Katarzina Stemplewska and Piotr Oles in Warsaw, Poland (2004); Miguel Goncalves and Joao Salgado in Braga, Portugal (2006 and 2018); Alex Gillespie in Cambridge, UK (2008); Stavros Charalambides, Athens, Greece (2010); Bob Fecho, Athens, Georgia (2012); Frans Meijers, he Hague, he Netherlands (2014); Piotr Oles, Lublin, Poland (2016); and again Miguel Goncalves, Braga, Portugal (scheduled in 2018). I remember these inspiring events with the greatest pleasure and gratitude. I also like to express great respect and gratitude to Dan McAdams who was willing to give several keynotes at our conferences and who made me aware not only of the close connection between narrative and dialogue but also of their differences. Ken Gergen, who also gave several keynotes at our conferences, shines for me as an inspiring and deep thinker on the meaning of “relational being” in our present society. he diferent views of Dan as a “unity thinker” and Ken as a “diversity thinker” created a fertile ield of tension that was highly valuable in developing the present theory. I also want to thank Roos van Riet, an experienced drawer, who succeeded in translating particular social relationships and emotions into facial expressions and body postures as presented in one of the igures in chapter 2; Gerhard Frensel, who designed the circle igure that appears in diferent chapters as a pictorial representation of the essence of the theory; and Leiba Stuart for her inal check on the English language. I want to express my great appreciation for three anonymous reviewers invited by Oxford University Press who have motivated me to revise parts of the book and add new ones. I am also impressed by the luent and stimulating cooperation

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with the staf members of the Press who were my very helpful guides in the inal stage of the book. Finally, I would like to thank my partner Josée Jeunhomme. Although hers is a very diferent ield, her interest and dedication made her a true companion during the writing of this book and the inevitable ups and downs that are part of such a process.

Introduction he Democratic Organization of Self and Identity he most violent element in society is ignorance. —Emma Goldman

Rather than considering society as an external cause or context, this book deals with society as working in the internal domains of the self. In a similar vein, democracy is not only treated as an organizing principle of a modern society but also, and even primarily, as having its fertile source in the deeper layers of self and identity. In addressing self and society in all their complexity and diversity, scientists have typically studied self as an entity or process in itself (e.g., self-consistency, self-enhancement, self-eicacy), with society considered as the external environment. hey do so on the (implicit) assumption that, although the self is continuously inluenced by society from the outside, it can be studied as a separate entity in itself. he problem of this self–society dualism is that it does not suiciently take into account the functioning of society within the self and the way the self acts upon this society from its own self-organization, as exempliied by phenomena, recently popping up in the social-scientiic literature, like self-sabotage, self-radicalization, self-cure, self-government, self-nationalization, and self-internationalization. As these phenomena suggest, the self contributes to and even shapes the society at large in and from its own internal workings. he book takes maters even one step further. It not only deals with the societal organization of the self but also poses the question whether the self is democratically organized. To what extent do the diferent self-parts (e.g., roles, emotions, imagined others) receive freedom of expression? To what extent are they treated as equal or equivalent components of the self? In analogy to the tension between freedom and equality in a democratic society, the question is posed how the self, in its organizing capacity, responds to the apparent tension between freedom and equality of the components of the self. A signiicant implication of this view 1

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is that diferences, oppositions, coalitions, conlicts, clashes, and power games exist not only between positions of participants of the society at large but also between the I-positions of the individual self. I will show that the intimate self–society connection has far-reaching consequences for such divergent topics as self-leadership, cultural diversity in the self, the relationship between reason and emotion, self-empathy, cooperation and competition between self-parts, and the role of the self in prejudice, enemy image construction, and scapegoating. I complete the book with an extensive discussion of the necessity and potentials of generative internal and external dialogue in our boundary-crossing world and with practical guidelines for the selfgoverning individual living in a democratic society in which the tension between social power and dialogue is more intense than ever before. he purpose of the book is to present an original theory on the “democratization of the self,” based on theoretical investigations, social-scientiic literature, neuroscience, and analysis of everyday life situations. he central thesis is that a democratic society is fostered by, and even in need of, a democratically organized self.

What Led to Writing his Book? During my search for the dialogical potentials of the self, I came across an article that was somewhat disturbing to me and continued to function as an insoluble contradiction in my thinking for several decades. It was Anthony Greenwald’s (1980) landmark publication he Totalitarian Ego: Fabrication and Revision of Personal History. Its centerpiece was the striking analogy between the organization of knowledge in the self and totalitarian information-control strategies as exposed in George Orwell’s (1949) 1984. In his portrayal of the self, Greenwald elaborated on three cognitive biases found in atribution research: egocentricity (perceiving one’s self as more central to events than it actually is), “benefectance” (perception of responsibility for desired, but not undesired, outcomes), and cognitive conservatism (the disposition to preserve existing knowledge structures together with a resistance to cognitive change). Orwell’s characterizations of thought control at the level of a totalitarian society could stand as a summary of cognitive biases at the level of an individual self. Although I found that the analogy between the egocentric nature of the self and the highly centralized totalitarian state was convincingly argued, I was confused by the contradiction between the self-centered nature of the individual person as depicted by Greenwald and the highly valued ideal of democracy that is seen by many as one of the most cherished acquisitions of human civilization. How can self-centered citizens it with a democratic society that requires them

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to decenter themselves as part of a larger community? Are self-centered individuals able to function in a democracy that invites them to be other-centered too? Are they able and willing to take responsibility not only for desired but also undesired outcomes? Are they able and willing to change their cognitive structures when confronted with nonconirming evidence or when they communicate with others who have diferent or contrasting views of life? hese questions allowed me to consider the cultural limitations to which the self is exposed. he Western self is not only centralized and individualized to a strong degree but also bounded. his was eloquently expressed by cultural anthropologist Cliford Geertz (1979) who deined the Western conception of the self as “a bounded, unique, more or less integrated motivational and cognitive universe, a dynamic center of awareness, emotion, judgment, and action organized into a distinctive whole and set contrastively both against other such wholes and against a social and natural background” (p. 59). he distinctive wholeness of the self was also discussed by Sampson (1985) who, from a social-constructionist point of view, depicts the Western ideal image of the self as an entity with razor-sharp boundaries between self and non-self, with the exclusion of the other as an intrinsic part of the self and as persistently involved in a pursuit of having the environment under perfect control. In a philosophical analysis, Dunne (1996) deines the modern sense of self as a “sovereign self ” that is above all “its own ground” (p. 137) and traces it back to Descartes’ rational knower whose I or ego has “no acknowledged complicity in language, culture, or community” (p. 138) (see also Gergen’s [2009] criticism of the “bounded self ” as a product of the Enlightenment; for elaboration see chapter 1 of this book). We are faced with a problematic contradiction in the heritage of the Enlightenment. Driven by its ideals of freedom and equality, it has stimulated the process of emancipation by opening the closed boundaries between higher and lower social classes, by stimulating women to broaden their role repertoire beyond traditional constraints, and by extending sexual freedom and variation beyond masculine ideals and patriarchal social structures. he opening of the boundaries between classes, sexual identities, gender roles, age groups, and cultural identities has led to an amazing expansion of the possibilities for the development of the self. At the same time, however, the Enlightenment has had the efect of fostering the ideal of a self-contained individualism that has constrained the self to its own individualized autonomy and has put the heavy load of selfesteem, self-realization, and self-development on the shoulders of its own sovereignty. he Enlightenment has provided us with an increasing multiplicity of identity and associated possibilities for psychological growth and development, but, at the same time, this multiplicity has to be realized within the “golden bars” of a self that is imprisoned in its own egocentricity.

Society in the Self

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he Core Idea of Positioning heory: Self as a Democracy he problematic contradiction between the egocentricity of a bounded self and the ideals and requirements of a democratically organized society instigated me to look for ways to overcome the separation between self and society, that is, the self considered as a purely inner reality with an essence in itself and a democratic society viewed as a surrounding structure in which diferent (bounded) selves are supposed to be capable and willing to cooperate and fulill their desires to their mutual beneit. My answer to this contradiction led to some questions that I posed to myself and served as searchlights during the years preceding the writing of this book: What would the self look like, when it would be considered as a democracy itself? How would the self function if considered as a micro-society in which its diferent parts would be organized in a democratic way? Would democracy be a viable metaphor for exploring the ways in which the self is positioning itself toward others and toward itself? Could this metaphor be proitable not only for the self but also for the society at large? Would the metaphor help to ind ways of overcoming the much-criticized self–society dichotomy and allow the construction of communication channels between self and society that would lead to their mutual beneit? In my search for answers to these questions, I developed a theoretical framework in which the self is proposed as an organized society of I-positions (e.g., I as professional, I as an immigrant, I as politically engaged), as intimately linked with the identity positions of individuals, groups, and cultures in the society at large. his “self-society” is organized in such a way that positions are allowed to communicate with each other, to express themselves from their own experiences and speciic point of view, and to contribute to the development of other positions in the self and to the positions of other people in the society at large. As I argue in this book, a democratic organization of the self adds value to both self and society in their interconnection.1

he Analogy Between Democracy in Society and in the Self At the end of the previous century, Amartya Sen (1999), Nobel prize winner in economic sciences, was asked by a leading Japanese newspaper what 1

he positioning theory proposed in this book is a step beyond dialogical self theory (Hermans & Hermans-Konopka, 2010). he present conceptual framework is formulated and developed as a theory on the democratic functioning of the self.

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he considered the most important thing that had happened in the twentieth century. Pondering this thought-provoking question, he realized that many things of gravity had happened during that century. he European empires, mainly the British and French ones that had dominated so many parts of the world for a long time, came to an end. here were two world wars that led to the untimely death of many millions. here was the rise and fall of fascism and Nazism. Moreover, the century witnessed the rise and fall of communism (as in the former Soviet Union) or its radical transformation (as in China). here was also a shit from the economic dominance of the West to a new economic balance with countries of East and Southeast Asia playing increasingly inluential roles. Sen realized that the past hundred years were not lacking in important events. Nevertheless, relecting on the many developments that had occurred in that century, he did not, ultimately, experience any doubt in choosing one as the preeminent development of that period: the rise of democracy. He would expect that, in the distant future, when people look back at that century, they will accord primacy to the emergence of democracy as the most acceptable form of governance (Sen, 1999). In his further relections, Sen (1999) observes that throughout the nineteenth century, theorists of democracy found it natural to discuss whether or not a country was “it for democracy.” In the twentieth century, however, theorists started to recognize that the question itself was wrong: “A country does not have to be deemed it for democracy; rather, it has to become it through democracy” (p.  4, emphasis added). he author views this “becoming” as a momentous change, as the potential reach of democracy is extended to billions of people, with their very diferent histories and cultures and disparate levels of aluence. I ind this dynamic view of democracy particularly germane for the central thesis as proposed in the present book. Democracy in the self is not to be conceived as a personality trait with individuals rated as below or above an average, and they are not to be judged as iting to a democratic society or not. It is rather a process that becomes true in its active realization. As I try to demonstrate with the dynamic positioning model, democracy is actually a desirable process of self-democratization. However, Sen (1999) is wondering:  What exactly is democracy? It would be a mistake to identify democracy with majority rule. Certainly, democracy includes voting and respect for election results and legal entitlements, he continues, but it also needs the protection of liberties and freedoms, the guaranteeing of free discussion, and the uncensored distribution of news and comments. He considers political and civil rights, especially those guaranteeing open discussion, debate, criticism, and dissent, as central to the process of generating informed and considered choices. Along these lines, he perceives democracy as a practice which “enriches the lives of the citizens” (p. 10, emphasis added). In line

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with this view, I make a strong case for the enrichment of the self as expressed by the emphasis on a broad bandwidth of open I-positions as a basis for dialogue, on balancing positive and negative emotions and feelings, on the importance of emodiversity (the health-promoting diferentiation within the domains of both positive emotions and negative emotions), and on the awareness and constructive use of shadow positions (chapters 6 and 8). Sen (1999) distinguishes three diferent ways in which democracy enriches the lives of the citizens. First, “political reedom is a part of human freedom in general, and exercising civil and political rights is a crucial part of good lives of individuals as social beings. Political and social participation has intrinsic value for human life and well-being” (p. 10, emphasis added). he positioning theory proposed in this book also emphasizes the freedom of any I-position to tell its own story and express itself from its own speciic point of view without being suppressed by any other position in the self. Democracy in the self resists a strongly hierarchical and rigid organization in which one or a few “dictatorial” I-positions reign the total space of the self, determining the values, purposes, and desires of the other positions from above. I-positions can be addressed by any other position and have the freedom to open or close themselves depending on their own intentions and the demands of the situation (chapter 2). Second, Sen (1999) proposes that democracy has “an important instrumental value in enhancing the hearing that people get in expressing and supporting their claims to political atention (including claims of economic needs)” (p. 10, emphasis added). In terms of the present theory, democracy in the self implies that social, political, economic, and spiritual I-positions receive atention from meta-positions that, as “leaders” in the self, have the task to take these claims into account in order to arrive at well-balanced decisions. he relation between meta-position and speciic I-positions in the self runs parallel with the same relation in teams and organizations in which leaders listen carefully to the speciic ideas, purposes, and stories of the members from the perspective of overarching and long-term meta-positions (chapter 3). hird, in Sen’s (1999) view the practice of democracy “gives citizens an opportunity to learn rom one another, and helps society to form its values and priorities” (p. 10, emphasis added). Likewise, in a democratically organized self I-positions have the opportunity to learn from each other in a generative dialogue that allows new and shared meanings to emerge on the interface of self and society (chapter 7). Moreover, the theory has made a strong case for positions in the self as adding value to each other as a result of this dialogue. In the macro-society diferent spheres of public life (e.g., education, science, health care) transport meaning to each other without any sphere (e.g., the economic one) becoming overly dominant (chapter 5). Similarly, in the micro-society of the self, diferent I-positions (e.g., I as a student, I as a scientist, I as a patient) are enriching each

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other without allowing any position (e.g., I as consumer) to overpower the other ones. Although Sen, in his elaboration of the relationship between democracy and richness, does not explicitly refer to the connection between learning and dialogue, he is very explicit about the importance of dialogue for democracy in general: “In fact, the reach and efectiveness of open dialogue are oten underestimated in assessing social and political problems” (p. 10).

Positioning heory as Spatial and Relational he positioning theory presented in this book is “spatial-relational” with change in the form of “repositioning” as its temporal dimension. When there is a position, there are always one or more other positions to which it is oriented. A crucial implication of this view is that between I-positions ields of tension are stretched that may function either as fertile soils for the emergence of new positions or, alternatively, as swamps in which one may get lost as a consequence of identity confusion or fragmentation. In the context of generative dialogue (chapter 7), I elaborate on the ield of tension as allowing space for the construction of “third positions” as bridging or reconciling two diferent or conlicting I-positions. he relevance of this ield is also illustrated by the concept of “atmosphere” and, more speciically, by an “atmosphere of trust” as a precondition to generative dialogue. Moreover, the ield provides a basis for the construction of a diversity of intercultural, transgender, transsexual, and interracial identities, which have the “civil right” in the self to inhabit and develop their own spaces, enabling them to escape the I-prisons of mutually exclusive options (e.g., belonging to one’s original or host culture, being man or woman, belonging to one or another sex, being black or white) (chapter 2; see also Hermans, Konopka, Oosterwegel, & Zomer, 2017). Even in those parts of the world where mixed identities are oicially and legally accepted, it is not evident that they have, as I-positions, suicient space in the self where they can feel accepted as equals. Even in tolerant societies such I-positions may be located in the danger zone of the self as caused by overt or hidden stereotyping, prejudices, and stigmatization (chapter 4). I propose that, in order to develop one’s I-positions and identities in the contemporary, increasingly interdependent world, one needs tolerance of uncertainty and the courage to enter one’s challenge zone (chapters 6 and 8). I-positioning is a form of placing oneself vis-à-vis someone or something else who is addressed as “another I” in the metaphorical space of the extended self (Hermans & Hermans-Konopka, 2010). herefore, I  understand the democratic self as a dynamic multiplicity and diversity of I-positions (e.g., I as a professional, I as a father, I as supporting a political party) in the landscape of the mind. his mind is intrinsically connected with the minds of other people (e.g.,

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my colleagues, my children, my opponent) who function as other I-positions in the extended domain of the self. Between these I-positions are ields of tension where processes of positioning, counter-positioning, and repositioning occur in the form of sign-mediated interchange, cooperation, and learning. In agreement with Mead (1934), the person knows oneself via “taking the role” of the other or, in our terms, via taking the position of the other as another I.

Self as Bureaucratic or Democratic Society? I am certainly not the irst one to propose considering the self as a society. In his groundbreaking work he Society of Mind (1985), computer scientist Marvin Minsky did a bold atempt to explain how the mind works as a society of agentic parts. In the 1970s, computer scientists were far enough to devise robot programs that could see and move well enough to arrange children’s building blocks into simple towers and playhouses. To address the complicated management problems required by these tasks, Minsky (1986) developed a model in which the mind is considered to function as a hierarchically organized network of interconnected parts that together function as a “society.” he mind of the child playing with blocks was imagined to contain a host of smaller minds, called “agents.” At a high level of organization, an agent called Builder is in control of the situation. he specialty of Builder is making towers from blocks. However, building a tower is too complicated a job for any single, simple agent. herefore, Builder asks for help from several other agents that work at the next lower level of organization. Each of these agents, in turn, asks lower level agents for help. As agents in a bureaucratic organization, the diferent parts of the mind work together to make it function as an organized whole. In Minsky’s (1986) model, only agents at the higher levels of the mind are able to become involved in dialogical relationships. In contrast, agents at the lower levels, although they are parts of a functioning whole, are oten not able to comprehend one another. Most pairs of agents cannot communicate with each other at all. With their own programs, they are simply doing their job without knowing anything about the performance of the other agents. hey can simply be put “on” and “of ” in the service of the higher agents in the organization. Only at these higher levels, agents may be involved in direct communication. Elaborating on his block building example, Minsky describes that a conlict may arise between Builder and another agent such as Wrecker who is working at the same level and is only interested in breaking down what Builder has achieved. At this higher level, agents may agree or disagree as a result of their communication. he agencies responsible for Building and Wrecking may negotiate by ofering support for one another’s goals: “Please, Wrecker, wait a moment more

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till Builder adds just one more block: it’s worth it for a louder crash!” (Minsky, 1986, p. 33). here are, however, critical diferences between Minsky’s society of mind and the self as society as proposed in this book. First, in the present theory, the basic concept is not an “agent” but a “position.” Between two or more positions in communication a “space” is stretched that functions as a fertile soil for the production of new positions that are qualitatively diferent from the original ones. Second, while the mind in Minsky’s model is supposed to function as a strongly hierarchical bureaucracy, the self in the present theory is conceived of as a less hierarchical, more decentralized democratic organization. hird, inspired by James’s (1890) notion of the “extended self,” the other in the present theory is not simply outside the self but functions as the other-in-the-self in its extended domain. Finally, while in Minsky’s model society is taken as a metaphor for the inner functioning of the mind, the main concepts of the present theory contribute not only to understanding the internal operations of the self (chapter 2) but are also applicable to democratically functioning dyads, teams, and organizations (chapter 3) and to a democracy as a macro-process (chapter 8).

Toward a Bridging heory: At the Interface of Disciplines he present theory has its historical roots in the American pragmatism in the line of William James and George Herbert Mead and in the Russian dialogical school in the tradition of Mikhail Bakhtin. he fertility and applicability of the theory are demonstrated by its links with recent developments in the literature from a diversity of (sub)disciplines. Among them are developmental psychology, social psychology, personality psychology, cultural psychology, sociology, cultural anthropology, social constructionism, neuroscience, political science, philosophy, literary science, and history. he theory can be labeled as a “bridging theory.” What kind of theory is that? As we have explained earlier (Hermans & Gieser, 2012), a bridging theory is neither a grand theory pretending to ofer a comprehensive explanation of human behavior nor a mini-theory focused on a narrow segment of human functioning. It is also not a conceptual system that atempts to integrate two or more existing mini-theories in a synthesizing way. Rather, it is a theory in which a larger diversity of theories, research traditions, and practices meet, or will meet, in order to create new and unexpected linkages. he label “bridging theory” does not mean that there are bridges only, connecting existing insights or practices without providing an original perspective. Instead, it is a theoretical framework in itself with an own identity and speciic conceptual framework. However, this framework is open and lexible enough

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to create a platform where diferent, separated and even contradictory conceptual systems research traditions and practices can get connected so that their views are broadened and linked with other approaches in service of their further development. A bridging theory can be placed in the tradition of the New Science as represented by the Italian philosopher and historian Giambatista Vico (1744/1968). In vehement opposition to the thinking and ahistorical mind of his contemporary Descartes, he put a premium on the constructive role of imagination used by humans to make their history. For him imagination, not to be equaled with unrealistic fantasy, was not only a way of interpreting incomprehensible phenomena but also a force in shaping the physical and social environment. He realized that, since ancient times, progress has been the result of inventions. herefore, he assumed the existence of a creative force, which he labeled as ingenium. Using this force, humans are able to alter their world and make history. Endowed with ingenium, they have the capacity to move things into “new relationships” (Hora, 1966, p. 241). his is precisely what the purpose of a bridging theory is: it wants to cross the boundaries of (sub)disciplines and look for new relationships between existing theories, empirical indings, and practices and use these relationship in the service of “making” self and society. As Vico says, “verare et facere idem esse” (knowing and doing are the same) (Hora, 1966, p. 237). Positioning is not only a way of knowing self and other but also of shaping them. In the course of this book, a diversity of theoretical approaches and a vast amount of empirical indings from very diferent disciplines and subdisciplines are presented. hese theories and indings are not to be understood as “proving” the existence of a democratic self. he presented theory is not to be seen as a representation of an existing reality. Rather, the theory serves as a construction that ofers a perspective on the relation between self and society from which existing reality is interpreted in a new and unusual way. In the context of this theory, trends in the literature, including a great deal of empirical work, are presented as arguments demonstrating that the democratization of the self is not only desirable but also realistic. he purpose is to create linkages between diferent research traditions in order to achieve a comprehensive theoretical construction with a broad picture view. At the same time, the theory aims to create bridges between theory and practice and to stimulate research. (For an overview of the main concepts of the theory, see the Glossary at the end of the book.)

Chapters of the Book As I demonstrate in chapter 1, the self is not only social but also societal. It is social in the sense that many one-to-one relationships between persons in the real world

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have their analogue in the relationship of the self with itself (e.g., self-protection, self-abuse, self-praise, self-disgust, self-admiration). However, there is another set of more recent developments that shows up in the literature in the social sciences and beyond, suggesting that also societal forms of positioning have their analogue in the organization of the self (e.g., self-sabotage, self-radicalization, self-cure, self-government, self-nationalization, self-internationalization). As a result, the contemporary self is loaded with a decentralized density and heterogeneity of oten contradicting I-positions, which broaden the range of possibilities for the developing self and, at the same time, challenge the self ’s capacity to realize an adaptive organization of these positions. Building on these observations, I introduce the concept of self-societalization, implying that the society at large personiies and individualizes itself via the self of the individual and, in turn, the self expresses itself as a highly dynamic and potentially creative microsociety that contributes to and transforms the society at large. In chapter  2 the theory’s central concept, I-position, including its extension “we-position,” is described as a spatial-relational act of an embodied self. It exists only in the context of other positions (e.g., I position myself as competitive toward a rival and as tender-hearted toward the person I love). he act of I-positioning is placing oneself vis-à-vis someone else. As a spatial-relational process it is taking a stance toward someone, either physically or virtually, and it is a way of addressing the other via verbal or nonverbal communications. he advantage of the spatial concept of positioning is that it allows the existence of a highly dynamic ield of tension between positions as an area for the experience of ambiguity and contradiction. Between otherwise dichotomous categorizations (like “man” vs. “woman” or “black” vs. “white”), mixed and ambiguous positions may ind their place (like transgender or biracial identities). Each position has the possibility to speak with its own voice, to tell its own story, and to express meanings from its own speciic point of view. However, when the self is populated by an increasing amount of diverse positions, as it is in a boundary-crossing and globalizing world, the self is at risk of becoming fragmented or ending up in a cacophony. herefore, some higherorder positions are needed to bring the necessary order in the self. Two positions are particularly signiicant as playing the role of “leaders in the self ”: (a) a meta-position that provides a helicopter view and fulills, in close cooperation with more speciic lower-order positions and constantly fed by them, an executive function in the decision-making process and (b) a promoter position that has a considerable openness toward the future, provides a sense of direction, and has the potential to produce a diverse range of more specialized positions that are relevant to the further development of the self. hree additional concepts, indispensable to the theory, are discussed: power distance, emotional distance, and communication channels between positions.

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Society in the Self

he purpose of chapter 3 is to demonstrate that the central theoretical concepts presented in the previous chapter on the level of the self can also be usefully applied on the level of teams and organizations. In this way, the conceptual structure provides a basis for facilitating an open communication between the levels of self, team, and organization and contributes to overcoming the self-society dichotomy. At the team level, I present the example of democratic leadership in a successful soccer team. At the organizational level, I discuss the leadership problems of two merging organizations and in that context dwell on Isaacs’ (1999) dialogical model, which deals with the communication between diferent member positions that are opposites of each other and mutually complementing at the same time. Dialogical relationships between these positions are considered to facilitate the functioning of the team as a whole. Inspired by the opening words of the Charter of the United Nations “We the Peoples” and its pretension to develop a “we-position,” I discuss some conspicuous aspects of the United Nations from the perspective of the present theory. Being aware of the astonishing complexity of this worldwide forum, I analyze some of its successes and failures. As it is well known, a democratically organized system has its apparent downsides. When participants are allowed to join a decision process and to talk from their own point of view, at least two problems should be taken into account: democracy is generally slow, and it is oten limited by a lack of knowledge of the participants involved. I propose the terms “lexible democracy” and “lexible democratic leadership” referring to moving up and down the power dimension as required in a rapidly changing and crisis-laden globalizing society. Chapter 4 starts with the consideration that the self can only function in participative and cooperative ways if the workings of the brain are supportive to such a democratic organization of self and society. Building on recent literature on the hemispheric specialization of the brain (e.g., McGilchrist, 2009; Schore, 2012), I argue for considering the other not just as purely external reality but as “another I-position” in the extended self. Elaborating on brain research and social psychological literature (and warning against the risk of false dichotomies), I discuss the relationship between emotion and reason leading to the distinction between emotional and reasoning forms of positioning. Furthermore, conscious and nonconscious layers of the self are distinguished, allowing the diferentiation of conscious and nonconscious positioning. Finally, these inclusive opposites— self-with-other, reason-with-emotion, and conscious-with-nonconscious—are combined in an elaborated position model that addresses both the power distance and the emotional distance between basic I-positions. he purpose of chapter  5 is to introduce the concept of “over-positioning,” which is not very diferent from the classic Greek notion hubris and derives from the assumption that any position runs the risk of arriving in an overdrive if it is

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not balanced by efective counter-positions. In order to deepen the potentials of this concept, the main part of the chapter is devoted to a comparison of the functioning of the self in two societal systems, Soviet communism and present-day neo-liberal capitalism. he central thesis is that Soviet communist system placed the other (the community) above the self (the individual), whereas the capitalist society in its neo-liberal manifestation places the self above the other. As examples of communist over-positioning, I dwell on its typical housing policy with its restrictions on personal space and private initiative and on its totalitarian policy that had the efect of transforming critical positions into anti-positions in the case of the so-called “dissidents.” More extensively, I elaborate on the implications of an over-positioning economy and the phenomenon of consumerism that may inally lead to a point that the self is locked up in an I-prison. Finally, I examine the potentials of the self to respond to forms of over-positioning. Actually, I  see the contemporary self as located in a very dynamic ield of tension between homogenizing and heterogenizing trends that pull the self into opposite directions and challenge its organizing capacities to the utmost. Whereas homogeneity as resulting from over-positioning is the cornerstone of chapter  5, heterogeneity, as relecting the diversity and decentralized richness of the democratic self, is the main theme of chapter 6. I refer to literatures that show that happiness is not a simple dichotomy or scale between “happy” and “unhappy” but that there are qualitatively diferent forms of happiness and unhappiness suggesting that one may be happy in one position but not in another one. Of special importance to the afective richness of the self is the phenomenon of “emodiversity” as referring to the health-promoting diferentiation within the domains of both positive emotions and negative emotions. In addition, I  emphasize the intrinsic value of negative emotions in response to traditions in psychology that propose the replacement of negative by positive emotions. Furthermore, I  argue that the richness of the self is promoted by taking one’s shadow positions into account (e.g., acknowledging one’s role in scapegoating and enemy image construction) that are generally perceived as unacceptable and disowned parts of the self. Finally, I present some case studies demonstrating that shadows are not necessarily a disadvantage to self and other in all circumstances and that they can be combined with other, more acceptable, positions through the formation of constructive coalitions. Chapter 7 is based on the assumption that generative dialogue is the highest form of communication and indispensable both for a democratic society and for a democratically organized self. he spatial and positional basis of dialogue is deepened by an extensive comparison of the views of two theorists who have given indelible contributions to the ield:  Mikhail Bakhtin and David Bohm. I show that there are fundamental diferences in their conceptions with Bakhtin proposing a broad view implying that dialogue, including learning, is everywhere

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Society in the Self

and from birth onward, while Bohm is ofering a more restricted vision proclaiming that (generative) dialogue is the result of learning. Building on these theorists I  propose a dialogical continuum in which generative dialogue is at the upper end of a continuum that also includes other forms of dialogue (e.g., debate, negotiation, persuasion). Depending on the demands of the situation, one may lexibly shit from one to another form of dialogue. I demonstrate how generative dialogue has the potential of creating “third positions” that are able to reconcile the conlict between two original positions and how they may function as starting points for the development of promoter positions. Building on the emotion-with-reason model and the consciouswith-nonconscious model as explained in chapter 4, the workings of generative emotion-reason and conscious-nonconscious dialogue are discussed. hese forms of dialogue are presented as alternatives for those conceptions that see dialogue as guided by reason or by conscious considerations alone. Finally, I discuss some factors that facilitate dialogue (e.g., tolerance of contradictions and uncertainty) and some factors that can be seen as debilitating dialogical relationships (e.g., stereotyping and narcissism). Chapter 8 is writen as an integrative chapter and brings together the main concepts of the theory in such a way that they allow some practical applications of the democratic self as a learning process. Building on elements of self– categorization theory (Turner, Hogg, Oakes, Reicher, & Wetherell, 1987), an integrative model is presented in which three levels of inclusiveness and their corresponding positions in the self are distinguished: personal (I as an individual), social (I as member of a group), and global (I as a human person). A democratic self requires the lexibility of moving up and down across these levels of inclusiveness and has to ind its way in ields of tension between dialogue and social power. On the level of society, the model receives inputs from three forms of democracy—cosmopolitan, deliberative, and agonistic democracy—with the last one focusing on the role of social power and emotions. he recognition of social power gives rise to the distinction between consonant and dissonant forms of dialogue, the later of which deals with diferences and conlicts in a world that is crossing social, national, and cultural boundaries. hree main requirements for a democratic self are outlined: (a) fostering a dialogical relationship between reason and emotion with emotion not as subordinated to reason but as supporting it, (b) stimulating tolerance of uncertainty in a globalizing and boundarycrossing world, and (c)  integrating shadow positions in the organization of a democratic self in order to avoid the destructive potentials of any good versus bad dichotomy.

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Message of the Book What then is the message of this book? It is the thesis that democracy as a botom-up process is ultimately rooted in a dialogical self. It is not the product of a top-down political organization of society, but it is in the hearts and minds of individual selves who, together with friends, allies, and opponents, are intrinsically motivated to give form to their society and add value to it. Ingenium and ethos are close allies in this theory. My message is an expression of trust in the self-governing potentials of the self and in readers who not only relect on the democracy in their own selves but also make it true. I have experienced the writing of this book as an adventurous travel that enabled me to entertain internal and external dialogues with colleagues working in a variety of research domains. his travel had its highs and lows, ofered fascinating panoramas, and sometimes gave me the feeling that I was at the edge of a frightening abyss. During this journey, my eyes were oten caught by the stimulating quotations of great thinkers who know the art of compressing a profound insight in the box of a few shining words. I limit myself to three that I ind particularly revealing as they highlight the relevance of learning, as emphasized in the inal chapters (7 and 8) of this book. One is atributed to Franklin D. Roosevelt: “Democracy cannot succeed unless they who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. he real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education.” In close proximity to this view, Nelson Mandela proclaimed:  “An educated, enlightened and informed population is one of the surest ways of promoting the health of democracy.” he one that touches the heart of the present book most directly comes from the mouth of Mahatma Gandhi: “Be the change you want to see in the world.” he message of the book is actually quite simple: Do you want a more democratic society? Start with yourself.

1

he Dynamics of Society-in-the-Self Not being able to govern events, I govern myself. —Michel de Montaigne

As many social scientists and philosophers have noticed, our self-ideal, most typical of Western cultures, is strongly inluenced by the Enlightenment view of individualized autonomy as based on a self-society dichotomy. As Sampson (1985) argues, the Western ideal image of the self is one with razor-sharp boundaries between self and non-self, with the exclusion of the other as an intrinsic part of the self and as persistently involved in a pursuit of having the environment under perfect control. Recently, this modern image of the self has been eloquently summarized by Richardson and Woolfolk (2013), who, building on the philosophy of Charles Taylor, conclude: “there is a deep metaphysical gulf between self and world, between the subjective and objective realms. Both the self and its inner-worldly experiences tend to be portrayed as self-contained ‘objects’ that have no deining relations or meaningful ties to anything outside their realm” (p. 18). Elaborating on this observation, Richardson and Woolfolk (2013) refer to the work of Dunne (1996) who deines the modern sense of self as a “sovereign self ” that is above all “its own ground” (p.  137). Dunne traces the sovereign self back to Descartes’ rational knower whose I or ego is “immediately, transparently, and irrefutably present to itself as a pure extensionless consciousness, already established in being, without a body, and with no acknowledged complicity in language, culture, or community” (p. 138). As separated from its social environment, the self has no extensions in space and, as an ahistorical being, it is loosened from being embedded in time. It has the laborious task of realizing itself as a highly individualized project (see also Gergen, 2009, who criticizes the “bounded self ” as emanating from the Enlightenment).

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From the Other-in-the-Self to Society-in-the-Self Despite the existence of a self-society split, there are traditions in psychology and the social sciences that have demonstrated that the other is an intrinsic part of the self. Diferent streams of thought have questioned the idea that self and other are mutually exclusive, as if the other can be conceptualized as “purely outside the self.” As opposed to this rather naive assumption, early Freudian psychoanalysis has demonstrated that the other (in the form of parental norms) is internalized into the self as a “superego.” Later psychoanalysts, known as “object relation theorists,” have shown how our selves are shaped by early family relationships and how these relationships orchestrate our interactions with others later in life. Developmental psychologists, in the tradition of Lev Vygotsky, have elaborated on the thesis that what takes place between caregiver and child is later on “interiorized” as a process within the self. Atachment theorists, in the line of John Bowlby, have suggested that signiicant others are organizing the self in the form of “internal working models” referring to the mental accessibility and responsiveness of the caregiver. Recent developments in social psychology have proposed the existence of “other-in-the-self ” models proposing that when being in a close relationship with another person, one includes in the self the other person’s perspectives, resources, and identities (e.g., Aron et al, 2005). Symbolic interactionists, in the tradition of George Herbert Mead, have argued that the (generalized) other is not purely outside the self but functions as part of the “Me” and in this way organizes rule-guided behaviors in society. hese developments have in common that they question one of the widely disputed heritages of a modern Enlightenment view of the self as an autonomous, individualized agency having its own exclusive ground and as having an existence “in itself.” Building on these views, I have two aims in this chapter: (a) to demonstrate that, in order to understand the workings of the self in the contemporary globalizing society, there is a diference between the “other in the self ” and “society in the self ” and (b) to argue that, as a self-relexive and self-organizing process, the self is involved in the construction of a “society-in-the-self.” What is the diference between the other in the self and society in the self and what is the relevance of this diference? When talking about “the other,” one may limit oneself to a description of another person, or a small group of people (e.g. parents or a family), as part of a social self, without saying much about the broader societal structures and paterns with their diversity of social expectations and institutions. he traditional theories of “internalization,” “introjection,” and “interiorization” usually describe processes that lead to the inclusion of others in the self, based on an implicit or explicit assumption that the otherin-the-self is originating from one person, from a small and homogeneous group

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or from a homogeneous society as Ritzer (1992) has observed in his critical discussion of Mead’s view. hese theories don’t say much about the way in which the broader globalizing society1 is working in the self, in a way that reveals a multiplicity and diversity of social and societal positions and their conlicting and contradictory nature. I want to show that the self is not only a meeting place of social one-to-one relationships or one-to-few relationships but also a multiplicity of positions relecting its participation in broader societal structures. So not only the relationship with the other is in the self, but also society as a cultural and institutional paterning of positions deines its nature. My second purpose is to expose a view that is contrary to the traditional idea that there exists a self that has an essence in itself, typically (but not exclusively) studied by psychologists, surrounded by a wider society, typically (but not exclusively) studied by sociologists, cultural anthropologists, and other social sciences. In contrast to this artiicial division, I expose a series of examples and developments in the social-scientiic literature that show that society is not something with an essence diferent from the nature of the self but as participating in its most intimate workings. It is my purpose to demonstrate that society, rather than being an “external” causal factor, is manifesting itself in the self and receiving there an answer from the same self. Self meets society in itself and, in turn, society meets the self in itself. Along these lines, I want to show that it is possible to bring self and society closer together than possible in any container view of self and identity. In order to build up the argument, I  start with some familiar examples that represent the usual social relationship of the self to itself (e.g., self-praise or self-destruction) and then move gradually to less familiar trends of a more societal nature (e.g., self-government, self-nationalization, or self-internationalization) that refer to the self as part of a globalizing world. Altogether, these societal examples demonstrate that there are trends in the social-scientiic literature that transcend any container view of the self as an individualized entity “in itself ” and that demand a broader, more open, and more comprehensive view of “self-societalization.”2 1 In a most general way, globalization refers to the process of international, interregional, and intercultural contacts resulting from the interchange of products, people, ideas, and worldviews. Such interchanges, including advances in transportations and telecommunications, are central aspects of globalization. As Marsella (2012) concludes, virtually all the deinitions of globalization acknowledge that “the process of globalization involves extensive and oten imposed contact among people from diferent cultures, nations, and empires with subsequent social, cultural, economic, and political interdependencies and consequences” (p. 456). 2 For the concept of ‘societalization’ see also sociologist Jefrey Alexander’s public lecture, University at Bufalo, titled “Social Crisis and Societalization: A Cultural Sociological Approach to the Financial Crisis, Church Pedophilia, and Media Phone Hacking” (November 17, 2014).

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In contrast to the container view of the self that has emanated from the selfother dichotomy and, even broader, from the self-society dichotomy of the modern self, the process of “self-societalization” transcends this split by placing society as an intrinsic part of the self. hat is, society at large personiies and individualizes itself via the self of the individual, and, in turn, the self expresses itself as a highly dynamic and potentially3 creative micro-society that contributes to and transforms the society at large. In other words, self, and society are not mutually exclusive projects but mutually inclusive processes, constantly involved in making up each other.

Diference Between the Other in the Self and Society in the Self Self-societalization as the central concept in this chapter is more than the equivalent of a purely one-to-one social relationship. For example, self-consolation is similar to consolation that one person gives to another person or similar to a group of individuals involved in consoling each other ater an accident. here are no explicit societal rules or institutions that regulate or dictate the way people give consolation to each other, unless society ofers existing rule-guided practices that organize societal events, as it happens at funerals, organized national mourning ceremonies ater a disaster, or an oicial praying to Holy Maria as consolatrix alictorum. Consolation as a social act is not identical to a societal event organized as a regulated or prescribed convention. One is free to create one’s own particular way of expressing concern to another person, by touching a hand, giving a warm hug, sharing a past event, writing a compassionate text, or just being present when words do not suice to express one’s feelings. A similar argument can be given when looking at other forms of social relationships that may be interiorized into the self: (self-)protection, (self-)compassion, (self-)consultation, (self-)honoring, (self-)negotiation, (self-)management, (self-)celebration, (self-)command, (self-)negotiation, (self-)redemption, and many others All these relationships may vary on a continuum ranging from personal and intimate to strictly organized, prescribed and institutionalized. Even an awkwardlooking behavior, like mutilation, may vary from an ultimate expression of 3 I use the term “potentially” because the self may relate to society also in damaging ways (see, e.g., the phenomena of enemy image construction and scapegoating in the service of self-protection, discussed in chapter 6). In turn, society may relate to the self in equally damaging ways (see, e.g., the imprisonment of the individual self in communism of the former Soviet Union and the widespread problematic inluence of present-day neo-liberalism, both analyzed as forms of societal “overpositioning’ [see chapter 5]).

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Table 1.1. Examples of Social and Societal Relationships in the Self Social Relations in the Self

Societal Relations in the Self

Self-protection

Self-sabotage

Self-compassion

Self-radicalization

Self-demanding

Self-cure

Self-consolation

Self-marriage

Self-ridiculing

Self-government

Self-criticism

Self-nationalization

Self-judgment

Self-internationalization

personal revenge by a betrayed husband or wife to an organized ritual of groups of soldiers who become involved in degenerating acts of mutilations of killed enemies. It can even be organized and institutionalized by governments. he relationship of persons with themselves are like relationships they have with other people. However, this thesis takes two steps, one more social and the other more societal. he relationships with oneself, as similar to that with others, can be social in the sense that it likens a relationship between one person and another one, where both give form to their relationship according to their personal preferences. In this irst step, one relates as a socius to oneself. As I demonstrate in this chapter, there is an additional step to make. he relationship with oneself takes the form of a society-in-the-self and, as such, enters the sphere of social expectations, social rules, and institutionalization. With this step I want to establish a irst basis for the exploration of the democratization of the self, a process which I discuss later in this book (particularly chapters 3–8). Next we move to an example, self-sabotage, that illustrates how society receives form in and by the self (for other examples, see Table 1.1).

Self-Sabotage: Ranking Yourself Lower than You Deserve here are concepts that may look a bit “strange” at irst sight, but they refer to phenomena that are actually more widespread than one may expect without further scrutiny. Bernice Buresh and Zuzanne Gordon (1996), co-directors of the Women, Press & Politics Project, an independent research group in Cambridge, Massachusets, specializing in nursing and media issues, depict subtle forms of self-sabotage. hey portray the case of nurses who unwitingly interact with doctors in underassertive ways at the expense of their professional prestige. Here is a

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description of a form of self-sabotage on the side of the nurses of some hospitals under investigation: Nurses at a major teaching hospital on the East Coast point with pride to their strong professional nursing department and collaborative physician relationships. At this hospital, nurses make rounds with physicians each morning and reportedly communicate their concerns as equal members of the health care team. Professionals from other facilities frequently visit to examine this collaborative model in action. In one of the units, though, the ostensible goals of this practice are contradicted by the way the participants arrange themselves to communicate with each other during rounds. he interns perch on an air conditioner ledge in front of the windows. he resident stands near a side wall facing them. he nurses fan out behind the resident. With her back to the nurses, the resident speaks to the interns, and they direct their responses to her. When the nurses provide information about patients, they tend to speak in deferential tones, and the resident barely turns her head. At another hospital that also boasts of its physician-nurse collaboration, a nurse needs to talk with a physician about a patient. When she inds the physician in the waiting room deeply engaged in a conversation with another physician, she stands quietly next to them. hey continue to talk without acknowledging her presence. Eventually the nurse shrugs and walks of, mutering that she’ll catch the physician later. (p. 22) As these instances suggest, self-sabotage is not a purely internal process in the self and not a purely one-to-one person communication problem. Diferent organizational models are at work, one explicit, the other implicit. Doctors and nurses are working in a hospital that on the level of words and missions is progressive in preaching a cooperative style of interaction. On the actual behavior level, however, the interactions relect the old conservative paterns typical of a traditional hierarchically organized hospital with doctors above nurses. In this case, selfsabotage implies a discrepancy between espoused ideals and actual practice: the nurses do not take the opportunity ofered by the values of the hospital. he institutional context as working in the self is also manifest in my own experience. I remember an instance of self-sabotage when I served as a soldier in military service when I was 21 years old. I was summoned to come to the room of the oicer in charge who would like to have me on the

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carpet for “misbehavior.” he reason was quite “stupid”:  he accused me of having placed the key of my cupboard not in my pocket, where it should belong, but on top of the cupboard itself (for me more easy to ind). While he was siting behind his big desk as an unassailable authority, I had to stand with my arms tight along my body. Although I knew for myself, before and ater this moment, that I had placed the key correctly in my pocket, the suggested power of his words, posture, and authority was that strong that I did not protest against his reproach and confessed silently. It didn’t occur to me to disagree! Apparently, overconformity with his authority suppressed my knowledge about the “truth.” I remember that moment vividly, because it strongly contrasted with my cherished I-position as independent thinker. What strikes me in this example is that I did not do something I rightly could have done: protesting against an apparently unjustiied accusation. he authority of the oicer was, at that moment, overwhelmingly present and it felt as if he took a central place in my own self. I wanted to behave in agreement with his orders, even when he said something that evoked disagreement within me. However, that disagreement was not strong enough to be directly expressed. Relecting on this event later in my life, I  realized that this happened in an institutional context where soldiers were systematically indoctrinated with the repeated message: “You do not think; we do that for you!” Apparently this message was strong enough to organize my own self in conformity with his position as authority and to drive me into the corner of self-sabotage. We now move to the analysis of a phenomenon, self-radicalization, in which the power of the society-in-the-self and the active role of the self becomes even more apparent.

Self-Radicalization: he Slippery Slope of Violence In a profound analysis, psychologists Clark McCauley, co-director of the Solomon Asch Center for the Study of Ethnopolitical Conlict, and Sophia Moskalenko, a research fellow at the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, consider the process of political radicalization as a continuum of increasing extremity of feelings, beliefs, and behaviors that justify intergroup conlict and violence (McCauley & Moskalenko, 2008). he authors pose the intriguing question of how individuals or groups get in situations of increasing conlict and violence. As the authors observe, terrorists and political extremists receive overwhelming public atention through frequent media exposure. However, they may be

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the apex of a pyramid. At its base are those who sympathize with the goals of the terrorists but are not actively involved in their actions. In the political conlict in Northern Ireland, for example, the base of the pyramid was occupied by all those who were in support for the IA and who agreed with “Brits out.” Moving from the base to apex, one inds at higher levels of the pyramid decreasing numbers but increasing radicalization of beliefs and behaviors. Central to the analysis of radicalization is the gradient that distinguishes terrorists on top of the pyramid from their sympathizers at the base. herefore, the researchers try to understand the movements of individuals from the base to the more extreme levels of violence at the apex. At that point, they address the process of self-radicalization, as observed in some social-psychological experiments. One of the most impressive examples of the power of self-radicalization is found in Milgram’s (1974) classic experiments on obedience. Normal individuals were placed in the role of “teacher” and instructed by the experimenter to give increasingly higher levels of shock to a protesting “victim.” his victim assumed the role of “learner” in a simple memory task but was actually an accomplice of the experimenter. Each time the “learner” made a mistake, the teacher was instructed to administer a shock by pressing a buton. With successive mistakes, the shocks increased by 15 volts, starting with a minimum of 15 volts and going up to a maximum of 450 volts. Complete obedience on the part of the teacher was deined as going up to the maximum of 450 volts. he appalling result of this experiment was that 60% of the teachers were found to be completely obedient.4 Commentators of this type of experiments, with an experimenter requiring obedience of the teacher, have oten suggested that it is the authority of the leader that makes the teacher comply in an unfamiliar situation. herefore, McCauley and Moskalenko (2010) also discuss a less well-known variation of this type of experiment in which it is not the experimenter who gives instructions to increase the shocks but a “co-teacher” who comes up with the idea. In this alternative procedure, the co-teacher, who actually is another accomplice of the experimenter, asks the questions, while the naïve teacher gives the shocks. At some point, the experimenter is summoned away for a “phone call” and, while he is no longer in the room, the co-teacher proposes to raise the level of shocks with each mistake. Despite the fact that the experimenter and his authority are absent in this alternative experiment, 20% of teachers go up to administering the maximum of 450 volts. 4 One of the factors inluencing obedience is the physical proximity of experimenter and learner. When the experimenter and learner are in diferent rooms, with the experimenter giving his instructions by phone only 20.5% go to 450 volts (Reicher, Haslam, & Smith, 2012). Apparently, the direct physical contact with the prestigious experimenter puts more pressure on the participants to continue delivering shocks of a higher level.

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As the authors discuss, a most plausible explanation of the progress in administering shocks, in quite some cases to the maximum level, is that “each shock becomes a reason to give the next shock. he closely graded shock levels represent a kind of slippery slope in which refusing to give the next shock requires recognizing that there was something wrong with giving the last shock. If 300 volts was ok, how can 315 volts be wrong? But if 315 volts is wrong, how can 300 volts be right?” (p. 420). Apparently, the slippery slope creates a situation in which there is no clear “stop sign,” so that self-radicalization represents a selfjustifying process on a sliding continuum.5 In a similar way, the authors analyze another famous experiment in which self-radicalization was observed: the so-called prison experiment, performed in the early 1970s by psychologist Philip Zimbardo and colleagues (Haney, Banks, & Zimbardo, 1973). In this study, male students, who were considered to be psychologically stable, were randomly assigned to take the role of either a guard or a prisoner in a simulated prison situation. It appeared that within the time course of just a few days, the guards’ behavior gradually escalated, in the form of humiliation and punishment. he dehumanizing treatment of the prisoners started from making them do push-ups and inally led to forcing them to act out sexually suggestive plays. he planned two-week of research on social processes in prison life had to be terminated ater only six days, because the guards became more and more cruel and even sadistic while the prisoners became increasingly depressed and exhibited signs of extreme stress. In their comparison of the obedience and the prison experiments, McCauley and Moskalenko (2010) conclude that in both experiments there is a patern of slowly increasing radical behavior that is harmful to others. hese experiments demonstrate the power of self-radicalization and self-persuasion in justifying one’s own behavior, as expressed in postexperimental inquiries:  “Self-radicalization 5 he slope, however, is not entirely continuous. In a reassessment of the Milgram experiments, Reicher, Haslam, and Smith (2012) have studied the points at which participants decide to withdraw from the task of administering shocks to the learner. he irst point at which this is likely to occur is 150 volts (37% of participants halt at this point). At this point the learner complains about his heart problem and asks to be let out of the study. A second key point is 315 volts (where 11% of participants halt). At this point the learner says that he refuses to answer anymore and that he is no longer part of the study. In agreement with Packer (2008), the researchers argue that a key reason for withdrawal at these particular junctures is a change in their identity. At the start of the experiment, they are atuned only to an identity that they share with the experimenter (as collaborators in a legitimate scientiic enterprise). At the 150-volt point they become aware of a competing social identity (as moral citizens in the world) where they feel responsible for the well-being of the learner. Apparently, they arrive at a point where they feel torn between two competing voices that are making contradictory demands upon them. Stopping or continuing at these junctures depends on the predominance of one of these identiications. For a critical review of the Milgram experiments, see Brannigan, Nicholson, and Cherry (2015).

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is a slippery slope of increasingly extreme behaviors, with increasingly extreme reasons and justiications icing the slope” (p. 421).6 For sure, it would be misleading to see self-radicalization as a purely internal process performed by an individual in social isolation. As Neumann (2013) comments, notions as “self-radicalization” and “lone wolves” have received widespread atention, particularly since the actions of wannabe terrorists and the Tsarnaev brothers who carried out the Boston bombings. What was striking in these cases is that they had no face-to-face contact with al Qaeda recruiters. However, this does not mean that they were involved in these actions on their own. Actually, in these cases and many others, the Internet provides plenty of opportunities to participate in jihadist communities. In the era of social media, potential terrorists may be physically on their own but actually far from lonely. Online forums provide them with opportunities for social interaction and connectivity that may be more accessible than with their physically close friends, colleagues, and family. Mostly, self-radicalization is part of a broader social context that, either physically or virtually, functions as a facilitating environment. hey participate in vibrant (virtual) countercultures that tend to glorify terrorism and celebrate atacks against innocent civilians. What I want to show is that self-radicalization, both in the discussed experiments and in the societal context that facilitates it, is neither a purely individualized process taking place within the “walls” of the self nor a purely social process of indoctrination or determination by external social forces. here is a deeper commonality between self and society:  the very process taking place in society, between people, can also, and at the same time, be observed in the household of the self. Obedience to an authority or receiving the position of guard in a prison may lead, under speciic circumstances and depending on individual diferences, to antisocial or illegal behavior. However, at the same time there is something going on in the self that contributes to this self-escalating process. his “something” is not simply the product of a causal determination by an external force but it is something that the self is doing to itself and that is facilitated by social or societal processes that are working in the self. 6

Like Milgram’s obedience study, the Stanford Prison Experiment is far from undisputed. Since its publication, a sizeable and critical literature has emerged, leading to its status as one of the most discussed and researched studies in the history of psychology. As Bartels (2015) concludes, much of this critical literature challenges the assertion that the study demonstrates the “power of the situation” and the “banality of evil.” In part, these challenges rest on various methodological problems of the study including the authoritative inluence of the prison superintendent (Zimbardo), the lack of realism of the artiicial prison, and the potential selectivity of the sample. Moreover, a strict situationist interpretation of the study is hindered by the inconsistencies in guard behavior (there were not only “bad guards” but also “good guards”) and by failures to replicate the indings.

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From a positional point of view, the phenomenon of self-radicalization raises an important question: What happens in someone’s position repertoire when moving over the sliding slope of self-radicalization? When the participant in an obedience experiment, in a prison situation or in a situation of gradually increasing political extremism gradually moves further, then, apparently, the diference between the previous step and the present one is not big enough to give a reason convincing enough to stop the chain of behaviors. You just do not see that it makes a diference. Suppose, you make a picture of yourself each day from your 20th to your 70th birthday. When you look each day at your picture of yesterday, you do not see any diference in age. However, when you compare the photo of your 20th with that of your 70th (or even much earlier) then you can be shocked by the apparent age diferent: you were a young hero and now an old bag and the two feel as qualitatively diferent. Given the special conditions as exempliied in the discussed experiments, it is possible that a person changes from the position of “teacher” to the position of “killer” (remember the increasing volts in the obedience experiment) without noticing at any moment a qualitative change. here is no point on the scale where the participants realize that they have become a killer, which they were not at the previous step. One could be able to see the change of position, if one could look at oneself from a meta-position, broad and encompassing enough to notice the qualitative diference between them, including their afective and moral meanings. Such a meta-position can also be ofered by another whose perspective on your changes is broad and diferent enough to make one aware of the qualitative change. Take this personal example. As a boy of approximately eight years old, I started to become aware of the important role of money and discovered what kind of delicious things can be bought by its possession, like candy, ice cream, and chewing gum. In my parents’ home, where both my father and mother were involved in running a busy bakery, it was easy to ind money because it was sometimes just available in an open cupboard. I started to take a small nickel but, as my “crime” was never detected, I raised the amount slightly till it became a litle over a Dutch guilder. As usual in Catholic families, I went to church regularly to make my confession. One day, I  was siting in the dark confessional, waiting until the priest would “open the gate” and give his blessings. Ater he had spoken his irst ritual phrases, I said to him that I had taken away some money in my parents’ house. With a stern facial expression, he asked: “How much did you take?” I felt forced to mention an amount and answered with the required guilty atitude: “Two guilders.” His posture became more straight and his voice louder:  “Two guilders?!” and he barked right

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into my face: “When you go on in this way, you will become a thief!” Abruptly, he gave me the standard blessings and let me in shock: I as sweet-lover, in need of some pocket money, could I become a thief!? his warning was strong enough for me to stop taking money, at least keeping the amount at a “reasonable” level. From that moment on, I was aware of the existence of a issure between “taking some money” and becoming a thief. Self-radicalization in combination with self-escalation is just one example of the thesis that processes that take place in society can also be observed in the workings of the self. here are other instances that reveal the societal nature of the self. One of them is self-cure.

Self-Cure in Integrative Medicine: he Doctor in the Patient For more than 30 years medical scientist Volkel Diehl has been involved in basic and clinical research to investigate and defeat the Hodgkin/Reed-Sternberg cells in the laboratory. During his 30-year leadership of the Hodgkin Study Group, is seeing himself as a bridging person between science and the clinic. However, he realized quite late in his career that there is another bridge to cross for oncologists in order to connect two pillars: one consists of the principles of evidencebased medicine; the other refers to the subjective, psychological reality of his patients. “Integrative oncology” as he calls it, requires the doctor to see with two eyes: one focused on the maximal kill of the tumor cells and the other atentive to the sufering face of the patient and their need for empathy. As Diehl (2009) outlines, integrative medicine aims to give incentives and practical assistance to patients to detect and realize their own resources of self-protection and resistance to the adverse consequences of anticancer therapy. here is a growing movement among oncologists and cancer patients in Germany and Switzerland who unite themselves under the banner “Patients” Competence’ that aims to uncover the “doctor in the patient” (p.  321) as Paracelsus deined it many centuries ago. his movement embraces the insight that patients subjectively want to understand their illness and want to empower their self-healing capacities—salutogenesis—as a meaningful response to their disease. Representatives of integrative medicine become more aware of the dichotomy between the perceptions of cancer patients who are confronted with an existential experience and the focus of those research-oriented scientists who view patients as subjects in a randomized clinical trial. In order to expand

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traditional medical treatments, proponents of integrative medicine develop programs that inform, educate, and support patients in coping with their disease and life both during treatment and aterwards. Available complementary interventions include, among others, art-painting-sculpture therapy, gymnastics, physical exercise, music therapy, voice training, dance therapy, and tai chi (Diehl, 2009). here is a further step to make. Under the supervision of medical scientist Lucien Engelen a group of medical workers at the University of Nijmegen in the Netherlands are united in an innovate project named “Health 2.0.” hey are inspired by the idea that a new relationship is emerging between care providers and patients that lourishes under the name of “participatory health care.” In this model, patients and physicians design treatment in cooperation. Doctors ask their patients to tell them about their experiences and opinions, and closely involve them in decision-making, from prevention to investigation, and from treatment to recovery (Engelen, 2011). In this way, patients are empowered with a voice of their own. One of the participants in this project, Bas Bloem, a specialist in Parkinson disease, pictures his approach this way: “Should I give the patient a medicine that does not work, then it is my mistake. If I explain to the patient that I am hesitating between two kinds of medication, and we decide together which we are going to try, then we can jointly claim success if it works, and share in the failure if it does not work” (Engelen, 2011, p. 12). In giving form to this alternative patient-doctor relationship, he has restructured the spatial design of his room: “Now doctors are God. But they ought to become a guide, a coach, who supports people in making decisions. hat is absolutely not threatening, it will just make the work more enjoyable. I prefer a level playing ield, without hierarchy. In my oice there is a table with four chairs around it. I do not have my own desk. People irst get confused: “Where should we sit down, doctor?” I’m not above them, I just sit around the table with them” (p. 12). One of the centerpieces of this approach is the use of technology, explicitly not as an end in itself but as a means. Of course, many patients come in with a considerable amount of knowledge about their disease, informed as they are by the Internet and sometimes they know more than their physician. In this project some doctors ofer Twiter consultation hours that can be easily combined with Internet information. However, the use of the Internet, Twiter, and webcams is just a beginning. In a TV program7 about Project 2.0 more advanced technologies were discussed. One of them is the use of a “healthPatch,” a biosensor worn on the patient’s chest to measure caloric burn, heart rate, and other vital signs. Such a device would 7

Tegenlicht, April 27, 2014.

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have a wireless connection with the doctor who could then provide remote care. Another development is the so-called “ViSi-Mobile System,” a platform for comprehensive monitoring of vital signs that is designed to keep clinicians connected to their patients, whether in or out of bed, or while in transport. Also in such long-distance contact, patients who are not in the immediate neighborhood of the doctor are required to play an active role in the form of self-care. One of the interviewed doctors is quite sure about the necessity of this form of medical assistance: “he necessity is blatantly clear. Elderly people stay at home longer, there are more and more chronically ill people. If you wish to help them all, you will have to work diferently. Less direct contact does not mean that your patient is less central” (Engelen, 2011, p. 15). he participatory model brings both the patient and the doctor in a diferent position: the doctor has to add the position of coach to his repertoire and the patients have to develop the “doctor in themselves.” his requires both of them to develop their dialogical capacities in order to be prepared to take the position of each other. An essential feature of a dialogical relationship is the ability to take multiple “levels of intention” into consideration. he doctor is supposed to think in this way: “I’m aware [level 1] that it is your wish [level 2] that I take into account . . . [level 3].” his is diferent from the traditional model where doctors can permit themselves to reduce the levels of intentionality in their interactions when they take decisions on the basis of objective medical information only: On the basis of this evidence, I decide that it is best to give him this medication (only one level of intentionality). Also from the part of the patient, this model needs a more intentional complexity: “I know [level 1] that my doctor wants [level 2] that I feel . . . [level 3].” his change of relationship requires a learning process for medical staf who are trained in the traditional relationship where only one person is supposed to be knowledgeable. In addition, this approach requires from patients to be knowledgeable about their own wishes and needs and are able to take the position of the physician and ask the appropriate questions. In a participatory model, two people are cooperating each with their own speciic expertise and capacity to take each other’s positions (Bohart & Tallmann, 1999; Hermans, 1996; Hermans & Hermans-Jansen, 1995). his model requires the self to develop itself as part of changes in the broader societal context. In summary, advances in medical treatment show how scientiic, technological, and societal development are intimately interconnected. A  signiicant implication of this interconnection is that the position repertoire of both patient and doctor is becoming broader and more diferentiated. Patients are not only patients in the traditional sense of the term but also the doctor of themselves. Doctors, on their side, are no longer the only expert but have to take into account, and even make active use of, the patients in themselves. As the traditional treatment model changes into the direction of a participatory model, the

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dialogical capacities of both patient and doctor are challenged. his change does not only take place in the “external society.” Rather, society and its developments have deep implications for the self as a society of I-positions. As the changing relationship between doctor and patient suggests, developments in the macrosociety are not only working in the self; they also require, at the same time, rom the self an increased level of self-empowerment. In order to elaborate on the interconnection of self and society, we next look at a relatively new and controversial phenomenon, self-marriage, as an example of what can be described as a form of “self-institutionalization.” As I will show, this trend is not only an example of an increasing process of self-societalization but at the same time an expression of an atempt to keep together the decentralizing I-positions in a rapidly changing social and societal environment.

Self-Marriage: An Institutionalized Form of Self-Love In the American Prospect, Samhita Mukhopadhyay (2012), discussed the case of Nadine Schweigert who, in front of a room illed with family and friends, married herself. his is only one example of an increasing number of people, mainly women, who decide that they want to be a good and trustful partner to themselves and wish to celebrate and conirm this in the form of an oicial event. he upcoming phenomenon of self-marriage, or sologamy as it is also called, coexists with a decline of the number of conventional marriages over the past decades. he article contains no statistics about self-marriage but it does mention the decrease of conventional marriage. It refers to statistics of the Pew Institute, which calculated that in 2011 barely 50% of Americans were oicially married, a sharp decline from 1960 when over 72% of Americans over 18 had a married status. he phenomenon of self-marriage seems to be at odds with the idea that the ultimate ideal of many is to ind the “one great true love.” he same article quotes Sasha Cagen who comments on the growing desire of women to marry themselves: “he common theme in most of the stories that I hear is a commitment to take care of oneself as one hopes or imagines that a lover would. Women also frame self-matrimony as a unique solution to the problem of women sacriicing their own needs in a relationship. Marry yourself irst, they say, before marrying anyone else.” As one would expect, self-marrying is highly controversial. While opponents complain that self-marriage relects American individualism gone awry, proponents claim that marrying oneself is an empowering ceremony of self-love, and they see the push to marry as an expression of the conventional pressure to keep women in their traditional roles as wives, mothers, and caretakers. As a parallel,

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they refer to anti-gay marriage advocates who used to argue that gay marriage would ruin society. Similar arguments are now extended to women who marry to themselves. he 2014 Self-Marriage Ceremonies Newsleter8 provides this deinition: “SelfMarriage is the commitment to live what we know to be true in our hearts. It is the commitment to radically honor, value, and practice self-love and selfcompassion in order to live a beter life and help minimize the collective sufering of the world.” Four components of self-marriage are listed: (a) becoming your own lover, best friend, and parent/child; (b) connecting with and commiting to your deeper purpose: (c) uniting all the contradictory and conlicting aspects of yourself; and (d)  harmonizing your external relationships and circumstances. In order to give a feel of what may motivate a person to marry herself, I select some notes of Katalin Koda (2013) who shares her relections on the personal meaning of her self-marriage: In customary marriage, most people use traditional vows or write their own that are then spoken aloud in front of a witness to honor a commitment to another person. However, in the case of self-marriage, we write and say vows to ourselves. his, on its own, holds an immense power. Vows are a responsibility; they are an act of holding ourselves accountable. hey are a statement of clarity about our commitment to self. [. . . ] Although I wasn’t certain at the time I chose to marry myself how this related, it became clear during the process. One of my vows stated my wish to call back all parts to myself. And this is the core of selfmarriage, to reintegrate each and every part of our being—our self-love, our inner wisdom. To call back all the parts that have been celebrated, explored and accessed as well as the parts that have been traumatized, oppressed and pushed into submission. his is a reclaiming, one that allows for a more multidimensional expression. [. . .] Ater the ceremony, I felt a profound shit within. I felt, for the irst time in my life, a complete alignment with my purpose on earth. here was a feeling like I clicked into place. [. . .] Far from narcissistic, I actually found the experience of self-marriage to be one of the most humbling, loving and direct methods to surrender my smaller ego self to the larger self of my inner authentic being.

8

March 30–June 8, 2014

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In my own country, he Netherlands, there are websites ofering procedures and ceremonies for self-marriage. hey publish manuals for “a happy marriage to yourself.” he events are organized in colorful and careful ways and the organizers provide a marriage certiicate, wedding ring, wedding cake, website facilities, and workshops. he intention behind self-marriages is not new at all. Its foundation is about self-love. Already in one of his irst books, Erich Fromm (1947/2002) proclaimed that persons are only able to love productively if they are able to love themselves. He claimed that selishness and self-love, far from being identical, are actually opposites. Self-love became even one of the keystones of humanistic psychology. Rogers (1961), for example, considered self-love or “unconditional positive self-regard,” as a precondition for loving other people. In self-marriage, self-love receives just an institutionalized form. he aim to keep together the contradictory and opposing aspects of oneself, as desired by self-marrying people, was earlier advocated by Jung (1959), when he suggested that the anima, as the feminine part of the self, and the animus, as the masculine part, should be kept together in what he described in terms of a coincidence of opposites (coincidentia oppositorum). It is not my intention to promote self-marriage or to pretend in any way that it is a perfect alternative to conventional marriage (self-divorce numbers are unknown). I just want to refer to this phenomenon as a recent trend that demonstrates the workings of society in the self, expressed in the form of selfinstitutionalization. At the same time it exempliies a self that, in its response to a rapidly changing and decentralizing society, tries to maintain its coherence and integration. In order to further explore the workings of society in the self, and the breadth of its emergence, we next make a jump to political science.

Self-Government: Democracy in Need of Personal and Social Responsibility Barbara Cruikshank, a political scientist at the University of Minnesota, is interested in modern and contemporary social and political theory and in the relationship between power and knowledge. In her work she demonstrates that democracy is more than voting behavior, becoming involved in elections, or being knowledgeable about political party programs. In her view, individuals in a democracy become self-governing citizens, through the small-scale and everyday practices of voluntary associations, reform movements, and social service programs. In this section, I delve a bit deeper into one of her articles (Cruikshank, 1993)  that I  ind particularly compelling because it relates the phenomenon

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of self-government to the importance of personal and social responsibility in present-day society. One of the refreshing proposals of the author is that she invites us to look in a diferent way at self-esteem that she regards not as a property of an essentialized, individualized, and self-contained entity but as emanating from socially and politically engaged individuals who are aware of their personal and social responsibility. In her celebrated article “Revolutions Within: Self-Government and Self-Esteem” (1993), she writes: “A link is established between the individual’s goal of achieving self-esteem and the social goal of eliminating child abuse, crime and welfare dependence. hose who undergo ‘revolution from within’ are citizens doing the right thing; they join programs, volunteer, but most importantly, work on and improve their self-image” (p. 330). his improvement results from an increased self-empowerment: Individuals must accept the responsibility to subject their selves, to voluntarily consent to establishing a relationship between one’s self and a tutelary power such as a therapist, a social worker, a social program, a parenting class, what have you. Consent in this case does not mean that there is no exercise of power; by isolating a self to act upon, to appreciate and to esteem, we avail ourselves of a terrain of action, we exercise power upon ourselves. (p. 330) In this political view, the invitation to self-government and democracy is extended away from political institutions and economic structures and moves toward the political goals of participation, empowerment, and collective action that directly address the societal potentials of the self. Rather than the personal becoming political, the political is becoming personal. Only if government is landing to the selves of socially engaged individuals can a society become “really” democratic. As Cruikshank emphasizes, a society in which a citizen is subject to the rule of another, even when these others are elected representatives building their own political niches, is, ipso facto, not a democracy. Democratic citizens who participate directly in government, materialized in self-rule, are able to avoid subjection to political structures that otherwise have the degenerating efect of alienating citizens not only from each other but also from themselves. Indeed, autonomy in a relational sense is a precondition for democracy to work.9

9 Similar to Cruikshank, Buchholz and Rosenthal (2000) discuss the relation between democracy and the self. Building on the philosophy of John Dewey, they emphasize the importance of common values that foster creative intelligence and imagination in the self of its participants: “hese values, prized in common, foster aesthetic and moral sensibility and a concomitant atunement to the other, creative intelligence, imagination, and a healthy common sense rooted in the cultivation

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At the end of her analysis, Cruikshank (1993) concludes that “Self-rule remains essential to democratic stability, I argue here, and so the relationship of self to self is a political relationship, although one that is more dependent upon voluntarily applied technologies of selhood than upon coercion, force, or social control engineered from above” (p. 341). I am particularly appreciative of the proposal to see government as having its prolific basis in self- governance as it shows that the self is not simply led or determined by some outside agency but has a “societal fire” inside. It is not acting as a container self that responds to an external societal reality. On the contrary, it is acting on itself as part of the society at large. This society is not functioning as a surrounding social milieu but extends itself to the self. As working in the self, society is realizing itself while the self is able, at the same time, to respond to the society, with the possibility to lift it up to some higher level or, as a downward movement, neglecting or even damaging it. Another element in the self-government idea is the link between selfesteem and personal and social responsibility. his linkage works as a welcome correction of the widespread and modernist concept of the container self as an essentialized entity that is able to function on its own. his concept that inds its expression in everyday statements like “I’m myself and that’s what I  am” and “I’m me and you are you and we are just diferent” corresponds with the typical Western pursuit of self-esteem. When Crocker and Park (2004) in their extensive review give an overview of the side efects of the persistent striving for self-esteem (e.g., stress, anxiety, more consumption of alcohol, excessive dieting, reckless driving), they have in mind self-esteem as a typical expression of the self that is involved in constant competition with others and concerned with persistent self-airmation and self-enhancement. In apparent contrast with this view, the self-government proposal broadens self-esteem, via its linkage with personal and social responsibility, to the wider society. he potential of this view is that the person not only receives beneits from society, in the form of material and immaterial rewards, but also has something to ofer to it. Contributing to society, and to speciic groups in society, in the form of volunteer work, reform movements, anti-drug activities, antipoverty programs, assistance of refugees, social care activities, or any other prosocial activity, may well strengthen one’s self-esteem but with

of these qualities. hese qualities promote an atmosphere in which one can develop one’s values and talents. hey promote the development of individuals who can engage in dialogue in such a way that society can continually reconstruct itself in a manner that will lead to the ongoing thriving of individuals and communities alike through a process of participatory self-government, directed by the dynamics that direct growth in all areas of human activity” (p. 94).

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lower health problems and side efects. Self-esteem may go well together with esteem of the other.10 Building on the social-societal distinction proposed in the beginning of this chapter, I propose to make a corresponding distinction between social and societal responsibility. Social respons-ability refers to the ability of giving a dialogical response from one’s position as belonging to a group, like a family or interaction group, in relationship to other individuals and groups. Societal responsibility refers to the response-ability we have as members of a society in which people from very diferent social and cultural origins become increasingly interdependent as part of boundary-crossing and globalizing world. he distinction between the two kinds of responsibility may contribute to the development of a global awareness needed to prevent a situation in which individuals and groups establish and protect their identities by closing their boundaries with outgroups entailing the risk of increasing disidentiication and even alienation from these groups.11 Not only in psychology, medical care, and political science do we witness the emergence of the society in the self, but a similar development can be observed also in cultural anthropology.

Self-Nationalization: From Victimization to National Identity For an understanding of the process of self-nationalization, Iris Jean-Klein’s anthropological work is particularly conspicuous. For her MA research she did eight months of ieldwork in Upper Nazareth in the period 1987–1988. Ater moving to Manchester University to carry out her PhD research, she became interested in the phenomenon of Euro-Americans engaging in “international solidarity activism” with emancipatory struggles such as those of the Palestinians. In her article “Nationalism and Resistance:  he Two Faces of Everyday Activism in Palestine during the Intifada,” Jean-Klein (2001) ofers a thorough 10 he self as an active and engaged contributor to a democratic society is also central in Rosanvallon’s (2008) plea for “counter-democracy” that enables citizens to exercise power alongside and beyond the ballot box. In order to keep their rulers accountable, citizens can employ three generic strategies: oversight (monitoring and publicizing the behavior of elected rulers), prevention (mobilizing resistance to speciic policies before or ater the selection of rulers), and judgment (“juridiication” of politics: using the court and jury trials to judge delinquent politicians). he author advocates these strategies on the basis of his conviction that elections are no longer efective as sanctioning mechanism (for summary and comment, see Schmiter, 2014). 11 For placing personal, social, and societal responsibility in the context of democracy, see chapter 8.

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analysis of the process of “self-nationalization” as it touches the everyday life of the Palestinians living in a situation of social and political struggle since the establishment of the state Israel in 1948. With the concept of self-nationalization, she draws atention to the “nationalizing eicacy of ordinary people’s daily exercises of neighborhood, household, kinship, and self ” (p. 83). She observes that ordinary people fashion themselves into “nationalized subjects” who become involved in distinctive narrative actions that are woven into the practice of their everyday lives. She does so because, in her view, “contemporary studies of nationalism have systematically refused to acknowledge that ordinary persons could, in speciic circumstances, infuse their pursuit of daily interests and relations with political projects with nationalizing efects” (p. 83). She discusses the practice of nationalism in everyday life by focusing on the practices of West Bank Palestinians during the uprising or Intifada of that period. he process of self-nationalization is expressed in the suspension of everyday life with the purpose to transform ordinary persons into “nationalizing subjectivities” ( Jean-Klein, 2001, p. 84). he following account is just one of the many examples of “domestic self-nationalization” (p.  91). It relates what happened when a group of foreign students visited a group of local host students who were strongly commited to the intifada. he meeting is described from the perspective of the investigators who witnessed the event: his particular morning, a group of Dutch students had returned from the shops with several cartons of chocolate bars that they intended to ofer to our hosts that aternoon, as a token of appreciation of the young men’s commitment to our political education. None of us was prepared for the stern rebuke with which the young men greeted the gesture as the boxes were placed before them. “Is this a party? Whatever might be the occasion?” one of the students remarked with trenchant sarcasm as the treats were put on the table. A colleague of his was more forthright in his reprimand: “Have we not already taught you that people are not holding parties [halat] right now, during the Intifada? Have we been such poor teachers?” he asked in what seemed genuine disbelief [. . .]. A third youth explained, “We are not siting here to enjoy ourselves, as we keep telling you! We try to help you understand the Situation, so that you can return to your countries and tell your governments to do something!” he irst speaker added: “We thought you understood. his is work [amal], not entertainment!” he foreign students were lustered. Surely a few sweets would not make a party, one of us reasoned. he chocolates were not Israeli-made, another said, pointing out what was obvious. But the young men stood by their refusal to eat the sweets. hus the boxes were taken back into the

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kitchen, where they stood in the back of the refrigerator still unopened at the end of our stay several weeks later. Instead of engaging in the animated and light conversation that the host and visiting students usually carried on during such aternoons, the young men launched into a formal disquisition concerning a popular initiative that was part of the popular uprising and to which the refusal to party belonged, which I will gloss as “the suspension of everyday routine” (p. 95). In giving such examples, Jean-Klein emphasizes that the process of suspension has the character of a popular and everyday style of national resistance that takes place alongside high-proile and formally organized activities like street militancy or more formal organizational or infrastructural activities. hese uprising activities are self-initiatives and botom-up styles of political activism that are not to be atributed to any directive force from the side of more formally organized centers, such as educational institutions or circles of intellectuals. According to the author, self-nationalization can go that far that arrests by the Israelian authorities are transformed into self-arrest. A constraint that is actually inlicted on the Palestinian by the Situation (writen with capital S as a reference to the Intifada), receives the meaning of a self-constraint. A woman who reports the arrest of one of her children might lament about it as the involuntary inliction of force in one particular context: “hey took him!” However, on a diferent occasion the same woman referred to the same event as the heroic deed of the brave boy: “What do you mean, ‘hey took him!’? He went!” ( Jean-Klein, 2001, p. 114), in this way correcting her friend’s retelling of the event vis-à-vis a third woman one week later. As part of the active process of self-nationalization, the Palestinians of this investigation rendered performances or non-performances (e.g., refusing to have parties or reducing and moderating wedding rituals) as the result of selfrestraint. When people were asked to give reasons for not doing something, they tended to talk about obstructions and denials as if they were acts that they themselves performed rather than measures endured. In telling about instances of political victimization, they tended to shit from passive to active agents. hey took “partial responsibility” ( Jean-Klein, 2001, p. 114) for constraints inlicted on them by the Israeli authorities. Such a change from passive victim to active contributor to the Palestinian resistance expresses a desire to create and establish a community in which they can ind a irm ground for their individual and collective identity. What impresses me in this anthropological analysis is that nationalization is not a process to which an individual person is subjected and is not viewed as something that is coming purely “from the outside.” It is rather something that has deeper reverberations in the self of individual people. As a process of

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self-nationalization it becomes even an active appropriation of the nation as the product of something that they are building inside their own self and that they are giving form in their everyday life, as an expression of resistance, suspension, soberness, and self-constraint. he self is here an active and even emotional construction of developments in the broader society. he word “active” in this sentence is well-exempliied by the woman whose son was arrested: she repositioned herself from the victim of injustice to the proud mother of a political hero. he societalization of the self may take the form not only of self-nationalization but even of self-internationalization, as the following example shows.

Self-Internationalization: he Globalizing Self At a recent conference on “Education and Citizenship in a Globalising World,” Zilin Wang (2010), a Chinese scientist working at the Institute of Education of the University of London, presented a challenging paper about Chinese students who increasingly study abroad. She observes that an increasing number of students decide to start self-funded overseas studies for noneconomic reasons and that student migration relects an enlarged awareness of globalization. She refers to Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development OECD calculations showing that over the past three decades the number of students who are engaged in tertiary education abroad risen dramatically from 0.8 million in 1975 to 3.0 million in 2007 worldwide. Overseas studying rapidly expanded when China’s boundaries became more open ater a long period of seclusion. In 1978 regulations on foreign visa acquisition were reformed, enabling Chinese scholars to explore the world. From 1978 to 2003, a total of approximately 700,000 Chinese students studied in 108 countries and regions covering virtually all disciplines, a number unprecedented in Chinese history. Wang notes that the number of self-funded overseas students formed a major part of the overseas student population with the highest increases in the years 2000–2002. For present purposes, it is relevant to emphasize the fact that a major portion of the international students are self-funding, a sign that the motivation is their own rather than directed from above. his was also observed by Altbach and Knight (2007) who introduced the concept of “individual internationalization” and concluded: “Most of the world’s more than 2 million international students are self-funded, that is, they and their families pay for their own academic work. Students are therefore the largest source of funds for international education— not governments, academic institutions, or philanthropies” (p. 294). Not only is the increasing globalization and internationalization of students rooted in the students’ own personal motivation, but there are even indications

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that their motivation is not primarily of an economic nature. In her exposé on self-driven globalization of Chinese students, Wang (2010) refers to literature showing that international students’ mobility is less motivated by economic beneits than by a mixture of educational, leisure, travel, and experiential motives. his suggests that the growing international student mobility is rooted in a broader position repertoire of the students who are, via self-globalization, motivated to enrich their cultural capital even more than their economic or inancial capital. Comparing self-internationalization and self-nationalization, we see a clear parallel to the concepts of globalization and localization, oten mentioned as “two sides of the same coin” and intertwined to such degree that some scholars speak of “glocalization,” a term coined by Robertson (1995). Indeed, regions, nations, cities, even districts in a city, in their quest for self-government, respond to this process by establishing, defending, or expanding their selves and collective identities instead of submerging in the incessant lood of globalization. However, in the given examples there is an apparent contrast: while the young Chinese students, amongst many others, are increasingly spreading over the world, the Palestinians in Israel are desperately and insistently struggling for a form of nationalization. As these contrasting instances show, it is part of the social and societal context that one group of people is defending its local cultural heritage, while the other one is driven by boundary-crossing motivations. However, for present purposes, it is worth emphasizing that in both cases— self-nationalization and self-internationalization—society is more than just an external environment and more than a causal determinant of a self that is “inluencing” it from the outside. Rather, society is in the self and forms and reforms itself through the self, which, in turn, responds to society in a variety of ways. Society expresses itself in a highly dynamic self, as a sparkling process of societalization.

How to Understand “Self-Societalization” In this chapter I have made a trip through a diversity of social-scientiic landscapes and discussed a variety of societal phenomena that may look familiar to some readers or new and even strange to others. Entering the ields of psychology, cultural anthropology, medicine, sociology, and political science, I touched some phenomena that are emerging in the literature on the contact zone between self and society. When a person, like me, is talking about concepts and indings in other disciplines, he is at best seen as an ignorant amateur and at worst as a despised charlatan. Yet I made this journey in order to unveil what I consider a deeper process that only can be charted if one is willing to look beyond the

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limitations of specialized disciplinary work in order to see some broader picture and discover paterns that otherwise would stay hidden from view. For quite some time, I pondered the question of which term adequately covers the process that would be common to the self-society examples given in this chapter. Initially, I considered the term “the societalization of the self ” an appropriate candidate. However, “causality indoctrinated” as we are as “objective scientists,” this term could erroneously suggest that the self is subjected to a process of societalization as part of a cause-efect sequence. In order to avoid this misunderstanding it is beter to qualify the commonality running through the given examples as a process of self-societalization. With this concept, I have three closely interconnected processes in mind: (a) the broader society is not purely outside the self but works in it and realizes and develops itself via the selves of individuals; (b)  in turn, the self is not purely outside the broader society but is part of it and realizes and develops itself through participation in the society at large, with its impressive variety of individuals, groups, and cultures; (c) via each other, selves and societies realize and develop not only themselves but also, and at the same time, each other. Applied to the example of self-radicalization, it means that radicalization as a societal phenomenon is realized in the form of self-radicalization, with an own and original input by an actively involved self. his self-radicalization, in turn, changes the relationship between individuals (e.g., giving electric shocks to a learner) and contributes to the radicalization between guards and prisoners or culminates even in torture as in the Abu-Ghraib scandal. Or, in the example of the participatory model in medicine, we see that in the doctor-patient relationship a series of new practices emerge that allow forms of self-care. In turn, this self-care, in which the patients, at least to some degree, become their own doctors, transforms the traditional hierarchical doctor-patient relationship into a collaborative one. Or, in the example of self-marriage: marriage as an existing institution in society receives a personal expression in the life of individuals who decide to marry themselves. he marrying person gives her personal imprint on the ceremony (e.g., by embellishing the wedding cake in a personal way or by inviting her own friends and family to the party). he decision to marry, on its turn, changes the way the married person relates to her social and societal environment. As these examples suggest, self and society may spiral up (e.g., self-care or selfmarriage) or spiral down (e.g., self-radicalization or self-sabotage) themselves and each other. Self-societalization, understood as a process in which self and society realize themselves through each other, serves as a theoretical starting point of this book. As an integrative part of society, the individual functions as a societal being. At the same time, society, including its institutions, can only function thanks to the contributions of individual selves developing in and through

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society. One of the consequences of this starting point is the notion of responsibility that was already addressed in the example of self-government. Only if governments receive their place in the selves of socially engaged individuals can societies “really” become democratic. his is an expression of the broader idea that, if we assume that the self is part of society, that is, “I’m society,” then personal responsibility, understood as responsibility for my own self, and societal or global responsibility, taken as responsibility for society as a world citizen, are as closely interconnected as are self and society. Becoming personally responsible for one’s own self coexists with becoming responsible for society. his opens a gateway for a self that adds value to society as a whole and functions as an antidote to forms of extreme individualism or narcissism as the undesirable consequences of the individualized autonomy ideal that inds it basis in the Enlightenment.

Summary In a most simpliied way, a society can be described as an institutionally organized system of positions involved in interaction with each other. As part of this society, individuals or groups of people are positioned or position themselves as lawyer, scientist, teacher, student, member of a reform or protest movement, leader, coworker, president, father, mother, child of my parents, political party member, TV presenter or parachute jumper, to mention just some of the manifold positions that populate the broader society. At the heart of this book is the assumption that, like society consists of patterned and interacting positions, the self also consists of paterned I-positions involved in dialogical processes. he examples that I have given in this chapter exemplify the consideration that the process of self-societalization results in a broad array of possible I-positions in the self-space. I deliberately use the word “possible” because not everyone will ever in their life occupy all positions that are provided by society. On the contrary, some react to the oten overwhelming amount of possible positions by retreating themselves to smaller and closed niches in order to protect themselves against threatening or overwhelming societal processes, in this way deliberately reducing the number of I-positions in their repertoire. he given examples (e.g., self-radicalization, self-government, self-cure, selfnationalization) suggest that the (increasing) process of self-societalization has had deep implications for the development of self and identity. As we have argued earlier (Hermans & Hermans-Konopka, 2010), processes of self and identity, particularly those on the interface of globalization and localization, have at least four implications for the self:

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1. It is faced with an unprecedented density of positions: as part of the larger society the self has the possibility to introduce and interiorize a great variety of positions; as I have shown, self-societalization brings a new range of positions into the self (e.g., I as an international student, I as doctor of myself, I as married to myself).12 2. When the individual is increasingly participating in a diversity of local groups and cultures in a globalizing society, the individual position repertoire becomes more complexly paterned and heterogeneous, laden as it is with diferences, tensions, oppositions, and contradictions (e.g., being a member of a resistance group in the context of an intifada, while at the same time wanting to keep a good contact with foreign visitors, or living in diaspora in a host culture while keeping contact with one’s culture of origin). 3. Given the speed and unpredictability of global changes, the repertoire receives more “visits” by unexpected positions (e.g., unforeseen changes in multinational organizations lead to sudden changes of one’s job position). 4. As a consequence of the increasing range of possible positions and the accelerating process of globalization, there are more and larger “position leaps,” that is, the individual has to make more and larger “mental jumps” given the relatively large psychological distance between the I-positions (the next position experienced as remote from the preceding one). Such leaps may vary from immigrating to another country to becoming a member of a medical team in case of a disaster in the other part of the world. All of these developments have the consequence of creating a higher degree of uncertainty in the self, which may innovate and enrich the self in some situations but lead to identity crisis or confusion in other situations (Hermans & Hermans-Konopka, 2010; Kinnvall, 2004; for tolerance of uncertainty in a democratic society, see chapter 8).

12

he density and heterogeneity of positions in the self are signiicantly increased by technological advancements during the last decades. A great variety of skills, earlier performed by specialized professionals, have become within the reach of an increasing segment of the population. Individuals become their own photographer with their digital cameras and I-phones, their own journalist sending out messages via their blogs, their own historian delving in family documents and writing a book about their ancestors, their own publisher making their book available to a larger audience through the Internet, their own composer creating their own electronic music composition with advanced computer programs, their own marketing specialist distributing their own cd’s via their large networks, and their own builder with the assistance of 3d printers. As these examples suggest, many specialized roles in the society at large are increasingly transported to the self of many individuals and have significantly expanded the range of possible positions in the self. For the reversed process, the homogenization and impoverishment of the self as resulting from an over-positioning economy, see chapter 5.

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As these considerations suggest, the concept of I-position, or more dynamically formulated, the process of positioning, is the central notion in the theory I want to develop in this book. In this chapter, I made a start by giving a irst impression of the “society in the self,” dynamically expressed in the process of self-societalization. In my view, this process underscores the proposal to use society as an appropriate metaphor for deeper diving into the multiple nature of the self, bound as it is to the complexities of its societal context. In the next chapter it is my purpose to demonstrate the fertility of this metaphor for better understanding how the self functions in a rapidly changing and globalizing world and, in chapter 3, to explore ways in which self, team, and organization can operate as democratically organized structures.

2

Positioning and Democracy in the Self Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner —James Bovard

In a society, individuals, groups, and even cultures position themselves toward each other and not only interact with each other from such positions but even change, develop, or conirm them as part of a broader societal or global system. Similarly, the self as a micro-society is continuously involved in similar processes of positioning, counter-positioning, and repositioning with some of the positions becoming, temporarily or more permanently, more dominant or powerful than other ones. he diference between the larger society and the self as microsociety is that, as part of the self, the incessant stream of positions receive a selfrelexive “I-quality,” that is, even if they are diferent, contrasting, contradicting, or opposing, they have something in common that can summarized most briely, at least in English language, with the word “I.” Even when I feel at one morning “reborn,” I know that, as long as I have no serious clinical dysfunction, I am the same person I was yesterday. While the position refers to the multiplicity of the self, the I refers to its continuity and self-relexivity. As I argue in this book, the I-position is a bridging concept that is useful to understand a great diversity of decentralizing phenomena that take place in the self-space, without giving up its consistency and coherence. I discuss the self as a lexible process that allows human experience to go into very diferent directions as part of a psychological “adventure,” yet keeping, even actively bringing together, these experiences as part of the same extended self. Whereas in chapter 1 I atempted to show that the self is in society, in the present chapter I demonstrate that the self functions as a society. I use society as a metaphor for understanding a diversity of phenomena in the self that seem not 45

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societal at irst glance but disclose their hidden organization when considered via this metaphor. he metaphoric use of society works as “glasses” that ofer a sometimes surprising perspective that will allow us to go deeper into the workings of this elusive process that we try to demarcate by the simple word “self.” It is only in the next chapter that I will return to the society at large with the purpose of using some central concepts presented in this chapter (like meta-positions and promoter positions) as a basis for understanding the way democracy works in a globalizing society. I start this chapter with an explanation and exploration of the concept “Iposition,” as the backbone of the presented theoretical framework. In order to illustrate the self as a society, I present a clinical example of a client with whom I cooperated in my earlier work as a psychotherapist and personality psychologist and consider his self as a society of I-positions. his then leads to a detailed discussion of a model for “democracy” and “democratic leadership” on the level of the self. hese discussions are guided by the idea that the self is not functioning as an individualized autonomous entity but as a dynamic multiplicity of I-positions located in social and societal ields of tension.

What Is an I-Position? An I-position is spatial-relational act. It exists only in the context of other positions (e.g., I position myself as strong toward a competitive other and as tenderhearted toward a loving other). he act of I-positioning is placing oneself vis-à-vis someone else and, at the same time, toward oneself in the metaphorical space of the self. As a spatial-relational process it is taking a stance toward someone, either physically or virtually, and it is a way of addressing the other and oneself via verbal or nonverbal orientations and communications. I can open myself to another person and, at the same time, I become more open in the relation to myself. Or I turn away from a disliked person and take distance from him or her but, when being alone, I can become skeptical of myself when remembering the inappropriate way I responded to this person. In the act of I-positioning there is always a “here” and a “there,” both in the communication with the other and in the communication with myself. Between this here and there, a ield of tension is stretched in which one makes, physically or virtually, movements from the one to the other and back.1 When I take a stance toward, from, or against the 1

here are not only spatial ields of tension (between “here” and “there”) but also temporal ones (between “now” and “then”). I can imaginatively move to a past or future point in time and then speak to myself about the sense of what I  am doing in my present situation. Taking such a position may be helpful to evaluate my present activities from a long-term perspective. It provides a

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other, there is always a similar of dissimilar movement in the metaphorical space of my own self. I appreciate myself when I have had a productive talk with my colleague, and I criticize myself when I made a stupid remark during a conversation with my superior. Like between self and other, there are ields of tension between I-positions in the self, conceived as a metaphorical space where positions like magnets in magnetic ields atract or repel each other.2

Active and Passive Tense One of the conceptual advantages of the concept of positioning is that it is not only used in the active but also in the passive tense. I am not only taking a position toward another or myself, but I am also positioned by the other (e.g., “I as seen or treated as friendly, intrusive, supporting, abusing, or as a frantic freak”), and such characterizations can be in agreement with or in contrast to the way I see myself. I see myself through the positioning eyes of the other and, from my part, respond to this positioning. At birth, or even during pregnancy, we are positioned as “a girl” or a “boy” with far-reaching consequences for our training and education. At a very young age we are positioned as “sweet” or “naughty” or as “good” or “bad” as signiicant others impose these strongly emotional and morally loaded notions as inluential qualiications on our selves. As inluential and even intruding as such early positionings from the part of others may be, this does not mean that we are purely determined by their evocations. On the contrary, we have the inherent capacity to respond to the positioning by others, from an original point of view, with a counter-positioning3, which may take the form of agreement, disagreement, protest, opposition, or the exploration of perspective that is quite diferent from focusing on current concerns or challenges only (Oleś, Brygoła, & Sibińska, 2010). 2 he notion of space is a central one in existential philosophy. Martin Heidegger (1962) introduced the concept of Geworfenheit (thrownness), that is, the human being as thrown in time and space. In a similar vein, he proposed the notion of Dasein that is oten translated as “being there” or as “presence.” Existential philosophy is in support of the view that the human being is positioned in time and space. From a psychological and neuroscientiic point of view, Jaynes (1976) introduced the notion “introspective mind-space” in his treatise on the bicameral mind. 3 A counter-position can be transient and situation-bound, but it can also become established in the self as part of long-term development. An example of a long-term counter-position is the development of the nationally popular Dutch writer Arthur Japin. Relecting on his novels, he told about his preference to write about igures who have the feeling that they do not it in society. He explained that in his own youth he was frequently bullied and, as a reaction, retreated in a fantasy world. Finally, he decided to make professional use of his fantasies and became a novelistic writer, particularly interested in deviant people: “My stories oten portray people who transform their weakness into strength” (published in the newspaper De Limburger, July 7, 2015). his transformation can be considered a long-term and efective counter-position as a response to an initial personal drawback.

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alternatives. In the course of time, we may reposition ourselves when, for example, we have the courage to step out of our comfort zone or when we move from a preceding, possibly established, position to a new one (e.g., from school to job, from one job to another one, from single to married, from married to divorced). In reverse, we may become repositioned via the signs and messages communicated by others toward us (e.g., as the result of loss of job, retirement, or receiving a degree or prize).

he Problem of Reiication he danger of using nouns (e.g., memory, thought, position) instead of verbs (remembering, thinking, positioning) is a reiication of phenomena that are, in essence, processes of a highly dynamic kind. Actually, positioning addresses questions like, Where are you standing? To whom or to what are you oriented? What are you communicating and from which position are you doing this? From which position is the other responding? So positioning is not abstract thinking but a spatial movement. It is always a way of moving toward, from, or against another person, an object, or toward ourselves. Since positioning is typically recurring and becoming more or less established in the self (e.g., “I as loving child of my parents,” “I as an ambitious professional,” “I as protesting against authoritarian people”), we are used to give a name to a repeating form of positioning. When in this book I briely refer to it with the noun “I-position,” we should keep in mind that, in essence, a position is a sediment of something that works actually as a process. Even when we acknowledge the risk of reiication, talking about I-positions has an advantage. Compare an I-position with a photo. One may look some time and with concentration at a picture of something that is actually moving and changing. In a similar way, one may carefully study an I-position, discovering its typical features and sharing it with others, while realizing at the same time that it is actually changing or even transient. Positioning, if repeated and conirmed, leaves its “traces”4 in the self-space and the brain so that the world becomes predictable and structured enough to make anticipation possible, like an individual who in a landscape knows the “right way” to reach one’s destiny. Such familiar and established ways of going through the landscape of the self invite people to say:  “his is one of my I-positions.” Even if one does so, it is appropriate to keep in mind that it is a ixation of a moment or phase in what is actually a movement of positioning, repositioning, and counter-positioning.

4

See also Stiles (1999), who assumes that recurring voices, closely related to positions leave “traces” in the self.

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he Diference with Self-Deinition and Self-Categorization Positioning is not to be confused with what is known in psychology as a self-definition or self-categorization.5 When I define myself as friendly, I see myself as a subject on my own to whom I  attribute a particular personality trait or characteristic (friendliness). In contrast, when I position myself as friendly, I  take a stance toward another person; that is, I  direct myself or orient myself toward the other as an embodied being like one does in a theatrical performance. When I categorize myself as a Dutch, I define myself as belonging to a specific group of people. However, when in the company of foreigners, I  position myself as Dutch; I  place myself in relation to a representative of another nation. A  Portuguese is doing so when offering a bottle of Porto to a foreigner, the Japanese by giving a package of Sake, and the Dutch when showing to a visitor the bright colors of tulips in the Keukenhof gardens. As a representative of a nation, one can even position oneself differently to different visitors. When I as a Dutch person know that my visitors are interested in art, I will invite them to walk around in the Van Gogh museum, but when they are scientifically interested I take them to the Boerhaave Museum with its exposition of the history of science. However, when they are accompanied by their children, I  advise them to enjoy the fairy tale forest of the Efteling park. So positioning is a form of addressivity toward a spatially located other. Because of its addressivity, a position is always challenged, modified, confirmed, or rejected by other positions. It can never escape its connection with other positions and, therefore, can never be considered purely as a thing-by-itself.6 When I  use the words “stance,” “standing,” “placing oneself ” “orientation,” and “addressivity,” I refer to a fundamental spatial-relational level that is absent in notions like self-deinition, self-categorization, and self-description that are

5

For conceptual translation of self-categorization into I-position, see chapter 8. Considering the self as an interconnected system of positions, the present theory concurs with network theory as a recent development in personality theory. As Cramer et  al. (2012) argue, the dominant view on personality assumes the existence of personality dimensions (e.g., extraversion) as causes of human behavior with personality inventory items (e.g., “I like to go to parties” and “I like people”) as measurements of these dimensions. According to this assumption, extraversion items correlate with each other because they measure the same latent dimension. As an alternative view, network theory considers personality as a system of connected afective, cognitive, and behavioral components. hese components do not hang together because they measure the same underlying dimension but because they depend on one another directly (e.g., if one does not like people, it is harder to enjoy parties). In agreement with this network perspective, the self in the present theory functions as a dynamic interconnected system of transient or more enduring I-positions that atract each other (e.g., “I as liking parties” and “I as liking people”) or repel each other (e.g., “I as liking parties” and “I as preferring to live alone”). See also chapter 4 for networks in the brain. 6

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Contemptuous

Fun

Angry

Gossiping

Consoling

Shy

In love

Alienated

Figure 2.1. Positioning as placing oneself toward each other in ields of tension. Courtesy of Roos van Riet

typically abstracted from their speciic location in time and space. Positioning is originally a spatial-relational process, already signiicant in the development of children at the moments that they are grasping an object, playing with a doll, embracing a parent, having fun in the reciprocity of giving and receiving or being involved in numerous variations of role-playing, as Fogel (1993) has aptly demonstrated. hese developments allow the child to take a multiplicity of I-positions that allow a variety of spatial orientations and to look at the world from very diferent perspectives. When I talk about “standing,” in combination with “relating” I have in mind spatial orientations that are basic to many forms of verbal and nonverbal communications. As exempliied by Figure 2.1, diferent ways of positioning relect diferent spatially relational orientations toward both oneself and each other.

he Diference with Self-Presentation I-positioning is also diferent from self-presentation. In his classic work he Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Gofman (1959) argues that a person is motivated to convey “an impression of reality that he atempts to engender in

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those among whom he inds himself ” (p. 28). He gives a most telling example of a girl living in a dormitory who wants to impress the other girls with her popularity by the number of telephone calls she receives. Apparently, selfpresentation aims to convey an image of oneself to the outside world, in such a way that the addressee perceives this image as reality. I-positioning, on the other hand, refers not only to the positions people wish to present to the outside world but also to those that they take toward themselves. It should be clear that an internal form of positioning may be entirely discrepant from the way one presents oneself to the outside. he dormitory girl in the example may convey impressive signs of popularity to her social environment, but internally she may position herself as “someone in whom boys are not really interested” or even as “not worth a date.” In such a case the internal and external forms of positioning are dynamically related as the presented position may function as an overcompensation for a problematic positioning toward oneself. he process of positioning implies a ield of tension between one’s interaction with the outside world and the way the self relates to itself. he two may be symmetrical but also opposed and even contradictory.

Darker Spaces in the Self he present theory is diferent from Harré’s positioning theory (e.g., Davies & Harré, 2007). Although the two theories share an emphasis on linguistic communication, Harré’s “positioning” is largely a conversational phenomenon in which “speech” is most basic. He considers positioning as a form of “discursive practice” with discourse understood as an institutionalized use of language and language-like sign systems. Although the present theory acknowledges the crucial role of speech, it takes its basis on a deeper prelinguistic level, as relected by the emphasis on the role of facial communication, the spatial location of the body, spatial boundaries (open, closed, rigid, lexible) between self and other and between diferent positions in the metaphorical space of the self, and nonverbal and nonconscious communication as mediated by right hemisphere functioning (see chapter 4). Moreover, Harré considers the “I” primarily as a pronoun, whereas the present theory is based on the composite term “I-position,” which links the “I” principally with the spatial-relational locality of an embodied self. Finally, by studying the self as a metaphorical space, the present theory instigates exploration of the less articulated and “darker” spaces of the self (e.g., shadow positions, narcissism, unacceptable emotions), whereas Harré’s theory is primarily focused on the clearly demarcated linguistic processes occurring at the more explicit levels of the self.

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he Radiation of an I-Position and the Concept of “Atmosphere” Positioning is a form of lowing energy. Positions energize each other: one position stimulates another one that, on its turn, energizes again a third one, moving like “waves” in an ongoing stream. Positions radiate this energy to their environments as well as back to the self. In the religious traditions, holy persons (e.g. Buddha, Christ, Holy Maria) are oten depicted with a nimbus around their head or even around their whole body, radiating their inspirational energy to those who desire to receive their well-doings. I assume that every position expresses its speciic energy in the form of an invisible but felt radiation. When this radiation, released by one or more positions, is expanding to such a degree that it “ills” the spaces in between the positions, then it is felt as an “atmosphere.” We can feel a tense atmosphere in a formal meeting where participants seem to feel locked up in themselves or, on the contrary, an atmosphere of fun and cheerful chater at a party where everyone feels the space to uter themselves freely and spontaneously, or one feels the solemn atmosphere of a funeral and behaves accordingly. In such cases, the space between the positions is felt by the participants as expressing the whites, blacks, and mixed colors of psychological radiations. An atmosphere is an invisible but felt space that emerges between radiating positions that in their mutual relationships give a particular experiential quality to the situation. As part of an atmosphere persons or objects are no longer experienced as entities by themselves with sharply demarcated boundaries. Rather, they are absorbing the experiential quality of the emerging space in between and become constituent parts of it.7 From an eastern perspective, Morioka (2012) has discussed the Japanese concept of “ma” (p. 397). his notion refers to the space between two or more objects or between two moments in time but also to the space between two or more persons involved in communication. In a social context, it emerges as a dialogical space that relects the quality of an interpersonal relationship. It can be expressed, for example, in taking a pause or felt in moments of “speaking” silence. Although radiation and atmosphere have not reached the status of central concepts in mainstream psychology, they have not fully escaped the atention of theoreticians. In a review of literature, Van Gulik (2014) discusses concepts like “aura,” “halo,” “penumbra,” and “fuzzy horizon,” that seem to have in common the

7 A  positive social atmosphere has the potential to increase creativity. Ziv (1983) studied the inluence of a humorous atmosphere on students’ creativity scores. A  group of adolescents were invited to look at humorous ilm clips and to write captions for cartoons. When a creativity test was subsequently administered to these students and to a control group, it appeared that a humorous atmosphere had a positive efect on divergent thinking.

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experiential quality of what is surrounding persons, animals, plants, or objects. Indeed, every object, usually seen as a thing by itself, has the potential to become transformed into a radiating position with an I-quality that lits it up above the category of dead material. When some people are willing to pay more than $10,000 dollars for a broken necklace with imitation pearls at an auction, they do so in the awareness that this object once belonged to Marilyn Monroe. It is as if something of her soul is still alive in the necklace. he consciousness that she was wearing it radiates onto the self of the new owner. Touching such an object may give the idea that one gets in touch with “something” of the soul or immaterial essence of the person who once possessed it. We all may have a similar experience when we hide a precious object that once belonged to a loved, deceased family member in the intimate places of our house. Something of the radiation of the person is maintained and survives over time through the treasured object. Radiations and atmospheres have not only their speciic experiential qualities; they also express emotions at the extreme opposites of human experience. hey are at the heart of artistic creations, varying from peaceful clouds in impressionist paintings to the horrifying torments in the medieval paintings of Jheronimus Bosch. hey are also articulated in contrasting religious rituals ranging from showing the monstrance—a vessel employed in Catholic churches to display the consecrated Eucharistic host—to the ground-shaking experience of a god-like being as mysterium tremendum et fascinans. Radiations and atmospheres far exceed any intellectual description or categorization as they touch the deeper afective regions of the human self and its contrasting positions. he space is not empty. On the contrary, it is full of radiations that are felt as atmosphere. Not only between people but also within the self the space between positions is felt as an atmosphere, known as “mood” according to traditional psychological vocabulary. Summarizing, an I-position is spatial-relational act that can exist only in the context of other positions. As a highly dynamic process of I-positioning it is a form of placing oneself vis-à-vis someone or something else and, at the same time, toward oneself in the metaphorical space of the self. As a spatial process, I-positioning has to be distinguished from a-spatial notions like self-deinition, self-categorization, and self-presentation. As forms of energy, positions radiate to their environments and in the space between them diferent kinds of atmosphere emerge.

he Other as I-Position in an Extended Self Society as a metaphor for the self does not only refer to internal I-positions but also to external I-positions as parts of the extended self. hat is, the self also

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extends to the other as an essential constituent of society and as dwelling inside the broadened boundaries of our selves. he other can be admited as a welcome guest in the house of the self but can also enter one’s precious domain as an unwelcome intruder. For illustrative purposes, I start with an example from my own past before I further develop my argument for the inclusion of the other as part of an extended self.

First Name and Family Name Are Diferent But the Family Is in Your Self When I  say:  “I’m Hubert and this is who I  am,” the phrase, tautological as it may sound, has some plausibility. However, it owes its plausibility mainly to the individualized autonomy ideal that has been pervasive in our culture since the Enlightenment, as expressed in the statement: “I am I, and you are you and we are just separate persons.” Remind Sampson’s (1985) who observes that the Western image of the self is based on razor-sharp boundaries between self and other, with the other conceived as located outside the self. In apparent contrast to that conception, it is more realistic to assume that our family is part of our extended self, as James (1890) would have it, so that one’s father and mother are our permanent guests even when they are not alive anymore. Let me illustrate this with my own name. My father8 was the youngest son of a middle-class family that lived many generations in Maastricht, a middle-sized city in the South of the Netherlands. Like his father and some of his brothers he started a small business, a bakery, a few years before World War II. I remember very well the regular Sunday morning meetings where many of the Hermans family members were together to enjoy their favorite Dutch gin in combination with cofee and cake provided by my father. hey used to tell funny stories to each other, and they were skilled at creating a light and relaxed atmosphere. his was markedly diferent from my mother’s family. She was born as the oldest daughter of a farmer and his wife, living in a small village in a rural environment near Maastricht. As young boys, my brothers and I were alternatingly living in my father’s city and my mother’s village, so that we experienced two very diferent, even contrasting, ways of life. While the members of the Hermans family were very action-oriented, were optimistic, and used to entertain each other with short and light-hearted stories, the members of the Spronck family were rather pessimistic. Sharing their experiences typically in one-to-one

8

Some of my autobiographical memories are depicted in an earlier book (Hermans, 2012), in which I applied the Dialogical Self heory (DST) to my own life.

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City independent business practical optimistic

Hubert My father in me I as optimistic My mother in me I as pessimistic Spronck Rural/farmers misfortune sensitive pessimistic

Figure 2.2. First name, family name, and I-positions.

relationships rather than in a group, they told long narratives about the misfortunes in the family, which radiated a pessimistic atmosphere (see Figure 2.2). As I have felt over the years, I am strongly inluenced by the optimistic nature of my father, whom I see as an “enjoyer of life” demonstrated not only by his playful way of living, as music lover and billiard player, and as being the “cozy” center of frequent family sessions but also by his typical messages, like “Never forget to enjoy life and . . . don’t marry too early.” Since he passed away 25 years ago, I have always felt that he is not “away” but still “there,” in myself, as a “person in me” who reminds me every day that life is short and worth living and each day is a precious one. It is not simply that I  internalized him as an “internalized object” as object theorists would assume, but I somewhere became him; he became a subject in my self. I would call him an I-position within me with whom I regularly “fuse” and, over time, as I approach the age at which he died, I am doing it more consciously and intentionally wanting to develop this position in myself in a way that it contributes to other I-positions in myself so that they match and develop into a “workable team.” he contact with my mother was quite diferent. She strongly stimulated me to study and to become “upwardly mobile” in society, as if I could compensate for the loss of status that her own father and family had sufered from their misfortune. Sometimes I felt a pessimistic atitude in the way she looked at my father’s business and its future. She was very warm and loving me as her oldest and favorite child and liked to see me reaching a high position in society. My resulting ambition, that made me go to the university and make a career,

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was, to some extent, a sign of “responding” love for her. My ambitious I-position that I developed over my career started as “my mother as part of myself.” Shein-me wanted to go on, and this position helped me to study and work hard and always try to “take the next step.” However, when I became older, my ambitious position became, primarily as a result of my shorter future perspective, more problematic. As I have described in a previous publication (Hermans, 2012), my ambitious position became in its “upward mobile” tendency a stumbling block in my development. As the ideals and goals of this position appeared to become less realizable as time went on, I was challenged to develop other positions and other combinations of positions that were more in tune with my age and development. For the present moment, it suices to emphasize that while my father embodied my optimistic and enjoying position, my mother worked in my self as an ambitious force against a somewhat pessimistic background. Actually, both positions, optimistic and pessimistic, became somewhere mutually complementary and are at times involved in a dialogue. When I have the tendency to lower my expectations, my optimistic position answers like “Come on, this will work!” At the moments that I tend to become overly optimistic, my pessimist position might say “Wait, wait, just let’s have a closer look at that.” So, if I would say “I’m Hubert; this is who I am,” this would neglect an aspect that is essential to the social and societal nature of the self. I have not only a irst name but also a second name, actually two names: Hermans and Spronck. My father and mother are not simply “external people,” but they become signiicant I-positions in the extended domain of myself: my father as an optimist in my self and my mother as a pessimist in my self. I realize and develop them not only as positions in my extended self but also as I-positions in the internal domain of my self: I as optimist and I as pessimist contributing to the multiplicity of myself with the possibility of emerging dialogical relationships among them. I am them and they work in me. Just as I concluded in chapter 1 that society is working in the self, in the form of self-radicalization in the Abu Ghraib prison, selfnationalization as part of the intifada, and self-internationalization as a student in a globalizing world, I see in the present example my parents and their families as representatives of their speciic communities, working as multiple collective voices and as intrinsic I-positions in my “own” self. What I call “I” or “me” is not a pre-existing entity, uniied in itself, but rather emerging from the interactions between my social and societal environment and me.9 9 he context-dependent nature of I-positions and their relative autonomy as parts of the self is evident in the phenomenon of “context-dependent memory,” which refers to the improved recall of speciic information or experiences when the context present at encoding and retrieval are the same. For example, Godden and Baddeley (1975) presented word lists to their subjects in two separate environments: under water and on dry land. he results demonstrated that memory for words learned under water was beter when recall sessions also occurred under water. A similar

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Does Your Deceased Loved One Live on in Your Self ? In his book I Am a Strange Loop, which impresses the reader not only by its linguistic acrobatics but also by its thought-provoking content, Douglas Hofstadter (2007) includes a chapter titled “Wrestling with the Greatest Mystery,” in which he relates about the unexpected loss of his wife Carol who died when she was 42 years old as the result of a brain tumor. He writes, with emotionally tinted emphasis, that the worst thing was not his own loss but her loss. Of course, he missed her terribly, but what touched him most deeply was that he was not able to forget what she had lost: the opportunity to see their two children (ive and two years old) growing up, to witness the development of their personalities, to enjoy their talents, and to console them when they were sad. Carol had lost, suddenly and unexpectedly, her whole future, and he, Douglas, was unable to deal with that. In their sincere concern for what he felt as biter injustice to her, his friends, trying to console him, said that he did not need to have compassion for her, because she was dead. So there was no one to have compassion for! One day he was looking at a photo of her, so concentrated, that he had the feeling that he was inding himself behind her eyes. He found himself saying, as tears lowed:  “hat’s me! hat’s me!” He continued:  “And those simple words brought back many thoughts that I had had before, about the fusion of our souls into one higher-level entity [. . .] I then realized that although Carol had died, that core piece of her had not died at all, but that it lived on very determinedly in my brain” (Hofstadter, 2007, p. 228). Actually, Carol was for him not a separated person who passed away but, on the contrary, a close one who continued to live as a “real” and precious I-position in the most intimate regions of his self.

congruent efect was found for words learned and recalled on land. Apparently, changing the context between encoding and retrieval reduced the participants’ ability to recall learned words. Context-dependent learning can also take the form of “state-dependent learning,” which refers to the inding that people have an improved recall when their physiological state is the same at encoding and retrieval. For example, individuals in a state of alcohol intoxication while encoding information recall signiicantly more when they are intoxicated during retrieval as well, in comparison with those whose alcoholic states difer from encoding to retrieval (Goodwin, Powell, Bremer, Hoine, & Stern, 1969). An example of a more long-term efect is the revival of wartime memories by veterans and prisoners of war. When they return to old batleields, many of them reconstruct tragic memories of life during wartime. A similar efect may occur when such individuals watch television war documentaries, an efect that can be interpreted as a generalization of the contextual cues associated with war (Smith, 1988). As these research examples suggest, memory is dependent on the place of encoding and retrieval, and they underline the spatial nature of the process of positioning.

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Private Audience and the Pleasure of Reading Sexually Permissive Fiction I oten hear the question: Is there nothing in cognitive science that somewhere is related to the societal nature of the self? Yes, there is, and I give here just one example in the ield of social cognition (for elaboration, see chapter 4). Instigated by symbolic interactionist theories, Baldwin and Holmes (1987) assumed that one’s self is experienced in relation to some audiences: people who are actually present or imagined, speciic or generalized, actual or fantasized. he authors referred to the everyday observation that people evaluate themselves diferently when they look at themselves through the eyes of others who evaluate them in diferent ways. hey labeled such an evaluating other as a “private audience” that could refer to such divergent igures as a parent, spouse, best friend, or colleague. In one of their experiments, a group of female students visualized the faces either of two friends from campus or of two of their older family members. hen they were invited to read a sexually permissive piece of iction. In the inal part of the experiment, they were asked to rate the enjoyableness of the story. It appeared that participants who had earlier thought of their friends from campus reported more pleasure reading the sexual story than those who thought of their older family members, who were supposedly more moralistic. heir experiment suggests that participants tend to respond in ways that are acceptable to their private audiences that are salient at a particular point in time. Apparently, the experiment evoked cognitive structures that were primed by the preceding perception of signiicant others. Similar results were found in another experiment (Baldwin, Carrell, & Lopez, 1990) in which participants evaluated themselves ater viewing the scowling disapproving face of their department chair or the approving face of another person.10

10 he concept of “external I-position” or the “other-in-the-self ” does not assume that the other as part of the extended self is an exact copy of the actual other’s perspective. Already Cooley (1902) was aware of this when he proposed his idea of the “looking glass self ” that does not relect how others actually see us but rather how we believe others see us. Inspired by this idea, Shrauger and Schoeneman (1979) reviewed research on the relationship between self-perceptions and evaluations from other people. hey concluded that people’s self-perceptions were substantially in agreement with the way they perceive themselves as being viewed by others. In addition, they found that there is no consistent agreement between people’s self-perceptions and how they are actually viewed by others. his conclusion suggests that an external I-position or the other-in-the-self is a subjective construction that is not necessarily in agreement with the actual evaluation of others. I hypothesize that external I-positions are, at least for a great deal, constructions produced by the needs and aspirations of internal I-positions. However, when external I-positions would become purely subjective constructions, they would become ultimately illusionary or even delusionary. herefore, I assume that the self, including its external I-positions, requires contact with the actual other in order to maintain or develop a minimally realistic image of the other as part of the extended self.

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Experiments of this type refer to one-to-one social relationships and not to broader societal paterns of positions. hey demonstrate that signiicant others are inluencing self-evaluation also when they are not physically present and that these evaluations are situation-dependent. he experiments can be seen as speciications and elaborations of the general assumption in psychoanalytic and symbolic interactionist traditions that signiicant others are “internalized” into the self and then organize self-evaluative processes. We have to make additional steps to come a bit closer to broader societal issues. Let us irst consider the problem of social prejudice.

Can an Outgroup Become Part of the Extended Self and Can Prejudice Be Reduced? In the described self-evaluation experiments, we see that signiicant others, at least their visualized scolding or approving faces, are temporarily included as dynamic parts of the self. A further step is made by Aron and colleagues (2005) who have proposed an “inclusion-of-other-in-the-self model.” he basic tenet of this model is that when standing in a close relationship with another person, one includes, to some degree, this person’s perspectives, resources, and identities in one’s own self. Just to give an impression of the kind of research that this model has generated, I give two examples. It is a familiar inding in psychological research that people recall past successes as more recent and past failures as more distant from the present moment than they actually are. Elaborating on this inding, Konrath and Ross (2003) wondered if people are subjected to the same efect when they take the position of their romantic partners. In accordance with the hypothesis, they found the same efect when participants recalled past events for their romantic partners, but only in those cases in which the partners were felt as close, not when they were felt as distant. Apparently, the biases of my own memory also work when I  memorize events in the life of my close partner. What then happens when I start to feel close to a member of an outgroup that up until now evoked my prejudices? In one of the applications of their model, Aron and colleagues (2005) reasoned that intergroup contact is likely to reduce prejudice when intimate contact with an outgroup member is involved. Typically, people treat ingroup members as parts of themselves and outgroup members as not part of themselves or, in more extreme cases, as strangers or aliens. However, the interesting question is what happens when one develops a friendship with an outgroup partner? he authors hypothesized that not only the outgroup member becomes part of the self but also the outgroup member’s group identity. If this would be right,

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it would be possible to undermine negative outgroup atitudes and prejudices. Results of several studies led the authors to conclude that there is empirical support for the proposition that contact with a member of an outgroup is more efective in reducing prejudice when one has a close relationship rather than a more distant relationship with that outgroup member. Apparently, friendship has the power to cross the emotion-laded borders between ingroup and outgroup and to reduce prejudice. Results like this suggest that it is possible that, via friendship relations, initially closed boundaries between ingroup and outgroup can be opened so that an initially alien outgroup becomes accepted as a part the extended self.11

I-Positions in a Societal Self: Dealing with Ambiguity As argued in the previous chapter, the self is not only social but also societal. From this theoretical angle, the I-positions of people located in ields of tension created by cultural diferences, conlicts, and oppositions are a particularly fertile domain of study. Given their place, or places, in the complexities of societal and cultural contexts, individuals located between the binary opposites of familiar societal categories (e.g., immigrating from one country to another or having diferent gender or racial positions) are particularly subjected to tensions that may entail the risk of fragmentation or identity confusion. As I show in this section, the notion of I-position is particularly viable in societal situations where the self is faced with ambiguity and contradiction. How does the self, in a luid and boundary-crossing society, respond to experiences of increased contradiction and discontinuity? I limit myself to three 11 he possibility to open closed boundaries applies also to the relations between races. Regardless of considering the diferences between races as biological givens or social constructions, research demonstrates that racial boundaries are less rigid than ideological movements or lay conceptions might consider them. In his research project on the subject, sociologist Paul Wimmer argues that that there are other tie formations that may be stronger than racial ones. In a study on Facebook connections in student populations, Wimmer and Lewis (2010) demonstrated that propinguity based on coresidence and ainity regarding non-racial categories (e.g., students from the same states) have more inluence on the tie formation process than does racial homophily. Such indings suggest that the boundaries between racial positions can be transcended by tie formation stemming from other positions. For example, when two people, one white and one black, meeting each other at a campus in New York, discover that they both are born and raised in Oklahoma, they experience an ainity that is strong enough to override their racial diference. What we can learn from such examples is that paterns of I-positions (“I as black and born in Oklahoma”) are more important for understanding behavior than diferences between positions in their isolation (“I as black”).

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illustrations: immigration and the ambiguities of transgender and multiracial identities.

he Field of Tension Between Diferent Cultures An illustrative example is the case of rapid immigration in Ireland some years ago. As O’Sullivan-Lago and de Abreu (2010) describe, Ireland is traditionally a country of mass emigration, but it faced a dramatic change around 1995 when the country became economically more prosperous. As a result of the sudden increase in immigration, the previously more homogeneous country was subjected to cultural change on a grand scale. In this particular situation, O’Sullivan and colleague explored, in several case studies, how representatives of the host culture responded to the sudden changes. hey found that the selves of their subjects reacted with a set of contrasting I-positions that seem at irst sight an “illogical” combination but at a closer scrutiny could be comprehended as a highly meaningful response to a discontinuous situation. One position was “I as a good person,” which accentuated the respondents’ national identity as being Irish, with the diferences brought in by the cultural other considered as negative and even abnormal. Surprisingly, the same subjects responded with another position that was labeled as “I as human being,” expressing a culture-transcending view of basic human equality. Finally, the subjects introduced the position “We as similar,” which resulted from the awareness of the necessity to include and integrate cultural others in the future of Ireland. In contrast to the egocentric position “I as a good person,” they acknowledged that both groups were possessing similar traits (e.g., “hardworking”). As this research suggests, there is ield of tension in the self where contradicting positions are juxtaposed as a meaningful response to a discontinuous situation. he ambiguous border zone engendered by the dynamics of globalization and its counterforce localization functions as a particularly fertile soil for the emergence of adaptive contradictions between cultural positions in self and identity. his is suggested by Bhatia (2007) who investigated a group of Indian Americans as one of the fastest-growing immigrant communities in the United States. Many members of these communities have a high degree of training as engineers, medical doctors, scientists, and university professors. In his participant observation and in-depth interviews the author discovered that there is an apparent discontinuity in their experiences. hey functioned as respected members of American society, but at the same time they felt that they were seen as racially diferent and as not “real Americans.” Like in O’Sullivan-Lago and colleague’s research, Bhatia’s subjects emphasized that they felt not only diferent from but also the same as members of the American majority, referring to their own successful integration in American society. Although they,

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and their children, had experiences with racism, they told that racism has not had an adverse efect on their work life. hey seemed to simultaneously accept and resist their minority position, being involved in a “double-voiced” dialogue between their individual voices and the majority’s dominant voice. In opposition to universal models of acculturation in cross-cultural psychology, Bhatia (2007) argues that a positional and dialogical view does not insist that conlicting positions or voices should be replaced by harmonious ones. Conlicting or contradicting voices may form a useful combination helpful to give an adequate response to cultural situations of discontinuity, contradiction, and ambiguity. In that context, Bhatia criticized mainstream theories of acculturation, based as they are on the questionable assumption of mutually exclusive acculturation strategies suggesting that when people integrate, they are not marginalized, and when they are marginalized they are not integrated. In contrast to this view, the author argues that integration and marginalization may co-exists in the same individual and function as mutually complementing components of a successful cultural adaptation. he ield of tension between positions is not only a source of new and ambiguous I-positions. It is also a space for identity confusion, certainly in a world where people are “on the move.” Cultural anthropologist van Meijl (2012) notices that the impact of migration is nowhere near as pervasive as in the Asia Paciic region. he largest migration streams are from Polynesia, with about 25% of the total population living abroad today. An increasing number of diasporic children and adolescents from Samoa and Tonga are living in New Zealand, which leads them to develop multiple identiications. Van Meijl explains that identity confusion begins when their Samoan identity is challenged by islandborn members of their extended family (aiga) while at the same time their identity as a New Zealander is questioned by New Zealanders of European descent (Papalagi). heir identity as being both Samoan and New Zealander entails insecurity and lack of control resulting from their experience of “deterritorialization.” he inability to ind their way in the ield of tension between diferent and contradictory cultural positions results in identity confusion and loss of direction.

he Field of Tension Between Gender Positions Allowing a ield of tension to exist between positions may have far reaching implications for identity. Take the usual distinction between “man” and “woman,” comprehended by many as two naturally given and all-inclusive categories and assumed to be shared parts of people’s everyday taxonomy. However, in the ield of gender identities this is an issue of intense debate.12 For those who 12

See Browne, Nash, and Hines (2010) for review.

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call themselves “transgender” the man-woman distinction is highly contested as it prevents the acknowledgment of identities located between these binary opposites.13 Gender positions can be combined in one and the same person who inds his or her (multiple) gender identity in moving from one position to the other and back. If one considers gender not as a category but as a form of positioning (for the diference see earlier in this chapter), one places the male-female distinction in a societal context and its associated power structures. In a strongly engaged discussion on the topic, Doan (2010) argues that transgendered individuals, and their diferent variants, experience the gendered division of space as a special kind of tyranny—the tyranny of gender—“that arises when people dare to challenge the hegemonic expectations for appropriately gendered behavior in western society. hese gendered expectations are an artifact of the patriarchal dichotomization of gender and have profound and painful consequences for many individuals” (p. 635). Considering the man-woman distinction from a positioning perspective has two implications: (a) when we look at “man” and “woman” as positions, there is a space between them. In their exploration of this in-between space, transgenders may locate themselves in the middle (being both male and female) or may prefer to switch from a male to a female position and back (sometimes being male, at other times female). As a-spatial binary classiications, categories lack the possibility of inding an identity in the space between them and prevent the construction of more complex societal or cultural paterns of positions; (b) the existing societal power structure keeps the boundaries between the two gender positions closed with the consequence that individuals with multiple gender positions feel seriously constrained in their freedom of movement. When society does not create the conditions for opening these boundaries, transgender persons may feel themselves locked up in an “I-prison” (for discussion of this concept, see later in this chapter). However, via publications, gender studies, forums, and public discussion, they develop counter-positions as forms of culture criticism.

he Field of Tension Between Racial Positions Similarly, a ield of tension and ambiguity is stretched between “black” and “white” as racial designations. What does it mean to be “black”? Is it because you have a black skin or because you identify with a black culture? In the former case the deinition is in the eyes of other people, while in the later case it is subjected 13

Transgender is considered an umbrella term, typically used to identify individuals with a gender identity or expression that difers from the culturally deined gender associated with one’s assigned sex at birth (i.e., male or female) (Davidson, 2007; Hughto, Reisner, & Pachanki, 2015; Valentine, 2007).

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to changes and variations dependent on one’s personal and collective history. Mat Johnson, author of the book Loving Day (2015), is the son of an African American mother and an Irish American father. He grew up in Philadelphia and lived mostly with his mother in a black neighborhood. His skin was so light that he might have passed for white but, as he told in an interview, being biracial in the 1970s meant actually “black” as there was no place for ambiguity at that time. hese days, he describes himself as a mixed person of African American descent. He uses also another more loaded word “mulato,” which evokes memory of slavery. He prefers this term to denote his identity as he feels it links him with his past (Code Switch: Frontiers of Race, Culture, and Ethnicity, May 24, 2015). As this example suggests, there is a ield of tension between “black” and “white” where biracial identities can ind their place and where changes and variations are possible.14

he Field of Tension Between Diferent Socioeconomic Classes Ambiguous and contradicting I-positions may also emerge in the ield of tension between diferent social-economic classes coming together in the self of one and the same person. Gregg (1991) describes the case of a working-class girl from a traditional Italian immigrant family who rose to the position of company chief executive in the United States. In an interview, she characterized herself as a “diamond in the rough.” his structurally ambiguous symbol can be read from two diferent I-positions. In one version she portrayed herself as “reined,” “pure,” “precious,” and “sophisticated.” In another one, she pictured herself contrastingly as “crude,” “street-wise,” “tough,” and “dirty.” As an ambiguous mediator, the symbol of the diamond in the rough signiies the tension-loaded juxtaposition of “reined” middle-class and “tough” workingclass positions. he existence of a ield of tension between positions becomes salient when we realize that there are no sharp boundaries between self and non-self but rather gradual transitions. Some I-positions are located in the vague and ambiguous border zone between self and non-self, which can be labeled, with a term borrowed from Gregg (1991), as “identity-in-diference,” that is, they belong to “me” and do not belong to “me” at the same time. (For a discussion of ambiguous I-positions, see Raggat, 2012.)

14

For a more extensive literature review of ields of tension in multiracial, multicultural and transgender identities and their functioning as dynamic multiplicity of I-positions, see Hermans, Konopka, Oosterwegel, and Zomer (2017).

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Summarizing, as a metaphor for the self, “society” does not only refer to internal I-positions but also to external I-positions as parts of the extended domain of the self. he other crosses the boundaries of the self as a welcome guest or as an unwanted intruder. Friendship with an outgroup member permits the other to enter the self in the form of an accepted I-position in its extended domain. his crossing-border experience has the potential to soten sharp ingroup versus outgroup separation and facilitates the reduction of prejudice. he I-position as a spatial-relational concept is particularly useful to understanding the ambiguous border zone in the societal self, which exists as a highly dynamic ield of tension between identity positions. he existence of a ield of tension between positions allows the emergence of more complex paterns of positions as typical of transgender, multiracial, or multiclass identities.

Self as a Society with Promoters and Meta-Positions In this section I present a model in which I clarify how the self works as a highly dynamic ield of I-positions, with a focus on two kinds of I-positions—metapositions and promoter positions—that play central roles in the organization of the self and are elaborated on at diferent places throughout this book. I do this as a irst step toward a model that I elaborate on later in this chapter as a basis of the metaphor “self as society.” Purely for illustrative purposes, I clarify the model here with the short description of a client with whom I cooperated as a co-therapist in a period in which he faced serious psychological problems. his case is extensively discussed in two previous publications (Hermans, 2003, 2014). In this section I limit myself to those parts of the case that clarify the model. he case does not refer explicitly to any broader societal context. My purpose in the present case study is purely to illustrate how society as a metaphor is useful to understanding the functioning of the self.

“Dictatorship” in the Self as a Maladaptive Coalition of Positions Richard, a 38-year-old man, contacted Els Hermans-Jansen as a psychotherapist ater years of general dissatisfaction with his life. He sufered from persistent doubts, which paralyzed him in making relevant choices on important maters in his life. He had intense feelings of guilt because he felt unable to engage in a stable relationship with his girlfriend with whom he had been living for many years. His job as a part-time administrator was unsatisfying for him as he considered it

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Table 2.1. Position Repertoire Matrix with Prominence Ratings My Mother

My Father

My Friend

Sum Score

I as a son

5

4

0

9

I as a friend

3

2

5

10

I as a student

3

4

2

9

I as avoider

4

5

4

13

I as fearful

2

3

2

7

I as dreamer

3

4

2

9

I as perfectionist

3

5

2

10

I as a partner

2

2

3

7

25

29

20

Sum score

below the level of his capacities. He saw himself as a “failure,” plagued as he was by shame, guilt, and doubts about his intellectual and social qualities and about his life as a whole. In our cooperation with Richard, we, Els Hermans as psychotherapist and me as co-therapist, proposed that he work with a method, the Personal Position Repertoire (PPR) method (Hermans, 2001a), that allows the study of the prominence of a range of internal positions in relation to a range of “extended” or “external” positions (e.g., to what extent do “I as fearful” come to the fore in relation with “my father,” “mother,” “friend,” “teacher,” etc., respectively, see Table 2.1 for an abbreviated example). Typically, internal positions difer in the extent to which they are prominent in relation to a variety of external positions. For instance, one of Richard’s main positions “I as avoidant” showed high prominence ratings (on a 0 to 5 rating scale) in relation to his partner, his father, and his grandfather but low ratings in relation to his father-in-law, mother-in-law, and nature. hese diferences refer to the contextualized quality of the process of positioning. In contrast to generalizing traits, I-positions are speciic, situationdependent ways of placing oneself toward another person and toward oneself as part of a broader associative and organized network of positions. Figure 2.3 shows the self as depicted in the form of two open concentric circles that allow one to distinguish between the macro-society that has an open relationship with the external domain in the self that, in turn, has an open relationship with the internal domain. Positions may ind their ways from the macrosociety to the micro-society of the self and, reversed, from the self to society at large. As the dashed circles indicate (open and demarcated) the macro-society can be distinguished from the micro-society but, at the same time, macro works in micro and reversed.

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SOCIETY EXTERNAL DOMAIN OF SELF INTERNAL DOMAIN OF SELF Dreamer & perfectionist

Avoider

Father & grandfather

DIALOGICAL SPACE Accepting

Psychotherapist

Figure 2.3. Richard’s I-positions in the self-space.

An analysis of Richard’s position repertoire showed, to his surprise, that there were two positions that were closely related to the “avoidant” position but were even more important for his present functioning: the “dreamer” and the “perfectionist.” his is a phenomenon that is typical of many psychotherapy situations: clients implicitly know the psychological backgrounds of their problem but are not able to explicitly articulate them. Ater a short moment of self-relection, Richard gave an interpretation of the connection between the dreamer and the perfectionist in this way: I tend to see them as a pair [the perfectionist and dreamer]. he dreamer is the one who proposes things. he perfectionist then has a critical look at what has been made of it. he dreamer is the fantast, without any limitation by reality. he dreamer is very free and active. He is strongly developed. he perfectionist is more like a gatekeeper. He looks ahead: “his will be nothing.” He also looks back and sees what has come out of all those dreams. He knows how it should be done. he perfectionist looks compassionate, shakes his head. (Hermans, 2014, p. 143) As this quotation shows, I-positions do not act in isolation. Like individuals and groups in society, they organize themselves as coalitions. In this case, there

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is clearly a maladaptive coalition, as the overly pretentious perfectionist tends to undermine the unrealistic air castles built up by the dreamer and controls him in a dominating way. Rather than working together in productive ways, they are not able to function as an “efective team.” In the course of the discussions with Richard, it appeared that he felt some resistance in acknowledging the impact of this unproductive coalition in his life. He could admit very well the importance of the “avoider,” as one of his main foreground positions, but he felt some resistance to acknowledge the relevance of the “dreamer” and the “perfectionist” as background, yet most powerful, positions in his repertoire: he perfectionist: I approach this with much caution. I tend to make movements around this topic. I  shrank from giving this a place. It is an arrogant igure: this passionate shaking his head: “his is not noteworthy.” his perfectionism has taken the form of expectations which have formed my personality for a long time. Memories are transformed into expectations. As a truck driver I once caused an accident. Finally, there was not more than material damage. But at that moment I thought: “his is what you have made of your life.” It was something that went beyond that situation: It was an expectation. It was the feeling that I was not a person of myself. It was rather a movement by other people, some kind of melting of my parents and myself. My grandfather had very negative expectations of me, that nothing would become of me, that I had no persistence. I was afraid of his depreciation. At the same time I’m very wary of laying the blame on my grandfather or my parents. (Hermans, 2014, p. 143, italics added) At the end of this quote he refers to some powerful external positions (his grandfather and parents) which, as ghosts from the past, are central in his ruminations. In his memories, they strongly agree with each other that “nothing would become of him.” As a powerful coalition of shadow positions in the external domain of his self, they repeat their depreciating and generalizing message that he felt as a threat to his self-esteem and life-satisfaction. In Richard’s case, we see a paterning of I-positions, with two maladaptive coalitions, one in the external domain of his self and another in the internal domain. In the external domain, his grandfather and father “cooperate” to make him feel inferior. As a response to this devilish coalition, he developed the avoidant and, even more inluential, the dreamer and perfectionist as counter-positions in his internal domain. However, the perfectionist, as a harsh internal judge, was putting him down persistently, which he felt as conirming the depreciating voices of his father and grandfather. In his internal domain, he was not able to escape the vicious circle of the dreamer and the perfectionist. he bigger and more

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fanciful his dreams, the more disdainful his perfectionist would become. As a desperate response to these disorganizing positions, he led away in his dreams that served, like an addiction, as an escape from his returning failures. Only ater becoming aware of the pervasive impact of these counterproductive paterns of I-positions could he start inding resources in himself that would eventually help him to achieve a beter balance.

Promoter Position: Stimulating the Development of the Self In a group or society, we ind particular persons particularly inspiring and we grant them respect, admiration, gratitude, inluence, and even social power. Typically, we see them as giving a signiicant push to the development of a group, organization, or ideological association. Such people radiate as “promoters” because they are acknowledged as adding value to the community, give it a sense of direction and contribute to its further development in signiicant ways. Such promoters are not working as purely outside igures in society. As promoting I-positions or, briely, “promoters” they can be adopted and developed as parts in the extended domain of the self. For some it may be a famous person who reaches the status of a hero or heroine, like a Mandela, a Ghandi, a Malala Yousafzay, a pop artist, an admired ilm actrice, or an imaginary igure from a book. For others it may be a person living in their immediate environment: a parent, a grand-parent, a uncle or aunt, a dedicated friend or a . . . psychotherapist. Such people may enter the virtual space of the extended domain of the self and become established as valuable sources of energy. Let us illustrate this with the example of Richard. Facing the dominant role of the perfectionist and his unatainable standards, the three of us—therapist, co-therapist and Richard—started to search for more adaptive counter-positions as response to the powerful perfectionist. We suggested Richard to start with some “innocent” activities, which were, in the eyes of the perfectionist, “scarcely noteworthy.” his was done in order to explore a space in the self that was somewhere beyond the reach of the dictatorial perfectionist. As psychotherapists, we encouraged him to engage in some, for him familiar, relaxing activities, like running, cycling, and watching birds and, next time, share his experiences with us. he strategy was to stimulate him to perform activities at a low aspiration level, without the pressure of any “standard of excellence.” Some weeks later, Richard started to talk about “acceptance,” which appeared to be a turning point in his development. He told us that he felt somewhat better and that doing the “innocent activities” made him feel that he was able to accept the possibilities he had: “In these activities, not much progress is needed, there is less self-blaming and there are less obstacles, and less energy is spoiled.”

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He added, “By this acceptance I  experience somewhat more lightness in my existence. I oten continue to ruminate, yet I have created some islands of wellbeing” (emphasis added). In telling about his experiences, he spontaneously referred to our roles as therapists: “You accept me and that’s okay; I pick up ordinary activities and you agree with that; there is no pressure to take it very seriously. And these activities work: hey provide an antidote to my self-image. I make space for doing these things and also my friends give me that space. his also liberates me from isolation” (emphasis added). In this short quotation, Richard refers to three developments that are of immediate relevance to the psychotherapy or counseling process: (a) the “small steps” are suiciently beyond the reach of his perfectionist position as a “dictator” in the self; (b) the small activities have created spaces (“islands of wellbeing”) that relax his permanent feelings of oppression; and (c) these activities, emerging from our external position as therapists, create a route to a new internal position, which is crucial for his future self-development: “I as accepting” (see Figure 2.3). his position becomes a new part of his internal domain: he moves from external to internal acceptance or, in Rogerian terms, from unconditional positive regard to unconditional positive self-regard. he accepting position is particularly signiicant for Richard, and other clients as well, because on a long-term basis it has the potential to give a developmental impetus to other more speciic positions that receive a certain amount of “energizing nutrition” from it. It is even generative enough to create new positions in the future. Such a promoter is well-equipped to function, certainly in alliance with other positions, as a productive counter-position to the dominant coalition in which the perfectionist was the most central one. In order to give an impression of the way in which Richard created a link between his emerging accepting position on the one hand and his dreamer and perfectionist on the other hand, I give an excerpt. He wrote down his relections about going to a lecture as one of his “innocent activities”: his event, atending a lecture, the inspiring environment and the presentation, evokes a lot of memories about earlier times, how I hoped and wrestled; the dream to develop myself, to achieve much. I always felt the disappointment and the failure and all these things came together in a source of aversion and accusation. Now I’m siting here and cautiously I  explore the possibility of acceptance.  . . . I  feel relaxation, lightness very directly, a cheerful feeling almost, like in a play . . . why not? Look forward, you get this for free, consider your possibilities which are available and be content which what you have. he richness of siting

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here and being inspired, ater the beautiful walk along the old buildings, by a presentation from which you may learn something . . . this is free. Altogether, Richard’s change in this crucial phase of the therapy, demonstrates that he is moving from unproductive coalitions between his perfectionist, dreamer, avoider, and some of his family members toward a new and more productive coalition between the therapist and his self-accepting position as promoter. his new coalition creates a dialogical space that gives a meaningful direction to his life. Note that in the presented example, I have focused on “self-acceptance” as a promoter in the internal domain of the self. However, such a position may greatly, and oten surprisingly, vary. For some it may be “I as spiritual,” “I as religious,” or “my mission in life,” for others it may be “I as always going on,” “I as a dedicated scientist,” “I as caring for the unprivileged,” or “I as overcoming the limitations to which my parents were subjected during their whole lives.” Even over one’s life course promoters may change and show remarkable diferences, particularly when people go through a turning point in their lives (e.g., from “I as an upward climber” to “I as a mentor of young people” ater going through a period of burnout). Promoters in the self (Valsiner, 2004)15 have a some characteristics that are analogous to promoting leaders in society: (a) they organize and give direction to a diversity of more specialized I-positions that otherwise would go their own way; they have a “compass function” for the self-system as a whole; (b)  they imply a considerable openness toward the future and have the potential to produce a diverse range of more specialized positions that are relevant to the further development of the self; (c) they integrate a diversity of new and already existing positions in the self; by “integration” I mean that diferent positions are brought together to form adaptive and productive combinations; (d) if suiciently dialogical, they have the potential to contribute to the democratic organization of the self; and (e) they function as “guards” of the continuity of the self but, at the same time, they give room for discontinuity. Whereas continuity is guaranteed by their ability to link the past, present, and future of the self, a certain degree of discontinuity results from the fact that they function as a source of new positions. In this sense, promoter positions function as innovators of the self. he concept of “promoter” is one of the central concepts in the present theoretical framework. I come back to it when the self is placed in the context of the society at large in chapter 3. 15

Jaan Valsiner was the irst to propose the idea of a promoter. He called it “promoter sign” and was later included as a “position” in DST (Hermans & Konopka, 2010).

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Meta-Position: Overarching View and Long-Term Perspective Society is full of commitees, investigative groups for “staying on track,” crossdisciplinary teams for future investigations, or ombudspersons who review requests from individuals and groups. hey typically have in common the aim to get an overview of the complexity of a particular problem area as a basis for advices or action programs. Usually, such individuals or groups are concerned about taking a long-term view of the problem at hand. hey proit from taking a “meta-position” that, like meta-cognition (Flavell, 1979; Hussain, 2015), provides an overview of more speciic I-positions, including their paterns and interrelationships. Such a concept is indispensable for any theory of the self that is concerned with a “distance view” on the diversity and complexity of more speciic I-positions and the ways in which they are related to each other. What is the nature of a meta-position and which function does it have? In its most typical form, it can be described as an overview of a greater variety of speciic positions, including their mutual links and associated voices.16 In order to illustrate “steps of increasing distance,” imagine a tennis player involved in a game. As long as she is in the heat of the contest, the best she can do is to keep her full concentration on the task at hand. Any distraction or moment of self-doubt would interfere with her performance. As long as she is fully engaged in her activity, she is just in the position of the player. Ater the game, however, she may relect on her achievement, and think about her position as tennis player. She then places herself on a second, higher level from where she looks down at her actions and relects on them. At this level she becomes involved in a critical evaluation of her performance in close connection with the play of her opponent as an external position in her extended self. As a result, she decides to follow a diferent strategy next time. Later, in the evening, siting in a comfortable chair, she may move to a third, even higher level when she poses 16

Meta-positioning parallels meta-cognition in cognitive psychology. Pety, Brinol, Tormala, and Wegener (2007) propose a useful distinction between primary and secondary cognition that covers much of the literature on the subject. Primary cognition or thinking concerns our initial association of an object with some atribute. We can say, for example, “he lower is red” or “I like the lower.” Following that thought, one can generate a thought at a second level that concerns relection on the thought at the primary level. “Is that lower really red or pink?” or “I’m not sure how much I like that lower.” Metacognition refers to the thinking on the second level or to our thoughts about our thoughts (p.  254). Building on this distinction, I  propose that meta-positioning concerns relection about both our internal and external I-positions and their interconnections. Moreover, metapositioning includes relection about the nature of the relations between our internal and external self-positions on the one hand and the positions of actual others on the other hand. Meta-positioning can be comprehensive and rich or limited and poor. For a discussion of poor meta-positioning in personality disorders, see Dimaggio (2012).

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the question about her future career. Does she go on to invest her best eforts in tennis? Does she go for Wimbledon or not? What is the view of her family members? At this level of self-relection and self-dialogue, she considers the connection between her position as tennis player and other signiicant positions, for example, she as a student gited in math, as a mother of two children, or as interested in art. Ater her “travel” across a broader array of positions, possibly broadened by a discussion with a wise advisor, she has the feeling that she is able to make the right decision. In summary, the tennis player can move up and down between three levels: (a) being purely in the position, (b) moving above the position and relecting on it, including its subpositions (e.g. “my serve,” “my backhand,” or “my smash”), and (c) moving to a higher level from where a greater variety of positions—the tennis player in relation to other positions— are considered in their interconnections, so that adaptive or maladaptive patterns can be discovered. As we have seen in Richard’s case, a meta-level is reached when we take a glance at the positions placed in the concentric circles (Figure 2.3). At this level some questions are posed that are most signiicant for the self ’s further development. What are the most relevant internal and external positions that together form a “working self ” in the present period of life?17 What are the dominance relationships between them? What do their voices have to say and what are their stories? To whom are the messages addressed? Are there coalitions? Are they adaptive and productive or maladaptive and unproductive? Are there vicious circles? What are the relevant counter-positions? In what ways do the diferent positions inluence each other? Which of them are (possible) promoters? Such questions require the perspective of a broader meta-position. A meta-position has several speciic qualities: 1. It creates an optimal distance toward other, more speciic, positions, although it may be atracted, both cognitively and emotionally, toward some positions more than others (e.g., a critical position or a melancholic one). 17 he working self-concept, as known in psychological literature, is based on the assumption that not all self-representations that are part of the complete self-concept are always accessible. As Markus and Wurf (1987) describe it: “he working self-concept, or the self-concept of the moment, is best viewed as a continually active, shiting array of accessible self-knowledge” (p. 306). In line with this deinition, I see the working self as a shiting array of accessible I-positions, organized in a coniguration that is triggered by ongoing events, including the counter-positions in the self as a response to these events. For example, I feel positioned as “stressed” by a burdening situation but intentionally evoke “I as relaxing myself ” and “my always available spiritual guide” as counter-positions. In other words, the working self consists of a coniguration of both situationally triggered positions and responding ones.

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2. It provides an overarching view of a multiplicity of positions, both internal and external ones, so that they are seen simultaneously and in their interconnections. 3. It enables the participants to link the positions as part of their personal history and the collective history of their group or culture. 4. In linking past, present, and future, a meta-position permits a long-term view of the self. 5. It leads to an evaluation of the several positions and the way they are organized; as a result of this evaluation, some positions are prioritized above others and the degree of automaticity of positions is reduced 6. he person becomes aware of the diferences in their accessibility. Each position has an entrance and an exit. When the entrance is closed, it is diicult for the meta-position to get familiar with the speciic needs, wishes, and values of this position (in Richard’s case, the perfectionist was very inluential in his self but initially he could not ind an entrance to this position so that it remained, for some time, a “stranger” in his self). In reverse, a well-developed meta-position creates an open entrance to a broad variety of speciic positions so that they can share their experiences and stories with the meta-position.18 7. he direction of change and the importance of one or more positions for the future development of the self become apparent so that space is created for the emergence of promoters. In summary, the development of a metaposition with a broad scope and long-term perspective, contributes, more than most other positions, to the cohesion and continuity of the self as a whole (Georgaca, 2001; Hermans & Hermans-Konopka, 2010). A meta-position has three functions: centralizing, executive, and signaling. As centralizing it brings diferent and even opposed positions together so that their organization and mutual linkages become obvious, preventing the self from becoming fragmented. In its executive function it provides a basis for decisionmaking and action programs, based on the insight in the nature of the speciic Ipositions and their organization. As signaling, it acts as a stop signal for automatic and habitual behavior enabling the self to consider ways to become liberated from rigidly established or maladaptive paterns of positions. Evaluating them from a broad-scoped and long-term perspective of a meta-position increases the chances for innovation of signiicant parts of the self.

18 For broadening the bandwidth of positions positive emotions are particularly important. According to Fredrickson’s broaden-and-build theory (Fredrickson & Branigan, 2005), positive emotions broaden the scope of atention and thought-action repertoires. In contrast, negative emotions, relative to a neutral state, narrow thought-action repertoires. his suggests that positive emotions make it easier to give atention to a diversity of I-positions from a broad-picture meta-position.

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It is worth noting that “meta-position” and “promoter position” are diferent concepts. While a meta-position is a spatial concept providing an overview of large parts of the self-system, a promoter has temporal aims as it gives an impetus to one’s future development. While a meta-position works as a vertically ascending and descending “helicopter” allowing an increasing or decreasing distance view on the landscape of the self, a promoter functions like a motor pushing the “machinery” of the self into a particular direction at a horizontal plane. In essence, a meta-position is not diferent from an ombudsperson or commitee taking an overarching view in order to investigate the relation between people or groups having speciic positions in an organization, and, in essence, a promoter is not diferent from a leader of an institution who is planning to give the organization a push into a direction that brings it to a more advanced level of functioning (see chapter 3). In summary, metaphorically Richard’s case serves as an example of the self as a society. It consists of a diversity of I-positions that are involved in communication with some of them having more power than other ones. Just as in a society, I-positions form coalitions and cooperate in a way that increase their inluence in the system as a whole. Some of the positions receive a leadership status and are, at least for some time, more inluential in the self-society than others. In Richard’s case the perfectionist functioned as an authoritarian leader who dominated the system in a monological way, not willing to give the other positions a chance to express themselves from their own speciic point of view. he perfectionist represented a failing atempt to give an efective answer to the humiliating and harshly judging igures, the father and grandfather, who occupied powerful and monological positions in the external domain of the self. In a later phase, new positions entered the ield that functioned as promoters both in the external domain (therapist) and in the internal domain (accepting), resulting in a form of new leadership of a more dialogical nature that reorganized the self in a more democratic direction. his new leadership proited from taking a meta-position that enabled Richard not only to articulate and distinguish his most relevant I-positions but also to see how they were related to each other in the form of paterns. In summary, in the proposed theoretical framework, the meta-position and the promoter position are central concepts that refer to the organizational nature of the self. he meta-position permits a broader view on the decentralizing diversity of speciic I-positions and works as a centralizing counterforce, necessary for long-term planning and well-balanced decision-making. he promoter prevents the self from becoming fragmented by a diversity of speciic I-positions that are each following their own trajectories and gives a developmental impetus so that the speciic I-positions remain suiciently centralized and organized.

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Deepening the Meaning of “I-Positions” Because the concept of I-position is a recent contribution to the social-scientiic literature of the self and at the heart of this book, it needs some further consideration. I place it in the context of related notions in the literature and elaborate on basic insights of some of the main theorists of the self, with particular atention to George Herbert Mead’s concepts of “play,” “game,” and “generalized other.”

I-Position as an Alternative Nomenclature Why would the notion of I-position be a useful and valuable contribution to psychology and the social sciences? here have already been so many atempts to conceptualize the multiplicity of the self and its diversiied, conlicting, and contradictory nature! As Rowan (2012) shows in a review the list is quite impressive: ego–id–superego, complexes or archetypes, top dog versus underdog, ego states, parent–child–adult, imaginary objects, imagoes, hidden observer, identity states, internal objects, false versus true selves, energy paterns, alters, community of self, emotionally divided self, small minds, agencies within the brain, subselves, subidentities, self-schemas, possible selves, personas, conigurations of self, subpersonalities, and others. Rowan (2012) argues that there are two main reasons why the nomenclature of I-positions is to be preferred above any of those just mentioned. One is that it is less prone to reiication. When we succumb to the temptation of reiication, we tend to see the parts of the self as overly strong, solid, and long-lasting, assuming them to be permanent or at least semipermanent. I-positions, on the contrary, ofer a more dynamic and diferentiated picture from a temporal point of view. Positioning is an expression of the self as process. Although the self may contain long-lasting and irmly established I-positions, many of them just come and go with great frequency. Within a relatively short time, I can position and reposition myself toward a particular person as a “supporting colleague,” as a “critical opponent in a discussion,” “as a wise advisor,” and unexpectedly we discover that we are both “lovers of the music of Sergei Prokoiev.” Although I-positions may return over time, they are temporary and situation-contingent rather than permanent in their essence. Another advantage of the notion of I-position noticed by Rowan (2012) is that there is no suggestion of subordination to the person as an individualized whole, as suggested by, for example, the term “sub-personality.” his nonsubordination allows one to consider a spirit, an angel, or a god as becoming an I-position in the extended domain of the self. he self is then not felt as a

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whole in itself, and certainly not as a container, but rather as a part-whole, participating in a reality that transcends the self as a separate and individualized entity. his participation in wider social and spiritual realms was for us (Hermans & Hermans-Konopka, 2010)  a reason to complement James’s (1890) appropriative function (ownership) of the I with a receptive function. One of the implications of the receptive I is the awareness that meaningful “gits” are oten received not only from actual others but also from imagined or imaginary beings and, therefore, they deserve a central place as possible promoters in the external domain of an open self.19 As Caughey (1984) has convincingly demonstrated, imagined and imaginary others play central roles not only in other cultures but also in Western parts of the world and they appear in precious or dreary dreams, fantasies, imaginations, memories, and anticipations.

he Extension of the I-Position to “We” and “You” I would like to add a third reason for introducing the I-position in the social science’s nomenclature: it extends the self not only to the other but even to the wider society in a way that the deeper connections between self and society can be brought to the surface. Already James (1890), in his ground-breaking chapter “he consciousness of self,” wrote down a much quoted sentence: “a man has as many social selves as there are individuals who recognize him and carry an image of him in their mind” and he added: “he has as many social selves as there are distinct groups of persons about whose opinion he cares. He generally shows a diferent side of himself to each of these diferent groups” (p.  294). hese statements underline one of the proposals in this book, that the self is not only extended to other individuals but also to a diversity of groups (e.g., the phenomena of self-nationalization and internationalization in chapter 1). A  group that is felt as signiicant to one’s life is belonging to the self in the extended sense of the term. his Jamesian extension of the self to the group has the advantage of opening the door to a conception of the self that transcends the limitations of the individualized container notion that has been so strongly emphasized in our Western culture, particularly since the beginnings of the Enlightenment. For the I-position, as a theoretical concept, this means that it covers not only the irst-person singular pronoun “I” but also its extension in 19 he contact with such promoters—a real person or an imagined one, like a holy person, a god, a spiritual being—represents a “reversed extension” as the other extends itself toward the receiving self, which opens itself to the other that enters the self and becomes part of it or even permeates it with its blessings entirely. In contrast, possession by an evil doer, like in demonic possession, represents a reversed extension by an anti-promoter.

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the form of the irst-person plural pronoun “we” and the second-person pronoun “you” as referring to the other-in-the-self.20 he intimate relationship between “I” and “we” was also emphasized by Bakhtin (1984), who proposed that all uterances are multivoiced and dialogical at the same time (see also Skinner, Valsiner, & Holland, 2001). In the act of speaking there are at least two voices: the voice of the speaking individual and the voice of a social language (e.g., one’s professional group, one’s circle of friends, or one’s dialect). In Bakhtin’s terms, the word in language is “half foreign” as the collective voice of a social group expresses itself through the mouth of the individual speaker. he speaker populates the collective voice with his or her own intentions and expressive tendencies (e.g., I speak as a therapist or a scientist but at the same time I give my own opinion). he social languages are adapted and personalized by one’s own expressive and meaning-giving tendencies. In the “I” there is oten an implicit “we” and the “we” is personalized by the “I.” here is an intimate connection not only between “I” and “we” but even between “I” and “you,” already on the nonverbal level. It is a well-known fact that people involved in a conversation in which they share experiences oten imitate each other’s posture, the movements of their body, the way they hold their arms, and even the speed of their talking. Similarly, they tend to include and imitate words and expressions, spoken by others at some earlier moment in conversations, in their continuing exchange. In this way the “you” creeps, oten invisibly and beyond the level of awareness, into the “I” and the “I” into the “you.” A familiar phenomenon is when one talks about oneself not as “I” but as “you” (e.g., “You know that it could fail, but yet you do it!”). Instead of referring

20 Apart from social extension, the self is also (increasingly) technologically extended. Building on the work of Marshall McLuhan, Ernst Kapp, and David Rothenberg, Brey (2000) makes a distinction between three kinds of technological extension: An artifact may replace the functioning of an organ (e.g., driving a car replaces one’s legs as a means for transportation); it may supplement an organ (e.g., clothing adds to temperature control functions already performed by the skin); it may also enhance the functional powers of an organ (e.g., via a telescope or megaphone). Referring to the enhancing function, Brey notes that it enables cooperating with the artifact and allowing a symbiotic relationship with it (e.g., eye plus telescope). Expanding on Brey’s distinctions, one may consider wearable computers (my brain and computer), social media, and other computer-mediated tools as powerful examples of the enhancing function of artifacts as they enable constant interaction with other individuals and groups. As these examples suggest, technological and social extensions are not separated from each other. Depending on the way they are used, technological extensions have the potential of expanding the reach and density of “others-in-the self ” and changing the nature of our communicative capacities in only partly predictable ways. Given the raped advances in machines with superior intelligence, we may come at a point in which we have to stop seeing machines as just objects. With their growing intelligence and learning capacity they could become beings which act from a subject position: Robot as another I.

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to the actual source of an action (“I”), one refers to a more general “you,” including oneself as the main addressee. Similarly, in many conversations a person may give an advice to another, while at the same time or even in de irst place, addressing it to oneself. Giving a warning or admonishment to another person functions then as an implicit self-directed advice. A warning like “Never do that” can even have the implicit meaning of “I also say this to myself.” In other words, the I and the you, sharply demarcated as they are according to the celebrated individualized autonomy ideal in Western civilization, are actually not that separate as they seem to be. In the practical usage of the terms, the “I” iniltrates the “you” and, in reverse, the “you” can become identiied with the “I.” In other words, even when the speaking person is very well able to make a clear distinction between I and you, he or she may extend the “I” toward the “we” and even towards the “you.”21 However, it is not enough to cover the terms “I,” “we,” and “you” in a broadened social view of the I-position. As discussed in chapter 1, the self is not only social but also societal. James, as one of the main representatives of American pragmatism, is certainly highly sensitive to the social nature of the self but less articulated on the question of how other individuals and groups function as part of the self as a society. For making a step to society, we have to elaborate on some of the insights of George Herbert Mead.

he Limitations of a Homogeneous Society Metaphor: Short Detour to Mead In his classic work Mind, Self, and Society (1934) Mead was well aware of the fact that an individual is not simply connected and interacting with a diversity of other people but that these individuals should be, and actually are, organized in order to function as a smaller or larger society. his interest in the organized

21

In a review of studies on self-reference, Dolcos and Albarracin (2014) observed that people oten talk to themselves using the irst-person pronoun “I” but also talk to themselves as if they are speaking to someone else, using the second-person pronoun “you.” he authors refer to evidence suggesting that people prefer irst-person reference when they talk about their feelings (e.g., “I don’t like doing this”), while they tend to use second-person reference when they engage in action and when they are faced with diicult situations requiring self-regulation (“You should irst do this and then that!”) and self-encouragement (“You can make it!”). Apparently, the use of the second-person pronoun is typical of imperative statements invoked when people engage in action and when they are confronted with diicult tasks requiring full atention. In their own research, Dolcos and Albarracin (2014) demonstrated that addressing oneself as “you” in preparation for an anagram task enhanced performance more than addressing oneself as “I.” Altogether, their research showed that secondperson self-reference strengthens both actual behavior performance and prospective behavioral intentions more than irst-person reference (for self-regulation in the context of research on self-talk, see chapter 7).

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nature of the self is already expressed in his well-known concept of the “generalized other.” Mead proposed that, in the genesis of the self, the child goes through two developmental stages: play and game. In the play stage, children learn to take the atitude of particular others toward themselves. Children are doing this by experimenting with a diversity of social positions. Playing the roles of parent, teacher, or police oicer, they admonish themselves as a parent or a teacher and arrest themselves as a police oicer. Play thus represents being another to the self: “he child says something in one character and responds in another character, and then his responding in another character is a stimulus to himself in the irst character, and so the conversation goes on” (Mead, 1934, p. 151). In Mead’s view, the play stage represents a signiicant step in the development of children in taking the atitude of signiicant others toward themselves. However, what they lack in this stage is a more generalized and organized sense of themselves. herefore, the game stage is required to position the self as part of an organized society. Whereas play allows children to take the role of discrete others, a game requires them to take the role of everyone else involved in the same activity. Moreover, game situations typically include diferent roles that are interconnected in prescribed ways. Playing a game together requires the participants to be able to take all the roles as an organized arrangement, and precisely here we ind a useful distinction between the social an societal. Even a simple game, such as hide-and-seek, requires children to alternate the roles of “hunter” and “hider” and to know these roles in their rule-guided interconnections. More complicated game situations are provided by tennis, baseball, football, and many other sports that are organized around prescribed rules. Mead’s analysis explains that play leads to the introduction of speciic, discrete positions in the self, whereas game introduces more general positions, denoted by his famous concept of the “generalized other.” he later type of position, that functions as organized “we ” or “you” versions of I-positions, is necessary for a society in need of social rules that organize the relationships between positions as shared and understood by all the participants of a (societal) game. Although Mead’s insight have been of enormous value for understanding the relationship between self and society, there is a serious problem with the concept of the generalized other in the context of a postmodern globalizing and localizing society. As Ritzer (1992) has argued, a problem with Mead’s theory is that it lacks a macro-sense of society and its institutions in the way that theorists such as Marx, Weber, and Durkheim have outlined. Mead is so concerned with the unity of society and the “objective” atitude of the generalized other that his view lacks a systematic theory of macro-social conlicts, social diferences, and ethnic- and gender-based inequalities. With its heavy emphasis on micro-social game-like processes, Mead’s theory is based on a “homogeneous society” metaphor. Indeed, the “generalized

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other,” embodied in social rules, cannot be so “generalized” as Mead has suggested, because in our globalizing society interactions are increasingly taking place at the interfaces of very diferent groups, countries, institutions, and cultures. At these interfaces, diferent and even conlicting rules, that used to work within the boundaries of relatively isolated groups or cultures, have lost much of their power as generalizing principles on a world scale. Given the processes of globalization and localization as intimately related developments, social-scientiic theories are challenged to take the conlicting diversity of rules, traditions, localizations, social identities, conlicts, and contradictions, so typical of our compressed world society, into account in order to broaden their view on the challenging relationship between self and society. In summary, in our globalizing, boundary-crossing era, the social and cultural games and rules are so contrasting and contradicting that they go far beyond the homogeneous society metaphor of Mead’s generalized other. herefore, metapositions are needed that are well developed enough to look beyond restricting social and cultural horizons and to courageously face the deviant or even “strange” perspective of the other. At the same time, promoters are required that have the power to give direction and inspiration to I-positions or we-positions that radiate beyond the unproductive dichotomies of ingroup versus outgroup oppositions. Such promoters may be historical igures like Mandela, Luther King, or Malala Yousafzay but it may also be one’s teacher, father, mother, friend, or a character of a book as extended I-positions in the self.22

Democracy and Leadership in the Self: An Extended Model In this section I show how I-positions, meta-positions, and promoters are useful for a post-Meadian conception of the self that goes, in Ritzer’s (1992) terms, beyond a homogeneous society metaphor. I do this by depicting a model that acknowledges both the decentralizing diversity of the self in a globalizing society and the centralizing potentials of the self in the form of meta-positions and promoter positions. As a further step I use this model to address the challenging question of how “democratic” the self can function and what kind of “leadership” 22

he merger of an I-position with a we-position is impressively exempliied by the “March of the Republic” that took place in Paris on January 11, 2015, four days ater the terrorist massacre at the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. At least 1.5 million people marched in the center of Paris, many of them showing demonstration boards with “I am Charlie.” Millions of people marched in other parts of France and in other countries. Forty-four world leaders joined the march in Paris, linking arms and walking down the Boulevard Voltaire. his event shows how an emotional event, touching the deeper values of the democratic ideal, gives rise to a boundary-crossing collective I-position.

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in the self is required in order to function as a well-organized whole. I do so with the intention to extend the same model from self to society in the next chapter where I demonstrate the possibilities and limitations of democratic leadership in teams and organizations. he main reason for bringing self and society together in one and the same model is that it allows us to uncover some basic structures and processes that are intrinsic features of both self and society. If this is possible, and I believe it is, the model has pragmatic value in creating a two-way communication between self and society so that insight in structures and processes in the self are useful in understanding the workings of society and vice versa. he advantage of such a model is that it contributes to overcoming the self-society dichotomy that has resulted in the stubborn belief in the heroism of the individualized autonomous self that I see, with Bellah, Madson, Sullivan, Sandler, and Tipton (1985) and many others, as responsible for radical forms of individualism in contemporary society. I present the model as a double-edged sword: in its ideal form it demonstrates a well-functioning democratic leadership in both the self and organizations. On the other hand, it can be employed to demonstrate the constraints of democratic leadership on the levels of self, group, and organization. I do this on the assumption that one has to consider and understand the constraints of democratic leadership in order to envision its potentials. I use the presented model as a basis for the next chapter where I discuss some of the potentials and obstacles of democracy in teams and in a global, very heterogeneous, organization, the United Nations, in order to consider the actual challenges that are met by a model as it atempts to go beyond a homogeneous society metaphor as represented by Mead’s (1934) generalized other. It is crucial to emphasize that the potentials of the model (Figure 2.4) can only become evident if it is seen as dynamic and as lexible. Imagine that all parts of the model are constantly in motion. All circles are turning, both the small and large ones, and do so, like heavenly bodies, in relation to each other. hese rotations illustrate diferent I-positions facing each other and communicating with each other. he distances between the circles are becoming larger and smaller, relecting power (vertical) and emotional (horizontal) distances. he communication lines between the circles may be one-way, two-way, or even absent. he model has only ive circles, but the number can become larger or smaller relecting diferent numbers of positions emerging over time. First, I apply the model on “leadership” in the self before expanding on it, in chapter 3, for analyzing leadership on the levels of group and organization. he igure includes four peripheral groups of concentric circles as representing four diferent speciic I-positions (e.g., “I as child of my parents,” “I as an international student,” “I as a member of a soccer team,” “I as a member of Amnesty

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I-position

I-position

I-position

Meta-position promoter position

I-position

Figure 2.4. Model of I-positions.

International”). he central circle stands for a meta-position or for a promoter position as “leaders” in the self. At some moments, the meta-position is taking the lead in taking an overarching view of the diversity of I-positions in the self, adopting a long-term view, and having an executive function in decision-making. At other moments, the central circle represents a promoter who takes the lead in creating coherence in the multitude of more specialized positions over time, in generating new positions, and in energizing the self in its further development.

he Necessity of Subpositions Each I-position is depicted in the form of two concentric circles, the inner one referring to the internal domain of the position and the outer circle demarcating the extended domain of that position. Within each position, a number of more specialized subpositions (represented by the small circles within the large circles in Figure 2.4) are distinguished. he notion of subposition follows from the contextual nature of the process of positioning. Each position manifests itself toward other positions in the form of a variation of subpositions. An example is the position of “I as a student” that, as a rather general indication, igures as an “umbrella position.” When we look in more detail, we notice that “I as a student in math” act and feel myself as diferent from “I as a student in history.” hese subpositions, located in the internal domain of the student-position, are related to speciic subpositions in its external domain. For instance, I may notice that

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my math teacher is quite stern when he teaches in the class but supportive in a private conversation. I then position myself as a student in math in two diferent ways: “I as enjoying being a student in math when I can discuss things with my math teacher privately” and “I as disliking being a student in math when he teaches in class.” In other words, the contextual nature of the self requires a diferentiated picture of the process of positioning and counter-positioning that can be depicted when we distinguish subpositions in both the internal and the external domains of a main position. Such examples could be even further reined by distinguishing even more levels of positioning (sub-sub) going as far as the contextual nature of positions and the corresponding situations require. Such “going down” from main to subpositions has the advantage that more generalized umbrella positions, like “I as a student,” “I as sports fanatic,” “I as a professional,” can be considered in a variety of speciic situations that may arouse diferent and even contrasting subpositions. For each of the positions in Figure 2.4 the same kind of diferentiation applies. For reasons of parsimony, I have depicted in Figure 2.4 four peripheral circles only. In actual fact, however, the self functions as a larger network of positions than depicted in the igure including larger networks of subpositions.23

Social Power of Meta- and Promoter Positions In the organization of the self, meta-positions and promoters take a central place, and, therefore, they are represented by the concentric circles in the middle of the igure. In the society of the self, they have the potential of having more inluence in the self-system than the more specialized positions. Because a metaposition permits an overarching perspective of the self and is more equipped to take a long-term perspective, it has, in this sense, more expert power than the peripheral positions who each have their own more speciic expertise. When the meta-position is well-developed enough to have access (inding an entrance) to a larger variety of speciic positions and to acquire insight in their dynamic interrelationships, then it knows more than these positions and has, in its executive function, more inluence on decision-making processes.24 23

he diference between Figure 2.3 and Figure 2.4 is that the circles in the former one refer to the self as a whole, whereas in the later one, they refer to speciic positions. he advantage of the second igure is that it allows a more reined picture by its distinction between positions and subpositions, its picturing of the dynamic relationships between the diferent positions and the speciic workings of the meta- and promoter positions. 24 Although one may arrive, from a meta-position, to a conclusion that is felt as “good” or “best,” a speciic position may be strong enough to overpower the meta-position on the level of actual behavior, as Bahl (2012) has demonstrated in her analysis of consumer positions that are inconsistent with the meta-position (for details, see chapter 5).

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he promoter position has, by its compass function, the power to create orientation and direction in groups of positions and to give the self a developmental impetus. It also has the potential to generate new positions and to integrate them into the organization of the self as a whole. As such the promoter has a considerable reward power, as it is able to let the other positions know that they are going in the right direction or not and are contributing or not to its coherence and organization. Someone might say: “At signiicant moments in my life, I trusted my intuition and when I did so, it turned out well.” In following her intuition, this person has the experience that she was rewarded by her intuition all the time she took the direction which this promoter showed her. It is as if the promoter says: “You see! If you do what I, as your guide, suggest you do, it will go well.” Or, to take an example of an external position: when you have an inspiring teacher, parent, or imaginary igure who occupies an intimate place in your extended self, then you feel rewarded when you think, act, and feel in the radiation of his or her inspiration. Given the special power capacity of the meta-position and the promoter, they not only receive a central place in Figure 2.4 but they are also placed higher than the peripheral positions. he vertical dimension refers to the power diferences between position. “Power” refers to the capacity or drive of a particular position to inluence or determine the expression and development of another position. he diferences in power between the central and peripheral positions can vary signiicantly, as represented by increasing or decreasing vertical distances. When the “leadership” of the meta-positions and the promoters becomes more authoritarian, the distance increases. When, on the contrary, it assumes a laissezfaire character, the distance decreases and may even approach point zero. In the proposed model, democratic leadership requires an optimal distance between central and peripheral positions, small enough to develop an informative and stimulating two-way communication and large enough to give space to the central positions to use their power capacities in the service of the development of the self as an organized whole. If the power distance is variable and contingent on changeable contexts, then the question arises in which situations the power distance needs to increase and in which situations it needs to decrease. his question touches not only the power capacities of the central positions but also those of the peripheral ones. When the diferent peripheral positions in the self are able to communicate luently with each other and to develop collaborative relationships, then the central position can permit itself to keep a rather small power distance with them and is able to realize some form of “servant leadership” using its information, knowledge, and skills in the service of the development of a larger variety of other positions. However, when the power structure of the position system becomes rather unbalanced in the sense that one or a few positions commit a “coup,” then

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the power distance of the central position has to increase in an atempt to restore the balance in the system. When the self is in danger of becoming dominated by an addiction (e.g., excessive gambling, overuse of drugs, alcohol or social media, overconsumption), then the central position is challenged to give an adequate answer. his is felt as a clash between the short-term needs of the addictive position and the long-term perspective of the meta-position. In such cases, the power of the speciic addictive position may be stronger than the meta-position. In the Figure this situation can be depicted by a peripheral position that is vertically higher than the central position.25 Addiction is just one example of an unbalanced power organization of the self. Any peripheral position that lacks a balancing counter-position is at risk of moving into the direction of over-positioning. Such a position is becoming stronger and stronger in the system as a whole, particularly if it is supported by positions and subpositions that move into the same direction. his overpositioning process continues until it reaches a point where there are no other positions with suicient power to stop it. A good example of such a peripheral power position is the perfectionist in Richard’s case that was presented earlier in this chapter. It emerged as an atempt to create an antipower to the depreciating igures from the past, like his father and grandfather, and was “supported” in an entirely unproductive way by the dreamer. here was no position in his repertoire that was able to give an adequate answer until his self-acceptance entered the scene and became strong enough to function as a counterforce to the perfectionist that had functioned as a ruthless dictator in the organization of his self until that moment. As an uncontrolled powerful position the perfectionist functioned more as an anti-promoter,26 blocking the further development of the self as a whole rather than as a productive promoter. he perfectionist as a dictator in Richard’s example gives rise to the distinction between positive and negative power. Power itself is not necessarily negative. Podsakof and Schriesheim (1985) make a distinction between reward 25

he model is lexible enough to imagine a psychopath or criminal acting from an I-position from which he or she wants to manipulate or treacherously deceive other persons. his may go that far that this asocial or antisocial I-position inds ways to iniltrate the meta-position with the intention of achieving an overarching and long-term view in the service of self-enhancing or self-enriching purposes of the psychopathic I-position. See also the related concept of “anti-promoter” (see notes 19 and 26 in this chapter). 26 An anti-promoter is the conceptual counterpart of a promoter. It functions as an obstacle to the coherence and diversity of other positions, blocks the production of new adaptive positions, reduces the openness to possible directions the self may take in the future, and is not open to the possible directions that the selves of others may take. Generally, dysfunctions work as anti-promoters in the self (e.g., “my depression,” “my anxiety,” or “my addiction”); damaging signiicant others in the external domain of the self may have an impact as anti-promoters too (e.g., abusing parents or criminal ofenders causing traumatic experiences).

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power and punishment or coercive power. A well-functioning promoter, like the acceptant in Richard’s case, is an example of reward power, while a dictatorial position, like the perfectionist in the same case, represents a form of coercive power.

Social Power and Culture Power distance and its manifestation as reward or coercion is highly susceptible to cultural diferences. In Western cultures with its emphasis on individualized autonomy, a large power diference is typically experienced as negative, as undesirable, or as an obstacle to the free development of the individual. On the contrary, in many countries and cultures a large power diference may be well accepted and even desirable to the development of the individual or group. A well-known historical example is the “imperial cult” as a form of state religion, in which emperors or dynasties are worshipped as deities or semi-gods. In such cases, a divine king is both a head of state and a monarch who has a special religious position, as can be seen in the history of China, Japan, and Egypt.27 In such a case the divine king functions as a promoter with a large power distance to the worshippers yet is accepted and even adored by the nation. Also in contemporary cultures there are examples of large power diferences that are well integrated in community life and are contributing to the well-being of the self. As Doku and Oppong Asante (2011) describe, African cultures integrate in their everyday lives not only relationships between living beings but also those between the living and the dead. In Ghana, for example, people believe that the dead are still “alive” and have, as powerful spirits, “super control” over what goes on in their physical absence. hey have the power to reward the faithful and punish the unfaithful. herefore, libations are poured to them in order to please them and they are consulted about virtually everything that is of vital concern to a family. hey are even invisibly present at dining tables, as the members of the family reserve a chair or space for them. In this culture and many others, ancestors play, as invisible promoters, a vital role in the external domain of the self. As signiicant, shared, and culturally established extensions of the self, they have the supremacy of organizing the social relationships of the people (see also Lindegger & Alberts [2012] for similar examples of the power of ancestors in South Africa). For present purposes it suices to notice that such powerful signiicant others have a central place not only in the community but also in the external domain of the self where they are somewhere at the top of the positional hierarchy and organize the self accordingly.

27

htp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_cult.

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Closeness Versus Distance Between I-Positions While the vertical dimension in Figure 2.4 represents power distances and their variations, the horizontal dimension refers to variations in emotional distance, that is, from feeling close or intimately connected to feeling detached or alienated. Such variations are represented by the horizontal lines between the positions. A familiar example in everyday life is the relationship of a couple. When they are well trained to communicate with each other, listen to each other’s point of view, and show respect and love, they are able to experience intimacy. However, when they are involved in a stubborn debate, with each of them presenting a preconceived version of reality and rejecting the version of the partner, they are moving to the detached pole of the continuum. When the couple is able to solve their conlict or understand each other again, they move from detachment to nearness again. However, if they are not able to make this movement, there is the risk of becoming alienated from each other.28 Such movements on a continuum between close and detached take place not only between diferent selves but also between diferent positions within one and the same self. For example, when I feel stressed about a pressing situation in my work or in the family, it is diicult for me to relax and feel sexually atracted to my lover. In that case my position “I as sexually interested” is quite removed and detached from my present position “I as stressed.” On the contrary, the positions “I as relaxed” and “I as sexually interested” have a considerable emotional proximity to each other and are close to each other from an afective point of view.29 More extreme distances emerge when there are aspects of the self that arouse shame or guilt and are considered as undesirable or even unacceptable and therefore rejected or suppressed (so-called shadow positions).30 In such a case, cherished positions, like “I as respecting myself ” or “I as an honorable person” create

28 he notion of emotional distance was part of Triandis and Gelfand’s (1998) study on individualism and collectivism. hey found that individualists scored relatively high on emotional distance from ingroups (e.g., “I am not to blame if a member of my family fails”) in comparison with collectivists, who showed a lower distance. Emotional distance, like power distance, was also part of Hofstede’s (1991) well-known study on cultural dimensions in organizations. In agreement with these authors I include these dimensions in the proposed model, but my purpose is to give them a more dynamic expression as part of a process of positioning and counter-positioning. 29 Higgins (1987) refers to tensions within the self as “discrepancies” between diferent components of the self. From a developmental point of view, Oosterwegel and Oppenheimer (2002) found that young people become aware of such tensions by age 14. 30 Shadow positions correspond with what Stone and Winkelman (1989) call “disowned selves” and what Schwartz (1995) describes as “exiles.” In terms of the present theory, they are rejected or undesirable from the perspective of one of more other positions (e.g., “I as respecting myself ” or “I as a moral person”). hey typically have closed or even rigid boundaries that reduce their accessibility from the perspective of a meta-position.

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large emotional distances and keep their boundaries tightly closed toward such despised positions. As many psychoanalysts have argued, such shadow positions, if not recognized and accepted as part of the self, may become unthinkingly projected to others with the efect that the boundaries with these others become closed, leading to sharp ingroup versus outgroup separations and oppositions on the level of groups and teams (e.g., the enemy as representing the evil that one rejects in oneself and considers, on emotional grounds, as incompatible with the worth or nobility of the ingroup) (for the underlying processes in enemy image construction and scapegoating, see chapter 6).

Accessibility of Positions and heir Layered Organization he phenomenon of shadow positions brings us to a signiicant concept in the proposed theory, the “accessibility” of positions. For communication, cooperation, and dialogue between them, it is required that they are accessible to each other so that their energies can fuse and be used to empower each other. In the given example, “I as sexually interested” was accessible, seen from the perspective of “I as relaxed.” However, “I as sexually interested” was inaccessible from the perspective of “I as stressed.” he notion of accessibility refers to the existence of “routes” or “communication channels” between positions, indicated by the lines between positions in Figure 2.4. Such routes are open or closed. If they are open, the positions provide an entrance and are accessible to each other. When they are closed they do not provide an entrance and are not accessible. In the example of Richard we have seen that the avoider was quite accessible at the beginning of psychotherapy, but the perfectionist was not. Only later, when there was progress in the therapy, the perfectionist became more accessible. Richard’s case showed that inaccessible positions may be quite inluential in the organization of the self. As long as they are inaccessible from the meta-position, they block a required reorganization of the position system. As we have seen, this reorganization became possible only ater a powerful promoter, “I as accepting,” created an open route to the perfectionist that, as a result, became accessible and also changeable to some extent. In general, the accessibility of a particular position is a precondition for its change and development. For a promoter to do its job well, it is required that it has access to a larger variety of positions, certainly to those positions that are central in the organization of the self.31 31 Robinson and Clore (2002) extensively reviewed research on the accessibility of emotions in self-report. When people report on their current emotions, they tend to access experiential information of the present moment. However, when they report on emotions that they are not currently experiencing (past or future ones), they lack such experiential cues. At a certain point such episodic memories become too few and too remote to report about emotions on the basis of episodic recall. At

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Generally, when there is small emotional distance between positions, they are more accessible to each other and it is easier for them to cooperate and create coalitions. his assumption applies not only to positively experienced positions, like the coalition between “I as relaxed” and “I as sexually interested,” but also to combinations of negative positions, as we have observed in the coalition between the father and grandfather and the coalition between the dreamer and the perfectionist in Richard’s case. If the emotional distance is such that positions cannot reach each other, communication is impossible. here are also situations in which one position tries to communicate with another one who does not answer. In this case there is a communication channel in the direction of one to another position but there is not one back. his is typical of a broken relationship when one of the partners is mourning the loss of intimate contact with a partner who has fallen in love with another person. he partner is permanently on his or her mind and is emotionally addressed in the imagination of the mourner. To the despair of the mourner, the desired partner does not answer and is experienced as unatainable. In such a case, the emotional proximity between the position of the mourner and the imaged partner is very high, but there is only one-way contact experienced. (As these examples show, Figure 2.4 can only be understood when one imagines its possible movements.) he accessibility of positions is closely related to their layered organization. he metaphor of the landscape of I-positions in the present theory provides a theoretical basis for explorations of the “spaces of the mind.” As Gutenplan (2000) argues, the advantage of the landscape metaphor is that it allows not only a horizontal but also a vertical investigation of the self. Initially, one sees the surface of the self like a map with continents and seas (the breadth and variety of I-positions). However, in order to understand their structure and origin, one must gain insight into the layers that lie under the surface, the more hidden shape of the terrain. If we move further in this geological adventure we may discover how the whole landscape is supported by the deeper layers of tectonic plates. he positions on the surface of the self can be inluenced by deeper, not immediately accessible, positions that work as sources of resistance and need to be addressed in the process of psychotherapy. In Richard’s case, the perfectionist

that moment, the authors claim, there is a shit to semantic memory that is not tied to any particular event but rather consists of certain generalizations that are rarely updated. For research and practice in the ield of I-positions, it is relevant to investigate whether participants talk about positioning at the moment or about positions in the past or future. On the methodological level, the PPR method (Hermans, 2001a) is based on reports of I-positions formulated in more general terms (semantic memory), while the Composition Method (Konopka & Van Beers, 2014; Hermans & Konopka, 2010), is more sensitive to the richness of momentary I-positions (episodic memory).

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was initially “buried” under the avoidant position and became accessible only ater developing a meta-position with a reach that was long enough to delve deeper into the hidden layers of his self.32

An I-Prison Has No Exit As long as the process of positioning luently moves from one to another situation, I-positions have not only an entrance that permits access; they also have an exit. he process gets stuck when positions relevant at some point in time do not have an access or when it is impossible to leave them. When a position has a quick, easy, or habitual access, but it is not possible to leave it, it becomes an I-prison.33 his occurs when one feels placed in a particular position, wanting to get out of it, but feeling unable to ind an exit, like an elevator, house, or country that one can enter but not leave. An I-prison can also be felt in the metaphorical space of the self. A familiar example is a person who becomes an artist and wants to be recognized by society for her speciic qualities. However, when this recognition is achieved, the public imprisons the artist in this speciic role by imposing on her the image that the audience prefers to hear or see. he singer is expected, and inally feels forced, to repeat this particular song wherever she is; the painter is expected to continue producing works according to a particular style; and the ilm actor is identiied with that particular role that made him famous. At some point in her career, Marilyn Monroe wanted to develop herself as a serious actress but discovered, to her personal regret, that it was not possible to drop the dumb blond position in which her audience had imprisoned her for the rest of her life. James Galdolini became an actor who performed a diversity of roles in a series of ilms, but when he played the role of the American Maia crime boss Soprano in the award-winning series he Sopranos, his worldwide audience identiied him exclusively with this particular role. Initially, Galdolini became Soprano but inally Soprano became Galdolini. Many artists have been subjected to the process of making a career to which they initially wholeheartedly aspired, to discover later that, ater wide recognition, they feel imprisoned 32 he layered organization of I-positions is inherent not only to internal but also to external positions. his is relected by the well-known phenomenon of evaluating a person in one’s present life as inluenced by the deeper positions of one’s father or mother in the self as “internalized” in the past, a phenomenon described as “transference” in psychoanalysis. In Richard’s case, his present interaction with people was strongly inluenced by the depreciating voices of his father and grandfather as shadows in the deeper layers of his self. 33 I  thank Agnieszka Konopka for proposing the term “I-prison.” From a psychoanalytic perspective, Hymer (2004) proposed the notion of the “imprisoned self ” that she considers a powerful metaphor in psychotherapy: “Many patients describe themselves as feeling trapped, conined, or imprisoned, and strongly resonate with interpretations that mirror these sentiments” (p. 683).

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by their admirers who force them to repeat what they have done in the past and, as a result, they feel seriously, or even dramatically, hampered in their creativity. he popular role is like a plastic skin that they are unable to shed. A position may become an I-prison as the result of the pressure from one or more other positions, and they can imprison each other as a result of their persistent conlicts and oppositions. A person continues to work in a job that gives him security but actually would like to engage in the adventure of taking a more uncertain job in another country. However, he cannot decide to do so, as he is the breadwinner and father of a family of four children. He is losing interest in his present job and inally he feels locked up. Positions like “I as needing security,” supported by “I as breadwinner” and “I as a responsible father,” keep him imprisoned in a job position that has no exit. Persistent afective states, like clinical depression or other dysfunctions, are well-known examples of rigid I-positions that have no exit. A clinical dysfunction has to be distinguished from a more temporary depressive mood, expressed in afective positions as “I as anxious” or “I as sad,” “worried,” “guilty,” “restless,” “irritable,” “hurt,” or “worthless.” Such depressive positions may temporarily radiate to the self-space as a whole, painting all other positions with a dark and somber color (“Everything feels bad”). In their desire to escape the I-prison, people look for “routes” that may provide a way out. hey move, more or less successfully, to a position that represents a very diferent direction in the selfspace: “I as a biker,” “sportsman,” “feeling connected with nature,” “meditating,” “supporting others who are in need of help,” or moving to external positions in the self that may be as divergent as “my friend John who always supports me,” “my consoling spirit,” “my friends in the pub.” As we have observed in the example of Richard, focusing on alternative I-positions may, indeed, facilitate escape from feeling imprisoned. Also another person as an external position in the self may be felt as an Iprison from which there is no escape, as many examples of obsessive love demonstrate. In her study on “emotion work,” Hochschild (1983) describes a woman who fell in love with the “wrong guy.” Although in love with him, she found out that he had regularly broken of relationships with his many former girlfriends ater only a short time. From that moment on, she tried to protect herself from him by ighting against her feelings: I atempted to change my feelings. I talked myself into not caring about him . . . but I admit it didn’t work for long. To sustain this feeling I had to invent bad things about him and concentrate on them or continue to tell myself he didn’t care. It was a hardening of emotions, I’d say. It took a lot of work and was unpleasant because I had to concentrate on anything I could ind that was irritating about him. (p. 44)

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As this excerpt suggests, some strong emotions (e.g., in love for the wrong person) can, under speciic circumstances, function as I-positions experienced as having no exit. Typically, they function as “totalizing” positions that become, for some time, central and dominant in the self-space as a whole. In the example, the woman used her imagination to reposition the man as part of her external domain, trying to change him from “he as loving me” to “he as dropping me.” However, during this process, her atitude toward the man remained a dominant position in her system, taking all her atention and blocking, at least for some time, potential alternatives. Societal restrictions also may keep people imprisoned in identities as I-prisons. As described earlier in this chapter, for people who call themselves “transgender” the man-woman dichotomy as a societal categorization may prevent them from constructing an identity located between these binary opposites. In the area of racial diferences, the dominant classiication of “white” or “black” does not acknowledge the ield of tension in the self where biracial of multiracial identities may ind there desired place. As a consequence, such classiication results in limitations that may be felt as “identity-suppressors.” Society and its cultural manifestations may, in some situations, result in the phenomenon of I-prisons with “double walls.” During the writing of this book, I  saw TV interviews with some female soldiers of the American army who told about their being raped by male colleagues. hey felt that their complaints were not taken serious by their superiors in the macho culture of the army. On the contrary, the women were criticized for being dressed in a way that had “seduced” the men. Instead of being recognized as victims, they felt devaluated as “whores.” Being raped and, moreover, feeling positioned as an inferior woman, felt, in terms of the present framework, like being placed in an I-prison with double walls, one wall referring to the trauma of rape and the other one to the subsequent social rejection.

How Do We Know the Diferent Aspects of Our I-Positions? As we have seen, each position has a number of subpositions. However, how do we know these diferent aspects, particularly when some of them are hidden? As discussed earlier in this chapter, a position like “I as a teacher” can become conscious of itself in the form of several subpositions (e.g., “I as teacher in class,” “I as teacher in an examination situation,” “I as teacher at a party”). Ideally, such subpositions and their mutual linkages can be inspected from a well-developed meta-position. However, how can a meta-position function productively if a position hides some of its relevant aspects? Particularly, shadow (sub)positions, as rejected or undesirable facets of the self, may hide themselves so that they are

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inaccessible for a meta-position that atempts to get in touch with them. A metaposition is powerless when it has no access to the relevant positions and subposition that together function as a working self in a particular period of life. Oten shadow positions may become revealed by breaking down a general position into subpositions. Take the example “I as competitive” as one of the main positions in someone’s repertoire. A business person wonders: “Am I competitive?” and, before answering this rather general question, moves from there to a series of subpositions: “Yes, I’m certainly competitive to some of my rival companies (sub); yes, toward some of my colleagues, particularly when they are boasting (sub-sub); sometimes toward my son, when he has such good grades that he seems to be beter than me when I was at school” (sub-sub). Gradually, the competitive position changes its face from an accepted to a rejected one, certainly in those situations where this person inds that he should position himself diferently than he actually does. his movement is represented by turning circles in the igure. A person could answer the question of “Are you competitive?” with a “yes” when he thinks of his business but with a “no” if he thinks of his children and wife, because in this context these subpositions are shadowy ones and remain inaccessible as long as he is not willing to confront them. Not only can subpositions remain in the shadow but even a whole position can do so if it hides itself behind another more desirable position so that it remains invisible to the examining meta-position. he visible position is typically the presented one, iguring as the favored image that the person wants to present to the outside world. he hidden position is the shadow one that has to be kept out of view, not only from the critical gaze of others but even from the ashamed, guilty, or embarrassed outlook of the person him- or herself. his is one of the valuable distinctions in the work of Carl Jung (1963) who contrasted what he called “shadow” and “persona” as opposites that, in his view, should be kept together as a “co-incidence of opposites” in the life-long process of individuation. From the perspective of the theory proposed here, presented and shadow positions are opposite forms of positioning in the self, and, as demonstrated in the example of competition, subpositions may be experienced as shadows (e.g., feeling jealous regarding your child), even if their superordinate position is evaluated as acceptable (e.g., jealousy as a “normal” part of life). When the competitive position is not showing its shadowy subpositions (e.g., “I as a jealous father”), the movement of the wheel in Figure 2.4 is stuck, and, as a result, the scope of the meta-position is reduced, Moreover, the promoter position, if there is one, is not well equipped to give a developmental impetus to these subpositions. Ideally, those positions that are relevant to the process of coping with the environment should “turn around” so that all their relevant subpositions are brought into the light of the meta-position and become cooperative “coworkers” who contribute to the integrative work of the promoter.

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Context-Dependency of I-Positions he economy and parsimony of the model as depicted in Figure 2.4 requires that only one central circle is shown, as it may represent a promoter or metaposition. In reality, the self has more meta-positions and more promoters. In a profound talk with a friend the meta-position is not the same as the one that emerges in the contact with a counselor or psychotherapist. In writing a diary the surprising or frightening travels in the spaces of one’s self may lead to discoveries or surprises that were beyond the horizon of the talks with a friend or therapist. Diferent contexts evoke diferent meta-positions that may complement or contradict each other, and their value is dependent on their pragmatic signiicance to the situation at hand. When diferent meta-positions are compared, one moves to some higher meta-meta-position, just like one may move down to sub-sub positions. Not only diferent meta-positions but also diferent promoters work in a context-dependent way. I  remember a talk by the novelistic writer Kader Abdolah who shared his autobiography with my university colleagues. He told that he had a deaf-mute father who was not able to communicate with him. In order to overcome this limitation, they together developed a private “language” that enabled them to understand each other. his experience of overcoming obstacles generated two dreams in him:  becoming the president of his country (Iran) and becoming a famous writer. Later in his life he immigrated to he Netherlands where he learned the Dutch language through reading a children’s book. Within 10 years he was catapulted to one of the most appreciated novelistic writers of the country. I understood from him that he had at least two promoters that were deeply entrenched in his self: “his father as sufering from limitations,” as a central position in the extended domain of his self, and “becoming a famous writer” in the internal domain, as a response to his drive to overcome his father’s limitations. He gave up his aim to become the president of Iran as he decided, at some point in his career, to leave his country, an event that demonstrates the context-dependent nature of a promoter.

Boundaries of Positions: Sot, Rigid, Spongy, and Flexible For the communication between positions, “boundary” is an indispensable concept in the present theory as it is a precondition for their cooperation and mutual exchange of meaning. Already in the irst year of life, children develop a “personal space” that extends beyond the borders of the body. he child feels safe in this space as long as it is not intruded on by strangers. Burgoon and Jones (1976) deine it as: ‘he invisible volume of space that surrounds an individual . . . an invisible, dynamic, and transportable space the site of which is governed by the

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individual . . . at any point in time.” (p. 131). Personal space is diferent from “territory.” While the later is ixed to a particular geographical place, the former accompanies the individual’s movements as an invisible space that one carries from one place to another. Personal space is not marked by ixed boundaries, but its borders luctuate according to various social and psychological conditions. When strangers enter this space, the child becomes fearful and may start to cry. he boundaries become open when a degree of familiarity exists with persons, usually the parents or caretakers, who then can freely enter the space. In other words, boundaries are not ixed but are to some degree lexible, depending on the nature of the relationship with other people. hrough our whole life, we are accompanied by this personal space and its semipermeable boundaries. A  well-developed self-boundary structure is needed for a feeling of safety. As Straus (1958) has proposed, a person’s self-space can be divided into safety and danger zones. In normal functioning there is a clear diferentiation between the two zones so that, in a situation of impending danger, the individual is able to retreat to the safety zone. In a state of all-pervasive anxiety, however, the distinction disappears, and the whole “atmosphere” of the invisible but felt space between the speciic positions is experienced as dangerous in an undiferentiated pervasive way (for a more elaborated picture, see the distinction between comfort, challenge and danger zones in chapter 6). In the presented model I  distinguish four kinds of boundaries, originally proposed by Brown (2006): sot, rigid, spongy, and lexible. I propose to locate these boundaries not only at the level of the self as a whole but also, and even primarily, at the level of speciic positions. I do so in order to achieve a more reined picture of the spatial structure of the self and its functioning. Soft Boundaries

When boundaries of a position are constantly open, the person may not be able to defend himself when he feels he is unjustly treated or when he needs to act in a self-assertive way. Sot boundaries refer to situations in which people are not able to close their position even if they ind this a necessary or desirable thing to do or when they have no access to their emotions, particular to anger, the boundary-seting emotion par excellence. Suppose a colleague touches you in a way you do not like, but you not have the courage to express your reservations. Or you may feel overly dependent on a friend or family member, who may inluence your decisions more than you want. Boundaries are sot when the self is in a position of being overly empathic and becoming overwhelmed by the emotions of others. When positions like “I as friendly” and “I as cooperative” have sot

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boundaries, the person does not feel able to say “no” to the wishes of others and inds it diicult to take decisions as an emotionally independent person. Rigid Boundaries

Like excessively open boundaries become sot, excessively closed boundaries become rigid. his happens when closed boundaries, adaptive in some situations, cannot be opened although there is no valid reason to continue to keep them closed. Victims of a war trauma may later be surrounded by caring relatives but still be unable even to talk about their experiences and to share them with others. Or, when someone had a bad experience with a friend that later appears to be the result of a misunderstanding, the person may continue to reject the other, not willing to reconsider what actually happened. he boundaries of a position (“I as a friend” or “I as ex-soldier”) are rigid when they remain closed in a situation in which it would be more adaptive to open them. Spongy Boundaries

Boundaries of positions are “spongy” when it is not clear if they are open or closed. Typically, they form a rather vague combination of open and closed boundaries, which makes it diicult to predict and even to understand when and why the self is opening or closing them. When the self is located in such position, the person does not know what to let in and what to keep out. In intimate connections, they become enmeshed in others’ concerns and overwhelmed by others’ emotions and evaluations. Positioning themselves in this way, they oten want to connect with others but feel unable to do so. It is like saying “yes” and “no” at the same time, without making clear in what respect or in which situations it is the one or the other. In Richard’s case, we noticed spongy boundaries between his internal positions and those of his parents: “It was rather a movement by other people, some kind of melting of my parents and myself.” As long as one’s internal I-positions are enmeshed with those of signiicant others in the external domain of the self, it is diicult or even impossible to make a distinction between “what I want, think, or feel” and “what they want, think, or feel.” Flexible Boundaries

In the optimal case, positions have lexible boundaries. his type of boundary is highly signiicant to one’s place in a globalizing society and to a democratically organized self, as we will see in the coming chapters. In contrast to rigid boundaries they can be open as a response that is in agreement with the

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demand characteristics of the situation at hand. In contrast to sot boundaries, they can be closed when the situation requires it. When people position themselves in lexible ways, they are resistant to emotional contagion; they know when to say “yes” and when to say “no.” hey have access to their feelings and emotions, which can help them to give an adequate response in a diversity of situations. hey are diicult to exploit, and they know what to let come in and what to keep out. In general, they have the feeling that their preferred way of positioning is under their control. Flexibility allows to make movements on the continuum ranging from open to closed depending on the demands of the situation at hand. Consider the position of a university professor. In this position I experience an open relationship with most of my students, but with some them, whom I see as overdemanding, I need to close myself of to a certain degree. With some of my colleagues I have a warm, cooperative relationship that makes me open to them, but I feel rather closed to those with whom I have an overly competitive relationship. When I teach in my own country, my students expect me to act from a more open and informal position, but when I teach in India, students expect me to behave in a more formal and directive way. With these examples I want to say that one and the same position can have open boundaries toward some people and less open boundaries toward others. It is also possible that one and the same position may show variations in openness and closure in relation to one and the same other, as is typical of many marriage partners who close themselves during a conlict but open themselves again ater solving the problem and sharing their experiences. he examples have in common that in a situation of increasing complexity and diversity, lexible boundaries between positions are required. Figure 2.4 depicts the optimal case of lexible boundaries by the dashed circles that represent semipermeable boundaries of the diferent positions. At the same time, the dashed quality indicates that the positions can be opened and closed at the required and preferred moments.34 hey become closed, and even 34

I participated in a workshop presented by Yvete Kokee, a career adviser in he Netherlands, who developed an exercise in which participants take diferent positions in a room to express their emotional distance or proximity toward a speaker. First, the speaker formulates a short statement in which he expresses his view on a particular mater that is of central interest to the participants. he other participants, walking around, take a position close to the speaker if they feel ainity with the statement or take a more distant place if they do not agree. Next, the workshop leader invites several participants to share what they think about the statement. Ater this feedback, the speaker has the opportunity to change or to conirm his initial statement, and he exposes his arguments for doing so. hen, the participants are invited to change their position towards the speaker if they want. Next, the workshop leader gives some participants the opportunity to tell what motivated them to change their position. his exercise vividly demonstrates some theoretically relevant concepts: positioning, counter-positioning, repositioning, voice, dialogue, emotional distance, and lexible boundaries of positions that are becoming more open or closed during the exercise.

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rigidly closed, in some cases and open, and even sot, in other cases. Irregular dashes refer to spongy borders. By applying the types of boundaries to speciic positions rather than to the self as a whole, it is possible to understand that one and the same person may position him- or herself as open and lexible in some relationships but as rigid and inlexible in other ones. In this way, a more diferentiated picture is achieved in comparison with overly generalizing qualiications of whole selves as “open” or “closed.” Only if most positions in one’s self would have the same type of boundaries would one have reasons to describe the self in generalizing ways. In extreme cases, this is found in particular forms of dysfunctions. Clinicians may observe that dependency disorder represents an organization of the self on the basis of positions with predominantly sot boundaries while rigid boundaries are featured in narcissistic personality disorder. However, even in a dysfunctional self, there are exceptions, in the past or present of a client, with types of boundaries deviating from the general patern.

I-Dentity and the Relevance of Flexible Boundaries in a Border-Crossing World Why is it so important to devote atention to boundaries and lexible boundaries in particular? he answer has to be found in the “problem of identity” in a border-crossing society. Understanding this problem begins with the acknowledgment that a person does not have one identity but is actively involved in the construction of a multiplicity if I-dentities, which, in a globalizing world (see chapter 1), pull the self into diferent or opposite directions, while at the same time belonging to one and the same I that strives for coherence and continuity across situations and time.35 In other words, identities ind themselves in a ield of tension between centralizing and decentralizing movements. In order to develop clearly demarcated identities (e.g., “I as a supporting a political party,” “I as a German,” “I as a Catholic,” “I as a vegetarian”), boundaries are required not only to distinguish these positions from other ones but also to know where a person is standing in a complex ield of social and societal relations. Boundaries provide positions with a sense of internal cohesion and stability, which prevents

35

Although the concepts of self and identity are oten used interchangeably in the social sciences, they are not the same and have a diferent emphasis in the present theory. Self is considered as the most basic and general concept of the conceptual framework and is deined in terms of a dynamic multiplicity of I-positions in the micro-society of the mind, intimately intertwined as these positions are with those of others. he emphasis of “identity” is not so much on personal I-positions but on social and societal we-positions, which refer to collectivities in which the self participates in social and societal structures.

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them from being overruled by other positions or from disappearing prematurely from the organized and power-laden self-system. Once established, a position wants to maintain itself in a dynamic ield of energies. he relevance of boundary lexibility can be demonstrated by imagining that the boundaries of all identity positions would be sot or entirely open. In such a case, positions would easily be erased from the ield of positions when they would be criticized, atacked, or overpowered by a position entering the self from the outside world. he self as a whole would have no ground to maintain its place in the world. As a consequence, it would be a “straw in the wind” without any inner direction and purpose. On the other hand, when all identity positions would be rigid and entirely closed, they would become inaccessible to other people participating in the same group, community, or broader society. he positions would become immovable and unchangeable, and learning from other positions would be impossible with the result that they are reduced to “fossils.” herefore, identity in a border-crossing society are in need of semipermeable positions that are able to open and close themselves in lexible ways as a response to changing circumstances and complex situations. Or, alternatively, some positions are open to communication and change, whereas others are closed enough to protect the self against disrupting inluences and to maintain their integrity and continuity over time. In a globalizing world where individuals, groups, and cultures are increasingly confronted with people who have very diferent value systems and historical backgrounds, this lexibility is required to defend and develop one’s own positions in processes of agreement and disagreement or cooperation and conlict with those of others.

he Case of Young Jihadists and Identity Search It is worth relecting on the issue of identity construction as it is actually a matter of life and death.36 Why do religious extremists have such a strong appeal to

36

One of the reviewers of this book referred to the multiple terrorist atacks worldwide including the one in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on the night of July 1, 2016, in which more than 20 persons, mostly foreigners, were systematically killed at a restaurant before the police, in turn, killed the atackers. As mentioned more frequently ater such incidents, the perpetrators appeared to be middle- or uppermiddle-class males in their late 20s who had been educated in excellent private schools and universities. As members of families with strong ties to the emerging modern sector of Bangladeshi society, these young men’s behavior challenges traditional explanations for why they would have carried out such acts of brutality. he bewilderment expressed by analysts of such acts, the reviewer continues, relects the overwhelming inluence of personality theories that posit understandings of the individual person as a singularly uniied center. hey endorse the power of a limited number of dominant internal traits and univocal structures to determine largely consistent behavioral responses across multiple social domains. he reviewer refers to our past work (Hermans & Hermans-Konopka,

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young people, including those who are born and raised in Western countries? As known, many thousands of young Western jihadists have joined what is generally called the Islamic State in the past years. Why do people who are raised in a democratic society feel atracted to groups who do not respect basic democratic values of freedom and equality but pretend to have the right to murder groups who are believed to deviate from their totalitarian belief systems? At least one answer to this question lies in the problem of identity. From the perspective of the present theory, extreme orthodox religions have two main properties. First, in the selves of their adherents religious I-positions are not simply one of many but are assigned a place at the top of the organized position repertoire. In the strong hierarchical organization of the self-system, religious I-positions, as core positions, have an inluence on a broad bandwidth of other positions that depend on them (e.g., as pupils at school, as married, as having a sexual identity, as raising children, as divorced, as having a political ainity, as members of organizations), and they tighten them as parts of internally coherent and uniied we-positions. Second, considered from a historical perspective, orthodox religions, certainly in their extreme variants, are associated with sharp and oten rigid boundaries between the identities of their members and those of other religions (and dissidents within their own religion as well), which are generally seen as unacceptable aberrations or as worshipping the wrong deities. As a consequence of these self-airming and self-containing tendencies, speciic counter-positions, such as critical and deviant ones, relevant for the innovation of the system, are excluded so that conservative voices and narratives prevail. Precisely, these two aspects— the organizing capacity of orthodox religion as a tightening core position that creates a comprehensive order in one’s life as a whole and its sharp demarcation from other religious or nonreligious world views—are atractive to those people who are looking for a strong, clear, and group-supported identity in a complex, uncertain, and confusing world. he “advantage” of this identity conirmation is that the other positions in the self are protected from being subjected to the overly decentralizing and disorganizing trends in an increasingly globalizing society as main causes of identity confusion (see also Arnet, 2002). As a result, the rigidly closed and hierarchically organized religious position repertoire has no positions that are able to cross the sharp ingroup-outgroup boundaries 2010) on the distinction between premodern, modern, and postmodern conceptions of the self in DST, in which we argued that I-positions representing these diferent conceptions exist simultaneously in contemporary selves. he reviewer suggests that this simultaneity might answer pressing questions such as those posed by the behavior of the Bangladeshi terrorists that seems inexplicable. Eforts to make sense of individuals such as the Bangladeshi gunmen zeroes in directly on DST: how the dynamic interplay of multiple I-positions may have emerged over individuals’ lives and simultaneously voice both contemporary modern selves and ideologically commited antimodern selves within the same individuals (anonymous reviewer, 2016).

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(compare in this context the role of friendship relations with outgroup members described earlier in this chapter).37 he decentralizing trends in a globalizing society produce a strong sense of uncertainty in many people, which, as a negative emotion, evokes a tendency to reduce it. In an earlier publication (Hermans & Hermans-Konopka, 2010), we described several reactions to uncertainty. One of them is giving the lead to one powerful position that is allowed to dominate the repertoire as a whole. Located in a ield of divergent, conlicting, or contradictory positions, some people transfer responsibility to some external authority, spiritual guru, or strong political or religious leader as a way to reduce the burden of uncertainty. his reaction can be observed in cases of religious orthodoxy or political fundamentalism as they thrive on simpliication and moralistic categorizations. his reaction typically originates from a strong hierarchical organization of the repertoire, with one or a few positions at the top dominating all other positions in a structural way and with a simultaneous existence of rigid boundaries to the outside world (for more extensive treatment of reactions to uncertainty in the context of democracy, see chapter 8). It seems that the most rigid boundaries, in combination with aggression to outgroups, exist in selves of individuals who belong to groups that create a coalition between extremist religious and extremist political positions. he religious component of this devastating coalition provides individuals with a strongly centralized worldview and a unifying meaning of life whereas the political component serves the need for enemy construction and speciies a particular target group. A basic problem in this coalition is that the other is no longer respected as “another I” but reduced to an “object” that has to be destroyed (for enemy image construction, see chapter 6).

Summary he expanded position model enables to study the following features of the self as society:  (a) subpositions as iner, context-dependent diferentiations within 37

Note that it is my intention to relect on the identity of participants of extreme political-religious groups, not on the potentially valuable role of religions in the present world order. For a nuanced and critical discussion of the place of religion in the present theory, see Buitelaar and Zock (2013). From a societal point of view, orthodox religion may well be compatible with democratic values. As Wijsen (2016) note, young Muslims of Indonesian descent in he Netherlands hold that their integration into the modern Dutch society does not require less Islam but even more Islam. hey contend that their orthodox Muslim voice and their modern Dutch voice are completely compatible and enable them to be “world citizens” (pp. 233–234). According to these researchers, the same trend has been observed among young Muslims of Turkish and Moroccan descent.

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broader I-positions; (b) meta-positions as forms of “leadership” ofering a broad and long-term scope in a multipositioned, democratically organized self and promoters stimulating its further development; (c) power distance and emotional distance as basic organizing principles in the mini-society of the self; (d)  the accessibility of I-positions allowing a free entrance so that they can be experienced in their inside qualities; (e) their exit providing a way to leave a position and preventing the feeling of being locked up in an I-prison; (f) a procedure to get in touch with shadow positions as undesirable or rejected parts of the self; and (g) diferent types of boundaries of positions (sot, rigid, spongy, and lexible), with lexible ones optimal for the communication between I-positions in complex situations, allowing positions to close or open themselves dependent on the demands of the situation and the preferred response of the self. At the end of this chapter, I want to refer to an article published in the Annual Review of Sociology by Peter Callero (2003). his publication shows how a sociologist working in the tradition of social constructionism looks at some of the main trends in the psychology of the self. Ater listing and analyzing a series of psychological self-concepts in contemporary mainstream psychology (e.g., self-consistency, self-enhancement, self-monitoring, self-eicacy, self-regulation, self-presentation, self-veriication, self-knowledge, self-control, self-handicapping), he notes (a) an emphasis on the stability of the self with a simultaneous under-emphasis of its change; (b) a stress on the unity of the self with a neglect of its multiplicity; (c) and a neglect of social power. In his words: here is a tendency [in mainstream psychology] to focus on stability, unity, and conformity and de-emphasize the sociological principles of social construction. he self that is socially constructed may congeal around a relatively stable set of cultural meanings, but these meanings can never be permanent or unchanging. Similarly, the self that is socially constructed may appear centered, uniied, and singular, but this symbolic structure will be as multidimensional and diverse as the social relationships that surround it. Finally, the self that is socially constructed is never a bounded quality of the individual or simple expression of psychological characteristics; it is a fundamentally social phenomenon, where concepts, images, and understandings are deeply determined by relations of power. When these principles are ignored or rejected, the self is oten conceptualized as a vessel for storing all the particulars of a person. (p. 127, emphases added) In line with Callero’s vision, I would like to emphasize that there are in the self not only stable but also changing positions; that there is not only unity in the self (centralizing movements) but also multiplicity (decentralizing movements

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represented by a diversity of positions that have their own speciic energies and developmental trajectories);38 and that the organization of the positions is indeed deeply determined by diferences in power. Taking these characteristics into account creates a basis for the functioning of the self as a mini-society and as an integrative part of the society at large. In order to democratize the self, it is crucial to give a voice to a diversity of I-positions, which each are allowed to speak and tell their narratives from their own speciic point of view and to contribute to other positions in the self from their own speciic expertise. his requires the self to move, in a decentralizing way, to a diversity of diferent I-positions that in their rich multiplicity contribute to the innovation of the self. On the other hand, a democratically organized self is able to centralize itself and develop “leadership” in the form of meta-positions, allowing a helicopter view on the diversity of specialized I-positions and promoters giving focus and direction to their further development. Centralizing and decentralizing movements imply changes in power distance and emotional distance dependent on changing contexts. he communication between positions is facilitated by lexible boundaries so that they are suiciently open and accessible to the inluence of other positions and, at the same time, able to keep themselves, like cities, countries, and regions in a globalizing world, suiciently closed in the service of keeping and developing their own identities. he question can be posed whether these ingredients of a democratic self are also applicable to the society at large. If so, then we have a conceptual framework available that has the potential to bridge self and society as organized structures. his question is a starting point for the next chapter.

38 he multiplicity of developmental trajectories of the self is also central in Sato and Valsiner’s (2010) Trajectory Equiinality Model, which proposes that development implies a range of options interconnected with moments of bifurcation. In this model diferent conditions produce diferent developmental trajectories in order to arrive at a similar inal state. It recommends an open system approach that links developmental and cultural psychology.

3

Positioning and Democracy in Teams and Organizations Democracy is cumbersome, slow and ineicient, but in due time, the voice of the people will be heard and their latent wisdom will prevail. —Unknown

In order to further build on the idea of a democratically organized self, I  want to show and illustrate how the concepts presented in the previous chapter can be applied to analyze not only the working of the self but also the democratic functioning of teams and organizations, with special emphasis on leadership. In doing so, I  want to argue that this conceptual structure provides a basis for facilitating a two-way traffic between the levels of self, team, and organization. In this way I want to contribute, from a socialscientific point of view, to overcoming the self-society dichotomy that is underlying many contemporary concepts and theories of the self, as Callero (2003) has argued. I am aware of the serious limitations and problems of the “democratic ideal,” not only in the workings of the self but also in the functioning of groups and organizations. At least three rather familiar problems are noticed: (a) democracy is slow, (b)  it is oten limited by a lack of knowledge of the participants involved, (c) and there seems to be an “eternal” tension between democracy and the use of social power (Woods, 2005). In elaborating on the functioning of a model of “lexible democracy,” I want to focus on these three problems in particular. An implication of this purpose is that I use the model to demonstrate both how democracy and democratic leadership function ideally and how they are thwarted and impeded by factors that frustrate their realization. By learning about the obstacles on our thorny path to democracy, we learn what it actually is or what it can be.

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What Are Positions in a Team? here is oten confusion about the diference between a group and a team. When theorists or practitioners employ terms like group interaction, group work, or group structure, they typically refer to the dynamics of people cooperating on a common goal that requires a certain degree of interpersonal stability. However, passengers in a train or visitors of a theater form a group but do not work together on a common cause. A team is more speciic than a group. A team is cooperating on a common project that requires stable interpersonal relationships and task division (Fisher, Hunter, & Keith Macrosson, 1997). A group of students may belong to the same school, but they become a team when they are engaged in a project that invites them to work together on a task. Given the task division on a common project, a team is composed of participants who organize themselves in order to realize the purposes of the team. A team can only function if the participants position themselves to each other in the team and to all those external parties that are relevant to its functioning. A team can be described in terms of processes of positioning, repositioning, and counter-positioning. Making use of the concepts discussed in the previous chapter on the self, I  summarize here the main characteristics of a democratically functioning team. Such a team exists of a number of members who occupy positions that are specialized enough to contribute to the task division at hand (peripheral circles in Figure 3.1) and a leader who has a central position in the team (central circle in the figure). In a democratic team, not all communication lines go via the leader. There are also direct communication lines between the members, allowing them to create ideas, make plans, and device scenarios beyond the initiating or controlling role of the leader (see the lines among the peripheral circles in the figure). These lines are bidirectional, enabling members and leader to make hence and forth movements that allow processes of positioning and counter-positioning. In the optimal case, the positions of members and leader are open and flexible enough to facilitate dialogue and cooperation. This does not mean that all tasks have to be done in cooperation, as some of them can be done individually, as long as there is a common purpose. In such a model there is a link between the functioning of a democratic team and the self of the members. In their performing diferent tasks, their diferent capacities and limitations become manifest. hat implies that diferent Ipositions representing their strong and weak “sides” (“I as strong in . . .” vs. “I as weak in . . .”) are evoked in the cooperation between leader and colleagues and among members when they are working on a speciic task (the circles in the igure are turning). Not only do diferent tasks induce diferent I-positions, but

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Member position

Member position

Member position

Leader as meta-position Leader as promoter position

Member position

Figure 3.1. Leader and membership positions in a team. Courtesy of Gerhard Frensel

also diferent members do so, as the positioning of one member its or does not it to the positioning of the other one.

Positioning heory on the Level of Teams In the proposed model, promoter positions, meta-positions, and lexible boundaries are central notions. However, the question may be raised to what extent these notions have an empirical basis and, more speciically, what their empirical signiicance is on the level of teams. In order to address this question, I refer to a study of Burke and colleagues (2006), who performed a meta-analysis of 50 empirical investigations of the relationship between team leader behavior and behaviorally based team performance outcomes. For our purposes, four of their concepts and their empirical status are particularly relevant: “empowerment,” “boundary-spanning,” “consideration,” and “initiating structure.”

Empowerment and Promoter Positions One of the advantages of Burke and colleagues’ (2006) approach is that they treat leadership as a developmental process with special consideration to the coaching of team members. As the authors notice, coaching behavior of leaders is receiving increasing atention with regards to team performance. hey observe

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that, in the course of team development, leaders go through a progression of developmental roles, I-positions in our case:  mentor, instructor, coach, and facilitator. Moreover, team leaders intervene with diferent types of coaching— motivational, consultative, and educational—and select one of them dependent on the team’s developmental stage. With these considerations in mind the authors demonstrate that the positioning of leaders regarding the team members is not so much a mater of stabilized traits or atributes but rather intimately connected with the development of the team, its relationship with the leader, and the demands of the situation of the moment. For the leader as a promoter, Burke and colleagues’ (2006) analysis of empowerment is most signiicant. hey deine the concept in this way: “Empowerment behaviors refer to leader actions that emphasize the development of follower self-management or self-leadership skills [. . .] Behaviors indicative of this leadership style are primarily developmental or person-orientated” (p.  293). On the empirical level, they found that empowerment behaviors accounted for almost 30% of the variance in team learning. In terms of the positioning model, leadership behaviors stimulating members’ self-management, self-leadership, and learning are well in agreement with the position of the leader as a promoter. As described in chapter 2, promoter positions imply a considerable openness toward the future and have the potential to produce a diverse range of more specialized positions, and, if suiciently dialogical, they have the potential to contribute to the democratic organization of the self. Like a promoter, an empowering leader signiicantly stimulates self-management and learning processes of the team members and the democratic organization of the team as a whole.1

Boundary Spanning and Flexibility In chapter 2, arguments were presented for the development of lexible boundaries between positions in the self and between self and other. A parallel notion on the level of teams is “boundary spanning.” According to Burke et al. (2006), it involves “collaborating with others outside the team, scanning the environment, and negotiating resources for the team” (p. 292). Findings showed that boundary spanning was related to the team’s perceptions of their efectiveness across time and associated with successful technology implementation within teams. he authors emphasize that scanning the environment and collaborating with 1

Additional evidence for the signiicance of empowering leadership for team functioning is provided by Stewart (2006), who presented a review of 93 studies examining relationships between team design features and team performance. He concluded that leadership, particularly empowering and transformational leadership, improves team performance.

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others are paramount to maintaining situational awareness and facilitating efective problem-solving. Boundary spanning enables teams to negotiate resources and collaborate with others outside the team. Elaborating on these results, I  suggest that the boundaries between the positions within the team (leaders and members) and the positions outside it (other teams, stakeholders, other organizations) should be suiciently open to receive innovative impulses from the environment. In some cases, however, it is necessary to keep the boundaries temporarily closed if necessary to prevent destabilizing distraction and to keep the goals, purposes, and direction of the team suiciently stable. Like the self, the team is in need of lexible boundaries. On the basis of the results of their meta-analysis, Burke and colleagues (2006) give a strong recommendation: “Based on initial analyses a recommendation to those charged with leader development might be to pay special atention to the development of boundary spanning and behaviors related to empowerment (i.e., coaching, feedback, monitoring, participatory behavior), as these two behaviors explained moderate-large amounts of variance in team performance outcomes.” (p. 303).

Initiating Structure and Meta-Position A concept also included in Burke et al.’s (2006) meta-study is “initiating structure” as an activity that belongs to the repertoire of efective team leaders. It consists of behaviors that ensure that members have a clear sense of direction and purpose. In an analysis based on the data from 1,242 teams, the authors found that these behaviors “act as a resource that the leader uses to manage material and personnel resources through the provision of clear, compelling, purposeorientated direction” (p. 292). More speciically, they concluded that there was empirical support for the relationship between the use of initiating structure and perceptions of team efectiveness. In relation to these indings, I  propose that “initiating structure” requires a well-developed meta-position on the part of the leader. More than the coworkers, the leader takes an overview of the tasks and purposes of the team and its linkages with the actual and possible contributions of the members. In this context some of the features of meta-positions, already discussed in chapter 2 on the level of the self, are also crucial for leaders in their capacity of initiating structure: to provide an overarching view of the multiplicity of positions embodied by the members of the team and relevant stakeholders, so that relations between these parties are considered simultaneously and in their interconnections, and to develop a long-term view of the team by linking past, present, and future so that the purposes of the team become clear.

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Beyond the Existing Literature: Bridging Self and Team Precisely here I want to go beyond Burke and colleagues’ (2006) analysis and beyond most of the studies that I have seen on teams or interaction groups. In my view, they lack theory-based pathways that allow movements from the team to the self and back, with the consequence that they do not go into the space of the self where processes are taking place that are not only directly relevant to the functioning of the team but are even similar to them. Both in the self and in the team, parallel processes of positioning, repositioning, and counter-positioning are taking place. Acknowledging these parallels enable teams and team leaders to cross over from the one to the other level utilizing the same concepts. An additional argument for the cross-fertilizing impact of self and team is in the concept of accessibility, already discussed in chapter 2. When team researchers put a high premium on processes like empowerment, boundary spanning, and initiating structure, they do so on the assumption that team members are able to have access to skills and potentials needed to empower themselves, to learn from their past experiences when they engage in goal seting, and to develop lexible boundaries between their I-positions without neglecting, suppressing, or avoiding those that are directly relevant to the functioning of the team. Here I propose that analyses of teams and team leadership create theorybased avenues that enable researchers and practitioners to move back and forth from the self to the team in order to explore how resources can be brought from the one to the other domain so that they can proit from each other in their further development. In the proposed positioning model (Figure 3.1), the I-positions in the self of the team members are indicated by the smaller circles within the larger peripheral circles and the I-positions of the leader by the smaller circles within the central one, with two-way communication channels between positions. Paterns of I-positions may refer to the strengths and weaknesses of members and leaders to the task at hand, to their presented and shadow positions,2 and to positions referring to their past experiences and future plans. he circles function as moving wheels bringing a multiplicity of I-positions into the light of the metaposition of the leader with the possibility to critically assess them and discuss them with the members. On the basis of this assessment, promoter positions may be constructed that give a developmental impetus to both the team and the self of its participants. In summary, the leader takes a meta-position with a broad scope and longterm perspective and functions as a promoter of the development of the team. Note that these skills are not exclusively on the part of the leader. Also the 2

For a description of shadow positions, see chapters 6 and 8.

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co-workers are considered to be capable of taking a meta-position and actively contributing to the development of common projects and plans (see the open circles and two-way lines in the igure). Moreover, there is no such a thing as a “meta-position or “the” promoter, as diferent meta-views and promoters may emerge in the leader and one or more of the co-workers and also between them. From their meta-position, team leaders and leaders in general have a primary responsibility to create a basis for decision-making and action programs. As promoters, leaders invite the co-workers to leave their comfort zone and act as a stop signal for automatic and habitual behavior maintained by well-established but unproductive paterns of positions taken by the members. Evaluating and discussing the contributions of the members from a broad-scoped and longterm meta-position increases the chances for both innovation and continuity of the team. Actually, the features of meta-positions and promoters discussed in the previous chapter return here on the level of the team so that the deeper commonality between the two levels becomes apparent.

Democracy and Leadership in Teams: Power Distance and Emotional Distance For sure, the generation of meta- and promoter positions do not automatically guarantee the realization of a democratically functioning team. In order to address the question of which factors are central to a democratic team, I discuss in this section the following issues: the situation-contingency of leadership, the danger of groupthink, the emergence of a democratic atmosphere, the temporary power of leadership, and the emotional distance between team members. As an illustrative example of democratic leadership I refer to an interview with a coach of a successful soccer team during the 2014 World Cup championship.

Leadership as Situation-Dependent In the proposed model, leadership is not ixed and is not exclusively atached to one person only. Diferent members of a team may occupy leadership positions dependent on their expertise and the demands of the situation. Moreover, the person who is a co-worker in a company team during the day might be the leader in a volleyball team in the evening. In other words, leadership is distributed. However, the issue is a deeper one. In our globalizing, rapidly changing and information (over)-loaded time, no one knows enough and is skilled enough to be a leader in all circumstances. For a team this implies that in some of the tasks or in some situations, one member may serve as a leader, while

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in another task or situation, another person may take this position. As Gastil (1994) has argued, it is necessary to have multiple leaders, as no single leader is able to perform all of the functions all of the time.3 his makes teams not leaderless but rather “leader-full,” as diferent group members may move to the central position as soon as their speciic skills and qualities are required in the service of the goals and mission of the team: “In the ideal demos, more than one person serves every leadership function, no individual does an inordinate amount of the leading, and every group member performs leadership functions some of the time” (p. 962). Democracy and democratic leadership have some serious limitations. First, they require a certain knowledge level of the participants. When this level is too low or does not it the purpose of the team, democracy will not work, dependent as it is on the active and creative input of the team members. Another stumbling block is that productive decision-making in a democratic seting is slowing down the process (for the potentials and limitations of democratic leadership, see Woods [2005]). Next we consider these two limitations in some detail and investigate to what extent the model is lexible and dynamic enough to compensate for these constraints.

Are the Members of a Team Knowledgeable? he Danger of Groupthink Democracy assumes that participants can contribute to its realization only if they have suicient knowledge about the issues that mater. On the basis of this knowledge, they can become engaged in dialogue in which opposing positions can be expressed and compared so that opportunities for building common knowledge emerge from a diversity of positions. Variation, diversity, and disagreement are necessary ingredients for a well-functioning democratic team. As Gastil (1994) concludes from his review of studies:  “Deliberation is the heart of democracy” (p. 960). Indeed, democracy blossoms in a situation of open debate and dialogue between diferent and opposing positions taken in a group (Woods, 2005) and, I would like to add, between diferent and opposing I-positions in the self. herefore, democracy can only function if positions are diverse and distinctive enough to represent diferent or even opposed perspectives on reality and if there is room for alternative viewpoints. Such diferences and oppositions are valuable starting points for dialogue given that social reality in a boundary-crossing world is complex enough to

3

Although Gastil does not explicitly refer to teams, he applies his insights to groups and organizations. His view on democracy is broad enough to warrant application to the functioning of teams.

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create “space for diversity” (see also the discussion of “dissonant dialogue,” chapters 7 and 8). A powerful enemy of the necessary diversity is groupthink that occurs when the desire for conformity and harmony in a group or team is so strong that consensus is reached without critical evaluation of diferent and alternative points of view. his happens when team members, driven by group loyalty, minimize conlict, suppress or avoid dissenting views, and isolate themselves from outside perspectives. Groupthink is oten reinforced by the well-known ingroup versus outgroup separation that leads team members to embrace and conirm their own views and devaluate the views on the part of the “despised outsiders.” he result is an artiicial feeling of certainty that leads to premature decisions that are actually based on a misleading “illusion of invulnerability” instead of being the product of an open and critical evaluation and discussion of opposing, mutually complementing, points of view. Janis (1972), who coined the term, provides a series of remedies to groupthink, some of which I mention here. he diferent members alternate in taking the position of the “devil’s advocate” as an antidote to premature conformity. Another recommendation is to invite the team members to consult critical people from outside the team who have a suicient distance to the group dynamics. hey can invite outsiders to participate in the meetings in order to challenge the implicit assumptions of the team or take a preliminary decision and organize a “second chance” meeting in order to discuss hesitations or possible uncertainties before arriving to a inal solution. In agreement with Janis, I suggest that (a) a broad bandwidth of positions is necessary as a irst basis of decision-making, (b) these positions are diferent enough to prevent the seduction of groupthink, (c) they are diferent and practical enough to ensure the construction of alternative scenarios, and (d) the resulting decision is the product of open debate and dialogue in which the strengths and weaknesses of the scenarios are thoroughly discussed. By stimulating diversity and controversy in the team, the positioning model aims to replace the strict separation between an internally homogeneous ingroup, with its typical closed boundaries to the outgroup, by an internally diferentiated and diversiied ingroup structure with lexible boundaries to outgroups. he homogeneity-heterogeneity discussion on the level of the self, discussed in the previous chapter, returns here at the team level. Importantly, well-functioning teams are not only in need for dialogical relationships between the diferent members and between leader and members; they are in need of members and leaders whose self is multivoiced and dialogical as well. he stimulation of diversity of positioning seems to be a necessary condition for the expression and development of the speciic expertise of knowledgeable positions both within self and team.

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What Is a “Democratic Atmosphere”? In psychology we are used to study “variables” and their interconnections in the form of psychological experiments and correlational studies. In this way traits, symptoms, identities, selves or subselves, or any other conceptual element become part of theories and models that scrutinize their mutual relationships. An intriguing question is:  Is there something between such variables? Certainly, many investigators study variables, like traits, as elements in a multidimensional space with factor analysis as a well-known example. However, this is an abstract space, devoid of experiences of embodied selves. In traditional trait theories no experienced space is being supposed between traits like “emotional instability” (reactive to stress and being moody) and “conscientiousness” (being careful, thorough, and vigilant). Answers to a questionnaire measuring such traits typically result in a score that can place one somewhere above or below the average of a particular population. However, from a positional point of view, we get a different picture. Working with a colleague on a common project, I know that I am conscientious enough to function well in this cooperation, but I am also aware of my instability that often interferes with the required discipline. Here we have a process of positioning between my colleague who likes my conscientiousness but who has problems with my instability. As a result, I experience an unpleasant tension between “I as conscientious” (who is able to do this job) and “I as unstable” (who cannot deal well with the expectations of my colleague and with my own wish to work productively with him or her). Rather than a score on two personality traits, we here have a field of experienced tension among different I-positions. In case of the familiar term “mood,” a spatial ield with a particular afective quality is experienced to exist between speciic I-positions in the self. A particular mood may emerge when one or a few positions radiate so strongly to their spatial surroundings that other positions in the self receive, or are at least inluenced by, the afective quality of the radiating position. When I am in a depressed mood, a position like “I as disappointed” gives a dark color to many of the other positions in the self-space. Positions that are usually experienced as positive tend to retreat to the background of the self or are temporarily colored by the dominating position. On the other hand, receiving a good message lits me up to an I-position, for example “I as passing the test,” from which I tend to see everything including my contacts with signiicant others, at least temporarily, in a positive light. In a “good mood” or “bad mood” the speciic afective condition of a particular I-position “colors” the spaces between a great many of other I-positions in the internal and external domain of the self.

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Atmosphere in Groups At this point I propose to make a step from the level of the self to the level of the team, group, or organization: what is called mood in the space of I-positions in the self corresponds with an afective atmosphere in a space where a group of people position themselves toward each other.4 he atmosphere then is a tone or feeling that ills the space between them and that permeates the group as a whole. his atmosphere is determined by a variety of factors. he physical seting in which the members operate contributes to the speciic quality of the atmosphere, such as the ventilation, the lighting, brightness or darkness of the room. Also the seating arrangement co-determines the way people position themselves spatially toward each other:  from a circular or elliptical patern in which no one takes a dominant position and all participants can see each other to a rostrum from which a speaker addresses a group of atendants who do not maintain any interaction with each other. he size of the group also inluences the atmosphere: it may be a larger group in which one feels just “one of many” or a smaller group that allows more intimate contact. Addressing participants by their preferred names inluences the emotional distance felt in the group, and simple supplies like cofee, tea, and cakes contribute to an open, welcoming atmosphere. Even objects, in their symbolic signiicance, contribute to the way participants position themselves toward each other. In addition, the way the members of a team or group address each other inluences the atmosphere: the way a meeting is opened, the length of time the leader and members speak, whether they look at each other, and how dogmatically they speak. A “democratic atmosphere” is facilitated by open boundaries between the positions taken by the leader and members of the team and by lexible power distances between leader and co-workers. he later implies that the emotional distance is small enough to permit the emergence of a permissive atmosphere but increases in situations that require decisions in times of chaos or crisis. A democratic atmosphere is facilitated by a small emotional distance between leader and co-workers and between the other members of the team. A small distance 4 In an extensive literature review, Koys and DeCotiis (1991) deined “psychological climate” in organizations as “An experiential-based, multi-dimensional, and enduring perceptual phenomenon which is widely shared by the members of a given organizational unit” (p. 266). hey distinguished eight summary dimensions of psychological climate from over 80 diferently labeled dimensions reported in the literature: autonomy (self-determination), trust, cohesiveness, support, recognition, fairness, innovation, and pressure. In an empirical study of employee perception of the organizational environment, Brown and Leigh (1996) found that psychological climate was related to job involvement, efort, and performance. hey concluded that the perception of a motivating and involving psychological climate was related to job involvement, which in turn was related to efort. In a positive climate employees were likely to identify their personal goals with those of the organization and were motivated to invest efort pursuing them (p. 358).

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is crucial for a feeling of safety, trust, and security that is at the heart of a democratic atmosphere and creates a fertile basis for the sharing of problems and for creative decision-making. In a democratic atmosphere there is a basic belief in the value of the individual participant and respect for the contributions of others.5 Democratic leaders occupy a position that radiates, even more than that of the co-workers, to the other members of the team. Given their position as promoters, their radiation permeates many of the positions and subpositions as depicted by the large and small circles of Figure 3.1. A democratic atmosphere creates an optimal condition for the emergence of a “we-feeling” in the sense of a bond among the members. he leader of a democratic team is a “we-leader” who is invisibly active in the selves of the team members even when he or she is not physically present (the leader is represented as one of the small circles within the external domain of the peripheral circles). Altogether, I  want to emphasize that the spatial nature of the concept of positioning allows for the consideration of space between the positions. his space is not empty or undeined as in approaches in which variables are studied in their conigurations but always full. It is full of experienced radiations that emerge from each individual position and full of atmosphere that, like a fog in a landscape, permeates its speciic “mood” throughout the position repertoire of a team or group. A democratic atmosphere creates a necessary condition for the expression of the speciic expertise and potential of the speciic positions in which leaders and members place themselves toward each other.

From Slow Democracy to Quick Decisions and Back: Temporary Power On a power dimension, forms of leadership vary between the extremes of autocracy and laissez-faire.6 However, as extremes both are unworkable in 5

A small emotional distance is not an asset under all circumstances. As Virtue (2007) shows, it is counterproductive when leaders become “enmeshed” with their co-workers: “Emotional fusion in this context occurs when a leader’s anxiety about being separate is so great that they [leaders] become enmeshed with those that they are leading, ceasing to be able to efectively execute many of the duties of leadership such as thinking clearly and objectively, holding people accountable for results, and preserving directional focus to the team’s eforts. Enmeshment is when someone chooses a limitless ‘togetherness’ to avoid a sense of anxiety about alone or rejected” (p. 4). For enmeshment, see also “spongy boundaries” between I-positions as discussed in chapter 2. 6 In their research on leadership styles, Foels, Driskell, Mullen, and Salas (2000) provide some relevant nuances. hey observe that in some instances members of interaction groups may be more satisied with democratic leadership but in other instances prefer autocratic leadership. In a meta-analytic study addressing this paradox, they found that there was, in general, a signiicant but small tendency for groups to experience democratic leadership as more satisfying than autocratic

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a compressed world society in which participants want, or are even compelled, to address challenges of a border-crossing nature. hese challenges are oten called “wicked problems,” such as social injustice, climate change, food distribution, health care, international criminality and terrorism, the AIDS epidemic, pandemic inluenza, drug traicking, genocide, or the spread of nuclear weapons. hey are “wicked” not because all of them are “bad” in their essence but their complex interdependencies have the unintended consequence that eforts to solve them may result in revealing or even creating other problems. Such eforts need deliberations, dialogues, and debates that require the utmost of creativity emerging from a diversity of positions that ofer diferent and even opposed points of view that can never be produced by one person, one team, or even one organization by itself. In our exploration of the potentials and limitations of democracy and democratic decisionmaking, we have to acknowledge that this widely celebrated ideal is limited by the fact that it is slow and that there is oten not enough time for this type of decision-making in situations of crisis. his brings us to the topic of social power. As discussed earlier in this chapter, meta-positions and promoters as embodied in democratic leadership imply diferent forms power: “expert power” is having an overview and long-term perspective that other members may have to a lesser degree; “reward power” is having the possibility to reward members for their speciic contributions to the performances of the group or team; and “referent power” is when the leader is seen as atractive and radiating charm and charisma. Moreover, leaders have “legitimate power” if they have an institutionalized position with formal rights and obligations (e.g., teacher, captain, or doctor).7 It was for these reasons that the position of leader received a higher place on the vertical dimension in Figure 3.1 than the co-workers. It should be added, however, that this power position in a democratically organized group or team is relative, as knowledgeable members of a team oten have more speciic expertise

leadership. However, these efects were moderated by several variables. One of them was the size of the group. When a group is large and therefore relatively less cohesive, a democratic leadership may have a noticeable impact on the satisfaction of the members. In terms of the present theory: when group size increases, emotional distance between participants increases and the need for a lower power distance becomes stronger accordingly. In addition, Foels and colleagues found that the gender composition of the group made a diference. hey concluded that in groups that were predominantly female, the preference of women for democratic leadership led to more satisfaction with a democratic leader. On the contrary, in groups that were predominantly male, men’s preference for autocratic leadership led to less satisfaction with a democratic leader. his inding suggests that the efect of power distance may be diferent for men and women as team members. 7

For types of power (expert, reward, referent, legitimate, and coercive), see Podsakof and Schriesheim (1985).

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than the leader, which places the co-worker on specialized maters in a higher position than the regular leader.8

he Need for Social Power in Crisis Situations here are several cases where democratic leadership with its typical small power diferences is not well equipped to give an adequate answer to pressing problems: • Members occupying expert positions required to solve a pressing problem drop out and cannot be replaced in time. • Crucial communication channels between leader and members or among members are blocked so that they are no longer accessible. • here is a sudden overload of speciic positions. For instance, when new stakeholders are entering the ield, requiring the team to give an adequate response in a short span of time (e.g., an unexpected initiative of a competing industry that threatens the continuity of a company). • he survival of the team as a whole is at stake (e.g., a stock market crash).9

In such situations a crisis leader is required who is able to take speedy decisions while taking into account the overarching and long-term view of a meta-position. his crisis leader may be another person in the team or someone from outside who has the I-positions in his or her repertoire to give a decisive answer to a situation without the opportunity or time to consult others. he change from a relatively stable situation in which leader and members have ample opportunity to be co-creative in addressing complex problems to a situation in which a quick and decisive answer is needed appeals to another set of I-positions in the leader. While in the non-crisis situation, the complexity and multifaceted

8

Scientiic organizations with their highly knowledgeable and specialized members are in need of democratic leadership in particular. An illustrative example is CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, one of the world’s largest and most respected centers for scientiic research. On the occasion of its 60th anniversary in 2014, director Dieter Heuer, interviewed by the Dutch newspaper NRC (September 27, 2014) said: “When in an experiment, like the ATLAS experiment, 3,000 physicists are working, there are 300 professors among them, so at least 300 egos. his requires a democratic management style that keeps people motivated. hat is why we have so many meetings. In this way, everyone has a say and has something to contribute, but it also forces you to listen to everybody, and by listening you show respect.” One of his co-workers pointed to the open culture of the organization: “When you hit a problem, you trumpet it around in your cooperative circle. hen, there is always somebody with a solution.” Indeed, for scientiic organizations, aiming for permanent innovation, a democratic leadership style and open boundaries are prerequisites. 9 See also Boin, ’t Hart, Stern, and Sundelius (2005) who, in their treatise on “crisis management,” argue that crises are ubiquitous phenomena that cannot be predicted with any degree of precision.

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nature of a wicked problem creates space for the expression of uncertainty and for time-consuming exploration, the crisis situation asks for I-positions that enable leaders to act on the basis of their extensive experience, intuition, and gut feelings. Rather than engaging in continuous dialogical exchange, crisis leaders act in a more monological way. However, they are supposed to do so with the long-term mission of the team in their mind and with the awareness that they act as promoters of the team and the organization. Moreover, given the pressure of the immediate situation, crisis leaders are in need of I-positions that relect the strength and self-conidence required to act in cases of emergency. In order to act convincingly and strongly as leaders, certainly in crisis situations, it is important that such I-positions are really “owned” by the leader and rooted in the deeper layers of the self rather than façade positions that relect a way of “playing one’s role as expected.” A prototypical historical example of a crisis leader in war time was Winston Churchill who, ater a period of nonconspicuous or even weak leadership in peace time, became an icon as a crisis leader in World War II. If the crisis leader is the same person as the non-crisis leader, the self of this person should be broad and lexible enough to change hence and forth from divergent positions like “I as open to uncertainty” to “I as decisive in stress situations.”10 In the positioning model, the crisis leader must restrict the open boundaries of the typically democratic leadership style and adopt, temporarily, a more authoritarian or coercive approach. I emphasize the word “temporarily” as relecting the shits leaders can make, contingent on changing circumstances, from small power distances to larger distances and back. At this point, I refer to the notion of lexible boundaries, discussed in the previous chapter, as characterizing the possibility and

10

Apparently, uncertainty can be experienced in very diferent ways. In a previous publication Hermans & Hermans-Konopka, 2010), we have argued that uncertainty is a git as it opens a broad range of unexpected possibilities but a burden insofar as it leads to confusion and anxiety. he positive or negative experience of uncertainty depends both on the situation and on the way the self responds to it (Hermans, 2001b). his is demonstrated in a research project of Dex, Willis, Paterson, and Sheppard (2000) who studied changes in the work conditions of British television personnel over the 1980s and 1990s. In that period the UK’s 28,000 production workforce experienced a signiicant degree of uncertainty as their working practices were changed by broadcasting legislation, increased competition, and technological advances. he authors observed that this uncertainty was a problem for the majority of these workers. hey found also that the workers developed diferent ways of coping with their uncertainty: by diversifying their income sources, collecting information, building informal networks, and thinking of leaving work in television. In terms of the positioning model, I hypothesize that when people feel placed in a threatening position (e.g., “I as dismissed”), the success of their coping depends on the content and organization of their position repertoire as a whole. Coping with a stressful situation is expected to be successful if there are alternative positions available that are accessible enough (e.g., “I as adventurous,” “I as liking challenges,” or “my supportive family”) to ofer a refuge or compensation for the radiating power of the threatening position. Tolerance of uncertainty increases when alternative certainty-enhancing positions are available.

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even necessity of opening boundaries in some situations and temporarily closing them in others in the service of the mission of the team or organization. I propose the term “lexible democracy” and “lexible democratic leadership” to include these movements on the power dimension as they are required in a rapidly changing and crisis-laden globalizing society. Flexible leadership requires a sharp discernment in choosing the power distance needed in a speciic (cultural) situation; it needs the integrity to make choices desirable for the interests of the team, and it demands a social environment allowing the space to make such choices.

Variations in Emotional Distance: he Case of Servant Leadership he relationships among the members and between leader and members vary not only in power distance (verticality in Figure 3.1) but also on emotional distance (horizontality). he more cohesive a group or team becomes, the smaller the emotional distance. When members are all going their own way and want the freedom to follow their own path, the emotional distance tends to increase. Emotional distance varies dependent on the requirements of the situation and tasks at hand. In a meeting in which a decision has to be made with consequences for the organization as a whole, the members of a board or commitee keep the emotional distance somewhat larger than when they participate in a “happy hour.” he distance may become inappropriately small when two team members, usually involved in formal decision-making, start a secret love relationship. heir positions as lovers may interfere with their positions as participants in a free and open discussion and are, in that case, “enmeshed.” On the other extreme, when members have conidence in the loyalty of a leader but discover that he has already decided to take another job without informing them, they may feel alienated from him. his alienation between leader and members relects an overly large emotional distance that interferes with productive decision-making. So the emotional distance between members varies according to the requirements of the situation and may in some cases become overly small or large.11 11 In the empirical literature on teams, the concept of “consideration” corresponds with a low emotional distance between team members in the positioning model. As Burke et al. (2006) explain, consideration refers to leader behaviors intended to maintain close social relationships and group cohesion:  “In general, dyadic relationships characterized by consideration relect two-way open communication, mutual respect and trust, and an emphasis on satisfying employee needs” (p. 293). Consideration has probably the largest impact on team performance outcomes when the leader uses this behavior in the service of expert coaching. he authors consider expert coaching as a key avenue to team performance because it contributes to the development and maintenance of team coherence (i.e., shared afect, behavior, and cognition) (p. 293).

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An example of a leadership style that combines a rather small emotional distance with a low power distance is what is known as “servant leadership.” he primary responsibility of a servant leader is to support and encourage the members in order to enable them to unfold their full potentials. Discussing the works of Robert Greenleaf who coined the term in 1970, Spears (2002) lists 10 characteristics of a servant leader: listening: active listening with receptivity to what is said and not said; empathy: understanding and accepting others and recognizing them for their unique gits; healing: fostering wholeness of persons and taking into account their emotional hurts and sensitivities; awareness: viewing situations from a holistic perspective and doing so with inner serenity; persuasion: convincing others rather than coercing compliance and being efective at building consensus within the group; conceptualization: nurturing abilities to dream great dreams and look beyond day-to-day operations; foresight:  understanding the lessons of the past and considering the likely consequences of a decision for the future; stewardship: holding institutions in trust in the service of the greater good of society; commitment to the growth of people: nurturing the personal, professional, and spiritual growth of employees; and building community: participation in local groups and communities as the primary shapers of human lives (pp. 5–8). As the features of this list show, servant leaders are expected to be strongly commited to understanding their co-workers and to fostering the development of the speciic qualities and potentials of the members. his commitment requires small emotional distances and a small power distance among members of the group, team, or organization. At the same time, the list also includes some features (e.g., “foresight” and “conceptualization”) that show a similarity with meta-positions and other atributes (e.g., “healing” and “commitment to the growth of people”) that have a clear ainity to promoter positions. I certainly see the advantages of servant leadership as it has the potential to facilitate a corporate culture, or a high employee identiication with the company, and to inluence social and societal relations in a positive way. However, there are at least two limitations. First, it is not well equipped to function in crisis situations that require, temporarily, a diferent style of leadership, typically one with a larger power distance, as I have argued earlier in this chapter. Moreover, servant leadership relies on litle emotional distance between leader and members. he emphasis is on such (highly important) topics as empathy, listening, and community building. I  wonder, however, if there is place for confrontation between contrasting perspectives, disagreement, and opposing views that require a temporary shit to larger emotional distances (and back).

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An additional concern about servant leadership is the issue of culture. Diferent cultures require diferent kinds of leadership. his is one of the conclusions of researchers of the Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Efectiveness Research Program at the Wharton School of the University of Virginia, who studied how leadership is deined by diferent cultures throughout the world. hey noticed that in the global business world, organizations face a growing need to comprehend the subtleties and nuances of leadership in diferent cultures. hey found that what is perceived as a strength in one culture may be a considerable hindrance in another one. For example, while in Western countries managers celebrate visionary leaders with great dreams about the future, Indian managers do not care as much about visionaries but have a preference for bold, assertive styles of leadership. Also, supervisors in many Western countries are used to providing negative feedback directly to their subordinates, while in Japan such feedback is usually channeled through a peer of the criticized subordinate. his relects the diference between the norm of “direct honesty” and the Japanese norm of “face-saving.” Apparently, one size does not it all. heir indings in diferent cultures lead the Wharton researchers to conclude: “he global executive’s leadership style will need to be protean, changing from situation to situation. Sensitivity to the unique culture within which the executive works may well be the most important leadership atribute in the global economy” (Knowledge@Wharton, 1999). Leaders of multinational and multicultural institutions are in need of a self that consists of a multiplicity of I-positions (e.g., not only “I as self-assertive” or “I as decisive” but also “I as open to deliberation” or “I as tolerant of uncertainty”) among which they can switch as an answer to the subtleties of changing cultural environments.12 Given the necessity of power in relation to apparent cultural diferences, I propose that leadership in a globalizing society is in need of dynamic models that permit and invite leaders to make lexible movements on both the dimension of power distance and the dimension of emotional distance. his is what I mean by “lexible democracy.” his form of democracy can only be realized if the selves of leaders and co-workers are multipositioned and multivoiced enough to position and reposition themselves in lexible ways, that is, as an adequate response to prevailing cultural needs.

12

Many studies on democratic leadership go back to Lewin, Lippit, and White’s (1939) classic study on authoritarian and democratic leadership. In groups of children they found that a democratic leadership style is more efective than an authoritarian style. At the same time, they emphasized that there is no one best style of leadership that is consistently superior over other ones, but adjustment to style must be made according to the demands of the situation.

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An Example: A Democratic Leader During the Soccer World Championship As an example of a leader who describes his style as democratic, I refer to an interview with trainer Louis van Gaal, who as manager of the Netherlands national soccer team led them to a third place at the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil. Expectations surrounding the Netherlands team were comparatively low due to mediocre pretournament performances and the failure of the Netherlands squad during the 2012 UEFA European championship. However, Van Gaal’s team surprised everyone by defeating reigning champion Spain 5–1, a victory that was partly atributed to Van Gaal’s counteratacking tactics that disturbed the tiki-taka possession-based soccer of the Spanish team. In a published interview (Groothengel, 2014) with Nick Jue, the chair of the board of the Netherlands ING Bank, Van Gaal describes the speciics of his leadership style. I select some of his statements in order to give an impression of his democratic leadership style with references to corresponding theoretical concepts between brackets (my translation from Dutch): • “I’m a democratic, empathic leader. I oten deliberate with my staf and take their specialist knowledge into account” [democracy, empathy, deliberation, acknowledging specialist knowledge of the team members] • “However, when it comes, I  am the one who decides” [increasing power distance]13 • “First, I always inquire [the representatives of a soccer club] what they want from me [deliberation]. hen I explain how I will realize that. hat I always want to create a safe climate [atmosphere] in which players and staf dare to present themselves as vulnerable [open boundaries of the self and decreasing emotional distance among team members]. hat they let their voice be heard without fear [giving space to the voices and narratives of the members] . . . his is not only about the talent you [as leader] received. It is also about your environment that inluences you” [extended self] • “I want a mix of older and younger players. I very strongly believe in this. he younger players still have this enormous spirit, that is oten lacking in older ones. In turn, the older players bring in their experience” [diversity of team members] 13

As illustrative example of an “undemocratic” but decisive action was Van Gaal’s unexpected decision, in the last minutes of the match against Costa Rica, to substitute his irst-choice goalkeeper with another goalkeeper who had a reputation as “penalty killer” and who saved two of Costa Rica’s penalties. his victory placed the Dutch team in the semiinals where they faced Argentina, which beat them in another penalty shootout.

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• “I like training top-talent. . . . he ideal picture should be that you train talents from your own company or club culture so that you don’t need to take people from outside. Only in exceptional cases, when you lack a particular quality in your staf for example, you look for them outside your company culture.” [lexible boundaries of the team and the leader as promoter able to create new positions in the team] • “I make a proile sketch for each member’s speciic position and he should meet the requirements. If there are elements in this proile sketch that he does not meet, then he should work on that. When this is not successful, only then do I take another player for this position [promoter who establishes coherence within the team and creates new positions. At times he moves upward on the power dimension] • “he team is never ixed [dynamic nature of positioning and repositioning]. You are constantly searching for improvement for the team, either from the outside or from our own youth training. New players oten introduce a new élan in the process of the team building” [lexible boundaries of the team and promoter position introducing new members] • “As a trainer you should take into account cultural dimensions. In the Netherlands I  was faced with the consequences of the permissive society that inds its origin in the times of the provos14 and laissez-faire. Everything was permited. At Ajax I tried to keep the boys within the doors as much as possible and to teach them norms and values. We wanted to strengthen and keep up the discipline. hen I moved to Barcelona where I had to adapt to Latin players, who needed a very diferent approach. For example, you cannot address them in a critical way in front of the group. [. . .]. hen I found myself in Bayern München with a culture in which hierarchy is very important. I have always adapted myself, but I lead wherever I work” [responding to cultural diferences and making lexible movements on the power dimension as a sign of lexible democracy] • “When ater the European Championship I  took over the [Dutch] squad from Bert van Marwijk [previous trainer], the team was in a diicult situation. he players did not relate well. I then started with the question: What binds us? What binds the players, the staf members, and Louis van Gaal in the upcoming period until the world championship? [decreasing emotional distance] I showed them ilms of the best club teams and country teams of that moment, Barcelona and Spain. I presented my vision [long-term view of the meta-position] and told them how we were going to play soccer, including 14

he term provo (from “provocation”) refers to a politically engaged group of young people who used to meet in the center of Amsterdam in the 1960s. he movement is generally considered as a frivolous revival of a nonviolent form of anarchism.

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illustrative YouTube ilms as this appeals to this generation. his was the irst step to bind them together. Next, I arranged a conversation circle with the 13 players who had received playing time during the European Championship, in order to explore if there was still old pain in the group” [decreasing emotional distance and creating a safe and open atmosphere for sharing pain]. (Figure 3.2) In sum, as these excerpts illustrate, Van Gaal presented himself as a democratic leader in his aim to function as a promoter during a period of optimal it between trainer and team. In his overarching view of the contributions of the diferent team members and in his anticipations of the achievements of the team in the future, he adopted a long-term vision on the functioning of the team from a meta-point of view. He set a high value on the contributions of the specialized positions of his team members and their diversity of skills as relevant for the long-term goals of his team. Learning from his experiences in the past, he made considerable moves along the power dimension depending on the necessities of the situation at hand. In his atempt to build a cohesive team, he introduced procedures for reducing emotional distance among the members and created space for the expression of their more intimate I-positions, in this way linking the level of the team to the level of the self. From his experiences with teams in diferent countries and cultures he learned to take cultural diferences into account and responded by moving along the dimensions of power distance and emotional distance. he fact that he was interviewed by a board

Figure 3.2. Trainer Louis van Gaal and some of his team members during the 2014 FIFA World Cup. Courtesy of Press Agency ANP

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director of a large bank suggests that banks and other organization may learn from the functioning of a successful soccer team and its leader. In the broader context of this book, one additional aspect should be emphasized. he success of the trainer, and of leaders in general, is not to be atributed to their personal abilities and skills only. Actually, it is a it between the capacities of the leader and the afordances of the situation. It is the speciic situation that triggers those capacities of the leader that are efective in that particular situation, which, in turn, enhances the leaders’ capacities to make optimal use of their speciic resources. In this way, leaders and co-workers are spiraling up to higher levels of performance that may be surprising, even in the eyes of the leaders themselves, as they feel lited up above their previous levels of functioning. In other words, it is not just a process of positioning of a strong leader as an individual but rather a process of positioning and counterpositioning between leader and social environment that is responsible for this spiraling up movement. Oten, leaders have to wait for the right moment, and, ater a period of success, they may disappoint suddenly, if the right conditions are no longer there.

Democracy and Leadership in Organizations In this section I  further strengthen the bridge between self and society by applying the model presented in Figure 3.1 to the functioning of an organization. In demonstrating the workings of the model on the organizational level, I assume that the same principles and concepts that were presented to analyze the functioning of the self and the team can also be used to comprehend some of the basic processes at the level of the organization. I  demonstrate that the way I-positions work in the self are not only conceptually but also practically similar to the way participants relate to each other as representing positions in an organization. It is not my intention to repeat the conceptual issues and details of the model, already discussed at the level of self and team. I  instead limit myself to a discussion of two phenomena that illustrate the application of the presented model at the level of organizations: a relational obstacle in the interaction between leaders of two merging companies and some of the problems that are challenging the functioning of a large global organization: the United Nations (UN). I have selected the UN for application of the present model as this organization aims to generate cooperation between states on a global scale. As a border-crossing organization par excellence, it aspires leadership status in a globalizing world.

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Two Merging Organizations In an insightful article on “dialogical leadership,” Isaacs (1999) described how two organizations, Monsanto, an American chemical and biotech manufacturer, and American Home Products (later: Wyeth), a large pharmaceutical company, dissolved their intended merger in 1998, not due to a lack of market synergy but to a leadership problem. According to a newspaper report, the deal failed “because of an insurmountable power struggle between the two companies’ chairmen” (he New  York Times, October 14, 1998, p.  C1). Apparently, the CEOs of the two companies had very diferent leadership styles. While one used to spend his lunch time playing basketball with his employees, the other preferred to stay in touch with key employees by email and refused to move to the company’s new headquarters. Or, when one of the leaders recommended a candidate for chief inancial oicer, the other spread a memo declaring that this person would never ill the role. Gradually, they both had the feeling that the other was undermining him and the company. Finally, it became evident that they were unable to work together so that the merger fell through. As Isaacs (1999) noticed, the leaders of these organizations were involved in conlicts about a range of substantive issues, like membership of important executive teams, ultimate control in CEO scenarios, and the timing of integrating disparate organizational cultures. In the end, these leaders failed to ind a way to talk and think together efectively to resolve these diicult issues. Instigated by such examples of failing cooperation, the author wondered how one can create environments that transform such diiculties into successes. his question motivated him to explore how dialogical leadership can lead to the creation of environments that stimulate participants to dissolve fragmentation and bring people’s collective wisdom to expression. In the new knowledge-based, networked economy, he thinks, the ability to talk and think together well is a vital source of competitive advantage and organizational efectiveness. he author sees dialogue as “an inquiry that surfaces ideas, perceptions, and understanding that people do not already have” and “You have a dialogue when you explore the uncertainties and questions that no one has answers to. In this way you begin to think together—not simply report out old thoughts. In dialogue people learn to use the energy of their diferences to enhance their collective wisdom.” (Isaacs, 1999, p. 2) Elaborating on David Kantor’s “Four-Player Model,” Isaacs (1999) distinguishes four distinct kinds of actions that participants may take in any dialogue: Move: some participants initiate ideas and ofer directions; Follow: other participants help others to clarify their ideas, give them support and complete what is being said; Oppose: some take a critical position and challenge what is

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being said; and Bystand: they actively observe what is happening and provide a perspective on what is going on.15 In addition to these positions, the author provides four distinct qualities that are helpful for dialogue to develop: in order to move, participants learn to speak from their genuine voices; as followers they are invited to listen deeply; opposing requires participants to give space and express respect for other people’s points of view; and bystanding enables them to broaden their awareness, suspend their certainties, and to provide perspectives. he author summarizes his model in this way: “Without movers there is no direction, without followers there is no completion, without opposers there is no correction, without bystanders there is no perspective.” (Isaacs, 1999, p. 1). He pictures dialogical leaders as balanced because they embody all four of these qualities and they have the capacity to activate them in others. Indeed, dialogical leaders have the lexibility to move hence and forth between these four positions and their qualities. In exposing his model, Isaacs (1999) makes a remark that is at the heart of our positioning model: “in a dialogic system, any person may take any of the four actions at any time. Although people may have a preferred position, each individual is able to move and initiate, to follow and complete things, to oppose, and to observe and provide perspective. None of these roles is beter or worse than the others. hey are all necessary for the system to function properly” (p. 2). In terms of the positioning model, there are four members in the given example—a mover, a follower, an opposer, and a bystander—represented by the four peripheral circles in Figure 3.1. Dialogical leaders are, more than the other members, balanced; that is, they are able to take all four positions in an alternating way. he leader is not only a mover but, contingent on the situation at hand, he or she is also a follower, an opposer, or an observer. However, although the co-workers have their preferred position, they all have, to some degree, all of the other positions in their repertoire. So the co-workers who are following have, at the background of their selves, the other positions available and accessible (I as a mover, I as oppose, and I as observer). his diversity of I-positions, pictured as the small circles in each of the larger circles in Figure 3.1, are necessary in order to understand the position of the other and what the other is doing. In order to 15

Oten opposers are regarded as “trouble-makers” as they are seen as a threat for the cohesion of the team. Moreover, interacting participants generally prefer agreement above disagreement and groupthink above diversity as it feels more comfortable. he unfortunate result may be that opposers are tuned out. However, as Zomer (2006) in his investigation on the I-positions of team members concluded, deviant members have the potential of giving signiicant innovative impulses to the decision-making of the team. For a discussion of dissent in organizations, see also Argyres and Mui (2007), who propose a game-theoretical model that includes a cost–beneit calculus that can be used by the members to capture the beneits from constructive dissent and avoid the hazards of destructive dissent.

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be empathic an individual needs to have an idea about the position from which the other is addressing him or her, and this is facilitated if the person knows this position from the inside, that is, in your own self. As this elaboration shows, there is a necessary linkage between the positions of the members in a team and the I-positions of the diferent members. My central argument is: by applying the same positioning model. both at the level of the team as part of an organization and at the level of the self, a two-way communication between the levels is possible, promising mutually productive activation and inluence. In his analysis, Isaacs (1999) notices that when a system is moving away from dialogue, participants oten get stuck in one of the four positions. For example, some participants behave like “addicted” movers: they start by expressing an idea and before that idea is suiciently explored and acted upon, they give another, and another, so that the focus on a central theme becomes diicult. Perhaps the most typical nondialogic interactions, he notes, are the ones that are ritualized and repetitive and systematically exclude one or more of the other positions. he two conlicting CEOs, discussed earlier in this section, became imprisoned in a dynamic where one initiated, as a mover, an action that was opposed by the other so that the irst one tried to push back even harder. his dynamic, in which they both were locked, eventually escalated to the point where the deal was sabotaged. his intense move-oppose cycle between two high-powered players restricted their position repertoire and that of their colleagues, so that there was insuicient space for listening deeply (following) and for the suspension of certainties (bystander position). he result was that the interaction remained highly biased and unbalanced with some relevant positions closed and inaccessible. Note that the proposed positioning model is not exclusive for one speciic leadership model. Van Loon (2017), for example, proposes a version of “dialogical leadership” that includes positions that are diferent from the ones in Isaacs’ (1999) model. He describes dialogical leadership in terms of lexible movements between a diversity of I -positions that are relevant to the functioning of the organization as a whole. Examples are “I as entrepreneur,” “I as manager,” “I as coach,” and “I as professional.” From diferent positions the leader pursues diferent goals. As an entrepreneur he or she is to develop a long-term vision for the organization, as a manager to plan and organize speciic activities, as a coach to stimulate colleagues to develop their qualities in the light of the mission, and as a professional to make use of the information and knowledge provided by a particular discipline in the service of the organization. Dialogical relationships between the diferent I-positions are required so that these positions can learn from each other.16 In conclusion, I have referred to two leadership models 16

In Van Loon’s (2017) view, positions can learn from each other through “transpositioning”: the energy of a particular position in the self may be transferred to another position with diferent

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(Isaacs and Van Loon), in order to show that the positioning model, presented in this book, is not limited to one speciic leadership approach but is open to a variety of models, yet subject to the same principles of lexible positioning and dialogue.17

he United Nations: A Promoter or Anti-Promoter? As an example of a larger, global organization, I  briely go into some conspicuous aspects of the UN. In doing so I am aware of the astonishing complexity of this worldwide forum, which I am not doing full justice. However, considering an organization like the UN from the presented model allows the highlighting of some of the potentials and obstacles faced by an organization that aims to improve the understanding and cooperation among people in a boundary-crossing world. Building on this exploration, I then pose a question about what the simple word “we” means when used by people in a globalizing community. In his overview of the history of the UN, Fomerand (2007) recounts the successes and failures of the organization since its inception in 1945. Born out of the horrors and ashes of World War II, the creation of the UN emerged from the hope of many to build a world organization that would function as a pathway to greater justice and prosperity (p. lv). Its foundations and principles were guided by the “lessons” of the recent past: the failures of the League of Nations in preventing World War II, the rise of nondemocratic regimes, the traumatic experience of the Great Depression, and the explosions of economic nationalisms. Taking a meta-position with a long-term historical view, the founders realized that previous failures made it necessary to establish a security organization with a wide array of powers to ensure international security and peace, to stimulate sound socioeconomic growth, to stimulate an open boundary-crossing economy, and to spread democratic government (p. lvii). In Figure 3.1, the UN’s leadership (the General Assembly) would be depicted as the central circle and its many suborganizations as smaller circles inside. he central circle has (ideally) open communication channels with a great number surrounding circles

afective quality and style of behavior so that the afective quality and behavior of the second position is changed. In one of his examples, a leader of an organization has two positions that are functioning in isolation from each other. As a director he feels tense and socially isolated; as a hobby farmer he feels relaxed and socially connected. In a coaching trajectory, Van Loon shows how the stress of the director position is diminished by transposing the relaxation and behavior of the hobby farmer to the director position. 17

A  “self-confrontation method” devised for assessing and stimulating a dialogical self on the organizational level is developed by Van de Loo (2016).

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representing a large number of nations that have open communication channels with each other as well. When looking back over the past tribulations of the UN, Fomerand (2007) notes a series of inconsistencies, failures to act, and instances of apparent neglect, such as the paralysis of the Security Council throughout the Cold War; the intractable issues of Palestine, Cyprus, Kashmir, and Western Sahara; the shameful hands-of posture in the genocides in Cambodia (1975–1978) and Rwanda (1994); the abrupt withdrawal from Somalia (1993); and the failure to prevent the massacres in Srebenica (1995) ater the town had been declared as a “safe area” by the UN council. On the other hand, the history of the UN includes a number of remarkable successes that relect its capacity to serve as a promoter position in global issues: its contribution to the process of decolonization and self-determination that has led to the creation of many new countries (the capacity of promoters to create new positions), the invention of peace-keeping (reducing emotional distance), its protection and advancement of human rights, the control of infectious diseases, and the humanitarian relief provided to millions of people displaced by catastrophes (Fomerand, 2007, pp. lv–lvi). Power Problems in the UN

On the power dimension, there is, however, a striking asymmetry between different UN organs. he center of the UN is the General Assembly. where decisions are made on the basis of one-state-one-vote. All nations are considered equal irrespective of diferences in power. However, the power of the Assembly itself is limited. It can only adopt nonbinding recommendations. According to the Articles 10 through 17 of the UN charter, the assembly is merely empowered to “discuss,” to “consider,” “to initiate studies and make recommendations,” and to “receive and consider annual and special reports.” his means that the assembly is essentially a forum for discussion and a debating chamber (Fomerand, 2007, p. lxi). he security council, on the other hand, has a very diferent decision-making procedure. It is designed as an organ with the primary responsibility for preserving peace. Unlike the General Assembly, the council has the right to enforce coercive measures. It has 15 members, with 5 of them permanent (China, Great Britain, France, United States. and Russia), and 10 nonpermanent members who are elected for two-year terms by the General Assembly. A controversial issue in the voting system of the council is the so-called veto: when a decision has to be made on substantial (not procedural) maters, the airmative vote of nine members is required, including the concurring votes of the permanent members. In practice this means that, if any of the Big Five superpowers votes against,

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a resolution cannot be adopted by the council (Fomerand, 2007, p. 380). Ever since the establishment of the council, this veto provision has been a source of ongoing debate and controversy, as many perceive it as “Dictatorship of the powerful within a democracy” (Fomerand, 2007, p. lxiii). Over the years, the opportunistic use of the veto power has frustrated the international community. While the United States has vetoed many Security Council resolutions critical of Israel, Russia obstructed atempts to impose sanctions on Syria during the civil war in this country and, recently, used the veto right to prevent condemnation of Russia’s own annexation of the Crimean peninsula. Polarized controversy becomes also manifest in the so-called North–South split. Northern industrial countries, and the United States in particular, were reluctant to assign more than limited functions to the UN. hey saw the UN as a voluntary association of sovereign states with no binding legislative functions of a supranational kind. At best, it was a “catalyst” or “facilitator.” he governance of economic and social cooperation should belong to non-UN institutions, for example the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Conversely, the southern developing countries wanted to eliminate the structural problems that hampered their modernization, industrialization, or sustainable development. In their view, the General Assembly should be the keystone of the governance architecture of the world economy and should enjoy authoritative decision-taking powers to realize these goals (Fomerand, 2007, p. xc). While superpowers in the Security Council are criticized for their use of veto power for their national interest rather than for the solution of international problems, the one-state-one-vote principle of the General Assembly also instigated opposition. In the mid-1970s, the United States initiated a counteratack against the “tyranny of the majority” and decided to withhold its assessed contributions. Within a few years, the hird World coalition that wanted to see the UN as “the keystone of the governance architecture of the world economy and development cooperation and should enjoy authoritative decision-making powers” was tamed, and, under the weight of its debt crisis, it collapsed as an organized political force (Fomerand, 2007, p. xc). From the perspective of the positioning model, the UN decision procedures create strongly unbalanced and even confusing ways of positioning and counter-positioning. When one sees the General Assembly as occupying a leadership position (central circle in Figure 3.1) and the different member states placed around it (peripheral circles), then the members are equal on the power dimension but only in a formal way. Although the members have, as voting representatives in the General Assembly, equal power, their economic, political, cultural, and historical differences are large and their national interests so dominant that informal power positions

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are dramatically different and highly unbalanced. This creates a situation in which power distances between members states are formally absent but informally excessive. This unbalance hampers a democratic atmosphere and increases emotional distance. As a result, the boundaries between the positions of the members states are rather closed and communication channels insufficiently used for creative problem- solving. The UN global conferences could serve as an opportunity for fertile discussions. However, as Fomerand (2007) notes, southern countries consider them as “useful agenda-building opportunities” while Western governments increasingly label them as “lavish and inefficient talk shows” (p. xci).18 In summary, looking through the lens of the proposed position model, it can be concluded that the United Nations, in the course of its history, has done an admirable job by taking a meta-position that was fruitful in learning the lessons of the past and projecting plans for the future that have the promise of changing the global political and economic landscape. It has, moreover, functioned as an efective promoter in many respects, such as the process of decolonization and self-determination, the creation of new countries, peacekeeping, human rights, the control of infectious diseases, and humanitarian help and support. On the other hand, informal power distances (even formal power diferences in case of the Security Council) and emotional distances obstruct, in combination with insuiciently open communication channels, creative problem-solving and generative dialogue. It remains a challenge for the member countries to develop existing procedures and organizations and invent new ones in order to create the conditions needed for the members to

18

In order to give a more complete picture, I quote one of the anonymous reviewers who comments on my analysis: “Hermans’ analysis of the UN fails to take into account, however, two intrinsic qualities of the organization which belie the rhetoric of the Charter and other documents in praise of democratic principles. hese involve (1) equality among member states regardless of population size and (2) national sovereignty. In practice, this means that Nauru and Tuvalu with populations of roughly 21,000 between them have equal votes with the two largest nations, China and India, with one-third of the world’s population, i.e., nations that are between 129,618 times larger. In the United States, it took several Supreme Court decisions in the 1960s to establish the principle of “one person, one vote” as the bedrock of democratic representation, one at variance with the UN’s General Assembly structure. Secondly, the principle of national sovereignty walls of ‘interference’ in the internal afairs of national states except in quite extreme situations like genocide. his second factor contrasts in multiple ways with the understanding of the self in PT [Position heory in this book] and the power diferentials within the UN between the Security Council and General Assembly which Hermans details and illustrate only part of the democratic problems of the institution. Indeed, in conlicts between the developing world and the industrialized world, an underlying issue seems so oten to be not just the economic disparity between them, but the political imbalance of undemocratic states claiming to be democratic and led by autocratic power centers challenging more truly democratic nations.”

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introduce their speciic resources (running wheels in Figure 3.1) and to learn from each other. (For suggestions to improve the democracy of the UN, see Held, 1992, 2006.)

“We” as Internally Divided In everyday life the word “we” is used in a diversity of situations and covers, implicitly or explicitly, a diversity of meanings. In the expression “We love each other” or “We have a very intimate contact,” it refers usually to two or more people involved in a relationship with a high degree of emotional proximity. On the contrary, when someone says, “We are alienated from each other,” the word “we” is used in a context that suggests a large emotional distance. Also, on the power dimension the word “we” may vary considerably. When children at a dinner table misbehave in the eyes of a parent, he or she may use coercive power by saying decisively: “his is not the way we do that!” Or the leader of a team may force a decision in an authoritarian way by saying, “We decide to . . . because there is no alternative.” On the contrary, the power distance is low when a team member says, “We are used to consult each other and listen to each other before taking a decision.” So the meaning of the word “we” may vary considerably in both emotional and power distance and may move gradually as well as suddenly along these dimensions (e.g., “We are growing closer to each other” or “Finally, we had to use our authority!”).19 In the context of this chapter, the question can be posed: To what extent is the word “we” a democratic we? Let’s explore this question at diferent levels: organization, team, and self with atention to the way they are related. Although the UN Charter does not include the word “democracy,” the opening words of the Charter, “We the Peoples,” relect the fundamental principle of democracy: “that the will of the people is the source of legitimacy of sovereign states and therefore of the United Nations as a whole.” (UN Global Issues, 2014, n.p.). he democratic claim of the UN is also expressed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that states:  “the will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government” (n.p.) It is also airmed in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966) that includes articles on “freedom of expression,” “the right to freedom of association with 19 Communist ideologies of the former Soviet Union, and their party representatives in particular, illustrate a tradition in which the “we” was placed above the “I.” In their zest to create a sense of solidarity, the party ideals led to the suppression of the individual voice by the collective voice, inally resulting in an illusionary “we” that lost its atraction for many people who missed the opportunity to speak and act from their personal positions. In terms of Heidmets (1995), the communist system favored a dominance of the social over the individual (for elaboration, see chapter 5).

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others,” “the right to vote” (n.p.) and other articles that relect an embracement of the democratic ideal. As we have seen in the preceding sections, this democratic ideal is confronted with apparent disagreements, conlicts, and clashing interests between the member states. In the context of the discussion in this chapter, it suices to observe that the word “we,” in “We the peoples” as a democratic ideal and pretended we-position, contrasts strongly, and sometimes dramatically, with unresolved political, social, and economic tensions of the organization resulting from insurmountable power diferences and clashes between members states and their vested interests (e.g., the apparent inability of the UN in Syria’s recent civil war).20 In the preceding section, I limited myself to a discussion of some aspects of the UN in order to demonstrate the way some of the concepts of the presented theory are materialized in an organization that plays a central part in a globalizing world. I suggest that the presented theoretical framework can be applied to any other organization—political, economic, educational, social, governmental, or nongovernmental—to analyze the tension and contrast between the mission that energizes and motivates participants to function as an idealized unifying “we” and the diversiied, conlicting, and sometimes paralyzed “we” that relects the actual situation of the organization. Similar remarks can be made at the level of a team. In the service of exempliication, I  described a soccer team in a phase of its existence when it was successful and showed a good it with its leader. Also here the question can be posed: What does it mean when they use the word “we” and present themselves as “united”? We may refer, with admiration, to a national team that functions as “a cohesive unity” and the enthusiasm and identiication with the team culminates in nationwide “We will win!” Certainly, a soccer team may exist of players who win a game as the result of “perfect teamwork,” but this is possible only with players who take opposite and mutually complementing positions toward each other: back versus forward players and right-wingers versus let-wingers, the keeper versus the striker, with midielders creating the necessary linkages between all these positions. Apart from their prescribed roles as part of the 20

he phrase “we the peoples” refers to a superordinate “we,” which is actually composed of a multiplicity of diferent, opposing, or conlicting “we’s” representing the member countries. he challenging question for the UN is whether it is possible to develop a superordinate “we” that is more than a cover or mask hiding the vested interest of the member countries. Such a superordinate we requires the construction of “extended we-positions” referring to another group as “another we,” analogous to the other as another I at the individual level (see chapter 2). he emergence of extended we-positions requires open and lexible boundaries between group identities allowing dialogical relationships to emerge needed for the production of new and common meanings (for generative dialogue, see chapter 7).

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task division, they have a certain freedom to express their individual skills with the result that some of them are qualiied as “stars” and others as “workhorses” or as “mediocre.” Any well-functioning team is a unity-in-multiplicity, even a unity-in-diversity. Not only in sports but in any teamwork, unity is composed of diversity of participants who function on the basis of a task division that coexists with a diversity of skills and capacities. Moreover, the label “we” may function as a “cover” of hidden conlicts, envy, and clashing interests up to the point that it functions more as a “masking position” than as an actual unity. A masking position functions to cover other, less desirable positions with the intent to hide them as if they do not exist or to present them to the outside world or to oneself in a justifying way (for elaboration on masking positions, see chapter 7). It would also be an illusion to refer to a team, group, organization, or nation in terms of one continuous “we.” he meaning of the word “we” is contingent on the changing contact with the party to which one addresses oneself. From a historical point of view, a nation like Russia positioned itself as “we” in relation to Ukraine ater the governmental change in 2013 in a way that was strongly different from the “we” in relation to the same country as part of the former Soviet Union. Or the “we” of the Netherlands in relation to Germany during World War II was dramatically diferent from the one during their later cooperation as parts of the European Union. On a smaller scale, team members experience a “we” in relation to a competitor as very diferent from the “we” in connection to a cooperating group or organization. An opposing “we” has a feeling, color, intonation, and atmosphere that is very diferent from a cooperating “we” with its more open boundaries.

he I as Internally Diferentiated What is the implication of these considerations for the self ? he self, when it is conceived of as a separate “I myself,” follows from an ideological and cultural bias that considers the self as an essence in itself and as a container with sharp and closed boundaries with the outside world and with the other as purely “external” (Callero, 2003; Sampson, 1985). he “I” conceived as internally uniied and homogeneous and as externally distinctive is an illusion fostered by the Enlightenment ideal of the individualized autonomous self. Actually, the “I” is distributed as a diversity of diferent, contrasting, and conlicting I-positions. And given the extension of the self, as discussed earlier in this chapter, I am a diferent “I” in diferent situations and in diferent relationships. he process of positioning draws the I into divergent and even opposed directions. hese diferences can be observed on the dimension

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of emotional distance conceived as a continuum on which one may move upward and downward: • • • • • •

I as feeling close to myself when I listen to my favorite music I as a close friend of Jim who supports me when I need it I as a good colleague of Francis with whom I’m involved in a common project. I as a being critical of Jennifer’s way of life I as feeling alienated from my ex-husband I as despising my own behavior toward my brother

Increasing diferences and variations also emerge on the power dimension: • • • • •

I as being in total agreement with myself I as being indulgent to my drinking need when I need relaxation I as being in control of my gambling behavior I as commanding myself not to do that again I as suppressing my anger toward my child

Although the high and thin word “I” suggests the existence of an internally homogeneous entity, functioning as an separate agency, it works actually as a highly dynamic multiplicity of I-positions in ields of tension loaded with contrasts, conlicts, and oppositions depending on the stimulus character of the situation at hand and the self ’s response to these changing situations. Actually, the “I” and its plural ally “we” represent a situation-contingent process of positioning, repositioning, and counter-positioning. Although the distance between the United Nations and the individual self is seemingly unbridgeable, there is a basic commonality between “We the Peoples” of the UN charter and the “I myself.” On the level of actual functioning, both are composed of a dynamic multiplicity of positions, engaged in relationship of social power and emotional distance. It is this basic commonality that provides a bridge for a two-way traic between the individual self and (global) organizations. Such a bridge enables us to link, for example, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of the UN with the rights of a democratically organized self that allows and empowers its I-positions to tell their stories from their own speciic perspective and to express their needs, wishes, and aspirations from their own point of view. Any organization that lacks a botom-up democracy is a giant with feet of clay.21 21

Given the basic commonality between the “we” on the collective level, and the “I” on the level of the self, I propose, for reasons of theoretical parsimony, to apply the term “I-position” to both levels. Both “I” and “we” are, from a conceptual point of view, labeled as (extended) I-positions in the remainder of this book.

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Summary On the basis of research indings, the impact of groupthink and the importance of a democratic atmosphere in teams were discussed. An example of leadership in teams was provided by analyzing the interaction of a coach during a soccer world championship. Leadership on the level of organizations was explored by referring to the example of two merging organizations and their problematic cooperation. Leadership on the level of a world organization was exempliied by an analysis of the successes and failures of the UN. At the end of this chapter I tried to summarize what I mean by “lexible democracy.” In this concept two lines of exploration come together, one referring to the movements on the dimensions of power distance and emotional distance and the other to the connection between self, team, and organization. Essential to the model (Figure 3.1) is that it can only properly be understood if it is used in a dynamic and lexible way and as based on processes of positioning, repositioning, and counter-positioning. Democracy requires the skill to make lexible movements on the dimensions of social power and emotional distance. For social power this means that members of a team, interaction group, or organization are able to make these movements as a response to the requirements of the situation at hand. his applies in particular to leadership in the form of a person, group, or commitee. Leaders or leading agencies, motivated by the idea of lexible democracy, practice the “art of moving,” guided by the insights ofered by taking meta-positions that provide an overarching and long-term perspective on the past and future of the team or organization, taking into account the linkages between the diferent positions in one’s own group (internal positions) and those between the group and a variety of stakeholders (external positions) to which the group is extended. Moreover, lexible leaders function as promoter positions able to take the lead in creating coherence in the more specialized member positions. hey are specialized in generating new positions and in energizing the group to go into the preferred direction, as indicated by its mission. he use of social power (e.g., reward power or even coercive power needed in crisis situations) and the movements on the emotional distance dimension are in the service of meta- and promoter positions. Leaders are able to evoke diferent I-positions in the members, particularly those that are needed for the realization of the mission of the team or organization. In order to do so, leaders develop lexible boundaries between their own selves and those of the members and between the members in relation to each other in order to keep communication channels between positions suiciently open and lexible. In a democratic group, members and leaders in particular create an atmosphere that is open and safe enough to facilitate the realization and development of metapositions and promoters in the light of the mission. Essential for democratic

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leaders is that they are not only physically present but also invisibly present; that is, they function as promoter positions in the external domain of the selves of the members. Another essential feature of lexible democracy is bridging the levels of self, team, and organization. he basic assumption is here that democracy can function properly only if it works not only outside the self but also in the deeper regions in the personal life of the individual. he democratization of the self is an ideal and, in my view, even a necessary “practice ield” for the development of democracy outside.22 I suppose that a person who is used to suppressing inner anxieties or avoiding unresolved inner tensions and problems is not in an optimal condition to contribute actively to the democracy in the society at large. Societal democracy and self-democracy are intimately interconnected. his view is supported by the increasing relevance of the principle of self-governance and its expression in personal and societal responsibility, as discussed in chapter 1. Selfgovernance, both on the level of the group and on the level of the self, requires individuals who are not only responsible to the expression and organization of their own lives but also to the lives of their co-citizens. In my view, there is a deep commonality between the individualized autonomy of the modern self and the autonomous state that is hunting for its selfinterest only. Both of them conceive themselves as internally homogeneous entities having an existence in their own and contrastively seting themselves to other selves or other states. On the level of groups, teams, and organizations this corresponds with the formation of ingroups that increase their internal unity and cohesion, at the same time creating an emotional distance and power distance toward outgroups that are equally seen as internally homogeneous. he concept of lexible democracy proposes, by its positional diversiication, the existence of a heterogeneous ingroup that is able to a dialogical processing of internal tensions, contrasts, conlicts, and ambiguities and, moreover, acknowledges a likewise heterogeneous outgroup. In contrast to groupthink that falls prey to an uncritical heightening of internal homogeneity, lexible democracy blossoms if social and cultural diferences and their dialogical processing are preferred above the “comfortable feeling of being united” (for the diferences between comfort, challenge, and danger zones in the self, see chapter 6).

22

For the relationship between self and society, Adorno and colleagues’ (1950) classic study of the “authoritarian personality” is particularly relevant. Part of this study was the insight that authoritarian personalities are not able to recognize their own repressed impulses and, as a result, project them unconsciously on minority groups, stereotyping them in rigid ways. At the same time, they believe in absolute obedience to authoritarian leaders who receive the power to solve societal problems in undemocratic ways (for more detailed discussion of the authoritarian personality, see chapter 8).

4

he Positioning Brain I not only use all the brains that I have, but all that I can borrow. —Woodrow Wilson

Inside the self is not only society, as argued in the preceding chapters, but also the functioning of the brain. Brain and society meet each other in the self. his bold thesis at the beginning of this chapter evokes a crucial question: Does the brain allow a reciprocal relationship between self and other, and, if so, under which conditions does it enable the self to become a productive and cooperative contributor to society? Let me irst place this question in the context of democracy. As Warren (1995) observed, radical democracy has been of central interest to such divergent theorists as Jeferson, Emerson, Stuart Mill, and Dewey. What these otherwise diverse thinkers have in common and what makes them “radical” is the belief that democratic participation is an essential means of selfdevelopment and self-realization. hey assume that more participation will produce individuals with more democratic atitudes: individuals with more tolerance of social and political diferences, with more sensitivity to reciprocity, with an ability to engage in moral discourse and judgment, and with the capacity to examine their own preferences. All of these qualities are believed to be conducive to productive ways of individual decision making and democratic participation. However, the self can only function in participative and cooperative ways if the workings of the brain are supportive to such a democratic organization of self and society. his assumption is not indisputable, since there is abundant evidence in cognitive neuroscience, social neuroscience, and afective neuroscience that the brain is composed of opposite, yet interactive parts (e.g., cortical vs. subcortical areas and right vs. let hemispheres) that produce diferent and sometimes conlicting answers to the same stimulus situation. As we will see in this chapter, these divisions have far-reaching implications for the way participants,

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including those living in societies labeled as “democratic,” are exposed to tensions and conlicts between self and other, between emotions and cognitions, and between conscious deliberations and less conscious intuitions.1 Subjected to discrepancies and conlicts between diferent parts of the brain, it is not at all evident that humans are able to participate in a democratic society as “internally united beings,” with the capacity to coordinate parts of the brain that push them into divergent or even opposite directions. Likewise, it is not evident that people functioning in a society that labels itself as “democratic” have developed a self that functions as an “inner democracy.” So the guiding question in this chapter is:  Under which conditions is a self capable of functioning in productive and reciprocal ways with others, and which factors prevent it from doing so? More speciically, is there a neurological basis for the distinction between I-positions referring to the self and to the other, between conscious and unconscious Ipositions and between emotion-driven and reason-guided I-positions and under which conditions can they cooperate? Does the brain allow for the development of meta-positions and promoter positions, and what are the implications for leadership, both in self and society? Did the Enlightenment ideal of individualized autonomy lead to a culturally based systematic overemphasis of those brain functions that favored a rational, controlling, socially isolated self at the cost of a more social, empathic, artistic, intuitive, and moral self? Ater addressing these questions in some detail, I  present a model of basic I-positions, suggested by recent neuroscientiic and social-psychological evidence (Figure 4.4). As this is a complex chapter, I divide it in four parts (see Table 4.1 for the main topics). he central theme in Part 1 is the relation between self and other with special emphasis on the other as “another I-position” in the extended self. he central theme in Part 2 is the relationship between emotion and reason that leads to the distinction between emotional and reasoning I-positions. Part 3 continues with the distinction and communication between conscious and nonconscious layers of the self, allowing the distinction between conscious and nonconscious I-positions. Finally, in Part  4 these inclusive opposites—selfwith-other, reason-with-emotion, and conscious-with-nonconscious—are brought together in an elaborated position model that addresses the power distance, emotional distance, and communication channels between basic I-positions.

1 Reviews of neuroscientiic studies on these topics are available. For the relationship between self and other, see Decety and Sommerville (2003); for the evolutionary-based relationship between emotion and cognition, see Panksepp (2003); for the relation between the conscious and nonconscious levels in the self, see McGilchrist (2009) and Schore (2012). For an application of the democratic metaphor on the level of neurons, see Berkowitz (2016).

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Table 4.1. Main Topics in his Chapter Part 1: Self Part 2: Emotion and and Other Reason

Part 3: Conscious Part 4: Positioning and Model Nonconscious

Empathy

Racial evaluation Self-with-other

Appraisal/reappraisal

Self-other Somatic markers distinction

Self-fulilling prophecies

Reason-with-emotion

heory of mind

Social stereotypes

Conscious-withunconscious

Morality

Boundaries Feelings and emotions Body illusions of self

Leadership

Cultural aspects

Uncertainty

Cultural aspects

Cultural aspects

Note that it is not the purpose of this chapter to give an all-inclusive review of neuroscientiic or social-psychological literature on the three polarities. I limit the chapter to presenting some concepts and studies that are immediately relevant to understanding the meaning of I-positions and their empirical correlates.

Part 1. Self and Other: Positioning and Counter-Positioning When I  was wandering through the expanding literatures on the brain, I  felt, apart from being overwhelmed by its advances and uncertainties, pleasantly surprised by the observation that neuroscience, at least some parts of it, is moving into the direction of social and even societal issues. First, we witnessed the emergence of cognitive neuroscience, then social and afective neuroscience, and even more recently, cultural neuroscience2 and even neurotheology.3 My explorations, particularly in the ield of social and afective neuroscience, brought me to the conclusion that not only society but also the brain is governed by both connection and opposition, cooperation and conlict, and even power struggles. he awareness of this basic commonality, that runs as a red thread through this chapter, is perhaps most clearly expressed by the relationship between our both

2 3

For cultural neuroscience, see Ames and Fiske (2010) and Han and Northof (2008). For the relation between neurotheology and shamanism, see Winkelman (2002).

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hemispheres that, as recent literatures suggest, are involved in communication between self and other, between emotion and ratio, and between conscious and unconscious. Before becoming immersed in the let–right distinction, let me start with some caution.

Let–Right Brain Myths As Jarret (2012) has noticed, the let–right brain distinction has a strong metaphorical appeal and many adherents, including self-help gurus who popularized it with pseudo-psychological promises. More recently, the “use both sides of your brain” message is also spread by the designers of self-improvement video games and apps. Indeed, many have succumbed to the seductive idea that the disclosure of the right brain’s untapped creative potential is automatically followed by a boost of one’s innovative capacities and even by an unexpected rise of the turnover of one’s company. It is widely acknowledged that the two hemispheres of the brain, although looking quite similar, function in diferent ways. However, this diference is oten presented in strongly biased ways. As Jarret (2012) observes, it has become almost a common belief that in most people the let brain is dominant for language. he right hemisphere, on the other hand, is more strongly involved in emotional processing and is beter equipped for access to the mental states of others. However, the distinctions are not as clear-cut as the myth suggests. It is, for example, evident that the right hemisphere is involved in processing some nonverbal aspects of language, such as intonation and emphasis. Jensen (2008), another critic of the let–right brain myth, emphasizes the complexity of brain laterality and, like Jarret (2012), gives the example of listening. It is oten assumed that listening to someone speaking is a let-hemisphere activity as the let hemisphere is involved in processing words, deinitions, and language. However, in contradiction to this assumption, there is abundant conirmation showing that the right hemisphere processes the inlection, tonality, tempo, and volume of the communication, nonverbal elements that are even more critical to the meaning of a conversation than the words themselves. Another example of let–right myth is the belief that creativity is exclusively connected to right brain activity. A frequently made distinction is between tasks that are repetitive and predictable, believed to be regulated by the let hemisphere, and creative tasks that are mediated by the right hemisphere. However, reality is more complex, as there are clearly diferent ways to be creative. here is evidence showing that the right hemisphere is more active when we experience a lash of insight, the so-called “aha”-phenomenon. On the other hand, it is very possible to give creative solutions by gradually puting together pieces of

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information. Jensen (2008) refers to the well-known work of De Bono (1970) on lateral thinking that reminds us of the possibility to use “let-brain systems” in creative problem-solving. For years this author has articulated processes that are helpful for arriving at creative solutions through sequential methods (note: parallel processing is atributed to the right hemisphere while sequential processing is let hemisphere work). A similar simpliication about brain laterality is found in opinions about music. Is music a right-brain experience? As Jensen (2008) reminds us, empirical studies have shown that musicians process music to a greater degree with their let hemisphere, while non-musicians show more right hemisphere activity. his paradox is just one of the indications of the complexity of our brain functions. While musicians tend to analyze music, their let brain is engaged to a greater degree, whereas novices experience music in more emotional ways. he apparently intense interconnections of the two hemispheres can be considered as cautions against a naive classiication of “right brain types” versus “let brain types.” As Jensen (2008) emphasizes, it would be an oversimpliication to assume that an individual is let brained or right brained. Although there are task divisions, the brain functions as a whole with parts that are continuously involved in cooperation. Each area of the brain knows what is needed for a particular action and interacts with other areas in a millisecond.

Evolutionary Origin of Let and Right Brain When there is a hemispheric task division, the question about its evolution origin comes up. In their article about this topic, MacNeilage, Rogers, and Vallortigara (2009) summarize some answers to this question. hey notice that 40 years ago there was broad scientiic consensus on the belief that right-handedness and the specialization of just one side of the brain for processing spatial relations were speciically human. It was thought that animals have no hemispheric specializations of any kind. However, in the past few decades, animal studies have shown that their two brain hemispheres also have distinctive roles. he specialization of each hemisphere in the human brain, the authors argue, was already present in its rudimentary form when vertebrates emerged about 500 million years ago. MacNeilage and colleagues (2009) developed the hypothesis that the let hemisphere of the vertebrate brain was in its basic form specialized for the control of well-established behavioral paterns under ordinary and familiar circumstances, such as feeding and pecking. In contrast, the right hemisphere, generally assumed to be the primary seat of emotional arousal, was originally specialized for detecting and responding to unexpected environmental stimuli. his

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hemisphere took primary control in potentially dangerous circumstances—a nearby predator, for example—that called for a rapid reaction. I refer here to some of the evidence provided by MacNeilage and colleagues (2009) for the routine function of the vertebrate let hemisphere. One routine behavior with a let-hemisphere dominance across many vertebrates is feeding. Fishes, reptiles, and toads, for example, tend to strike at prey on their right side under the control of their right eye and let hemisphere. In various bird species—chickens, pigeons, stilts, and quails—the right eye is the primary guide for food pecking and prey capture. Such a lateralized feeding preference can even lead to a bias in the animal’s anatomy. he beak of the New Zealand wry-billed plover has a slope to the right that enables the bird’s right eye to guide the beak as it seeks food under small river stones. he feeding behavior of humpback whales is another spectacular example of lateral feeding preference. In a research project on whales it was found that the large majority of them had abrasions only on the right jaw. he indings were seen as evidence that whales favor one side of the jaw for food gathering and that for most of them it is mediated by the let brain. Support for the hypothesis concerning right brain dominance in animals comes from studies of the reactions to predators. he appearance of a deadly predator in ancient vertebrate environments is usually highly unexpected and emotion-laden. Fishes, amphibians, birds, and mammals all react with more vehement avoidance to predators when they are seen in the let side of their visual ield (mediated by the right side of the brain) than in their right visual ield. Brain-imaging studies demonstrate that humans also possess an “atentional system” in the right brain that is particularly sensitive to unexpected stimuli that typically say: Danger ahead! One may observe this propensity to quick atention to unexpected stimuli when people, while listening in a concentrated way to a speaker, turn their head immediately when the door of the room is opened unexpectedly. Closely related to this phenomenon is the tendency of the right hemisphere to take in the whole scene: giving atention to the environment as a whole rather than focusing on a limited number of elements. While the right brain has a more global atention, the let one is more focused and detailed. However, why do hemispheres specialize? Why did vertebrates favor the specialization of particular functions in one or the other half of the brain? MacNeilage, Rogers, and Vallortigara (2009) give the following explanation. For an adaptive assessment of incoming stimulus, an organism must be able to carry out two kinds of analyses simultaneously. It must be alert enough to estimate the novelty of the stimulus and then take an immediate emergency action if necessary (right hemisphere). At the same time, it must determine whether the stimulus its some familiar category, so a well-established response is selected

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(let hemisphere). he authors refer to empirical evidence showing that brains with hemispheric specializations do a more eicient job of processing both kinds of information at the same time than a brain without such specialized systems. Taken together, it seems that, from an evolutionary perspective, language and tool-making may have evolved from a specialization for the control of routine behavior (let hemisphere dominance), while face recognition and the processing of spatial relations (right hemisphere dominance) may trace their heritage to the necessity to detect predators in a millisecond (MacNeilage et al., 2009). As the notions of position and positioning are spatial concepts, their evolutionary origin may contribute to their biological understanding. Face Recognition and Empathy

he evolution-based right hemisphere’s sensitivity to face recognition opens the door to an increased understanding of a capacity that is crucial for human development and even for the functioning of the society at large: empathy. his capacity, indispensable for taking the position of the other, requires the competence to map the feelings of others onto our own nervous system. Until recently, scientist did not know very well how such a recording might occur in the brain. he discovery of mirror neurons, however, was considered by many as a breakthrough in understanding how the nervous system is mapping the observed actions of others onto the premotor cortex of the brain, certainly for reaching and grasping movements. Mirror neurons are brain cells that respond equally when we perform an action and when we see someone else performing the same action. hey were irst discovered in the early 1990s by a team of Italian researchers (see Gallese, 2001) who detected individual neurons in the brains of macaque monkeys that ired both when the animals grabbed an object and also when the animals watched another primate grab the same object (Winerman, 2005). Instigated by this discovery, Leslie, Johnson-Frey, and Graton (2004) posed the question:  Is there a mirroring system for emotive actions, such as facial expressions? hey asked their subjects to watch movies of facial expressions (smile or frown) while brain activity was monitored using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). he researchers found that passive viewing led to signiicant activation in the right ventral premotor area. hey considered these results as consistent with evidence for right hemisphere dominance in emotional processing. Similar results were found by Uddin, Kaplan, Molnar-Szakacs, Zaidel, and Iacoboni (2005) who invited subjects to watch not only the faces of others but also their own faces. hey concluded that a unique network involving frontoparietal structures in the right hemisphere, described as part of the “mirror neuron system,” underlies self-face recognition. hese indings suggest

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that mirror neurons are involved not only when witnessing bodily movements like grasping and reaching, but also facial movements expressing emotions. Such results, relevant to insight in the neurological conditions of empathy and in the role of right hemisphere functioning in particular, are crucial to the development of a capacity to take the position of the other.

Sharedness and Distinction Between Self and Other he relationship between self and other is a centerpiece in the conceptual framework exposed in this book. he simultaneity of connection and distinction resonates with James’s (1890) idea of the extended self when he proposed that the self is not only “me” but also “mine” (e.g., my body, my clothes, my children, my possessions, and even my opponent), implying that persons and things in the environment are belonging to the self but can be distinguished from it at the same time. he self-other connection is also evident in Mead’s (1934) proposal that the self can only be known indirectly, that is, via “taking the role of the other.” he connection-distinction simultaneity is also expressed by Bakhtin’s (1984) notion of the other as “another I,” indicating that the other is an “I” and at the same time another “I,” which resembles Aristotle’s (1954) characterization of a friend as an “alter ego”: as ego the same as me and as alter diferent from me. he simultaneity can also be found in Buber’s (1970) work when he discussed “I” and “you” as diferent but at the same time belonging to the same “word pair.” he simultaneity was also included in Figure 2.4 of this book in which the extended self was depicted in the form of open circles, indicating that the internal positions in the self and the external (extended) ones are on the same plane while being distinguished at the same time. In this context, Decety and Sommerville’s (2003) work is particularly relevant as they delve deeply into the neurological substrates of the self-other connection. heir central thesis is that the brain contains a common representation network relating self and other: one can understand the self only via the other and the other via the self. his network is predominantly right hemisphere based and contains prefrontal, posterior temporal, and inferior parietal areas (Figure 4.1). Rather than considering this network as a single module, they view it as a collection of interconnected regions that are essential for the subjective experience of a “self” hey consider these areas as critical in both sharing and distinguishing self and other. I irst elaborate on some evidence for sharedness and then for distinction. Sharedness Between Self and Other in Infants

Decety and Sommerville (2003) refer to evidence in developmental psychology showing that there is a close connection between self-directed and other-directed

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Figure 4.1. Location of frontal, parietal, and temporal lobes in the brain.

behavior. In a study (Brooks & Meltzof, 2002), set up to assess the gaze following of 12-, 14-, and 18-month-old infants, an adult turned to a target with open or closed eyes. It appeared that infants of all ages looked at the target more in the situation where the adult had open eyes than in in the closed eyes condition. In another experiment an adult looker with a blindfold was compared with a headband control. It was found that the 14- and 18-months-old infants looked more at the adult’s target in the headband condition than in the blindfold condition. Apparently, the infants were not simply responding to adult head turning but were sensitive to the adult’s eyes permiting an unobstructed view. he researchers hold that objects receive a special valence for infants when they notice that adults are looking at them. hey see it as a form of “joint atention” or as “joint perceptual exploration in action” (p. 964). hey consider infants’ processing of eye status as a foundation for developing seeing and atention, which depends critically on the looker being in perceptual contact with the target object. hey speculate that infants’ own self-generated experience with eye closing contributes to their comprehension of eye closing in others. heir indings are a conirmation of Meltzof ’s (2002) “like me” theory, which assumes that infants use the self as an analogy for understanding others. hus infants may draw on the experience of opening and closing their own eyes to recognize the same efect for another person, comparable with peek-a-boo games in which children use their own occluding behavior as an embodied way of understanding a suddenly disappearing and reappearing other. Apparently, there is, from a young age, a

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closeness, even a basic similarity, between self and other that suggests that the other is part of an extended self. he closeness of self and other can be seen as an underpinning of the concept of “emotional distance” proposed as one of the central elements of the positioning model (see chapters 2 and 3). Sharedness of Self and Others in Social Psychology

he sharedness of self and others is also supported by evidence in social psychology. I limit myself to just a few examples. As part of their other-in-the-self approach, Aron and colleagues (1991) argued that atributes of a relationship partner may become represented as an integral part of the self-concept. Interested as they were in the overlap between self and signiicant others, they invited participants to complete paper-and-pencil questionnaires about their own and their partner’s traits. he participants were then asked to make yes/no self-descriptiveness judgments on these traits. hey found that traits for which self and partner matched were responded to more quickly than traits for which self and partner did not match. he self–other overlap does not only apply to relationships with close others but also to members of the ingroup. In a study of Smith and Henry (1996) participants rated themselves, their ingroup, and an appropriate outgroup on a paper-and-pencil measure of the same traits used by Aron, Aron, Tudor, and Nelson (1991). In agreement with the indings of Aron and colleagues, selfdescriptiveness judgments were faster for traits on which participants matched their ingroup than for traits on which they mismatched, while such facilitation was not observed concerning the outgroup. Later investigators have conirmed indings of this type, among them Coats and colleagues (2000) who showed that the match/mismatch reaction time efect applies not only for traits but also for atitudes. Apparently, there is a closeness, even a basic similarity, between self and other that suggests that the other is part of an extended self. he closeness of self and other can be seen as an underpinning of the concept of “emotional distance” proposed as one of the central element of the positioning model (see chapters 2 and 3). Distinction Between Self and Other in Infants

For a well-functioning self it is not only necessary that the self has a common area of experience with the other but is also able to make distinctions between one’s own position and the position of others. Rochat and Hespos (1997), for example, showed that such diferentiation is already observable in neonates. hey proposed that long before mirror self-recognition (about the age of 18 months),

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infants manifest a sense of self that is distinguished from persons and objects in the environment. hey observed newborns and four-week-old infants when they spontaneously touched one of their cheeks (self-stimulation) and when the inger of the experimenter touched one of the infant’s cheeks (external stimulation). Microanalysis revealed that infants responded diferentially to the two types of stimulation. Newborns tended to display signiicantly more “rooting responses” (i.e., turning their heads toward the stimulation with mouth open and tonguing) ater external stimulation as compared to self-stimulation. hey found, moreover, that four-week-old infants demonstrated an opposite patern, again suggesting a distinction between both kinds of stimulation. he investigators consider their results as providing evidence that from birth infants do not blend double touch (experiencing touching and being touched) and single touch (experiencing being touched only), a sign of a basic perceptual discrimination between what originates from their own body and from the outside world. he distinction between double and single touch serves as a developmental basis of an agentic embodied self that is able to diferentiate itself from the inluences originating from the world around (Rochat & Hespos, 1997). Altogether these indings suggest that, although there is an emotional proximity between the positions of self and others in the form of empathy and ingroup similarity, there is a distinction and diferentiation in the form of self-other boundaries from an early age onward as well. Self-Other Relationship and the Brain

In their interest in the relationship between self-other representational networks and the functioning of the brain, Decety and Sommerville (2003) arrive at the following conclusion: We argue that the right hemisphere plays a predominant role in the way that the self is connected to the other. Interestingly, measurements of cerebral metabolism in children (aged between 18  days to 12  years) indicate a right hemispheric predominance, mainly due to neural activity in the posterior associative areas, suggesting that the right hemisphere’s functions develop earlier than the let hemisphere.  .  .  .  his early activity of the right hemisphere may underlie infants’ capacity to view the other as in some way analogous to the self, . . . and as such pave the way for a host of right-hemisphere based intersubjective processes that rely on self/other identiication. . . . Within this right-hemisphere based self/other network, we argue that the inferior parietal cortex plays a pivotal role in distinguishing self from other, and that prefrontal

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cortex is integral to coordinating and contrasting cognitive representations of self and other. (p. 532, emphasis added) Indeed, for the development of the self it is required to both distinguish and link self and other and our brains allow us to do both. However, distinguishing and linking self and other is not enough for understanding the nature of the communication channels between them. An important step has to be made in order to comprehend how, and under which conditions, the inner world of the other becomes accessible to the self. he development of a “theory of mind” is a necessary condition for the access to the positions of the other.

heory of Mind and the Inhibition of Impulses he distinction between self and other does not automatically imply that one also has access to the mind of the other and to the positions of the other. his access requires, to some degree, an inhibition of one’s own impulses, certainly when the other has intentions, thoughts, or beliefs that are markedly diferent from one’s own. When our own impulses are very strong, they receive a central place in our atentional ield so that the emotions or intentions of the other may become obscured. his would atenuate the communication channels between positions and limit our dialogical capacity. As many scientists have proposed, a “theory of mind” (ToM) gives access to the mental state of others. In a most general way, a theory of mind refers to the ability to atribute mental states (beliefs, desires, intents) to oneself and others and to understand that others may have beliefs, desires, and intentions that are diferent from one’s own. In this section, I show that (a) a theory of mind gives access to the positions of the other, (b) this capacity requires an inhibition of one’s own impulses, and (c) both theory of mind and inhibitory control involve an activity of speciic areas in the prefrontal cortex. Evidence on theory of mind and inhibitory control are directly relevant to the concept of meta-position extensively discussed in chapters 2 and 3.

Theory of Mind in a Chimpanzee

In a famous and inluential article, Premack and Woodruf (1978) wondered if a chimpanzee would have access to states of minds of others. In addressing this question, they selected a series of videotaped scenes of a human actor struggling with a variety of problems and showed them to an adult chimpanzee. Some problems were quite simple, such as a situation where food was inaccessible, for example, bananas vertically or horizontally out of reach or located behind a box.

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Others were more complex, such as an actor unable to liberate himself from a locked cage or shivering because of a malfunctioning heater. With each videotape several photographs were given to the animal, one of them with a solution to the problem, such as a stick for the inaccessible bananas, a key for the locked up actor, or a lit wick for the malfunctioning heater. he chimpanzee was able to consistently choose the correct photographs that led the investigators to conclude that the animal recognized the videotape as representing a problem, understood the actor’s purpose, and was capable of choosing alternatives that were compatible with that purpose.

Theory of Mind and Inhibitory Control in Children

Children also develop a ToM as a concomitant control of their impulses at a young age. In their extensive literature review, Carlson and Moses (2001) showed that critical developments in children’s theory of mind take place in the preschool period. For example, three-year-olds perform poorly on measures assessing their understanding that beliefs can be false, that appearances may not relect reality, and that diferent individuals may perceive the same scene from diferent perspectives. hese younger preschoolers assume that beliefs and appearances always match reality and that there can only be one perspective on any state of afairs. Yet, by the time they are ive years old, children develop an appreciation of these maters that show in core respects the perception and appreciation of adults. hese observations have atracted many scholars, and their research led them to conclude that younger children lack a theory of mind that would enable them to appreciate with a certain level of accuracy, what takes place in the minds of others, particularly when others have diferent intentions, thoughts, or emotions than themselves. One of the purposes of Carlson and Moses’ (2001) study is to demonstrate that “executive functioning” signiicantly contributes to ToM development. his construct subsumes those processes that play a critical role in monitoring and controlling thought and action, including self-regulation, planning, behavior organization, response inhibition, cognitive lexibility, and resistance to interference (all of them crucial for a well-developed meta-position). With respect to the emergence of ToM, the authors assume that children require a certain level of executive ability before they are able to develop the more complex concepts of mental life. his implies that they need some capacity to distance themselves from current stimuli so that they are able to relect on representations of those stimuli. Successful performance on many ToM tasks requires children to override dominant and habitual tendencies in order to give a correct estimation of the mental states of others.

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he authors see “inhibitory control” as a prime candidate for an executive ability that is related to ToM. hey see inhibitory control as “the ability to inhibit response to irrelevant stimuli while pursuing a cognitively represented goal” (Carlson and Moses, 2001, p.  1033). In order to investigate the relationship between ToM and inhibitory control, they presented a series of tasks to threeand four-year-old children. To give an impression of the batery tasks used in this study, I briely describe two examples, one for ToM and one for inhibitory control. Location and False Belief

Two puppets (Bert and Ernie) were playing with a ball. At some moment, Bert put the ball in a blue container and let. Ernie retrieved the ball and played briely with it. hen he put it away in a red container and let. Finally, Bert returned and wanted to play with the ball. At that point children were asked the false-belief question (“Where does Bert think the ball is?”) followed by the reality question (“Where is the ball really?”). Children are supposed to have ToM when they say that Ernie thinks the ball is in the blue container and that the ball is really in the red one. Day/Night

In this task, children were shown cards in which the experimenter irst veriied that children associated the sun with daytime and the moon with nightime. hey were then instructed to say “day” when shown a black card depicting the moon and stars and to say “night” when shown a white card depicting a yellow sun. Children assumed to have inhibitory control if they are able to give the “reversed” ’ answer, which requires them to inhibit their irst impulse to associate the black card with the moon and the white one with the sun. In this clarifying research project, the two tasks as briely described here are just two examples of larger multitask batery. When on the basis of the answers of the children indices were calculated for ToM and inhibitory control, a high correlation (r = .66, p < .001) between them was found. he researchers concluded that developments in inhibitory control facilitate, and may well be necessary, for ToM advances, but they added that inhibitory control may not be suicient for those advances as there may be other factors involved. What can be said from a neuroscientiic point of view? In their review of studies, Carlson and Moses (2001) give several reasons why ToM and inhibitory control are related. First, important developmental changes occur in children’s inhibitory control in the same period in which remarkable advances can be observed in their ToM. Second, evidence from brain-imaging studies implicates the frontal lobes as the seat of both ToM abilities and inhibitory control. he frontal lobes are found to be heavily involved in inhibitory processes and in

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executive functioning more generally. Frontal activity is involved in children’s social competence, which is considered a potential by-product of an intact ToM. he close relationship of ToM and inhibitory control is also demonstrated by the inding that autistic individuals, even those with relatively normal IQ, show impairments on both executive functioning tasks and ToM. he authors conclude that ToM and inhibitory control abilities are closely related on several grounds. hey share a common developmental timetable (substantial growth in the preschool period), show activity in a common brain region (prefrontal cortex),4 and their joint absence yields a common psychopathology (autism). I consider the close connection of ToM and inhibitory control as necessary condition for the development of the ability to get access to the positions of the other and to communicate with the other via open communication channels. his access requires the ability to inhibit and suspend one’s immediate, automatic, and habitual impulses so that an open space may emerge in which a diversity of I-positions in self and other have a chance to be become expressed and developed (for suspension as a requisite for generative dialogue see chapter 7). Beyond a Limited Conception of Empathy

Reading about the relation between empathy and inhibition, one might get the impression that empathy, as described in the previous section, would become overly cognitive (see the nature of the described ToM tasks). Precisely for that reason, Goleman (2007) proposes, on the basis of a discussion he had with Paul Ekman, another expert on emotions, distinguishing between three kinds of empathy. he irst is cognitive empathy, knowing how the other person feels and what he or she might be thinking, a capacity oten labeled as perspective-taking. However, Goleman adds, there can be dark side to this sort of empathy as those who fall within the “Dark Triad”—narcissists, Machiavellians, and sociopaths—can be talented in taking the perspective of the other, while feeling no sympathy whatever for their victims. A  torturer needs this ability, if only to beter calibrate his cruelty and talented politicians

4

he ventromedial prefrontal cortex in particular is involved in emotion regulation and selfcontrol. he same area plays a role in self-other relationships. For example, Taber-homas et  al. (2014) found that people with early damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex are more likely to endorse self-serving actions that cause harm to others or break moral rules. For a proper understanding of the executive function of the meta-position it should be added that for the higher aspects of this function in the sense of comparing, judging, selecting, planning, and decision-making the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is more sophisticated than the ventromedial parts. Altogether, for a well-functioning meta-position, activity in diferent areas of the prefrontal cortex is needed.

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have this ability in abundance. Another kind is emotional empathy, when one feels physically along with the other person, as though their emotions were contagious. Some researchers (like Wispé, 1986)  label this as “sympathy.” his form of empathy depends in large part on the mirror neuron system that is involved not only when witnessing bodily movements like grasping and reaching but also facial movements expressing emotions, as we saw earlier in this chapter. Emotional empathy enables one to become well-atuned to another person’s inner emotional world, an advantage in any situation in which the emotional positioning towards the other is relevant, like in parent– child relationships, loving relationships, and forms of friendship.5 However, emotional empathy also has a downside that can be observed when people lack the ability to take some distance from the intense emotions of the other and feel unable to manage their own distressing emotions, with psychological exhaustion and burnout as a result. herefore, compassionate empathy has to be discerned, a form of empathic concern that not only enables one to understand others’ predicament and feel with them but also produces a motivational impulse to support or help, in the form of well-calibrated caring.6 For example, clients in a hospital do not want the nurse to cry when they are crying but want her to help them igure out how to deal with the loss of a signiicant other or how to prepare for a funeral.7 In conclusion, a well-developed empathy needs inhibitory control to create open communication channels to the positions of the other that are diferent from one’s own spontaneous impulses and associations. However, when empathy becomes overly cognitive, the channels are not suiciently open to the emotional aspects of empathy and to the stimulation of action tendencies that motivate forms of support, care, and commitment. In a (globalizing) society that is in need of dialogical relationships with others who are both the same and diferent from ourselves, an integrative empathy (cognitive, emotional, and action-oriented) is indispensable not only in society at large but also in the mini-society of the self. When the other is not simply outside but inhabits us as another in the-self, even as other-with-self, then this other is part of an extended self even when he or she is not physically present.

5

I use the term “emotional position” rather than “emotional state” with the intention to emphasize that in social relationships people take an emotional stance toward, from, or against another person and oneself (see also chapter 2). his relating as a spatial process is not explicit in the term “emotional state,” which may suggest that emotion is a purely internal phenomenon. 6 For compassion-focused therapy, facilitating compassion for the other and oneself, see Gilbert (2009). 7 he connections between cortical and subcortical regions of the brain, essential for the integration of cognitive and emotional forms of empathy, are addressed in Part 3 of this chapter.

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he construction of the other as an extended part of our self needs forms of empathy and imagination that create communication channels open to both cognitive, afective, and action tendencies of empathy that are essential to an adaptive self.8

Summary his part of the chapter focused on the diferential functioning of right and let hemisphere, with special atention to the right one as particularly involved in self–other relationships as the basis of dialogical interchange. I  started with some cautions as the so-called let–right myths have led to many misunderstandings. For example, dependent on diferent situations and conditions, language requires let or right brain dominance, and the same can be said about music. I continued to give some information about the evolutionary basis of hemispheric lateralization showing that, while language and tool-making may have evolved from a specialization for the control of routine behavior (let hemisphere dominance), face recognition and the processing of spatial relations (right hemisphere dominance) may trace their heritage to the necessity of signaling danger and detecting predators. his led to a discussion of face recognition and empathy, essential to the nonverbal aspects of communication and dialogue. In elaborating on the self–other connection, I referred to literatures showing that the self-other relationship needs both sharedness and distinction. However, for access to the experiential world of the other, it is necessary that the brain is able to inhibit spontaneous, routinized, and habitual impulses so that room is created for taking the position of the other as not dominated or confused by egocentric impulses. his led to a discussion of the connection between ToM that enables access to the speciic position of the other and inhibitory control as necessary conditions for taking a metaposition. Finally, three forms of empathy were distinguished: cognitive, emotional, and compassionate. As a preparation of the model that is outlined in Part 4 of this chapter, I  conclude that neuroscientific and developmental evidence suggests that self and other are not essences by themselves functioning as separate agencies that communicate with each other after they have been defined as “masters of their own ground.” Instead, they are parts of a self-with-other relationship and derive and develop their autonomy on the basis of an intrinsic relatedness.

8

For the limitations of empathy and a case for rational compassion, see Bloom (2017).

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Part 2. Emotion and Cognition: he Embodied Nature of Positioning Not only the self-other connection but also the relationship between emotion and cognition is mediated more by the right than the let hemisphere. In this part I argue, on the basis of recent literature, that the traditional dualistic conception of cognition versus emotion and certainly the long-held belief “cognition controls emotion” or “reason above emotion” is becoming more and more obsolete. here is increasing evidence for the thesis that for a well-functioning self, cognition needs emotion and emotion is a necessary ingredient of reason. Moreover, investigations of emotional processes have shed new light on the role of the body as the basis of choice and decision-making. My purpose in this part of the chapter is to demonstrate that there is a basis in neuroscientiic and social-psychological literature for considering reason and emotion as mutually complementing and interacting faculties in human functioning. Building on this insight, I make a distinction between emotional I-positions and reasoning I-positions as mutually complementing forms of relating to the world with special interest in their communication channels. he relationship between self and other (Part 1), between reason and emotion (Part 2), and between conscious and nonconcious (Part 3) is included in an elaborated position model (Part 4).

Emotion as Regulated by the Right Hemisphere In a profound work on the functioning of the right hemisphere, Schore (2012) notes that contemporary neuroscience is involved in a transition from studies of let brain language based cognitive processes and voluntary motor functions to investigations of the embodied functions of the emotion-processing right brain. In addition to the shit from the let to the right hemisphere, researchers are moving down the neurological pathways from cortical to subcortical regions and from the central nervous system to the autonomic nervous system. he right more than the let brain is involved in brain-body communication processes via the stress-regulating hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis9 that includes 9 he HPA axis is a complex set of feedback interactions among three endocrine glands: the hypothalamus (located below the thalamus, just above the brainstem), the pituitary gland or hypophysis (located below the hypothalamus), and the adrenal glands (on top of the kidneys). he HPA axis is a major part of the neuroendocrine system that controls reactions to stress and regulates many processes in the body, such as the immune system, emotions and mood, digestion, sexuality, aggression, and the storage and expenditure of energy.

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the pathways for the quick communication between cognition, emotion, and bodily reactions. In his panoptic study on hemispheric lateralization, McGilchrist (2009) also dwells on the emotion-regulating function of the right hemisphere. As an example he refers to music, which he sees as a natural expression of the nature of this hemisphere. Music afects us physically through our emotions. Musical phrases act like metaphors emanating from bodily movements (e.g., rising, falling, or pulsing). Music leads to physiological reactions such as alterations in breathing, blood pressure, heart rate, temperature, and sweating. It has the power to bring tears in our eyes and make our hair stand on end. Such changes are mediated through the right hemisphere’s vital connections with subcortical centers, with the hypothalamus and with the body in general. Not only does the right brain provide eicient cortical-subcortical and brainbody communication channels, but it is also heavily involved in self-other relationships, as we already saw earlier in this chapter. On the basis of collected evidence, Schore (2012) shows that high human functions, like empathy, humor, compassion, and morality are primarily mediated by the right brain. In this context he refers to the existence of “right brain-to-right brain communication” (p. 7) that takes place between two people in those regions of their brain where knowledge operates in rapid, unconscious ways beneath levels of awareness. Particularly, when such knowledge accumulates, it is spontaneously expressed in the form of intuition. his shiting emphasis into the direction of emotion, intuition, and unconscious knowing coincides with a move from a classical onebrain neuroscience into the direction of a “two-body approach” (two embodied participants in communication). Along these lines, Schore (2012) arrives at a conception of the self that is more encompassing and diferentiated than many of the models of traditional cognitive psychology and more in tune with recent developments in cognitive and afective neuroscience: In this work I diferentiate a surface, verbal, conscious, analytic explicit self versus a deeper nonverbal, nonconscious, holistic, emotional, corporeal implicit self. hese two lateralized systems contain qualitatively diferent forms of cognition and therefore unique ways of “knowing,” as well as diferent memory systems and states of consciousness [. . .] In addition to implicit cognition (right brain unconscious processing of exteroceptive information from the outer world and interoceptive information from the inner world), the implicit concept also includes implicit afect, implicit communication, and implicit self-regulation. (p. 121)

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When we take the distinction between implicit and explicit selves as a starting point, the question can be posed what happens when the two sources give discrepant information. At this point, it makes sense to refer to Mehrabian’s (1971) popular principle that three elements account for our liking of persons who convey a message concerning their feelings: words account for 7%, tone of voice accounts for 38%, and body language accounts for 55% of the liking. his sometimes overinterpreted principle, quoted throughout human communication seminars worldwide, has become known as the so-called 7%-38%-55% rule. It states that for efective and meaningful communication about emotions, the three parts of the message have to be “congruent.” When there is any incongruence, the receiver of the message might become irritated or confused by two messages coming from two diferent channels giving cues into diferent directions (e.g., “Do you want to marry me?” while leting out a deep sigh). Such congruence between verbal and nonverbal sources and between implicit and explicit expression is of crucial importance to dialogical communication. Positions need to have an internal coherence for efective and comprehensible communication. he same can be said about communication channels as discussed in the model presented in chapters 2 and 3. When discrepant messages are communicated via channels between positions, not only the content of the message becomes obscured (e.g., pretending to be honest while avoiding any eye contact) but also the boundaries between positions become spongy. It is the right hemisphere that, due to its primary role in emotion regulation and its rich and dense connections between cortical and subcortical regions, is most equipped for sending out messages about emotions that are congruent in their verbal and nonverbal manifestations. On the basis of his remarkably extensive literature review, McGilchrist (2009), presents a rather nuanced picture of the relationship between emotion and hemispheric lateralization. In his view, the right frontal lobe is involved in the expression of virtually every kind of emotional expression through the face and body posture. It mediates facial expressions in response to humor and other emotional expressions, like laughter and smiling and also sadness. However, there are also diferences between the hemispheres in the regulation of emotions. It seems that the let brain is more specialized in more supericial social emotions and is more active in conscious representation of emotions. he mouth area of the face, in particular, gives expression to willed or forced emotions, more than the eyes that are usually less under conscious control (remember the importance of the eyes in Brooks and Meltzof ’s [2011] study in which an adult looked at a target with open or closed eyes). A second diference is in the kind of emotions expressed, although this seems to be a more complex issue. here is, according to McGilchrist (2009), some agreement that the right hemisphere is more involved in sadness and the let

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hemisphere in anger. What we generally call positive emotions rely on both brains. he right hemisphere is associated with many negative emotions but may also be a source of pleasurable experiences, certainly in the self-other domain. he let hemisphere mediates a more limited range of emotions in that it takes a more optimistic view on the self and the future. Altogether, McGilchrist’s literature review suggests that emotions are not restricted to one hemisphere or the other.

Emotion and Cognition: Beyond Dualism In the tradition of Western scholarship human emotions are oten considered as problematic and as an inappropriate guide to social behavior, perception, and decision-making. In this view, emotions are downgraded as irrational and even dangerous, as they lead to rash, impassionate behavior and to faulty perceptions of reality. Contrastingly, reason is seen as a more sophisticated and more “correct” way of looking at the world and, as a disciplined controller of one’s behavior, placed above emotion. From classical Greek conceptions onward, many scholars have asserted that emotions subvert rational judgments concerning social life and morality, and, therefore, their inluence should be minimized when producing evaluations or making decisions. his dualistic perspective, typical of Western thought, is based on the assumption that the relationship between emotion and cognition is necessarily one of antagonism, involved in a continuous conlict with each other for control over beliefs and behavior. Yet, as Keltner and Horberg (2015) summarize in an extensive review, 25 years of empirical research on the interplay of emotion and cognition converge on the conclusion that the dualistic perspective has to be replaced by an interaction perspective. hat is, reason needs emotion and emotion needs reason.10 Much of the reported literature can be traced back to an insight of Herbert Simon (1967) who noticed that agents, being confronted with a plethora of environmental stimuli and possible futures, proit from emotions as enabling them to prioritize certain goals and actions over others and as helping them to navigate a complex and unpredictable world. In the following I select some literature that is relevant to the understanding of the emotion–cognition interaction. I start with some studies that show that cognition is guiding emotion and some more recent developments that demonstrate that emotions function as useful guidelines for directing and organizing cognitions. My purpose behind this brief excursion is to show that the 10

From a psychotherapeutic perspective, Greenberg (2002) has made a strong case for the integration of reason and emotions. In his view, the resolution of the dilemma of our emotionality lies not in privileging one stream of consciousness over the other but in the integration of the two (p. X).

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emotion–cognition interaction is a basis for communication between emotional and cognitive I-positions, a distinction that I include in the model presented in Part 4 of this chapter. From Cognition to Emotion

In the past decades much research activity is devoted to cognitive processes as precursors of emotions.11 A central notion in these studies is “appraisal,” a meaningmaking process that gives rise to diferent emotions. For example, when a situation is appraised as facilitating the advancement of speciic goals, then positive emotions will be experienced. However, when a situation is appraised as a hindrance to achieving one’s goals then negative emotions will follow. When a situation is perceived as irrelevant or as neutral with respect to one’s goals, then such a neutral appraisal will not generate any emotion. More speciic emotions result from more specialized appraisals. In terms of Lazarus’ (1991) appraisal theory, diferent kinds of stress follow from characteristic appraisal paterns. For example, when one considers oneself as personally responsible for a socially valued achievement, pride will result. Anger arises in case one feels ofended, and envy results when one sees another person as possessing something desirable that one does not have. Stimulated by appraisal theories, experimental researchers have become interested in the efectiveness and long-term beneits of what they call “cognitive reappraisal,” which leads to a reinterpretation of emotional stimuli in a way that reduces stress responses. Keltner et al. (2015) refer to studies showing that reappraisals provide stress-reducing interpretations of situational stimuli that activate frontal lobe regions of the brain (e.g., the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, the area behind the bridge of the nose) and decrease activity in the amygdala, a part of the brain involved in emotion generation. More down to the lower parts of the brain, reappraisal also reduces the sympathetic autonomic arousal (e.g., heart rate, blood pressure, adrenaline) associated with stress-inducing stimuli. Reappraisals in the form of distancing from one’s “hot” emotions seem to have beneicial health efects. Kross, Ayduk, and Mischel (2005) noticed that when people focus on emotional experiences in the past, they typically take a self-immersed, egocentric perspective, in which self-relevant events and emotions are experienced in the irst person. From this perspective they tend to focus selectively on the speciic chain of events leading them to “relive” the experiences in emotional ways. As long as one keeps immersed in negative emotions, cognitive analysis of one’s emotions is diicult. However, in working through negative experiences, one can also take a self-distanced perspective and process 11

For more extensive review of studies on the relationship between emotion and cognition, see Keltner and Horberg (2015).

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emotions from an ego-decentered, third-person perspective. his self-distanced perspective reduces the negative arousal and has beneicial health efects, allowing to process experiences in a more relective way, expectations that are consistent with work on mindfulness and meditation.12 Prompted by these considerations, Kross and colleagues (2005) asked participants to recall an interpersonal experience in which they felt overwhelming anger and hostility. Subsequently, they were instructed to adopt either a self-immersed perspective (e.g., “go back to the time and place of the experience and relive the situation as if it were happening to you all over again”) or a self-distanced perspective (e.g., “take a few steps back and move away from your experience . . . watch the conlict unfold as if it were happening all over again to the distant you”). Moreover, the investigators asked to focus on what happened or on why it happened, on the assumption that the “what” question would invite the participants to focus on their speciic emotions and sensations, while the “why” question would invite them to concentrate on the reasons underlying their feelings. he results showed that participants who adopted a why focus and, at the same time, maintained a self-distanced perspective manifested lower levels of anger on both explicit and implicit measures. In contrast, a focus on the reasons underlying one’s emotions (why focus) without adopting a self-distanced perspective was inefective in reducing anger and negative emotion. Equally inefective was a “what” focus regardless of whether or not a self-distanced perspective was adopted (see also Ayduk & Kross [2010] who demonstrated that emotional and cardiovascular reactivity was reduced when participants self-distanced while relecting on their negative memories). For insight in the process of self-distancing, Grossman and Kross’s (2014) research is particularly relevant. hey were interested in what is known as Solomon’s paradox, named ater the Old Testament king who was admired for his wisdom but failed to make good decisions in his own life. he researchers asked 20- to 40year-olds to imagine they or a friend of them had been cheated on and then investigated their reactions to this problem. In agreement with the paradox, they found that participants displayed wiser reasoning (i.e., recognizing the limits of their own knowledge, considering other people’s perspectives, recognizing the importance of compromise) about another person’s problems compared with their own.

12

A  complicating factor may be when emotions are not accessible. Greenberg (2002) distinguishes primary emotions that he sees as people’s gut responses to situations and secondary emotions that are emotional reactions to primary emotions (e.g., experiencing anger about one’s own anxiety). When one would distance oneself from the secondary (conscious) emotion only, the primary (nonconscious) emotion would be inaccessible and, as expected, would not proit from selfdistancing. Experiential therapists like Greenberg would argue that, if the primary emotion would be maladaptive (e.g., in trauma), immersion in the primary emotion should precede distancing from it.

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However, when they instructed their participants to distance themselves from their own problems, this asymmetry disappeared. Moreover, when they compared younger participants (20–40 years) with older ones (60–80), each of these efects were comparable for the diferent ages. hey concluded that, contrary to the adage “with age comes wisdom,” there were no age diferences in wise reasoning about personal conlicts. Apparently, the capacity of distancing from a problem or conlict appeared to be more inluential on wisdom than age diferences. he insights on self-distancing as a form of reappraisal are relevant to the theory proposed in this book for three reasons. First, “distance” and “distancing” are spatial terms that it to the idea that the self is basically situated in space and time. Second, the concept of position is a spatial notion and inds a neurological basis in the parietal and parietal-temporal region of the cortex as discussed in Part 1 of this chapter. In the form of distancing, processes of positioning and counterpositioning refer to increasing or decreasing spatial distances between locations in the virtual space of the self. hird, a well-developed meta-position requires a certain distance in order to have some overview of more speciic positions and their mutual relationships.13 From Emotion to Cognition

heories of appraisal and reappraisal start from appraisals and then move to emotions as their implication or consequence. However, recent developments in psychology and neuroscience propose an opposite movement: from emotion to cognition; that is, cognitions shape emotions and emotions shape cognitions (see also Greenberg, 2002). his two-way movement can be seen as an argument against a dualistic perspective and as a challenging case for an interactionist point of view. his two-way movement will gradually lead us to the claim that a dialogical relationship between emotional and cognitive positions is not only possible but even desirable (see chapter 7). In their introduction of the thesis “emotion shapes cognition,” Keltner and Horberg (2015) refer to the case study of Eadweard Muybridge, a successful bookseller who sufered severe head injuries in a violent runaway stagecoach crash in 1860. Muybridge was ejected from the vehicle and hit his head on a rock. Ater this accident, he sufered from symptoms of double vision, confused thinking, impaired sense of taste and smell, and other problems. he 13 Self-distancing can also be seen as equivalent to disidentiication. As long as the self is fully immersed in an emotion and coincides with it, there is no space between self and emotion or between the emotion as an I-position and other positions. For a dialogical relationship between the emotional position and other positions, some space among them is needed in order to process the emotion and to move to alternative positions.

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accident dramatically altered Muybridge’s personality and social behavior. He became extremely unpredictable, temperamental, and prone to bursts of rage. Revealingly, in 1874 Muybridge became suspicious that his wife had had an afair and even had given birth to another man’s child. Ater tracking down the alleged lover, he shot him. It is believed that Muybridge speciically injured his orbitofrontal cortex, a region of the brain, oten mentioned as the lower part of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. Schore (2012) claims that the orbitofrontal cortex of the right hemisphere is involved in the integration of emotion into decision-making, functions as an inner compass accompanying the decoding process of intuition, is specialized for contexts of uncertainty and unpredictability, and provides a panoramic view of the entire external environment in connection with motivational factors in the self (p. 136). In a similar vein, McGilchrist (2009) considers the orbitofrontal cortex of the right hemisphere as essential to emotional understanding and regulation. It is also the region where the emotional signiicance of events is consciously appreciated. In general, he adds, the right hemisphere is more intimately connected with the limbic system (a complex structure that includes the amygdala and the hippocampus, both involved in the experience of emotions) than the let hemisphere (Figure 4.2). he right frontal pole also regulates the HPA axis, the neuroendocrine interface between emotion and body. Along these pathways the right frontotemporal cortex exerts also inhibitory control over emotional arousal (McGilchrist, 2009, pp.  58–59). Psychopaths who lack guilt feelings, shame, empathy, and social responsibility have deicits in their right frontal lobes, particularly the right ventromedial and orbitofrontal cortex (p. 85).14 Somatic Marker Hypothesis

he connection between the prefrontal cortex and the lower levels in brain and body is the centerpiece of Damasio’s (1994) “somatic marker hypothesis,” which explains the links between value judgments and afect-relevant autonomic reactions. Somatic markers can be described as body-based emotional intuitions that guide decision-making and regulate behavior more in general. According to this hypothesis, physiological markers of emotional arousal, such as spikes in skin conductance, can intuitively and even below levels of conscious awareness signal the positive or negative value of an event. An impressive example of the workings of somatic markers is a study in which normal individuals were compared with patients who sufered from prefrontal damage and decision-making defects (Bechara, Damasio, Tranel, & Damasio, 14

For the connection between the orbitofrontal cortex and the amygdala in the context of a discussion of dialogical relationships between I-positions, see Lewis (2002).

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Prefrontal cortex

Cerebellum Amygdala

Hippocampus

Figure 4.2. Location of orbitofrontal cortex (botom of the prefrontal cortex), amygdala, and hippocampus. Courtesy of Lumen Learning

1997). he researchers made use of a card game in which participants are presented with four decks of cards. Each card indicates either a reward (winning an amount of money) or a penalty (losing an amount of money). he participants are invited to select cards from the decks and try to win as much as possible. However, the decks vary in the probability of proit and loss. Turning each card carries an immediate reward:  $100 in decks A  and B and $50 in decks C and D. Ater that, however, some the cards carry a penalty, which is large in decks A and B and small in decks C and D. When the players continue to turn the cards mostly from the disadvantageous decks (A and B), this leads to an overall loss. However, playing from the advantageous decks (C and D) leads to an overall gain. he players are not able to predict when a penalty will arise in a given deck and to calculate with precision the net gain or loss from each deck. Strikingly, normals began to choose advantageously before they were consciously aware which strategy worked best, whereas prefrontal patients continued to choose disadvantageously even ater they knew the best strategy. Moreover, normals produced anticipatory skin conductance responses (SCRs) when they pondered a choice that turned out to be risky. hey did so before they knew explicitly that it was a risky choice in contrast to the patients who never developed anticipatory SCRs. Bechara, Damasio, Tranel, and Damasio (1997) question the assumption that deciding advantageously in complex situations requires overt reasoning on declarative knowledge (conscious explicit knowledge). In contrast to this view, they propose that overt reasoning is preceded by nonconscious steps that use neural systems other than those supporting declarative knowledge. As the card

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game study shows, somatic markers precede conscious awareness and, apparently, bodily based emotional intuitions emerge before conscious cognitions play their part.15 Taken together, some authors emphasize that cognition guides emotion while other authors present evidence demonstrating that emotion guides cognition and explicit knowledge. his two-way relationship between emotion and cognition provides a basis for a model in which there are two-way communication channels between emotion and reason (Figure 4.4 at the end of this chapter).16 Morality: Reasoning Versus Intuition

In the last half of the previous century psychological research on moral behavior was dominated by so-called rationalist models that suppose that moral judgment is caused by moral reasoning. he most signiicant representative of this tradition is Kohlberg (1981) who assumes that moral judgment goes through a number of identiiable developmental stages, each more adequately responding to moral issues than its predecessor. Typically, this research works with moral dilemmas, like the well-known “Heinz dilemma” (a poor man who is faced with the decision whether he should break into a druggist’s shop to steal a drug that might save the life of his wife who is almost dying from cancer). In progressive stages of moral reasoning, individuals give answers that relect higher levels of moral development. As a response to moral reasoning theories and to rational models more in general, more recent approaches present an alternative that emphasizes moral emotion and intuition. hese theories are less interested in moral dilemmas that tend to evoke moral reasoning processes and more interested in situations that invite quick, automatic, emotional-intuitive judgments. Take the following example, presented by Haidt (2001): Julie and Mark are brother and sister. hey are traveling together in France on summer vacation from college. One night they are staying 15 Another and even earlier theorist who made a case for the thesis that emotions precede cognitions is Zajonc (1980), who was interested in nonconscious, automatic processes that lead to immediate evaluations of events. He proposed two independent, but interacting, processing systems, one for afect and one for cognition. He demonstrated that afective evaluations are made rapidly before any conscious processing is taking place. He further argued that the afect is primary and oten more inluential on one’s behavior than cognition. 16 he mutual implication of emotion and cognition is also emphasized by Pessoa (2008), who argues that complex cognitive-emotional behaviors have their basis in dynamic coalitions of networks of brain areas. hey have a high degree of connectivity, which is critical for regulating the low and integration of information between regions.

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alone in a cabin near the beach. hey decide that it would be interesting and fun if they tried making love. At the very least it would be a new experience for each of them. Julie was already taking birth control pills, but Mark uses a condom too, just to be safe. hey both enjoy making love, but they decide not to do it again. hey keep that night as a special secret, which makes them feel even closer to each other. What do you think about that? Was it OK for them to make love? (p. 814) he author presents this case to demonstrate the workings of his moral “social intuitionist model” that assumes that moral judgment starts with quick moral intuitions and is then followed (when needed) by slow, ex post facto moral reasoning. he model stresses the fact that a judgment or solution to a moral problem appears suddenly and efortlessly in consciousness, without awareness of the mental processes that led to the outcome. Haidt notes that most people who hear this story produce an immediate response saying that it was wrong for the siblings to make love, and they then, ater this irst impulse, begin searching for reasons why it is wrong. hey point, for example, to the dangers of inbreeding, even when they remember that Julie and Mark used forms of birth control. hey present ater the fact arguments that Julie and Mark will be hurt, perhaps emotionally, even though it is clear in the story that they sufer from no harm. Many respondents say something like, “I don’t know, I can’t explain it, I just know it’s wrong” (p. 814) and may aterwards produce explicit arguments that they use to convince others and themselves in order to justify their irst response. Haidt makes it clear that the social intuitionist model contrasts with rationalist models, in which one is positioned as a “judge” who is weighing issues of fairness, rights, justice, and harm before arriving at a decision. In the social intuitionist model one is rather placed in the position of a “lawyer” who, faced with a demand for a verbal justiication, is trying to build a case rather than being a “judge” searching for the truth. From a neuroscientiic point of view, Haidt (2001) refers to research by Damasio, Tranel, and Damasio (1990) who compared subjects having damage in their ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC), including orbitofrontal areas, with subjects having damage in other areas of the brain and subjects with no damage. hey showed emotional pictures (nudity, mutilation, dying people) that usually arouse strong skin conductance responses in undamaged people. However, individuals with VMPFC damage showed no response, which led Damasio and colleagues to describe this phenomenon in terms of “sociopathic behavior” mirroring the lack of autonomic responsiveness that is also found in psychopaths (Hare & Quinn, 1971). he patients may know that the images are emotional and should afect them, but they report feeling nothing.

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In summary, in the ield of morality there are theories that give priority to cognitions above emotions (e.g., Kohlberg, 1981) while other views (e.g., Haidt, 2001) prioritize emotions and intuitions above cognition. hese traditions are not necessarily of dualistic nature, as cognitions and emotions need each other also in the ield of morality (Greene et al., 2004). I take this interactional view as additional support of an emotion-with-reason model at the end of this chapter (Figure 4.4).17

he Diference Between Emotions and Feelings During the time I worked in coaching and psychotherapy setings, I oten was faced with the question of what is the diference between emotion and feeling. I occurred to me that this is a relevant question not only to counselors and psychotherapist but to anyone who is interested in the impact of emotions, particularly those who may have a disorganizing inluence on our interactions with others and on the ways we relate to ourselves. In searching for an answer to this question, I developed a schema (Table 4.2) that comes very close to some of the insights presented by Voris (2009). In Voris’s (2009) view, emotions are connected to our biological systems and are designed to draw us to something pleasurable or to alert us of danger. If we would not be endowed with emotions, we would carelessly walk right up to a lion in the Savanna wilderness and we would not experience any arousal if we met an atractive partner. Voris considers an emotion as consisting of several components: awareness, body change, interpretation, and action. Take the encounter with a lion. When we notice the presence of a lion, our awareness of the lion is an emotion-eliciting stimulus. hen, our organism reacts with innate body changes. Adrenaline starts to course throughout our bloodstream and our heart rate and breathing increase. We interpret the situation: taking into account all the available information in our surroundings, what is the best reaction? Based on the information, we take an action: to freeze, take light, ight, or cry for help. he same process takes place in the case of other emotions elicited by broad variety of situations: embracing our child, giving a hug to a friend, buying a seductive product in a shop, avoiding a person we do not like, enjoying a delicious meal, becoming angry when insulted, and many other situations. All these situations evoke emotional reactions.

17

For a synthesis of a rationalist approach to moral judgment, with reasoning as its centerpiece, and the more recent trend emphasizing the role of intuitive and emotional processes in moral decision-making, see Greene et  al. (2004). For arguments for an integration of cognitivedevelopmental models and narrative-dialogical models, see Day and Jesus (2013).

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Table 4.2. Diferences Between Emotions and Feelings Emotions

Feelings

Transient

Long term

Situation-bound

Cross-situational

Like or dislike

Meaningful or meaningless

Highs and lows

Plateau

Intense body changes

Gradual body changes

Examples

Examples

Lust

Love

Joy

Happiness

Anger

Biterness

Enthusiasm

Dedication

Sadness

Depression

To articulate the difference between emotions and feelings, it is important to take a temporal perspective. As persons, objects, and situations in our environment induce emotions within us, they are collected on less conscious levels of the self and start to accumulate, particularly when they are repeatedly experienced. Ultimately they result in a final emotional “conclusion” about self and world, how to survive physically and mentally in a world of chaos and what really matters over a longer period of time. When this occurs, a feeling is born. In Voris’s (2009) terms, emotions serve as a sort of “feelings factory.” Emotions are transient (they come and go) while feelings have a more longterm character. Emotions are bound to a particular situation that brings one into a physiological and psychological state of arousal, while feelings are more cross-situational in the sense that the same feelings apply to a diversity of situations. An emotion has typically the character of an immediate “like” or “dislike,” while a feeling refers to what is “important” or “unimportant” to us and what is experienced as meaningful or meaningless. Emotions show strong or even abrupt luctuations and go from highs to lows and the other way around, while feelings bring us on a plateau that may become higher or lower but anyway more “stretched” in time and more enduring. Finally, emotions imply intense and rapid body changes while the body changes of feelings are of a more gradual nature. From this conceptual perspective, lust is an emotion while love is a feeling; joy is an emotion, and happiness is a feeling; anger is an emotion, while bitterness, as an accumulation and perseverance of anger, is a feeling; enthusiasm

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is an emotion, while dedication and long-term inspiration is a feeling. Sadness as a temporary state is an emotion, while being depressed during a longer time is a feeling. As already said, emotions may accumulate and transform into feelings. he reversed process—feelings produce emotions—can also be observed. Voris (2009) gives the following example:  Imagine you see your child approaching an electrical outlet with a paperclip in hand. Your persistent feeling of love for the child will generate the temporary emotion of fear, and you immediately respond by yelling “No!” and take away the child’s hand from the outlet. Suppose the child responds with surprise and anger and tries to insert the paperclip into the outlet again. Your sustained feeling of love for the child may then generate the temporary emotion of anger as a reaction to the child’s stubbornness and disrespect to your atempts at protecting him or her. Both fear and anger as temporary emotions have their source in the more enduring feeling of love. he potential of feelings to generate emotions can also be observed in other situations. For example, you become intensely sad (emotion) ater the loss a person who was very important (feeling) for you. Or, ater a long time of dedication (feeling) to a project, the enthusiasm (emotion) of success is extra strong. From the perspective of the present theory, it is possible to distinguish emotional ways of positioning (e.g., “I’m very angry at . . .!”) and ways of positioning that express a feeling toward somebody or something (“I’m very dedicated to . . .”). hey are diferent in that the feeling position, given its long-term character and cross-situational nature, has more of a meta-quality than the emotional position. Like a meta-position has more speciic positions under its wings, a feeling position can produce and cover a certain diversity of more speciic emotional positions. Take the example of a couple who had several exciting meetings (emotion), which led to a long-lasting atachment (feeling). In the course of time, the atachment may imply and integrate a large diversity of speciic emotions (e.g., joy, disappointment, fun, anger, shame, guilt, etc.). hey all belong to the emotional “ofspring” of the long-term feeling of the couple. Feelings have, moreover, a stronger promoter quality than emotions. Although emotions are intense and may be even impressive, they tend to come and go and are of a more luctuating nature. Promoter positions are able to integrate a larger array of speciic I-positions and organize them in such a way that a long-term purpose can be realized. In a similar vein, feelings also are able to combine a larger array of emotions and organize them in such a way that a long-term commitment is realized. Terms that can be easily associated with a promoter may be expressed in particular word combinations with the adjective referring to the feeling quality of the promoter: “I as supportive mentor,” “I as a dedicated

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scientist,” “I as a loving father,” or in the case of a negative feeling “I as a revengeful writer.”18 Feelings have not only a “natural” association with internal promoters but also with external ones, that is, promoters that are part of the extended domain of the self. Take the example of an admirer of a hero, idol, or model. he irst meeting with the hero—in a book, on television, or during a live performance—can produce an initial strong arousal in the admirer. Ater some impressive meetings the hero becomes an identiication igure who opens the boundaries of the admirer’s self so that the hero can become established as a promoter in the external domain. In such a case, the initial meeting with the hero produces a strong emotional arousal, whereas during the later identiication process, the hero becomes associated with feelings (e.g., feeling inspired and becoming dedicated). In other words, promoters, both in the internal and external domain of the self, have the capacity of transforming emotions into feelings.

Summary Ater discussing the self-other relationship in Part 1 of this chapter, I elaborated on the emotion–cognition relationship in Part 2. Generally speaking, emotions are mediated primarily but not exclusively by the right hemisphere of our brain. Taking into account that some aspects (content) of language are regulated by the let hemisphere and other aspects (e.g., intonation, facial expression, and posture) by the right hemisphere, discrepancies may emerge between verbal and nonverbal signs. his has the consequence that the process of positioning becomes unclear, the boundaries of positions become spongy, and the communication channels pass on confusing information. I  then referred to the rationalist philosophy that has considered reason as the “ruler” of emotion and showed how recent research has led to a revolution in the relationship between cognition and emotion. In that context, I discussed some research on appraisal and elaborated on some work that focused on the process of reappraisal. his research introduced a concept that is of crucial importance to the theory of this book:  distancing, essential not only for dealing with disorganizing emotions in adaptive ways but also for the development of a productive meta-position. Moreover, the concept relects the spatial nature of positioning, both in physical 18 Writing as the expression of negative feeling is exempliied by the Dutch author WillemFrederik Hermans, a notorious polemic, who recounted in several interviews that he saw his writing as an “act of revenge.” Hermans’s books are populated by loners who continuously misinterpret reality in which they are placed, unable to do something meaningful, and igure as victims to the mercy of chance and misunderstanding. In the jungle of human existence, eternal powers as aggressiveness and the strife for power eventually win (Wikipedia, July 24, 2015).

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space and in the virtual space of the self. Taking the other way around, from emotion to cognition, I discussed the somatic marker hypothesis that demonstrates how dependent cognition and reason are on body-based emotional intuition. In that context, I discussed the diference between rationalist models of moral judgment and more recent social-intuitionist models that emphasize rapid, nonconscious, emotional-intuitive processes. Finally, I  focused on the diference between emotions and feelings, arguing that feelings, more than emotions, are closely associated with meta- and promoter positions. Altogether, recent trends in neuroscientiic and social-psychological literature provide a basis for considering reason and emotion as mutually complementing and interacting faculties in human functioning.

Part 3. Conscious and Nonconscious: he Process of Social Positioning I started this chapter with a focus on the self-other connection and continued with emotion-reason relationships, both mediated by the right hemisphere more than the left one. In this section I introduce a third relationship, closely connected with the emotion–reason distinction and also primarily mediated by the right hemisphere: the ever fascinating contrasts, conflicts, and coalitions between nonconscious and conscious forms of positioning that have far-reaching implications for the way we relate to ourselves and others. In the context of this book in which dialogical relationships in self and society are of central interest, I  focus on some recent findings in psychological and neuroscientific research that demonstrate how unconscious impulses and perceptions have a dialogue-inhibiting or dialogue-promoting impact on self–other relationships. In order to remind the reader of the red line running through this chapter, it is my purpose to include these three bridges, self–other, emotion–reason, and conscious–unconscious in a positioning model that I present at the end of this chapter (Figure 4.4) and functions as further elaboration and extension of the model, already presented in chapters 2 and 3.

he Amygdala: Seeing Black and White Faces A societally relevant question that has concerned not only historians, philosophers, and social scientists but also people interested in the fortunes and misfortunes of a civil society is to what extent people are inclined to close or open the boundaries of their selves and communities to “outsiders,” “strangers,” and people from other races. Interestingly, recent work on the interface

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of psychology and neuroscience sheds some more light on this issue. In an intriguing study of the neural components of social evaluation, Cunningham et al. (2004) showed black and white faces on a screen to a group of white participants and recorded their reactions with a f MRI procedure. When they presented the faces in a lash of 30 ms, activation in the amygdala—a brain region associated with emotion—was higher for black than for the white faces. However, when the faces were presented for 525 ms, this half second was long enough to reduce this diference signiicantly. At that point regions of the frontal cortex associated with control and regulation showed the larger diferences; that is, greater inhibitory eforts for the black than for the white faces were indicated. he researchers conclude that these results, in combination with previous investigations of intergroup atitudes, suggest that implicit negative associations to a social group may result in an automatic emotional response on lower levels of the brain when encountering members of that group. Yet when participants have the opportunity to process black and white faces longer (and report seeing the faces), there are activity diferences not in the amygdala but in areas in the prefrontal and anterior cingulate cortex, which are associated with inhibition, conlict, and control. Apparently, the participants were more emotionally reactive on the lower levels than the higher levels of the brain. Noteworthy, on the conscious level, all participants disagreed with prejudiced statements, agreed with nonprejudiced statements, and reported motivation to respond without racial bias. he amygdala, that long-neglected part of the brain, received an enormous interested in neuroscientiic publications in the past decade as it is seen as crucial for our emotional responding. What does it do and what is its function? A  summarizing and clarifying description is presented by Marc Lewis (2011), a psychologist who wrote about his own past drug addiction in the book Memoirs of an Addicted Brain. he amygdala sits like a crab in each hemisphere, he writes, hovering over a stream of sensory information that comes in from the back of the cortex. It marks this information as emotionally signiicant if it matches up with previous emotional events (e.g., biten by a dog). Far below thought and even conscious perception, it functions as an “automatic alert lag” (p.  101) to pay atention to incoming stimuli. It has dense connections downstream to the hypothalamus that has the task of activating the sympathetic (ight or ight) nervous system. he hypothalamus–brain stem connection houses ancient behavioral-somatic programs, like freezing, ighting, or fornicating, and it prepares the body for responding to any dangers and opportunities at hand. However, soon ater the amygdala is activated, the prefrontal cortex comes in, the orbitofrontal cortex in particular, where the present threat or opportunity is evaluated in a broader context and on a more conscious level. his part of the brain, in turn, sends messages back to the

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amygdala, calibrating or calming its animal emotions and primitive concerns (Lewis, 2011).19

Self-Fulilling Prophecies and the Erroneous Construction of Reality As research on the workings of the amygdala suggest, our prejudices and racial preferences are deeply located in the “cellars” of the brain. his raises the question: Are there unconscious elements in the way we interact with others, and, if so, what is the inluence of our prejudices on the construction of social reality? What are we making of the world beyond the level of awareness? In his ponderings of such questions, sociologist Robert Merton (1957) arrived at the conclusion that originally false deinitions or predictions directly or indirectly cause themselves to become true as the result of the prophecies themselves. For this process he coined the term “self-fulilling prophecy.” Inspired by this insight, Word, Zanna, and Cooper (1974) placed white participants in the position to interview white and black applicants for a job. he “applicants” were actually confederates of the experimenter and instructed how to behave during the interview. he participants interviewed a succession of black and white applicants in a room where the irst confederate-applicant was already seated. In order to measure the physical distance that the interviewer placed him- or herself from the applicant, the experimental situation was organized in such a way that participants were asked to wheel in a chair from an adjoining room so that they could choose their distance to the candidate. It appeared that the white interviewers placed themselves further from black than white applicants. Moreover, they had higher rates of speech errors and took shorter interview times in comparison to participants who interviewed white candidates. he researchers considered these results as support for the hypothesis that black, as compared to white, job applicants receive less immediate nonverbal communications from white job interviewers. Moreover, they saw the results as support for the conceptualization of blackness as a stigmatizing trait. hese indings and conclusions were not surprising as previous work already pointed in similar directions. For example, normal communicators were found to terminate interviews sooner and to exhibit greater motoric inhibition with a handicapped person (e.g., with an amputated leg), and to remain more distant from an epileptic stranger. More surprising were the results of Word and colleagues’ (1974) second experiment in which the roles were reversed. Now the interviewers were confederates and the applicants naive applicants. he applicants were white male 19

Inhibition is also a necessary condition for the development of ToM, as discussed earlier in this chapter.

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students who were now treated similarly as the black students in Experiment 1.  he results showed clearly that these subjects performed less well according to independent raters, were siting at larger distances from the interviewer (ater their initial chair was removed), and found their interviewers to be less adequate and friendly. Taken together the investigators concluded that the two experiments provided support for the assertion that nonverbal, immediacy cues mediate, to some degree, the performance of an applicant in a job interview situation. Furthermore, they considered their experiments as conirming the self-fulilling prophecy thesis. As these experiments suggest, prejudices conirm themselves via nonverbal cues and nonverbal, nonconscious communication channels. As a result, the receiver conirms the expectations of the sender who then believes the behavior of the receiver is “objective reality.”20 I ind Word and colleagues’ (1974) research particularly relevant to the present theory as it concerns the relationship between physical and psychological positioning. We take more or less distance from others, both literally and iguratively. In the case of this investigation, increasing physical distance from the other relects a form of alienation. he more I experience the other as “alien,” the more social distance I feel toward this person or group. Physical positioning in a space is the metaphorical basis for movements in the virtual space of the self. In its spatial extensions the self is able to open or close its boundaries so that others become welcome or unwelcome positions in the house of the self. he doors in this house are opening or shut, symbolizing the boundaries of the self and its positions. he communication channels can be opened and closed, and the emotional distance can be increased or decreased. Forms of positioning and counter-positioning take place not only between people but also within the self. I accept or reject others, open or close myself to them, even when they are not physically in my environment and they are just “in my mind.” he shadows in the societal world (e.g., the racial other, the

20 he nonconscious inluence of stereotypes on the behavior of interaction partners was also demonstrated in a study of Chen and Bargh (1997), who subliminally presented photographs of either young male African American faces or young male white faces to white participants. hen every white perceiver participant was invited to play a word game together with a (white) target participant to whom no subliminal photographs were presented. he researchers found that subliminal activation of the African American stereotype in perceiver participants resulted in greater hostility in their interaction partners, as compared with a control condition. Apparently, the increase in target participants’ hostility was due to increases in the perceivers’ own hostility caused by the subliminal priming manipulation. he researchers concluded that the perceiver him- or herself unconsciously creates the very evidence that reairms the validity of the stereotype, as predicted by the self-fulilling prophecy hypothesis.

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handicapped, the homeless, the old) are relected as shadow positions in the self (e.g., I as becoming old; I could become handicapped; what if I would become homeless), and, as such, they are not purely outside but rather possible positions in the self. here is a basic analogy between positions of people in the social and societal world and (possible) positions in the self. he rejected, excluded, or marginalized others in society evoke, oten on less conscious levels, rejected, excluded, and marginalized positions in the self, if the self takes them over in uncritical ways and does not become aware of its less conscious determinants. Becoming Conscious of the Preceding Affective Stimulus Reduces the Stereotype Effect

When we see that stereotypes tend to nonconsciously conirm themselves in the form of self-fulilling prophecies, the question may be posed of whether or not we are able to escape from such automatic processes. Are we imprisoned in our prejudices and in their nonconscious reairmation, or are there ways out from these dark communication channels? Some answer to these questions is provided in a classic study by Murphy and Zajonc (1993) who exposed participants to subliminal pictures of emotional expressions with the intention to nonconsciously activate primary appraisals. he pictures were smiling or angry expressions of faces, immediately followed by unfamiliar Chinese ideographs. he participants were then asked to rate how much they liked each ideograph. As expected, participants liked the ideographs that were preceded by a subliminal smiling expression beter than those preceded by a subliminal anger expression. For present purposes, the second part of this experiment is even more relevant. In this part, the researchers presented the pictures of emotion faces long enough for participants to perceive them consciously and recognize the real cause of their present afective state. Under these circumstances, the subliminally presented afective priming did not produce a signiicant shit in the subjects’ liking of the ideographs. Apparently, becoming conscious of the nature of the preceding stimulus reduced its inluence on the subsequent evaluation of unrelated material. Can we take this research as suggesting that there is a way out from blind unconscious determinants? Before drawing such a far-reaching conclusion, the broader question of how conscious and nonconscious information are related has to be addressed.

he Interactive Relationship Between the Conscious and Nonconscious In a project on the cognitive neuroscience of consciousness, Dehaene and Naccache (2001) postulate that, at any point in time, many modular cerebral

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networks21 are active in parallel and process information in an unconscious manner. However, an information becomes conscious if the neural region that represents it is mobilized by top-down atentional ampliication. his ampliication produces a coherent activity that involves many neurons (so-called workspace neurons) distributed throughout the brain. When these neurons are active for a minimal duration, the long-distance connectivity of these neurons is able to make the information available to a variety of processes including perceptual categorization, long-term memorization, evaluation, and intentional action. his availability of information through the activity of workspace neurons is what we subjectively experience as a conscious state. In the explanation of their model, Dehaene and Naccache’s (2001) irst general observation is that a considerable amount of processing can occur without any consciousness. As widely acknowledged, many perceptual, motor, semantic, emotional, and context-dependent processes can occur below levels of consciousness. As an example, the authors describe research on the phenomenon of “blindsight”: patients with a partial blindness due to a lesion in visual cortical areas remained able to detect visual stimuli presented in their blind ield. hey claimed that they could not see the stimuli, yet they performed above chance when they have to point to a stimulus presented in this blind ield. Another example is the reported inability of prosopagnosic patients to recognize familiar faces. Although the patient denies any recognition of familiar faces, an electrical waveform indexing perceptual processing was signiicantly shorter and more intense for the familiar faces. Apparently, there are indications that these patients do not see a stimulus on the conscious level, while they process the same stimulus nonconsciously. On the basis of the observation of many instances of unconscious perception, the researchers note that conditions of stimulation, by themselves, are not suficient to determine whether a given stimulus is or is not perceived consciously. Elaborating on this observation, the authors present a thesis, crucial for our model, that claims the possibility of communication between conscious and nonconscious levels of the self. hey maintain that “conscious perception seems to result rom an interaction of these stimulation factors with the atentional state of the observer” (p. 7). here seems to be no conscious perception without atention. A striking illustration is provided by brain-lesioned patients sufering from “hemineglect,” frequently resulting from lesions of the right parietal region, the

21 he theory of modularity (e.g., Fodor, 1983) assumes that there are functionally specialized regions in the brain that are domain speciic for diferent cognitive processes. An example is the cognitive process of vision, which has separate mechanisms for color, shape, and spatial perception. Modular processes have a fast speed so that time is not wasted in determining whether or not to process incoming input.

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region in the brain involved in the orientation of atention toward locations and objects. hese patients fail to atend to stimuli located in contralesional space, and the focus of their atention is permanently biased toward the right half of space, as if the let half had become unavailable to consciousness. When two visual stimuli are presented side by side let and right of ixation, the patients report only seeing the stimulus on the right and appear unconscious of the presence of a stimulus on the let. Nevertheless, when the very same stimulus is presented in isolation at the same retinal location (and receives full atention), it is perceived normally.

Inatentional Blindness: Not Seeing the Gorilla Not only in studies of patients but also in normal populations, there is no doubt that atention serves as ilter prior to conscious perception. Visual search experiments show that the atention plays a critical role in determining whether a given item gains access to consciousness. Stimuli that do not fall in an atended region of the visual ield cannot be consciously reported. A telling example is the phenomenon of “inatentional blindness.” In one of the research projects described by Dehaene and Naccache (2001), normal participants were asked to engage in a demanding visual discrimination task in which they focused on a particular location in their visual ield. hen, on a single trial, another visual stimulus, with suicient contrast and duration, was presented at a diferent location in the ield. In this condition of a single critical trial and a distracting task, a large percentage of subjects failed to report the critical stimulus and, when explicitly questioned about it, denied its presence. However, when participants were invited to atend to such stimuli, they easily noticed it. Such evidence supports the hypothesis that atention is a necessary prerequisite for conscious perception of stimuli that otherwise may fall squarely beyond one’s awareness. An impressive example of inatentional blindness is given by Simons and Chabris (1999) who invited participants to look at videotapes in which an unexpected event occurs. Each tape showed two teams of three players, one team wearing white shirts and the other wearing black shirts, who moved around in a relatively random fashion in an open area. he members of each team passed a standard orange basketball to one another in a regular order. In one of the conditions, a woman wearing a gorilla costume that fully covered her body walked through the action while the players continued their actions during and ater the event. Before viewing the videotape, observers were told that they would be watching two teams of three players passing basketballs and that they should pay atention to either the team in white or the team in black. hey were told that they should keep a silent mental count of the total number of passes made by the atended team In one of the conditions, the gorilla walked from right to let

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into the live basketball-passing event, stopped in the middle of the players as the action continued all around it, turned to face the camera, thumped its chest, and then resumed walking across the screen. It appeared that of the observers who watched this video, only 50% noticed the event. For our purposes, Dehaene and Naccache’s (2001) observation that conditions of stimulation are by themselves not suicient to determine whether a given stimulus is or is not perceived consciously and that conscious perception is the result of an interaction of stimulation, with the atentional state of the observer particularly relevant. It shows that there is at least tentative neuroscientiic support for the thesis that the relationship between the conscious and nonconscious regions of the brain is more or less open and that depending on their interaction information may go top-down or botom-up between these levels. In a creative process, for example, a latency period may facilitate the emergence of ideas from nonconscious levels. Looking at the other way around, complex operations that initially require conscious efort may become progressively automatized ater some practice (e.g., driving a car). The Role of Language in Attentional Amplification

One the main advantages of a consciously perceived stimulus is that it creates much more activity in the brain than a nonconscious one. Language, as one of the greatest achievements of the human brain, serves as a powerful tool for atentional ampliication. From a neurolinguistic point of view, Kolk (2012) notes that reading a word clearly and consciously activates more areas in the brain and stimulates them more intensely than reading it nonconsciously. he activity of the nonconcious word is only 9% of the activity ater the perception of a conscious word. Activity of such limited intensity cannot spread widely over other areas of the brain. Ater the nonconscious word has arrived in the occipital cortex, there is almost no activation registered in the parietal cortex, and, even if there is some frontal activity, it is weak and of a short duration. On the contrary, words that are clearly visible and consciously perceived have a much higher activation level in the word areas of the temporal cortex. From there they induce a longer and more widely spread activity in the parietal, prefrontal, and medial frontal cortex. his intensity and spread allow relationships to emerge between the visual stimulus and a broad range of other kinds of information with the advantage that the deeper meaning of a stimulus can be examined and more balanced choices be made. here is an additional reason why language signiicantly contributes to atentional ampliication as an entrance to nonconscious material. Auditory imagery activates the same brain areas as auditory stimuli. In his review article on this topic, Hubbard (2010) concludes: “Auditory imagery involves a perceptual-like

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experience of an auditory stimulus in the absence of that stimulus. Auditory imagery preserves many structural and temporal properties of auditory stimuli, and generation of auditory imagery appears to involve activation of many brain areas involved in perception of auditory stimuli” (p. 324). his auditory imagery enables the brain to become involved in inner speech, and, as Kolk (2012) emphasizes, this speech can be used as a way to have access to nonconscious processes.22 By its capacity to activate a broader range of areas in the brain and to stimulate them intensely, inner speech not only plays a signiicant role in the atentional ampliication of nonconscious material but also contributes to a dialogical metaposition. his position proits from forms of inner speech that enable the self to coordinate, combine, and integrate verbal and nonverbal information coming from a broad bandwidth of I-positions (for a more extensive examination of inner speech and dialogue, see chapter 7). I propose to take the potentials of atentional ampliication one step further by taking into account some research indings discussed earlier in this chapter. From a social and societal point of view, access to the less conscious levels of our experience may contribute to more dialogical relationships between individuals and between groups that are otherwise divided by closed boundaries between their positions. herefore, together with generations of psychoanalysts, I see great value in studies and practices that foster atentional ampliication regarding processes that take place at less conscious levels of our experience. Studies on the nonconscious racial prejudices, like Word et al.’s (1974) research, provide a proliic basis for research and practices that may change these automatic responses via atentional ampliication. Similarly, studies in which nonconscious processes reach the level of conscious awareness, like Murphy and Zajonc’s (1993) research on subliminal pictures of emotional expressions, are particularly helpful in showing that we are not doomed to be subjected to blind determinism but that our brains give us the means, via atention and intention, to increase our access to the nonconsious levels of the self, as Dehaene and Naccache (2001) have suggested.23 22 In order to study the nature and frequency of inner speech, Heavey and Hurlburt (2008) used descriptive experience sampling, a technique for exploring inner experience. Subjects carry a random beeper in their natural environments. When the beep sounds, they jot down notes about their inner experience of that moment and later report it to the investigator. he researchers described 10 randomly identiied moments of inner experience from each of 30 college students. hey found that inner speech occurred at 25% of sampled moments, that there were no signiicant gender diferences in its relative frequency, and that higher frequencies of inner speech were associated with lower levels of psychological distress. 23 In the unconscious–conscious dynamics of Dehaene and Naccache’s model, the emotional is intimately linked to what Dehaene, Kerszberg, and Changeux (1998) identify as the evaluative

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Two Kinds of Attention

Referring to hemispheric diferences, two kinds of atention have to be distinguished: focused and difuse atention, with the former as mediated primarily by the let hemisphere and the later by the right hemisphere. Referring to studies on creativity, Schore (2012) notes that highly creative individuals have a tendency to produce nonconsciously primed solutions that occur beneath levels of awareness, are more likely to sample a wider range of environmental input, and generate innovative connections when they unwitingly encounter triggers in the environment. Moreover, they seem to take beter advantage of their implicit memory processes. McGilchrist (2009) places the same distinction, between focused and difuse atention, in a broader social context and sees them even as relecting fundamentally diferent, even conlicting, ways of looking at ourselves and the world around us. On the one hand, there is the atention of individuals competing with other individuals, to pursue their goals, use and manipulate the world for their own ends, and use the environment to their own proit. For that purpose, they need a narrow-focused atention. On the other hand, they may see themselves in the broader context of the world at large and in relation to others, whether they are friend or foe. In that case they consider themselves as part of their social group, in relation to potential allies and enemies. hey see themselves as part of something bigger than themselves and as participating in a broader context. his orientation requires “less of a willfully directed, narrowly focused atention and more of an open, receptive, widely difused alertness to whatever exists” (p. 25). If there are valid reasons to distinguish diferent kinds of atention, what then are the implications for the conception of a meta-position, seen from a neuroscientiic perspective? Two Versions of Meta-Positioning

As I have argued at several places in this book, I consider the notion of metaposition as central in the presented theory, as it enables to self to disengage itself from immediate involvement in a large and ever-changing multiplicity of situation-bound I-positions and allows the self to take some distance from the endless stream of positioning, repositioning, and counter-positioning.

circuits of the Global Workspace: “Evaluation circuits . . . allow representations in the workspace to be associated with a positive or negative value. he main anatomical systems in this respect include the orbitofrontal cortex, anterior cingulate (AC), hypothalamus, amygdala, and ventral striatum as well as the mesocortical catecholaminergic and cholinergic projections to prefrontal cortex” (p. 14530). hanks go to an anonymous reviewer who brought this quote to my atention.

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I propose that a meta-position proits from both difuse and focused atention. A  broad-picture view that provides a long-term perspective able to connect a large variety of speciic positions is essential for a well-developed meta-position. It is in need of a broad, global, and lexible atention that requires an optimal distance from the immediate experience, a stance to the world that is mediated by the right frontal hemisphere. In psychanalytic terms it is described as Gleichschwebende Aufmerksamkeit (evenly suspended atention; Epstein 1984), which for Freud was the foundational principle in the contact between therapist and client. he therapist does not give priority to any of the client’s associations and verbalizations, does not analyze or interpret, and does not focus on any conscious content but just listens to his or her own unconscious as an entrance to the unconscious of the patient. he difuse form of atention is helpful to make connection with the less conscious layers of the self and allows to “hover” over a broader array of positions without giving priority or exclusive atention to any of them. his kind of atention gives access to the wide “market” of I-positions and enables the self to get access to a broader bandwidth of positions than is possible when one would be limited to one or a few positions only. It is more receptive and intuitive than active and analytic. Leting this broader array of positions emerge, in receptive ways, from nonconscious to the conscious levels has the advantage of not only widening one’s scope but also discovering unexpected linkages between familiar positions. Such a meta-perspective is particularly valuable in situations of uncertainty and unpredictability in which many options need to be explored before making a decision. However, a meta-position may also proit from a more focused atention, as primarily mediated by the let hemisphere. his position takes distance from the immediate stream of experience in a diferent way. While the difuse form goes from the whole to the part, the focused form takes the reversed route: it builds up a whole starting from an analysis of the parts. It focuses on speciic positions, including its subpositions, and then builds a total picture from there on. It is more systematic than intuitive and proceeds step by step and sequentially. It compares the lessons of the past and speculates about the future. It records, freezes, and ixes the constant low of life and does this via writen words, projects, schemes, diagrams, numbers, formulas, maps, and records of observation, which is all let-hemisphere activity (McGilchrist, 2009, p. 259). his brings us to an insight that is crucial for understanding the working of meta-positions in social and societal contexts. he difuse version has more open communication channels toward the emotions and feelings of others, including the other-in-the-self. A difuse meta-position enables to experience self and other as intrinsically belonging together as parts of a transcending whole. here are less obstacles to see the individual person as connected with the other, as

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part of a group, a country, a culture, humanity, or nature. It is able to take the position of the other and even to share a meta-position with the other, even when this other is a member of another cultural group. I do not want to argue that the focused version of a meta-position is without access to the other person. Rather, I want to propose that this access is of a diferent nature. One of the differences is that the two forms of meta-positioning make use of diferent forms of empathy. While the communication channels of the difuse version employs emotional and compassionate forms of empathy, the focused version, given its more analytical capacities, uses more cognitive forms of empathy. While the diffuse version tends to see speciic positions as intensely interconnected and as parts of encompassing wholes, the focused version approaches the speciic positions as perspectives and standpoints on themselves, which can be related and compared with other positions ater they are deined in their speciicity. What Is Intuitive Positioning?

Because intuition is a central ingredient of difuse atention and therefore an indispensable process of nonconscious positioning, some deinition is required. I start from an account of Schore (2012) who notes that “Intuition depends on accessing large banks of implicit knowledge formed from unarticulated personenvironment exchanges that occur between environmental input and the individual’s phenomenological experience. It operates on a nonverbal level, with litle efort, deliberation, or conscious awareness” (p. 122). It is further speciied in terms of “following hunches,” “experiencing sudden insights,” and “choosing directions without really knowing why” (p. 123). As mediated by the right hemisphere, intuitive knowledge is superior in processing paterns (faces, voices, chords, and graphic images). Intuition also proits from long experience stored in implicit memory. Novices use conscious, efortful methods to solve problems as they have to deal with complexity in very conscious ways. On the contrary, the well-educated intuition of experts incorporates more sophisticated unconscious knowledge that works automatically as the result of extensive learning. In terms of the present theory, intuition can be described as a form of positioning that takes into account large banks of implicit background positions and their paterns, both internal and external ones, generated by previous and present person-environment exchanges that occur between environmental input and the individual’s personal experience. Intuitive positioning has immediate access to a wider array of other positions, with litle efort, and takes place on nonverbal and nonconscious levels in the self. Intuitive positioning takes a large array of other positions implicitly into account when responding to the demand characteristics of a speciic situation without mediation of logic or deliberation.

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Intuitive positioning, however, is not necessarily isolated from conscious awareness. Open communication channels are possible for intuition–reason dialogue. Ater conscious deliberation and discussion on a complex issue, I  can pose myself a question and walk around with it. Suddenly, an idea or insight occurs to me, without knowing where it comes from (typically in relaxing circumstances), which then leads to further explicit questioning. Or, the other way around, without any preceding conscious questioning or preparation, I take an intuitive decision in a stressful or complex situation that makes me think aterwards and motivates me to ind explicit justiication for my deed ater the fact. On a Personal Note: Access to Dreams

Communication channels with the less conscious layers of the self can be widened by practice. A good example is training oneself to improve access to one’s dreams. Somewhere in 1976, when I spent an academic year in the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences, located near the beach in Wassenaar, I started to make notes of my nocturnal dreams. I found many of them fascinating and felt the urge to keep them somewhere. From that moment on, I wrote down those dreams that I felt were meaningful enough to add to my record (so-called great dreams in the Jungian sense). he dreams varied dramatically; some had a nightmare quality of being lost in an endless space without being able to ind my way back home, while in others I felt myself locked in a dark and gloomy cave in the neighborhood of dead people. In contrast, there were dreams in which I found myself located in a paradiselike environment walking hand in hand with an unknown woman in perfect harmony without speaking a word. Or I  found myself to be young again and involved in interaction with my (now deceased) parents and brothers in very natural ways. All those kinds of dreams, and many more, atracted my atention as I felt they were coming from deeper, less conscious layers of myself. In order to get more in touch with them and to prevent forgeting them, I trained myself to keep them long enough to be able to write them down. I did this by “translating” my dreams, emerging as story-like sequences of images, into words as soon as possible. Even before opening my eyes, I summarized the dream in a few words or sentences, and this simple verbalization helped me to return to the more detailed story at some later point in time. he word as a bridge between dream and long-term memory served as a form of atentional ampliication. Writing down my dreams was not a mater of report only. It was also a learning process, in which I noticed that I became more sensitive to my dreams and increasingly able to remember them and, sometimes but not always, to interpret them. In many cases, but certainly not in all of them, I could see a clear link between the

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content of the dream and recent events in my waking life. Over the years I have experienced my dreams, including their linkages with actual events and circumstances in my life, as sources of personal meaning. Up to the present time, I go to sleep with the expectation to enter an alternative world with exceptional experiences, sometimes frightening or frustrating, at other times expressing a beauty that I rarely experience during my waking life. My “expressive writing” gives me some access to an intriguing, and only partly known, world that received increasing value to me over the years. It is a way of moving through the communication channel from conscious to nonconscious positions and back, and I consider it an atempt to make these channels more open than usual. Apparently there is at least the possibility of opening communication channels between conscious and nonconscious positions in the self. However, what is the role of the body in this process of communication? Is it possible that imagining to be in the body of another person widens the communication channels toward that person? And is it possible that moving experientially into the body of another decreases the emotional distance and even reduces prejudice? In order to investigate this possibility, I explore the phenomenon of body illusions. The Illusion of Being in Another Body Reduces Prejudice

here is a growing series of studies on body illusions that, surprisingly, can change racial biases and erroneous prejudices. Maister, Slater, Sanchez-Vives, and Tsakiris (2015) reviewed studies that refer to diferent kinds of illusions. One of the earliest ones is the so-called rubber hand illusion (Figure 4.3): participants watch a rubber hand that is stroked synchronously with one’s own unseen hand. his causes the rubber hand to be atributed to one’s own body and to be felt like one’s own hand. Another phenomenon is the enfacement illusion, a facial analogue of the rubber hand illusion: participants watch a video that shows the face of an unfamiliar other person being stroked with a coton bud on the cheek. At the same time, the participants receive identical stroking on their own cheek in synchrony with the touch they see. As in the rubber hand illusion, this synchronous visual-tactile stimulation provokes illusory feelings of ownership of the other’s face. Along similar lines, research has led to the discovery of full body illusions, inducing the illusory ownership of a physical manikin body that substitutes the participant’s real body. Live video, from cameras atached to the manikin, are streamed to displays mounted on the participants’ own bodies. hey see the environment from the spatial position of the manikin, and when they are looking down they see the manikin body visually substituting their own. Synchronous tapping on the manikin body and the real body leads to illusory ownership:  the participants experience themselves as located at another place and in another’s body. More advanced systems are using immersive virtual reality: participants wear a

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Figure 4.3. Experimental seting for rubber hand illusion.  Photo courtesy of Vanderbilt University

head-tracked stereo display that provides computer-generated images that give the participants the illusion of moving in a virtual world. In this case, the participant’s own body is substituted by a virtual body, viewed from a irst-person perspective. A motion-capture system enables their virtual body to move simultaneously with their real body movements, again eliciting illusions of ownership and agency over the virtual body. As Maister and colleagues (2015) demonstrated, the experimental modulation of body ownership has intriguing efects on social cognition. Synchronous stimulation on the face, according to the enfacement illusion procedure, led participants to rate the other’s face as more atractive and more physically similar to their own, and they were even more likely to conform to the other’s opinions. In the emotional domain, the enfacement illusion resulted in improved recognition of the other’s emotions, speciically with regard to fearful facial expressions. An intriguing question is what happens when one experiences an illusionary ownership of a body of a person of another race. In order to address this question, Maister et al. (2015) asked white participants to complete a skin color implicit association test to assess their implicit atitudes towards dark-skinned individuals. In a separate session, the rubber hand illusion procedure was used to induce the feeling that a dark-skinned hand belonged to them. Next, their implicit atitudes were measured for a second time. It appeared that, regardless of their implicit atitudes toward the other race, participants experienced the dark hand as their own.

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With regard to racial prejudices, another inding seems to be even more important:  participants showed a signiicant decrease in negative implicit atitudes toward dark-skinned individuals. he more intense their illusion of ownership over the dark-skinned hand, the more positive their implicit racial atitudes became.24 Research on illusory sensation of ownership over a surrogate limb or a whole body is not limited to the racial domain. Bamakou, Groten and Slater (2013), for example, used, immersive virtual reality to embody adults as a four-year-old child experienced from the irst-person perspective and with virtual and real body movements synchronized. he result was a strong body-ownership illusion. An implicit association test showed signiicantly faster reaction times for the classiication of self with child-like atributes compared with adult-like atributes. Such a study is notable as it suggests that illusionary positioning oneself in the body of a child results in the temporary dominance of the child position in one’s self. he body illusions as described in this section have social and even societal implications. hey show that the body and even the mind of another person can be experienced from a irst-person perspective and can become one’s own. his its with the theoretical view that, as James (1890) already proposed, the self is extended to the (social) environment and, as Bakhtin (1984) suggested, the other can become “another I.” his extension of the self receives support from the described body illusions showing that, under speciic conditions, the body of the other is experienced from a irst-person perspective and may even alter one’s evaluation of him or her. he societal context is relevant when experiments show that the body of the other is one from another race. his inding has special signiicance for the boundaries of the positions involved. When one’s own I becomes located in another’s body, or one imagines oneself to be there, negative implicit atitudes toward the racial other decrease. Such results are promising for research and theory on opening closed boundaries between the racial positions of self and other. Moreover, the reduction of prejudices is expected to lead to more open communication channels, more empathy, and a reduction of the emotional distance between self and racial other. I consider these elements in their combination as a prerequisite for a dialogical self as an open society of I-positions. 24

he experience of being in the body of a person of another race is masterfully described in John Griin’s classic Black Like Me (1960) that was published in the early phase of the civil rights movement when tensions between whites and blacks in the southern parts of United States were at their peak. In 1959, the white journalist John Griin altered his skin color and decided to spend a month traveling in the South with the intention to experience temporarily what a black man experienced every day of his life. Initially his “black” and “white” positions were so diferent that there was not any sympathy between them. However, in the course of time he overcame this dichotomy and acquired a personal position, a third position, that was neither white nor black but just human (see Barresi [2008], who analyzed Griin’s book from the perspective of dialogical self theory).

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Recapitulation In this part of the chapter, I referred to research (reactions to dark-skinned individuals) showing that implicit negative associations to black faces may result in an automatic emotional response on the lower levels of the brain (e.g., amygdala). However, when participants have the opportunity to process black and white faces longer and report consciously seeing the faces, activity diferences are observed not in the amygdala but in higher regions (prefrontal cortex), associated with inhibition, conlict, and control. In order to further investigate the social implications of unconscious prejudices, I  described research (on job interviews) in which white participants were treated just the same as black participants who were earlier treated by whites in prejudiced ways. he results demonstrated that under these conditions the whites were judged as performing as inferior in comparison to a condition without this prejudiced behavioral patern. hese results show that prejudices implicitly increase the emotional distance between people and that, as a consequence, communications channels become atenuated. Moreover, the results of this research provide clear support for the self-fulilling prophecy hypothesis as it works on less conscious levels of communication. hen the question was raised if and under which condition the nonconscious levels are accessible to consciousness. his led to a discussion of the decisive role of atention. Brain research led to the conclusion that conditions of stimulation are by themselves not suicient to determine whether a given stimulus is or is not perceived consciously. Rather, conscious perception is the result from an interaction of stimulation with the atentional state of the observer. Elaborating on this conclusion, I discussed two forms of atention: difuse atention as mediated by the right hemisphere of the brain and focused atention as mediated by the let hemisphere. his led to the distinction of two versions of meta-positioning:  difuse and focused, with the later as active at conscious levels and the former as receptive to nonconscious information and experiences. In this context, intuition was deined as a nonconscious access to a broader bandwidth of positions, including their paterning. hen I  asked whether it would be possible to reduce the rigid boundaries of racial positions via the use of the body. I referred to research on body illusions showing that it is possible to have the experience of being in the body or body part of another person. When the participants had an illusory experience to be in the bodily position of a dark-skinned individual, they showed a signiicant decrease in negative implicit atitudes toward this individual. Moreover, the more intense their illusion of ownership over the dark-skinned hand, the more positive their implicit racial atitudes became. Finally, I discussed research in this section in the context of the theoretical model of this book linking it with central

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concepts like “I-positioning,” the other as another I-position in the extended self, open versus closed communication channels, and emotional distance.

he Culturally Based Power Relation Between Let and Right Hemispheres In this chapter I have successively addressed three main topics: the self–other relationship, the connection between emotion and cognition, and the relationship between explicit or conscious and implicit or nonconscious processes. My primary interest was in the social implications of these topics. I then made a step to a societal issue: the role of the unconscious in the perception and evaluation of other races. In the present section, I expand on this societal line by discussing some recent views on the relationship between brain and culture and their implication for the functioning of the self. First we take a look at some recent developments on the interface of neuroscience and psychology. The Cultural Triumph of the Left Hemisphere

An eloquent critic of let brain dominance in our culture, McGilchrist (2009) is interested in lateral diferences and speaks even of the “worlds” of the let and right brain as pointing to their radical diferent views of life. Although he conirms that the two hemispheres can cooperate luently and eiciently, they do this from very diferent perspectives: “he world of the let hemisphere, dependent on denotative language and abstraction, yields clarity and power to manipulate things that are known, ixed, static, isolated, decontextualized, explicit, disembodied, general in nature, but ultimately lifeless” (p. 174). He continues: “he right hemisphere, by contrast, yields a world of individual, changing, evolving, interconnected, implicit, incarnate, living beings within the context of the lived world, but in the nature of things never fully graspable, always imperfectly known—and to this world it exists in a relationship of care” (p. 174). In a metaphorical way, McGilchrist (2009) has titled his book he Master and His Emissary, pointing to the fact that, actually, the right brain is the master and the let brain his emissary. However, the emissary, traveling abroad, separates himself from the master, betrays him, and falls prey to the hubris of seeing himself as superior, which then leads to the illusionary “triumph of the let hemisphere” in our Western culture (p. 209). he author notes that he does not deny the importance of the let hemisphere’s contribution to all achievements of humankind. he let brain is a wonderful servant but a very poor master. Unfortunately, particularly under the inluence of Enlightenment, we have fallen for the let brain’s propaganda, making us believe that what it is doing is more highly evolved than what the right brain does. he losing party in this struggle,

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the right hemisphere, “is not only more closely in touch with emotion and the body (therefore with the neurologically ‘inferior’ and more ancient regions of the central nervous system) but also has the most sophisticated and extensive, and quite possibly most lately evolved, representation in the prefrontal cortex, the most highly evolved part of the brain” (p. 437). he author considers Descartes as one of the irst and greatest igures representing the let hemisphere’s dominance in the Enlightenment philosophy. Descartes’ method of rationality and systematic doubt led him not only to question the existence of others (that has to be “proved”) but also to see knowledge of his own body as constituted exclusively by the intellect instead of being selfevident through perception, emotion, and intuition. In the Cartesian view, the body is not known by touch but by being intellectually understood. In full agreement with Lakof and Johnson (1999), the author considers reason as evolutionary in the sense that abstract reason builds on forms of perceptual and motor inference already present in “lower” animals. hus reason is not a faculty that separates us from other animals but rather places us on a continuum with them. In order to avoid let-brain dominance in our society and to give space to the potentials of the rather neglected right hemisphere, it is paramount to develop theories that give a central place to the concept of meta-position that balances reason with the afective dimension and the realm of the nonconscious. Such a connection should, at the same time, avoid the pitfall of reiication and intellectualization, which would reduce reason to pure rationalization (devoid of emotion and feeling). Education and Left Brain Dominance

Let-brain dominance is also considered as problematic in education, as articulated by the Nobel Laureate Roger Sperry (1979), who is seen as one of the main contributors to the initial split brain research. He starts from the assumption that both the let and right hemispheres have their own specialized forms of intellect. he let is highly verbal and mathematical and specialized in analytic, symbolic, computer-like, sequential logic. By contrast, the right hemisphere, spatial and mute, performs with a synthetic spatioperceptual information processing that cannot yet be simulated by computers. When it comes to education, Sperry notes an unproductive bias: our educational system and modern society generally (with its very heavy emphasis on communication and on early training in the three Rs [reading, writing, and arithmetic]) discriminates against one whole half of the brain. I refer, of course, to the non-verbal, non-mathematical minor hemisphere, which, we ind, has its own perceptual, mechanical, and spatial mode of apprehension and reasoning. In our present school system,

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the atention given to the minor hemisphere of the brain is minimal compared with the training lavished on the let, or major, hemisphere. (p. 33) What do educational professionals themselves think of hemispheric specialization and its relevance to learning? In their landmark book Making Connections, Caine and Caine (1991) see some value in the let–right distinction but they express, at the same time, their reservations about its simplicity. hey emphasize that both hemispheres are involved in all activities. Although the hemispheres have diferent functions, they operate in combination. Take the examples of a touching poem, a moving play, a great novel, or a encompassing philosophical treatise. hey all involve a sense of the wholeness of things and, at the same time, a capacity to concentrate on the way the parts it with the whole. In other words, the let brain processes are enriched and supported by right brain processes. Great artists do not just set up an easel and then paint what they have in mind. hey may do a signiicant amount of preliminary design and analytical thinking—there are many sketches from, say, Picasso and da Vinci before the end result is there. he artistic, intuitive process involves a substantial amount of analytical and segmented thinking. he authors emphasize that the “right side” relies on the let for success. hey note that supposedly right-hemisphere functions like intuition, holistic images, and synthesis over time are within the grasp of everyone. At the same time, verbal expression, the ability to articulate and analyze details, as well as critical and logical thinking have the potential to add a wealth of richness to our lives: “Schools or any place where learning is being encouraged should therefore provide the opportunity to develop all abilities even as we continue to prefer some things over others” (Caine & Caine, 1991, p. 34). The Need for Integration of the Biological, Social, and Cultural

In an atempt to integrate biological, social, and cultural aspects of emotions, Barret (2012) proposes that physical changes (in the face, voice, and body or in behaviors like freezing, leeing, or ighting) transform into an emotion when those changes have psychological and social functions beyond their physical nature. Her claim is that emotions are, at the same time, socially constructed and biologically evident. For example, the same face, posing the exact same facial actions, appears to express diferent emotions in diferent social and cultural contexts. Barret (2012) argues that an emotion is more than just a particular patern of objective changes that relect a physical action, and she emphasizes that reality derives from the way that perception works in a human mind, in conjunction with other human minds. herefore, a science of emotion should focus on (a) physical states and actions that occur in speciic situations, (b) the emotion categories that exist in a particular culture, and (c) the workings of the categories as situated in a particular culture. he ability to make something socially real is a

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natural consequence of how the human brain work. herefore, a science of emotion must address how a brain creates instances of social reality in order to fully reveal the biological reality of emotion. In a more general way, Barret (2012) concludes: “his is why even the most important mental categories in Western approaches to science— cognition, perception, and emotion—are ontologically subjective and culturally relative. . . . If I  am right, then the science of emotion (the science of psychology, actually) should explicitly theorize about how to integrate physical, mental, and social levels of construction. his is not esoteric philosophy. It is a necessary tool for doing science” (p. 424). Indeed, for a positional and dialogical approach to the self, I consider the integration of the biological, social, and cultural as particularly fertile and promising.

Summary Advocates of recognizing the value of the right brain in human life emphasize that the functions of this hemisphere are neglected or even suppressed by the triumph of the let brain. Under the inluence of the Enlightenment, logical, analytical-sequential thinking has received, on cultural grounds, priority over the more holistic, intuitive, emotional, and implicit workings of the right brain. his relative dominance has important societal consequences as exempliied by the dominance of let hemisphere functions in educational setings, as expressed in the traditional emphasis on reading, writing, and arithmetic. However, many theorists and professionals agree that, despite hemispheric diferences and relative dominance, creations and performances proit from a close cooperation of these diferent “partners.” he most valuable end product seems to be the one in which they “meet” each other. Looking back at this chapter, I formulate three conclusions: (a) the self can only be understood in its intrinsic relationship with the other, and, although self and other are distinguishable, they function as parts of a self-other connection (at the same time, the other is, as another I, part of the extended self); (b) 25 years of neuroscientiic research has questioned the “reason above emotion” thesis, put forward by philosophical thinkers since Plato and the Enlightenment and has provided arguments for an alternative view that reason needs emotion for efective decision-making; (c) much of our prejudices and evaluations are taking place on nonconscious levels where they have inluence on the behavior of others via self-fulilling prophecies. At the same time, there are indications that such automatic reactions can be reduced or disappear when they are raised to conscious levels. Moreover, the body has an implicit empathic capacity that is capable of opening rigid boundaries between the positions of self and other. hese conclusions form the basis of a model that I present in the inal section of this chapter as a further elaboration of the model presented in chapters 2 and 3.

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Part 4. Model with Basic Positions he model (Figure 4.4) is constructed on the basis of the material collected in the main sections of this chapter:  (a) the connection between self and other, (b) the relation between emotion and reason, and (c) the relation between conscious (explicit) and nonconscious (implicit). he foundation of the model is in the idea that there is no self and a separate other but rather self with other (even if self and other are antagonistic), not reason above emotion but rather reason with emotion, and not conscious above nonconscious but rather conscious with nonconscious. In this way the model acknowledges that the polar opposites need each other and are interconnected at the same time. As we have seen in this chapter, it is the culturally long neglected and underestimated right hemisphere that is primarily responsible for these connections. As a corrective response to this underestimation, the model acknowledges the polar opposites as equivalent contributors to the functioning of self and society. hey are considered as pairs of mutually complementing and interconnected components rather than separate systems. Certainly, there are situations in which the other is a “hell” for the self: emotions can be so explosive that reason is blown away like paper work, and reason can become so cold and lifeless so that it functions like a rational machinery. Likewise, conscious levels may be, but not necessarily are, unaware of Conscious position

Emotional position

Reasoning position

Meta-position promoter position

Nonconscious position

Figure 4.4. Types of positions in self, team, and organization. Courtesy of Gerhard Frensel

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both the Jungian “jewelry” and Freudian “dirt” hidden in the underground spaces of the self. he model fully acknowledges these processes and provides a basis for their investigation. However, it should be clear that in its foundation it is a with model and not a versus model, and as a relational construction it pretends to function as a basis for the enrichment of personal, social, and societal relationships. As a with model it also allows positioning and counter-positioning relationships. People may position themselves toward others and themselves in emotional and reasoning ways, as well as in conscious and nonconscious ways.25 My purpose in this section is to briely clarify the model as a starting point for more elaborate explorations in the following chapters. For now it suices to consider the main parts of the model and their interconnections. Actually, it is a further elaboration of the same model (Figures 2.4 and 3.1). he present version adds an important dimension to the earlier ones: it includes a limited amount of basic forms of positioning as suggested by neuroscientiic evidence discussed in the preceding parts of this chapter.

Communication Channels in the Network of Positions Imagine Figure 4.4 as representing diferent types of I-positions in the self. Basically, the self can position itself toward others in various ways: becoming emotional or using one’s reason, it may experience a conlict or a conluence among them. Furthermore, one can interact with others in a way that conscious (explicit) positioning is congruent with nonconscious (implicit) or incongruent. Here the model proits from its lexible and dynamic character. Between positions there are communication channels that may become to various degrees open or closed and permit one-way or two-way communication via verbal and nonverbal signs. When the channels are open and two-way, two or more positions may move toward each other and create forms of cooperation or coalitions.

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I prefer the term “reason” above “cognition” because the meaning of the later term is more ambiguous in the literature as it is sometimes used to refer also to nonconscious cognitions or “hot” cognitions, while the former term, certainly in the verb “reasoning,” is more suitable to denote conscious, explicit, verbal, and deliberative processes enabling the self to argue, analyze, compare, deduce, weigh pro’s and contra’s, and draw logical conclusions. I also prefer “reason” above “ratio” and “rationality” because “reason” is more open to, but not identical with, forms of emotional sensing and intuitive insight and thus particularly suitable as part of a with model. Moreover, I prefer the term “nonconscious” above “unconscious” as the later term has strong connotations, particularly in the psychoanalytic tradition, with “repressed emotions.” In the case of repression, there are apparently one or more conscious or less conscious (moral) I-positions that prevent other (undesirable) positions to rise to conscious levels. Typically, such blocking I-positions shut communication channels with nonconscious forms of positioning. Diferently, the term “nonconscious” allows the possibility of communication channels to be open or closed and, as a consequence, positions to be accessible or inaccessible.

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Or the communication channels become shut or the distance between the positions increases to a point that they become alienated from each other and lack any further contact. For example, in the case of prejudice or discrimination, the emotional positioning toward another person or group may take place entirely on nonconscious levels, as we have seen in the studies on prejudice and selffulilling prophecies. In that case the emotional position is close to a nonconscious position and may even coincide with it. Contrastingly, I may feel a strong anger toward another person and I know very well why. In that case the communication channels between the emotional and conscious position are open and they may move toward each other. Or there may be a “split” between my emotional and my reasoning position. For example, I typically position myself to others in rational ways, but suddenly and unexpectedly I become very emotional and I do not know why. Or, to give a contrasting example, I am particularly motivated to become engaged in a project or relationship when it is supported by my emotions and feelings and fed by my reasoning at the same time: I have many reasons, arguments, and considerations in support of my emotional atraction. Altogether, I  hypothesize that decision-making is most productive, imaginative, and creative when the communication channels between all types of positions are open and permit a multiplicity of interchanges so that productive coalitions may emerge. Motivation also is optimal when it is supported by all four sources of energy, particularly when they, like rivers coming from diferent sides, low together in a powerful stream. Place and Function of the Meta-Position

his brings us to the particular place of the meta-position in the model. In its use of difuse forms of atention, it communicates primarily with nonconscious positions, enabling a broad picture view that proits from intuitive insights. In cooperation with conscious and reasoning forms of positioning, these insights may be interrogated and further developed in the form of explicit questioning, inspection, exploration, comparison, deliberation, and correction. In its use of focused forms of atention the meta-position has open communication channels with the reasoning position, building up overview and long-term plans via serial, step-by-step procedures. While the focused meta-position is primarily guided by serial operations, the difuse meta-position processes information in parallel ways. he meta-position also allows to make a distinction between emotions and feelings. As we have seen earlier in this chapter, emotional positions are transient and situation-bound while feelings, as emerging from emotions, are more long-term and cross-situational. herefore, I  suppose that emotions develop into trans-situational feelings via the long-term function of the meta-position,

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particularly in its connections with the nonconscious levels of the self. In this way, many moments of short-term enjoyment, pleasure, oten in combination with moments of sadness and disappointment, may together transform into long-term love. Experiences of enthusiasm and excitement, oten in combination with moments of failure and even despair, may conluence in long-term dedication (e.g., to art, science, protection of nature, or the well-being of others).

he Position of the Other Where are other people placed in this model? As others-in-the-self they are located in the external domain of each position represented by the outer circles of each position. For example, I notice that I have quite an emotional, even passionate contact with my lover but with my colleague John I have oten long discussions in which we disagree on our plans. In these cases, I as loving (located in the internal domain of the emotional position) feel connected with my lover (located in the external domain of the emotional position) also when she is not physically present. In my contact with John, I position myself as strongly disagreeing (located in the internal domain of the reasoning position) with him as a diicult opponent (located in the external domain of the reasoning position). Note that the positions in the model are types, implying that there may exist many speciic ways of positioning that belong to each of these positions. However, one might object that these positions just refer to one self, let alone with one’s thoughts and feelings, even when having others in mind and having imaginations about them. Where are the real others? herefore, imagine the model as representing member positions in a team involved in interaction (Figure 3.1). Suppose that most team members ind themselves in the position of “follower,” engaged in a form of groupthink and conirming each other in their current opinions. Suddenly, one of the members, the opposer, expresses confusion and doubt about what is said and starts to question the majority view, without seeing the implications of his remarks. he leader (central circle), sensitive not only to the words but also to the intonations and body language of her colleagues, asks him to clarify. hen it appears that this member expresses a deviant view that pushes the discussion in the team into another, unexpected direction that, possibly, addresses the less conscious layers of the self of the other members. In other words, the circles in Figure 4.4 can be seen as representing not only ive positions in the self but also, at the same time, ive membership positions in a team, group, or organization. In this way, the model can be used as “spectacles” to look at the linkages between personal, social, and societal levels of positioning in diferent ways than usual. When the model is applied in a lexible and dynamic way, it provides a multilevel picture that contributes to liberating the self from any isolated individuality.

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he “leading” function of the meta-position, in its capacity of allowing a broader picture view, returns at the level of team and organization in the position of the actual leader who has an overview of the speciic membership positions in the past, present, and future of the team or organization and has a central, but not exclusive, role to play in decision-making. he central circle also represents the promoter position as closely linked to the meta-position. As extensively discussed in chapters 2 and 3, the promoter has an integrative function and is the “motor” in developing existing positions, creating new positions and giving direction to self (team or organization) as a whole.26

Intuition as Communication Between Positions he important notion of intuition needs some more atention. As we have seen in this chapter, intuition showed up in the form of body-based emotional intuition as part of Damasio’s (1994) somatic marker hypothesis. It appeared also as quick, automatic, emotional-intuitive judgment in Haidt’s (2001) social intuitionist model of morality. As these literatures suggest, intuition may emerge from a combination of emotional and nonconscious positions. In a somewhat diferent fashion, Schore (2012) sees intuition as way of “accessing large banks of implicit knowledge formed from unarticulated person-environment exchanges. . . . It operates on a non-verbal level, with litle efort, deliberation, or conscious awareness” (p. 122). Taking these literatures together, I assume that intuition may emerge from an open communication between emotional, nonconscious, and emerging conscious positions.

Boundaries, Power Distance, and Emotional Distance he communication is ideally two-way, but it becomes one-way when, for example, a conscious position is not able to get in touch with a nonconscious one or when an emotional position tries but fails to communicate with a more reasoning one. Communication becomes one-way also when one of the positions becomes dominant over the other, not giving the other one the opportunity to express its speciic experience or point of view. he communication channels allow the positions to clash, conlict, oppose, and cooperate. While the communication between the more conscious positions is primarily on the verbal level, the less conscious levels make use of nonverbal signs. As Mehrabian (1971) and 26 I am aware of the fact that the notion of “promoter” has not received much discussion in the present chapter. As a relatively new concept in psychology, its neuroscientiic implications need further scrutiny. However, it is so closely related to the notion of meta-position that I expect that its representation in the brain is not essentially diferent from that of the meta-position.

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numerous other authors have suggested, the verbal and nonverbal interactions may be congruent allowing body-based and authentic communication, but they can also be discrepant and produce confusing messages when it is not clear whether the communication channels are open or closed. Such communication lead then to “spongy” positions (discussed in chapter 2). he communication lines represent, at the same time, power and emotional distances. When the self-system is primarily under the inluence of a strong feeling (e.g., “I as addicted,” “I as revengeful,” or “I as embitered”), this position may become so dominant in the self-system that it overrules, temporarily or more permanently, all other positions, including the reasoning ones. Ideally, meta-positions and associated promoters have an optimal power distance from other positions in the self when it comes to taking decisions in the service of long-term development. Note that the power distance is lexible (see chapters 2 and 3). In some situations—requiring self-control or self-command—a larger power distance is necessary (e.g., “I as forbidding myself to eat or drink more”), in other situations—inviting me to be permissive toward myself—the distance is reduced (e.g., “I permit myself to take a day of ater a period of intense working”). In a societal context, a larger power distance is needed in crisis situations and in circumstances in which quick decisions are necessary (chapter 3). he emotional distance between positions can also vary in lexible ways. In one of the experiments discussed earlier (Word et  al., 1974), interviewers changed their physical distance, relecting variations in emotional distance, a process taking place on nonconscious levels. In similar ways, societal categories (e.g., age, class, race, sexual orientation, and gender) may cause people to increase or decrease their distances toward representatives of these categories in nonconscious ways (compare also Cunningham and colleagues’ [2004] research on black faces earlier in this chapter). Becoming aware of such spontaneous variations has the potential of correcting these variations (see Dehaene & Naccache’s [2001] model of interaction between conscious and nonconscious levels) and, along these lines, contribute to a more democratic organization of the self. An optimal emotional distance is contingent on the demands of the situation. In some interactions a close distance is optimal (e.g., in an intimate relationship or friendship), whereas other interactions require more distance (e.g., professor– student, judge–suspect, or employer–employee). Variations and changes in power distance, emotional distance, frequency and intensity of communication, two- or one-way communication, and opening or closing boundaries of positions all depend on the nature of the situation and the way this situation is interpreted by the participants on the basis of their personal and collective history and culture. For dialogical processes among people of diferent social and societal categories to take place, an open communication between conscious and nonconscious positions in the self is required (for elaboration, see chapter 7).

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In the inal part of this chapter I dwell briely on some practical implications of the presented model for leadership as one of the central topics in this book. At the same time, this part brings together some of the insights presented in chapters 2, 3, and 4 by linking self, team, and leadership.

Some Practical Implications for Leadership In the past chapters I have focused oten on the nature of leadership. I did so not only because productive leadership is paramount in a (globalizing) society but also because leadership is essential to a well-developed self. I did so in the conviction that in a society that embraces democratic principles and relational forms of autonomy,27 the self is ultimately the leader of itself. Such a leadership requires, in my view, a luent cooperation between diferent and opposite types of positions. Elaborating on this consideration I dwell briely on the cooperation between the two hemispheres as needed for efective leadership in teams and society. In the presented model, I have tried to create communication lines between self and society: cooperation between the diferent and opposite member positions in a team or organization (chapter 3) requires intense linkages between diferent and opposite positions in the self (chapter 2). In terms of the presented model, emotional and reasoning positions, like conscious and nonconscious positions, need to pay atention not only to diferences and opposites between people but also and at the same time to diferences and opposites within the self. In order to understand another person and cooperate with him or her in a productive way, we need to recognize at least something of that other person in our own self. An essential feature of the model is that it allows and stimulates open pathways between the levels of self, team, and organization. It does so by generating concepts (e.g., promoter, meta-position, power distance, communication channels, and others) that are applicable at diferent levels at the same time. My proposal of the self as a dynamic multiplicity of I-positions involved in mutual communication inds its parallel in sets of multiple, interactive networks of brain regions, labeled as “hubs.” Van den Heuvel and Sporns (2011) consider the human brain as a complex network of interlinked regions and assume the existence of highly connected and highly central neocortical hub regions that play a 27

For a discussion of relational autonomy, see Baumann (2008) who proposes interpreting autonomy, understood as self-government, not along the lines of a substantively independent, Cartesian self but in a more relational way. See also MacKenzie and Stoljar (2000) who draw on feminist critiques of autonomy and discuss the notion of “relational autonomy” with the intention to challenge and enrich contemporary philosophical debates about agency, identity, and moral responsibility. From a social-constructionist perspective, Gergen (2009) has proposed transforming the closed autonomy of the “bounded self ” into a conception of “relational being.” For a treatise on the “relational self ” see Anderson and Chen (2002).

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key role in global information integration between diferent parts of the network. So-called rich hubs exist when the hubs of a network are more densely connected among themselves than nodes of a lower degree. For my proposal of the self as a society of I-positions (and subpositions), the researchers’ analogy with social systems is worth mentioning. he name “rich hub” arises from the analogy with social systems, where highly central individuals, or leaders, being “rich” in connection, oten form a highly interconnected club. Although far from sure, the idea of rich hubs may ind its analogy in the existence of meta-positions and promoter positions in the present theory. For a review of studies on the functional and structural connectivity of the brain, see also Damoiseaux and Greicius (2009). Building on the idea of interactive networks of brain regions, I see decisionmaking and, more broadly, functioning in a border-crossing, globalizing world as requiring a dialogical self that is able to balance emotion and reason and to create communication channels between conscious and less conscious levels. I consider the development of such a self, thanks to its diversity of opposite Ipositions, their internal communication, and the capacity to communicate with the I-positions of other people, as a necessary condition for dealing with the uncertainties and ambiguities of our time (Hermans & Hermans-Konopka, 2010; see also chapter 8). here is one aspect in the model that refers indirectly to dealing with uncertainty and ambiguity as a challenge to self and society. he lines between the circles run not only from the central leadership position to the speciic positions and back but also between the speciic positions mutually. his is to stress that the leadership position, including its meta-perspective, cannot know everything and is therefore not purely centralized and hierarchical. It needs a free-loating contact between a great diversity of speciic, more specialized positions in interaction with each other as a fertile soil for creativity, imagination, planning, and the emergence of ideas coming from less conscious levels and from unexpected corners in the self, team, or organization. Leadership positions can function in efective and imaginative ways only if they are open to the inputs of the decentralized multiplicity of speciic positions. Open communication lines between all these positions are needed for the emergence and realization of a “collective intelligence.”

Summary In this chapter, I tried to demonstrate how the brain, as the neurological basis of the self, is composed of diferent and even opposite parts. At the same time, I emphasized that these parts function as closely interconnected networks and interactional regions. With Decety and Sommerville (2003) I explained that the brain contains a common representation network relating self and other: one can understand the self only via the other and the other via the self. his predominantly right hemisphere based network does not function as a single module

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but as a collection of interconnected regions that are essential for the subjective experience of a self-with-other. he interaction between reason and emotion is well summarized by Keltner and Horberg’s (2014) review, which demonstrated that 25  years of empirical research on the interplay of emotion and cognition lead to the conclusion that the dualistic perspective has to be replaced by an interaction perspective. hat is, reason needs emotion and emotion needs reason. he close interconnection between the conscious and nonconscious was well articulated by Dehaene and Naccache’s (2001) work on the existence of a “global workspace” in the brain. At any point in time, many modular cerebral networks are functioning in parallel and process information in an unconscious manner. However, information becomes conscious if the neural region that represents it is mobilized by top-down atentional ampliication. Relevant to dialogical relationship is the inding that the use of language is particularly facilitating atentional ampliication (Kolk, 2012). he functioning of the brain as a network is also expressed by the existence of so-called hubs: multiple, interactive networks of brain regions. Van den Heuvel and Sporns (2011) consider the human brain as a complex network of interlinked regions and assume the existence of a number of highly connected and highly central neocortical hub regions that play a key role in global information integration between diferent parts of the network. Recent developments in brain sciences and social psychology led to the proposal of a model—self with other, reason with emotion, and conscious with nonconscious—that allows the distinction of basic types of positioning. Emotional and reasoning positions, like conscious and nonconscious positions, are considered as mutually complementing and closely connected opposites in both self and other. herefore, the communication channels in the model are of crucial importance as their features and qualities determine whether the positions are involved in competition or cooperation, generate conlict or harmony, suppress or support each other, and create coalitions or retreat in isolation. Finally, the cultural dimension of brain functioning was discussed with reference to the work of McGilchrist (2009), Sperry (1975), and Barret (2012). hey have in common that Western approaches to the brain are culturally relative with the implication that some parts of the brain are more active and, by consequence, more dominant in the self than other ones. Apparently, the brain does not function in isolation of social and cultural context. We need bridging theories that permit to move up and down between the biological, social, and cultural. herefore, the communication between positions, their relative dominance, and their cultural and societal “exaggeration” are central in the next chapter.

5

Social and Societal Over-Positioning he Emergence of I-Prisons he very design of neoliberal principles is a direct atack on democracy —Noam Chomsky

When thinking about the question what “positioning” essentially is, I became more and more aware that it is a spatial-relational process, implying that it is a movement. Rather than a ixed idea or atitude, it moves toward, away from, or against someone or something. Observing the process of positioning on the interface of self and society, I realized that all forms of positioning imply their superlative, their magniication, and their aggrandizement up to the point of over-positioning, not very diferent from the notion of hubris in Greek philosophy. In terms of a traic metaphor, movement can go into “overdrive” as many positions, maybe eventually all of them, have the inherent tendency to continue their movement in the same direction, to accelerate their speed, or to exaggerate their original impulse. Over-positioning occurs when there is no stop sign, no traic indication, that guides the self to an alternative route and when there is no navigation system available to provide an overview with a broader scope. While defending, expanding, protecting, dominating, and bonding may serve as adequate ways of responding to the needs of the self and the demands of the situation, becoming overly defensive, expanding, protective, dominating, or bonding represent qualitative changes of the original impulse. hese qualitative modiications follow from the disturbance of the original balance within the broader self-system in combination with the fact that forms of over-positioning in the self receive answers from the outside world that are insuicient to correct the original impulse. As I detail in this chapter, over-positioning occurs when there is insuicient counterweight in the form of appropriate counter-positions. he oten unintended but deleterious efect of the process of over-positioning is that it blocks

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two-way communication between this position and other positions in the self. he positions receive “blinkers” that constrain the breadth of view so that they are no longer corrected or changed by other positions. Moreover, this restricted, even rigid, view reduces the lexibility of the self to move from one position to a diferent one. his limits the possibility of looking at the complexity of personal, social, and societal realities from diferent angles and from a broad picture view, a capacity indispensable in a boundary-crossing globalizing society. When the process of over-positioning continues to move, consciously or nonconsciously, in the same direction, with the simultaneous disregard of other positions, the communication channels become closed and the system inally arrives into an I-prison. Ultimately, the side roads get blocked and traic is brought to a standstill. Paradoxically, over-positioning may result in under-positioning. My purpose in this chapter is to explore the nature of the process of overpositioning as it becomes manifest in social and societal contexts. On the social level, I atempt to demonstrate how and under which conditions over-positioning impedes open relationships between self and other in family relationships. In a broader societal context, I compare communism and neo-liberalism and detail how each of them has led to speciic forms of over-positioning and how they have created their own I-prisons. At the same time, I explore the reverberations these political systems have on the level of the self and—central in the present book—which answers the self can give to restrictions posed by political and societal magniications. he emphasis in this chapter is on the implications of the neo-liberal society for the organization of the self as processes of economizing, marketing, and commodiication are increasingly iniltrating other spheres in society and other I-positions in the self. In that context I elaborate on some recent processes that exemplify the far-reaching implications of neo-liberalism for identity formation: the emergence of an “entrepreneurial self,” a “consumer self,” the shadow sides of the American dream, and the “empty self ” as expressions of a society that is subjected to a process of over-positioning economical thinking. he discussion of these phenomena in the light of the positioning model inally leads to the articulation of the potentials of the self to give alternative responses to the homogenizing inluence of marketization and commodiication.

Over-Positioning in Social Contexts In order to properly understand the notion of over-positioning, insight into its dynamic character is needed. his dynamic nature may be invisible as long as we continue to characterize others and ourselves in terms of static traits, without any doubt the most “popular” way of placing others and ourselves in

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communicable categories. By doing so, in self-evident ways, we tend to forget that virtually every positively evaluated trait has an implied shadow side that can or could, under particular circumstances, turn into its negative “overdrive.” Gergen (2009, p. 16) provides some telling examples of such shadows in the language of everyday life: strong character (rigid), brave (foolish), sweet (saccharine), thrity (tight), knowledgeable (know-it-all), articulate (bull-shiter), convincing (con artist), highly motivated (frantic), faithful (conventional), spiritual (laky), thoughtful (indecisive), accepting (gullible), and optimistic (unrealistic). he commonality in these examples is that traits that are generally considered as acceptable and adaptive in a particular community of people have the inherent tendency to turn into unacceptable and maladaptive atributes in their exaggeration. here is a problem with traits, including their shadows, when they are used in ways that do not take into account the nature of the situation or the speciicities of the person or group to which they are applied. In everyday life, traits are typically applied in order to classify or characterize persons or groups as entities “in themselves” (“He is foolish”; “I am cooperative”). Employed in this way, they do not take into account the nature of the situation and the speciics of the social interaction. Actually, this interaction is quite decisive in the way traits are selected and atributed in particular situations. A teacher in a school with a tradition of hierarchical relationships will judge a pupil as “obedient,” while the students in turn consider the teacher “strict.” he reversed is quite improbable and even “strange” in this situation: the student seeing his teacher as “obedient” and the teacher her student as “strict.” When traits are used to characterize forms of over-positioning (e.g., “he teacher is a slave-driver”), we arrive at a similar problem: we do not know if the trait or characterization applies to all interactions, to some, or to one type of interaction only (the strict teacher may act like a “slave-driver” in class but as a “soty” at home). In other words, traits and their exaggeration are not very informative when the situation and the interaction between participants is not taken into account. Next I describe a research example of over-positioning in which both the situation and the kind of interaction is made explicit. I give this example with the intention of outlining what I mean by the concept of over-positioning before placing it in a broader societal context.

Pushy Parents and the Problem of Over-Positioning In a developmental study, Oudekerk, Allen, Hessel, and Molloy (2014) invited 13-year-olds to ill out multiple surveys about the behavior of their parents. One of them was used to assess how oten their parents employed psychologically controlling tactics, such as threatening to withdraw afection

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or inducing guilt. he children rated, for example, how typical it would be for father to suggest that “if I really cared for him, I would not do things that caused him to worry” or for mother to become “less friendly [when] I did not see things her way.” he researchers did a follow-up study when the subjects were at ages 18 and 21. In this part of the study, they asked the young adults to bring along a close friend and, later, a romantic partner if they had one. hese pairs were then asked to answer and discuss a number of questions that were purposefully writen to provoke a diference of opinion. his design enabled the researchers to see how their subjects were navigating disagreement.1 It appeared that the 13-year-olds who had highly controlling parents loundered when they disagreed with their friends at age 18. hey failed to articulate their opinions in a conident, reasoned manner in comparison to the children without over-controlling parents. Moreover, when they were speaking up, they oten had diiculty expressing themselves in warm and productive ways. Apparently, this research shows how earlier parent–child relationship paterns “carry forward” into later friendships. he researchers assume that when parents have a manipulative style of interaction, they undermine their child’s ability to argue about their viewpoints in other relationships at some later point in time. From an educational perspective, parents have reasons to set boundaries on the behavior of their children. However, as these indings suggests, domineering tactics imply the message that any disagreement will damage the bond itself. Related evidence in this research project suggests that parents who explain the reasons behind their rules and demonstrate how to turn disagreements into conversations leave youngsters beter prepared for future disputes (Oudekerk, Allen, Hessel, & Molloy, 2014; Yuhas, 2014). How can these indings be understood from the perspective of the reasonwith-emotion model presented in the previous chapter? Parents position themselves as educators who set boundaries in the contact with their children. However, as this research project shows, some of them go further than seting boundaries. hey become “pushy” as a form of over-positioning, which has an efect on the children’s behavior later. Apparently, the original positioning of the parents toward their children inluences the later positioning of the children toward their friends in a situation of disagreement. Disagreement with another person, more than agreement, requires a ine-tuned communication between reason and emotion within the self. How can I articulate my own position and, at the same time, create space for the position of the other without my emotion becoming dominant over my reason? When I become overly defensive on emotional grounds, the boundaries of my position become closed so that the 1

For the relevance of disagreement in the context of (dissonant) dialogue, see chapter 7.

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communication channels between self and other become restricted. As a result, the other feels that their position is not suiciently taken into account and, in order to defend their own position, becomes more defensive or pushy, which further atenuates the communication channels. When this emotional escalation continues, both interaction partners feel misunderstood, unheard, or angry, and, as a result, the emotional distance between them increases and their contact becomes colder. It is like knocking harder and harder at closed doors and inally giving up. What is needed to keep the communication channels open in the case of disagreement, particularly in those instances where one’s own impulse tends to overpower the viewpoint of the other? In order to answer this question, we have to go back to the research on theory of mind (ToM: the ability to know what happens in another’s mind) as discussed in the previous chapter. It appeared that the close connection of ToM and inhibitory control is essential for the development of a dialogical capacity that requires the ability to gain access to the positions of the other and to communicate with the other via open communication channels between reason and emotion (Figure 4.4). he ability to inhibit and suspend one’s immediate, automatic, emotional, and habitual impulses allows an open space to emerge in which a diversity of I-positions of self and other have a chance to be become expressed and developed. When in a situation of disagreement, emotion continues to dominate reason, and this occurs in the self of both interaction partners, emotional escalation will inally close the communication channels. When, on the contrary, reason dominates the interaction in the form of “cold ratio” with no space for the emotional component, the communication channels become shut as well, because emotions need not only expression and communication but even are necessary for giving direction to reason and decision-making. I refer here to chapter 4 where the somatic marker hypothesis was discussed as referring to body-based emotional intuitions that guide decision-making and regulate behavior more in general. hese considerations lead to the conclusion that emotion without reason entails the risk of escalation as a form of emotional over-positioning, while reason without emotion may result in rational over-positioning that lacks sensitivity to the afective domain. In other words, emotion and reason need each other in order to keep the communication channels open so that there is space enough for both positions to contribute to mutual understanding and multivoiced decision-making, in agreement with the emotion-with-reason model as presented in the previous chapter. As a necessary capacity for a balanced emotion-reason dialogue, inhibitory control is part of a more complex process that requires the self to listen not only to the other but also to its own emotion and feelings and make productive use of them in both agreement and disagreement with others. As Greenberg (2002) has argued, emotions oten point to problems that need to be solved by reason.

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he equivalence and cooperation of reason and emotion produces a more democratic self, and, as lourishing on that fertile ground, it obtains efective and creative problem-solving as its harvest. When over-positioning creates problems in the eiciency and luency of communication both within the self and between diferent selves, what then can be said about under-positioning? Does this exist, and, if so, in which form?

Depression and the Problem of Under-Positioning Depression serves as a prominent example of under-positioning. In an analysis of this dysfunction, Lovejoy and colleagues (2000) compared the results of 46 observational studies to assess the strength of the association between depression and parenting behavior. he parenting behaviors chosen for investigation were assumed to relect the afective, cognitive, and physical symptoms that characterize depression: sad mood; loss of interest; low energy; fatigue; poor concentration; feelings of self-reproach; changes in appetite, motor activity, or sleep paterns; and suicidal thoughts. For our purposes, the interaction between parents and children, as reported in Lovejoy, Graczyk, O’Hare, and Neuman’s (2000) study, is particularly relevant. Many studies show that depressed mothers are less responsive to child behavior, communicate less efectively, demonstrate lower synchrony with their infants, and have fewer positive interactions with them. For a proper understanding of these results, the authors add that the association between depression and child adjustment problems is not necessarily causal as child behavior problems could contribute to the development of maternal depression. he authors portray depressed parents as exhibiting behavioral deicits, such as having diiculties atending to a child’s needs, responding efectively, and maintaining high levels of involvement. Depressed mothers may be emotionally unavailable to their children and withdrawn to the extent that they may be less sensitive to them. Many of the characteristics associated with depression, such as anxiety, rumination, and irritability, relect the parenting diiculties of depressed mothers and have been proposed as possible contributors to dysfunctional parent–child interactions. Parental depression is also manifest on the emotional level, the authors continue. Positive emotions (i.e., energy, enthusiasm, and engagement) are reduced and negative emotions (i.e., distress, irritation, and anger) increased. Interestingly enough, depressed parents are not only engaged in under-positioning ways with their children but also in over-positioning behaviors. Lovejoy and colleagues (2000) ind that many depressed mothers display higher levels of hostile and coercive behaviors toward children of all ages (as forms of over-positioning not very diferent from the pushy parents of the study of Oudekerk and colleagues

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[2014]). On this basis, the authors make a distinction between two kinds of parental behavior, which they denote as “negative behavior” (e.g., irritability, hostility, and coercion) and “disengagement” (e.g., withdrawal, lack of sensitivity, loss of interest). Overall, they ind that the association between depression and parenting is strongest for negative maternal behavior and less strong for disengagement from the child. Taken together, depression studies suggest that parental behavior may take the form of under-positioning or over-positioning and that they both have deleterious efects on the child in the sense that they increase the emotional distance between parents and children and atenuate their communication channels. Like the study of Oudekerk and colleagues (2014) on pushy parents, the depression studies ofer some support for the validity of these concepts on the empirical level. Summarizing, in this opening part of the present chapter it was my purpose to introduce the concepts of over- and under-positioning and to demonstrate their relevance and applicability at both psychological, social, and developmental levels. I referred to a study of over-controlling parents as demonstrating the efects of over-positioning and to parental depression as a manifestation of under-positioning with atention to their impact on the interaction with children. hese examples demonstrate that both over-positioning and underpositioning have the deleterious efect of increasing the emotional distance between the positions of participants and narrowing their communication channels. However, my main concern in this chapter is about the way over-positioning (and under-positioning) function on the societal level and about the way this level is linked to processes taking place in the self. In line with chapter 1 in which I argued that society, including the other, is not simply a reality outside but penetrating, iniltrating, and organizing the self in its depth, in the following part of this chapter I move from psychological and one-to-one social processes to larger societal structures. My intention is to explore the ways in which societal structures and processes are relected in the organization of the self and also, at the end of the chapter, to answer the question: What are the possible answers of the self to the over-positioning nature of these structures and processes? Along these lines I link self and society in such a way that it becomes clear that societal systems, in their bias and one-sidedness, create forms of over-positioning that carry the risk that the self ends up in an overly restricted metaphorical space labeled as “I-prison.” In the following segment it is my purpose to compare, from the perspective of the present theory, two socioeconomic systems, communism as the ideological foundation of the former Soviet Union and the neo-liberal version of present-day capitalism. As a broad discussion of these systems would far exceed

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the limits of this book, I focus on the question of what inluence these systems have on the relationship between self and other, a relationship that is central in the present book. I show that the two systems have very diferent and even conlicting perspectives on this relationship but are similar in their over-positioning tendencies. In essence my thesis is that communism in its Soviet version, by embracing the principle of other above self (or the community above the individual), results in a form of over-positioning that inhibits personal initiative and development. On the other hand, neo-liberalism, based on the principle of self above other (or the individual as prevalent over the community), produces forms of over-positioning, such as individualism and increasing distance between self and other, that have deleterious consequences for the organization of the self as well. I argue that the two systems, in their over-positioning tendencies, have the implication of limiting and reducing the range of possible positions in the self and, in more extreme cases, resulting in the formation of I-prisons. Note that it is not my purpose to “choose” in any way between these systems. I also do not want to present myself either as a “champion of criticism” or as a “culture pessimist.” It is just my intention to analyze and compare these systems in terms of the self-with-other model proposed in this book and to answer the question of what we can learn from such comparison. In particular, I demonstrate how and why the two systems produce forms of over-positioning and what the consequences of these societal processes for the functioning of the self are. Finally, I  explore which potentials the self has available to give adequate responses to an over-positioning society and how it can break through the walls of its imprisoning constraints.

Communism: Other Above Self in a Societal Context In my description of some of the implications of the communist system, I borrow from an insightful analysis by Mati Heidmets (1995), a professor of social psychology at the Talinn University in Estonia. As we will see in this section, he gives illustrative examples of the implications of a socioeconomic ideology that emphasizes the value of the community at the expense of the freedom of the individual. In Heidmets’ (1995) view, the foremost principle in the communist model is that the “social good” is superior to individual fulillment. It believes that the “social” is more important for the development of society than the “individual,” that this sociality has been fundamental throughout human history, and that it will remain so in humanity’s common future. A practical implication of this conceptualization is that individual needs, goals, and actions are subordinated to social needs and that economic and political goals are deined by politicians and

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bureaucrats as state authorities. In this model, the individual is not the only subordinated element. Intermediate social units like families, neighborhoods, and communities are also considered as less important than the good of the society as a whole as deined by the state. he subjugation of individual agency to the power of the state has even been reinforced by more subtle means. All domains of public life—the mass media, education, even housing—were employed as instruments to channel personal motivation in the service of the social good as proclaimed by the state. Next we take a closer look at the way Heidmets portrays the housing policy of the communist system, as space, spatial distances, and spatial conigurations are key notions in the present theory.

Soviet Housing Policy During the irst two decades of Soviet rule, the authorities viewed the development of a physical environment appropriate for the new lifestyle as an urgent problem.2 Housing, in particular, should relect the new relationship between individual and society and, moreover, should be organized in such a way that it stimulates the new social order. Six principles were adopted as the basis for living in communes. First, housing should be collective and living privately should be abolished. Ideally, thousands of people would share the same place of residence. Second, within housing units communal spaces should predominate. Private space would be kept at a minimum, with private bedrooms limited to 6 to 10 square meters. hird, the commune itself should have large spaces for shared activities including facilities for residents to eat, wash, read, and play together. Fourth, child care should also be communal. Children would live in dormitories, where they would be supervised by specialists. Within the commune there would be child-care centers and schools where they would play and study together. Only during communal leisure time activities would they see their parents. Fith, housing should be egalitarian: the type of accommodation is the same for all families. Finally, ownership of housing is collective. Housing would be arranged by the state and given to, not chosen by, the residents who would become collective owners. As this housing plan demonstrates, communal housing illustrates the materialization of the communist ideology: the subordination of the individual and family life to the supremacy of the commune, the 2 From an economic point of view, China is a “mixed” or “hybrid” society, because it is neither a communist nor a capitalist economy. Despite the rapid growth of the private capitalist sector and the strengthening of market forces, the state still exercises considerable political and economic power (Walsh, 2008). In the present discussion, I leave China’s communism aside, as it is my purpose to compare the Soviet communist system with the strongly contrasting neo-liberal capitalist system as I am interested in the process of over-positioning and its implications for the self.

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“liberation” of children from their parents, and the standardization and limitation of individual consumption of goods and services. Group interdependence became the norm. Heidmets (1995) adds that actually only a few communes of the ideal described here were built before World War II. However, ater the war a modiied version of the collectivist housing program was realized. he ideology of communal living led to the construction of enormous high-rise apartment complexes throughout the Soviet Union during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. However, the original plans of the communist authorities never totally erased the struggle between the motivation for personal expression and identity and the state’s purpose of promoting standardized lifestyles. he outcome of this struggle was oten a compromise, as illustrated by the change of housing policy from “pure” communes to a kind of semi-communal living. he Soviet housing policy is just one example of the basic principle of the community above the individual. It is well known that political, economic, and public life were organized on the basis of the same principle. Although the system sufered from the loss of freedom and individual identity, it was not without social advantages. In spite of the almost unlimited power of the state and the party, people obtained a sense of social support, a state guarantee for the provision of their basic physical needs, and a belief in a predictable, relatively secure future. Although there was no free press and no McDonald’s around the corner, employment and housing were guaranteed and there was even plenty of Russian ice cream. An important, perhaps even crucial, factor in building this collective identity, Heidmets (1995) observes, was a strong, oicially cultivated opposition to the rest of the world. When one’s personal livelihood is so clearly connected with, and dependent on, the welfare of the society as a whole, then it is easy to fear the threat coming from those who not only are outside that community but also challenge its goodness and moral superiority. In terms of the present theory, the Soviet regime actively fostered a collective anti-position, as a shared opposition to the strange and threatening outsider who could undermine the acquired collective identity.3 Not surprisingly, most Soviets accepted the former regime and many today look back, with nostalgic feelings, to the former Soviet era. he beneits bestowed by the state, in combination with the strong division between “us” and “them,” fostered a “we-position” that let many

3 In the post–World War II period, when in communistic Poland there was some space for private enterprises, entrepreneurs were oten disdainfully labeled as prywaciaz, a pejorative name for a person who had a private company. Sometimes products that were brought from abroad were seen as coming from countries of “roten capitalism.” Such terms relected the existence of anti-positions in large parts of the population (personal communication, Agnieszka Konopka, March, 2015).

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former Soviets in a state of confusion in the new ordering of relations between individual and society.

he Transformation of Critical Positions into Anti-Positions in a Totalitarian Society he “us” versus “them” opposition in the Soviet society requires a distinction between “anti-positions” and “counter-positions.” An anti-position refers to an explicit or implicit stance against another position, and it typically increases, temporarily or more permanently, the emotional distance from the other position. It is also typical of situations of large power distance between the powerful and the powerless, particularly in societies in which egalitarian needs are prevalent. An anti-position is to be distinguished from a counter-position that is not necessarily of an oppositional nature but refers to a broader array of answers to other positions from a diferent stance. Not only a critical stance or voice but also a supporting or complementing one can serve as a counter-position. A counterposition does not necessarily imply an increase of the emotional or power distance and in some cases can even decrease it (e.g., a creative discussion). Not surprisingly, the totalitarian regime of the communist system has created its own internal anti-positions in the form of the so-called dissidents, citizens of the Soviet Union who disagreed with the politics of the communist government and party. As a result of their protest, they faced harassment, persecution, exile, imprisonment, or death by the actions of the KGB or other Soviet government agencies. he intimidation of opponents continued under the regime of Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev in the form of censorship, arrests, harassment, imprisonment, and the involuntary exile of many prominent cultural leaders, such as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Andrei Sakharov, Joseph Brodsky, and many others. In another political context, Karl Popper (1945) proclaimed the view that a critical voice was an essential element of a liberal democracy. In his classic book he Open Society and Its Enemies, writen during World War II, he claimed that governments of open societies are assumed to be responsive and tolerant and political mechanisms transparent and lexible. his idea of an open society strongly contrasts with the authoritarian regimes of closed societies with their rigid boundaries and sharp ingroup versus outgroup separations. In Popper’s view, tribal and collectivist societies do not distinguish between natural laws and human-made laws, as they have a strong belief in the sacred or magical basis of the traditional society. Open societies, on the contrary, are marked by a distinction between natural and human-made laws, space for personal responsibility, and accountability for moral choices.

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From the perspective of the present theory, we may learn from the problems of collectivist regimes, such as the Soviet Union, Nazi Germanys and others with totalitarian pretensions, that they transform, willingly or unwillingly, critical positions into anti-positions. he deleterious consequence of this transformation is that the communication channels with these positions become closed or one-way and power and emotional distances increase. Moreover, the homogenizing tendencies of collectivist regimes seriously constrain the bandwidth of the position repertoire of its citizens so that the heterogeneity of the repertoire, necessary for a two-way communication with individuals and groups who “think diferently,” is reduced. When the communication channels become closed, not only for dissidents to express their political ideas and criticism but also for citizens who are living under forms of overcontrol, suppression, and intimidation, there is the risk that potentially open I-positions are transformed into I-prisons.

Nostalgia for a Tribal Past? On the basis of his readings of historically engaged Soviet sociologists and psychologist (e.g., N. Gumilev, I. Kon, and B. Porshnev), Heidmets (1995) notes that many of these authors justify their ideology by proclaiming that throughout history the “social” has been dominant over the “individual.” hey argue that the principal actors have always been the collective units: tribes, clans, communes, and large families. As participating in such groups, individuals were, rather than independent agents, elements of the indivisible whole and unable to survive outside the community. Due to their dependence on the group, people were thinking of themselves not as “I” but rather as “we,” as far-reaching dependence on others requires strong identiication with the group. he construction of the world was based on the diferentiation between others and us, strangers and us, and enemies and us, rather than between “I” and “you.” Against the background of the social dualism of the original tribal communities, concerns about personal fulillment are relatively new in history. Only in modern times, since the European Enlightenment, the tendency was established to consider the individual self as the highest moral and social value and as having the right, even the obligation, to realize one’s full potential. However, the dominant place of the individual, as expressed in personal fulilment and self-actualization, has been a feature of only the last historical epoch. In the eyes of the Soviet historicists, the importance of collective interests and communal responsibilities has not diminished and has its unshakable roots in the tribal history of humanity.4 4

Whereas the Soviet historians, from an overly limited political perspective, place primacy on the communal aspects of history, in close connection with their political convictions, some contemporary Western historians take into account the diferent perspectives from which a historical account

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here is a clear similarity between Popper’s (1945) description of the closed society with its roots in a tribal past and the Soviet ideologists’ adherence to tribal communities as the natural basis of the later Soviet collectivist society. However, the Soviet historians have more arguments for the superiority of their system than references to versions of “paradise lost.”

he New Interdependence in a Risk Society According to Russian (and Western) social scientists and historians, we in Western capitalist societies are faced with the paradox of striving for autonomy and individual fulilment in a situation of increasing interdependence, as resulting from economic, ecological, demographical, and military interconnections that transcend national boundaries. In Heidmets’ (1995) view, this interdependence is not only relatively new, due to the increasing globalization, but also risky. At this point, he refers to the inluential work of the German sociologist Ulrich Beck (1992), who draws atention to several features of modern societies that produce and even exacerbate this risk. First, individualism implies a wish to be unconstrained by social structures to a degree that one wants to construct one’s own biography and develop the self as a personal project. Yet, one has to face the labor market with all its risks, opportunities, and contradictions, which limit the free realization of one’s personal project. Second, people are being liberated from traditional social networks. We witness a social transformation in that people are, more than earlier, set free from the social stratiications of industrial society: class, stratiication, family and gender status. hird, this “liberation” is matched by increasing dependency on “institutions and actors, who may well be—and are arguably increasingly—alien, obscure, and inaccessible” (Beck, 1992, p. 4). With this last remark, Beck (1992) refers exactly to the problem I  discuss in the present chapter, that not only the Soviet system sufered from forms of over-positioning that led to the atenuation and restriction of communication channels between positions but the modern capitalist society as a risk society is also faced with similar problems. While the Soviet system arrived in a state of is given. Paul (2014), for example, proceeds from the assumption that historians take a multiplicity of I-positions from which they are engaged in a variety of relations with the past and the present. In his view, maintaining a dialogue with the past implies that the I-position of the “inquisitive listener,” guided by dialogical virtues such as curiosity, imagination, openness, atentiveness, and humility, is cultivated and, if necessary, protected against more dominant I-positions, such as the “groundbreaking scholar” and the “best-selling author.” Paul argues that historians take diferent positions in diferent social contexts and that some positions correspond with dialogical relationships while other ones are associated with more monological relationships. In this view, the I-positions and their associated relationships have immediate implications for the content of the historical accounts.

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over-positioning by the unlimited power of the political regime and the party, the production and consumption cycle of modern risk society has, likewise, obscured the communication channels (e.g., between the haves and have-nots) and produced enlarged power distances (e.g., by the growth of multinational organizations) and emotional distances (e.g., between immigrants and host cultures). Summarizing, in the preceding analysis I discussed some aspects of the Soviet communist system with the intention of showing that it produced a dramatic form of over-positioning by placing the other (the community) above the self (the individual). his led to inability of the system to produce efective counterpositions and, instead, evoked anti-positions that the system was unable to integrate. Moreover, the Soviet system was organized in a way to overly limit and constrain the position repertoire of its citizens with the consequence that its bandwidth was seriously reduced. At the same time the communist system led to overly large emotional and power distances between authorities and citizens and between power-holders and their dissidents. Furthermore, I referred to the observation that the West is confronted with a paradox between the blossoming of individualism on the one hand and the increasing interdependence of the members of a risk society on the other hand. Next we explore this paradox further by examining the increasing marketization in contemporary society as a form of over-positioning and its deep implications for the functioning of the self.

he Increasing Marketization of Society and Its Iniltrating Power In a thorough analysis of trends in contemporary neo-liberal society, sociologists Schimank and Volkmann (2012) focus on the phenomenon of marketization as a societal principle that increasingly iniltrates noneconomic subsystems such as health care, education, art, or science. As a hot topic of public debates as well as a subject of many empirical studies, this trend is discussed under the heading of diferent keywords like liberalization, deregulation, privatization, entrepreneurialism, and, above all, neo-liberalism. he authors note that these phrases do not all mean the same, but they have considerable overlaps with marketization as the common denominator. As a basic governance mechanism, marketization is primarily associated with the economic subsystem of modern society that, as a deliberate policy, is involved to economizing other societal subsystems. In other words, marketization can be understood as an increasing importance of economic considerations for inancial proits and costs in noneconomic subsystems that are increasingly exposed to market forces.

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On the basis of their reading and comparison of diferent sociological theories, Schimank and Volkmann (2012) propose a theory of economizing and marketization in which they see modern society as functionally diferentiated. hey consider society as consisting of subsystems that function, in Max Weber’s (2005) terms, as “value spheres.” Each subsystem represents a subuniverse of meaning constituted by its speciic value, such as truth in science, power in politics, love in intimate relations, or proit in economy. Actors who participate in a particular subsystem know without any doubt which expectations guide their behavior and in which direction their striving is supposed to go. he authors see society as functionally diferentiated and describe it, with a term from Weber, as “poly-centric.” It consists of approximately a dozen autonomous subsystems constituted as self-referential value spheres: politics, economy, religion, science, art, education, health care, journalism, law, the military, sports, and intimate relations, although there is no ixed list. he functionally diferentiated society is not to be understood as an all-encompassing social unit, such as the religious society of the European Middle Ages based as it was on Catholicism. In contrast, modern society has no unifying belief system or identity. Rather, its identity consists of the irreducible plurality of subsystemic partial identities (a view that is immediately relevant to the self deined as a dynamic multiplicity of relatively autonomous I-positions in the present theory; see later in this chapter). Despite the autonomy of the diferent subsystems, the authors argue, there are strong mutual interdependencies as well as an overall dependence of individual participants on all subsystems’ performances. he diferent value spheres need each other in the service of the realization of their specialized actions. For example, the scientiic search for truth is dependent on the prosperity provided by the economy. Moreover, it needs the services of the educational subsystem to deliver knowledgeable people, and health care is relevant to keep their personnel in good physical condition. In turn, scientiic truths are applied in other subsystems and technological innovations are necessary for economic growth and for the improvement of medical care. he same give and take applies to all other subsystems. Indeed, functional diferentiation creates a very advanced division of labor between representatives of subsystems that function as “service providers” for other subsystems. However, the authors perceive a critical aspect of the subsystemic division of labor: service providers are strongly under the spell of the guiding value of their own subsystem and, as a consequence, have a decidedly one-sided view on this division of labor. However, the counter-players from their side want to pay atention primarily or only to their own guiding values as well. As an answer to this universal lack of it, “each sub-system’s program structure has—around its inner core of self-referential orientations guided by its

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own value—an outer circle of other-referential orientations” (Shimank & Volkmann, 2012, p. 40). For instance, the search for truth in the scientiic subsystem is not only oriented to the creation of self-produced theories and methodologies but also restricted by laws that prohibit research that is obnoxious to its experimental subjects’ health. Or this subsystem is facilitated by funding procedures as incentives to do research on subjects of interest to external organizations and stakeholders. he idea of an outer circle of other-referential orientations around an inner core corresponds nicely with the conception of the self as an external circle of extended I-positions around an internal circle of internal I-positions (Figure 3.1) and provides a pathway to link self and society on theoretical grounds.

he Disruptive Character of the Economic Sphere and Its Penetrative Impact In Shimank and Volkmann’s (2012) view, the inherent dynamics of the economic subsystem are characterized by its very easy disruptability caused by forces coming from the inside of this subsystem (inancial or economic crises) or from the outside (e.g., political or military turmoil). his endemic lack of stability is mainly due to the economy’s central governance mechanism, the market, that has only a weak capacity of order-building, compared to other governance mechanisms such as hierarchy, community, or networks. his lack of stability has two diferent sides. On the one hand, it enables the economic sphere to give lexible responses to demand and supply and creates a competition-driven and never-ending motivation to improve performance by innovations. he other side of the coin is the nervousness of unpredictable market actors, which generate sudden economic or inancial turbulences or fatal ampliications such as inlations or downswings. here is one all-pervasive medium by which the society-wide pressure of the economy is exerted:  money. Schimank and Volkmann (2012) hold that money is not just the generalized exchange medium of the economy, as Talcot Parsons and Niklas Luhmann would have it, but penetrates deeply all other societal subsystems. his structural asymmetry constitutes the economy’s dominant position in a functionally diferentiated and polycentric society. All money lows can be traced back to the economy. Money is needed in all subsystems but is supplied only by the economy. As a medium of social inluence, it is unmatched in the generalization of its scope of use. Compare it with science or love. A scientiic truth is strictly speciied to its substantial realm, while love is received from a loving person, but only from her or him. In contrast, money enables anyone to buy almost anything, at any time, from anyone else. In the authors’ view, the economic subsystem achieves a very high level

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of generalization as all other societal subsystems are penetrated by money or by their dependence on money. Taken together, Schimank and Volkmann (2012) note that their perspective of diferentiation theory comes, at a basic level, to the same conclusion as Marxist theory: the functional needs of capitalist economy dominate modern society. However, there are some important diferences. hey see a diferent balance of power between the economy and other societal subsystems and expect no inevitable development in the direction of an ultimate crisis. he Marxist concept takes its analytical starting point in the societal dominance of the capitalist economy and then atributes, in the second place, a relative autonomy to other societal subsystems. A problematic feature of the Marxist conception is that it operates with an under-complex binary distinction of economic versus noneconomic, with the implication that in the noneconomic sphere everything is lumped together without making further distinctions. When there are further distinctions, for example between religion, art, or science, they are of secondor third-order, because basically it is the economy that maters and nothing else. In contrast, diferentiation theory starts with about a dozen distinctions as the essential ensemble which makes up functional diferentiation. his theory acknowledges that each subsystem is principally autonomous, implying that economic orientations have their legitimate place within the economy and nowhere else. Economy has no legitimacy to push aside the speciic value of other subsystems such as health care, art, or science. Still, performances in all of these subsystems depend critically upon money that comes from the economy, either directly or indirectly, as payments from the state or from clients (Schimank & Volkmann, 2012).

Penetrating Spheres in Society and Over-Positioning in the Self Diferentiation theory enables us to examine the intense connection between self and (economizing) society and to make a irst step in analyzing this connection from the perspective of the position model. Rather than starting from a binary distinction between the economic and the noneconomic, diferentiation theory acknowledges the existence of a dynamic multiplicity of value spheres each with their extensions (external circles) to other spheres. In this multiplicity the economic sphere has a central position in that it has the power to penetrate all other spheres, which for their functioning are dependent on this central subsystem. Diferentiation theory allows to see a connection between the dynamic multiplicity of value spheres on the level of society and the dynamic multiplicity of I-positions in the landscape of the self. he content and organization of one’s

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repertoire of I-positions is dependent on one’s place and participation in a diferentiated set of value spheres. For example, the religious sphere corresponds with “I as religious” or “I as a minister,” the educational sphere with “I as a teacher or ‘‘I as a student,” the sphere of health care with “I as doctor,” or “I as a patient,” the sphere of the sports with “I as team leader,” the sphere of politics with “I as a member of a political party,” the sphere of science with “I as scientist,” and so on. In this multiplicity of actual and possible I-positions, there is one type that becomes dominant in an over-positioning economy. To the degree that the economic sphere in a society becomes central, dominating, and penetrating the other spheres, economy-related I-positions (e.g., “I as investing,” “I as earning,” “I as consumer,” “I as selling,” even “I as investing in myself ” and “I as selling myself ”) become dominant in one’s position repertoire. hey penetrate many or even all other I-positions in the self, unless individuals are able to organize their self-system in such a way that they have counter-positions available strong enough to reduce the centrality and penetrating power of the economic position (see later in this chapter). When such counter-positions are not available or when they are not strong enough to provide an efective counterweight, the economic I-positions, in close correspondence with the dominant economic sphere, become central and dominant to a degree that they arrive at a state of over-positioning in the organization of the self. However, this analysis is not suicient to understand the pervasive inluence of the economic sphere on the inner household of the self. We have to delve deeper in the organization of the self before understanding what overpositioning means in this particular context. herefore, I take a closer look at two concepts that have emerged from the literature in the past decades and illustrate the nature of economic positions in the self and their impact on its organization: the “entrepreneurial self ” and the “consumer self.” hey are helpful in understanding how and to which degree society is working in the self.

he Entrepreneurial Self In his exploration of the horizons of identity in the twenty-irst century, Kelly (2006) argues that a particular form of selhood has come to dominate the area of identity in the Western democracies at this time, which he refers to as the “entrepreneurial Self.” With this concept, he connects economy and psychological processes in this way: “(Neo)Liberalism emerges, not only as a means of governing the State, the economy, and civil society, but also as a means of governing in these domains via the rational, autonomous, responsible behaviours and dispositions of a ree, prudent, active Subject: a Subject we can identify as the

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entrepreneurial Self ” (p. 18). He argues that in these setings “the Self emerges as but one of a number of entrepreneurial projects in which persons should be engaged relexively, continuously, endlessly, for the term of our natural life” (p. 18). In his view, the entrepreneurial self is a subject “made capable of conducting himself/herself as an enterprise via the vast ensemble of experiences, practices and relations that characterise the processes of governmental self formation” (p. 18). In his explanation of the entrepreneurial self, Kelly (2006) cites several sources. One of them places the concept in a broader societal context: When we take [a] larger view of what it means to be an entrepreneur, we realize that we are talking about skills, atitudes, and disciplines everybody needs nowadays—qualities it takes to succeed in every ield of work. We live in an entrepreneurial universe of franchise businesses, contract work, combinations of full and part-time jobs, self-employed professionals, and professional partnerships. Today, the average person changes jobs, even ields of work, six times over the course of a lifetime. he boundary between a company job and self-employment is becoming blurred. No mater how much talent and training we have, we can no longer simply assume the job system is going to look ater us [. . .]. his kind of work environment requires all of us to think in an entrepreneurial way about who we are and what we are doing. We need to apply entrepreneurial, self-directive, self-promoting, me-incorporated thinking to every aspect of our lives—our participation in learning activities, the way we manage our careers, our inances and investments, how we market ourselves, our ability to treat our lives as business enterprises. An entrepreneurial perspective can help us become more adept at the business of life. (p. 19, emphases added) Phrases like “to think in an entrepreneurial way about who we are” and “to apply entrepreneurial, self-directive, self-promoting, me-incorporated thinking to every aspect of our lives” exemplify not only the close link between self and society but also the penetrative power of the economic value sphere. When this sphere iniltrates other spheres of societal life and becomes the metaphor for organizing the other spheres, including their implied I-positions, it becomes a form of over-positioning that has the (unintended) implication of reducing the breadth, diversity, and richness of the position repertoire to one type of Iposition only. However, in which ways and in which forms does the economic sphere and associated marketing thinking iniltrate the I- positions in the self? In order to answer this question, we have a look at the “consumer self.”

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he Consumer Self When we atempt to comprehend the nature of over-positioning on the interface of self and society, an insight into the relationship between production and consumption is required. As Hamilton (2010a) has argued, one of the most deepseated structural changes in Western societies over the past decades has been the reversal of the traditional relationship between production and consumption. his is a relatively new development as, previously, from the beginning of the industrial revolution, production led consumption. Economic growth was determined by investment and the pivotal factor was investor conidence. Corporations produced largely standardized products and competed with each other through manufacturing processes that were made as eicient as possible, using strategies of “scientiic management” (also known as Taylorisation) and mass production. In the production-oriented economy, Hamilton (2010a) notes, products were standardized and prices were set by the agencies who fabricated them. he task of advertising was to persuade the consumers that the product would satisfy their needs, with their tastes seen as a given. Moreover, the extent and composition of consumption were closely linked with the place of the household in the production process. Society was divided along class lines, with the higher class seen as connected with the means of production. he wealthy elite, more than the lower classes, was preoccupied with consumption as an indicator of status. In the production society, personal identity was primarily determined by the culture of the group or class to which one belonged. In the past decades, however, we witness a reversal of the relationship between production and consumption, with the combination of marketing and consumption as a dynamic coalition in the system. he consumption society, Hamilton (2010a) argues, goes beyond the notions of “post-Fordism,” which, although an important intermediate stage, still focused primarily on the production process. In contrast, growth in the consumption society is more determined by consumer conidence than by investor conidence. Responding in lexible ways to the enormously variegated, speciic, and constantly changing demands of consumers becomes the key to corporate competition and success, with production eiciency replaced by creative marketing. Marketers are engaged in an endless process of not only responding to consumer needs but also to creating and transforming them, and they do this for all socioeconomic levels. Consumption is no longer connected to the higher and richer classes in society, and luxury consumption is no longer limited to the rich but reaches down to all consumer groups. For present purposes one aspect of the production-consumption reversal is particularly relevant: the increasing involvement of the self and, especially, its

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emotions. As Hamilton (2010a) explains, consumption is more and more intimately tied to the creation and reproduction of a sense of self. he advertising industry started to uncover the complex set of emotions that might be associated with particular products, and marketing campaigns were designed to appeal to those emotions. housands of creative individuals in corporations persuade clients to buy their brand of car, mobile phone, running shoes, home furnishing, or margarine in competition with another corporation selling a product that is essentially the same. Marketing and advertisement specialists are involved in atempts to invest in products with certain symbols of identity that give them status and self-worth. he penetrating quality of the consumer positions is summarized in a poignant manner when Hamilton concludes: “All aspects of human psychology—fears, sources of shame, sexuality, spiritual yearnings—are plundered in the search for a commercial edge” (p. 573). he penetration of marketization into the private world of consumers is exempliied, in striking and sometimes amusing ways, by the many sales advices spread in mounting numbers through the Internet. In one of the sites,5 I found the following sales tips: (a) use eye contact to build credibility, convey trust, and accent your point at important intervals in the conversation; (b) look the person directly in the eye as much as possible, as direct eye contact during a conversation will help build all the positive feelings you are looking for; (c) look at only the let eye (in order to make a connection with the afective right brain). If you’re talking to someone with a “lazy” eye and having diiculty discerning which eye is focusing properly, look at the bridge of the person’s nose. he commercial use of eye contact is particularly interesting in light of the discussion of self-other relationships in chapter  4 of this book, where I  presented literature about eye contact as part of self-other sharing and as associated with empathy. In the context of consumerism, however, the function of eye contact is not an expression of sharing emotions and feelings but an instrument for using the emotions and feelings of the customer in the service of selling a product. he seller is using psychological strategies in an atempt to open communication channels toward relevant I-positions at lower levels of consciousness of the customer, while the seller is doing so from his or her very conscious and trained selling position. he as-if sharing and as-if empathy are employed to address the personal positions of the customer in hidden and manipulative ways. When Schimank and Volkmann (2012), in their articulation of diferentiation theory, propose a relative autonomy of diferent societal spheres, among them the economic domain and the domain of intimate relationships, then the 5

“Sales Tips to Sell More and Build Beter Relationships through Beter Eye Contact,” by John Chapin, retrieved February 16, 2015.

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commercial use of fake empathy, eye contact, and care exemplify the one-sided penetration of the economic sphere into the sphere of intimate relationships. his one-sided penetration is an expression of a process of over-positioning of the economic sphere on the societal level and the concomitant over-positioning of the consumer position on the level of the self with the consequence that the relationship between self of the other is reduced to an I-it relationship in Buber’s (1970) terms.

he Empty Self in the Historical Context of Individualism and Consumerism As the concept of position has its metaphorical basis in “space,” notions that refer to spatial processes implied in the consumer self are particularly relevant to the present theory. One of these notions is the “empty self,” proposed by Cushman (1990) who sees the growing consumerism as an expression of a historical shit from the Victorian, sexually restricted self to the post–World War II empty self. His main thesis is that the empty self is soothed and made cohesive by becoming “illed up” with food, consumer products, and celebrities. Cushman (1990) places consumerism in the broader historical contexts of increasing individualism. During the last 2,000  years in Western society, he observes, the self has become increasingly more individualistic. Referring to many literatures, he sees the historical trend toward individualism as initially inluenced by Augustine’s interest in the depth of the self and later by the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the Romantics and the growth of capitalism, ultimately culminating in the hypertrophied, bounded, and masterful individual self. he author believes that in the post–World War II era, particularly in the United States, there are indications that the present coniguration of the bounded, masterful self has become an empty self that experiences a signiicant absence of community, shared meaning, and tradition. It experiences these social absences and their consequences as a lack of personal conviction and worth, an absence that is felt as “a chronic, undiferentiated emotional hunger” (Cushman, 1990, p. 600). In his view, the post–World War II self thus yearns to acquire and consume products and services of all kinds as an unconscious way of compensating for what has been lost. He notices evidence of the empty self in the abundant psychological discourses about narcissism and borderline states,6 political advertising strategies that emphasize soothing and charisma instead of critical thought, the emphasis 6

he relationship between narcissism and borderline personality was discussed by Miller et al. (2010) who raised the possibility of a “vulnerable dark triad” (VDT) consisting of narcissism, borderline personality disorder, and (factor 2) psychopathy. hey show that VDT is related not only to negative emotionality and antagonistic interpersonal styles but also to disinhibition (impulsivity).

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on consumption and possession, and a diiculty in maintaining personal relationships. Forces such as industrialization, urbanization, and secularism have shaped the modern era and consumerism is an accelerating factor in that process, even becoming a lifestyle. In the late 20th century an advertising executive’s dream has come true, the author notes, as lifestyle works as a self-perpetuating force: it has become a product that sells itself, and the individual has become a consumer who seeks, desperately, to buy in order to ill the gap.7

Hyperconsumption as Over-Positioning Just to exemplify how far the consumer self in its over-positioning tendency can go, I refer to some trends that can be labeled as hyperconsumption. In his book Requiem For A Species, Hamilton (2010b) gives some telling examples of excessive forms of consumerism. In one of the studies on the topic, he found that 4 in 10 people feel anxious, guilty, or depressed about the cluter in their homes. hey feel overwhelmed and disorganized, and some respondents feel trapped by their possessions. Six out of 10 women confess there is a room in their house they are too embarrassed for visitors to see. he desire for more stuf has been so relentless that the market has responded to the desire for more possessions by throwing up a new industry with a new category of specialists, home organizers, who provide advice on how to organize our homes so that we are no longer oppressed by the cluter. here are websites about “de-clutering your home,” and there are books with titles like Put Your House on a Diet (comparing stuf with body fat), Making Peace with the hings in Your Life (writen by a psychotherapist), Does his Cluter Make My But Look Fat, and Cluterree with Kids.8 7 Emptiness and illing a gap is also a feature of the overuse of the Internet leading to an overpopulation of the external domain of the self. his is exempliied by the so-called fear of missing out (FoMO) deined by Przybylski, Murayama, DeHaan, and Gladwell (2013) as the “pervasive apprehension that others might be having rewarding experiences from which one is absent” and characterized by “the desire to stay continually connected with what others are doing” (p. 1841). hey constructed a “Fear of Missing Out scale,” which includes items like “I fear others have more rewarding experiences than me,” “I fear my friends have more rewarding experiences than me,” or “I get worried when I ind out my friends are having fun without me.” In their research they found that FoMO was negatively associated with both general mood and overall life satisfaction and that those high in FoMO tended to use Facebook more oten before going to sleep, immediately ater waking, and during meals and were more likely to use Facebook during university lectures. Moreover, they found that individuals high in FoMO were more likely to compose and check text messages and emails while operating motor vehicles. In terms of the present theory, FoMO suggests the need to ill a self-space that is continuously threatened by experiences of lack and emptiness. 8 Another overlow of hyperconsumption is wastefulness. Hamilton notes that bathrooms (and other parts of the house) are not only considered as functional places but as displays of excess. Whirlpool, for example, ofers a gold-plated designer toilet seat, which it recommends as a stunning

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here is an apparent connection between the phenomenon of overclutered houses and the increasing interest in larger houses during the period before the banking crisis of 2008. As Hamilton (2010b) explains, the housing bubble, oten described as the biggest bubble in history, was driven by the escalating desire of buyers willing to commit larger shares of their future incomes to get the house of their dreams. Along with ballooning mortgages, the sizes of new houses in the United States also grew—55% since 1970—while at the same time the number of people living in these houses went down, by 13%. A similar development occurred in Britain and Australia. he supply of larger houses stimulated the demand for more stuf and, the other way around, the accumulation of stuf increased as well, outgrowing the capacity of houses and apartments. As a result, a new industry sprang up: the self-storage industry. he number of self-storage facilities in the US grew by 81% in the six years to 2006. Similar trends were observed in Australia and in the United Kingdom. his relationship between overclutered housing and the rise of self-storage industry develops as a cyclic process emanating from increasing hyperconsumption (Hamilton, 2010b). here is a striking contrast between the overclutered houses resulting from hyperconsumption in Western countries and the housing policies of the ideologists of the former Soviet Union as described earlier in this chapter. Whereas the Soviet ideals emphasized communal living and the reduction of individual possession, hyperconsumption is strongly tied to growing individualism, private housing, and the persistent gathering of (unnecessary) possessions. While the Soviet system created policies leading to the over-positioning of the other (community) at the costs the individual initiative and self-development, consumerism is associated with an over-positioning of the individual self at the cost of community life, and in its material excess it depletes our natural resources.

he Shadow Side of the American Dream Apparently, there is a component of unfulilled, even unfulillable, desire in consumerism. Cushman (1990) sees the overindividualized and overconsuming self as an empty space that cannot be meaningfully illed: “It is a self that addition to any bathroom and which gives the place a touch of sparkle and splendor. It is now even possible to buy “gold pills,” which, when swallowed and digested, make your excrement sparkle. he designer promotes the gold pills as a signiier of wealth and a means of “increasing your self-worth.” his promise can be seen as another indication of the strong association between consumerism and identity formation, which motivates companies to create open one-way communication channels, in seductive ways, to monopolize emotional positions in the self of their clients.

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seeks the experience of being continually illed up by consuming goods, calories, experiences, politicians, romantic partners, and empathic therapists in an atempt to combat the growing alienation and fragmentation of its era,” and he adds, “his response has been implicitly prescribed by a post-World War II economy that is dependent on the continual consumption of nonessential and quickly obsolete items and experiences” (pp. 600–601). In a similar vein, Hamilton (2010a) notes: “he inability of consumerism to allow true realisation of human potential manifests itself, to an ever-increasing degree, in restless dissatisfaction, chronic stress and private despair, feelings that give rise to a rash of psychological disorders—including anxiety, depression and substance abuse—and a range of compensatory behaviours including many forms of selfmedication” (p. 572).9 As money is the central medium of the economy and indispensable for fulilling one’s consumptive needs, the broader question may be posed whether a focus on money and material wealth is related to happiness. In an article with the imaginative title “A Dark Side of the American Dream,” Kasser and Ryan (1993) noticed that the aspiration for inancial success is an important aspect of capitalist cultures and has long been a core component of the American dream. Yet, folklore and tableside discussions oten suggest that a darker side lurks behind this dream as pursuing material wealth is oten viewed as empty or shallow and as precluding investment in one’s social relationships, selfactualization, and contributions to the community. On the basis of these considerations, the researchers performed a series of empirical studies, in which they examined the hypothesis that values and expectancies for wealth and money are negatively associated with well-being and adjustment when these values are more central to an individual than other self-relevant values and expectancies. he design of this study is particularly relevant from a positional point of view as the value of wealth and money is not studied in their isolation but relative to other orientations (I-positions in terms of the present theory). In one of Kasser and Ryan’s studies, it was found that the relative centrality of money-related values and expectancies of college students was negatively 9 Authors like Cushman and Hamilton made me think about the importance of the notion of “public atmosphere” (for the concept of “atmosphere” see chapter  2). Building on their insights, I suppose that there are at least three developments in contemporary society that may have a detrimental inluence on the invisible but tangible atmosphere of the public space:  (a) alienation as resulting from societal inequality and the spread of consumerism, associated with individualism and a winner-loser mentality; (b) anxiety and distrust as a result of international terrorism and the all-pervasive “big brother is watching you” situation in electronic communication and social media; (c)  ragmentation as emanating from information overload, multitasking, and the increased scope and speed of communication. As a reaction many retreat to local niches where they look for security, safety, and predictability (for the importance of safety and comfort zones, see chapter 6).

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related to the participants’ well-being and mental health. hey extended these indings by showing that a high centrality of aspirations for inancial success was associated with lower social productivity (e.g., participation in clubs and organizations, volunteer work, and hobbies), lower levels of psychological adjustment, and more behavioral disorders. Kasser and Ryan’s study suggests that people who value or expect to atain inancial success more than ailiation, community feeling, or self-acceptance have negative proiles on variables associated with psychological adjustment.

he Psychological Consequences of Money Experimental psychological research suggests that even thinking of money or seeing it has the efect of increasing the emotional distance between the positions of self and other. In a series of nine experiments, Vohs, Mead, and Goode (2006) demonstrated that money brings about a self-suicient orientation in which people prefer to be free of dependency and dependents. In one of their experiments, the researchers activated the idea of an abundance of money (highmoney condition) and in another one the idea of restricted amount of money (low-money condition). Participants in the high-money condition were asked to read aloud a text about growing up having abundant inancial resources, whereas low-money participants read about growing up having meager resources. In the next part of the experiment, the participants received a diicult task, but they did not know that it was unsolvable. Ater several minutes of working alone, the experimenter and a confederate entered the room and ofered the opportunity for help. In this experiment, the indicator of self-suiciency was persistence with the impossible task before asking for help. It appeared that the participants in the high-money condition worked signiicantly longer than participants in the lowmoney condition before asking for help. For the concept of emotional distance, another experiment in the same study is also revealing. Participants sat in front of a computer while completing questionnaires. Ater some minutes, a screensaver appeared. In one condition participants saw a screensaver depicting various denominations of currency loating underwater. In another condition, they saw a screensaver with ish swimming underwater. Aterwards, participants were invited to have a get-acquainted conversation with another participant. hey were asked to move two chairs together while the experimenter let to go to another participant. It appeared that participants primed with money placed the two chairs farther apart than did participants in the ish condition. As we have discussed in chapter 4, freely chosen physical distance from another participant is an indication of emotional distance (Word, Zanna, & Cooper, 1974).

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he experiments led the researchers to infer that money brings about a selfsuicient orientation in their participants. Placing their results in a broader context, they conclude: “he self-suicient patern helps explain why people view money as both the greatest good and evil. As countries and cultures developed, money may have allowed people to acquire goods and services that enabled the pursuit of cherished goals, which in turn diminished reliance on friends and family. In this way, money enhanced individualism but diminished communal motivations, an efect that is still apparent in people’s responses to money today” (Vohs, Mead, & Goode, 2006, p. 1156). I see this conclusion as a further elaboration of the observation that, when money and consumption receive a central place in the position repertoire of individuals, their emotional distance toward others increases at the costs of their prosocial behavior. However, one could object that money orientation, although it makes people more self-suicient, could also make them more happy. Kasser and Ryan’s (1993) inding that the relative centrality of money-related values was negatively related to the participants’ well-being was already a irst indication that moneyrelated values do not contribute signiicantly to happiness. However, some closer scrutiny is needed.

Does Wealth Increase Happiness? Studies demonstrate that money and material goods account for only a small percentage of people’s happiness. In his book Prosperity without Growth, Jackson (2009) analyzes the complex relationships between growth, environmental crises, and social recession. In one of his overviews (see Figure 5.1), he shows that the category “money and inancial situation” inluences 7% of subjective well-being (or happiness), in strong contrast with the 47% of “partner/spouse and family relationships” and 24% of “health.” his is in agreement with the review of studies on happiness by Lyubomirsky, Sheldon, and Schkade (2005) showing that the correlations between happiness and wealth are remarkably small and that, while US citizens’ personal income has more than doubled in the past 50 years, their happiness levels have remained the same. Also on the country level, wealth and happiness only have a weak correlation as suggested, for example, by The Happy Planet Index (HPI). This is a country-by-country index based on the subjective life satisfaction, life expectancy at birth, and ecological footprint per capita. The measure is designed to challenge well-established indices of countries’ prosperity, such as the gross domestic product and the Human Development Index,

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Money and financial situation 7% Religious, spiritual life 6% Community and friends 5%

1 2 3 Partner, spouse, and family 47% Health 24%

4 5 6 7 8

Don’t know, other 1%

A nice place Work fulfillment to live 2% 8%

Figure 5.1. Factors inluencing subjective well-being (happiness). Source: Jackson (2009)

which are often criticized for not taking sustainability into account. The comparison of countries on the HPI in 2012 shows that Costa Rica had the highest level, followed by in general Latin American countries (Abdallah, Thompson, Michaelson, Marks, & Steuer, 2009). The finding that the ontop-of-the-ranking countries are not the ones with higher incomes or higher consumption patterns reaffirms the view that happiness is not dependent on higher levels of economic prosperity. Altogether, there is considerable evidence suggesting that overconsumption does not lead significantly to life satisfaction and happiness. Along the lines of this chapter, we arrive at a paradox: the self-perpetuating movement on the hedonic treadmill of consumerism does not produce the satisfaction and happiness that people are striving for. Why don’t they stop, if happiness does not follow? What makes them keep going? Are they deemed to move endlessly into the same direction? Are they going into the wrong direction without being aware of it? Are there alternative directions? hese questions are starting point for an analysis of the consumer self from the perspective of positioning theory.

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he Consumer Self and the Over-Positioning of the Economic I-Position As I  explained in the beginning of this chapter, it is my purpose to increase insight in the process of over-positioning as it produces a self that inally may end up in an I-prison. I compared two societal systems, communism and neoliberal capitalism, certainly not to discuss them in the breadth of their historical, societal, and psychological ramiications but as they represent two important deviations from a well-balanced “self-with-other” model proposed at the end of the previous chapter. While communism, in its Soviet version, exempliies over-positioning with the other above self (or community above individual), neo-liberalism demonstrates the opposite trend:  the self above the other. As neo-liberalism has, since the “end of history” story, a far-reaching impact on the functioning of the self in contemporary Western society, I explored the process of over-positioning in this society in some more depth. In this section, I consider the trends described in the present chapter from the perspective of the positioning theory presented in this book. I do so not only with the purpose of analyzing these trends but also, and primarily, to sketch, in a tentative way, some of the routes the self may go in giving an adequate response to the far-reaching marketization of the society and the over-positioning tendency of the consumer self.

he Consumer Self as an I-Position: Against the Monopolization of the Self First, I propose to see the consumer self not as a “self ” but as a position the self can take among diferent other positions. When the self is conceived of as a dynamic multiplicity of I-positions in the landscape of the mind, then the consumer position does not coincide with the self as a whole. If the self would be identical to the consumer position, then, on logical grounds, it follows that there is no place let for the existence or introduction of other (counter-)positions in the self. Certainly, dependent on psychological, social, and cultural circumstances, one of the positions may become overly dominant in the self. It is possible that it becomes dominant in the self-system to a degree that all other positions are subordinated, temporarily or more permanently, to the most powerful one. If we look at the consumer position in this way, the possibility is let open that not everyone is equally, and in all circumstances, subjected to this position, regardless of how powerful it may be in a variety of situations. Reducing the consumer self to a (powerful) position leaves open the possibility that there are, have been, or will be counter-positions that are of a diferent quality than the consumer one.

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As we have seen earlier in this chapter, sociological diferentiation theory assumes the existence of a plurality of societal spheres of which the economic one is only one of many, although it is a central one as it is conditional for the functioning of all other spheres. he content and organization of one’s repertoire of I-positions is contingent on one’s place and participation in one or more of the value spheres. For example, the educational sphere corresponds with “I as a student,” the religious sphere with “I as religious,” and the sphere of health care with “I as a patient.” When the economic sphere becomes not only conditional but highly dominating to the extent that it subjugates all other spheres, then it is highly probable, but never certain, that participants in such a society develop I-positions (e.g., “I as investing,” “I as wealthy,” “I as earning,” “I as consumer,” “I as selling”) that become dominant in one’s position repertoire and assume a central place in the organization of the self to the extent of over-positioning. However, it becomes clear that, both in self and society, there is no situation of economic determinism as long as there is space for the emergence of counter-positions. On the societal level we witness, in the past decades, the appearance of a colorful variety of organizations and movements that take a counter- or anti-position as a response to the reigning and all-pervasive economic value sphere and its associated adversities: the green movement, the movement against neo-liberal globalization, the global justice movement, the movement for sustainable development, deep ecology, deep grassroots activism, the occupy movement, and many others. One could suppose here that such movements provide, or try to provide, an institutional basis for the emergence of counter-positions or anti-positions in the self and that, the other way around, the commonality of these I-positions motivate like-minded individuals to join and develop we-positions of a critical or oppositional nature. Certainly, individuals may develop highly personal counter-positions (e.g., “I as loving nature,” “I as practicing sports,” “my friend Paul with whom I have inspiring discussions,” “my children who always invite me to play”) that enable them to give an appropriate answer to dominating economic positions in the internal or external domains of their selves. Many of such I-positions can be supported and further developed by participation in social groups or organizations, but the fact that they can be sustained and developed privately or in small social circles affirms the idea that the self has the inherent potential to give an appropriate counterweight to any dominant position, including the economic one. So, I’m not a “consumer self ” and I am not an “entrepreneurial self,” but I have a consumer position or an entrepreneurial position in my self-system that is, at least potentially, broader than this dominating one.

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he Penetrative Power of the Economic Position However, it would be naïve to see the economic position, including the consumer and entrepreneurial position as its variations, as just one of many I-positions and to consider it simply as part of a larger multiplicity of positions in the self. his brings us to a feature that is crucial to understanding the speciic nature of this position and its deep inluence on other parts of the self: its asymmetrical penetration of other positions in the self. Consider Schimank and Volkmann’s (2012) observation that “Neoliberalism, for example, (re-)commodiies political, educational, health, welfare, scientiic, and other activities to organize them as businesses that exploit opportunities for proit without regard to possible extra-economic costs and beneits” (p. 28). In their view, the capitalist economy has become the center of society,10 which dominates all other subsystems in that it extends its inluence to all the other spheres in society. hey see this as a basic dynamic of capitalism, a process that is oten described as “commodiication” in Marxist terminology. heir central point is that the interpenetration of the diferent societal spheres is not symmetrical but asymmetrical. here is a one-sided penetration of the other spheres by the structurally dominant inluence of the economic sphere. his asymmetrical penetration becomes especially evident in the function of money. What does one-sided dominance mean on the level of the self? I already referred to research showing that even thinking of money and seeing it has the efect that at some later point in time participants were more reluctant to ask another individual for help and were more self-suicient. However, there is evidence that money has an even broader impact on the self and is related to the willingness to use power. In a carefully designed experiment, Caruso, Vohs, and Baxter (2013) tested whether incidental exposure to money afects people’s endorsement of social systems that legitimize social inequality. hey found that subtle reminders of the concept of money, relative to non-money concepts, led participants to endorse more strongly not only the existing social system in the United States but also free-market capitalism in particular. Moreover, they demonstrated that money-reminded participants believe more strongly that socially advantaged groups should dominate socially disadvantaged groups and that victims deserve their fate. hey further found that reminders of money increased 10

In the introduction of this book, I referred to Greenwald (1980) who perceived a striking analogy between the organization of knowledge in the self and totalitarian information-control strategies as exposed in George Orwell’s 1984. As part of this analogy he viewed “egocentricity” as one of the main atribution biases in the organization of knowledge. Egocentricity as a centering process on the level of the self inds its parallel in ecocentricity on the societal level. For the mutual complementation of centering and decentering processes, see chapter 7.

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preference for a free-market system of organ transplants that beneited the wealthy at the expense of the poor. In general, the authors conclude that these results demonstrate how merely thinking about money can inluence beliefs about the social order and the extent to which people deserve their station in life. hese indings suggest a direct connection between the societal and personal level. When we observe that neo-liberalism commodiies welfare activities and organizes them as business that exploit opportunities for proit, then this observation inds its parallel in the willingness of money-exposed research participants to legitimize social inequality. Apparently, the economic domain is able to penetrate the social domain and to redeine it according to its own principles. he experimental indings of Caruso and colleagues (2013) are particularly relevant to the dynamics of power distance and emotional distance in the organization of the self. heir inding that exposure to money leads participants to believe that socially advantaged groups should dominate socially disadvantaged groups suggests that preoccupation with money leads to the airmation or even increase of power diferences. heir inding that money-exposed participants believe that victims deserve their fate and that they have a preference for organ transplantation to the beneit of the wealthy at the expense of the poor can be interpreted as an indication of tolerance for, or even preference of, a large emotional distance toward disadvantaged individuals or groups in our society. hese experimental indings, in combination with the results of the research on the relationship between money exposure and helping behavior, lend support to the thesis that there is an asymmetrical penetration between the economic sphere and the other spheres in society. Correspondingly, on the level of the self we see that exposure to money does more than just eliciting an economic I-position. Apparently, this I-position penetrates other realms of the self with the consequence that prosocial I-positions are pushed to the background of the self-system and power and emotional distance with positions in the external domain of the self are enlarged. In his exploration of the connection between neo-liberalism and the formation of identity, the Belgian psychotherapist Verhaeghe (2012) notes that in our contemporary society, there is no loss of big stories (religion and ideologies) but rather a new big story, neo-liberal ideology, which is so pervasive and dominant that we even do not see it. While in classic liberalism, he argues, the religious, cultural, and economic domains were standing side by side, in neo-liberalism this is no longer true. All other domains are increasingly subordinated to the laws of the free market. In similar ways, Fisher (2009) analyzes the boundarycrossing nature of marketization. In his book Capitalist Realism, he portrays neoliberalism as applying the logic of the market to all aspects of governance and as lacking any transcendent law. he limits of capitalism are not ixed by any iat but deined and redeined pragmatically and with improvisation. He compares capitalism with he hing in John Carpenter’s ilm of the same name: “a

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monstrous, ininitely plastic entity, capable of metabolizing and absorbing anything with which it comes into contact” (p. 6). Metaphors like this poignantly illustrate the penetrating capacity of neo-liberalism and consumerism in their over-positioning tendencies. Altogether, the power distance resulting from economic over-positioning is expressed in three ways: (a) it leads to an increasing power diference, in that the economic sphere in society and the corresponding economic I-positions in the self become overly inluential in comparison with the other spheres and Ipositions; (b)  the economic spheres and I-positions are in control of the processes that are taking place in the other spheres and I-positions and they do so in an asymmetrical way, penetrating them broadly and deeply; (c) they control and penetrate a broad range of other spheres and I-positions that become subjected to its manipulations or brought under the spell of its seductions (see the example of economic use of subliminal processes, discussed in chapter 4). As long as there are, both within the self and society, no efective counter-positions, these inluences result, as emanating from its one-sided domination over all other positions, in an undemocratically organized self and in forms of decisionmaking in which one type of position monopolizes the system as a whole.

he Economic Position: Core But No Promoter When the economic sphere in society and, correspondingly, the economic position in the self is so inluential and penetrating in asymmetrical ways, can we consider this position as a promoter? he answer is no. What are the considerations leading to this answer? First recall the main features of promoter positions: they organize and give direction to a diversity of more specialized Ipositions that otherwise would go their own way; they have a “compass function” for the self-system as a whole; they imply a considerable openness toward the future and have the potential to produce a diverse range of more specialized positions; they bring diferent positions together in adaptive and productive combinations; and, if suiciently dialogical, they contribute to the democratic organization of the self. Certainly, the economic position plays a central role in the organization of the self-system in a neo-liberal society, and, from its central place as a “core position,” it has the power not only to inluence many other positions in the self but also link them together. Many or all aspects of our lives can become organized on the basis of eiciency criteria or production requirements (e.g., number of friends, amount of proit, number of sexual contacts, number of publications, place in the rankings, citation index, number of goals or hits in sports). Moreover, the economic position is even able to create new positions (one of the main capacities of a promoter as described in chapters 2 and 3). I can add to my repertoire new positions like “I as the owner of a second house or a

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second car,” “I as investing in a painting of Gerhard Richter” (if I were that rich), “I as investor in innovative start-up businesses,” and so on. he number of “new” positions that may be created by the central economic one is almost unlimited in a free market environment. he problem is that such positions are not really new as they are no more than replications or variations of one central type of position only, the economic one. he economic position in the self may receive a central place in the organization of the self but, when it reaches the level of over-positioning, it can never be a promoter. Why not? We should take into account the relative autonomy of I-positions in the self in close correspondence with the relative autonomy of the diferent value spheres in society. he term “value sphere” is very accurate and has to be taken literally:  it includes an original value in itself and, moreover, has value to ofer to the other spheres (e.g., the educational to the social, the science to health care, the law to the political, the sports to social relationships). As the spheres are interpenetrative, such relationships are typically reciprocal and representatives of the spheres may very well cooperate with each other and create productive coalitions and fertile forms of cooperation. he crucial point here is that the spheres ofer their value to the other spheres from their own speciic point of view and from their own specialization, as each sphere is an original source of experience and has its own historical background. When paintings would only have economic value and social contacts would serve commercial purposes only, this originality would be lost and society would be seriously impoverished and become “mono-manic.” Likewise, I-positions have, in their relative autonomy, an own speciic perspective from which the world or the self is seen and evaluated in a way that cannot simply be substituted by any other position. his means that any I-position, positive or negative, has the “right” and possibility to communicate with other I-positions from their own speciic perspective and, as a result, may create constructive coalitions and co-operations.11 herefore, I have emphasized several times in this book that the peripheral circles in the model (see Figures  3.1 and 4.4) have not only communication lines with the central circle but also directly with each other, indicating that the specialized positions (peripheral circles) are not only communicating with the central position but also directly with each other, and they do so from their own specialized experience and point of view. he economic position, when it has reached the stage of structural over-positioning, can never be a promoter as it is monopolizing all communication lines. As a result, the self-system as a whole assumes a mono-culture,

11

he value of negative emotions and the formation of coalitions of positions is discussed more extensively in chapter 6.

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as exempliied by the phenomenon of hyperconsumption. When the process goes that far, the multiplicity of positions is losing its diversity and the positions become replicas of each other with a reduced democracy of the self as a result. here is an additional reason why economic over-positioning can never serve as a real promoter position. We focus on hyperconsumption as a clear and excessive example of such over-positioning. As Hamilton (2010b) has argued, marketers in the consumption society are persistently engaged in a process of creating and transforming, as well as responding to, consumer needs and desires. However, he notes that these “substitute gratiications” can never satisfy the need for developing an authentic self, as this cannot be found as client in a supermarket. However, this is precisely what the latest phase of consumer capitalism needs:  a constant feeling of dissatisfaction that stimulates consumers to continue spending. While the oicial doctrine says that economic growth serves the satisfaction of what people want so that they can become happier, the economic growth of the consumption society can be sustained only as long as consumers remain discontented. Instead of economic growth creating happiness, unhappiness sustains economic growth. Remember also Cushman (1990) who referred to the “chronic, undiferentiated emotional hunger” (p. 600) of what he called the empty self, a self that has to be illed again and again with an endless series of rapidly changing contents. Precisely qualiications like this bring us to the diference between emotions and feelings, as discussed in the previous chapter. While emotions are short term and situation-bound, feelings are long term and cross-situational. Feelings have a meta-quality and have the potential to be associated with coherent and long-term promoter positions. Hyperconsumption, on the contrary, proits from short-term emotions of dissatisfaction that have to be repaired by constant instant gratiications and very transient moments of consumer satisfaction. his endless cycle of illing the gaps of consumerism can be illustrated by using the metaphor of “consuming potato chips” as a prototype of consumer dissatisfaction. When you eat the irst chips, it starts a process that enhances an urge to take the second one. Rather than fulilling an existing need, you may feel an increasing dissatisfaction when you would stop eating ater just a few of the crunching mini-monsters. Eating a chip gives an instant satisfaction, rapidly followed by an increasing dissatisfaction that urges you to take the next chip. Not starting the eating would create even less dissatisfaction than stopping ater eating a few chips. Apparently, the eating becomes a self-stimulating and selfperpetuating process, which typically continues until the bag is empty. In the case of hyperconsumption, this process becomes habitual in a market of increasing quantity and variation of products.

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However, eating chips as a metaphor is diferent from consuming them in reality. In her study of consumerism from the perspective of dialogical self theory, Bahl (2012) investigated how consumers experience their behavior from the perspective of a speciic I-position and from their meta-position. She found that, when her participants described their consumption behavior from a metaposition, this description was not consistent across all speciic I-positions. One of her participants, Ari, had negative feelings related to Doritos (a brand of chips) as they were associated with his helpless position, which became dominant when he was in pain due to an auto-immune disorder. When he felt pain he used Doritos as a “distraction” from his helplessness and, as a consequence, gave into the seduction easily. From this position he qualiied Doritos as being “a crutch, a drug” to help him get through the pain. From his survivor position, however, he felt in more control and had the feeling that he could decide what to eat and what not to eat. He was in this position when he was exercising and not being in pain and in that situation he experienced the chips as a “reward.” From his spiritual position he saw some “humor” in the seductive aspects of Doritos. From this I-position, he was able to focus on the lavor and see what a “great product” it is. From this position he could “take out the guilt” and make it a “joyous experience” that involved satisfaction ater eating only a few chips. When he was invited to look at his behavior from a meta-position, he referred to both positive and negative feelings and depicted eating Doritos in metaphorical ways as “wearing food,” “needing damage control,” “love them (Doritos) but can kill me,” “unhealthy but appealing,” and “seductive” (p. 475). After examining the consumption behavior of her participants in this way, Bahl (2012) concluded that, if the product is experienced as positive from some positions and as negative from other ones, the meta-position is likely to encompass the positive and negative meanings associated with the product in a broader consumption narrative so that they can be compared. The meta-position, she argues, provides a distant view on several more specific positions, although it may be drawn to some positions more than others. In its capacity to offer a more distant and overarching view of different I-positions and their relationships with each other, this position has the potential to provide several advantages to consumers for making more mindful decisions: “The initial findings in this study suggest that the ability to see different positions with compassion and non-judgmental acceptance assists in overcoming overconsumption and addiction problems” (p. 483). Such a meta-position has a quality that consumerism lacks: the capacity of moving to different I-positions that, in their specificity and diversity, offer different angles from which one’s behavior, including consumer behavior, can be comparatively and critically evaluated. This capacity is lost in forms

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of economic over-positioning that, therefore, cannot be more than just surrogate promoters.12

he Hidden Persuaders: hey Exist But Are hey Efective? In order to understand the workings of economic over-positioning in the self, we have to address an additional topic: the exploitation of the nonconscious layers of the self. his topic is relevant because it gives more insight in the way the communication channels in the self are used for economic or consumptive purposes (for the nonconscious position and its communication channels, see Figure 4.4). In an overview of studies on subliminal priming, Strahan, Spencer, and Zanna (2002) refer to the famous case of James Vicary, an advertising executive from New Jersey, who claimed in 1957 to have increased Coke sales by 18% and popcorn sales by over 50% by secretly lashing the words “EAT POPCORN” and “DRINK COKE” onto the movie screen at a local theatre. his led to angry reactions, and many people were alarmed about this manipulation. Actually, Vicary had never lashed anything on the movie screen. He had used this lie to save his loundering advertising company. Despite this dubious beginning, many people, including researchers, wondered if subliminal procedures could be used in the service of persuasion. Strahan and colleagues (2002) mention that millions of people buy subliminal self-help tapes to help them lose weight, improve their self-esteem, or increase their assertiveness. Yet over the past decades empirical studies have consistently demonstrated that these tapes are not efective. he authors refer to a well-known meta-study by Pratkanis and Aronson (1992) who examined over 150 articles from the mass media and over 200 papers from scientiic journals on subliminal processes. hey concluded that there was no clear evidence that subliminal messages inluence atitudes or behavior. In contrast, outside the ield of subliminal persuasion a large body of literature suggests that subliminal priming can be quite powerful (e.g., Murphy & Zajonc, 1993, and other studies discussed in chapter 4). What could be the reason that subliminal priming is efective, while subliminal persuasion is not? How can this contradiction be solved? In order to answer this question, Strahan and colleagues (2002) proposed the idea that not only the subliminal stimulus is needed for the efect but also the viewer’s motivation. In order to control the needs of the participants, they asked 12

Note that I have in mind consumerism as distinguished from consumption and economic overpositioning as distinguished from economic positioning. It is certainly possible that an economic position functions as a promoter in the self, if this position would contribute to the organization and development of other I-positions as well and would be open to their speciic values instead of dominating them in asymmetrical ways.

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half of their subjects, before exposing them to the stimulus, to drink as much water as they could, while the other half of the participants did not receive any water at all. Next, participants were instructed to complete a lexical decision task that aforded the researchers the opportunity to administer their subliminal priming manipulation. Siting at a computer, half of the participants were subliminally primed with thirst-related words (i.e., “thirst,” “dry”) while the other half were subliminally primed with neutral words (i.e., “pirate,” “won”). Finally, the participants performed a taste test in which they evaluated two diferent beverages. hey were let alone in the room and told they could drink as much of the beverages as they wanted while they evaluated the beverages. It appeared that participants who received the thirst-related primes and, moreover, were thirsty, drank more than participants who received the neutral prime. In contrast, when participants were not thirsty, the subliminal priming with thirst-related words had no efect. In a similar study, Karremans, Stroebe, and Claus (2006) arrived at the same conclusion. hey conducted two experiments in which they showed that subliminal priming of a brand name of drink (Lipton Ice) positively afected participants’ choice for the primed brand and also their preference for drinking it, but this efect was found only for participants who were thirsty. hese results suggest that a persuasion is efective only if the corresponding motivation in the receiver is high. he use of the technology of subliminal perception is just one example of a broader set of technological advances that becomes increasingly available to commercial agencies in an over-positioning economy. In his book Consumerism as a Way of Life, Steven Mils (1998) notes that, without any doubt, recent developments in technology have provided the consumer with an enormous increase of consumer goods that were previously considered to be the preserve of the happy few and they have increased the standards of living in the economically developed parts of the world. However, he adds that particularly with the arrival of the computer revolution, many commentators become increasingly concerned with “the invisible power of technological innovation and its potential for destroying human freedom, particularly in the context of information gathering and data processing” (p. 86). In his view, the situation has deteriorated in the past years, particularly by the advances in the retail industry that has an increasing access to comprehensive knowledge of consumer proiles. his phenomenon of “invisible power” in the hands of representatives of the economic sphere in society has an important implication in terms of our positioning model. he kernel is this: technologies like subliminal perception and the access to consumer proiles enables commercial agencies to create one-way communication channels to positions in the self of the consumer who is actually not aware of the nonconscious persuasions and the hidden use of their proiles. In the context of our distinction between open and closed boundaries in the self (chapter 2), this means that technologies are increasingly available for a one-way opening of the boundaries of I-positions beyond the awareness of the

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consumer. he strategy of an over-positioning economy is to create communication channels to consumer positions in the self and to do so beyond levels of awareness. Purposely, I use the verb “create” because, as I have discussed earlier in this chapter, the transition from a production to a consumption economy has led not only to the fulillment of existing consumer needs but even to the creation of new ones. here emerges a cyclic process: the economy is able to create new positions in the self (I as the owner of this or that) and even to address and strengthen them via nonconscious channels. As long as the consumer is not aware of this inluence, he or she is not able to develop counter-positions that might limit or undo the efect of this persuasion. When we look at the over-positioning economy from the perspective of the positioning model (Figure 4.4), then its impact can be depicted in the following way. he economy has an increasing arsenal of technological and scientiically based strategies available to address, from a rational position, a variety of emotional and nonconsious positions in the self of the consumer and, moreover, is increasingly able to open one-way communication channels to these positions beyond the conscious awareness of the consumer. his invisible power may be felt as comfortable for those who like to be pleasantly seduced by the wealth and variety of “fancy” products or it may evoke anti-positions in those who are opposed to its manipulative tendencies, or it may even remain entirely unnoticed by those who gradually become incorporated into an expanding system that provides them with an illusory freedom of choice that is actually limited to one type of position only, the consumer one, with its unlimited arsenal of subpositions. In this sense, an over-economy creates a more or less comfortable I-prison in the self. However, when we are, at least to a certain degree, nonconsciously subjected to the invisible power of the economic sphere in our society, is the self able to give an answer to forms of economic over-positioning? Is the self fully determined by the process of marketization so that our lives are increasingly subjected to the blind forces of an over-positioning economy? Are we just pawns in a society in which economy is creeping into the intimate regions of our lives? Or are there potentials in the self that are strong enough to give or develop efective counter-positions that create a necessary balance? In order to answer these questions, a deeper analysis of the nature of economic over-positioning is needed.

What Are the Boundaries of Economic Over-Positioning? How “strong” is the situation of economic over-positioning? he distinction between strong versus weak situations was originally introduced by Mischel (1977). A strong situation exerts pressure to behave in a certain way and does

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this to a degree that people behave similarly. Weak situations exert less pressure so that people’s reactions diverge and are largely guided by their individual tendencies and traits. A popular example of a strong situation is a red traic light that tells car drivers to stop, which they do irrespective of their diferent personality traits. In contrast, a yellow traic light is a weak situation because the most appropriate course of action is not especially well deined. hus more daring people are likely to speed through the intersection on a yellow light, whereas cautious individuals are likely to stop. In a weak situation, personality diferences have a chance to be expressed. What about economic over-positioning? Is it a strong or a weak situation? Certainly, it would be a strong situation when the economic sphere would be entirely penetrating the other spheres including the sphere of personal and social relationships. However, it is likely that societal developments are guided by the dialectical principle that every over-positioning societal force creates its own counter- or anti-position. Indeed, the “dictatorial regime” of the over-positioning economy has led to the emergence of social counter-movements, like “sharing economy,” “sustainable development, “regenerative design,” “appropriate technology,” “cradle to cradle,” “blue economy,” “upcycling,” and the Waste & Resources Action Programme, among others. Although the penetration of the other societal spheres by the economy is deep and pervasive, it is not penetrating them totally given the simple observation that the over-positioning tendency of this sphere creates its own “adversaries” that work as counterforces correcting and limiting, at least to a certain degree, its expansive energies. here is another factor that limits the border-crossing powers of the economy, and this brings us to one of the essentials of the present book: the self always has inherent potentials to resist any “total occupation” by any intrusive force. As I have argued in chapter 1, the self is not simply an isolated entity that functions as an essence in itself and as determined by external societal inluences. Rather, the society works in the self (e.g., as “self-governing,” “self-nationalization,” or “self-internationalization”), with the self having the potential of giving a response to this society at the same time. An important assumption in the present theory is that the self is original and substantial enough to give a response to any societal event, development, or indoctrination. his means that, in addition to societal counter-movements that limit a total expansion of the economic sphere, there are actual or potential counter-positions in the self that emerge from its own original place in the world. his originality enables the self to agree or disagree with societal demands, to express protest, or to reveal preferences. It is never just a “pawn” moved by societal pressures. here are always other positions that are part of the self conceived of as a dynamic multiplicity of I-positions in the landscape of the mind. he term “dynamic” refers to the processes of positioning, counter-positioning, and

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repositioning, implying the possibility of moving from one position to the other. When these positions have diferent qualities (needs, values, expectations), then moving to another position means moving to another quality. As the boundaries of the positions are open, closed, or lexible (chapter 2), other I-positions are accessible only if the boundaries of the positions are open enough to allow a transaction between them. In case of subliminal persuasion techniques or exploitation of the self via use of consumer proiles, the counteracting self would proit from lexible boundaries, as this lexibility allows the self to close itself for inluences that are directed to its nonconscious levels. However, it is not self-evident that the self is able to close its positions when it is not aware of the nonconscious manipulations. As we have seen in chapter 4, atention to nonconcious stimulation by external cues is needed to become aware of subliminal forms of perception. In the same chapter, I discussed the phenomenon of “inatentional blindness.” Extending on this phenomenon, the question may be raised whether there exist an “inatentional consumer blindness” preventing people to become aware of the subtle techniques of commercial actions that make use of the nonconscious and one-way communication channels between the rationalized positions of the advertisement industry and the nonconcious and emotional reactions of the consumer. Here is a challenging task for future studies in psychology and social sciences: to explore the potentials of the self to develop efective counter-positions to an over-positioning economy in order to give viable answers to the asymmetrical penetration of the wider domains of the self. Awareness of nonconsious persuasion and manipulation techniques and, broader, of the deep implications of the processes of marketization and commodiication, is expected to proit from information and knowledge provided by organizations concerned with public welfare and from profound discussions in the media about consumerism and its ethical dimensions.

Alternative Ways for the Self to Respond to Economic Over-Positioning I gave this summarizing analysis because it provides the clues to alternative responses of the self to over-positioning economic trends in an individualizing society. My purpose in this section is to give some general guidelines for these alternative responses, based on the belief that the self has potentials available to give an efective answer to any form of over-positioning. It is a belief in the possibility of transforming consumerism and economizing as “strong situations” to “less strong situations” and in the possibility of the self to liberate itself from an over-positioning economy as an I-prison. I sketch four alternatives: (a) become aware of the ield of tension between enrichment and impoverishment of the

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self; (b) ind a balance between self and other; (c) cultivate the capacity to create lexible (opening and closing) communication channels between I-positions in the self; and (d) develop meta-positions and promoter-positions.

Awareness of the Tension Between Enrichment and Impoverishment he irst principle that would guide an alternative response to economic overpositioning is an increasing awareness that the self is not just an essence in itself but part of a society. he self is not an “island” capable of isolating itself from a surrounding world, closed from external inluences and inding a “ground” in itself. On the contrary, society is working in the self and expresses itself in the self, at the same time instigating the self to give an answer in the form of agreement or disagreement, conirmation or disconirmation, adding value to society or preventing such value to emerge. What particularly strikes me is what I  see as a fundamental contradiction emanating from developments in the relationship between self and society in our era. On the one hand, we witness an increasing appeal to the autonomous self to incorporate and respond to a wide variety of societal opportunities (e.g., self-government, self-cure, self-nationalization, self-internationalization), while on the other hand this bandwidth of possible I-positions is restricted and even threatened by processes of over-positioning. We are confronted with a paradox emerging from an increasing ield of tension between the enrichment of the self and its impoverishment. In my view, the irst answer to this paradox is to start becoming aware of it. Freedom from I-prisons starts with awareness of the pathways in self and society that go from impoverishment to enrichment and vice versa.

Toward a Balance Between Self and Other A discussion of the relationship between individual and society is intimately related to the relationship between self and other. Indeed, self and other, in their connection, are the basic ingredients of any society. In this chapter I compared two systems that ofer diferent, even contrasting, views of the ideal way a society is organized: communism and capitalism. My purpose was to show that both systems sufer from over-positioning, with communism placing the other (the community) above the self (the individual) and neo-liberalism doing the reverse, placing the self above the other. My argument was that both systems, by doing this, arrive in a state of over-positioning and, inally, result in I-prisons.

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In order to demonstrate the over-positioning tendencies of both systems, I made use of Schimank and Volkmann’s (2012) theory that sees modern society as functionally diferentiated and as consisting of subsystems that function, in Max Weber’s (2005) terms, as “value spheres.” Each subsystem functions as a subuniverse of meaning constituted by its speciic value, such as truth in science, power in politics, love in intimate relations, or proit in economy. his theory corresponds with positioning theory that deines the self as a dynamic multiplicity of relatively autonomous I-positions. As each societal subsystem functions as a relative autonomous universe of meaning, actors who participate in a particular subsystem know without any doubt which expectations guide their positioning and their corresponding behavior. he close relationship between consumerism and money raises the question about their inluence on self and society. Vohs, Mead, and Goode (2006) showed that exposure to money brings about a self-suicient orientation in which people prefer to be free of dependency and dependents, and Caruso, Vohs, Baxter, and Waytz (2013) demonstrated that money-reminded participants believe more strongly that socially advantaged groups should dominate socially disadvantaged groups and that victims deserve their fate. hey also found that reminders of money increased preference for a free-market system of organ transplants that beneited the wealthy at the expense of the poor. As these results suggest, money orientation has an inluence on beliefs about the social order favoring self-suiciency and social inequality. Kasser and Ryan (1993) moreover demonstrated that money-related values and expectancies are negatively related to wellbeing and mental health. As Hamilton (2010a, 2010b), Cushman (1990), and many other commentators have suggested, consumerism does not lead to more happiness. Instead, as these authors suggest, the result is depression, dissatisfaction, and emptiness. Here the extremes are touching each other: ultimately overpositioning ends up in under-positioning with the self being locked up in an I-prison. he detrimental inluence of consumerism and money orientation is that the emotional and power distance between participants in society increase and that social cohesion in society is reduced. In order to avoid the risks of over- and under-positioning, a balance between self and other is needed. herefore, I proposed at the end of chapter 4 a selfwith-other model based on the idea that self and other need each other for their development. I  concluded that neuroscientiic, developmental, and socialpsychological evidence suggests that self and other are not separate agencies that communicate with each other ater they have been deined as “masters of their own ground.” Instead, they can only function as parts of a self-with-other relationship and derive and develop their autonomy on the basis of an intrinsic relatedness. his self-with-other model is expanded by the assumption, based on James’s (1890) concept of the extension of the self and Bakhtin’s (1973) notion

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of the other as “another I,” that the other is an I-position in the extended domain of the self. he implication of this view is that taking care of oneself is, at the same time, taking care for the other and that killing another is killing a part of one’s self. Educational practices may proit from teaching students from a young age onward that every human being, irrespective of age, nation, color, race, sex, or class, is, principally, not an external “object” or “abject” but an actual or possible I-position in the external domain of the self (for a model in which the position “I has a human” is included, see chapter 8).13

Two-Way Communication Channels In the conception of a functionally diferentiated society, each subsystem represents a subuniverse of meaning formed by its speciic value, such as truth in science, power in politics, love in intimate relations, freedom of speech in journalism, knowledge in education, or proit in economy. In this proposal, each subsystem functions as a relatively autonomous universe of meaning. Despite the autonomy of the diferent subsystems, they are mutually very interdependent, and, moreover, individual participants’ personal development and contributions to society are highly dependent on the performances of participants of the other subsystems. he diferent value spheres need each other for the realization of their specialized actions. Functional diferentiation creates a very advanced division of labor among subsystemic activities. We saw that in modern society, marketization as a societal principle increasingly iniltrates noneconomic subsystems such as health care (e.g., increasing proit margins in private hospitals), education (e.g., schools for the rich only), art (e.g., inancial investment in art), science (e.g., the power of pharmacological industry), journalism (programming dependent on numbers of readers or viewers), or politics (e.g., political representation as springboard to a position in the banking industry). In this way, marketization is involved in a process of economizing other societal subsystems with the result that economic considerations 13 From a democratic perspective, Held (2006) discusses the opposition between Francis Fukuyama’s work he End of History and the Last Man that celebrates the ultimate triumph of economic and political liberalism and Alex Callinicos’ (1991) book he Revenge of History:  Marxism and the East-European Revolutions, writen as a vigorous defense of classic Marxism. In Callinicos’ view, the East European revolutions, considered as a victory of capitalism, make Marxism and direct democracy more relevant today, not less. According to Callinicos and Marxists more generally, equality and liberty can only be realized if the means of production are socialized, that is, subject to collective appropriation and social control. “Only the later can ultimately guarantee that ‘the free development of each’ is compatible with the ‘free development of all’ ” (see Held, 2006, p. 230). Such oppositions and clashes, and the discussions they evoke, point to the historical search for achieving a dynamic balance between self and other and between individuality and collectivity.

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for inancial proits and costs guide noneconomic subsystems that are increasingly exposed to market forces. From the perspective of positioning theory, the process of advanced marketization uses one-way communication channels between the economic sphere and the other spheres. his leads to a one-sided penetration of the other spheres and to their homogenization to a degree that they have insuicient space to contribute to the other spheres rom their own speciic values. A similar process takes place on the level of the self. While society can be seen as consisting of a dynamic multiplicity of relatively autonomous subsystems, the self is considered as consisting of a dynamic multiplicity of I-positions. As long as there are open two-way communication channels between the different I-positions, the speciic values from one I-position can be communicated with one or more other positions and vice versa so that positions have the space to add value to each other, rather than becoming homogenized by one dominating I-position only. When communication channels can be opened depending on the demands of the situation, positions can cooperate and become involved in cross-fertilization. As a teacher, I may proit from my knowledge as a scientist and vice versa. As a politician or as politically engaged, I may use my experiences when I work as a volunteer in my neighborhood and vice versa. Ater reading a book about Buddhism, I realized that I, as a Catholic, can learn from taking a Buddhist position, as a way to look at my Catholic education in another, refreshing way. When my friend John got in inancial trouble, I was happy that I could support him by giving him the advice he needed (and I learned a lot from this experience for the management of my own inances). Flexible movements through two-way communication channels enable participants in society to not only move hence and forth between diferent subsystems but also to develop selves that use these channels to mutually enrich their diferent I-positions (for the enrichment of the self, see the next chapter). Certainly, marketers are aware of the necessity of taking the wishes and questions of consumers into account and using a diversity of communication channels to present their products and to maximize comfort on the part of the consumer. We see this in the recent trend of “omni-channel retailing” devised to provide a “consumer experience” through all available shopping channels: mobile Internet devices, direct mail, television, radio, computers, brick-and-mortar, and others. By using all channels simultaneously, retailers are able to track customers across all channels. For example, the brick-and-mortar stores are an extension of a supply chain in which purchases may be made in the store, while the product is researched through other channels of communication (e.g., the Internet). When the products are not available in a shop, they are delivered next morning at home with package mail and via cell phone one is informed about the time of delivery. However, the use of “omni” is misleading as “all” channels are directed to one position only, the person as consumer. he more the consumer position becomes

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central in the self, the more communication channels are directed toward this position. On the contrary, when the other positions become peripheral, the trafic to these positions becomes reduced. In other words, the term “omni” would be more appropriate when qualitatively diferent positions and their communication channels would become involved in a broader ield of social and societal interactions rather than being limited to one type of position (consumer) only.14 For the preservation of the unique qualities of the diferent I-positions, and for their mutual fertilization, two-way communication channels are needed so that this speciic value can be exchanged so that viable combinations or coalitions of positions may emerge (see also the next chapter). Along these two-way communication channels, counter-positions can also be mobilized, efective enough to limit the one-sided penetration of the consumer or economic positions in their overruling tendencies. Such counter-positions may greatly vary as they depend both on the situation and personal history of the individual: “I as critical of fashionable trends,” “I as well-informed about marketing manipulations,” “I as developing a sober lifestyle,” “I as the creator of a nonproit organization,” “I as supporting unprivileged people,” or any answer that may limit the expansive tendencies emanating from the self-perpetuating productionconsumption cycle and its increasing capacity of satisfying existing consumer needs and producing new ones. here is one additional possibility that I would like to emphasize as a realizable and practical answer to economic over-positioning: the simultaneous participation of citizens in more than one societal subsystem. Suppose we consider an over-positioning economy a “strong situation” in Mischel’s (1977) sense of the term. As already described earlier in this chapter, a strong situation exerts pressure to behave in a certain way to such a degree that people behave similarly. Weak situations, on the other hand, exert less pressure so that people’s reactions diverge and are largely guided by their individual tendencies and traits. When the economy in its overemphasis would become a strong situation then not much space is let for a variety and diversity of I-positions, as all positions in the self would be subjected to its homogenizing reign. How could over-positioning economy become less “strong”? A viable way seems to be when professionals, employers, and employees, instead of limiting their activities to one subsystem only, would participate also in one or more of the other subsystems. For example, a banker works also as a teacher at a university, a marketer also as a social worker, a professional goes back to school, and a producer of TV programs 14

Multiplicity does not automatically imply diversity. Whereas “multiplicity” refers to the quantity of I-positions, “diversity” represents their qualitative diferences. Qualitative diferences acknowledge not only the uniqueness of the positions but also the ield of tension between opposing, contradicting, and conlicting positions.

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works as a volunteer in his neighborhood, in this way transporting knowledge and experience from one to another subsystem. Broader, signiicant others, like one’s family, children, and friends, oten function as “openers” of other societal spheres that are diferent from ours. Such simultaneous participation in diferent subsystems not only creates more open and two-way communication channels between these spheres on a societal level, but it also encourages more diversity of I-positions in the self and their two-way communication.

Meta-Positions and Promoters Revisited When the purpose is to protect the self from any kind of over-positioning and to prevent its multiplicity to become homogenized at the cost of its diversity, then there are, in the society of the self, two kinds of I-positions that have a special “task”: meta-positions and promoters. As discussed in this chapter consumerism is maintained and fed by a permanent, self-perpetuating need to fulill instant needs that lead to instant forms of short-term satisfaction. Taking a metaposition enables the consumer, in principle, to “look beyond the product” and to place it in the broader context of his or her own life and that of others. his capacity, not to give in to the desire of instant gratiication, is nicely demonstrated by research on “delay of gratiication.” In series of famous experiments, Mischel, Shoda, and Rodriguez (1989), placed four-year-old-children in a situation in which they had the choice of immediate gratiication of a smaller reward or delay of gratiication that enabled them to receive a larger one. As part of the procedure each child was shown treats that were desirable and of age-appropriate interest (e.g., one marshmallow versus two or two small cookies versus ive pretzels). Ater showing the treats, the experimenter let the room and then went back ater 15 minutes. However, before the experimenter let, the children were told that to atain the treat of their preference, they had to wait until the experimenter returned but that they were free to end the waiting period whenever they gave a signal. However, if they did, they would get the less preferred object and forgo the other one (e.g., receiving one marshmallow instead of two). In a followup study of the children more than 10  years later, the researchers found that those who had waited longer in this situation at four years of age were described by their parents as adolescents who were more academically and socially competent than their peers and more able to cope with frustration and resist temptation: “parents saw these children as more verbally luent and able to express ideas; they used and responded to reason, were atentive and able to concentrate, to plan, and to think ahead, and were competent and skillful. Likewise they were perceived as able to cope and deal with stress more maturely and seemed more self-assured” (Mischel, Shoda, & Rodriguez, 1989, p. 934, emphases added). In one of the versions of this study, delay time in preschool was also signiicantly

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related to their Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores when they applied to college. he researchers concluded that four-year-old children who were able to delay their gratiication longer in certain laboratory situations “developed into more cognitively and socially competent adolescents, achieving higher scholastic performance and coping beter with frustration and stress” (p. 933).15 hese indings are particularly relevant to understanding the capacity of taking a meta-position to think ahead and to develop self-control when consumers are exposed to atractive products. From the perspective of the present theory, this thinking ahead may be particularly efective if supported by speciic I-positions in the internal domain of the self (e.g., “I as sober,” “I as self-controlled,” “I as taking care of my health”) and positions in the external domain of the self (e.g., “my family who is against buying this product,” “my children who need me as a model,” or “future generations”). However, internal or external positions can only facilitate thinking ahead if they are not dominated by forms of economic over-positioning. On the other hand, economic positions in the self are functional only if they are in the service of developing other positions in the self or in a state of balance with them. he inding of “using and responding to reason” in Mischel and colleagues’ (1989) experiment refers to another capacity of a well-developed metaposition:  serving as an interface between emotional and reasoning positions. As I have argued in this chapter, the sophisticated techniques of marketers and selling agencies to appeal to emotions as short-term sequences of dissatisfaction and instant gratiication prevent communication channels between emotion and reason from being open and two-way. he unfortunate consequence is that a two-way dialogue between reason and emotion has no chance to develop within a self that is unarmed to use reason in the service of long-term interests and goals and to protect other parts of the self against the power of systematic asymmetrical penetration. Appropriate meta-positions and their ofspring (e.g., “I as being aware of the inluence of our consumption behavior on the future of our children” or “I as seeing the necessity of a more balanced relationship between economy and ecology”) are the instruments par excellence to stimulate 15 Inspired by Mischel’s (1977) earlier experiments on delay of gratiication, Hoch and Loewenstein (1991) presented a model that considers consumer self-control as a struggle between two psychological forces, desire and willpower, and in this context described a number of self-control strategies. One of them is “pre-commitment through self-binding,” for example, wiring one’s jaw shut as a means of losing weight and taking the drug Antabuse to discourage future drinking or, in a less extreme case, leaving one’s credit cards and checkbook at home when going shopping. Another strategy is “invoking a higher authority”: consumers make eforts to resist impulsivity by adherence to a higher-order principle or religious being. Self-binding creates a counter- or anti-position in the internal domain of the self as a defense against an over-positioning other one, while adherence to a higher authority does the same in the external domain of the self.

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two-way “traic” between emotional and reasoning positions in the service of the long-term interests and goals of the self and its social and ecological extensions. Such a meta-position is concerned with issues like social inequality, the balance of economy and ecology, the inluence of social media in our lives, and the relationship between diferent cultures. Note that reason and meta-position do not necessarily coincide. While a well-developed meta-position is dependent on the breadth and long-term character of one’s position repertoire, including the positions of others, reasoning is a way to examine these positions via stepby-step analysis, investigating their consequences, looking for paterns, comparing them, and analyzing their commonalities and diferences. he meta-position broadens the scope of reason. he development of promoter positions in the self is a viable strategy for protecting oneself against overconsumption too. As I have argued, overconsumption cannot be more than a surrogate promoter. Although it may become central in the organization of the self (many other positions depend on it), it lacks longterm satisfaction and commitment and, moreover, homogenizes the self-system to a degree that the diversity and unique values of the speciic positions are lost or their own developmental pathways blocked. From this analysis it follows that a healthy counterweight to the over-positioning tendencies of consumerism requires the development of appropriate promoters (e.g., “I as educator involved in stimulating students to develop their values in life” or “I as contributing to the welfare of unprivileged people”) that have the potential of providing longterm satisfaction and sense of meaning that may liberate the self from the selfperpetual cycle of desire and instant gratiication. For the development of both meta- and promoter positions, atention is paramount. Mischel and colleagues (1989) refer to James (1890) who assumes that the individual’s atention during the delay period is especially important in the development of the ability to delay gratiication. In that context they refer to Freudian literature in which it was proposed that atention to the delayed gratiications in anticipation, thought, and mental representation provides the mechanism that allows people to bridge the temporal delay required for the atainment of the goal. he ability to represent the anticipated gratiications mentally helps them delay by focusing on these thoughts or fantasies, thereby inhibiting impulsive actions. As I have described in chapter 4, atention is also needed as a counterweight to nonconscious inluences as expressed, for example, in the phenomenon of inatentional blindness. Indeed, the practice of giving atention (e.g., via here and now awareness or mindfulness procedures) to ways of nonconscious positioning in the service of marketization may be useful as a viable response to forms of “inatentional consumer blindness.” Such atention and expanded awareness requires lexible and two-way communication channels between conscious and nonconscious I-positions in the self.

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Finally, in this chapter I have focused on the processes of economizing and marketization and their implication for the I-positions in the self. I did so not with the intention to devaluate the economic subsystem or the process of consumption in any way, as I see these activities are performing necessary and even welcome functions in the service of self and society. Rather, I was concerned with an over-positioning economy and overconsumption as typical of contemporary neo-liberal tendencies to commodiication. As Jessop (2012) wrote, one could explore processes associated with other functional systems such as (over) juridiication, (over)medicalization, (over)militarization, (over)sacralization, (over)politicization, or (over)scientization and study their corresponding forms of over-positioning in the self as well. I have focused on marketization and consumerism as I, together with many other critics, see these processes as pervasive forms of over-positioning in contemporary society and as having deep implications for the (future) development of the self. I tried to show how the positioning model, as summarized in Figure 4.4, is useful for understanding what happens when society and self are under the spell of one overly dominating societal subsystem and one type of position in the self. Moreover, I demonstrated how the same model has the potential to give some (preliminary) answers to forms of economic over-positioning in the service of a more democratic organization of the self.

Summary he purpose of this chapter was to explore the process of over-positioning and to show how it leads to I-prisons that limit the freedom of the self. As self and society are intensely connected, I examined this process on both levels. As an example of over-positioning, I referred to research on “pushy parents” and the efect of this parental behavior on the later interactions of their children with friends. I  argued that this pushy and manipulative behavior had the efect of atenuation of the communication channels of their children at some later point in time. In order to expand on research between parents and children I discussed the parental behavior of depressed parents. It appeared that this behavior may take the form of under-positioning or over-positioning and is at risk of increasing the emotional distance between parents and children and atenuating the communication channels of children with others. hen I studied the phenomenon of over-positioning on the societal level by comparing the Soviet communist system that placed the other (the community) above the self (the individual), and the capitalist society in its neo-liberal manifestation that places the self above the other. As examples of communist overpositioning, I  dwelled on its housing policy with its restrictions on personal

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space and private initiative, and with its totalitarian policy that had the efect of transforming critical positions into anti-positions in the case of the so-called “dissidents.” he main part of this chapter was devoted to the process of marketization and economizing in modern societies and their manifestation in consumerism as forms of over-positioning that inally may lead to a point that the self is locked up in a (comfortable or uncomfortable) I-prison. hese processes were considered from the sociological perspective of “diferentiation theory” in which society is seen as composed of diferent subsystems (e.g. politics, economy, religion, science, art, journalism, education, health care, sports) of which the economic subsystem is only one of many. However, over-positioning of this subsystem is manifested in the process of “asymmetrical penetration” in that the economy, and money as its main exchange medium, penetrate deeply all other societal subsystems, with the risk that the speciic values of the other subsystems are compromised. On the psychological level I continued this analysis by discussing the “entrepreneurial self ” and, more extensively, the “consumer self ” arguing that consumption or entrepreneurship is only one of a larger array of I-positions in the self and part of its organization. When we look at the self from the perspective of entrepreneurship or consumption only, we witness on the level of the self a process similar to the one taking place on the societal level: asymmetrical penetration as a form of over-positioning of one type of I-position only with the deleterious consequence that that the unique values and potentials of the other I-positions are reduced or even lost. In this context, I  discussed several related phenomena: the “empty self ” resulting from the combination of individualism and consumerism ater World War II, the shadow side of the American dream, the excesses of hyperconsumption in an aluent society, the psychological consequences of money orientation, and the failure of overconsumption to contribute signiicantly to happiness. Special atention was devoted to research on subliminal perception as it can be used in the service of “hidden persuasion” techniques. I argued that consumers need the development of “atention” as a way of becoming aware of hidden manipulations by agencies that function as “invisible powers” opening one-way communication channels to emotions and nonconscious layers of the self in order to address and even create consumptionoriented I-positions. Finally, I used the analysis of over-positioning in the service of exploring the potentials of the self to respond to the process of marketization and consumption in their over-positioning manifestations. I discussed the following ways as viable alternatives:  (a) awareness of the ield of tension between enrichment (qualitative diversity of I-positions rather than quantitative multiplicity) and impoverishment (one-way penetration by one type of I-position only); (b) inding a balance between self and other by the acknowledgment the other as part

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of the self and by considering the other, not as a “self-object” but as “another I”; (c)  developing two-way communication channels between emotional and reasoning positions in the self, preventing one-way manipulation of emotional positions in the service of economic powers that are focused on addressing consumers’ emotional positions, at the same time considering their reasoning positions as secondary to the emotional positions or reducing them to post hoc justiications; and (d) developing efective meta-positions that provide the self with the capacity of delay of gratiication and generate promoters that have the potential of realizing long-term goals, which may replace instant satisfactions as illing the gaps of an empty self.

6

Heterogenizing and Enriching the Self Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm. —Winston Churchill

As I have argued in the previous chapter, the homogenization of the self as a consequence of over-positioning is not a necessity but a risk. It is a risk if over-positioning leads to the domination, suppression, or iniltration of other I-positions in the society of the self so that the subordinated positions do not receive the space to speak and act from their own speciic point of view. However, it is not a necessity as the self always has the potential to give alternative reactions to any social or societal inluence, and it does so in the form of counter- or anti-positions that move the self into another direction and enable it to escape from any societal determinism. Certainly, as a result of domination, suppression, or iniltration, the self is subjected to a process of homogenization. However, when counter- or anti-positions are efective enough to inhibit or stop this inluence, they contribute to the heterogenization of the self (unless they exaggerate to the other side). Actually, the self is located in a ield of permanent tension between homogenizing and heterogenizing forces. As we have seen in the previous chapter, the process of over-economization entails the risk of giving some positions, like the consumer or the entrepreneurial one, such a central place in the self that these positions iniltrate, oten as invisible powers, the other I-positions. As a consequence, the self as a whole is at risk of impoverishing homogenization at the costs of its qualitative diversity. In the same chapter, I also suggested that over-positioning powers are not the end of the story, inluential as they may be in a particular phase of history, but always part of larger array of possibilities and, as a consequence, always challenged by rival positions that operate as efective of less efective counterpowers. 255

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he notion of heterogeneity of the self was already examined in chapter 1, where I entered the ields of psychology, cultural anthropology, medicine, sociology, and political science and touched some phenomena that are emerging in the literature on the contact zone between self and society. I  discussed a variety of phenomena such as self-sabotage, self-radicalization, self-cure, selfnationalization, self-internationalization, self-governing, self-globalization, and self-institutionalization (self-marriage) with the intention of demonstrating that the self is functioning as a mini-society while, at the same time, being part of society at large. In that context I concluded that processes of self and identity, particularly those on the interface of globalization and localization, have the implication that the self is faced with an unprecedented density of positions; that its position repertoire becomes complexly paterned and heterogeneous, laden as it is with diferences, tensions, oppositions, and contradictions; that its repertoire receives more visits by unexpected positions; and that there are more and larger position leaps implying that the individual has to make more and larger “mental jumps” given the relatively large psychological distance between the different I-positions. hese developments suggest that, particularly on the interface of globalization and localization, the self is faced with an increasing heterogeneity of I-positions (Hermans, 2015). In this chapter I pick up the line started in chapter 1 by further deepening the heterogeneity of the self and its potentials for the content and organization of the self. here is, however, a diference with chapter 1. While in that chapter I collected arguments for the increasing heterogeneity of the self as relected by emerging literatures in a variety of disciplines, in the present chapter I want to concentrate primarily on the psychological and health-related advantages of the heterogeneity of the self. My purpose in the present chapter is not so much to give arguments for the existence of the heterogeneity of the self but irst of all to emphasize its crucial importance for the enrichment of the self and, closely related, for its democratization. I address three main topics that I see as immediately relevant to this purpose. First, I focus on happiness or subjective well-being with the intention to show that this experience is more heterogeneous and multifaceted than one would expect on the basis of unidimensional conceptions that might suggest the existence of a continuum ranging from “happy” to “unhappy.” I refer to literatures indicating that one may be happy from the perspective of one I-position and, at the same time, unhappy in another one. he possibility that the happiness of the one position can interfere with the happiness of the other one requires a more complex and nuanced picture of subjective well-being. Second, as many psychoanalysts have observed, the self is oten split between well-accepted I-positions that foster our self-esteem and please us with the most comfortable mirror image of ourselves on the one hand and

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unacceptable or shadow-positions that make us feel uneasy about our “strangers inside” on the other hand. I will argue that a confrontation with and acceptance of the unfamiliar or rejected parts of the self add to the diferentiation and even enrichment of the self as a whole. At the same time, such self-awareness and acceptance function as a safeguard against projecting, in uncritical ways, the inside enemies on particular individuals or groups in society. Access to the shadow positions in the self requires open communication channels that prevent them from hiding themselves underground and from expressing themselves in nonconscious or uncontrolled ways to the detriment of both self and society. hird, closely related to the previous point, is the distinction between comfort, challenge, and danger zones in the self. As long as we ind ourselves in our comfort zone, we feel safe, at ease, and relaxed and have the tendency to stay there until we become bored and desire change or challenge, which may motivate us to take a position in the challenge zone. However, when external threats or internal ruminations are strong and pervasive, they bring us, even if we do not want it, into the danger zone of the self where we feel uncomfortable, threatened, and even unsafe. When we face an unfamiliar, stressful, or traumatic situation, we move, temporarily or more permanently, to the danger zone in the self where strong negative emotions prevail. I want to emphasize that these zones are not purely “outside” and not only “in the situation.” People may be fearful to enter a danger zone in themselves (e.g., inferiority in themselves or feeling guilty) even when the external situation seems to be comfortable and safe. Typically, the self is motivated and able to move back from the danger to the comfort zone, unless the self is locked up within the boundaries of an I-prison. Most central in my argument is the consideration that there is no sharp boundary between the two zones, as there exists an intermediate zone, the challenge zone. his area in the self lacks the familiarity of the comfort zone and does not bring us into the frightening corners of the danger zone but functions as a “ield of uncertainty,” in this respect not very diferent from Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development, that appeals to our capacity and courage to face new and unexpected situations. his zone of challenge, particularly relevant in a boundary-crossing globalizing society, is elaborated on in chapter 7 where I delve into the possibilities and challenges of the process of dialogue.

Happiness as a Multiplicity of I-Positions In their extensive review of studies on subjective well-being, Diener, Scollon, and Lucas (2003) note that, although happiness is a widely presumed component of the good life, it has not been deined in a uniform way. he history of

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philosophy relects both diference and disagreement. Aristotle, for example, embraced the eudaimonia deinition of happiness that includes not only virtue and excellence but also goods as health, wealth, and beauty. In contrast to the idea of external goods, one of the earliest thinkers on the subject of happiness, the pre-Socratic philosopher Democritus, maintained that happiness did not depend on goods or possessions but on the way the people react to their circumstances, emphasizing the role of disposition and subjectivity. Another Greek philosopher, Aristippus, advocated the unrestrained pursuit of immediate pleasure and enjoyment, in this way advancing an extreme form of hedonism. he stoics, on the other hand, agreed with Aristotle on the value of virtue but denied the necessity of external goods.

Satisiers and Dissatisiers According to Diener and colleagues (2003), in the early phases of psychology scientists and practitioners were interested in the connection between happiness and mental illness. However, when they started to study happiness more systematically, they discovered that the absence of mental illness is not suicient for mental health. hey called for the inclusion of positive states in deinitions of well-being, which produced a paradigmatic shit in conceptions of mental health. Not only mental aberrations with their associated negative emotions were of central concern for health practitioners, happiness also became a signiicant ield of study. As a watershed moment in research on happiness, Diener and colleagues (2003) mention Bradburn’s (1969) inding that positive afect and negative afect are independent and that happiness is not unidimensional but at least twodimensional. his implies that positive and negative afect are not simply polar ends of a single continuum but need to be measured separately. Moreover, this two-dimensional model suggests that the factors that inluence positive afect are diferent from the factors that result in negative afect. Bradburn gives an example of the following type. If a couple has an argument, they are likely to experience an increase in negative afect. If they do not have this argument, they will not experience the negative afect but their positive afect will not change into any direction as it is independent of the negative afect. On the other hand, when they go out for a dinner or movie, they are likely to experience more positive afect but their negative afect is unaltered. Bradburn notes that his model is similar to Herzberg, Mausner, and Snyderman’s (1959) classic theory of job satisfaction. hey distinguished a group of factors that they called “dissatisiers” and another group they labeled as “satisiers.” Factors such as low pay, poor work conditions, and disagreements with the boss led to job dissatisfaction, while

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interesting work, chances for self-development, and job responsibility produced job satisfaction. As Bradburn’s and Herzberg’s models suggest, subjective well-being is not simply one position in which a person feels located in a homogeneous way. Rather, they suggest the existence of qualitatively different affective positions, each with their specific situational correlates. An implication of this view is that, when people position themselves as “happy” in communication with others (e.g., in happiness polls) or toward themselves (in selfreflection), it is only half of the picture. “I as happy” and “I as unhappy” may coexist in relation to the same person (e.g., “In the relationship with my partner, I  feel often happy but also many times unhappy”). Moreover, the two positions may have different situational correlates (e.g., “I notice that I have many positive emotions but no negative emotions when I’m in nature, but when I’m in a meeting in my work I have often negative emotions but no positive ones”). In so-called “ambivalent experiences” happiness and unhappiness may even co-exist in one situation (e.g., “When I  was part of that group, I was happy because they accepted me, but unhappy because I lost my freedom of movement”).

A Multiplicity of Domain Satisfactions he multiplicity of happiness is not limited to two dimensions only. As Diener et al.’s (2003) review shows, happiness researchers have introduced a concept that refers to the situation speciicity of subjective well-being, “domain satisfaction.” It relects a person’s evaluation of the speciic domains in his or her life (e.g., marriage, work, health, leisure). Not only does domain satisfaction refer to the multiplicity of sources of well-being, but these domains also receive diferent weights when people evaluate the inluence on their well-being. For example, individuals who consider themselves happy are more likely to weigh the domains in their life in which they function well more heavily, whereas unhappy individuals are more likely to weigh the domains in their life in which they fail more heavily. hus, when one wants to foster increased well-being at work, job satisfaction may provide a more sensitive measure than any global well-being scale. Similarly, researchers who are interested in the well-being of certain populations may want to focus their assessment on those domains that are particularly relevant for that group. While students may be primarily concerned about grades and learning, the elderly may be more afected by their health and social support. he assessment of domain-speciic well-being provides more detailed information about the speciic aspects of one’s life than any unidimensional measure of happiness can provide.

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Strikingly, Diener and colleagues’ (2003) review of subjective well-being does not say much about the possible interference between the speciic domains. hey seem to be more interested in diferences than in interference and conlict. Yet, there is a host of literature that refers to tension and interference between the diferent domains, particularly between work and family. In a meta-analytic review, Byron (2005) combined the results of more than 60 studies to determine the factors that lead to work interference with family and the ones that produce family interference with work. As expected, she found that work factors (e.g., job stress, schedule lexibility) related more strongly to work interference with family, and some non-work factors (e.g., marital conlict, the age of the youngest child) were more related to family interference with work. Evidently, work and family are not separated domains of well-being, and they can be involved in tension and conlict.1 Not only are there interferences between work and family life and not only are these tensions emerging from diferent sources, it appears that one domain is more impacted by interference than the other. In a review of studies on the relationships between domain satisfaction in family and work, Ford, Heinen, and Langkamer (2007) found that the relationship between the domains is not symmetrical. hey observed that work stress crosses over into the family domain, in its inluence on domain-speciic satisfaction, more than family stress crosses over into the work domain. hey also noted that “hese relations are indicators of the permeability of work and family role boundaries” (p. 57, emphasis added). his observation is particularly relevant to our purposes. he permeability of the diferent domains refers to the existence of communication channels between the positions that people occupy in the diferent domains. Moreover, this communication is asymmetrical in the sense that the I-position as family member is more open to the disturbing communication from the side of the work-position than the other way around. Maybe in our work positions we are more inclined or more able to close of from outside interferences than as family members.

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Even during the completion of personality questionnaires conlicts between I-positions may arise. In an empirical study of this phenomenon, Raggat and Weatherley (2015) investigated dilemmas with interpreting mid-range trait scores (scoring between high and low) on the NEO Personality Inventory–Revised, a questionnaire measure of the so-called Big Five personality traits. Using dialogical self theory, they hypothesized that mid-range individuals would report more conlict between I-positions associated with the trait domain concerned (e.g., conlict between “I-as-bold” and “I-asreserved” in the case of Extraversion). In agreement with the hypothesis, they found that for three of the Big Five traits (Extraversion, Openness to Experience, and Agreeableness), individuals who scored mid-range reported more conlict between I-positions congruent with that trait than respondents in the upper and lower quartiles of the distribution. he authors argued that their indings highlight problems of interpretation for mid-range trait scores in personality questionnaires and criticized trait theories as masking dynamic processes as well as social contexts.

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Life Satisfaction as an Afective Meta-Position Apart from positive afect, negative afect, and domain satisfaction, Diener and colleagues (2003) distinguish a fourth factor, life satisfaction, that adds to the multiplicity and diversity of well-being. his type of evaluation refers to a global judgment about the quality of a person’s life. When making this evaluation, individuals presumably examine the conditions in their lives, give a weight to their importance, and then rate the quality of their lives on a scale ranging from dissatisied to satisied. In contrast to positive emotions such as joy or happiness and negative emotions such as anger and sadness, which are more transient and situation-bound, life satisfaction requires an evaluation of one’s life as a whole (in our terms, it is more a feeling than an emotion and, moreover, requires a meta-position, see Table  4.2). Ater years of research, the authors add, there is quite some knowledge about how life satisfaction judgments are made. It appears that most individuals do not, and probably are not even able, to examine all aspects of their lives and then weigh them appropriately. Rather, they use a variety of shortcuts when coming up with satisfaction judgments and include information that is salient at the time of the judgment. Ratings of life satisfaction can be inluenced by seemingly irrelevant factors such as the weather at the time of judgment. Current mood can inluence these ratings even if that current mood does not relect one’s overall levels of subjective well-being. Yet, as the authors demonstrate, research shows that there is substantial temporal stability in life satisfaction. When particular domains in people’s lives are extremely important to them, this information is likely to come to mind when they make judgments about their life satisfaction. People seem to be aware of the type of information they use when making a judgment about their life satisfaction. Domains that people evaluate as important to their lives are more strongly correlated with life satisfaction than domains that are rated as being less important. Moreover, much of the information that one needs to make this judgement remains the same over time. herefore, the authors conclude that, although satisfaction judgments are subject to biases and mistakes, in many cases people use relevant and stable information, resulting in stable and meaningful satisfaction judgments.

How Diferent Is One’s Own Well-Being and the Well-Being of Others? here is one aspect in Diener and colleagues’ (2003) review that is particularly signiicant to our distinction between internal and external (or extended) positions in the self. When it comes to cultural diferences, they refer to research showing that participants from individualistic cultures, when judging life

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satisfaction, relied on their own afective well-being (positive and negative emotions) to a greater extent than participants from collectivist cultures. In contrast, individuals from collective cultures relied more on whether or not signiicant others thought their life was on the right track.2 he distinction between internal and external positions in the self is useful in gaining more insight in the connection between the emotions of signiicant others and one’s own subjective well-being. he distinction acknowledges that the well-being of a signiicant other is part of one’s “own” well-being, a reality that is oten neglected in individualistic conceptions of well-being, based as they are on the assumption of a sharp distinction between self and other, with the other deined as “outside” the self (Callero, 2002; Sampson, 1985). It is easy to observe, also in our Western cultures that, when one feels close to another person, one’s “own” well-being is, at least to a certain degree, dependent on the wellbeing of the other. We are unhappy if someone we love is unhappy; similarly, the joy of the other may become our own joy. Apparently, well-being is extended well-being, and the degree of covariation of the well-being of self and others is dependent on the emotional distance between self and other: the closer the other, the more our emotions are tuned to the perceived emotions of the other.

Subjective Well-Being Considered from the Positioning Model When we look at happiness from the perspective or the positioning model (Figure  4.4), we see that the distinction between several forms of happiness correspond with some of the main concepts of this model. First, happiness or subjective well-being can be considered as a dynamic multiplicity of afective I-positions. he distinction between positive and negative emotions emphasizes that this multiplicity is composed of a diversity of qualitatively diferent I-positions, which are understood as bidimensional rather than unidimensional and are, moreover, dependent on diferent sources of well-being (see also the distinction between satisiers and dissatisiers previously addressed). Furthermore, the situational component of well-being can be elaborated on by the concept of “domain satisfaction” that refers to a diversity of situations providing diferent

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he open boundaries between internal and external positions is also typical of the phenomenon of “position shit” that Chaudhary (2012) observed in her research in Indian families. She described position shit as a pervasive technique used by adults while referring to “other” people in the environment as a substitute of themselves. An example is when a parent substitutes herself with another family member when addressing a child. When a mother wants a child to come in, she might say “Father is calling you.” In this case a signiicant other takes the position of “I,” which can be seen as a sign of the strong interconnectedness of internal and external positions.

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sources of well-being (e.g. work, marriage, health, and leisure). In this case, individuals do not rate a speciic emotion in a speciic situation (e.g., “I tremendously enjoyed the conversation with my friend Charles”) but give a more encompassing judgment of their own experience in a speciic domain. he dynamic aspect of domain satisfaction is relected in the fact that diferent domains can interfere with each other. On a most general level, individuals judge their lives as a whole in terms of their life satisfaction.3 Going up to these levels of generality, the individual moves from emotional evaluations of speciic I-positions to a broader domain of I-positions and, even higher, to one’s life as a whole composed as it is of multiplicity and diversity of positions. Correspondingly, this movement from speciic to general corresponds with a shit from emotions as situation-bound and transient experiences to feelings as cross-situational and more permanent judgments. While instant and transient emotions have a more situation-speciic nature, domain satisfaction and, even more so, life satisfaction judgments involve a meta-position that provides a certain distance from the present situation and momentary emotional engagement, although it can, more or less, be under the inluence of a particular position in which one feels located at a particular moment in time. Such a meta-position enables the person to make relevant distinctions, to compare and weigh experiences, and to make judgments across a variety of situations, and it has more open communication channels with the reasoning position (see chapter 2 for the features of meta-positions; see chapter 4 for the relationship between emotional and reasoning positions). Finally, the distinction between internal and external positions in the self acknowledges the fact that the wellbeing of the other and one’s own well-being are not separated but, rather, co-vary dependent on the emotional distance between self and other.

Emodiversity, Health, and Afective Richness Although the four factors of well-being (positive emotion, negative emotion, domain satisfaction, and life satisfaction) illustrate the multiplicity and diversity of subjective well-being, it is not enough for understanding the iner distinctions within the positive and negative emotions. Afective diferentiation

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Diener, Scollon, and Lucas (2003) suggest that the diference between emotions and satisfaction becomes particularly salient when age increases. Older individuals may experience more health problems or inancial diiculties than younger ones, causing anxiety and negative emotions on a dayto-day basis. Yet, at the same time, older individuals may have a strong sense of satisfaction with the things they have accomplished over the course of an entire lifetime. his indicates not only the importance of the distinction between emotion and life satisfaction (feeling) but also the increasing inluence of the meta-position on well-being at higher ages.

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is a precondition for afective enrichment of the self. his diferentiation is the kernel of the concept of “emodiversity” (Quoidbach et al., 2014). As an illustration, the authors give the following example. Compare three individuals: Person A who experiences three moments of joy in one day, Person B who experiences two moments of joy and one moment of contentment, and Person C who experiences two moments of joy and one moment of anxiety. If we would sum the number of positive emotions and subtract the number of negative emotions, A and B would be equally happy, and both are happier than C. Such computation relects decades of research on negative and positive afectivity that has emphasized the relative dominance of positive and negative emotions as an essential component of health and subjective well-being. In addition to such simple arithmetic calculation, Quoidbach and colleagues argue that not just the mean levels but also the diversity of emotions have beneits for well-being and physical and mental health. In the example, this would mean that Person B is more healthy than Person A, although they have the same number of positive emotions. How did the researchers proceed in order to arrive at this conclusion? In two large surveys, with a total of over 37,000 responders, conducted in France and some other francophone countries, the researchers measured participants’ propensity to experience positive and negative emotions. heir scale comprised 18 items measuring nine speciic positive (alertness, amusement, awe, contentment, joy, gratitude, hope, love, and pride) and nine speciic negative (anger, sadness, embarrassment, fear, disgust, guilt, shame, contempt, and anxiety) emotional states. For each emotion participants had to indicate how frequently they experienced them on a 5-point Likert-scale ranging from 0 (never) to 4 (most of the time). Emodiversity was measured by a formula that indicated the diversity of emotional experiences. An individual experiencing only one type of emotion would have an emodiversity value of zero. If all the emotions of the list were evenly experienced, then emodiversity would be maximal. he investigators obtained a variety of both mental and physical health indicators. he main mental health indicator was a self-report scale that measured depressive symptoms. Physical indicators were collected from the health insurance service for each respondent over the past 11 years, such as the mean number of visits to family doctors per year, the mean number of days spent in hospitals per year, medication consumption, healthy eating, exercising, and smoking cigaretes. he indings of this comprehensive research project showed that emodiversity is a correlate of mental and physical health, independent from well-being as expressed by positive and negative emotions. One of the striking conclusions was that emotional diversity for both positive and negative emotions is associated with less depression. his seems somewhat counterintuitive. One might expect that feeling many negative emotions would be worse than only feeling

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one of them. In contrast, the indings suggest that a variety of negative emotions is a positive contributor to one’s health. Why? he authors suggest an analogy between biodiversity and emodiversity. Biologist have speculated that biodiversity increases resilience to negative events because a single predator cannot wipe out an entire ecosystem. In a similar way, emodiversity prevents speciic emotions, in particular detrimental ones such as acute stress, anger, or sadness, from dominating the emotional ecosystem as a whole. For example, the experience of prolonged sadness may result in depression but the combination or alternation of sadness and anger, although unpleasant, might prevent individuals from isolating themselves from their environment. A similar argument can be applied to positive emotions. Humans adapt quickly to repeated exposure to a given positive emotional state. Diversity and alternation may be more resistant to such extinction.4 One reservation regarding this study has to be made. As it is cross-sectional and correlational, it cannot be concluded that emodiversity is the cause of mental and physical health. In principle, it is possible that people who are living more healthy lives develop more emodiversity. he authors are realistic enough to point out this possibility, although in their abstract, where they write that “we introduce—and demonstrate—the beneits of emodiversity” (Quoidbach et al., 2014, p. 2057), they show a clear preference for the causal inluence of emodiversity on health.

he Value of Negative Emotions and the Experience of Wholeness Not only afective diferentiation, including negative emotions, is proposed as relevant for health but also the domain of negative emotions as a whole is receiving more appreciation than before. Kashdan and Biswas-Diener (2014), for example, object to the host of literatures claiming that to be happy, hardy, or optimistic is a cure-all. Instead of suggesting that one state, such as happiness, is promoting mental health, they believe that every emotion is useful, even the ones we deine as “negative.” Research on anger shows that only rarely does this emotion turn into the kind of overwhelming rage that leads to violence. Instead,

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Placing their results in a broader context, Quoidbach and colleagues (2014) refer to research in the ield of personality, in particular to Linville’s (1985) thesis that highly self-complex individuals (i.e., people with many distinct self-aspects) are less vulnerable to luctuations in afect and selfappraisals as reactions to life events than individuals with a limited variation of self-aspects. Her thesis “Don’t put all your eggs in one cognitive basket” corresponds with our thesis that the heterogeneity of the position repertoire serves as a protection against overdependency on one or a few positions only.

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it tends to bubble up when people perceive an encroachment on their rights as a person. In many cases, anger helps to defend oneself and the persons one cares about, and it urges people to temporarily close the boundaries of their selves. Similarly, embarrassment may function as a signal that we have made some mistake and that a correction is required. Likewise, guilt can be perceived as a signal that we are violating our own moral code and therefore our actions or our code have to be adjusted. he authors claim that there is one quality, distress tolerance, that is required in a great variety of situations: resolution of marital conlicts, achieving a favorable deal in business negotiations, success in elite military training programs, and bestowing the gits of good parenting to one’s children. Distress tolerance is found in those who do not shy away from anger, guilt, or boredom just because they feel bad. Instead, they are able to withstand the discomfort of those experiences and—when appropriate—even draw from this darker palete of emotions. here is evidence showing that distress tolerance is related to physical and psychological health. Brown, Lejuez, Kahler, and Strong (2002), for example, tested the hypothesis that limited ability to tolerate physical and psychological distress is associated with early relapse from smoking cessation. hey compared current smokers who had failed to sustain any previous quit atempt for more than 24 hours (immediate relapsers) with smokers with at least one sustained quit atempt of three months or longer (delayed relapsers) and exposed them to some psychological and physical stressors. As a psychological stressor, participants were faced with a diicult arithmetic task with elevated levels of stress. When a correct answer was provided, a point was obtained and the total number of points was shown on a computer screen. If an incorrect answer was provided or if the participant could not give an answer before the presentation of the next number, an “explosion” sound efect was played. An “escape” buton was available to click if the participant wanted to terminate exposure to the task. As a physical stressor, the investigators used the inhalation of carbon dioxide–enriched air. Participants could press a buton on a provided computer keyboard to terminate the presentation immediately. Moreover, the research design included measures of afective vulnerability and assessment of dysphoria. Results showed that immediate relapsers, in comparison with delayed relapsers, showed higher baseline levels of afective vulnerability, greater levels of dysphoria, and greater urge to smoke ater 12 hours of nicotine deprivation and demonstrated less task persistence on the stressors. With their reference to the importance of distress tolerance, Kashdan and Biswas-Diener (2014) emphasized that not only positive emotions but also negative emotions, including their tolerance and active use, are central in their holistic approach to human afectivity. On the basis of literature and their own work, they conclude that there is a place, even a curative place, for considering positive

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experiences in conjunction with so-called negative experiences like anxiety and feeling down. It is precisely this conjunction and the associated “positive” valuation of “negative” emotions, that is missing in much happiness research. Both authors were also increasingly put of by what they called “the gung-ho happiology” of some streams in positive psychology. Over the past 15 years, they observed, this ield is at risk of being transformed from a reminder that “positive experiences are important” to a kind of “smiling fascism.”

Happiness and Afective Democracy he somewhat afronting term “smiling fascism” brings us to the question of what happiness means when considered as a society of afective I-positions. If positive emotions would be favored and embraced to a degree that negative emotions would be denied, neglected, or suppressed, there would be no “democracy” in the afective domains of the self. Similarly, when we talk about “happiness” in an overly summarizing way, neglecting the emodiversity in the afective domain, this would have the implication that the diversity and richness of the experience is hidden or neglected. When the afective domain is homogenized to a degree that negative emotions, including their diversity, are marginalized or suppressed, afective democracy is seriously reduced. As an illustration of this reduction, I  refer to the previous chapter where I argued that economic over-positioning has a homogenizing inluence on the self as it is subjected to one-way penetration of economic positions to the other parts of the self. As a consequence, the manifold of I-positions in the self are constantly under the radiation of economic considerations, with the result that the diversity of the happiness experience and, in particular, the conjunction of positive and negative emotions, is subjected to the homogenizing inluence of consumer happiness. his homogenization, fostered by a gigantic happiness industry, is not only intolerant to the domain of negative emotions and its constructive potentials, but it even closes the communication channels between positive and negative emotions. As a result, the negative emotions have nothing to contribute to the realm of positive emotions so that the lexible movements between the two types of emotions are inhibited. In fact, this emotional overpositioning not only impoverishes the afective domains of the self, but it also limits the development of distress tolerance and resilient ways of dealing with frustrations. In order to demonstrate the possible heterogeneity of the afective dimensions of the self, I presented some recent developments in happiness research. Rather than considering happiness as a unidimensional construct, I referred to research showing that positive and negative emotions represent diferent dimensions and that the situations that elicit them are qualitatively diferent. I did this

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with the intention of showing that emotional I-positions like “I as full of joy” and “I as sad” or “I as enthusiastic” and “I as feeling guilty” are, in their combination and two-way communication, valuable contributors to a broadened conception of subjective well-being. Research on domain satisfaction (e.g., work, marriage, health, leisure) further conirms the multidimensional and multipositional character of well-being, while the meta-position was involved in one’s overall judgment of life satisfaction. he diferentiation and enrichment of the afective realms of the self was also emphasized by the notion of emodiversity and its efect on mental and physical health. his implies that the summarizing notions of “I as feeling positive” and “I as feeling negative” should both be further diferentiated and enriched by giving atention to a variety of positive and negative subpositions. A well-developed meta-position enables the individual to achieve some overview of these variations, their tensions, conlicts, and two-way communication channels in the service of the afective enrichment of the self. It is the task of meta-positioning, as an activity of an individual, group, or community, to become aware of the ield of tension between the homogenization and the heterogenization of the afective realms of the self. In its executive function and supervisory atentional capacity, the meta-position is well prepared to get an overview of the afective domain of the self as a whole and to stimulate its heterogeneity and qualitative diversity.

Shadow Positions he homogenizing efects of consumer-motivated instant happiness and the existence of exaggerated forms of “positive thinking” together with the simultaneous neglect or avoidance of so-called negative emotions lead to a related theme:  the existence of shadow positions in the self. I  introduce this theme here because the neglect, avoidance, or suppression of the shadow sides of the self is another form of “positive homogenization” that, as I argue in agreement with many colleagues, not only leads to impoverishing of the self but also contains the seeds of destruction and violence. Scapegoating and enemy image construction serve as telling examples of keeping the self “clean” by puting the “dirt” outside. My purpose in this section goes one step further. I irst show how scapegoating and enemy construction reduce the diversity, richness, and democracy not only in society5 but also (and this is my primary concern) in the organization 5

While some processes, like scapegoating and enemy construction, represent examples of the self damaging society, other processes, like economic over-positioning, are examples of society damaging the self (see chapter 5).

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of the self. hen I argue that, in certain cases and under certain conditions, the recognition and active use of shadow positions have the potential of enriching the self and contributing to its democratic organization. Shadow positions are not simply reprehensible and to be replaced by “beter” positions. he question is actually how we can deal with them and ind appropriate counter-positions.

Scapegoating and the Reduction of Guilt and Powerlessness Recent psychological research has devoted atention to a phenomenon that is as old as humanity: the tendency to blame or accuse outgroups for problems, adversities, or disasters that the self or the ingroup cannot deal with efectively. In a series of careful and well-designed experiments, Rothschild, Landau, Sullivan, and Keefer (2012) were able to unveil some of the underlying psychological mechanisms that keep these processes going. he authors see scapegoating as “an act of blaming and oten punishing a person or a group for a negative outcome that is due, at least in large part, to other causes” (Rothschild et al., 2012, p. 1148). Before they detail their empirical evidence, they place the phenomenon of scapegoating in a broader historical and societal context. hey refer to infamous historical examples such as the witch trials that occurred in Europe and North America from the 14th to the 18th century, when thousands of people, mostly women, were accused of corrupting society’s moral integrity by practicing witchcrat. Or the Nazis’ atempt to exterminate Jews and other minority groups ater positioning them as responsible for Germany’s economic collapse. he tragic events in Bosnia, Rwanda, and South Africa are additional instances of the violent conlicts that occur when one group is deined as the chief cause of major misfortunes. he authors refer to diferent events showing that scapegoating is not only a historical phenomenon but continues to occur today in a variety of forms, like blaming China for the worldwide economic recession, accusing Islam of being the cause of terrorism, or blaming homosexual individuals for the decline of traditional values. In the light of the widespread occurrence of scapegoating, the authors ind it surprising that, ater its initial discussion in some social scientiic publications during the 1940s and 1950s (e.g., Adorno et al., 1950), the topic of scapegoating has largely receded from focus in contemporary social psychology. To ill this gap, the researchers presented a “dual-motive model” proposing that scapegoating can serve two meaningfully distinct motives: (a) maintaining perceived personal moral value by minimizing guilt when one feels responsible for a negative outcome and (b) maintaining perceived personal control by giving an explanation for a negative outcome that is otherwise diicult to control or explain. In order to test this model, the researchers investigated atitudes surrounding environmental destruction and catastrophic climate change, as they

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felt that these topics lent themselves equally to threats of either perceived moral value or perceived personal control. In a “value threat condition” participants were made aware of their lifestyle choices as contributing to environmental destruction. hey were instructed to read seven statements referring to environmentally destructive behaviors, which were proven to have harmful environmental consequences, and to rate how true each statement was for them personally (e.g., “I drive my car when I could walk, ride a bike, or take public transportation” or “I use the dryer when I could air-dry my clothing instead”). In a “control threat condition,” participants were instructed to express their agreement with seven statements regarding their personal control over hazardous environmental conditions, all of which were supposed to be beyond any individual’s control (e.g., “I have control over tornadoes and other natural disasters” or “I have control over whether my state sufers from drought or looding”). Finally, participants answered some questions assessing the extent to which they believed oil companies should be blamed and punished for the damaging consequences of environmental destruction (e.g. “To what extent do you believe that oil companies are responsible for the destruction of the environment?”). he main inding in this experiment was that participants atributed more blame to, and reported greater desire to punish, oil companies for the harmful consequences of environmental destruction in both the value threat condition and the control threat condition, in comparison with a nothreat condition. he dual motive model and its empirical implications invite thinking of scapegoating in positional terms. hey suggest that there are not one but at least two emotions, guilt and powerlessness, that motivate to use scapegoating as a means of reducing their intensity. When positions like “I as feeling guilty” and “I as feeling powerless” reach a certain level of intensity, there is an implicit tendency to atribute the cause of the problem to positions outside the self. he emotional “advantage” is that the well-being of the self is protected by shiting away the responsibility for the problem and atributing it to an external cause. here seems to be a meaningful relationship between the considerations about scapegoating and those about the over-positioning of positive emotions discussed earlier in this chapter. As discussed, one of the implications of this over-positioning was the lack of distress tolerance. When we apply this notion to the phenomenon of scapegoating, then the question emerges to what extent the propensity to look for outside causes for one’s emotions of guilt and powerlessness is related to a low degree of distress tolerance. It seems to be plausible to assume that the lower one’s distress tolerance is, and the less emodiversity the self has available, the stronger the need to reduce the intensity or frequency of negative emotions by using scapegoating to protect the self to what is felt as an emotional overload.

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he Construction of an Enemy Image Not only individuals are in need of scapegoats or even enemies—nations also need them. As Merskin (2004) explains, governments are used to cultivate the idea of a common enemy as a method of social control in their own country or as a method of reinforcing values of the dominant system. he hegemonic device of a common enemy can help to divert energy and aggression toward a common threat and to celebrate the governing president as a hero and savior in turbulent times. In addition, a common enemy is useful in organizing evolutionary-based survival strategies needed for the protection of the tribe or clan. Diferences in race, religion, culture, age, or appearance, Merskin (2004) observes, can stimulate resentment toward other groups. Over the course of human history, it appears that the unfamiliar and strange evoke strong emotions such as fear, aggression, hate, aversion, and expulsion. Xenophobic and racist sentiments create an artiicial binary opposition between ingroup and outgroup that leads to the devaluation or even physical annihilation of one side by the other. he resultant “we–they” dichotomy produces forms of groupthink that support and conirm separation or marginalization of racial, religious, ethnic, or cultural communities, positioning them as hostile and alien. In Jungian terms, this process refers to the shadow archetype, which, in this case, becomes the archetype of the enemy that leads, if not accepted as part of the self, to the projection of shadowy qualities and unsavory characteristics onto other people resulting in suspicion and paranoia. In portraying the enemy image, Merskin refers to a series of characteristics, mentioned by Spillmann and Spillmann (1997), which together form a syndrome of deeply rooted perceptual evaluations (Table 6.1). In the weeks following the 9/11 tragedy, President George W. Bush gave several addresses to the nation. His rhetoric built on stereotypical words and images already established in more than 20 years of media and popular culture portrayals of Arabs as evil, animalistic terrorists. Textual analysis reveals that Bush’s speeches, from his public statements on September 11, 2001, to the January 29, 2002, State of the Union address, relected an identiiable model of enemy image construction that had important human rights implications for Arab American citizens and noncitizens. Merskin (2004) notes that in Bush’s speeches, animalistic stereotypical Jungian shadow imagery was evoked when he referred to an enemy who “hides in the shadows and has no regard for human life” and “this is an enemy who preys on innocent and unsuspecting people, then runs for cover. his is an enemy who tries to hide.” And he talked about “a monumental struggle of good versus evil . . . but good will prevail” (p. 167). In one of his speeches, Bush identiied the nations of North Korea, Iran, and Iraq as the “axis of evil,” a collection

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Table 6.1. he Syndrome of the Enemy Image Negative anticipation

All acts of the enemy, in the past, present, and future become atributed to destructive intentions toward one’s own group.

Puting blame on the enemy

he enemy is seen as the source of any stress on a group. he enemy is guilty of causing the existing strain and current negative conditions.

Identiication with evil

he enemy embodies the opposite of what we are; the enemy wishes to destroy our highest values and must therefore be destroyed.

Zero-sum thinking

What is good for the enemy is bad for us and vice versa

Stereotyping and de-individualization

Anyone who belongs to the enemy group is ipso facto our enemy.

Refusal to show empathy

Consideration for anyone in the enemy group is repressed due to perceived threat and feelings of opposition. here is nothing in common.

Adapted from Spillmann and Spillmann (1993).

of countries that were “arming to threaten the peace of the world” with their “weapons of mass destruction” (p.  171). He brought in a binary opposition between civilized versus uncivilized in his statement: “his is a regime that has something to hide from the civilized world. States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world” (p.  171). By referring to these and other statements, Merskin argues that the Spillman and Spillman’s (1997) characteristics of enemy construction, negative anticipation, blaming the enemy, identiication with evil, stereotyping, and deindividualization are pulled together in Bush’s rhetoric.

he Contrast Between a Homogeneous and a Diversiied We-Position here exists a contrast between an enemy image and an internally diferentiated we-position, and, in my view, this is a contrast of dramatic proportions, particularly in the context of an increasingly globalizing society. As I  have argued in chapters 2 and 3, a we-position is to be seen as an extension of an I-position as the main concept in the present theory, and I emphasized its internal diversiication. he reason is that I-positions are contextual, showing diferent “faces” in

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the form of subpositions in diferent situations, and these subpositions are elicited during a continuous process of positioning, counter-positioning, and repositioning. In elaborating on these processes on the level of teams (chapter 3), I argued that the positioning model aims to replace the strict separation between an internally homogeneous ingroup, with its closed boundaries to the outgroup, by an internally diferentiated and diversiied ingroup with lexible boundaries to outgroups. Talking about leadership, I argued that well-functioning teams are not only in need for dialogical relationships between the diferent members and between leader and members; they are in need of members and leaders whose self is multivoiced and dialogical as well. By the president’s construction of an image of a dark, ominous, stereotypical threat, by portraying the enemy as a dark, faceless, soul-less source of evil, and by alluding to a forthcoming war as a “crusade,” we witness, as Merskin (2012) observes, an atempt not only to appeal to the nation as a tribe but also to polarize groups in mutually exclusive ways. Here we see a striking paradox between the appeal to evolutionary-based, emotion-driven tribal ingroup versus outgroup opposition and the need for dealing with diference and diversity in a globalizing word, including the diversity of religious groups living together in one country (Arab Americans among others).6 As a result of this polarization, the we-position is no longer represented as diferentiated and diversiied but uniied and homogenized, and it closes its boundaries to the opposite group with the result that communication channels, so important in a boundary-crossing world, are blocked. his polarizing strategy runs counter to a process of democratization as requiring the recognition of diversity on the individual, group, and (inter)national levels simultaneously.

Enemy Image and Scapegoating as Inadequate Reality Claims From a Jungian perspective, the shadow as an archetypal force emerging from the collective unconscious igures as the dark relection of light or as the opposite of what is consciously valued as good or noble. he supervillain Joker is the shadow of Batman, as Satan is the shadow of God. As Singer (2009) explains,

6

Concerning the appeal to a tribal community, remember Karl Popper (1945) who in his classic book he Open Society and Its Enemies claimed that governments of open societies are assumed to be responsive and tolerant and their political mechanisms to be transparent and lexible. His idea of an open society strongly contrasts with the authoritarian regimes of closed societies with their rigid boundaries and sharp ingroup versus outgroup separations. In his view, tribal societies have a strong belief in the sacred or magical basis of the traditional community (see also Bush’s use of religious terminology in his speeches).

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the dynamics of the binary opposites “us versus them” draw upon the archetypal energies of the shadow versus the hero and split people into opposing groups that see one another as enemies. If one projects the archetypical shadow on another individual or group, it is likely that simultaneously the archetypal hero is being placed in the self of the projecting individual or the group to which one belongs. At this point, the question can be posed of what an enemy image is and how it is related to the self. First, it is an image, and, as an image, it has to be distinguished from what we call “reality.” As an image it is a construction; it is puting together, alone or as a group, particular elements of reality in such a way that it becomes an identiiable patern. Second, the self is involved: it is related to an “I” or a “we” that appropriates this image and supports and conirms it as long as it serves some needs or purposes of the self. An essential feature of an enemy image derives from the distinction between internal I-positions in the self (the way I position myself toward the other) and external positions in the self (the way in which I perceive other individuals or groups positioning themselves toward me). he enemy image results from an inability or even resistance to see the distinction between the other as a construction (external positions in the self) and the other as “real.” When I see the real other and my construction of him as identical and when I do not see that this construction is, at least partly, the result of my lack of control (“I as powerless” or “I as anxious”), then I am unable to see the relationship between construction and reality. When the distinction is not made and their interconnections disregarded, the enemy image is susceptible to a “reality claim” that, on emotional grounds, makes constructors blind to their subjective contribution to the image and its persistence, with the result that the outside enemy is perceived as isolated from the self and its emotional positioning strategies. In order to clarify the lack of this distinction, Lambie and Marcel’s (2002) thorough analysis of emotional mechanisms is helpful. hey argue that there are two kinds of emotion experiences, which they call “irst-order phenomenology” and “second order awareness.” While in the former case the emotion experience has phenomenological “truth,” in the later case a person is relexively aware of the emotional component. For example, when the experience of anger takes the form of “he is a bastard” there is irst-order phenomenology, while in the phrase “I’m angry at him” there is second-order awareness. An enemy image that is subjected to a reality claim blurs the distinction between the other-in-the-self (or external position as extension of the self) and the actual other. he irst-order phenomenology is based on the conviction that “I know the other as he really is” rather than “this is the way I see him or her” or “my evaluation is inluenced by my emotions.” Awareness that the other-in-the-self is an imagined other that can never fully coincide with the “real other” is absent as long as the self adheres to this reality claim. First-order phenomenology fails to make a distinction

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between imagination and interpretation on the one hand and “reality” on the other. he consequence is that the full energy of emotions of anger, rage, and revenge are purely and exclusively directed to the enemy like a lightning conductor concentrates the electric energy at one point in the environment. Not perceiving or avoiding to perceive the distinction between construction and reality is part of the psychological blindness of the enemy image. Remember Rothschild and colleagues’ (2012) research on scapegoating described earlier in this chapter, showing that at least two emotions, guilt and powerlessness (lack of control), motivate scapegoating as a means of reducing their intensity. When emotional positions like “I as feeling guilty” and “I as feeling powerless” reach a certain level of intensity, there is an implicit tendency to atribute the cause of the problem to positions outside the self. he emotional “advantage” for this restricted self is that it protects its well-being by atributing the responsibility for the problem to an external cause. here is no reason to see, in this respect, an essential diference between scapegoating and the construction of an enemy image as they both serve as implicit strategies the self employs in dealing with its emotional shadow positions. he distinction between internal and external positions is relevant to both phenomena. Even when a person or group involved in scapegoating or enemy construction would admit that their view is, at least to some degree, subjective (“his is the way I see them”), they may be totally unaware of the inluence of their internal emotional positions (e.g., as guilty, powerless, inferior, or fearful) on their subjective construction of the enemy. One of the reasons that I  emphasize the importance of a well-developed meta-position at several places in this book is that this is the position par excellence that enables us to see the dynamic interconnection between internal and external positions in the case of scapegoating and enemy construction. As I discussed in chapter 4, the self is not entirely determined by unconscious emotions or by automatic social perceptions and evaluations. I referred to neuroscientiic evidence showing that “giving atention” to unconscious or automatic processes has the potential of increasing conscious awareness of them. Remember Dehaene and Naccache’s (2001) discussion of the phenomenon of “inatentional blindness” and their claim that conscious perception results from an interaction of nonconsious stimulation factors with the atentional state of the observer. Given the atentional capacity of the brain, the development and training of meta-positions has the potential of deepening self-awareness of one’s emotions and their impact on self and other. For the understanding of scapegoating and enemy construction it is particularly relevant to not only consider the intimate connection between internal and external positions but also to have insight in the way emotions, as afective positions in the internal domain of the self, are dynamically related to each other.

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Emotions as Responding to Each Other Emotions are not isolated experiences but rather are layered and respond to each other. From a psychotherapeutic perspective, Greenberg (2002) distinguishes between primary emotions that he sees as people’s gut responses to situations and secondary emotions that are emotional reactions to primary emotions (e.g., experiencing anger about one’s anxiety). Primary emotions are the irst responses to a stimulus situation, such as fear of threat, sadness at loss, or powerlessness. hey are reactions to current events and fade away as soon as the situation that has produced them disappears or receives an adequate response. Primary emotions, however, can become maladaptive when the emotional system is malfunctioning as, for example, in the case of traumatic experiences. In Greenberg’s view, secondary emotions are responses to or defense against primary emotions. Oten they are maladaptive because they obscure what people experience on a deeper, less conscious, afective level. A person may feel depressed, but this depression is covering a deeper anger. Or people may feel resentful, but on a lower level they feel fearful or hurt and are reluctant or unable to admit it. he problem with secondary emotions is that, as long as their underlying primary emotions are not addressed or lie beyond the level of atention, they continue to inluence one’s behavior but cannot be changed or developed. In the case of scapegoating and enemy construction, a well-developed meta-position has the potential of deepening the insight in the workings of primary and secondary emotions. However, what is a “well-developed meta-position” in this case? How can meta-awareness contribute to the correction of enemy image construction, scapegoating, and stereotyping? his question touches a complex issue that requires evenly complex analyses and contributions from diferent disciplines. From the perspective of the present conceptual framework, I suggest that at least two steps are necessary:  irst, a transition from irst-order phenomenology to second-order awareness. his step is required to acknowledge one’s own emotional contribution to judgments and classiications with far-reaching reality claims. Second, training one’s self-insight and self-empathy based on the recognition of the layered nature of emotions. Emotions are not “things in themselves” but paterned responses that can be understood only if communication channels are created between the more conscious to less conscious positions in the self (Figure 4.4) and, correspondingly, between the more conscious secondary emotions and the less conscious primary emotions.

Potentials of the Self to Give an Answer to the Enemy Image What are the potentials of the self to give an adequate answer to the unrestrained expressions of the emotions motivating the construction of an enemy image? I see four answers that build on the material presented in the previous sections.

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Insight in the Connection Between Internal and External Positions in the Self

First, insight in the emotional mechanism creating and conirming an enemy image requires accepting that the self is, as James (1890) has already observed, extended to the environment. hat means that the self is not only “me” but also “mine,” implying that my body, my parents, my children, my friends, my opponent, and even my enemy or our enemy belongs to the extension of self and collective identity. Despite the fact that the enemy is, on emotional grounds, rejected by the self as a despised other and as “not me” or “not mine,” it belongs to the shadows in its external domain, constantly fed and conirmed by internal emotional positions (“I as proud” or “we as strong”) or by internal moral positions (“I as good” or “we as right”). As long as the self is not able or willing to acknowledge the intimate internal–external connection, it will continue to split these domains with the consequence that the self is not able to see that the construction of an enemy image and the process of scapegoating, including its associated prejudices, serve the emotional needs of the internal domain of the self. Even when one has reasonable arguments to deine outgroups as “opponents” or “enemies,” this does not refute the necessity to acknowledge one’s own contribution to the emotion-based construction of the enemy image. Emotion Learning

As the self has the capacity to relect on itself, to communicate with itself, and to give atention to itself, it is also able to learn how to manage itself, including its emotional responses. One of the processes that requires atention in this learning process is the distinction between irst-order phenomenology and second-order awareness in Lambie and Marcel’s (2002) terms. Emotion learning implies the transition from the former one to the later one. his transition is a condition for taking personal or collective responsibility for one’s own emotional contribution to enemy image construction, scapegoating, and prejudices. Another learning task is achieving insight in the distinction between primary and secondary emotions (Greenberg, 2002) and dealing with it. As emotions are layered, anger, hate, disgust, or revenge, as secondary emotions, may function as automatic or defensive reactions to anxiety or xenophobia as primary emotions. he problem of these reactions is that the communication lines with the primary emotion (e.g., anxiety, powerlessness, guilt) are blocked so that this emotion does not only remain unrecognized but also cannot be linked to other emotions and not changed or developed as part of a broader emodiversity. A basic learning task is also “empathy learning” (see the discussion of empathy in chapter 4). Empathy may be the most needed and advanced communication skill because community building in family, work, and society is impossible without it. I see empathy learning as developing a capacity of traveling to the

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I-positions of the actual other, going into them and feeling and understanding them from within, but also as going out of them, looking at them from an optimal distance so that one can see these positions in the context of the other internal and external I-positions of this person or group. Empathy is not a “self-less” act, and it is not taking the perspective of the actual other only. Rather, I see empathy as a “self-full” act enabling the person to travel not only to the positions of the other but also to the positions in one’s own self, including one’s extended positions, that are immediately relevant to the evaluation and appreciation of the positions of the actual other. Self-empathy as a precondition to other-empathy and learning about oneself and about the other are intimately connected and dynamically related. Overcoming the Positive–Negative Dichotomy and Developing Emodiversity

Both enemy image construction and scapegoating are based on a dualism between positive and negative emotions with the positive emotions exclusively directed to the self or ingroup and the negative ones to the other or outgroup. Even the shadows in the internal domain, such as morally rejected emotions, can be projected to the internal domain of the enemy so that those shadows are exclusively located in the self of the other or outgroup. his observation touches Kashdan and Biswas-Diener’s (2014) concern that the host of literatures on subjective well-being claim that to be happy, hardy, or optimistic is a cure-all. Instead, they believe that every emotion is useful, even the ones we deine as “negative.” In that context, they referred to the importance of distress tolerance that helps to not shy away from emotions like anger, guilt, or boredom, just because they feel bad. Moreover, distress tolerance is related to physical and psychological health as Brown and colleagues (2002) found in their investigation of smoking behavior. Not only positive emotions but also negative ones, including their tolerance and active use, are part of a holistic approach to human afectivity.7 Also the cultivation of emodiversity seems to be relevant to overcoming the homogenization of the afective domain as typical of the construction of an enemy image or stereotypical scapegoating. Typically, these processes are associated with emotional anti-positions that show litle variation. When a person experiences three emotions at diferent moments in time (e.g., anger, anger, and anger), this person has less emodiversity than the person experiencing a diversity of negative emotions (anger, sadness, and disappointment). here is a high 7

On the basis of a meta-analytic investigation, Naragon-Gainey, McMahon, and Chacko (2017) concluded that distress tolerance was associated with low experiential avoidance and low negative repetitive thought. On the positive side, it was associated with high levels of acceptance and mindfulness.

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chance that repetitive anger, as a reduced form of emodiversity, transforms into more permanent hostility. Such hostility can be understood as a marker of less psychological health. Remember Quoidbach and colleagues (2014) who demonstrated that people with less emodiversity experience more depression and show, moreover, more signs of reduced physical health, A Well-Developed Meta-Position

As I  detailed already earlier in this chapter, a well-developed meta-position enables the individual to achieve some overview of the variations of the Ipositions, their tensions, conlicts, and communication channels in the service of the afective enrichment of the self. As an activity of an individual, group, or community, the task of meta-positioning is to become aware of the ield of tension between the homogenization and the heterogenization of the afective realms of the self. he phenomena of enemy image construction and scapegoating show a striking absence of communication between the emotional positions from which they emerge and the meta-position. Enemy construction and scapegoating are typically ways of emotional positioning that are funneling all energy to one outside object. hey remain within their present position. A meta-position, on the other hand, has the capacity to distantiate itself from one’s immediate emotions and to widen one’s view by broadening the bandwidth of the positions that fall within its scope. It enables the self to place the enemy image in a broader context, considering preceding historical circumstances and events, and taking possible futures into account. Opening the communication channels between the meta-position and the emotions may prevent them from being blindly followed or expressed and confronts them with counter-positions that have the potential to limit and correct them. Rather than appealing to the “strong” but blind emotions of an enemy image, political and religious leaders would do well to enforce and develop strong meta-positions capable of contributing to the heterogeneity and diversity of the self as a society of I-positions.

Can the Self Proit from Shadow Positions? hinking about shadow positions, it occurred to me that one of the most challenging questions is whether shadow positions have not only destructive but also constructive potentials for the functioning of the self. More speciically, are shadows condemned to be exiled to the darker corners in the self-space, or can they become, under particular circumstances, morally acceptable energies? In my own research, I discovered that shadow positions are not simply reprehensible forces in the self. Instead, they can function, in speciic situations, as

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productive forms of energy that, under speciic conditions, have the potential of contributing to the enrichment and even internal democracy of the self. I had the opportunity, together with my colleagues, to construct and develop a “self-confrontation method” (Hermans & Hermans-Jansen, 1995) that invites clients in psychotherapeutic or counseling situations to relect upon signiicant events or circumstances in their lives. he method results in the formulation of a number of sentences (we call them “personal valuations”) in which clients articulate, with the assistance of a counselor or therapist, the personal meaning of events or circumstances that they perceive as particularly signiicant in their lives. As an idiographic method, it enables the psychotherapist and client to explore not only the linguistic content of these valuations but also their afective organization. In the following sections, I give a summarizing presentation of three case studies that impressed me by demonstrating that shadows are, in speciic situations, experienced as positive and constructive forces in the self. The Witch as a Flexible Shadow Position

Mary, a 33-year-old woman had bad memories about her alcoholic father. Whenever she noticed a man who was drunk, she was overwhelmed by disgust and panic. In her adolescent years she joined a drug scene where she was abused and forced to have sex, sometimes under the threat of a weapon. She married a man whom she loved very much. However, particularly when he had used alcohol, she felt a strong disgust toward him. When he was sick and lying in bed, she felt an almost uncontrollable urge to murder him (during the therapy, she revealed that it was as if she was watching her father sleeping ater a binge). here were moments when she felt like a witch, an alien experience that was very frightening to her, particularly when the witch was taking almost total possession of her. Ater she had told her story, the therapist (Els Hermans-Jansen) and I as a co-therapist, proposed her to do two self-investigations, one from the position of herself as Mary and another from the position of the witch. Some of the valuations she constructed as Mary and some of those formulated by the witch (in her own typical language) are presented in Table 6.2 (for a full description of this case study, see Hermans & Hermans-Jansen, 1995, pp. 187–195). Part of the procedure was that we invited Mary to rate all valuations using a series of positive emotions (e.g., joy, happiness, enjoyment, inner calm) and a series of negative emotions (e.g., powerlessness, unhappiness, disappointment). More speciically, we asked Mary not only to rate her own valuations but also the ones constructed by the witch and to do so from Mary’s own perspective. In reverse, we asked the witch to rate both her own valuations and those of Mary from the own speciic afective experience of the witch.

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Table 6.2. Valuations from Mary and Her Witch and heir Positive (P) and Negative (N) Emotions P

N

Mary

17

2

Witch

0

8

2. I want to see what my mother gives me. here is only one of me Mary

12

6

Valuations rom Mary

1. More and more I’m permiting myself to receive

Witch 3. In my work I can be myself. I’m planning from which angles I can enter. he trust I receive gives me a foothold, more self-conidence

3 12

Mary

18

2

Witch

13

0

1. With my bland pussycat qualities I have vulnerable things in hand, from which I derive power at a later moment (somebody tells me things that I can use so I can get what I want)

Witch

13

0

2. I enjoy when I have broken him [husband]: from a power position entering the batle ield

Witch Mary

0 16

3. When Fred becomes vulnerable, it makes me even more hard

Witch

8

Mary

0 20

Valuations rom the Witch Mary

3 10 19

0 4

Note: P is the sum score of four positive emotions and N is the sum score of four negative emotions, each rated on a 0 to 5 frequency scale. Sum scores range from 0 to 20.

As Table 6.2 shows, the emotional experiences of Mary and the witch are very opposite: Mary tends to experience her own valuations as more positive than negative but those from the witch as more negative than positive. he witch reveals the opposite picture. She experiences her own, shadowy formulated valuations as very positive and those from Mary as very negative. his afective organization relects the enormous tension and conlict between the afective valuations of Mary and her witch. For present purposes, the ratings of Mary’s valuation no. 3 are most relevant. As its formulation suggests, when Mary has a chance to become strong and self-conident (typically in her work situation), then the witch agrees with Mary’s afective evaluation. Apparently, the witch is a threatening shadow for Mary in her private situation but a welcome partner in her work situation where she is able to express the harder side of herself. his positive contribution from the witch was conirmed when, ater one year of limited therapeutic assistance, Mary performed a second self-investigation in which we followed the same procedure as before, with the diference that she was allowed to reformulate her original formulations and add new ones. At this

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time, it was more diicult for her to distinguish the witch and “ ‘herself ” than it was the previous time. When we asked her to evaluate both groups of valuations, she rated not only her own valuations as more positive than negative but also those from the witch, and, in reverse, the witch rated both her own and Mary’s valuations as more positive than negative. his was a clear sign that at this time the valuations of the witch, in their adaptations and revisions, had become an integrative part of Mary’s total experiential world. I learned from this investigation that Mary’s hard side helped her to present herself as strong and self-conident in speciic situations. Her way of dealing with her hard side suggests that shadow positions are not “bad” in all circumstances. Rather, it suggests that a shadow may be destructive in some situations but rather constructive in other circumstances. A Shadow Position: From Meaningless to Meaning ful

When I  started research on the dialogical self in the beginning of the 1990s, I invited some students to do a self-investigation on opposite I-positions in their selves. My irst participants was a 29-year-old woman, Alice, who told me that she felt she had two very opposite sides in herself, which she labeled as “I as open” versus “I as closed.” I asked her to answer some open questions about her past, present, and expected future from each position separately. From her open position, she referred to the bright side of her life, telling about the close contact with her mother: “My mother, open and cheerful, has always been like a friend to me.” From the same position she talked about the positive aspects of the relationship with her boyfriend: “he contact with my boyfriend: I’m always listening to him, I’m always there for him.” Contrastingly, when she looked at her life from her less familiar and somewhat threatening closed position, her thoughts went to her father who had divorced her mother: “When I was 12 years old, my father let the house; I know so litle about that period: I think there is much pain and sorrow in that time.” From the same position she started to talk about the problematic aspects of the relationship with her boyfriend: “My partner and I have both had a broken relationship in the past: I do not want to lose myself again in another relationship” (for other valuations formulated from these positions and a full report of this case, see Hermans & Kempen, 1993, pp. 80–88). At the end of this investigation I asked Alice to rate all her valuations on two dimensions: how dominant the particular valuation had been in her thinking, feeling, and action and how meaningful the valuations had been for her thinking, feeling, and action and to do this not only immediately ater the investigation but also at the end of each week during a three-week period, resulting in four measurements. Somewhat to my surprise, it appeared that the valuations of the open position became continuously less dominant over this period and, in

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reverse, the closed position continuously more dominant. Apparently, she was thinking a lot about her closed side and even contacted her father and brother in this period with the intention of renewing the relationship with them. However, the most surprising inding in this case study were the changes in the meaningfulness of the valuations. Like the dominance ratings, the meaningful ratings of the valuations of the open positions showed a continuous decrease, while those of the valuations of the closed position showed a continuous increase. In fact, the lines, both for dominance and meaningfulness, crossed somewhere in the middle of the period of investigation, demonstrating a clear instance of “dominance reversal” and “meaningfulness reversal” of two opposite positions. hese striking indings lead to this question:  How can it be that valuations that are associated with more negative than positive emotions (the closed position) not only became more dominant but even more meaningful than the valuations of the open position that were, at least initially, associated with more positive than negative emotions? In order to answer this question, I showed the igure of the crossing lines to Alice and asked her if she could tell me how she understood this change. She said: “I think that I sometimes lee to that [open] side . . . hen I’m loating away from myself . . . I become aware that an important part of myself is in that closed side . . . I’m also beginning to see that when I express my vulnerable parts, I get much closer to other people, and then, it goes beter with me too.” Like in the case of Mary and the witch, Alice referred to the advantage of her shadow (closed) side in terms of self-conidence: “When I can also express my closed side, I begin to feel more conident, I feel more something of a irm basis . . . when I express my closed side, I feel more calm, but there are also some guilt feelings” (Hermans & Kempen, 1993, p. 86). Apparently, the confrontation with her shadow position, initially loaded with negative emotions, was felt as growing in meaningfulness, resulting in a decision to include this negative side as part of her wholeness. I learned from this case study that wholeness gained primacy over happiness and that, inally, the confrontation with her shadow position brought her not only negative but also positive emotions in the form of feelings of irmness and self-conidence. Including a Shadow in a New Coalition

Ater the irst publications on the theoretical foundations of the dialogical self, I decided to construct an assessment method for studying not only the content of a person’s position repertoire but also the way these positions are organized:  the Personal Position Repertoire (PPR) method (Hermans, 2001a). he method invites participants to select a number of internal and external Ipositions that are relevant to them from a broader list of positions (for an example, see Table 2.1). he method enables the researcher or practitioner to study

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not only the links between internal and external positions but also the correlations between internal positions and between external positions. I invited clients in coaching or psychotherapy to apply this method themselves in order to examine the content and organization of their position repertoire. Here I briely refer to a PPR investigation of Fred, a 50-year-old man who was working as an administrator in a small company. he investigation took place at the time when he was ofered a new function in the company but felt unable to decide. More generally, he felt satisied with his work only if all details were accomplished perfectly. his perfectionism exhausted him, with the consequence that he lacked the energy to take on any new task or challenge (for a more extensive discussion of this case, see Hermans, 2001a, pp. 251–253). Fred’s PPR investigation presented three positions that played a main role in his present life:  “I as doubter,” “I as perfectionist,” and, somewhat at the background but very important to him, “I as enjoyer of life.” It appeared that the enjoyer seemed to be an enduring feature of his personal history, but this position was suppressed by the strong coalition between the doubter and the perfectionist, the second one compensating for the anxiety aroused by the irst one. Ater the construction of Fred’s position repertoire, I had, during a period of 18 months, sessions with him on a four-week basis in which we discussed his daily experiences in relation to the three positions (doubter, perfectionist and enjoyer) as playing a central role in this period of his life. We found out that Fred could tackle the perfectionist by learning to delegate tasks to other people at the right moment. He learned to contact other people whom he asked to cooperate with on some of the tasks and to delegate some work before he started the job. Moreover, he learned to do his work with suicient precision (the perfectionist) and to enjoy it at the same time (enjoyer of life). Ater experimenting with this new style of working for more than one year, we decided to investigate his position repertoire again. Most signiicant in this second investigation was the inding that the perfectionist and the enjoyer had formed a coalition that was strong enough to push the doubter to the background of the self-system. his formation of the repertoire contrasted strongly with the way Fred had organized his system at the time of the irst investigation. Whereas in the irst investigation the perfectionist had formed a coalition with the doubter, in the second investigation this position changed camps and joined the enjoyer of life resulting in a new coalition that reorganized part of his position repertoire. At the end of the second investigation, I  invited Fred to look at the three positions—the doubter, perfectionist, and enjoyer—and formulate, in the form of a meta-position, his view on their interconnection. his resulted in the following formulation: “I accept the perfectionist in myself; I’m convinced that this is something that has grown in me, probably as a result of fear of failure; at the

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same time, the enjoyer cannot exist without the perfectionist; however, I don’t let the perfectionist destroy me anymore; they should learn to deal with each other and to make compromises; when something is performed well, I can enjoy it.” In this meta-view, he not only placed his perfectionism as a shadow position in the context of his personal history but could also make use of its energy through placing it in a new, more productive coalition. Altogether, the three cases suggest that shadow positions are not necessarily at the cost of subjective well-being and not detrimental to the self in all circumstances. Even when they are experienced as negative, they can make signiicant contributions to the functioning of the self in circumstances where there is a it between the shadow and the demands of the situation (see the irst case). Moreover, a particular shadow can be experienced as low in meaningfulness in a particular period in the development of the self but as a meaningful contribution to the self in some later stage of development (see the second case). Finally, a shadow position experienced as negative or detrimental to the self as part of an unproductive coalition of positions has the potential of contributing to the development of the self if its energy becomes is included in another, more constructive, coalition of positions.

Shadow Versus Shining Positions In his discussion of archetypes in the Jungian tradition, Singer (2009) contrasted the shadow with the hero. However, I have the feeling that the hero archetype is too limited as the opposite of a shadow. here is an opposition, deeply rooted in our evolutionary history, shadow versus light, which is the reason for the distinction between shadow and shining positions. I introduce this distinction here as part of a continued exploration in inding ways of enriching the self and increasing its internal democracy from the perspective of the present theory. Darkness and light are not only opposites but also spatial concepts. hey are not thinkable without the existence of space. While light illuminates a place, darkness hides it. he concepts of position and positioning are of a spatial nature and metaphorically used in the present theory to explore the visible and less visible spaces in the self. Moreover, as I have proposed in chapter 2, positions are essentially forms of energy that have the power to radiate to their environment and may illuminate or darken the spaces of the self. In our evolutionary history light has always been a fundamental experience, as expressed by the perpetual luctuations of day and night and as physically experienced in the opening and closing of the eyes. While light is associated with clarity, transparency, visibility, distinctiveness, overview, consciousness, order, and safety, darkness is accompanied by obscurity, invisibility, chaos, unconsciousness, unsafety, and threat.

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In polytheistic beliefs, darkness is associated with the gods and demons of the underworld, whereas light is the feature of the “higher gods” as they are believed to be located in heavens where beings are imagined to shine in eternal light. In the iconography of many religions, the energetic radiation of light is used to depict holy beings, rulers, and heroes with a nimbus, a halo, or an aureole around their head or body. In the sacred traditions of Hinduism, Buddhism, Ancient Greece, or Ancient Rome, sacred persons are honored by depicting them with a circular glow surrounding them or with a lame. By positioning gods, heroes, emperors, holy persons, or animals as beings with special energies and powers, believers were culturally positioned as receivers of these radiations and energies, to their individual or collective beneit or salvation. Even objects have the potential of positioning us as exempliied by an old stone that positions me as “transient” and makes me aware of the shortness of my life. Looking at a photo of a deceased family member makes me feel nostalgic and intensely looking at a painting stimulates my esthetic position. Humans of all times and places have used their imagination and fantasy to create special objects as means to give form to their reveries, adorations, and visions. As Huxley (1994) notes:  “Religious art has always and everywhere made use of these vision-inducing materials. he shrine of gold, the chryselephantine statue, the jeweled symbol or image, the glitering furniture of the altar—we ind these things in contemporary Europe as in ancient Egypt, in India and China as among the Greeks, the Incas, he Aztecs.” He continues to refer to people who receive a special position in society to produce these precious materials: “he products of the goldsmith’s art are intrinsically numinous. hey have their place at the very heart of every Mystery, in every holy of holies. his sacred jewelry has always been associated with the lights of lamps and candles” (p. 69). In everyday situations we witness numerous examples of shining positions. We can see it in the sparkling eyes of the person in love, in the faces of people who laugh at each other, and in the expression of sympathy of a person who ofers help or support. We are able to see the distinction between the artiicial smiling of people on a picture who want to present themselves as “happy” and the authentic smile of a person who “shines from within.” he shining metaphor is also applied when we say about an artist or scientist that she is “brilliant” or has delivered a “splendid speech.” We also use it when we say that someone is a “colorful personality.” As positioning is conceptualized in spatial and relational terms (chapter 2), the space between shadow and shining is particularly interesting as a source of strong radiation. he light falling through a window into the darker spaces of a church serves as an example. It is in the subtle play of light and darkness that the phenomenon of shining creates a sense of mystery and fascination. On the metaphorical level, a similar phenomenon can be observed when we look at children who are

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Figure 6.1. Telling secrets. Cleared with permission by Shuterstock

involved in one of their most exciting interaction games: sharing a secret. When someone tells a secret to a friend, they typically move close to each other with the one whispering something, not heard by anyone else, into the ear of the other. he speaker creates a highly exclusive communication channel with the receiver in order to share an experience emerging from the darker domains of the self. he receiver responds by taking a very open and exclusive counter- position. Together they create an exciting ield of tension with an atmosphere of secrecy from which any other is excluded and positioned as “intruder.” During the sharing of the secret, the receiving party is shining or glancing to a high degree (Figure 6.1). his description also applies to what we usually denote as “gossiping.” In this section I had three intentions. First, I wanted to emphasize that the process of positioning is a spatial and relational process with ields of tension between positions and counter-positions. Second, I proposed that shadow positions ind their counterpart in shining positions, in line with the evolutionary origin of this contrast. hird, shadow and shining positions are not simply opposites that are in any way mutually exclusive. Rather, they are contributing parts of a ield of tension that serves as a basis for experiences of mystery and fascination, in this way contributing to the heterogeneity and richness of the self. Light shines in darkness only.8 8

he relationship between shadow and shining positions in a democratic society is discussed in chapter 8.

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Comfort, Challenge, and Danger Zones in the Self In this section, I distinguish between three zones in the self-space—comfort, challenge, and danger zones—with the intention of further exploring the heterogeneity of the self in terms of its spatial organization. Like the experiences of shadow and shining, the events of safety and threat are deeply rooted in our evolution and history. Our ancestors have lived with the beneicial fertility of the earth and the life-giving waters and rains but also with life-consuming and disastrous draughts, loods, earthquakes, and widespread diseases. hey have lived many thousands of years with alternating periods of peace and wars with massive killings of large parts of the population. But they have also celebrated their heroes and saints who had the courage to face the challenges of wars, to explore unknown parts of the world, to sacriice themselves in the service of their fellow humans, or to support people in emergency situations. Successive periods in which people are positioned in comfort, danger, and challenge zones and move from one zone to another are associated with basic human experiences. Already very early in life, we notice the diference between the spatial zones in the self, as demonstrated by the experience of a crawling child. When being in close proximity to the parent, the child is at ease and feels comfort in the environment and in herself, as visible in its thumb-sucking behavior. Ater some time, however, the child, eager to explore her environment, leaves the safe place of the caregiver and crawls away. Even if this exploration is a bit frightening, the child continues her exciting travel, fascinated as she is by the impressive discoveries in this challenge zone. However, if the distance to the caregiver increases to a point that it becomes, in the experience of the child, overly large or the caregiver is no longer visible, the infant experiences anxiety or even panic and wants to return to the caregiver. he emotion of anxiety or panic is a sign that the child feels located in a danger zone. he exploration has lost its atraction and fascination, and the child wants to return to the safety of the comfort zone. Comfort, challenge, and danger zones are not simply located in the speciic situation in which we ind ourselves. hey are also within the self. Just by imagining something we can move from the one zone to the other. For example, in a culture in which being young and staying young is not only an ideal but even a product of mass advertisement, the pure thinking of becoming old and inally dying is a dreadful thought that might bring someone into the danger zone of the self. Or imagining and planning to take a dangerous trip to another country may be exciting enough to transform the boredom of one’s comfort zone into the tension of the challenge zone.9 9

he diferent zones may be broadened or atenuated depending on experience, learning, and training. In a boundary-transcending world, broadening the challenge zone is particularly relevant.

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Building on the insights of Burgoon and Jones (1976) on personal space, I deine comfort, challenge, and danger zones as invisible, dynamic, and transportable spaces in the self with boundaries that can be opened or closed dependent on individual diferences and on the demands and opportunities of the situation. When people are in an I-position located in their comfort zone, they generally feel safe and protected and experience both the situation and their behavior in that situation as familiar and predictable. People move to their danger zone when they are located in positions where they feel unsafe and unprotected and where the situation and their behavior are perceived as unpredictable. hey are in their challenge zone when they feel in a position that appeals to their strengths and capacities while, at the same time, the outcome of the situation and their own behavior are to a large degree experienced as unpredictable. Depending on individual diferences (e.g., adventurousness, distress tolerance, or resilience) and on the demands and opportunities of the situation at hand, people move from the one to the other zone with simultaneous changes in their positive and negative emotions.

he Dynamic Nature of Zones in the Self-Space he relationship between the comfort, challenge, and danger zones should be understood in a dynamic sense. An I-position that is lying outside one’s comfort zone and felt as challenging and exciting may gradually become part of one’s comfort zone, if one returns to this position frequently and consistently and when it lacks any innovation. When positions recede from the challenge zone and become increasingly incorporated into one’s comfort zone, the challenge zone may become empty. Depending on a number of factors, like social limitations and opportunities, age, and energy, the person is motivated to introduce new positions in order to revitalize this zone.10 Earlier in this chapter I  presented evidence showing that distress tolerance and emodiversity are related to physical and psychological health. Moreover, it seemed plausible to assume that the lower one’s distress tolerance is, and the less emodiversity the self has available, the stronger the need to reduce the intensity or frequency of negative emotions by using such implicit strategies like scapegoating and enemy construction as ways to protect the self from emotional overload. Altogether, these considerations refer to the relevance of broadening one’s challenge zone where the construction of meta-positions and promoter positions have more chance to develop than in a self with a broad danger zone that is usually associated with defensive forms of positioning. 10 A position, located in the comfort zone, is not necessarily associated with positive emotions. A position that is originally experienced as positive (e.g., “I as secretary” or “I as friend of John”) can become, as a result of highly repetitive sequences or lack of stimulation, increasingly associated with negative emotions (e.g., boredom or aversion) yet remain part of the comfort zone. On the other hand, a negative position that was originally located outside the comfort zone may become part of the comfort zone as the result of habituation. For example, a person who experiences a strong anger

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he boundaries between the diferent zones in the self are not sharp but rather gradual or vague. Many people feel atracted to the transition area between comfort and danger zones, where they feel close to a place of death or sufering but from a distance that is safe enough not to be overwhelmed by anxiety or another emotion. here is a strong desire on the part of tourists to visit the sites of dark events such as the places where John Kennedy or Martin Luther King were killed, the batleields of the First and Second World Wars, places of former concentration camps, like Auschwitz or Dachau, Robben Island where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned, and many others. Such places have speciic atmospheres and evoke in the visitor an experience of excitement, thrill, fascination, or even horror. In their book he Darker Side of Travel Sharpley and Stone (2009) label this phenomenon as “dark tourism,” sometimes also called “thanatourism.” he dynamic relationship between comfort and challenge zone is spatially illustrated by the German words Heimweh and Fernweh. Although the semantic meanings of these terms are diicult to translate into English, Heimweh is quite close to “homesickness,” while Fernweh is similar to “wanderlust.” (However, the weh in Fernweh suggests a form of painful longing that is not well expressed by the word “lust.”) While Heimweh is felt when one desires to return to one’s spatial comfort zone, Fernweh is experienced when one feels an urge to leave one’s spatial comfort zone. When both experiences are successively felt by one and the same person, this person feels atracted to places where he or she is not at the present moment. To use an expression of the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre: the person is not there where he is and is there where he is not. he diferent zones include not only internal but also external positions (see Table 6.3 for some examples). When I am used to help a friend, then “I as helpful” is located in the comfort zone with my friend as a positive extension of my self. Similarly, when my enemy is lying in my danger zone, I feel positioned, consciously or nonconsciously, as fearful or aggressive. When I accept a new job, this job is challenging me in my position as a professional. All positions have their own speciic radiation and, depending on their place in the self-space, express shadowy or shining energies, or mixtures of them, toward self and other. Together they create an atmosphere.

Optimal Anxiety Levels Going into one’s challenge zone is not only exciting, but it can also improve performances, as suggested by research in the ield of anxiety. Keeley, Zayac, and as a negative emotion may become hostile and revengeful when this anger becomes habitual and, as a result, the hostility becomes part of the comfort zone. Such processes conirm the dynamic nature of the zones in the self.

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Table 6.3. Zones in the Self and Examples of Internal and External I-Positions Comfort Zone

Challenge Zone

Danger Zone

Internal

External

Internal

External

Internal

External

helpful

friend

professional

new job

fearful

enemy

cooperative

colleague

adventurous

mountain

losing job immigrants

intimacy

family

student

new school dead

criminals

Correia (2008), for example, studied the relationship between statistics anxiety and performance in undergraduate students. heir investigation was inspired by the well-known Yerkes-Dodson law claiming that there is an optimal mid-range level of arousal where performance is maximal, while performance decreases at high or low levels of arousal (Yerkes & Dodson, 1908). In other words, the relationship between arousal and performance is supposed to be curvilinear. Keeley and colleagues (2008) provided a literature review that demonstrated the empirical validation of this law in areas like sports performance, stress on the job, artiicial intelligence, academic performance, and even animal research. On the basis of this review, they expected that statistics anxiety also would follow a curvilinear relationship with performance on statistics exams. Indeed, the investigators found that curvilinear models were beter predictors of test performance than linear ones, suggesting that a mid-range level of statistics anxiety was optimal for performance in comparison with more extreme levels. The idiosyncratic nature of the challenge zone is suggested by research in the area of athletics. Hanin (1995) developed the “individual zones of optimal functioning” (IZOF) model contending that each athlete has an individually optimal level (high, moderate, or low) zone of anxiety associated with enhanced performance. The model proposes that people react to anxiety in very different ways. Some tend to succeed when anxiety is low while others perform well when anxiety is at a medium or even high level. Therefore, each person has his or her own preferred level of anxiety that allows him or her to function in an optimal way. When athletes are in this optimal zone, they are best prepared for their performance. However, if they are out of their optimal zone, that is, when they experience too much or too little anxiety, this can be detrimental to their performance. Keeley and colleagues conducted a meta-analysis of 19 studies from 1978 to 1997 in order to examine the validity of the assumptions of the IZOF model. They found that the performance of athletes who were within their individually optimal zones performed almost one-half a standard deviation better than athletes who were outside these zones.

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his research on the optimal anxiety level allows a conclusion that is in line with the discussions on emodiversity earlier in this chapter. he IZOF model shows that the afective dimension happy versus unhappy, so dominating in the emotion literature, can be complemented by another dimension, in this case, the dimension helpful versus harmful as relevant to optimal functioning in performance situations. In Hanin’s (2007) own words: “unpleasant emotions can sometimes be helpful for performance; and pleasant emotions are sometimes harmful for performance. hus, the view that emotion valence [positive-negative] is the only, or a major, predictor of the efect of emotion or its regulation is oversimplistic at best” (p.  53). Like the concept of emodiversity, the helpful-harmful dimension further conirms the value of the diversity and richness of the emotional domain of the self and contributes to its “afective democracy.”

On a Personal Note When my grandson Camille invited me to make a parachute jump, the irst one in my life, I had a chance to experience what it means to be in a physical challenge zone. Actually, I was very curious to have this experience, as I wondered what people feel when they jump from a plane or from the top of a building. How would it be to make a free fall in this open space and be somewhere between heaven and earth? Ater receiving instructions on the ground by an experienced instructor and dressing ourselves in protecting clothes, we went up in a small Cessna plane to a height of 3000 m. When the doors of the plane opened, the instructor, who was at the same time my buddy in the duo-jump, told me to sit at the loor with my legs out of the plane. We gave a jump, and we both went down with a speed of almost 200 km/h. While I felt a mixture of anxiety and excitement during the preparation, during falling the anxiety disappeared and was replaced by intense fascination. I  looked down at the earth that was like a grey map far below me and did not seem nearby. Everything seemed to be motionless. he only sign that made me aware of falling down was the wind blowing in my ears. here was a strange discrepancy between this rushing wind and the silent landscape below me. Knowing that I was somewhere between life and death, it was something of a fascinans et tremendum moment, a combination of fascination and trembling excitement that I experienced as deeply impressive. Suddenly, I felt a shock. he instructor had opened the parachute. From that moment on, everything became more peaceful, and I became aware of the white clouds around me and watched the green meadows with quietly grazing cows with interest. Fascination made place for enjoyment. Going down with a speed of 30 km, I started to communicate with my buddy behind me and also felt more connection with nature and earth as if I was coming “home” again. When my feet touched the ground, my

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grandson had already inished his trip and we embraced each other. he adventure strengthened our connection as we had shared an extraordinary experience that was entirely new to both of us. I refer to this experience as exemplifying the dynamic nature of the zones in the self. he parachute jump represented a transition from my comfort to my challenge zone and back. However, the comfort zone, in which I was again safely together with my grandson, had been changed to some degree. My comfort zone, including the usual contact with my grandson, was renewed and enriched by our common and extraordinary experience.

Homophily Versus Heterophily As the term “comfort zone” already indicates, it is the zone in the self where we feel most comfortable most of the time and to which we want to return when we are outside of it. his conservative inclination is expressed by our tendency to communicate with those individuals and groups perceived as similar to us. his tendency known as “homophily” is nicely summarized by McPherson, SmithLovin, and Cook’s (2001) sentence “Similarity breeds connection” (p. 415). Homophily refers to the principle that contact between similar people occurs at a higher rate than among dissimilar people. Our urge to interact with likeminded people leads to the organization of a variety of ties and networks like marriage, friendship, work, support, and group membership. Homophily motivates people to stay within the comfort zone of their self-space, with far-reaching implications for the information they receive, the atitudes they develop, and the groups they ailiate with. his tendency to bond with similar people not only brings them together but also divides them. As McPherson and colleagues notice, the strongest divides are created by race and ethnicity, with age, religion, education, occupation, and gender following in roughly that order. In this way, homophily forms a strong basis for ingroup versus outgroups distinctions, with the implication of perceiving the ingroup as internally homogeneous and the outgroup as externally distinctive. In terms of the present theory, homophily is the tendency to open communication channels with those individuals and groups with whom we experience a small emotional distance due to similarity. As widely recognized, the increasing globalization of our everyday world and the associated increase of emotional distance with other cultural groups evokes a counter-reaction in the form of localization. his reaction may be understood, at least in part, as tendency to maintain and develop collective identities and to protect the boundaries of collective comfort zones (see Hermans [2015] for a review of literature). In that context, it is meaningful to compare homophily with its opposite, heterophily, the tendency to communicate with people who

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are dissimilar to one’s own views, values, and experiences. In a poignant analysis, Rogers and Bhowmik (1970) observed that heterophily has the potential of broadening our view of the world but has the apparent disadvantage in that it is less efective than homophily. Interactions across group boundaries are likely to cause misunderstandings, message distortion, delayed transmission, and (important to the present theory) restriction of communication channels, making it more diicult for communicating partners to understand each other. Yet the authors emphasize that heterophily is a necessary ingredient in interactions that require mutually complementing capacities, for example, a white middleclass teacher in a gheto, parents and adolescents solving an educational conlict, a change agent difusing innovation, and, particularly relevant to the process of globalization, communication between individuals who do not share a common culture. he authors conclude that, when communication would be homophilous to the maximum, it would certainly be easy but entirely redundant at the same time. On the other hand, when it would be totally heterophilous, participants would have the greatest diiculty understanding each other. For efective interaction, homophily is necessary for positions that facilitate mutual understanding and heterophily for those positions that are relevant to inding creative ways for solving problems in the situation at hand. An extra argument for the relevance of a balance between homophily and heterophily in a situation of globalization can be found in a study by Girouard, Stack, and O’Neill-Gilbert (2011) who investigated the dyadic interactions of Asian-Canadian and French-Canadian preschool children and analyzed their social interchange. Results showed that the children preferred to play with sameethnic partners, whereas they played more solitarily in the presence of a crossethnic peer. Consistent with studies with older children, this study revealed that the nature of preschoolers’ social interactions is inluenced by the ethnicity of the playmate. Apparently, the homophilous tendency can be observed in the behavior of children at a very young age. his tendency toward homophily raises the question of how children and adults can ind a balance between homophilous and heterophilous interactions, on the assumption that both tendencies are relevant for efective and innovative communication with individuals and groups from other cultures. his question addresses a complexity of psychological, social, and cultural issues. In the context of the present discussion, I assume that this balance is facilitated when people learn, from a young age onward, to develop the habit of leaving their comfort zone and develop the capacity to move to their challenge zone and back in lexible ways. I have included the distinction between zones in the self and, closely related, between homophily and heterophily as concepts that are relevant to the

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heterogenization and enrichment of the self. Moreover, I consider the dynamic movement between zones in the self and achieving a balance between homophily and heterophily as relevant to the democratization of the self as participating in a globalizing society.

Protective Circle and Atachment: he Case of Franz Kaka he word “comfort zone” may suggest a “take it easy” quality, but in fact it has a more fundamental nature. It determines whether a person feels safe or unsafe not only in a particular environment but also within the self. Even when being alone, one may have a feeling that one is safely surrounded by a multiplicity of persons in the past, present, or future who may be physically absent but felt nearby. For the experience of safety, extensions of the self in the form of external positions are indispensable. Such safety-providing positions form together a “protective circle,” an invisible multiplicity or even diversity of signiicant others or igures who, as extended positions in the self, provide emotional support, trust, and continuity and who are spontaneously and intuitively experienced as helpful in situations of challenge or threat. he protective circle, as located in the external domain of the self, has its ramiications in the internal domain. When the child has no opportunity to develop a protective circle, internal positions emerge that relect this deiciency (e.g., “I as anxious” or “I as threatened”). Moreover, the self always has the potential to respond to this lack with internal counter-positions, as the following example demonstrates. Despite the importance of a protective circle, and safe atachment, for the development of the self in general, one may be surprised about the astonishing creativity of some people who give artistic form to just the absence of a protective circle. Franz Kaka is a very prominent example. As one of his biographers (Stach, 2014) details, Kaka, whose parents were oten absent, was raised by nannies who took care of him during the day. However, they were oten dismissed by his short-tempered, authoritarian, and aggressive father. he many emotional disruptions during the early years of Kaka’s life are believed to have resulted in a general feeling of unsafety that had a pervasive impact on his relationships with women later in his life. He lived in the awareness that he could be abandoned at any moment without any clear reason or cause and missed a sense of social and emotional continuity. he relationship with his father was particularly disturbing to him. He remembered that, when as a child he asked for some water in the night, his father put him outside the door for punishment. his traumatic event received a place in his famous Brief an den Vater (Leter to the Father, 1966) and gave him the feeling that in the eyes of the mighty father he was “nothing.”

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In his diaries, Kaka’s lack of a protective circle is expressed by his intense concern about possible threats that may come, unexpectedly, from diferent sides: “my education has done me great harm. . . . his reproach twists through society like a dagger. And no one, I repeat, unfortunately no one, can be sure as to whether the point of the dagger won’t suddenly appear sometimes in front, at the back, or from the side” (Insua, 2002, p. 33). Yet, despite his paranoid atitude that radiated to all his external positions and to the world as a whole, he had one position in the internal domain of his self, his authorship, from which he could create an imaginary space, albeit of a highly ambivalent nature: “he strange, mysterious, perhaps dangerous, perhaps saving comfort that there is in writing: it is a leap out of murderers’ row; it is seeing of what is really taking place. his occurs by a higher type of observation, a higher, not a keener type, and the higher it is and less within the reach of the ‘row,’ the more joyful, the more ascendant its course” (pp. 58–59). As this passage suggests, his writings provided Kaka with a meta-position from where he could observe, from a safety-giving distance, the threats and discontinuities to which he would be let unprotected without his pen as his main weapon of defense. I portrayed Kaka’s example with the intention to show that, although the construction of a protective circle can be generally seen as a necessary condition for the development of safe atachment as part of the enrichment of the self, there are always people who are able to transform their lack thereof into creativity. Certainly, Franz Kaka is a luminary example of the power to ind a way to transcend serious limitations and to ind consolation in a productive meta-position.

Summary In the previous chapter I  discussed the problem of homogeneity of the self as resulting from over-positioning. Contrastingly, the present chapter elaborated on the heterogeneity of the self as relecting its diversity and richness. In their opposition and combination, the two chapters demonstrate that the contemporary self is trying to ind its identity and direction, in a ield of tension between homogenizing trends entailing the risk of impoverishment and heterogenizing trends ofering the potential of enrichment. While far-reaching over-positioning reduces the democracy of I-positions in the self, its diversity, if well organized by efective meta-positions and promoter positions, is supposed to contribute to the democracy of the diferent “parties” in the self. In order to demonstrate the personal and societal relevance of the heterogeneity of the self, I focused on three topics that I see as relevant phenomena on the interface of self and society: subjective well-being; the existence of shadows in the self; and the dynamic relationship between comfort, challenge, and danger positions in the self.

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I demonstrated that subjective well-being is not a unitary construct as the happiness industry of an over-positioning economy would suggest but a highly differentiated and dynamic complexity of afective I-positions. his was illustrated by the distinction between positive and negative emotions as associated with diferent sources of well-being; by the concept of “domain happiness” (e.g., work, family, leisure, health), including the interference of one domain by the other; and by the concept of life satisfaction as a meta-view on one’s happiness. Moreover, I  discussed emodiversity as referring to the health-promoting differentiation within the domains of positive and negative emotions. In addition, I referred to literatures emphasizing the intrinsic value of negative emotions, in protest of those traditions in psychology that aim the replacement of negative by positive emotions. Guided by the device “wholeness above happiness,” I view these developments as contributing to an afective democracy in the self. Furthermore, I argued that the self is populated by shadow positions that are generally perceived as reprehensible and unacceptable parts of the self. In that context, I discussed the phenomena of scapegoating that channels negative emotions into the direction of external sources without recognizing the distinction and connection between the behavior of others and the emotions in the internal domain of the self. Likewise, the construction of an enemy image is based on a neglect or avoidance of the distinction and connection between external and internal positions in the self. Both scapegoating and the enemy image construction are based on a reality claim of stereotypes and stigmas that are, in essence, constructions by selves that are not able to recognize and deal with their emotions in more adaptive ways. In order to investigate the possible answers the self could give to the thoughtless construction of an enemy image, I discussed four possible ways out: (a) recognizing the distinction between internal and external domains in the self and having insight into their dynamic interconnection; (b) emotion learning as developing the capacity to manage one’s emotional responses by making a distinction between “irstorder phenomenology” and “second-order awareness” and, moreover, by taking into account the dynamic relation between primary and secondary emotions; (c) overcoming the positive–negative dichotomy through the increase of emodiversity and the recognition and appreciation of negative emotions; and (d) constructing a well-developed meta-position enabling the individual to achieve some overview of the variations of the I-positions, their tensions, conlicts, and communication channels in the service of the afective enrichment of the self. Finally, I summarized some case studies demonstrating that shadows are not necessarily a disadvantage to the self in all circumstances and that they can be combined with other, more acceptable positions through the formation of constructive coalitions. In the last part of this chapter, I  focused on the distinction between comfort, challenge, and danger zones in the self and their dynamic interconnection. I  referred to research in the ield of anxiety stimulated by the well-known

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Yerkes-Dodson law claiming that there is an optimal mid-range level of arousal where performance is maximal, while performance decreases on high or low levels of arousal. hese indings can be seen as additional evidence contradicting the view that anxiety is simply a “negative” emotion that has to give way to more positive emotions. In agreement with the existence of optimal levels of anxiety, research with athletes shows the existence of “individual zones of optimal functioning” that lead to improved performance. Finally, I discussed the concepts of homophily, which invites people to stay in their comfort zone, and heterophily, which challenges them to leave it. Homophily refers to the principle that contact between similar people occurs at a higher rate than among dissimilar people and stimulates them to build ties and networks like marriage, friendship, work, support, and group membership. Heterophily refers to the tendency to communicate with people who are dissimilar to one’s own views, values, and experiences. Heterophily has the potential of broadening our view of the world but has the apparent disadvantage that the communication between positions is less efective than in the case of homophily. A comparison of the two concepts resulted in the conclusion that homophily is necessary for positions that facilitate communication and heterophily for positions that are relevant to creative and innovative ways of solving problems. For the development of a well-established comfort zone in the self, the existence of a “protective circle” with a variety of safety-providing positions is particularly relevant. In the present chapter I focused on the diversity and richness of the self as relecting its heterogeneity. However, the heterogeneity, expressed in its diversity and richness, is not the only criterion for a “democratic” self. An additional analysis is needed that deepens and elaborates on the importance of the quality of the communication between positions. his analysis focuses on the topic of dialogue as a speciic and highly valuable form of communication between positions in self and society.

7

Dialogue as Generative Form of Positioning Change happens by listening and then starting a dialogue with the people who are doing something you don’t believe is right. —Jane Goodall

As I have emphasized, the self as a society of mind can function in optimal ways only if there are two-way communication channels between open positions that enable exchange and cooperation between them. However, if we consider the self as a society: What kind of society are we talking about? he answer, at the heart of this book, is that the society of mind functions ideally as a democratic society in which positions have the space to express themselves from their own speciic point of view and add value to each other in mutually fertilizing ways. his purpose requires a very special kind of communication that has the potential of contributing to the richness, heterogeneity, and organization of the self in such a way that diferent positions, and the self as a whole, proit from this communication in optimal ways. herefore, the focus of the present chapter is on generative dialogue, which I deem the “queen” of all forms of communication. However, the thesis that dialogue is the most optimal and most democratic form of communication between positions is not self-evident. It requires a clariication regarding why and how dialogue is diferent from other forms of activities that take place in the ménage of the self. his view is most succinctly expressed by this thesis: dialogue is positioned. his does not simply mean that there is a dialogue between spatial positions. Dialogue itself is deeply spatially organized and positioned. It is my purpose in this chapter to explain how and why dialogue, as positioned dialogue, has the potential of contributing to the functioning of the self by generating new meanings and thereby contributing signiicantly to its democratic functioning. I irst show how dialogue is diferent from other forms of communication. Based on these diferences, I argue that, if we see dialogue as spatial and 299

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positioned, it is able to generate new meanings in the internal spaces of the self in the context of dialogical relationships between individuals and groups in the society at large. Finally, I dwell on some factors that facilitate the emergence of new meanings in dialogue and some that inhibit it.1

Self-Talk: Helpful or Disturbing? In the period in which I gave lectures about dialogue and dialogical self, I found out that many people respond to these concepts with some hesitation as they associate thinking, inner speech, and inner dialogue with disturbing brain chatter, repetitive thoughts, or undesirable inner voices that distract them from their concentration on a task or interfere with their peace of mind. Contrastingly, there are others who welcome inner dialogue as useful and even rewarding as it helps them to prepare for a relevant task, evaluate their past performances, or provide them with valuable moments of self-relection when writing a diary. Indeed the psychological literature emphasizes both positive and negative aspects of inner mental activity. he question is when and under which conditions this mental activity has a positive or negative inluence on the functioning of one’s self.

Self-Talk as Self-Regulation Research on internal activity is oten taking place under the umbrella of what is known as “self-talk.” In a review article on this concept, Todd, Hardy, and Oliver (2011) analyzed 47 studies that were relevant to the ield of sports and exercise with a focus on the relationship between self-talk and performance. It appeared that athletes oten give instructions to themselves during the process of learning and training but novices and experienced athletes do so in diferent ways. While novices use more explicit instructions and oten talk to themselves through the diferent phases of their performance, experienced individuals engage in less cognitive activity and exercise in more automatic ways, suggesting 1 As the term “meaning” is used frequently in this chapter, some deinition is required. I concur with Rychlak (1988), who notes that most experts are prone to call “meaning” a relational term. Meanings always reach beyond the speciic. A relation or relationship is being emphasized whenever we talk about the meaning of anything. he word “black” receives its meaning in relation to “white,” “tall” in relation to “litle,” and “beautiful” in relation to “ugly.” As emphasized in chapter 4, self receives its meaning in relation to the other, emotion in relation to reason, and the conscious in relation to the nonconscious. Meanings are also contextual. Words receive their meaning as parts of sentences and sentences as parts of a text. Similarly, positions receive their meaning in the context of other positions, and the words, narratives, and emotions produced by these positions receive meaning in relation to other words, narratives, and emotions.

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a gradual movement from more conscious to less conscious levels of functioning. Apparently, novice athletes may beneit more from the use of explicit selftalk in comparison with their skilled counterparts. Todd and colleagues (2011) distinguished two forms of self-talk:  selfinstruction and self-motivation. Instructional self-talk seems to be particularly appropriate during the execution of precision-based tasks that need increased atentional focus on technical, tactical, and/or kinesthetic aspects of movements. In contrast, motivational self-talk is supposed to be more efective than its instructional counterpart for the execution of condition-related tasks characterized by strength and endurance. his form of self-talk is used to increase efort, enhance self-conidence, and create positive moods. Altogether, the authors conclude that both instructional and motivational self-talk are beneicial for athletic performance. Recently, Lane et al. (2016) recruited more than 44,000 volunteers via the BBC Lab UK to watch videos that trained them in diferent motivational techniques, among them self-talk. he investigators found that people who practiced self-talk—for example, those who told themselves, “I can beat my best score,” “I can react quicker this time,” or “I will stay calm”—improved their performance in an online game more than those in a control group who did not.

Self-Talk as Focusing Atention Building on brain research (chapter 4), I have discussed the distinction between focused and difuse forms of atention, with the later mediated primarily by the right hemisphere and the former by the let hemisphere. here is some evidence showing that self-talk is particularly helpful in more focused forms of atention. Lupyan and Swingley (2011) performed visual perception experiments on the basis of the assumption that the use of verbal labels can change ongoing perceptual processing. For example, internally speaking and hearing the word “chair” compared to simply thinking about a chair temporarily makes the visual system a beter “chair detector.” In order to validate this claim the investigators used a visual search task to explore the efects of self-directed speech on visual processing. hey asked their participants to search for a target picture among distractor items. hey were instructed to search for a picture denoted by the target (e.g., a banana) and click on it with a computer mouse once the picture was found. Sometimes they were asked to speak the target’s name aloud and at other times not. he researchers found that speaking the name of the target immediately prior to the display made searching signiicantly faster and more accurate. hey concluded that these results conirm the power of words to modulate ongoing visual processing. More generally, they claimed that language richly interacts with nonlinguistic processes such as visual processing.

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he researchers consider the relationship between language and perception as bidirectional: from perception and conception to linguistic encoding and from linguistic encoding back to nonverbal conceptual and perceptual representation (p. 1069).2 Both the research on self-regulation (self-instruction and self-motivation) and on the facilitating inluence of self-directed speech in visual processing tasks suggest the constructive power of self-talk. Much literature also demonstrates the close association between self-talk and dysfunction.3 Next we consider a few examples.

Self-Talk as Interfering As Brinthaupt and Dove (2012) note, a large research literature focuses on the role of negative self-talk in depression, anxiety, and other forms of dysfunction. In this line of research, it seems that self-talk in itself is not necessarily problematic but rather its excessive use. While a tendency to use excessively positive self-talk is related to manic and narcissistic tendencies, a tendency toward negative self-talk, usually referred to as rumination, is associated with depression and anxiety. An author who is particularly outspoken about the negative aspects of “thinking of oneself ” is Mark Leary (2004). In his book he Curse of the Self, he delves deeply into the problematic aspects of inner chater and self-thought and observes how people create a variety of personal and social problems by thinking about themselves all the time. Self-relection seems a blessing as it relects the uniquely human ability to think about past mistakes, to plan for the future, and to take steps toward self-improvement. However, he adds, few people realize how frequently this inner chater interferes with their success in life, pollutes their social relationships, and undermines their happiness. he result is anxiety, anger, and depression because individuals continue to be overly concerned about their past failures and worries about the future. 2 For the role of language in atentional ampliication from a neurolinguistic point of view, see chapter 4. 3 In contrast to treatises on conceptual representation, some theoreticians emphasize the value of nonconceptual perception. he Japanese philosopher Nishida for example, considers nonconceptual perception, free from any conceptual activity, as the door to a non-dual space of awareness: “It means to cast away completely one’s inner workings. . . . Since people usually include some thought when speaking of experience, the word ‘pure’ is used here to signify a condition of true experience itself without the addition of the least thought or relection. For example it refers to that moment of seeing a color or hearing a sound which occurs not only before one has added the judgment that this seeing or hearing is related to something external, . . . but even before one has judged what color or what sound it is” (Buri, 1997, p. 37).

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One of the remarkable aspects of Leary’s (2004) vision is that he traces the “curse of the self ” back to its evolutionary roots. For prehistoric hunters and gatherers, the self served as an outstanding evolutionary adaptation. he unique git of self-relection allowed humans to plan, act intentionally, and solve problems beter than any other creature on earth. However, what increased their chances of survival at that time may cause serious problems today. While in that evolutionary stage people used self-awareness to plan, as a survival strategy, only a few hours or days ahead, today people spend much of their time thinking about things that may happen months or years from now. As a result, many are plagued with excessive worry about the future or the past that serves no purpose. In the psychological and psychiatric literature, rumination, referring to excessive worrying as a response style, is a well-known phenomenon. NolenHoeksema, Stice, Wade, and Bohon (2007) deine this response style as “the tendency to repetitively focus on symptoms of distress and possible causes and consequences of these symptoms without engaging in active problem solving” (p. 198). hey conclude in their review that a ruminative response style predicts depressive symptoms and disorders in adults. Adolescents and children who engage in more rumination are prone to show increases in depressive symptoms. he researchers posit that children and young adolescents who are temperamentally prone to distress, or who had periods of depression early in childhood, are more likely to develop a ruminative response style, particularly if their caregivers did not teach them skills for adaptive mood regulation. Distressed girls in particular are likely to receive parenting that reinforces a helpless, rather than instrumental, response to distress. Apparently, parents are more likely to encourage and reward sadness in girls than in boys, while, in contrast, they encourage active coping responses for boys, such as engaging in distracting behaviors (Nolen-Hoeksema et al., 2007). One of the advices by Leary (2004) in answer to the hypertrophy of selfthought and brain chater is particularly relevant to an adaptive meta-position. He recommends developing “ego-skepticism,” the understanding that one does not always have an accurate view of the world and needs some degree of skepticism about one’s interpretations of events. A proper understanding of how the mind naturally works would make the self an ally rather than an enemy. I consider this recommendation as a welcome contribution to the understanding of a welldeveloped meta-position for the following reason. Typically, negative self-talk and rumination are internal activities that center around one or a few emotional positions, like “I as anxious,” “I as always worrying,” or “I as depressed.” In order to escape this feeling, the self should develop the capacity to “step out” of this overly constraining position that works as an I-prison. Self-skepticism enables one to take distance from one’s immediate state of mind and to move from the immediate emotional position to a meta-position. his movement enables one

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to perceive things in perspective and look at one’s emotions and feelings from a broader point of view with the possibility that a lexible movement to afective positions with a diferent emotional color becomes possible.

he Role of Imaginary Companions in Self-Talk Brinthaupt and Dove (2012) were interested in individual diferences in selftalk, which they considered as a neglected area in the study of self-thought. Using their Self-Talk Scale, they examined diferences in the frequency with which people report talking to themselves. hey collected information about participants’ age, sex, and family coniguration (i.e., only child or sibling). Moreover, they wanted to know whether or not their participants had an imaginary companion in childhood. he indings showed signiicant diferences between diferent age groupings (from 18 to 54 years) with self-talk increasing in the higher age groups. Regarding the family coniguration, it appeared that children without siblings reported more self-talk than children with siblings (being oten alone they talked to themselves more frequently than children with siblings). Particularly relevant to present purposes is the inding that respondents who reported having an imaginary childhood companion reported signiicantly more self-talk than those who did not have an imaginary companion in their childhood. What is the relevance of the last inding in the context of the present theory? In the present theory, the distinction between internal and external positions is an entrance to understanding the extended nature of the self. External positions may refer to actual others who are still alive and also play a central role in the inner life of the person when this other is not physically present. he external position may refer to a person who has passed away or disappeared from one’s life but is still present in the person’s imagination. Finally, purely imaginary igures may function as external positions in the self. he appearance of imaginary friends quite early in the development of the child can be seen as an early manifestation of the capacity of children to build up an external domain in the self in which signiicant others, including imaginary friends, play a prominent role.4 Imaginary igures and imaginary dialogues are in no way restricted to children. hey play a central role in the lives of adults both in Western and 4 Note that not all children report experiences of imaginary friends (also called “imaginary companions” or “imaginary playmates”). In a large study on the subject, Pearson and colleagues (2001) asked 1,800 children between the ages of 5 and 12 years whether they had present or past experiences of imaginary companions. It was found that 46.2% reported the existence of those experiences. From the age of nine, the experiences gradually decreased. Of the 12-year-old children, 26% reported those experiences in the past and 9% in the present.

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non-Western cultures. Social anthropologist Caughey (1984) who did ieldwork on Fáánakker, a Paciic island in Micronesia and in the Margalla Hills of Pakistan, compared these cultures with the American culture. His estimation was that the “real” social world of most Americans exists of 200 to 300 people (e.g., family members, friends acquaintances, colleagues). In addition, they live in an imaginary social world where they interact with igures who are not physically present or even have no physical existence. He divides imaginary or semi-imaginary igures in three categories: (a) media igures with whom the individual engages in imaginary interactions; (b) purely imaginary igures as they appear in dreams and fantasies; and (c) imaginary replicas of lovers, parents, or friends who are treated as if they were really present. With this classiication, Caughey demonstrates that imaginary dialogues take place side by side with real interactions and dialogues. He also suggests that real others and imaginary others function as intensely interconnected positions in the external domain of the self. he research on self-talk presented so far gives extensive information about the diferent functions of self-talk, but it is not clear what role it plays in the organization of the self. In order to address this topic, we must take into account the spatial nature of dialogue and self-dialogue.

Dialogue as Positioned In this section, I show that internal dialogue is not simply a succession of thoughts and not even an alternation of voices that are addressing each other but rather a process that is spatially organized on the basis of opposite I-positions. We start with a view that emphasizes the dialectical nature of thinking and thought and its relevance for internal dialogue.

he Golden Ratio of Positive and Negative houghts For the purposes of this chapter, not only the distinction between positive and negative forms of self-talk but also, and even primarily, the dynamic relationship between positive and negative thoughts and emotions is paramount. Are there models or research traditions that explain how positive and negative thoughts are related? Schwartz (1986) provides an intriguing view on the balance of opposite thoughts that can be viewed as a beginning of a positional view on dialogue. Schwartz (1986) shows that individuals whom he describes as “functional” are characterized by approximately a 1.7 to 1 ratio of positive to negative coping thoughts, whereas mildly dysfunctional individuals demonstrate equal frequencies of such thoughts. In his review, the author refers to a series of studies that provide further support for this ratio. It holds across a variety of clinical problems

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such as social anxiety, test anxiety, and self-esteem. he relevance of Schwartz’s thesis lies in the consideration that, in healthy living, negative thoughts are not absent. Rather, there exists an asymmetrical relationship of positive and negative thinking with a predominance of the positive side. In order to explain the tension between positive and negative thought, Schwartz (1986) refers to the example of refusing an unreasonable request. As a response to such a request, a range of articulated self-verbalizations is evoked: “What if the person gets angry?”, “But this is an unreasonable request,” “I’ll feel guilty later if I say no,” and so on (p. 594). In this example a positive coping thought is one that facilitates refusal as a goal behavior of the assertive individual (e.g., “I’ll be sorry later if I give in and say yes”) and a negative coping thought as one that interferes with the goal behavior (e.g., “I might get embarrassed if I say no”). he inal decision to refuse is based not simply on just one thought but on diferent thoughts that are located in a ield of tension as dynamically related tendencies. In their variety and contrast, they take diferent possibilities into account, inally leading to the predominance of the positive coping thought and achieving a well-balanced decision. Schwartz (1986) views the internal dialogue, in the form of an inner struggle between positive and negative self-statements, as a special case of the dialectical nature of human thought. He agrees with Rychlak (1968) who presented a dialectical model of the mind, implying that reasoning proceeds through the “opposition of contradictories” (p. 268), an expression of the human capacity to conceive of opposing ideas as providing the dynamic behind thinking itself. With its inherent conlict and tension, the inner dialogue is thus an inevitable and basic aspect of the human condition. In terms of positioning theory, the dialectical view on thinking relects the ield of tension in which the process of positioning and counter-positioning is taking place. For a positional view on thinking, Schwartz’s (1986) conclusion is particularly relevant:  “If the presence of opposing ideas provides the dynamic force behind thinking, then even optimal states of mind will not be free of some negative considerations. hus, ‘positive thinking’—if construed as the complete absence of negative thoughts—would violate the dialectical nature of thinking and therefore be less adaptive than more balanced states of mind” (p. 599, emphasis in original). his statement is in agreement with the argument presented in chapter 6, in which I referred to the “afective democracy” of positive and negative emotions and to the signiicance of emodiversity for physical and mental health. he statement is, moreover, crucial for the central thesis in this book that I-positions and their associated voices are do not function in any isolated way but are to be understood in their mutual relations. Precisely, these relations are quintessential for the dialogical functioning of the self.

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Linking Dialogue and Multipositioning he golden ratio was already a irst step toward a positioned dialogue as it was based on the dialectical opposition between diferent and contradictory thoughts. In order to acknowledge the multiplicity of I-positions and the nature of their dialogical relationships, an additional step is needed, one that broadens the positive–negative dichotomy. An example of this kind of research is PuchalskaWasyl’s (2016) study on the relationship between dialogue and I-positions in which she demonstrates that diferent positions are associated with diferent kinds of dialogue. Puchalska-Wasyl (2016) refers to an important diference between studies on self-talk and those on inner dialogue. Studies on self-talk, like those making use of the colloquial expression “talking to oneself,” suggest a full identity of the speaker with the recipient of the uterance, both being the same self. In contrast, inner dialogue implies that there are at least two distinct communicating parties within one self. his view is in agreement with the stance widely accepted in the psychology of the past decades, that the self, rather than being a monolithic entity, is composed of diferent parts, denoted with various names, such as actual, ideal, and ought self; desired and undesired self; possible selves; subpersonalities; sub-selves; and many others (for an overview see Rowan, 2012). Taking this multiplicity into account opens the possibility of distinguishing between diferent I-positions as being involved in inner dialogues between one position and a diferent other position in the self and, as an implication, between an internal position in the self and the other-in-the-self in its external domain. In her own research, Puchalska-Wasyl (2016) distinguished between two main forms of imaginary dialogue: integrative and confrontational. In an integrative dialogue the purpose is to ind, in a problematic situation, solutions that are acceptable to both parties. In a conrontational dialogue, on the other hand, contrary voices are opposed to each other and not willing to agree. hey are characterized by conlict and cognitive dissonance to a degree that inner integration is not achieved. In agreement with Nir’s (2012) negotiational self theory, Puchalska-Wasyl describes integrative dialogue as a win-win relationship between the voices and confrontational dialogues in terms of a win-lose relationship. In one of the versions of this experiment, participants were asked to think about a problematic issue of importance to them and then about a person whom they see as contributing to the cause of that problem. Finally, they were invited to write down an imaginary dialogue with that person about the problem. In that phase of the experiment, they could choose between two options. hey could conduct the dialogue in such a way that the interlocutors would take into account the arguments of the other party and work out a new solution together

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that met the needs of both parties (integrative); alternatively, they had the option of preventing agreement and making one interlocutor the winner and the other one the loser (confrontational). he results of this experiment conirmed the hypothesis that positions like Faithful Friend and Ambivalent Parent are interlocutors typical of integrative dialogues, whereas Proud Rival and Helpless Child are characteristic for confrontational ones. Apparently, confrontational dialogues were based on win-lose relationships, whereas integrative dialogues took place in an atmosphere of winwin-relationships. It was also found that the two types of dialogue had diferent functions for the interlocutors, relecting a clear diference in atmosphere: the integrative dialogues provided more “Support” and “Bond” and, relevant to metapositioning, more “Insight,” and “Self-guiding” than the confrontational ones. I ind this type of research, in which internal dialogue is seen as based on positioning, particularly fertile, as it may contribute to the understanding of the contradictory results of self-talk research. As we have seen earlier in this chapter, some studies portray the functional aspects of self-talk (e.g., self-motivation or self-instruction) while others emphasize its dysfunctional inluence (e.g., rumination). Taking into account the positions of the self-addressing person helps to differentiate between adaptive and maladaptive forms of self-talk. However, in order to understand the positional nature of dialogue and its possible merits, we have to delve deeper into its spatial basis. Insight in this basis is a necessity to examining the process of dialogue and its possible contributions to self and society.

he Spatial Basis of Dialogue he spatial basis of dialogue becomes particularly manifest when one focuses on the diference between logical and dialogical relationships (Bakhtin 1984; Vasil’eva, 1988). Consider two phrases that are completely identical, “life is good” and again “life is good.” From the perspective of Aristotelian logic, these two phrases are related in terms of identity; actually, they are one and the same statement. From a dialogical perspective, however, they are two statements expressed by the voices of two spatially separated people involved in communication, who entertain a relationship of agreement. From a logical point of view the two phrases are identical, but as uterances they are diferent because they are originating from two people with diferent spatial positions. he irst is a statement and the second a conirmation. Similarly, the phrases “life is good” and “life is not good” can be analyzed. Within the framework of logic, one is a negation of the other. However, as uterances from two diferent speakers, there is a relation of disagreement. On the assumption that the self is structured as a metaphorical (or virtual) space, there are spatial diferences not only between two people in

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communication but also between diferent positions and voices in the self of one and the same person. Two voices in the self have diferent spatial positions, and what they have to tell is determined not only by these positions but also by their dialogical interchange. When I am involved in an imagined conversation with my father, he is somewhere “there” in my mind, located in a place in my self-space that is diferent from the place “here” from which I speak to him. Somewhere he is in front of me, yet connected with me in the same self-space. his spatial diference does not only apply to the imagined contact with a dear parent, wise adviser, understanding friend, or ideal lover but also with purely imaginary igures, as we saw already in the case of imaginary companions in the experiences of children. Referring to cultural anthropological literature, Watkins (1986) gives the example of the Batak people of northern Sumatra, who believe that a spirit who determines someone’s character and fortune is “a person within a person.” Such a spirit does not coincide with the self and can even position itself as an opponent who is experienced as a special being within the self, with its own will and desires. Similarly, Cassirer (1955) notes that in mythical awareness a tutelary spirit is not conceived as the “subject” of someone’s inner life but as something objective, “which dwells in man, which is spatially connected with him and hence can also be spatially separated from him” (p. 168). In sum, while self-talk is typically seen as a nonspatial relationship between the self and itself as a whole, internal dialogue opens the possibility of communication between a multiplicity of spatially located parts of the self that are diferent from or opposite to other parts. As the term “op-position” relects, dialogue is based on spatial positions that are standing “in front” of each other in a physical or metaphorical space. he spatial basis of dialogue is further demonstrated by the diference between (nonspatial) logical relationships and (spatial) dialogical relationships. Indeed, dialogue has a spatial basis. However, that does not answer the question of what dialogue is. What is the nature of dialogue? What is special about it? Are there other forms of inner activity that are not dialogical? If so, what is the diference between dialogue and (inner) debate, and what is the place of dialogue in a broader societal context? Such questions are the starting point of the next section in which I delve into the special nature of this crucial form of communication.

Bridging Two Interpretations of Dialogue:  Bakhtin and Bohm For almost 25 years I have been interested in the notion of dialogue between people and, closely related, dialogue within the self. Oten I have asked myself: What

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is dialogue? Finally, I discovered that this is the wrong question. It is more fertile to ask: What is your conception of dialogue? hat later question acknowledges the fact that in the course of history, from Plato on or even earlier, many conceptions and interpretations of dialogue have been proposed, and they are all more or less diferent from each other (for an overview, see Blachowitz, 1999). Instigated by this observation, I felt the need to compare diferent interpretations of dialogue and explore to what extent they can complement each other or learn from each other in order to achieve a broader, encompassing view on the subject. Finally, this brought me to a positional view on dialogue as a basis of its generative potentials. In the following sections, I  focus on two interpretations of dialogue that have had, and still have, a widespread inluence on contemporary thinkers and researchers of dialogue in the social sciences and beyond. he two interpretations can be briely indicated as “Bakhtinian dialogue” in the tradition of the Russian literary scholar Mikhail Bakhtin and “Bohmian dialogue” as proposed by the American physicist David Bohm. An elaborate discussion and comparison of these traditions would far exceed the limits of this book. herefore, I restrict myself to some of their main features and diferences and then follow up by focusing on their implications for a positional view on dialogue. We start with the broader conception of Bakhtin and then follow up with the more restrictive interpretation of Bohm.

Bakhtin’s Conception of Dialogue Mikhail M.  Bakhtin (1895–1975) was a Russian philosopher, literary scientist, and semiotician, interested in literary theory, ethics, and the philosophy of language. His writings on a variety of subjects but mainly on dialogue inspired many scholars of diferent traditions, such as Marxism, semiotics, structuralism, and religious criticism. His work has had a widespread inluence in a diversity of disciplines like literary criticism, history, philosophy, sociology, psychology, and anthropology. Although Bakhtin was an active participant in the debates on aesthetics and literature in the Soviet Union in the 1920s, his distinctive contributions did not become well known until a group of young scholars at the Gorky Institute in Moscow rediscovered him in the early 1960s and rescued him from the obscurity into which he had fallen. Bakhtin’s work on dialogue can be seen as a protest against any form of essentialism and against any form of reducing the multiplicity and multivoiced nature of the mind to some higher kind of unity or synthesis. For him dialogue refers to the open and uninished exchange of uterances between diferent interlocutors who are located in space and time. Holquist (1990), who made a comprehensive study of Bakhtin’s oeuvre and labeled it as “dialogism,” noted that a fundamental

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a priori in this work is that nothing is in itself. Existence is the event of co-being. It consists of a vast web of interconnected participants who are part of a spatiotemporal event “whose totality is so immense that no single one of us can even know it” (p. 41). In Bakhtin’s work there is an intense connection between dialogue and language as a continuous exchange between the uterances of living people who are located in a diversity of groups and communities. However, for him dialogue is even broader than linguistic communication and is basically a meeting of diferences. As Holquist (1990) summarizes: he mutuality of diferences makes dialogue Bakhtin’s master concept, for it is present in exchanges at all levels—between words in language, people in society, organisms in ecosystems, and even between processes in the natural world. What keeps so comprehensive a view from being reductive is its simultaneous recognition that dialogue is carried at each level by diferent means. One of these means is natural language, others are analogous to natural language, and others have only the most tenuous relation to the way natural language works. Although it is the most powerful, natural language is only one of several ways that dialogic relations manifest themselves in the larger dialogue that is the event of existence. (p. 41) Given linguistic communication as a main way of exchange, dialogue is based on the triadic construction of the linguistic sign. It consists of three elements: an uterance, a reply, and a relation between the two. Of these three the relation is the most important, as follows from the basic assumption that nothing is anything in itself. he triadic construction opens the possibility to apply the notion of dialogue to a broad range of human interactions, both in their verbal and nonverbal expressions. he fundamental nature of Bakhtin’s conception of dialogue is well articulated by this quotation: “Life by its very nature is dialogic. To live means to participate in dialogue: to ask questions, to heed, to respond, to agree, and so forth. In this dialogue a person participates wholly and throughout his whole life” (Bakhtin, 1984, p. 273). Another essential feature of Bakhtin’s interpretation of dialogue is that it is oriented to the exchange and creation of meaning. As Holquist (1990) notes: “At the heart of any dialogue is the conviction that what is exchanged has meaning.” (p. 38). his meaning is not to be understood in terms of any inal or higherorder unifying meaning as this would contradict the idea of interlocutors continuously involved in dialogical interaction. In dialogism the self is seen as moved forward by a “drive to meaning” with meaning understood as “something still in the process of creation, something still bending toward the future as opposed to

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that which is already completed” (p. 23). herefore, the drive to meaning should not be confused with Hegel’s impulse to move toward a single state of higher consciousness in the future: “In Bakhtin there is no one meaning being striven for: the world is a vast congeries of contesting meanings, a heteroglossia so varied that no single term capable of unifying its diversifying energies is possible” (p. 24). Summarizing, Bakhtin’s conception of dialogue is broad and fundamental. As a spatial and temporal process of exchange between embodied participants it is open and uninished. Dialogue is moved forward by a drive to create and exchange what is experienced as meaningful in the event of existence. Next we compare this view with another conception of dialogue that has a more restrictive and specialized nature.

Bohm’s Conception of Dialogue David Bohm (1917–1992) was an American scientist who is generally considered as one of the main theoretical physicists of the 20th century. He introduced innovative and unorthodox ideas to quantum theory, neuropsychology, and the philosophy of mind. Due to Communist ailiations in his youth, Bohm became a target of accusations during the McCarthy era, which prompted him to leave the United States, inally becoming a British citizen. Bohm became one of the most dedicated advocates of genuine and supportive dialogue of our time, as expressed in the small but seminal book On Dialogue published in 1996. For him “dialogue” and “coherence” are intimately connected. In his preface to this book, Peter Senge explains that Bohm repeatedly stressed that a society that works requires a coherence that is missing today, and he used the metaphor of “cement”: “Shared meaning is really the cement that holds society together, and you could say that the present society has very poor quality cement . . . the society at large has a very incoherent set of meanings. In fact, this set of ‘shared meanings’ is so incoherent that it is hard to say that they have any real meaning at all” (p. ix). Bohm is very explicit on what he sees as the main obstacle to open dialogue: “he thing that mostly gets in the way of dialogue is holding to assumptions and opinions, and defending them” (p. ix). he problem of this quest for “unique truth” is that it carries the potential to divide rather than to connect individuals and groups. In this context, Senge (Bohm, 1996) refers to a statement of the Chilean biologist Humberto Maturana who said, “When one human being tells another human what is ‘real,’ what they are actually doing is making a demand for obedience. hey are asserting that they have a privileged view of reality” (p. xi). In terms of positioning theory, in any democratically organized group or society, a reality claim brings the addressee in an implicit position of “I as obedient” with the claiming party puting itself in the position

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of being superior. As a reaction, the “obedient” party may start to resists and responds with an anti-position rather than with a counter-position. In Bohm’s view an essential feature of dialogue is that, in the process of creating coherence, the communicating participants are producing something that they have in common and, at the same time, creating something new. He gives this example in which he points to the spirit of dialogue: In such a dialogue, when one person says something, the other person does not in general respond with exactly the same meaning as that seen by the irst person. Rather, the meanings are only similar and not identical. hus, when the second person replies, the irst person sees a diference between what he meant to say and what the other person understood. On considering this diference, he may then be able to see something new, which is relevant both to his own views and to those of the other person. And so it can go back and forth, with the continual emergence of a new content that is common to both participants. hus, in a dialogue, each person does not atempt to make common certain ideas or items of information that are already known to him. Rather, it may be said that the two people are making something in common, i.e., creating something new together. (Bohm, 1996, p. 3, emphases in the original) Because dialogue is exploratory, its meaning and its methods are parts of an unfolding process. As Bohm, Factor, and Garret (1991) emphasize, there are no irm rules that can be laid down for conducting a dialogue because its essence is learning, not in the sense of consuming information or agreeing with a doctrine imparted by an authority but rather as part of an unfolding process that requires the creative participation of peers. In order for meaning to emerge, the participants must learn to suspend their initial judgment. his suspension is relevant to what happens inside the self, as expressed by Bohm’s (1996) statement that one person can have “a sense of dialogue within himself ” (p. 7). He emphasizes that suspension means that one becomes aware of one’s assumptions and neither carries them out nor suppresses them. In this context, he gives the example of becoming angry that oten leads to an outward reaction. In order to suspend, it is not only required to not insult someone outwardly but even not insulting them inside. It is a form of holding back: “sort of relected back as if you were in front of a mirror. In this way I can see things that I wouldn’t have seen if I had simply carried out that anger, or if I had suppressed it and said, ‘I’m not angry’ or ‘I shouldn’t be angry’ ” (p. 23). In terms of positioning theory, suspension creates a space in the self with some distance between the position from where one looks at oneself and the position in

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which one is experiencing the emotion of anger. his space enables the person, instead of giving in to the immediate emotion, to give an alternative reaction with a diferent sense of meaning. In fact, Bohm (1996) invites his participants to make a move from thought as a content to thought as a process. Once a thought is put forward, it has the tendency to “defend its basic assumptions against evidence that they may be wrong” (p.  12). Usually, he observes, we start thinking about a problem in order to solve it. We say that we must think to solve it. As long as we deal with it in this way, we are focusing on the content of thought. In contrast, Bohm emphasizes that the problem is not the content of thought but thought itself. We have to focus on the basic assumptions that are underlying our thoughts on less conscious levels. In a dialogue people come from diferent social and cultural backgrounds and have diferent basic assumptions of which they are not aware when they are speaking. When they communicate with each other on the basis of diferent assumptions, they have the tendency to defend these assumptions against the evidence that they are not “right” or against the opinions of others. herefore, Bohm and colleagues (1991) talk about the necessity of what they call a “meta-dialogue,” a concept that is close to taking a metaposition in the present theory. Taking such a position facilitates awareness not only of one’s basic assumptions and their cultural relativity but also of the incoherence between thinking and doing. his awareness of incoherence is particularly relevant for a well-developed meta-position, as it proits from comparing the way one evaluates one’s behavior from one’s own position but also from the other’s position. he discrepancy between position and behavior is food for adaptive self-correction. Certainly, there is more to say about Bohmian and Bakhtinian dialogue and their seminal implications for a psychology on human communication. However, my main task is to compare them, to focus on their main diference, and then to explore what positioning theory can learn from them.

Comparison of Bakhtinian and Bohmian Dialogue Some of the similarities between Bakhtin’s and Bohm’s interpretations of dialogue are quite evident. hey both focus on sign-mediated exchange between participants. Both assume that dialogue is producing meaning, and both are interested in the way dialogue deals with diference between interlocutors. Both explicitly note that dialogue is not only possible between people but also within the self. I limit myself to three main diferences that have implications for my further exploration of dialogue as a positioning process. he irst is that Bakhtin’s interpretation of dialogue is broad and encompassing, while Bohm’s conception is

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more restricted. he second one is that Bakhtin presents a descriptive view on dialogue, whereas Bohm advocates a prescriptive one. he third one refers to diferences in their conception of learning. Next we deal with these diferences in some detail. In Bakhtin’s conception dialogue is ubiquitous. It happens always and everywhere, and it is an intrinsic feature of the human condition as expressed by his view that to live is to be in dialogue. his is very diferent from Bohm, who assumes that dialogue evolves in particular situations and under particular conditions. Barge and Litle (2002) observe that for Bohm dialogue is a specialized form of conversation that occurs at particular moments only, while for Bakhtin all conversations are dialogical and part of an encompassing and never-ending process. A second diference is that Bakhtin describes dialogue as a reality in which individuals become involved from the beginning of life, while for Bohm dialogue it is a desirable but insuiciently realized form of interchange needed in a society that is confronted with diversity without a suicient degree of coherence. Bohm aims to make creative use of diferences as a basis for generating new and common meanings, while Bakhtin emphasizes the perpetuity of diferences in the event of life. In terms of Barge and Litle (2002), Bakhtin’s view is descriptive, while Bohm’s interpretation is prescriptive. he descriptive–prescriptive distinction is closely associated with a third diference. Both theoreticians think diferently about learning. Bohm is very straightforward on this point. For him the essence of dialogue is learning, whereas in Bakhtin’s thinking, learning is part of an already existing dialogue. As Holquist (1990) notes, Bakhtin, like Vygotsky, sees the child as unfolding in a massively social environment in which the child is not only determined by genetic inluences but also by the community to which they belong. On the basis of this assumption, they both see the radical signiicance of education and learning in the child’s coming to consciousness. Language is the means by which parents and educators organize their thoughts about the world and pass it on to their children. Bakhtin insisted on the shaping inluence of parental language for the self of the child in this way: “he child receives all initial determinations of himself and of his body from his mother’s lips . . . [her words] are the irst and most authoritative words the child hears about himself ” (Bakhtin, quoted by Holquist, 1990, p. 81). he irst impression is that both Bohm and Bakhtin emphasize learning as part of existence. he diference, however, is that for Bakhtin learning depends on dialogue, while for Bohm dialogue depends on learning. For Bakhtin dialogue implies learning, while Bohm makes a profound efort to teach participants how to dialogue. While for Bakhtin dialogue is already there from birth when mother and child use verbal and nonverbal language in their interaction,

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for Bohm dialogue has to be learned and comes only to full expression under particular conditions, such as learning how to suspend one’s impulses, how to respect the other, how to become more sensitive to the other’s expressions, and how to create common meanings. For him the problem is that this commonality is not there in a society lacking the cement that binds people from diferent languages, cultures, and communities together. herefore, a learning process is needed that makes them beter equipped to create common meanings. While in Bakhtin’s universe participants are involved in learning on a dialogical basis that is already there, Bohm tries to create this basis there where it is not. (For critical discussion of the cement metaphor, see later in this chapter.)

he Dialogical Ladder he comparison of the two great thinkers, Bakhtin and Bohm, is helpful to not only distinguish diferent forms of dialogue but also to link them with positioning theory in highly dynamic ways. Let us therefore consider diferent forms of communications as summarized in Table 7.1. hey range from a commanding relationship to generative dialogue. In a Bakhtinian sense, they are all forms of dialogue, because all of them are based on the three elements of triadic construction: an uterance, a reply, and a relation between the two. In a command relationship, one person or group takes the position of the boss, leader, or commander, and the others respond to this command by placing themselves in the position of obedient; they communicate this by a verbal or nonverbal “yes.” As the table shows, individuals can also have a command relationship with themselves. hey may become aware of their own behavior as unacceptable to themselves and dictate themselves to stop or change existing paterns. he criticized position then may agree or disagree with this command as a response. At the upper end of the ladder we ind generative dialogue in the Bohmian sense. In this case, participants position themselves as “I as showing you respect,” “I as listening to you,” “we as exploring what we have in common,” or “we as learning from each other.” When participants take these open positions toward each other, they create conditions relevant to generative dialogue in which the diferent parties become engaged in an exchange that leads to the creation of new meaning that is shared with the other participants. Generative dialogue may also take place in the space of the self. It happens when you have an open contact with yourself when something is emerging between you and yourself.5 In this 5

In their study of wisdom-related performance, Staudinger and Baltes (1996) distinguished two forms of interaction:  actual dialogue between participants and virtual dialogue with an imagined wise person. Participants in the experiment were faced with a diicult task (e.g., what is the appropriate response when a ictitious person receives a call from a good friend who communicates his or her

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Table 7.1. Types of Relationships Within the Self and Between Self and Other Self-Self

Self-Other

Dialogue (generative)

I-positions are open to selfexploration and learning from each other to create something new (e.g., creative thinking, reading or writing)

Communicating partners are open to common exploration and learning from each other to create something new (e.g., creative thinking or acting together)

Negotiation

I-positions strive for a mutually beneicial outcome guided by their own interests (e.g., winlose, win-win, or comprise in internal conlict)

Negotiators strive for a mutually beneicial outcome guided by their own interests (e.g., win-lose, win-win, or comprise)

Debate

I-positions conirm themselves and are opposed to each other (e.g., inner disagreement or conlict)

Debaters conirm themselves and are opposed to each other (e.g., external disagreement or conlict)

Persuasion

One I-position tries to convince the other one of something (e.g., “I convince myself of not being afraid”)

One person or group tries to convince the other of something (e.g., trying to sell a product)

Command

One I-position dominates the other and forces the other I-position to obey (e.g., “I stop this addiction”)

One person or group dominates the other and expects the other to obey (e.g., “his is an order”)

seminal dialogical space, a meaning is emerging that you experience as common with yourself and which gives you the feeling of being “close to yourself.” It would be a misunderstanding to see dialogue within the self as something essentially diferent from the dialogue between people. I emphasize this because in discussions about the subject I notice that many tend to see “internal” (within decision to commit suicide). he investigators found that not only actual but also virtual (internal) dialogues increased task performance by one standard deviation in comparison with simple reasoning without any interaction.

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the self) and “external” (between self and other) as separate or even as mutually exclusive processes. his assumption has its roots in the dualism between self and other and between self and society. One of the main purposes of the present book is to interconnect self and society in such a way that it becomes evident that society is in the self, like the self is in society. In the context of generative dialogue, I give two examples of this intimate interconnection and interpenetration, one about listening and the other about reading. Listening as a Generative Dialogue on the Interface Between Self and Other

Listening to someone who is speaking to you can take place at the level of facts or the level of meanings. he most supericial way is when you listen to the literal content of the message or to the explicit words spoken by the other. You take for granted what is said and simply understand it. When someone says, “My son visited me yesterday,” you take it as a fact in itself. However, when the speaker continues to talk, he tells that he has not seen his son for more than 10 years. Now the sentence, placed in a broader context, receives additional personal meaning. When you see the person telling this with a broad smile and twinkling eyes, you are quite sure that he is happy to see his son again ater such a long time. However, this is only part of the process of listening. When your guest is telling his story, you may notice that you are becoming more and more tense. As long as you take this as an “internal fact,” you have no idea what happens in yourself. When you move your atention inward, you realize that his story reminds you of the relationship with your own son, with whom you recently had a serious conlict that was not resolved. From that moment on, the personal meaning of your tight muscles and inner tension is part of a growing awareness of the connection between the told story and your own emotional memory. When you share this memory with your guest, there is not only an interface where the two stories meet and new meanings develop. here is also an interface within yourself where his story and your story meet with the possibility, during the talk or later, that new meanings in your own self have a chance to emerge. As this example suggests, listening to the other is intimately connected with listening to yourself. Moving from the level of facts to the level of (shared) meanings may deepen the interchange not only between participants but also within their own selves. Listening is a “between” process and a “within” process at the same time, and generative dialogue is taking place on their interface. Listening as a form of generative dialogue within the self can also take place in diary writing or expressive writing. Lengelle (2016) developed a dialogical procedure of expressive writing for application in career coaching. When she lost her job, she started to apply the method to her own case. Writing during the internal turmoil that followed from this event, she discovered that her emotional

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reactions were strongly centered around her position of “I as victim.” In a next phase, she developed a meta-position that brought her into contact with new positions like “I as devoted,” “I as hopeful,” and “I as realistic,” which as an expansion of her repertoire signiicantly broadened her self-space. She describes how this process was not purely internal as it was also stimulated by the conversations with her partner. As this case exempliies, listening to oneself and one’s own stories, sharing them with oneself via writing and with signiicant others via conversations, is a way to develop generative dialogue on the interface between self and self but also between self and other. Particularly in their combination, internal and external dialogues are mutually fertilizing. Reading as a Generative Dialogue on the Interface of Reader and Author

Interpreting a text (iction or noniction) is another example of an activity that may, under particular conditions, become a generative dialogue on the interface between self and other. When you skim a text like you are reading the minutes of a meeting in an obligatory way, you are reading on the level of pure fact, and there is not much of an open and close relationship with the text and the author. his changes when we become interested in what the author wants to say and what his or her intentions are. Such interest stimulates you to move into the position of the author or, in case of a novel, into the position of the protagonists. One step further on the meaning level is to paraphrase the text, to translate it into your own vocabulary, and to adapt it according to your own experiences, so that it becomes gradually your own text that you are telling or writing to yourself. his is one of the main reasons that dedicated readers make numerous notes in the margins of a text or highlight those parts that are particularly meaningful to them. Or they tell a friend about an inspiring book in a way that suggests a strong identiication with the author as if they have writen the book themselves. However, dedicated and meaning-searching readers do not just repeat what the author has said. Rather, they add their own knowledge and experiences to the content of the book and weave them together in such a way that what results is a new meaning that readers may share with the author in their imagination. When we pose the question if this generative dialogue is taking place between author and reader or within the reader, any or-or answer is questionable. If one considers reading a text as a search for meaning, one can easily agree with a quote atributed to Angela Carter who noted that “Reading a book is like re-writing it for yourself.” Taken together, I argue in this section that generative dialogues can take place not only between self and other but also within the self. Moreover, the two dialogues are intensely interconnected as taking place in a ield of tension between author and reader, a ield that is extended to an emerging dialogical space within

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the reader. With the listening and reading examples, I show that common meanings, resulting from generative dialogue, are not to be unambiguously reduced to either processes between or within selves. Rather, they may be constructed and reconstructed in a space where both processes are merging together. I emphasize this conclusion as I believe that the most proliic generation of meaning does not take place in an isolated mind and not even in the external contact between people. It happens in a most seminal way when a diversity of communicating people and diversity of I-positions in the self meet and feed each other via open communication channels.

Moving Up and Down the Dialogical Ladder: Positioning and Repositioning Why do I make the distinctions between several forms of dialogue as presented in Table 7.1? Distinguishing them allows us to recognize that they may be related to diferent I-positions. Or, formulated in a more dynamic way, diferent forms of dialogue are triggered by the position in which we ind ourselves in a particular situation. Parents who believe in the necessity of seting boundaries on their misbehaving children may command them to do or not to do something. When experts know that there is an upcoming disaster in a particular area, it is helpful when the authorities persuade the inhabitants to take the necessary measures to protect themselves. When two politicians want to present their plans to a national audience, it may be highly informative when they engage in a TV debate. When two captains of industry negotiate about a possible merger of their companies, it makes sense for them to keep an eye on their vested interests. When scientists or technological experts want to search for solutions for a wicked problem or explore a creative idea, the development of a generative dialogue is a promising way to go. he commonality of these examples is that these forms of dialogue are positioned: the selection of a particular form of dialogue depends on the position and situation in which the communicators ind themselves. Diferent positions demanded by particular situations require diferent forms of dialogue. Depending on the breadth and variation of their position repertoire, individuals may be able to become engaged in diferent forms of dialogue. Individuals who are not able to deal with disagreement may develop a defensive response style, although they could learn something new if they would feel safe and conident enough to become involved in a generative dialogue with space for diferent or contradictory perspectives. Or managers who have worked for many years in a hierarchical organization may be confronted with insurmountable problems when they take a job in a more democratically organized company. Contrastingly, people who have a rich experience with a variety of dialogical relationships in a

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variety of positions may develop a repertoire that makes it possible to “select” that form of dialogue that is most productive in the situation at hand. he diferent forms of dialogue presented in Table 7.1 are ordered according to the metaphorical space allowed to the interacting participants. he command relation is highly asymmetrical in that one of the participants is highly dominant and leaves no space for others to express themselves from their own point of view. In the persuasive relationship, the message of one participant is highly dominant over the other one, allowing litle space for the counter-voice of the other party. Although the participants in a debate are opposed to each other, this form of dialogue can be symmetrical if both parties give each other enough space to articulate their speciic points of view. In negotiations the interaction is primarily guided by explicit or implicit purposes in which the participants have an interest and both are permited a considerable space to take their interests into account. herefore, their positions of interest have an a priori importance above all other positions of their repertoire. However, the positions are, in principle, organized in a symmetrical way in the sense that both are allowed the space to achieve their goals in the form of a win-win relationship, although, in the case of a win-lose relationship, one participant gains more than the other one. he most symmetrical relationship can be found in generative dialogue, where both positions receive full space to become expressed in their own speciic qualities with no position placed above all other positions on an a priori basis. his form of dialogue has the broadest bandwidth of all other forms of dialogue, in the sense that any position can be brought in by any of the participants for consideration and exploration. Moreover, during the generative dialogue a between space emerges that functions as a fertile soil for the construction of new meanings that are felt as common to all participants. he fact that one can move from one type of dialogue to another is essential for the dynamic nature of the dialogical ladder. Here I want to revisit the notion of lexible democracy as discussed in chapter 3. I referred to the low speed and small power diferences of democracy that make it ill-suited for giving decisive answers to pressing problems or critical situations. As examples, I mentioned situations in which crucial communication channels between leader and members are atenuated or when the survival of the team as a whole is at stake. In such situations a crisis leader is required to take rapid decisions while, at the same time, taking into account the overarching and long-term view of a metaposition. Rather than engaging in a time-consuming exchange, crisis leaders act in a more decisive and even commanding way, actually moving toward the lower end of the ladder as presented in Table 7.1. As a prototypical example of a crisis leader in war time, I referred to Winston Churchill who, ater a period of nonconspicuous leadership in peace time, became an iconic crisis leader in World War II. If the same person must be both a crisis and a non-crisis leader, the self

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of this person should be broad and lexible enough to move hence and forth from divergent positions like “I as open to uncertainty” (typical of generative dialogue) to “I as decisive in stress situations” (typical of command relationship in which rapid decisions are necessary). he possibility for participants to move from one type of interaction to another one is also demonstrated by Scharmer (2001) who shows how individuals and groups move through diferent “ields of conversation.” Initially they are inclined to accept existing social norms by talking nicely to each other. Later they move to a second ield in which they clash and become engaged in “talking tough” in a debate. In a third ield they start to relect on themselves and are willing to examine their basic assumptions. Finally, they move to the ield of “generative dialogue,” in which they explore future possibilities and become engaged in generating alternative scenarios. As this model suggests, individuals and groups are not necessarily ixed to one type of interaction. Rather, one type may function as a stepping stone for moving to another one. Debate may serve as a transition to generative dialogue. It should be added, however, that one interaction partner may become engaged in a form of dialogue that is diferent from the type of dialogue preferred by the other. Such a discrepancy is likely to lead to misunderstanding and miscommunication (e.g., one partner looks for the creation of common meanings whereas the other one wants to win the game). Next we consider the diference between debate and generative dialogue more closely and then concentrate on generative dialogue as the most innovative and creative form of communication.

Generative Dialogue and the Creation of Meaning here are two kinds of interaction that are oten confused but require a clear distinction: debate that typically evokes the excitement of a tournament and generative dialogue, which may be less atractive for media exposure but is greatly needed in a complex and boundary-crossing world in which people are increasingly interdependent despite their apparent diferences and oppositions. In Bohm’s (1996) vision, debate is no dialogue in the restrictive sense of the term. He sees a contrast between dialogue as a creative act that generates new common meaning and “discussion,” which has the same root as “percussion” and “concussion.” He compares discussion with a ping-pong game, where participants are bating their ideas back and forth with the intention to win the game or to get points for themselves. Even when one agrees with someone, he argues, the basic point is to win the game (p. 7). Although debate is diferent from generative dialogue in a variety of aspects (see Table 7.2), it also has its apparent advantages. One advantage is that it gives

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Table 7.2. Diferences Between Debate and Generative Dialogue Debate

Generative Dialogue

Single best solution

Alternative solutions

Positions are clear and predictable

Positions are complex and unpredictable

Changing one’s position is defeat

Changing one’s position is learning

Positions are ixed

Emergence of new positions

High degree of certainty

Tolerance of uncertainty

Positions are pited against each other

Emergence of dialogical space between positions

Positions stay in comfort zone

Positions move into challenge zone

participants the opportunity to articulate a particular position so that it becomes exposed in its own speciicity and demarcated from competing ones. When diferent positions are confronted with each other in a clash, we know where they are standing and in which respects they are diferent from each other. he advantage of debate is that it clariies the positions taken by the participants. Moreover, as Scharmer’s (2001) model suggests, participants may move from debate to generative dialogue, and if they do, the dialogue may proit from the knowledge of each other’s positions and build on them in a subsequent phase of generative dialogue. It is like two friends who disagree on particular maters or even have a clash. If they succeed to continue their exchange and respect each other’s points of view and emotions, they not only know each other beter than before but even have the feeling that their relationship is strong enough to survive despite or even thanks to their apparent diferences. Dialogue in its generative potential may have far-reaching societal implications, even outside the spotlights of the public debate. Isaacs (1999) who, like Scharmer, works in the tradition of Bohm and participates in a research group of the Massachusets Institute of Technology, gives some noteworthy examples. Nelson Mandela, at the time when he still was a prisoner of the South African government, and president Albert de Klerk met privately in the years and months before the end of apartheid to explore alternatives for South Africa’s future. Ulster politician John Hume, the leader of the Social Democratic and Labor Party and Gerry Adams as the leader of Sinn Fein met secretly in order to talk about how to stop the violence. he Oslo accord in which a peace plan for the Middle East was established ater years of failure was agreed to ater months of secret meetings between Israelis and Palestinians. Indeed, politicians involved in debate, conlict, or persistent disagreement may make a transition to generative forms of dialogue in order to ind ways out of long-lasting and unproductive

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clashes, similar to a self that may make the transition from an inner conlict to a creative internal dialogue. Debate is omnipresent in a world laden with diferences, conlicts, and misunderstandings. Debates take place not only between political antagonists but also in organizations, interest groups, dyadic relationships, marriage, and even as internal conlict in the self. Although participants in a debate receive space to expose their speciic points of view and to articulate their diferences and disagreements, it is a form of communication with serious limitations. As long as participants continue their interchange within the “walls” of their own position, they are imprisoned in their conviction that they have the single best solution. heir positions are ixed, they see any change of it as a defeat, and, therefore, they stay within the safe but closed borders of their comfort zones. Precisely these closed boundaries prevent the participants from opening their minds to the possible value of alternative positions, particularly those that are disconirming their own. hese limitations bring me to one of my central points: the beneit of making a transition from debate to dialogue is a step of vital importance in situations that need a broad, innovative, and long-term perspective that profits from a larger diversity of alternative and possible positions. If participants are able to do this, they are on their way to developing a common and complex meta-position with open boundaries to a broader array of alternative positions. hey consider a change of their original position as learning instead of threat or loss, and they enter a ield of uncertainty that is located in their challenge zone. In order to facilitate this transition, participants need to know that debate is not the only way of dealing with diferences and conlict. hey should be knowledgeable about the diferences between the two forms of communication and aware of the possibility of making a transition from the one form of exchange to the other one. As I have emphasized in chapters 2 and 3, lexible boundaries of positions are paramount to the development of the self and the functioning of teams. While boundaries are more closed during debate, they become open when participants move to generative dialogue.

Generative Dialogue Needs Trust However, knowledge about the diference between debate and dialogue is not suicient for making the transition from the former to the later one. For generative dialogue to emerge, the afective dimension is of equal importance. Of all feelings that may be relevant to start dialogue and to develop it, there is one that is both indispensable and facilitating: trust. In any form of communication, trust is indispensable as it opens the boundaries between positions on the feeling level and creates an open atmosphere among them. In this atmosphere I become open and responsive to the emotions and feelings of the other participants and

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believe that their expression will be of beneit to the other participants and to the group as a whole. I open myself not only to the potential and unpredictable shits in the positioning of the other participants but also to what happens or may happen in the spaces of my own self. I share my emotions and feelings with other participants trusting that a “constructive something” will come out. Understood in this way, trust requires tolerance of uncertainty: I cannot know and predict the outcome of opening myself to the other or group, yet I have the conidence that it moves the process further in a common ield of exploration. In an article in which he relects about dialogue in close connection to his own professional experiences, Schein (1993) emphasizes the intimate connection between dialogue and the fostering of trust. For him dialogue holds considerable promise as a problem-formulation and problem-solving philosophy and technology in organizations. He even advocates dialogue as a necessary vehicle for understanding cultures and subcultures and emphasizes that organizational learning will ultimately depend upon such understanding. In that context, he proposes:  “All problem-solving groups should begin in a dialogue format to facilitate the building of suicient common ground and mutual trust, and to make it possible to tell what is really on one’s mind” (p. 42).6 As Schein (1993) formulates with his proposition, dialogue leads to trust. I add that trust is also needed for dialogue to emerge, and, furthermore, trust is indispensable for the transition from debate to dialogue. his transition demands that one is willing to leave a situation in which one’s own position is ixed, predictable, and identity-enhancing, to a situation in which one’s own position becomes part of a broader complexity of positions that leads, at least temporarily, to a state of uncertainty or even chaos. In order to tolerate such a process, disclosure of one’s vulnerability and expressing trust in the possible value of an unpredictable outcome facilitates this transition. I have explicitly spoken of a feeling of trust in the transition to generative dialogue in order to distinguish it from the variety of emotions (e.g., anxiety, anger, shame) that may be evoked by debate. As explained in chapter  4, feelings are more permanent and cross-situational than emotions that are more transient and situation–bound. herefore, feelings of trust may function as a fertile soil for generative dialogue. Moreover, as explained in the same chapter, while emotions are more associated with likes and dislikes, feelings are more typical of evaluations in terms of what is meaningful or meaningless. Feelings of trust proit from the expectation that it is meaningful, although sometimes painful, to open oneself to the unknown positions in the other and to unexpected positions in one’s own self.

6

For review of studies on interpersonal trust as facilitating the democratic functioning of society, see Sullivan and Transue (1999).

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Dialogical Space and Its Atmosphere Dialogue not only generates new and common meanings, but it also creates a commonly felt dialogical space. When participants open the boundaries of their positions to become engaged in dialogue, they feel that between them an invisible space is emerging in which they both participate and which they experience as common. he participants feel a strong sense of sharing and have the impression that this space is between them and connects them. In this space, they feel the freedom to express their experiences from their own speciic point of view and feel accepted even when their views are very diferent. he bandwidth of the positions that can be brought to this space is broad so that a diversity of positions, in their variation and contradictions, can be expressed and explored. he afective dimension is particularly relevant to the emergence of a dialogical space. When a dialogical space emerges, it radiates a particular atmosphere of openness and trust, interest of the participants in each other, and curiosity, which motivates them to go into the positions of the other with empathy so that these positions can be explored in their diferent facets (subpositions). he space can easily dissolve when a participant is not in tune with its atmosphere. For example, sharp criticism or signs of disrespect would disrupt the process. he atmosphere would also disappear when participants communicate on the level of pure facts rather than the level of afect-laden meanings. Suppose a person involved in a conversation tells about some sad event in his or her surrounding but the other asks only factual questions (where? when? how?) but does not atend, verbally or nonverbally, to the feeling dimension. In such a case, the speaker will not feel suiciently understood and may be discouraged from continuing to talk about his or her experiences, and the atmosphere evaporates. Exchange of meanings rather than facts or pure information facilitates the emergence of dialogue and its corresponding atmosphere of trust.7 Japanese people are particularly sensitive to the emergence of a dialogical space. hey have even a special term, ma, to denote it. According to Morioka (2012), the word ma is used to describe the quality of interpersonal relationships when, in the process of talking and listening, a unique in-between space is created. It relects the creative lively tension between you and me. If this tension lessens, ma is lost. In the author’s view, ma does not only refer to a person’s relationship with another person but also to the spatial distance from voice to voice in an internal dialogue. In an internal dialogue, an optimal distance is created between a narrating position8 and an answering position in one’s internal space. 7 For a nuanced portrayal of the combination of meaning making, narrative, and dialogical self in the ield of psychotherapy, see Neimeyer (2012) and Verhofstadt-Denève (2012). 8 In the present theory, narratives are position-bound; that is, people tell diferent narratives from the perspective of implicit or explicit I-positions. he story I tell as a father is diferent from the one I tell as a scientist, and the oicial story I tell to my political allies may difer dramatically from the

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his distance can also be called ma. Morioka (2012) sees a connection with dialogical self theory (Hermans & Hermans-Konopka, 2010) when he refers to the role of silence in the creation of ma, as silence is giving space for inner recapitulation, rehearsal, and imagination, in this way facilitating and enriching dialogical relationships.

Making Dialogical Steps: he Emergence of Novelty he basic structure of dialogical relationships can be elucidated by considering them as a process of taking successive steps. Markova’s (1987) three-step model ofers a useful perspective to look at dialogue from a dynamic point of view. he central idea of this model is that a full dialogue does not consist of two steps (e.g., question and answer) but of three steps: Step 1: A to B (I say something to the other) Step 2: B to A (the other gives an answer) Step 3: A to B (I change my initial statement on the basis of the other’s answer in Step 2). As part of this model, position A in Step 3 is no longer the same as A in Step 1 as it is modiied by the dialogical process itself. In an everyday conversation this happens when individuals permit themselves to be inluenced by another’s point of view. In the irst step, A might say, “his is my view.” In the second step, B responds, “I have another way of seeing it.” In the third step, A modiies, under the inluence of the preceding step, his or her initial view and might say, “Now I look at it in a diferent way.” As a result, A in Step 3 is diferent from A in Step 1, because it has shited, more or less, its original position, as it is now an A in relation to, and under the inluence of, this particular B. his repositioning, in turn, shits the meaning of the original content too, articulating it as part of a changing relationship. one I tell to my friend during an informal conversation. Such diferences and contrasts are apparent even when it concerns the same events. Here I see a diference with McAdams’s (2001) life story model of identity, in which narratives are conceived as ways to achieve unity and purpose in the self. Whereas his “imagoes” (protagonists in the life-story) are subordinated to the unifying capacity of the life-narrative, I-positions in the present theory may tell diferent and even contradicting stories creating a ield of tension between narratives and counternarratives that may put the unity of the self under pressure. However, diferent positions may exchange their narratives via dialogical relationships so that their diferences and contradictions become apparent. Moreover, diferent stories may be brought together under the overarching view of meta-positions where they are constructed and reconstructed in the form of meta-narratives. While McAdams’ emphasis on unity and purpose relects the primacy of centering movements in the self, the present theory considers centering and decentering movements as equivalent and mutually complementing.

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In our own research (see Hermans & Kempen, 1993) we applied this model on the relationship between self and art. We invited participants to enter in an imaginary dialogue with a person depicted in a painting. he picture was a copy of Mercedes de Barcelona (1930), a painting by the Dutch artist Pyke Koch (1901–1992). It depicts a middle-aged woman placed in a frontal position so that eye contact with the viewer is very direct. he participants were invited to select one statement from a larger pool of sentences that they had formulated about themselves in a preceding self-investigation. hey were then asked to concentrate on the picture and imagine how that the woman would respond to that statement. Ater the woman had given an imaginary reaction to their initial uterance, participants were invited to respond to the woman from the perspective of the original statement and to change it if they wanted. his procedure involved three steps: Step 1: Participant presents a statement to the woman. Step 2: Woman gives an imaginary response. Step 3: Participant responds to the woman from the perspective of the initial statement. Consider the example of Frank, a 48-year-old manager, who revised his initial statement signiicantly: Step 1:  Frank “I trust most people in advance; however, when this trust is violated, I  start to think in a negative way; this can have harmful consequences.” Step 2:  Woman:  “You should keep your openness; however, your trust should become somewhat more reserved and take into account the topic involved.” Step 3:  Frank:  “You are right; I  must pay atention to this; reservations in this regard will also help me to control my negative feelings” (Hermans & Kempen, 1993, pp. 160–161). In this example, we see that the woman, positioned by Frank as a wise advisor, presents a new viewpoint (Step 2) that is incorporated in Frank’s inal reaction (Step 3) in such a way that the original formulation (Step 1) has been further developed. he content of his answer in Step 3 involves not only a main element of the woman’s response (“reservation”) but also a central element of his original statement (negative thinking). In Step 3, he incorporates elements from Steps l and 2 in a inal uterance, which has a considerable innovative and synthesizing quality. Like in the case of “dialogical reading” discussed earlier in this chapter, this example shows that generative dialogue may take place on the interface of

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self and (imagined) other who is allowed to enter, temporarily or more permanently, as an “external” position in the extended self. In our research on the painting of Mercedes de Barcelona, the woman was typically atributed the position of a “wise advisor.” he importance of this position led me to pose the intriguing question: Who is it who gives advice or any other message in an imaginary dialogue? Is it another being, or is it the person him- or herself? In my view, it is not or-or but rather and-and. he other is a position in an extended self that is able to create a reality that is inside and outside at the same time. It is this fertile interface between self and other that allows making a radical position shit to a position that is spatially separated yet intensely connected with the viewer. Moving to the-other-in-the-self in an extended space creates a form of distancing that ofers a diferent and possibly innovative perspective on reality that is not reachable as long as the person is imprisoned within a bounded self, typically conceived as a self-without-other. In the form of distancing, processes of positioning and counter-positioning allow shits to qualitatively diferent locations in the virtual space of the self, resulting in a change or meaning of the original position (for empirical evidence on the health promoting efects of self-distancing, see chapter 4).

he Emergence of a hird Position he three steps of the dialogical model are even able to generate a new position that emerges in the ield of tension between two existing positions. In the case of two conlicting positions, a third one may emerge that is able, under certain conditions, to lessen and mitigate the conlict between the original ones. Constructing such a third position has the advantage that the energy that is oten usurped by the conlict can be invested in the third position and its further development. A clarifying example of the construction of a third position is provided by the Brazilian investigators Branco, Branco, and Madureira (2008), who describe the story of Rosanne, a 25-year-old woman who found herself to be lesbian. Her sexual orientation clashed strongly with the Catholic value system, which functioned as a cornerstone in her life and that of her family. Her internal conlict focused on her positions as a Catholic daughter and as a lesbian woman. he purpose of the investigators was to show how Rosanne used her creative capacity to weave a relative self-integration out of strongly contradictory I-positions in the ield of tension between the traditional society and the gay community. he authors describe how Rosanne, who was well aware of the Church’s view on homosexuality, became involved in a process of self-dialogue in which she constructed arguments to justify herself as a good Catholic person, though lesbian. his led her to elaborate on a “personal theology” in which her religious

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values and her private, personal life merged. She tried to ind in religious virtues a way of life needed to bridge the gap between two incompatible worlds, which she felt were tearing her apart. At some point she arrived at a turning point: she started to talk about herself as a Christian woman who would like to help forsaken and lost people, including many gays and lesbians. She felt that her mission was to help people to think about their lives in a way that would beter it traditional and Christian values, practices, and beliefs. From the perspective of her new position as a “missionary,” she found good reason for her presence in the gay community. In this third position she was able to reconcile, in the form of a generative dialogue, the conlict between her original positions. Generally speaking, the emergence of a third position is possible only under particular conditions. First, a person should be knowledgeable about the Ipositions that are responsible for a conlict. his requires a certain degree of self-relection and self-knowledge. Someone might feel a strong tension or have the feeling that “something is wrong” without knowing which positions are involved. Second, a third position may only develop if one position is not entirely dominant over the other. he self should be able to sustain a considerable degree of tension between the two positions. In case of a one-sided dominance, the weaker position would be prevented from investing its energy in the emerging new position. hird, both positions should be prepared to open their boundaries to each other so that the energy can low from the one to the other position. Finally, the person should be able and willing to take a meta-position with a distance large enough to take a stand outside the conlict zone between the positions so that the self is not blocked by the immediate pressure of the conlict.

Centering and Decentering Movements in the Self In order to arrive at a beter understanding of the signiicance of generative dialogue and its role in the construction of third positions and promoter positions, we return to some conclusions formulated in chapter  1. In a border-crossing world in which people are located in diferent localities, the self is faced with an unprecedented density of positions. Moreover, as increasingly participating in a diversity of local groups and cultures, the individual position repertoire becomes more complexly paterned and heterogeneous, laden as it is with diferences, tensions, oppositions, and contradictions. Given the speed and unpredictability of situational changes, the repertoire receives more “visits” by unexpected positions and, as a consequence of the increasing range of possible positions, there are more and larger position leaps; that is, the individual has to make more and larger “mental jumps” given the relatively large psychological distance between the I-positions.

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Taken together, all these processes work as decentering (or centrifugal) movements in the self. Certainly, these movements create space for new possibilities in the self and have the potential to broaden its horizon. However, when they become overly dominant, as typical of our globalizing society, they entail the risk of disorganization, chaos, and fragmentation. he self becomes populated by an increasing number of contrasting and opposing voices that may end up in a cacophony or in an identity crisis, as Arnet (2002) has demonstrated. herefore, centering (or centripetal) movements are needed in order to create the necessary balance. hese movements work in the direction of coherence, consistency, and unity and enable the self to restore its organization when the existing order is challenged. Centering movements may even proit from the new input introduced by the preceding decentering movements in the service of the reorganization of the self. However, when centering movements become overly dominant, the self is at risk of becoming rigidly organized and inlexible. Certainly, one of the two movements may be dominant in a particular situation that demands either entering a new or unfamiliar situation (decentering) or bringing positions together in a form of self-organization that is felt as coherent (centering). However, basically the two movements are mutually complementing forces, which need each other to enable the self to ind a balance between change, challenge, and innovation9 on the one hand and consistency, coherence, and overview on the other. Together, they make the self function as a highly dynamic ield of tension, characterized as unity-in-multiplicity or multiplicity-in-unity. As emphasized previously (Hermans & Hermans-Konopka, 2010), the self is not only subjected to decentering movements as caused by more or less abruptly changing circumstances; it is also in need of them. When people need variation or desire adventure, they actively search for new situations and enter their challenge zone, which leads to a decentering of the self. When there is a long absence of decentering movements, the individual will compensate for a lack of stimulation or boredom by actively searching for new challenges. On the other hand, if there is a lot going on, a person may pine for peace and quiet. Apparently, decentering movements are needed to revitalize the self that would otherwise “dry up,” while centering movements, on the other hand, are needed to bring balance and coherence in the self. In other words, both movements are part of everyday life and tend to alternate in dialectical ways. My main argument in this section is that third positions and promoter positions represent, like meta-positions, centering movements in the self. hey play a signiicant role in creating a balance in the self, subjected as it is to a postmodern 9

For innovation of the dialogical self of psychotherapy clients, see Goncalves and Ribeiro (2012), who presented a model for the investigation and stimulation of “innovative moments.”

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society that is lacking the coherence that was so typical of a traditional society in which one’s position repertoire was organized by irmly established stratiications based on class, age, ethnicity, geographic location, gender, and sex. Living in a postmodern society implies that the boundaries of these stratiications have opened up so that people are free (or forced) to move from one societal position to the other and, as a consequence, from one I-position to another I-position in the self. his leads to an abundance of decentering movements that requires the self to answer with centering movements as a counterforce. hird positions, promoter positions, and meta-positions that are able to bridge diferences, opposites, and conlicts bring the necessary coherence and continuity in the self and function as centering counterforces.

Common Meaning as Commonality-in-Diference he mutual complementing nature of centering and decentering movements leads to questioning the notion of common meanings in the Bohmian sense of the term. Given the highly dynamic nature of the process of meaning construction, I consider the metaphor of cement, proposed by Bohm, as inadequate for understanding the dynamic nature of meaning construction in a boundarycrossing world. his criticism follows from the central thesis in the present chapter: dialogue is spatialized and positioned as demonstrated with the “life is good” example earlier in this chapter. As the process of positioning is basically a spatial process, the construction of meaning is always taking place in a ield of tension between positioned communicators. An important implication of this spatial view is that the construction of common meaning is always bound to positions having a speciic location in a physical or virtual space. In dynamic terms, the construction of common meaning needs the creation of a new center of understanding, which is felt as common by the contributing participants. However, this commonality is never “free” from the decentering atraction from the side of the composing positions, which are constructing and interpreting the common meaning from their speciic and different spatial location. his assumption applies not only to the construction of meaning but also to the generation of third positions. hey can only emerge from centering movements that makes them cohere, but they ind their place in a spatial ield in which they are permanently under the decentering inluence of their composing parts. In the given examples, the missionary position in Rosanne case can never dissolve itself entirely from the speciic desires of her lesbian position and from the values of her Christian position. Bohm’s cement metaphor suggests the construction of meanings that cohere to such degree that centering movements are emphasized at the cost of their decentering counterforces. It pictures coherence as overly static and ixed and

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does not suiciently take into account the dynamic interplay of positions in a spatial ield of tension. If one looks for a metaphor to express the nature of commonality in social relationships, a soccer team would be more appropriate. Certainly, a good team has a common purpose that is felt as meaningful to all players and creates coherence in the team. However, they contribute to this purpose from very diferent positions (e.g., let vs. right wing, front vs. back). here is always a tension between the common purpose of the team and the performances of the individual players who may feel tempted to give priority to their individual excellence at the cost of the common interest. In my view, the invaluable advantage of Bohm’s vision is that it made us aware of the nature and promise of generative dialogue and of learning as its essence. I see generative dialogue, on the interface of self and society, as providing the avenue to improve social and cultural relationships in a world in which people are becoming increasingly autonomous and interdependent at the same time. Yet the generation of common meanings is in need of recognizing the spatial basis of dialogue. One of the most fertile aspects of the Bakhtinian view on dialogue is that it is intrinsically spatial and that dialogue is basically positioned dialogue. People in a globalizing and localizing society can no longer avoid communicating with each other, but they do so from very diferent positions. Precisely here the bridge between the two conceptions becomes visible: generative dialogue is multipositioned. On the meaning level this implies: commonality is commonality-in-diference. he concept of commonality-in-diference allows the distinction between consonant and dissonant forms of generative dialogue. While consonant dialogue is oriented to commonality among participants with an emphasis on agreement, dissonant dialogue stimulates the emergence of a dialogical space between diferent and contradictory voices that proits from both agreement and disagreement. In dissonant dialogue, diferences, contradictions, and oppositions between the participants are actively used as starting points for the emergence of commonality. here is space for debate where positions are articulated and clariied with the explicit intention of making a transition from debate to generative dialogue (see for this transition earlier in this chapter). his requires an openness and willingness of the participants to change and develop their initial positions. When this transition takes place, participants feel that their (changing) positions radiate energies toward each other so that an atmosphere emerges in which they feel respected in their diferences and, at the same time, experience that their contributions receive a meaningful place in the arising commonality. In the space of the self, dissonant dialogue creates a ield of tension between one’s own position and those of the others that invites one’s original position to be changed and further developed (see the three-step model discussed earlier in this chapter). Barge and Litle (2002), who describe dissonant dialogue under

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the term “constructive cacophony” remark: “In organizational life, constructive cacophony occurs when the multiple voices of organizational members are juxtaposed against each other in oppositional ways that bring forth desirable consequences. For example, encouraging dissenting and contradictory voices can lead to high quality decision making” (p. 389). he most realistic picture seems to be that in a generative dialogue dissonance and consonance function as alternating phases in the process with consonance creating commonality and dissonance fostering innovation. he advantage of this conception of generative dialogue is that it goes beyond the overly inclusive Bakhtinian view of dialogue as a way of living, which is already there from birth onward. Generative dialogue is a specialized form of relational being and the result of learning something that is new or underdeveloped in many individuals and groups. It is need of constant training and improvement in order to add meaning and value to a democratic self and society.

Novelty and the Relevance of Difuse Atention In chapter 4 I referred to neuroscientiic literature that proposed two forms of atention: difuse and focused. Building on this distinction, I proposed two corresponding meta-positions, one that prefers a broad picture view able to connect a large variety of speciic positions in more intuitive ways and the other that builds up a total picture in a more systematic way via step-by-step procedures. In the discussion of the intuitive and less conscious process of the difuse metaposition, I referred to Freud’s evenly suspended atention, in which the therapist does not give priority to any of the client’s associations and verbalizations above the others and does not focus on any conscious content but just listens to his own unconscious as an entrance to the unconscious of the patient. My proposal is that difuse atention is particularly helpful during the decentering movements in generative dialogue, both between participants in a group as between positions in the self. he difuse form of atention allows us to make connection with the less conscious layers of the self and allows us to “hover” over a broad and complex array of positions without giving priority or exclusive atention to any of them. his kind of atention is useful because generative dialogue proits from a broad bandwidth of positions, which are not only highly diverse but also have so many relationships with each other that it is almost impossible to deal with them in conscious and systematic ways. When the decentering movements during the dialogical process reach that level of complexity, taking a meta-position with difuse atention may be more productive for explorative purposes than any form of focused atention. Giving space to silence may broaden difuse atention as a way of opening the boundaries of

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background positions, which may easily become dominated by more explicit analytical considerations, as Bolte (1998) has emphasized.10 On the other hand, there comes a point where some order and structure is needed in the dialogical process to arrive at a systematic overview of the different possibilities at the service of efective decision-making. In that phase, a meta-position with focused atention is more helpful than continuing to move into all possible directions. Taking a focusing meta-position allows proceeding in a more systematic and sequential way, which makes it more equipped to compare the lessons of the past and the possibilities in the future. In agreement with the temporal priority of the right brain, it seems most plausible for an optimal generative dialogical process that decentering movements in combination with difuse atention precede centering movements that needs a focus on how the inputs from the various positions contribute to the central theme and to the decision-making process. To make a simpliied comparison:  ater all ideas and inputs are collected, the leader tries to summarize what has been found and takes a lead in working toward a decision. Ater this focusing on the central theme, a second round of decentering may take place. Centering and decentering movements and their associated forms of atention occur in alternating ways.

Dialogue Between Reasoning and Emotional Positions In the positioning model, I  have emphasized the importance of the relationships between positions as linked by their communication channels, rather than the positions in themselves. In the present chapter I have pointed to the special nature of generative dialogue as a form of communication that is able to produce new and common meanings as emerging from diferent or opposite positions both between participants in communication and between I-positions within the self. Here, the question can be posed whether a generative dialogue between reason and emotion is possible. In order to address this question, I pick up the line started in chapter 4, where I proposed a reason-with-emotion model suggested by social-psychological and neuroscientiic evidence. On the basis of those literatures, I argued that the traditional dualistic conception of cognition versus emotion and certainly the longheld belief “cognition controls emotion” or “reason above emotion” is becoming 10

Silence is an essential part of the process of “depositioning,” which refers to the capacity of the self to move beyond any particular position or group of positions and to participate in a broader “ield of awareness” (Hermans & Hermans-Konopka, 2010, pp. 168–174).

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more and more outdated. I referred to recent evidence suggesting that for a wellfunctioning self, reason needs emotion and emotion is a necessary ingredient of reason. Moreover, research on emotional processes has highlighted the role of the body as the basis of choice and decision-making. For dialogical relationships between emotional and reasoning positions to emerge, open communication channels between them are required. However, this is not self-evident as emotions are only partly under the inluence of reason. From a neuroscientiic perspective, LeDoux (2002) has explained that the brain has two circuits for producing an emotion, a lower one and a higher one. he lower circuit is involved when the amygdala, as part of the limbic system, senses danger and sends an emergency signal to the body. he high circuit is involved when the amygdala carries the danger signal from the lower parts of the brain to the neocortex, where the signal arrives at the level of conscious awareness, self-relection, and control. However, the lower circuit transmits signals more than twice as fast as the higher one and, therefore, the relecting brain is not well equipped to intervene and stop the emotional response in time. his happens when we see a suddenly appearing igure in the dark or express a snarl to a family member before we have the time to correct ourselves. here is not only a diference in speed between the lower and higher circuit leading to an emotional response that cannot be controlled; there is also the “totalizing” nature of an emotional response that makes the intervention of reason problematic. In light–ight situations with their typically strong emotions, the self is organized to respond as a whole. Because the survival chances are at stake, all parts of the brain are organized in a way to enable the self to retreat or prepare a counteratack. A strong emotion receives absolute priority in the self with all the other parts entirely subordinated to its prevailing energy. Certainly, this is not to be seen as a perfect integration of the diferent parts of the self but rather as a reaction in which all other parts are organized around one single emotion that is temporarily dominant in the self. In terms of LeDoux (2002), the self responds in such situations as a unit. As Greenberg (2002) has argued from a psychotherapeutic point of view, emotions are fundamental in the construction of the self and a key determinant of self-organization. In giving an adequate response to situations, it is important for the self to make use of the higher but slower road in the brain as an atempt to transform particular maladaptive responses into adaptive ones. In agreement with Greenberg (2002), I propose that for a generative dialogue to emerge it is required that, in the case of emotion-reason communication, reason not only “listens” to emotion but also, in reverse, emotion is open to the advising or revising inluence of reason. Moreover, there is a generative dialogue between reason and emotion only if something is emerging between them that was not there before.

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Such generative dialogue between reason and emotion is far from evident. While I  worked as a co-therapist, I  observed that some clients have excellent skills in conveying the impression that they are familiar with their emotions. hey talk about their emotions and give detailed explanations about them. For example, clients with mild depression may be able to talk about their I-positions like “I as angry,” or “I as a failure,” or “I as abused by my father,” but they do so in objectifying ways that suggest that they are not really geting in direct touch with the emotional component of their story. It is as if the dialogue is purely verbal and takes place at a “higher mental level,” while the emotion at the other, lower level seems to be untouched and unchanged. When the clients are confronted with a situation that evokes the problematic emotion, this emotion is actualized in the same way as it was before the dialogue, suggesting that it remains identical and continues to play its role beyond the reach of the client’s reasoning capacities. If the emotion, strong and deep as it is, pops up in a stressful situation, it is expressed unaltered and uncontrolled as it was before the dialogue and it occupies, again, the total space of the client’s self. In order to realize a generative dialogue between reason and emotion one has to go into the space of the emotional I-position in order to get in touch with it and know it from the inside and then go out of it so that one is able to take an optimal distance from it by considering it from a meta-position, that is, exploring this position in the context of other positions and taking their connections into account (see chapter 4). So, instead of objectifying the position, moving in and out of the position is crucial for its change and for giving reason a chance to come in and create a space beyond the otherwise totalizing emotion. he possibility of entertaining a dialogue with problematic I-positions and exploring the position from within led Rowan (2010) to coin the term “personiication.” Talking about anxiety, he said, “Instead of talking in terms of having a fear, the client is encouraged to think of the fear as a person who is trying to dominate. hen we can talk to the Fear and get the Fear to talk back” (p. 11). In a similar way, Hermans and Hermans-Konopka (2010) formulated a stage model for changing emotions in successive steps, including entering emotions, leaving them, moving to a counter-emotion, developing a dialogical relationship between them, and considering this whole process from a meta-position. Models like this may be useful for creating a generative emotion-reason dialogue supported by a meta-position that provides an optimal distance from one’s immediate emotions. Basically, the dialogical relationship between reason and emotion and the resulting coalition between them is not diferent from the third positions described earlier in this chapter. In her story, Rosanne brought together her positions as “Catholic” and as “lesbian woman” in a third position labeled as “missionary.” In a similar way, reason and emotion may entertain a dialogue

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that leads to a coalition that generates a third position in which they are brought together in a novel combination (“reasoned emotion” or “emotive reason”). In an interview at the occasion of the Dutch translation of his book What Money Can’t Buy, Michael Sandel (2012) objected to approaches that created an overly sharp separation between reason and emotion, which he labeled as “too simple.” Talking about politics he said, “A good politician addresses people on their emotions and intuitions and then shows them what are the consequences when they are realized. It is a continuous moving to and fro between emotion and reason. his is also what I try to achieve in my books. Reason is not separated from our emotional strivings.”11 Indeed, precisely this continuous moving from emotion to reason and back is the basic mechanism in creating a generative dialogue between them.

Dialogue Between Conscious and Nonconscious Positions Is it possible to develop a generative dialogue between conscious and nonconscious positions? In order to address this question, I further build on Figure 4.4 in which I included the communication channels not only between reasoning and emotional positions but also between conscious and nonconscious positions. In that chapter, I raised the question regarding if and under which condition the nonconscious levels are accessible to consciousness. In that context, I referred to the classic study by Murphy and Zajonc (1993) who exposed participants to subliminal pictures of emotional expressions (smiling or angry faces) with the intention to nonconsciously activate primary appraisals. he pictures were immediately followed by unfamiliar Chinese ideographs. Participants liked the ideographs that were preceded by a subliminal smiling expression beter than those preceded by a subliminal anger expression. However, when the pictures of emotion faces were presented long enough for participants to perceive them consciously, the presented afective priming did not produce the signiicant shit in the subjects’ liking of the ideographs. Apparently, becoming conscious of the nature of the preceding stimulus reduced its inluence on the subsequent evaluation of the emotion-inducing material. his inding led me to discuss the decisive role of atention in the context of Dehaene and Naccache’s (2001) model, which proposes, on the basis of neuroscientiic evidence that conscious perception results from an interaction of stimulation factors with the atentional state of

11

NRC, May 31, 2013. My translation from Dutch.

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the observer. As this model suggests, stimuli that squarely fall outside conscious awareness can become conscious if one gives it explicit atention. However, the indings referring to the interaction of stimulation factors with the atentional state of the observer is a necessary but not suicient condition for answering the question about the possibility of a generative dialogue between conscious and nonconscious positions. Generative dialogue requires the emergence of common meanings and the emergence of novelty in the encounter of conscious and nonconscious positions. here is one ield that is particularly interested in the emergence of novelty at the interface of the conscious and nonconscious, the area of Jungian psychology. In their review of psychoanalytic discourses of the unconscious, Edwards and Jacobs (2003) describe Jung’s account of self-realization at the interface of the conscious and unconscious in this way: At irst the unconscious must be allowed to take the lead as the individual works to experience the feelings and let them take form in imagery, dancing, drawing, painting or sculpture. However, since the unconscious does not work to ‘a deliberate and concerted plan and is [not] striving to realize certain deinite ends’ ( Jung, 1934: 182), it cannot be relied on to direct the process entirely. he conscious or ego must take the lead in sustaining an active dialogue between conscious and unconscious, which must stand side by side as equal partners in the process. If this is successful, the process unfolds until the seeming opposites are united and there is “a living birth that leads to a new level of being.” ( Jung, 1958, cited by Edwards and Jacobs, 2003, pp. 46–47, emphases added) As this quotation suggests, conscious and nonconscious positions can meet as equal partners in a dialogue and create something new in which a coincidence of opposites is achieved. his idea of equal partners involved in dialogue is also central in Jung’s notion of “transcendent function” that he described as arising from “the union of conscious and unconscious contents” (Miller, 2004, p. 14).

Dialogue-Facilitating and Dialogue-Inhibiting Factors Given the importance of generative dialogue in a boundary-crossing globalizing world, it makes sense to pose the question about which factors are facilitating this form of dialogue and which are inhibiting it or preventing it from emerging.

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his distinction follows from the assumption that the facilitation of dialogue is more than the absence of inhibiting inluences. In the following section, I limit myself to what I see as some of the main factors that stimulate or thwart generative dialogue. I present these factors in a tentative way and as an invitation to future research.

Dialogue Facilitators When talking about “dialogue facilitators” I have in mind modes of behavior, cognitive appraisals, emotions, or ways of problem-solving that have immediate repercussions for the communication between positions in groups and in the self. I consider the following factors as particularly relevant to the facilitation of generative dialogue: lexible perspective taking instead of exclusive truth claim, wisdom of uncertainty, tolerance of contradictions, and the capacity of suspension and listening. Flexible Perspective-Taking Instead of Exclusive Truth Claims

A hallmark of generative dialogue is the ability to think lexibly. When people stick to their traditional ways of thinking or are stuck by strong negative emotions like anger and stress, the boundaries of their positions get rigidly closed and the communication channels blocked. As a result, they see their own point of view as the only “right” or “true” one with the exclusion of alternatives. hey stop their communication with the actual other but also the other-in-the-self as an external position is marginalized or excluded from any ongoing dialogue. he capacity of lexible positioning is also a point of atention in the relationship between cultural positions. As Avruch and Black (1993) observe, people from diferent cultures have diferent perceptions of what causes conlict and which responses are appropriate. he main obstacle in intercultural cooperation is that, in case of problem-solving, one sees one’s own culture as the norm. Rather than taking their own cultural perspective for a subjective interpretation of the world, they perceive it as “objective reality.” When in contact with others who have diferent cultural assumptions, we have the tendency to view them as strange, aberrant, or at least “peculiar.” On the basis of these considerations, Avruch and Black propose understanding the meaning of an event within its own cultural context. In order to do so, it is necessary to suspend one’s evaluative relex and, instead, constantly shit back and forth between diferent cultural positions. his shit requires a distinction between a claim to objective truth and the awareness of a multiplicity of positions that allow a diversity of alternative perspectives. Awareness and acceptance of this possibility serves as the great door to dialogue. his awareness transforms the communication from

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polarizing right–wrong or good–bad dichotomies to considerations in terms of positional diferences and possibilities. Wisdom of Uncertainty

In order to understand the nature of uncertainty, it is helpful to see the diference with “doubt.” Whereas doubt refers to a mental state of not feeling able to choose between alternative positions, uncertainty is experienced when the “best position” of a broader bandwidth of actual or possible positions is not yet known. he problem of the experience of uncertainty is that it is not easy to tolerate. Like many other “un-words” (e.g., unrest, uneasy, unfair, unequal, unjust), it has the connotation of something “undesirable” and, therefore, has to be avoided. Yet the existence of a range of possible positions that can be weighed and compared on a meta-level by a group of participants or within the self has more chance to lead to the best choice than automatically choosing the one position in isolation from alternatives. For understanding the experience of uncertainty, it is helpful to refer to the three spatial zones in the self: the comfort, challenge, and danger zones as discussed in the previous chapter. As tolerance of uncertainty requires suspension of an immediate answer to the situation at hand and leaving the problem “unsolved” for some time, it entails a movement from one’s comfort zone to one’s challenge zone. However, when the situation of uncertainty is prolonged or when it concerns not one position but several important ones (e.g., losing one’s job, ending of marriage, and alienation from one’s children), then stress or anxiety is aroused, which moves the self into its danger zone. So one feels able to tolerate uncertainty when the situation is stimulating enough to leave one’s comfort zone but not so threatening that one is thrown over the boundaries of one’s danger zone. Generative dialogue proits from practices that enlarge “thin” challenge zones so that they become broad enough to deal with the uncertainties of new and unexpected situations. Perhaps the phrase “tolerance of uncertainty” is not proactive enough to express the full potential of this capacity. I  consider the experience of uncertainty as extremely valuable for fostering openness to a wider array of possibilities in the future. In a previous publication (Hermans, 2012) I proposed, in the footsteps of Milan Kundera (1988), to widen the term “tolerance of uncertainty” by introducing the concept of “wisdom of uncertainty.” In his chapter “he Depreciated Legacy of Cervantes,” Kundera proposed that the world of the novel is “the world as ambiguity,” in which there is “not a single absolute truth but a welter of contradictory truths,” in which the “only certainty” is “the wisdom of uncertainty” (pp. 6–7). Building on that thought, I  proposed that the creative use of ambiguity is not only a feature of a good novel but of life

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in general. To live means to face ambiguity and uncertainty. In a life illed with uncertainty and ambiguity, we have to go beyond tolerance and move on to wisdom, as a creative and practical way of giving dialogical answers. Tolerance of Contradictions and Cognitive Dissonance

As already said earlier in this chapter, there is an essential diference between logical and dialogical thinking. A relationship of identity in a logical sense corresponds with agreement as a dialogical notion, whereas a relationship of negation is considered to be a disagreement in dialogical terms. When the same sentence is spoken two times by two people involved in communication, this sentence is diferent as spoken by the mouths of two diferent people located at diferent places. From a logical point of view, however, the two sentences are exactly the same. here is an additional diference between logical and dialogical relationship, which is equally relevant to the notion of contradiction. According to Aristotelian logic, a particularly proposition is true or its negation is true, but it is impossible that the proposition and its negation are simultaneously true. his logical thesis is known as the “principle of the excluded middle,” also denoted as the “principle of the excluded third.” When the proposition and its negation would both be seen as true at the same time, this truth would be labeled as contradictive. One of the two propositions has to be rejected as false as only one of them can be labeled as true. From a dialogical point of view, however, two statements do not exclude each other but can be true at the same time, as representing diferent or opposed aspects of life. Strictly logical reasoning is blind for the fact that, when the two statements are spoken by two spatially diferent interlocutors, there emerges a ield of tension between them that instigates them to make a further step in the dialogical process. As we have seen in the examples of the construction of third positions, this ield of tension, if actively used by participants involved in generative dialogue, produces new meanings that were not part of the process before. While contradiction in a logical sense excludes the negating proposition from further steps in the reasoning, contradicting as a dialogical process includes the “negating” statement as a counter-position that stimulates and pushes forward an ongoing dialogical interchange. hanks to this inclusion, the dialogical process has the potential to construct third positions as emerging from two “contradictive” statements placed as position and counterposition in a highly dynamic ield of tension. he ongoing dialogue may create new meanings that may be experienced as common and meaning-full12 by the 12

Building on the initial deinition of “meaning” in terms of “relations” (see note 1 in this chapter), meaningfulness results from the establishment of a multiplicity and diversity of relations or

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communicating partners. he logical principle of the excluded third contrasts with the dialogical principle of the included third. In order to avoid misunderstanding, it should be emphasized that logical and dialogical relationships do not exclude each other. he fact that logical and dialogical relations are diferent does not exclude the possibility that logical relations are subsumed, examined, and discussed as part of a broader dialogical framework. Logical relationships would interfere with dialogical relationships only if the later would be subordinated to or restricted by the principles of the former ones. When logical relationships are used in the service of dialogical relationships, they have the potential to make dialogue sharper, more precise, and even more convincing. he inability to tolerate cognitive dissonance is another factor that is inhibiting dialogue. As psychological theories of cognitive dissonance (e.g., Festinger, 1962) have shown, humans strive for internal consistency in their views and corresponding emotions. Typically, the experience of inconsistency or dissonance makes people feel psychologically uncomfortable and motivates them to reduce this dissonance and transform it into consonance. Suppose you do not like a particular public person and reject his or her views. At some point, a friend sends you a poem that you like very much but you do not know the name of the author. Somewhat later you ind out that the disliked person is the author. In that case most people experience a state of dissonance that feels uncomfortable. his feeling can be reduced either by reducing the appreciation of the poem or by reducing the dislike of the author. In such cases, transformation of dissonance into consonance reduces one’s uncomfortable emotions. However, in dialogical relationships this spontaneous tendency works rather counterproductively, as these relationships proit from deviant, contradictive views and from taking the position of the devil’s advocate. Taking away the dissonance would remove the ield of tension that is needed for generative dialogue to start and develop. Tolerance of tension in a situation of dissonance functions as a necessary condition for generative dialogue to emerge (see also the relevance of distress tolerance for physical and psychological health, chapter  6). If the tension between the dissonant elements is maintained, rather than removed, a ield is stretched between the elements where they are subjected to the changing and transforming forces of generative dialogue. At this point it makes sense to consider the relationship between generative dialogue and learning. If we assume that learning is the essence of generative dialogue (as argued earlier in this chapter), then learning to be tolerant and, even relationships. Looking at the same thing from a diversity of positions results in a meaningful judgment or experience. Generative dialogue is a producer of meanings par excellence as it relates positions to each other in a fertile way.

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stronger, making productive use of dissonance can be seen as a crucial skill in a dialogical learning process that proits from a broad bandwidth of (contradicting) positions. Suspension and Listening

In the preceding parts of this chapter, I referred to the vital importance of suspension and listening for the process of generative dialogue. Suspension of judgment and nonjudgmental listening are some of the most challenging skills in dialogical learning. Part of our usual thinking is to classify other people and to place them in static categories. When we apply categories, we have the spontaneous tendency to preserve them and to defend them against any criticism. As a result, our positions in social and societal structures become rather closed; we are prone to think in terms of mutually exclusive opposites and become more monological than dialogical. his closing of the boundaries makes it diicult to open ourselves to the positions of others and to incorporate them in the further developments of our own positions. Given the powerful tendency to classify and categorize, generative dialogue may proit from suspending judgment. Suspension proits from “playing with positions,” jumping lightly from the one to the other and making decentering movements to a diversity of consonant and dissonant positions. As already said, this positional play needs an atmosphere of trust so that participants feel safe enough to leave the comfort zone of their cherished positions. In reverse, playing with positions in the context of dialogue creates an atmosphere of trust by just doing it.

Dialogue Inhibitors By dialogue inhibitors, I mean modes of behavior, cognitive appraisals, or ways of problem-solving that prevent generative dialogue from developing. I  select the following dialogue inhibitors as particularly relevant: strong negative emotions, ego-centering, stereotyping, and narcissism. Strong Negative Emotions

As generally accepted in Bakhtinian circles, both agreement and disagreement are central forms of dialogue. It is also evident that disagreement evokes more negative emotions than agreement. Since in agreement people are conirmed in their existing positions, they can safely stay in their comfort zones. However, in the case of disagreement, existing positions are not simply conirmed but

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brought into the challenge zone, or, when a participant feels threatened by a disconirming remark or answer, the position is even located in one’s danger zone. In the case of threat or anxiety, disagreement induces a closure of the boundaries of positions, and the reaction is typically a defensive one associated with strong negative emotions. When such emotions are predominant in the exchange, they may obstruct the dialogue in several important ways: they divert atention from the central theme of the dialogue, they disrupt the ability to think freely and widely so that the range of positions that may be relevant to the exchange is seriously reduced, memory of relevant events is impoverished and highly selective, relevant information is kept hidden when the participant feels that it can be used by the other for manipulative purposes, the luency of verbal expression is lost, and the dialogical space is reduced. Considered in this way, disagreement has a paradoxical edge. It has a higher chance of arousing negative emotions than agreement. However, the chance of learning something new, so essential for generative dialogue, is more probable in disagreement than agreement. Where there are learning opportunities, negative emotions are part of it. herefore, for dealing with disagreement and social conlict it is crucial to learn how to move to one’s challenge zone, rather than retreating into one’s comfort zone or becoming emotionally overwhelmed in one’s danger zone. his learning process is expected to proit from taking an optimal distance from the problem and associated emotions (see chapter  4) and to develop productive meta-positions with their typical helicopter view and long-term perspectives (chapters 2 and 6). Also the capacity to make a transition from irst-order phenomenology to second-order awareness (see earlier in this chapter) is part of this learning process. Egocentrism

In the psychological literature and beyond, “self ” and “ego” are sometimes used interchangeably. However, for theoretical reasons, it makes sense to make a difference. As suggested by the word “egocentrism,” the ego wants to place itself in the center of the world and perceive everything from an ego-oriented perspective. he self, on the other hand, is not only egocentric but also allocentric, in the sense of being oriented to the other, in the form of prosocial behavior, empathy, and altruism. While the ego is involved in the continuous pursuit of centering movements with the simultaneous neglect or avoidance of decentering ones, the self has the potential to make both centering and decentering movements in mutually complementing ways. For Greenwald (1980) the egocentric nature of the self was reason to consider the striking analogy between the centering aspirations of the ego and totalitarian information control strategies. Instigated by the results of atribution

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research, he discussed several forms of cognitive bias (e.g., egocentricity, cognitive conservatism; see the Introduction of this book). Taking these atributions into account, he portrayed the ego as a “personal historian”: the ego fabricates and revises history on the basis of one’s own personal needs and strivings. As an example of the analogy between the cognitive biases of the self-centered ego and the functioning of a totalitarian state, Greenwald refers to several passages from George Orwell’s 1984, such as: “[he] reason for the readjustment of the past is the need to safeguard the infallibility of the Party. . . . No change of doctrine . . . can ever be admited. For to change one’s mind, or even one’s policy, is a confession of weakness” (Orwell, 1949; cited by Greenwald, 1980, p. 609). As this quotation suggests, the infallibility of the Party corresponds with the infallibility of the self in its egocentric manifestation and the confession of weakness aligns with the threatened self-esteem that in Greenwald’s view serves as the motivational fundament of all three cognitive biases (p. 608). Indeed, the tendency to select and adapt information from an egocentric perspective in the service of the defense or conirmation of one’s individualized self-esteem impedes moving to contradicting or alternative points of view. Stereotyping

Another powerful inhibitor of generative dialogue is what is known as stereotyping. As Merskin (2009) explained, governments may cultivate the idea of a common enemy as a method of social control or as a way of reinforcing values of the dominant system. he hegemonic device of a common enemy may be helpful to a government to divert energy and aggression toward a common threat and to celebrate the president as a hero and savior in turbulent times (chapter 6). he power of using stereotypes in society is also convincingly demonstrated in the work of Steele, Spencer, and Aronson (2002), who found evidence in support of the so-called underperformance phenomenon: at each level of academic skill as measured by prior tests, a group of students sharing a given social identity received lower subsequent grades than other students. Apparently, their performance was below their skills. Such underperformance was found in a number of American minority groups: African Americans, Native Americans, and many Latino groups. his inding has a rather startling implication:  their poorer performance in school is not due entirely to their lack of skills or preparation. Instead, something beyond weaker skills and preparation undermines the school performance of these groups. he authors presented evidence that stereotyping signiicantly contributes to this underperformance. Moreover, we already saw that stereotypes may even inluence others via nonconscious communication channels according to the principle of self-fulilling prophecies. I referred to research by Word et al. (1974) who demonstrated that

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white interviewers had, via nonconsious communication channels (e.g., more physical distance, more verbal mistakes), a detrimental inluence on the performance of black participants applying for a job. When white participants were treated in similar ways as the black participants, they also were performing poorly. he receiver conirms the expectations of the sender via nonverbal, nonconscious signals. Stereotyping, also in the form of scapegoating and enemy construction (chapter  6), has the function of maintaining or increasing the level of selfesteem of the individuals or groups who are applying these prejudices to others. Moreover, stereotyping individuals or groups are neither able nor willing to enter the positions of the stereotyped, nor are they prepared to acknowledge the inluence of their own positions to the positions of the other. As a result, no novelty can emerge between them, and there is no space for the construction of third or common positions. So any opportunity to engage in a generative dialogue is excluded on a priori grounds. By positioning others in terms of simplifying and rigidly closed categories, the others have no chance to engage in forms of communication in which they have the space to respond from their own multiplicity and diversity of I-positions. herefore, stereotyping, although it allows quick and easy communication between members of ingroups and provides a clear organization of the societal world, is in fact a form of psychological robbery of the other’s diversity and richness, a “crime” taking place on less conscious levels of the self.13 Narcissism

he topic of narcissism is widely recognized as a social problem in modern society that fosters individualism and egocentricity. In a review article, Vangelisti, Knap, and Daly (1990), mention four main features of narcissistic individuals: (a) Self-importance: they are generally engaged in self-absorption and have a strong need for admiration. However, as many clinicians have observed, there is an insecure and frightened self with low self-esteem hidden below their grandiosity. (b)  Exploitation: they ofset their helplessness by seeking power and control over others. Manipulation and deceit are commonly used strategies. (c)  Exhibitionism:  they present an image of themselves as a strong, extraordinary person with talents for entertaining and inluencing others, someone who

13

Stereotyping can be considered as the opposite of what is practiced in Zen Buddhism under the banner of “the beginner’s” mind. It refers to an atitude of openness and lack of preconceptions when looking at any subject. In Suzuki’s (1970) words: “his does not mean a closed mind, but actually an empty mind and a ready mind. If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything; it is open to everything. In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, in the expert’s mind there are few” (p. 21). Whereas stereotyping implies the pretension of knowing a person one has never met, a beginner’s mind teaches one to see a familiar person as if one sees him or her for the irst time.

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deserves it to be the center of atention. (d) Impersonal relationships: they tend to avoid intimate contacts and are extremely sensitive to the intrusion of their personal space. Some studies ind a positive relationship with loneliness and a negative one with empathy (Vangelisti, Knapp, & Daly, 1990). In the context of an exploration of the nature of dialogical relationships in everyday situations, Vangelisti and colleagues’ (1990) notion of “conversational narcissism” is particularly relevant from a dialogical point of view. Building on the work of Derber (1979), who coined the term, the authors deine conversational narcissism as “an extreme self-focusing in a conversation, to the exclusion of appropriate concerns for the other” (p. 251). Starting from this deinition, they performed six studies in which they asked students to describe the behavioral paterns of conversational narcissists and also to role-play this behavior. he investigators found the following characteristics as most typical: boasting, refocusing the topic of the conversation on oneself, exaggerating hand and body movements, using a loud tone of voice, and “glazing over” when others speak. Further, they found that individuals enacting narcissistic conversational behaviors were rated signiicantly lower on social atraction than people not acting narcissistic. For understanding the mechanisms that prevent generative dialogue to develop, the distinction between two kinds of responses in conversations is particularly revealing: shit responses and support responses. he authors refer to Derber (1979) who observed that conversational narcissists make tactic use of shit responses, which redirect the atention to themselves, at the costs of support responses as an expression of interest in the preceding remark of the conversational partner. Take this example: John: I love Brahms. Mary: Chopin is my favorite. (shit response) John: Oh? What’s your favorite piece? (support response) (Derber, 1979, cited by Vangelisti et al., 1990, p. 254) here are a number of variations in how the shit response can be used to refocus atention in a conversation. Self-oriented conversational narcissists do not make shit responses only. hey may make a temporary responsive concession to the other’s topic before shiting the focus toward themselves. In this way, they mix shit responses with support responses, leaving the impression that they have interest not only in themselves but also in the other.14 14

he tactical use of support responses by conversational narcissists is amusingly expressed by the story about two scientists who happen to sit side by side in a light between New York and Amsterdam. One of them is talking continuously and extensively about his own interests. Finally,

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Narcissism, and conversational narcissism in particular, can be seen as obstacles to generative dialogue because of their lack of empathy and closed boundaries of I-positions. Moreover, the tendency of conversational narcissists to avoid intimate relationships suggests that the large emotional distance between them and their interacting partners prevents them from engaging in mutual understanding and the generation of commonly supported meanings. Masking Positions

As the manipulative use of support responses by conversational narcissists suggests, people are able to feign, consciously or less consciously, to act from a socially desirable position while actually using this position to cover and hide a less acceptable one. he masking position is then presented as a façade that hides or masks the “real” position that actually drives one’s behavior. One may position oneself as critical, while hiding one’s jealousy, or feigning interest in the opinion of another person while actually being sexually motivated, or presenting oneself as loving, while actually being possessive, or presenting oneself as victim and using it for the legitimization of violence. Freedom of speech as a highly precious ideal of a democratic society can be employed for the expression of hate or disgust. In a treacherous way, the ideal of “democracy” itself may be used in the hands of a leader of a nation who in fact acts as a murderous dictator. Even the term “dialogue” may be a nice-looking term for a politician who wants to maintain or enhance his or her power position.15 Actually, the self is populated by shadow positions (chapter 6) that cannot be expressed directly and openly because this would disrupt the existing order in self and society. herefore, masking positions are needed to hide them. Certainly, masking positions, like taboos, have a function in the organization of society, as when the plane is already descending, the speaker feels somewhat embarrassed about his apparent egocentrism and, in order to compensate for that, he says: “Now let’s talk about you! Have you read my last book?” 15

he demagogue is an example of the use of masking positions in the service of political power. Usually, demagogic leaders operate in a democracy as “people’s manipulators” who appeal to the prejudices, emotions, and ignorance of the general public in order to gain power and realize their political purposes. In terms of the present theory, such leaders try to achieve their power by appealing to the emotions of their audience while simultaneously and (implicitly) closing communication channels between emotion and reason (see Figure 4.4). With this strategy they aim for an uncritical unanimity by keeping the emotional distance among them and their followers (as an undiferentiated “we”) as small as possible. hey take advantage of sharp ingroup versus outgroup positions, which give them the opportunity to channel the anger of their followers to outside causes (see scapegoating and enemy image construction, discussed earlier in this chapter). Typically, these leaders are masking their striving for power under an emotionally loaded and easily accessible position that, by a lack of critical counter-positions and counternarratives, ills the total space of the self of the audience.

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the unconstraint expression of their underlying positions would compromise the moral values of civilization, as many psychoanalysts have argued. Although masking positions have a function, their excessive use, like in the case of narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellism, has the deleterious efect that the space for generative dialogue in a democratically organized self and society is seriously reduced or even made impossible.

Summary I started this chapter with the observation that people have very diferent views on internal dialogue. Some have reservations because they associate it with disturbing brain chater, repetitive thoughts, or undesirable inner voices, whereas others welcome it as it helps them to prepare for a relevant task or evaluate past performances, or it provides them with valuable moments of self-relection. hese observations led to the question of when and under which conditions this mental activity has a positive or negative inluence on the functioning of the self. Instigated by this question, I started to explore literature on self-talk, which led to the conclusion that some forms of self-talk (e.g., rumination) interfere with the workings of the self, whereas other forms (e.g., self-motivation and self-instruction) contribute to its well-functioning. An important step was made by those studies that examine the relationship between positive and negative aspects of inner activity instead of studying its positive and negative functions in isolation. One of those investigations demonstrated that healthy functioning is dependent on the ratio of positive and negative thoughts, implying that not the absence of negative thinking is the criterion for mental health, but rather the relative dominance of positive over negative thinking. A further step was made by a study in which dialogue was studied in relation to forms of positioning leading to the conclusion that particular positions in the extended self (e.g., proud rival) were associated with confronting dialogue whereas other positions (e.g., faithful friend) were connected to integrative dialogue. he spatial and positional basis of dialogue was further deepened by an extensive comparison of the views of two theorists who have given indelible contributions to the ield: Mikhail Bakhtin and David Bohm. I showed that there are fundamental diferences in their conceptions with Bakhtin proposing a broad view implying that dialogue is everywhere and from birth onward, while Bohm ofering a more restricted vision proclaiming that (generative) dialogue is the result of learning. Building on these theorists I  proposed a dialogical ladder with diferent steps (negotiation, debate, persuasion, and command) and with generative dialogue at the upper end. I showed that these types of relationship exist both in society and self and, moreover, that one may shit from one type to

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another type dependent on the demands of the situation and the purposes of the self. In an atempt to bridge the insights of Bakhtin and Bohm, I proposed the concept of “commonality-in-diference” and the distinction between consonant and dissonant forms of dialogue. In order to emphasize the dynamic nature of the process of positioning and the workings of generative dialogue, a distinction was made between centering and decentering as basic movements in the self. he purpose was to demonstrate that decentering movements are necessary for innovation and novelty in generative dialogue, whereas centering movements are needed for creating an organized structure of positions and for focusing on the central theme of the dialogue. Instigated by neuroscientiic evidence, it was proposed that difuse atention is particularly relevant to decentering movements, whereas focused atention is needed for making centering movements. Building on the reason-with-emotion model and the conscious-with-nonconsious model as explained in chapter  4, the workings of generative reasonemotion and conscious-nonconscious dialogue were discussed. hese forms of dialogue were exposed as alternatives for those conceptions that see dialogue as guided by reason or by conscious considerations alone. Finally, I  discussed some factors that may be useful to understanding why generative dialogue, so vital in a border-crossing world, is absent where it actually should be. On the supposition that the stimulation of generative dialogue is more than the absence of inhibiting inluences, I  discussed four facilitating factors: lexible perspective taking, the wisdom of uncertainty, tolerance of contradictions and cognitive dissonance, and the skills of suspension and listening. Contrastingly, I referred to four inhibiting inluences: strong negative emotions, ego-centering, stereotyping, and narcissism. Elaborating on these inhibiting factors, I referred to the role of masking positions as hiding shadow positions in self and society. he central thesis in this book is that the self functions as a dynamic multiplicity of I-positions among which dialogical relationships may emerge. In a globalizing and border-crossing world in which individuals, groups, and cultures with highly diferent value systems are becoming increasingly dependent on each other, generative dialogue is a necessity for the creation of new and common meanings. he creation of these meanings requires open communication channels not only between positioned individuals but also between diferent positions in the self. Taking into account the dynamic nature of the ield of tension between positions, generative dialogue is necessarily multipositioned and commonality is commonality-in-diference.

8

Dialogical Democracy in a Boundary-Crossing World Practical Implications Democracy is the only system capable of relecting the humanist premise of equilibrium or balance. he key to its secret is the involvement of the citizen. —John Ralston Saul

In this book I have given a central place to the self in a globalizing society that is increasingly boundary-crossing and faced with unpredictable changes. he basic interest has been to conceptualize a self that is democratically organized as an alternative to the totalitarian self and the bureaucratic self as mentioned in the introduction of the book. However, when focusing on the relationship between self and democracy, what kind of democratic society do we have in mind? As there have been numerous proposed conceptions about democracy in the course of history, which kind of democracy its well with a democratic self as proposed in this book? his question is particularly relevant because the self, as an open system, can only function in a democratic way if society gives suicient space to individuals and groups to organize and reorganize themselves democratically. Indeed, a well-functioning society needs well-functioning selves, and, in reverse, the self needs a society that creates not only constraints on its development but also, and foremost, opportunities. herefore, on the interface of self and society, I propose a model of a democratic self and explore, later in this chapter, its practical implications for the developing self in a contemporary tension-loaded society. he essence of these implications is the creation of space for counterpositions, counter-voices, and counternarratives, in order to prevent self and society from becoming imprisoned within the closed boundaries of their own self-suiciency, self-justiication, and superiority. In order to demonstrate the fertility of the presented model, I focus on three main issues with their practical 353

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implications:  (a) creating a fertile relationship between reason and emotion in a society in which emotions have a more widespread and intense inluence on behavior than one would expect on the basis of “the primacy of reason” ideal of the Enlightenment, (b) dealing with experience of uncertainty as the inevitable consequence of crossing the boundaries of established self-positions and giving space to counter-positions that contradict existing perspectives, and (c) recognizing shadow-positions as constitutive parts of the self and adequately responding to them. In the presentation of the model and its practical implications, it is my purpose to make optimal use of the main concepts proposed in this book in an atempt to demonstrate their utility and contribution to a developing democracy in self and society.

Model of a Democratically Organized Self In the preceding chapters, a democratically organized self is portrayed as a micro-society giving space to the free expression and development of diferent, opposing, and contradicting I-positions with the possibility of mutual dialogical relationships so that they may learn from each other in the service of their further development. At the level of society at large, this proposal inds its parallel in what is generally called “deliberative democracy.” In his discourse of models of democracy, Held (2006), maintains that the quintessence of deliberative democracy is not in the exchange of ixed opinions or preferences but in the process of their formation, that is, in the deliberation itself.1 He holds that this form of democracy bids farewell to any ixed political preferences and replaces them with a learning process that leads people to sound and reasonable political judgments (see also Sen, 1999; and Fishkin, 1991; see also the discussion of the relationship between generative dialogue and learning in the previous chapter of this book). In this context Held refers to the moral principle of deliberative democracy: “individual points of view need to be tested in and through social encounters which take account of the point of view of others—the moral point of view” (p.  233). his principle requires adopting a “multi-perspectival” (p. 233) way of forming, defending, and reining our political preferences. In its focus on learning, multiperspectives, and space for contradiction, deliberative democracy not only its with a dialogical view of the self as a dynamic multiplicity of I-positions extended to the positions of the other but also provides a conceptual link between the 1

Compare Bohm’s (1996) proposal to make a move from thought as a content to thought as a process.

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mini-society of the self and the larger framework of a deliberative and dialogical democracy. Our emphasis on the process of positioning and counter-positioning as a learning device for developing a democratic self is straightforwardly addressed by political theorists Ofe and Preuss (1991), who in their aim to upgrade the quality of citizenship in a democratic society put a premium on relected preferences and dialogical relationships within the self: preferences that are the outcome of a conscious confrontation of one’s own point of view with an opposing point of view, or of the multiplicity of viewpoints that the citizen, upon relection, is likely to discover within his or her own self. Such relectiveness may be facilitated by arrangements that overcome the monological seclusion of the act of voting in the voting booth by complementing this necessary mode of participation with more dialogical forms of making one’s voice heard. (Ofe & Preuss, 1991, p. 170, emphasis added) In tune with this insight, I consider the existence and constructive use of ields of tensions in the self where opposing I-positions ind space for relection, dialogue, and learning as essential to a democratically organized self and as a proliic basis of a democratic society at large (for the limits of deliberative democracy, see Blatberg, 2003; see also Held, 2006, pp. 234–237, and later in the present chapter where I discuss the potentials of “agonistic democracy”).

Cosmopolitan Democracy In this book I have been interested in the relationship between the self and the process of globalization and boundary-crossing. his link between globalization and democracy has received a noteworthy articulation by Held’s (2006) view of cosmopolitan democracy, which applies the principle of deliberative democracy to the broader global situation. He argues that the modern theory of the sovereign state that governs itself and determines its own future is increasingly challenged by the increasing patern of global interconnections (e.g., by media, immigration, tourism, inances, economy, and ecology; see also Appadurai’s [1990] global landscapes). Democracy is not only a national but also a transnational afair as it is no longer restricted to a limited geographical area but extends to the wider international community of which every country is a part, despite the many examples of growing nationalism popping up in diferent parts of the world in recent years. Held (1992) notes that globalizing developments not only require new democratic institutions but also broad avenues of civic participation

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and deliberation in decision-making at regional and global levels. Examples are transnational deliberative assemblies, enhanced political regionalization (the European Union and beyond), an interconnected global legal system, and reform of leading United Nations governing institutions. In Held’s (2006) view, globalization is a dialectical process that implies the transformation of the local by the global and vice versa. Although he is aware of the danger that the transformation of the local by the global receives a counterreaction in the form of defensive forms of localization and intensiication of sectarian politics, this transformation ofers a new opportunity: “the recovery of an intensive, participatory and deliberative democracy at local levels as a complement to the deliberative assemblies of the wider global order” (pp. 307–309). In such an order of democratic associations, cities, nations, regions, and global networks, “the principle of autonomy would be entrenched in diverse sites of power and across diverse spatial domains” (p. 309). (For a critical discussion of cosmopolitan democracy, see Archibugi, 2004.)

Cosmopolitan Democracy and Levels of Inclusiveness in the Self In this section I explore the link between cosmopolitan democracy and the psychology of the self. his will lead to a model presented in the next section. Most signiicant to the model are social identity theory (SIT; Tajfel & Turner, 1979)  and self-categorization theory (SCT; Turner, Hogg, Oakes, Reicher, & Wetherell, 1987). Both theories have produced an impressive amount of empirical research in a wide range of research areas (for review and discussion, see Hogg & Terry, 2000; Hornsey, 2008; Huddy, 2001; Simon & Klandermans, 2001; Sindic & Condor, 2014). SIT posits that the self of members belonging to a particular social group is shaped through shared norms, beliefs, and values. he collective identity of the members is formed by their group membership, and they derive self-esteem and distinctiveness by drawing favorable comparisons between the ingroup and outgroup on valued dimensions. SCT, an ofspring of SIT, not only provides a cognitive explanation for how individuals identify and act as members of a group but also introduces a conceptual element that is highly signiicant for the self, functioning in a globalizing and boundary-crossing society:  the distinction between “levels of inclusiveness” (Turner et al., 1987). Rather than perceiving intergroup dynamics as opposite ends of a bipolar spectrum, Turner and colleagues (1987) characterize identity as operating at diferent levels of inclusiveness. hey nominate three levels of self-categorization: the

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subordinate level of personal self-categorizations based on interpersonal comparisons: personal identity, the intermediate level of the self as a member of an ingroup, distinctively compared with outgroups: social identity, and the superordinate category of the self as human being:  human identity. Although most research on self-categorization has been focused on personal and social identity, human identity is particularly signiicant to people as members of a global community and cosmopolitan society. An empirical illustration of this level distinction was presented by Wohl and Branscombe (2005) who performed research in groups of Jewish North Americans and native Canadians. hey tested whether increasing category inclusiveness, from the social level to the more inclusive human level, would lead to greater forgiveness of historical perpetrator groups. hey found that human-level categorization (“We as human”) resulted in more positive responses toward Germans and white Canadians by decreasing the uniqueness of their past harmful actions toward the ingroup (“We as Jews” or “We as native Canadians”). he authors concluded that “he results of our four experiments clearly indicate that negative group-based feelings toward the perpetrator category can be reduced with more inclusive levels of categorization” (p. 301). Such indings suggest that taking the position of “I as human being” results in more forgiveness than less inclusive I-positions of “I as a Jew” or “I as native Canadian.” From a practical point of view, the hypothesis seems plausible that one’s initial positioning to other groups can be followed and changed by climbing to a higher level of inclusiveness as a counter-positioning answer to one’s reaction at a lower level (and vice versa). Allowing space for moving between the social position of one’s ingroup and the more encompassing human position implies entering a ield of tension where the initial (emotional) ingroup response could be mitigated and modiied by taking a responding human position. his suggests that the level-distinction in SCT can be taken as a useful framework for a dialogical conception of the self in the context of a deliberative and cosmopolitan democratic framework. In terms of the present theory, a cosmopolitan democracy, in need of deliberative skills in a multiplicity of social and societal domains, would require the lexibility to move up and down between the diferent levels of inclusiveness in a democratically organized self. Moving across diferent levels of inclusiveness (personal, social, and human) has the potential of bringing together the human level as a psychological concept and globalization as a sociological trend with cosmopolitan democracy as a political telos. From a democratic point of view, it is plausible to expect that incorporating and stimulating the human level in the position hierarchy of the self will facilitate the emergence of “global consciousness” deined by Liu and Macdonald (2016) as “a knowledge of both

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the interconnectedness and diference of humankind, and a will to take moral actions in a relexive manner on its behalf ” (p. 1).2

Model of a Democratic Self In this section a model for a democratic self is presented in which the levels of inclusiveness are brought together with the main concepts presented in this book. he model is based on three dimensions: levels of inclusiveness (personal, social, global); the self-other distinction, with the other (the other individual or group) as extension of the self; and the diference between social power and dialogue (Figure 8.1). he ellipses in the igure represent ields of tension between levels (vertical ellipses), between self and other (horizontal ellipses), and between dialogue and power (all ellipses). Within these ields of tension I-positions are located in the form of singular and plural pronouns. As subject positions they are addressable in dialogical relationship that carry the potential of stimulating their expression and further development. hese positions, however, are, at the same time, part of relationships of social power that may facilitate, limit, or block the free expression of the I-positions, their exchange with other positions, and their further development (for social power, see chapter 3). he theoretical concept of I-position is not to be understood as an isolated entity but as a bridge to other persons or groups who are conceived of as “another I” or “another we” in the extended domain of the self. For a proper understanding of the concept of I-position it should be added that in its extended nature it is broader than the colloquial words “I” and “we.” A person or group who is subjectively deined as “not me” or “not like us” can certainly play as “my opponent,” “my enemy,” or “prejudiced people,” an organizing and even power-laden component of the extended self. For theoretical reasons the model includes the other person or group as a subject position (“you”), that is, as dialogically addressable (Bakhtin, 1984; Buber, 1970), with the connotation that the other can be experienced as a thirdperson category (“him,” “her,” “them,”) and perceived, particularly in situations 2 he movement to the human level of inclusiveness is, however, far from self-evident, particularly in situations where groups stick to an anti-position on the social level of inclusiveness in the service of the protection and conirmation of their political identity. For example, representatives of Black Lives Mater (BLM) may object to the slogan All Lives Mater that has come to be associated with criticism of the BLM movement. In an interview with Patrisse Cullors, cofounder of BLM, and her partner Janaya Khan, the later characterizes All Lives Mater as a “diversionary manoeuvre intended to silence BLM. What you actually say with this is: all lives mater except the black” (NRC, December 19, 2016). Although it may seem “reasonable” for BLM representatives to move to the human level as including both blacks and whites, they may resist this movement if it is perceived at the expense of their own identity and human rights.

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Meta-position promoter position

Other

Self

Dialogue Personal

Social

Human

d i a l o g u e

I as...

p o w we as... e r

Power Dialogue Power Dialogue

we as...

d you as... i a l o you as... g u e we as...

p o w e r

Meta-position promoter position

Power

Figure 8.1. Positions in the self, as extended to the other, and levels of inclusiveness (personal, social, human), with ields of tension (ellipses) between positions.

of threat, anxiety, and xenophobia, as an object or even as an abject (Kinnvall, 2004; see also Buber’s distinction between I-it and I-you relationships). he three levels of inclusiveness allow the distinction of three kinds of responsibility:  personal, social, and global. Responsibility is understood in its two components “response” and “ability”: the ability to respond through generative dialogue from one’s personal I-positions (personal responsibility), from the we-positions of the group or social category to which one belongs (social responsibility), and from the more general position of human being (global responsibility). Taking a human position is essential to acting as a world citizen because this requires the development of the capacity and lexibility to transcend personal and social positions. A democratic self with global responsibility inds a warm and prominent advocate in Nelson Mandela who, at the occasion of receiving the Nobel Peace Prize for his long struggle against apartheid in 1993, said, “We need a globalization of responsibility as well. Above all, that is the challenge of the next century” (Mandela, 2000, p. 35). Flexibility and Motivation

he question is raised whether one is able to move from the lower levels to the higher level of inclusiveness and responsibility, a question that brings us to the

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ield of tension between the levels of inclusiveness (vertical ellipses in Figure 8.1). Here we face an obstacle emanating from the speciic nature of the human level that directly addresses the ield of tension between this level and the lower levels. As Rosenmann, Reese, and Cameron (2016) have argued, more inclusive and abstract groups and communities are less motivationally satisfying, in terms of self-esteem, distinctiveness, and belonging, than more immediate, particularistic identiications. hey refer to optimal distinctiveness theory (Brewer, 1991), which suggests that very large social categories are unlikely to provide a satisfactory balance between the opposing motivations of belonging to a category or group and being distinctive at the same time, because these categories are too inclusive to allow diferentiation from other categories or groups. A possible solution to this balance problem is provided by focusing on the ield of tension between the social and human level of inclusiveness (let ellipse in the igure). he imbalance would be redressed by assimilation to groups that have a task or purpose at the human level but are organized in a group or community small enough to allow distinctiveness from other groups. An example of such a group is Amnesty International, a global nongovernmental organization devoted to the protection of human rights with over 7  million members and supporters around the world. In countries where the organization is highly prominent, members are organized as “sections,” which co-ordinate basic international activities. he sections have a signiicant number of members, some of them working in smaller groups, and they have a professional staf. he organization has also “international networks,” which promote speciic themes and have a speciic identity. Such a “hybrid” organization, located in the ield of tension between the global and local level, allows its members to engage in a global telos while having the opportunity to foster a distinctive identity at the same time. Such a constellation allows individuals to derive distinctive self-esteem from group membership and to experience empathy and moral dedication at the level of global consciousness. Meta-Position and Promoter Position

Given its multilevel identiications and multiplicity of positions at the interface between self and other, the democratic self is faced with a considerable complexity. If the self were distributed into an almost unlimited amount of positions and if each of these positions follow its own speciic developmental trajectory, then the self-system would be at risk of becoming disorganized or fragmented. herefore, special positions are needed for introducing the necessary coherence and organization into the self-system. Two kinds of positions are proposed to serve this function:  meta-positions and promoter positions (see chapter 2).

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Toward a Dialogical Relationship Between Reason and Emotion he topic of democracy in society links two issues that are central in the present book:  (a) the role of social power in society and the self ’s answer to it (chapter 2) and (b) the relationship between reason and emotion (chapter 4). In this section I  address these topics in the context of recent developments in democratic theory with the aim of arguing for a dialogical relationship between reason and emotion in a power-laden society. As a irst step, I summarize Chantal Moufe’s (2000) proposal of an agonistic democracy that addresses both the issue of social power and the role of passion in a democratic society. his “trip” demonstrates the intense connection between society and self. More speciically, it opens avenues between the functioning of democracy in contemporary society and what takes place in the more intimate regions of the self.

Agonistic Democracy: Giving Space to Social Power and Passions he main thesis put forward by Moufe (2000) is that democratic theory needs to acknowledge the ineradicability of antagonism in a democratic society and the impossibility of achieving a fully inclusive rational consensus.3 She argues that a model of democracy in terms of “agonistic pluralism” is most suitable to envisage the main challenge facing democratic politics today: how to create democratic forms of identiications that give room to passions in a context of social power. Moufe (2000) fully recognizes the renewed political interest in deliberation in our era. Why this interest? One explanation is that deliberative democrats ofer an alternative to the conception of democracy, which has become dominant in the second half of the 20th century, the “aggregative model,” initiated by Joseph Schumpeter’s seminal work Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (1947). As a reaction to the inadequacies of the older model of democracy with its central idea of the “common good” (on which we all agree and which deines what is good or bad), the aggregative model puts the emphasis on the aggregation of individual preferences, taking place through political parties for which people would have the capacity to vote at regular intervals. In this system people have

3

he relationship between agonistic democracy and dialogical self theory is more extensively discussed by Suransky and Alma (2017).

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the opportunity of accepting or rejecting their leaders thanks to a competitive electoral process. As a reaction to the instrumental rationality of the aggregative model, Moufe (2000) continues, advocates of deliberative democracy proposed versions of normative rationality, as an alternative to the impoverishment of utilitarian forms of democracy with their purely instrumental means-ends procedures. John Rawls and Jürgen Habermas, regarded by many as main representatives of deliberative democracy, have proposed most inluential versions of moral democracy that go beyond instrumental rationality. An important point of convergence between versions of deliberative democracy in the tradition of Rawls and Habermas is their common insistence on the possibility of grounding authority and legitimacy of public reasoning and their shared belief in forms of rationality that are not merely instrumental but have a normative dimension. For Rawls this is the “reasonable” and for Habermas it is “communicative rationality.” Both traditions aim at “rational consensus” and claim that “the ield of politics is identiied with the exchange of arguments among reasonable persons guided by the principle of impartiality” (Moufe, 2000, p. 4). Although Moufe (2000) agrees with the deliberative democrats regarding the need to develop a more advanced model of democracy than the one ofered by the aggregative model, she holds that they fail to provide an adequate understanding of the main task of democracy. For sure, deliberative democrats defend a richer conception than the instrumental one, but their vision is a rationalist one that leaves aside the crucial role played by “passions” and collective forms of identiications in the ield of politics. In contrast to the rationalist perspective, Moufe holds that democracy needs to acknowledge the ineradicability of antagonism and that a fully inclusive rational consensus is impossible. he neglect of emotions in rationalistic approaches of democracy is closely connected with another problem:  its failure to account for the crucial role of social power. Although deliberative democrats, like Rawls and Habermas, make a signiicant step beyond instrumental rationality, they have, in Moufe’s (2000) view, one thing in common:  both views treat individuals as “abstracted from social and power relations, language, culture and the whole set of practices that make the individuality possible” (p.  10). A  signiicant shortcoming of the rationalist approach is that, by postulating the existence of a public sphere where social power could be eliminated and a rational consensus realized, this version of democracy is not well-equipped to acknowledge the ineradicable antagonism that the pluralism of contradicting values and identities entails.

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Agonistic Pluralism

In an atempt to remedy the deiciencies of the rational approaches, Moufe (2000) proposes, in a Foucauldian fashion, a model of “agonistic pluralism” that places the question of power and antagonism at its very center. In this model, power is not to be conceived of as an external relation taking place between two preconstituted identities but rather as constituting the identities themselves. According to rational versions of the deliberative approach, democracy and power are considered as mutually exclusive: the more democratic a society is, the less power would be constitutive of social relations and the more consensus can be reached. However, if we accept that power is constitutive of any social relationship, then the main question for democratic politics is “not how to eliminate power but how to constitute forms of power more compatible with democratic values” (p. 14). his implies relinquishing the ideal of a democratic society as achieving perfect harmony or transparency. It also carries the recognition that no limited social actor can have the pretension of being the representative of the total community and claim to have the mastery of truth. In a similar vein, Held (2006) refers to the inevitable inluence of social power also in situations where participants pretend to be “impartial.” Building on the work of Tully (2002), he warns for the danger of a single model of deliberation, as exempliied by rational deliberative democrats in the tradition of Rawls and Habermas. Dominant groups have their own customary ways of reasoning and oten present these as “universal” or “uniquely reasonable.” Even when participants pretend to speak as free and equal individuals, the result has oten been a conlictual situation of argumentation, oriented to winning, resembling an exchange between opponents rather than one that aims at mutual understanding and revision of one’s original point of view. Stronger: “If impartialism is oriented to a consensus produced by ‘the force of the beter argument’, then some voices will be dismissed as weak, uninformed or irrational, and silenced along the way” (Held, 2006, p. 243). In terms of the present theory, even when one aims at a purely rational discussion, there are always implicit or hidden emotional or power-laden positions or voices. Acknowledging their existence as part of a broader internal and external dialogue would signiicantly broaden deliberation as a dialogue in which reason and emotion are mutually complementing components.

Agonistic Democracy and Dissonant Dialogue In giving space to emotion and social power, agonistic democracy adds a dissonant dimension to generative dialogue. As proposed in the preceding chapter, the concept of commonality-in-diference among participants allows the

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distinction between consonant and dissonant forms of generative dialogue. While consonant dialogue is based on commonality among participants with an emphasis on agreement and consensus, dissonant dialogue stimulates the emergence of a dialogical space between diferent and contradictory voices that proits from disagreement, opposition, and conlict. In dissonant dialogue, differences, contradictions, and oppositions between the participants are actively used as starting points for the emergence of common points of view. In this form of dialogue, positions are articulated and clariied with the explicit intention of making a transition from debate to generative dialogue (chapter 7). his requires an openness and willingness of the participants to change, revise, and develop their initial positions. When this happens, participants feel that an atmosphere is growing in which they feel that their diferences, disagreement, and even their clashes are respected and that these diferences receive a meaningful place in the decision-making process. he most realistic picture seems to be that in a generative dialogue dissonance and consonance alternate with consonance producing commonality and eiciency and dissonance stimulating change and innovation. In an integrative way, Brown (2009) addresses the relationship between agonistic democracy and dialogue. Drawing on debates between deliberative and agonistic democrats in contemporary political theory, she advocates an agonistic approach to dialogue, “one that respects diference and takes interpretive and ideological conlicts seriously” (p.  313). She recognizes the fact that power intrudes, oten implicitly, on social relationships in the form of denying the apparent heterogeneity of the participants and privileging some voices over others (see also chapter  3). She proposes a dialogical perspective based on a multidimensional, participative approach that is sensitive to power diferentials in society. In an organizational context, she advocates a stakeholder engagement that “recognizes conlicts among stakeholders, engages multiple viewpoints and explicitly addresses power dynamics (p. 317),” favoring a central role for pluralism, diference, and conlict. She continues: “Such an approach leaves space for contested interpretations of liberal democratic values, enables collective identities to form around diferent positions and provides citizens with real choices” (p.  321). So when Held (2006) holds that the quintessence of deliberative democracy is not in the exchange of ixed opinions or preferences but in the process of their formation (p. 233), then the agonistic approach adds that democracy emerges from the interchange of contested opinions in contexts of social power. Given the unavoidable interconnectedness of dialogue and social power, Figure 8.1 includes both power and generative dialogue as central processes in ields of tension between I-positions in both the internal and external domains of the self.

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What is the practical implication of placing dialogue in the context of agonistic democracy? An answer can be found by returning to the concepts of homophily (the tendency to communicate with people who are similar to one’s own views, values, and experiences) and heterophily (the tendency to communicate with people who are dissimilar in such respects), a distinction more extensively discussed in chapter 6. Remember Rogers and Bhowmik (1970) who observed that heterophily has the potential of broadening one’s view of the world but has the disadvantage of being less efective than homophily. Interactions across group boundaries, cultural diferences, and social power distances are likely to cause misunderstandings, message distortion, delayed transmission, and restriction of communication channels, with the efect that it becomes more diicult for communicating partners to understand each other. Yet, heterophily is a necessary ingredient in interactions that require mutually complementing capacities emanating from heterogeneity (e.g., differences in culture, gender, race, age, and social-economic status). If communication were entirely homophilous, communication would be easy but entirely redundant at the same time. If it were totally heterophilous, participants would have a hard time understanding each other. For efective dialogue, homophilous (common) I-positions are necessary for enabling mutual understanding, while heterophilous positions are required for solving complex and “wicked” problems in globalizing and boundary-crossing situations. While consonant dialogue is facilitated by homophilous positions, dissonant dialogue is stimulated by heterophilous positions. Participants need both types of positions in their repertoires in order to achieve both eicient communication and innovation as essential ingredients of generative dialogue in an agonistic democracy.

From Enemy to Adversary In her proposal of “agonistic pluralism,” Moufe (2000) notes that the aim of democratic politics is to construct the “them” no longer as an enemy to be destroyed but as an “adversary,” that is, as someone whose ideas we combat but whose right to defend those ideas is not put into question. his form of democracy entails tolerance, which is not identical with condoning ideas that we oppose or with being indiferent to standpoints that we disagree with. Instead, we treat those who defend them as legitimate opponents. An adversary is a legitimate opponent with whom we have some common ground as long as we have a shared adhesion to the political principles of liberal democracy: liberty and equality. Moufe concludes that introducing the category of the adversary

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requires distinguishing agonism from antagonism. While antagonism is a struggle between enemies, agonism is a struggle between adversaries. he aim of democratic politics is to transform antagonism into agonism. his requires communicative channels through which collective passions are given space for expression. An important diference with the model of deliberative democracy in the tradition of Rawls and Habermas is that agonistic pluralism does not aim to eliminate passions from the sphere of the public but wants to mobilize those passions toward democratic designs (Moufe, 2000, p. 16).

Emotion and Reason in Need of Each Other As we have seen, agonistic democracy criticizes the predominance of reason and the neglect of passions and emotions in both the rational deliberative and aggregative models. Here I pick up the line started in chapter 4, where I proposed a reason-withemotion model suggested by social-psychological and neuro-scientiic evidence. Here I elaborate on this model by considering implicit emotional associations in the context of reason-emotion dialogue. Implicit Associations and Racial Biases

Social psychologists have done considerable work in their investigation of implicit social biases. Greenwald, McGhee, and Schwartz (1998) constructed an Implicit Association Test (IAT) that measures diferential association of target concepts with an atribute. hey presented concepts (e.g., lower vs. insect names) and atributes (e.g., pleasant words, like “happy” or “peace” and unpleasant words, like “ugly” or “roten”) to participants who were instructed to categorize the concept using the evaluative words. When highly associated categories (e.g., lower + pleasant) were presented, performance was faster than when less associated categories (e.g., insect + pleasant) were used. It is easier to combine “lower” with “pleasant” than “insect” with “pleasant.” Speed of performance was employed as a measure of implicit association. In one of their experiments, Greenwald and colleagues (1998) applied the IAT to the black and white categories. hey selected two series of irst names, one consisting of male names that had been judged to be more likely to belong to white Americans than to black Americans (e.g., Brandon, Ian, and Jed) and names that had been judged as belonging more to blacks than to whites (e.g., Darnell, Lamar, and Malik). Similarly, female white names (e.g., Betsy, Katie, and Nancy) and female black names (e.g., Ebony, Latisha, and Tawanda) were chosen. In the test, these names were then evaluated by their participants with both positive (e.g., peace, happy, family) and negative (e.g., crash, roten, ugly) words. Findings showed that, for the white college student subjects of this

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experiment, there was a considerably stronger association of white with positive evaluation than of black.4 Particularly relevant to our discussion of democratic positioning was the fact that the researchers applied not only implicit measures but also explicit measures. One was a set of semantic diferential items with polar-opposite adjective pairs: beautiful-ugly, good-bad, pleasant-unpleasant, honest-dishonest, and nice-awful. Participants were invited to evaluate white and black names, explicitly, with these adjective pairs. Remarkably, the semantic diferential index indicated a virtual absence of racial preference. Apparently, the participants evaluated black names more negatively than white names on the implicit level, but they did not at the explicit level. he researchers concluded that these low implicitexplicit correlations should be taken as evidence for divergence of the constructs represented by implicit versus explicit atitude measures.5 As these indings suggest, one may have no negative atitude toward another race at the explicit level, but, at the same time, one is biased to the same race at the implicit level. From a democratic perspective, the explicit-implicit distinction is relevant because it suggests the possibility that one consciously endorses the democratic value of equality, while at a less consciously level one approves inequality. If our brains produce implicit negative associations to a particular social group that can be signiicantly diferent from one’s explicit values, this may result in an automatic emotional responses when encountering members of that group. It seems that reason alone is not potent enough to provide suicient counterweight to the power of implicit associations. Is it possible to ind

4

In a communication with the Dutch newspaper NRC (October 21, 2016), Anthony Greenwald conirmed that most people associate “good” more rapidly with white than with black people. He calculated that 68% of the 3.5 million people who had done the IAT on a voluntary basis online showed this association. He added that not only whites but also a considerable number of black people displayed more rapid white = good associations. A bit more than 50% of the black people displayed an implicit preference for black people, while more than 80% of the whites had a preference for white people. 5 he existence of implicit associations does not automatically imply that they are expressed in overt behavior. Dovidio, Kawakami, and Gaertner (2002) examined, in a group of 15 male and 25 female white undergraduates, how (implicit) response latency and (explicit) self-report measures predicted bias in verbal and nonverbal behavior of white participants. his behavior was assessed when the participants interacted with black and white partners who acted as confederates of the experimenter. Consistent with their hypothesis, they found, in line with earlier research indings, that explicit atitudes primarily predicted deliberative behaviors and implicit atitudes mainly predicted spontaneous, nonverbal behaviors. Speciically, their results showed that whites’ explicit racial atitudes were relected in their verbal behaviors toward black confederates while, in contrast, whites’ implicit evaluative associations signiicantly predicted their nonverbal friendliness. Moreover, participants’ perceptions of their own racial biases and their interaction partners’ perceptions of the participants’ biases were only weakly related.

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emotional pathways that support reason in its preference for equality as a basic democratic value?

Counter-Emotions as Supportive to Reason in a Democratic Self When negative emotions and associations can be aroused so switly, even beneath our conscious control, and are totalizing in their intensity, the question can be posed whether reason is “strong” enough to provide an efective response to or correction of our emotions. his question is crucial to a conception of democracy, particularly the agonistic one, that gives explicit room for emotion and passion as essential components. Without any doubt, emotionally loaded political preferences, diferences, disagreements, controversies, struggles, and clashes cause people to organize themselves according to ingroup versus outgroup classiications or even causes polarization, oten associated with rivalry, animosity, anger, hate, disgust, cynicism, or apathy. How reason can give an adequate answer to emotions and passions has been subjected to hot debates among philosophers through the course of history. Within the limits of the present theoretical framework, I point to two possible answers that have the potential of supporting reason in giving a dialogical answer to negative emotional associations: introducing promoter-positions associated with counter-emotions and activating meta-positions that have the potential of transforming emotions into feelings.

Promoter Positions with Counter-Emotions Suppose the brain is systematically confronted with explicit counter-associations that deviate from or contradicts implicit negative emotional connotations associated with a particular individual or group. In such a case the irrational implicit association “black = bad” would be systematically challenged by the contrasting association “black = good.” he purpose of this proposal would not be to delete or replace any automatic implicit association, if that ever would be possible, but to create a ield of tension between the implicit association and a counterassociation loaded with a counter-emotion. In order to illustrate this option, we take a look at just a few igures and some of their merits: • Barack Hussein Obama (1961–) was the irst African American president born outside the continental United States, in Hawaii, and the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

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• Rosa Louise McCauley Parks (1913–2005) was an African American civil rights activist who became famous for her refusal on December 1, 1955, to obey a bus driver’s demand that she relinquish her seat to a white man. Her subsequent arrest and trial triggered one of the most successful mass movements against racial segregation in the history of the United States and launched Martin Luther King Jr. to the forefront of the civil rights movement. • Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) spent most of his life campaigning for ending the apartheid regime in South Africa. Ater over 20 years in prison, he was released and became the irst elected president in post-apartheid South Africa. He is generally admired for his forgiveness and willingness to reach out to the white community in South Africa. • Wangari Maathai (1940–2011) was a Kenyan environmental activist. She was the founder of the Green Belt Movement in the 1970s aiming to promote environmental conservation in Kenya and Africa. She was the irst African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 for her contribution to sustainable development, democracy, and peace. • Mohammed Ali (1942–2016) was a great boxer of the 1960s, who refused to do his military service in Vietnam. As a Muslim, he was initially ailiated with the political movement Nation of Islam that advocated a black separatist ideology. Later he became an adherent of Sunni Islam and supported racial integration. Ater retiring from boxing in 1981, Ali devoted his life to religious and charitable work. • Your family member, friend, inspiring igure in a book, ilm, or media who made a lasting impression on you by the fact that they were able and willing to transcend, in their explicit atitude, the boundaries of established racial, gender, ethnic, or cultural boundaries.

he commonality of such igures is that, if they would be adopted as shining positions (chapter 6) and even as a promoter position in the self, they would evoke associations that are markedly diferent from, even opposed to, emotional associations typical of prejudice or stereotype.6 Such promoters are associated 6 hat implicit associations are not entirely immune to change is suggested by research by Maister et al. (2015), discussed in chapter 4 of this book. hey asked white participants to complete a skin color IAT to assess their nonconscious atitudes toward dark-skinned individuals. hen, the so-called rubber hand illusion procedure was used to induce the feeling that a dark-skinned hand belonged to them. When their implicit atitudes were measured for a second time, participants, regardless of their implicit atitudes toward the other race, not only experienced the dark hand as their own but also showed a signiicant decrease in negative implicit atitudes toward dark-skinned individuals. he more intense their illusion of ownership over the dark-skinned hand, the more positive their implicit racial atitudes became. Such results suggest that imagining to be in the body of a person with another skin color may facilitate empathy with that person. See also Barresi’s (2008) analysis of John Griin’s

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with stories (about their challenges, their achievements, their disappointments), and stories have more emotional impact than otherwise precious values of freedom and equality if they are perceived as just “concepts.” herefore, such values, essential heritages of the Enlightenment, should be supported, “illed,” and “dressed” by emotional stories about or from shining models. Even if we take into account that associations below consciousness are not easy to change, such a change is not impossible as demonstrated in chapter 4 where I discussed the relationship between conscious and nonconscious levels in the self. Brain research suggested that becoming conscious of the nature of a preceding implicitly presented stimulus reduced its inluence on the subsequent evaluation of the emotion-inducing material. Such indings are in agreement with Dehaene and Naccache’s (2001) neuroscientiic model, which proposes that conscious perception results from an interaction of stimulation factors with the atentional state of the observer. Apparently, stimuli that squarely fall outside conscious awareness can become conscious if one gives them explicit atention. Arriving at this point, I  propose that promoter positions with counteremotional implications are potentially powerful tools for reducing and correcting implicit negative associations. In particularly, promoters, once established in the self, have long-term inluence in the self and have the capacity to organize a variety of more speciic I-positions in the internal domain of the self (chapter 2). If promoters are receiving, as afectively tuned models, a place in the extended self, participants are confronted with contradictions between existing and new associations, which is the moment when reason could come in. In other words, the introduction of afectively loaded promoters in the self, with an emotional valence that contradicts the valence of the implicit associations, has the potential of stimulating internal and external dialogues (chapter 7) that open alternative behavioral scenarios. Such a ield of tension would proit from the explicit recognition that negative implicit associations with outgroups are a “normal” phenomenon that inhabit most of us. Recognition of them would create a dynamic multiplicity in the self-space that can be subjected to dialogical processing with a chance that behavior is no longer blindly led by automatic responses or by political leaders who make active use of such responses with the exclusion of reasonable alternatives. he practical implication of this proposal is that there is a task for parents, teachers, religious leaders, journalists, politicians, and artists to present, via

(1960) classic Black Like Me who altered his skin color with the intention to experience temporarily what a black man experienced every day of his life. In the course of time he overcame the black-white dichotomy and acquired a personal position, a third position (see chapter 2), that was neither white nor black, but just human. his experience brought Griin to a higher, human, level of inclusiveness (see Figure 8.1), an experience that directly addresses the democratic value of equality.

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stories, ilms, art, lectures, scientiic and popular articles and discussions, afectively tuned models that have found ways of transcending the sharp boundaries between self and other and between ingroup and outgroup so that boundaries in oneself as well become permeable. his would enable the self to move lexibly hence and forth between the models located in the external domain and the positions in the internal domain of the self (e.g., “I as anti-discrimination,” “I as a world citizen,” “I as ighting against my own prejudices”). he models presented are iconic examples, which demonstrate just one way in which history can be used as a learning device for the correction of explicit or implicit prejudices. he same principle of learning new associations is applicable when people with educative tasks function as models themselves.

he Contribution of Meta-Positions to a Democratic Self Like counter-emotions, well-developed meta-positions also have the capacity to support reason as a necessary faculty in a democratically organized self. Reason and meta-position are not identical. When one positions oneself in a reasoning way, one argues, analyzes, considers, compares pros and cons, uses step-by-step procedures, and draws conclusions. A meta-position allows taking a superordinate perspective from which one considers other positions and their paterning and ofers a long-term and cross-situational perspective. A  metaposition enables the self to disengage itself from immediate involvement in an ever-changing multiplicity of situation-bound I-positions and allows the self to take some distance from the endless stream of positioning, repositioning, and counter-positioning. Reasoning alone does not automatically lead to such a long-term and broad perspective, but it does so if a meta-position is a helpful ally. Moreover, a meta-position is a dialogical concept: one may take diferent metapositions in dialogical contact with diferent persons and groups, in this way stimulating empathy and broadening the bandwidth of the position repertoire as a whole. herefore, taking a meta-position is helpful in making movements to the higher, human and global level of inclusiveness, as depicted in Figure 8.1. Reasoning may also proit from the transition from emotion to feeling. While emotions (e.g., lust, excitement, anger) are transient, situation-bound, termed as “likes” or “dislikes” and experienced as “highs” or “lows,” feelings (e.g., love, dedication, determination7) are more long term, cross-situational, and typically experienced as meaningful (see Table 4.2 for an overview). A practical implication of this distinction is that the construction and development of meta-positions have

7

For commonality and diference between anger and determination, see Harmon-Jones Schmeichel, Mennit, and Harmon-Jones (2011).

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the potential of contributing to the transition from emotions to feelings. he transition from short-term emotions to long-term feelings is crucial in a society that is faced with very diferent social and cultural identities, worldviews, and local interests. In contrast, disagreement, oppositions, and clashes are oten associated with strong negative emotions that may obscure long-term perspectives needed to give adequate answers to wicked problems (e.g., climate change, immigration, international terrorism, a politically divided country, the interests of future generations). Such issues need a long-term perspective, not only in society but also in a democratically organized self of the individual person. he implicit negative associations to particular social groups and the automatic emotional responses they evoke concern the self at the intermediate level of Figure 8.1. hey refer to the other groups as arousing a negative association in the self. he historical examples mentioned earlier and the many other cases one may ind in one’s own environment show that it is possible to move from the group level of inclusiveness to the human level. he capacity and willingness of moving up and down across diferent levels of inclusiveness (in order to link the position of one’s own self or group to the human level) is a signiicant task for educators who are in favor of creating more democracy in the self. Such a lexible movement has the potential of contributing signiicantly to global responsibility (Mandela, 2000) and global consciousness (Liu & Macdonald, 2016).8

Uncertainty and Democracy in the Self Given the multiplicity and diversity of diferent, contrasting, or conlicting perspectives, that in their confrontation inluence each other and are subjected to continuous change, it should be concluded that uncertainty is at the heart 8 Rosenmann et al.’s (2016) observation that more inclusive and abstract groups and communities (like “we as human”) are less motivationally satisfying, in terms of self-esteem, distinctiveness, and belonging, than more immediate, particularistic identiications is helpful to understand that resistance to immigrants may create more intense (negative) emotions than the even more dramatic, long-term consequences of climate change. Our amygdala is activated more strongly when hearing about a terrorist atack than when receiving an alarming message about climate change. As Marshall (2014) argues, through our evolution, we have inherited fundamental cognitive wiring that shapes our interpretations of speciic and immediate enemies or threats and provides ways to act on them. However, climate change plays poorly to these innate tendencies as it is complex, unfamiliar, slow moving, invisible, and intergenerational. Yet, he adds, we are not incapable of dealing with the threats of climate change as we possess the capacity of giving them the narrative and cultural form that engages our emotional brain and we are able to create social institutions that sustain our response. In terms of the present theory, being able to take a common meta-position on the human level of inclusiveness and giving it an institutionalized form is a learning challenge of utmost importance to our survival and that of future generations.

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of democracy. Agonism eschews any sense of inalizability to social change as democracy and liberation are always uninished. Because asymmetries in power, knowledge, and argumentative skills are unavoidable, politics are always generating remainders and uncertainties. In her discussion of the connection between dialogue and democracy, Brown (2009) holds that subjectivity and uncertainty are important parts of the dialogical process. While monological approaches to democracy are reluctant to admit controversy, dialogue among stakeholders recognizes plurality of expert knowledges, is open about uncertainty and ambiguity, is skeptical about the idea of “one right answer,” and considers this as incompatible with democracy (p. 329). Taking Brown’s (2009) considerations into account, it oten strikes me that many politicians, captains of industry, and teachers, when they notice an increasing level of uncertainty in their organizations, contend that “giving people more certainty” is the most appropriate remedy. I  consider this a miscalculation. Certainty cannot be provided like a food supplement or a cookbook instruction. Rather, it is a process that emerges when people receive the opportunity to give, in their communication with others and with themselves, answers to uncertainty and cope with it in adaptive ways. his coping requires irst a tolerance of uncertainty, which strikes me as one of the most needed and most necessary qualities for the functioning of a democratic society. Next we take a look at this capacity in some more detail.

Deinition of Uncertainty Given the central role we atach to the experience of “uncertainty” in the context of democracy and a democratic self and taking into account that diferent authors ascribe alternative meanings, a more detailed description is required. As we have proposed earlier (Hermans & Hermans-Konopka, 2010), we see the experience of uncertainty as composed of four aspects: 1. complexity, referring to a great number of parts of a question or problem that have a large variety of mutual relations; 2. ambiguity, referring to a suspension of clarity, as the meaning of one part is determined by the lux and variation of the other parts; 3. deicit knowledge, referring to the absence of a superordinate knowledge structure that can resolve the contradictions between the parts; and 4. low predictability, implying a lack of control of future developments. he experience of uncertainty characterizes a global, boundary-crossing situation of multivoicedness (complexity) that does not allow a ixation of meaning (ambiguity), that has no superordinate voice for resolving contradictions and

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conlicting information (deicit knowledge), and that is to a large extent unpredictable. As this description suggests, uncertainty is not necessarily a negative experience. In the context of globalization, it may open and broaden the space for possible actions, adventures, and explorations of the unknown (e.g., traveling, international contacts and education, forms of international and intercultural cooperation). Moreover, uncertainty can be considered by many as a consequence of the farewell to the dogmas and ideologies of institutions that restricted and conined the self in earlier times. However, when uncertainty reigns in many life areas (as generalizing across a large variety of I-positions in the self) or when one’s survival is at stake, as international terrorism demonstrates, the experience of uncertainty may be intensiied to a degree that it changes into an experience of insecurity or anxiety. As we have suggested, the later experience motivates people to retreat to local niches in which they try to ind security, safety, and certainty. he experience of uncertainty is a git as it opens a broad range of unexpected possibilities but a burden insofar as it leads to confusion and anxiety.

Low Tolerance of Uncertainty and the Authoritarian Personality Social scientists became interested in individual diferences in tolerance of uncertainty, particularly in the atermath of the Second World War. One of the most inluential studies in this area was Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswik, Levinson, and Sanford’s (1950) study on the authoritarian personality. Having escaped from Europe during the Nazi period, the authors became interested in the phenomenon of anti-semitism. hey administered a batery of questionnaires to groups of people with most anti-semitism and to others with less anti-semitism and then compared their answers. his led to the construction of the Fascism scale, which enabled them to study the characteristics of subjects with an authoritarian personality. Some of the main traits were conventionalism, submission to authority, the use of stereotypes and prejudices, adherence to traditional values, and a tendency to follow the dictates of strong leaders. hese and other characteristics evoke a picture of people feeling the need to solve problems in monological ways with a strong preference of just one perspective. Moreover, authoritarian personalities were found to have a low tolerance of uncertainty and tended to classify others in terms of a good-bad dichotomy with closed boundaries between the two categories: others are judged as “good guy” or “bad guy.” In terms of the present theory, this simpliied and mutually exclusive categorization reduces the multiplicity of the position repertoire of the perceived other to one simple strongly evaluative position (e.g., Jews

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are . . .; blacks are . . .; we are . . .) and a seriously reduced meta-position. he result is a set of supericial stereotypes.9 More recently, there have been atempts to consider authoritarianism as part of the broader issue of “political conservatism.” Jost, Glaser, Kruglanski, and Sulloway (2003) brought together theories of personality (authoritarianism, dogmatism, intolerance of ambiguity), research on epistemic and existential needs (e.g., terror management, need for closure), and ideological rationalization (system justiication, social dominance). A meta-analysis with 88 samples in 12 countries showed that the following variables predict political conservatism (from higher to lower correlations): death anxiety, system instability, dogmatism, low openness to experience, low uncertainty tolerance, need for order and structure, low integration of complexity, fear of threat and loss, and low selfesteem. he authors conclude that the core ideology of conservatism emphasizes resistance to change and justiication of inequality and is driven by needs to manage uncertainty and threat. As this study shows, authoritarianism as part of a broader complex of political conservatism is directly relevant to discourses of democracy and a democratic self.

Five Strategies to Cope with a Heightened Level of Uncertainty Many times, when talking with colleagues about the experience of uncertainty, they posed the question of how people respond to this experience. How do people react to experience of heightened uncertainty? In the following I propose ive strategies for uncertainty reduction (Hermans & Hermans-Konopka, 2010): 1. Uncertainty can be reduced by diminishing the number and heterogeneity of positions in the repertoire. Look at some people who are fully engaged in a hectic and complex social life but at some point decide to retreat to a more simple lifestyle or change their place in order to ind peace of mind (e.g., 9 Interest in the authoritarian personality is not just a historical phenomenon and not exclusively tied to Nazi Germany. Bob Altemeyer (2006), an emeritus professor who spent most of his life studying authoritarianism, published a book titled he Authoritarians, which he introduces this way:  “Authoritarianism is something authoritarian followers and authoritarian leaders cook up between themselves. It happens when the followers submit too much to the leaders, trust them too much, and give them too much leeway to do whatever they want—which oten is something undemocratic, tyrannical and brutal. In my day, authoritarian fascist and authoritarian communist dictatorships posed the biggest threats to democracies, and eventually lost to them in wars both hot and cold. But authoritarianism itself has not disappeared, and I’m going to present the case in this book that the greatest threat to American democracy today arises from a militant authoritarianism that has become a cancer upon the nation” (p. 2).

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giving up a hectic job or migrating to another, quieter country). In a very diferent way, we see this reaction when Facebook users or Internet visitors restrict themselves to those messages that mirror their own existing views so that counter-positions with diferent or contradicting information are avoided or excluded. 2. Uncertainty can be diminished by giving the lead to one powerful position that is allowed to dominate the self-system as a whole. Located in a ield of divergent, conlicting, or contradictory positions that increase the level of tension in the self, some people transfer responsibility to some external authority, spiritual guru, or strong political or religious leader as a way to reduce the burden of uncertainty when it has reached a high level of negative emotions (see also the authoritarian personality). his reaction can be seen in cases of religious orthodoxy or political fundamentalism as people thrive on simpliication and make extensive use of a good-bad dichotomy in the form of moralistic categorizations. his reaction typically originates from a strong hierarchical organization of the repertoire, with one or a few positions at the top dominating all other positions. A telling example is Kaufman’s (1991) study of women who grew up in secular Jewish homes in the United States but felt that the secular values of their education did not give them an adequate foundation for their lives. hey converted, in their teens or 20s, to orthodox Judaism, despite the limitations that traditional beliefs place on women. hey changed their selves to a more hierarchically organized position repertoire, in the conviction that an orthodox religious system ofered them a clear and meaningful place in the world and the experience of being rooted in a long, durable tradition. 3. Uncertainty can be reduced by sharpening the boundaries between oneself and the other and between ingroup and outgroup. his reaction oten takes the form of a Manichean set of opposites (e.g., “we” vs. “they”). By sharpening the boundaries between ingroup and outgroup, oten associated with placing one’s own group above the other group, an identity is constructed that tends to increase self-esteem and pride (“We are beter than them”). In a reversed way, when self-esteem and pride is threatened, it may lead to a sharpening of boundaries between groups. Recall Merskin (2009) who observed that differences in race, religion, culture, age, or appearance can arouse resentment toward other groups. History is full of examples of xenophobic and racist sentiments creating an artiicial binary opposition between ingroup and outgroup that leads to the devaluation or even physical annihilation of one side by the other. 4. Paradoxically, some people try to reduce uncertainty by increasing instead of diminishing the number of positions in the self. How can we understand that increasing the number of positions is expected to decrease the experience of uncertianty? Here one has to recognize that the additional position is

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expected to give the solace, rest, structure, pleasure, or prospect that other positions lacked. Someone may expect that an additional job or hobby gives the “real” satisfaction that earlier activities did not provide, or another marriage is expected to give the stability and warmth that earlier contacts were lacking, or participating in an extra meditation course will give the inal peace of mind. In such cases new or additional positions are expected to give a hold and stability in a leeting or chaotic position repertoire in an overstimulating environment. However, in contrast to this expectation the inclusion of new positions (of the same kind) in an already crowded repertoire entails the risk of a cacophony of voices. 5. he reaction to uncertainty, central in the present book, is a dialogical one:  going into uncertainty rather than avoiding it. Entering a dialogue, with other individuals and with oneself, opens a range of possibilities that are not ixed and not predictable at the beginning of the interchange but remain lexible and susceptible to new input during the process itself. Such a proposal its with Held’s (2006) observation that the quintessence of deliberative democracy is not in the exchange of ixed opinions or preferences but in the process of their formation and with Brown’s (2009) stakeholder involvement that engages multiple viewpoints and explicitly addresses power dynamics, favoring a central role for pluralism, diference, and conlict. In the course of such open-ended and broadly ranged interchange, the initial positions of the participants are enriched, changed, or further developed, marginally or radically, by the encounter itself. During the interchange the diference between positions becomes articulated in an accepting atmosphere (see chapter 2), or several positions become combined and integrated into new coalitions (chapters 2 and 6). New positions or coalitions may emerge as common to the participants and as providing a basis for creative decision-making. It would be a misunderstanding to assume that generative dialogue implies uncertainty only and excludes any form of certainty. In contrast, there is space for post-dialogical certainty, which is the outcome of going through dialogue and which emerges on the fertile ground of positional diversity. his happens when an individual or group, working on a complex problem, allows the emergence of a diversity of positions that permit analyzing the problem from diferent (personal or cultural) perspectives without assuming that there is only one solution (see also Avruch & Black, 1993). Linking these perspectives in the form of consonant and dissonant dialogues contributes to a decision that is supported by a broad range of positions in the repertoire and provides the participants with a temporary degree of certainty that is necessary to take adequate actions. his reaction difers from pre-dialogical certainty, which atempts to arrive at certainty before becoming engaged in the process of dialogue or even by avoiding it. he

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pitfall of this form of certainty is making premature decisions and taking actions derived from the cocoon view of one position only. he distinction between pre-dialogical and post-dialogical certainty also applies to the individual self. Sticking to a quick view or opinion, avoiding or rejecting any counterviews or counter-emotions, would exemplify pre-dialogical certainty. Post-dialogical certainty allows going in an internal ield of tension where contradictions are allowed to come in and any opinion, judgment, or belief is subjected to dialogical processing with an outcome that is only clear or established ater the process has taken place. Any opinion is in its beginning stage and, at the same time, a question signifying that this opinion is an input rather than an output of the thinking process. Considering an opinion as preliminary allows the inal opinion to be diferent from the initial one. his happens when you ind an answer to a problem in your own mind ater you were “walking around” with a question that you were not able to answer in a period of futile exploration. In other words, generative dialogue, both in the self and between diferent selves, can be seen as a “travel into uncertainty” with the possibility of uncertainty-reducing outcomes. During the entire dialogical process, the tolerance of uncertainty is essential to its nature. A practical rule of thumb is to consider an upcoming opinion as a beginning, not as an end.

Tolerance of Uncertainty: Its Advantages In order to stress the potentials of uncertainty tolerance, I refer to three phenomena that relect the intense interconnectedness of interpersonal and intrapersonal processes and have important practical implications for learning to develop a democratic self: (a) the importance of active listening as relevant to opening the boundaries of the self, needed for a dialogical democracy; (b) the striking diferences between capable and incapable forecasters, a distinction relevant for decision-making with respect to the future; and (c) the ield of tension between the consumer and citizen position, relevant to the development of social and global responsibility. Active Listening and Uncertainty Tolerance

When tolerance of uncertainty is relevant to a multivoiced dialogical self and to a pluralist conception of democracy, how can it be stimulated? his question was addressed in a research project by Itzchakov, Kluger, and Castro (2017) who investigated the relationship between tolerance of uncertainty in a speaker and high quality of listening by an interlocutor. hey introduced their research by some considerations that refer to defensive responses in a speaker who is faced with counter-arguments. Hearing counter-arguments, they reason, is not always

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useful, as the receiver may feel that they constitute an infringement on the right to have a particular point of view. he counter-argument and the disagreement can prompt the receiver to process the information in a defensive manner, which may lead to a bolstering of the initial atitude. In such a case, the counterargument has a “boomerang” efect, which is opposite to the intention of the person ofering the counter-argument. In their search for alternative ways of changing the atitude of an interlocutor, Itzchakov and colleagues (2017) proposed that it would be more efective to rely on techniques that would lead to a reconsideration of the original atitude of the speaker. herefore, they decided to draw on studies showing that more profound atitude change occurs when the motivation for change comes from within the speaker. In order to realize this change, the researchers decided to focus on “high-quality listening” described as nonjudgmental, empathic, and respectful. With this purpose in mind they referred to a quote from Rogers (1951) in which the experience of uncertainty was explicitly addressed: In this atmosphere of safety, protection, and acceptance, the irm boundaries of self-organization relax. here is no longer the irm, tight gestalt which is characteristic of every organization under threat, but a looser, more uncertain coniguration. He begins to explore his perceptual ield more and more fully. He discovers faulty generalizations, but his self-structure is now suiciently relaxed so that he can consider the complex and contradictory experiences upon which they are based. He discovers experiences of which he has never been aware, which are deeply, contradictory to the perception he has had of himself. (cited and emphases added by Itzchakov et al., 2017, p. 105) Instigated by this quotation, Itzchakov and colleagues made a distinction that touches two diferent ways of responding to ields of tension: “objective atitude ambivalence,” which they deined as “the coexistence of positive and negative thoughts and feelings toward an atitude object” (p. 106), and “subjective atitude ambivalence,” described as “an experience of evaluative conlict, including a sense of being conlicted, confused, being torn, and having mixed feelings with regard to the atitude object” (p. 106). he researchers hypothesized that highquality listening would increase objective atitude ambivalence but not subjective atitude ambivalence. In order to test their hypothesis, the researchers asked the participants of their experiment to talk with a confederate for 15 minutes about how suitable they considered themselves for a managerial role in the future. he participants were assigned to three listening quality conditions: high, medium, or low. For assessing objective atitude ambivalence they used a measurement device that captured the extent to which a person was able to experience both

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negative and positive atitudes simultaneously. Subjective atitude ambivalence was assessed by asking participants to report the extent to which they felt indecision, confusion, and a conlict regarding their atitude. he researchers found that objective-atitude ambivalence was highest in the high-quality listening condition and lowest in the low-quality listening condition. hey considered their inding that high-quality listening can make speakers both aware of their inconsistencies and also tolerate it, as consistent with Rogers’s (1951) understanding that communication with another person inluences communication within the self of the speaker. When the listener behaves in a nonjudgmental way toward the speaker, the speaker becomes less judgmental toward him- or herself. In a succinct way, they conclude: “a non-judgmental listener increases the awareness of the speaker to inner contradictions in a way that is tolerable” (Itzchakov et al., 2017, p. 117). hese results demonstrate the intense interconnectedness of intrapersonal and interpersonal ields of tension. When interlocutors are involved in processes of positioning and counter-positioning with others, including argumentation and counter-argumentation, they ind themselves in ields of tension that are directly linked with what happens in their own self and how they deal with emotions. Apparently, processes taking place in this ield determine the person’s tolerance of uncertainty. From a practical point of view, these indings suggest that the training of high-quality listening is expected to open the boundaries of the self, to broaden the space for counter-positions, and to stimulate participants to become more tolerant for deviant views.10 Tolerance of Uncertainty and the Art of Prediction

Although it might sound paradoxical, tolerance of uncertainty and allowing that the future is to a large degree unpredictable does not mean that uncertain individuals are less able to make predictions. In their book Superforecasting: he

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Tolerance for deviant or opposing points of view can also be increased by active perspective taking. In a series of experiments, Tuller, Bryan, Heyman, and Christenfeld (2015) investigated under which conditions a perspective-taking approach led to decreasing polarization between atitudes. Ater a short actual contact in pairs, student-participants were instructed by the experimenter that their partner had an opposite perspective to their own on controversial issues like giving a teaching job to an obese person or permiting abortion ater rape. hen they were invited to write about this issue rom the perspective of their partner. It was found that this approach was efective at changing the initial views of the participants but only if a sense of accountability was promoted (by leading participants to believe that their partner would be reading what they wrote) and also if there was personal contact (by leading the participants to believe that the two would be seeing each other again). hese results suggest that it is possible to reduce polarization of positions by encouraging people to take (go into) the opposing position of another, as long as there is accountability and real contact.

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Art and Science of Prediction, Tetlock and Gardner (2016; for review see Buncic, 2016) give a detailed account of the forecasting performances of a large number of both experts and “ordinary” individuals who took part in various forecasting competitions that Tetlock has organized since the 1980s. he project enabled the researcher to study the predictions of professionals (political scientists, economists, journalists) with those of laymen on a variety of geopolitical and economic topics of interest. Ater examining thousands of predictions from hundreds of experts, it appeared that the predictions of the professionals were no beter than those of ordinary individuals. he disturbing truth was that the predictions of the experts, with their specialized but limited scope, were no more accurate than random guesses. Some people who were particularly competent were labeled “superforecasters.” In Tetlock and Gardner’s (2016) portrayal they come to the fore as everyday individuals with a keen interest in understanding the mechanism behind things rather than just trying to give accurate forecasts without knowing why. hey not only question their own line of reasoning but are also willing to test new ideas. hey realize that life and the world around them is complex, that everything is constantly changing and evolving, and that nothing is for certain. hey resist the temptation to come to the obvious conclusions too quickly and reanalyze the presented evidence over and over again. Moreover, they are well aware of the fallacies and tricks that the mind can play to make something look more certain than it actually is. In this context, Tetlock and Gardner made a distinction between what they term “hedgehogs,” individuals who tend to look at things in terms of one big idea, and “foxes,” who are more analytical and less self-conident in their predictions in comparison with the hedgehogs. Yet they found the foxes more oten able to make accurate predictions. In terms of the present theory, the beter predictors are able and willing to look at the future from the perspective of a diversity of positions, take a broad bandwidth of positions into account, and are less self-conident in their prediction. Such qualities are relevant to tolerance of uncertainty that is facilitated more by “looking around” and bringing a larger diversity of positions together in a meta-position than by a self-conident specialist who pretends to be certain on the basis of one or a few positions only. From a practical point of view, a distinction is needed between uncertainty and anxiety. Although uncertainty can mount into anxiety (if it becomes intense or generalizes across many positions) and, as a result, become maladaptive, it would be mistaken to treat them as identical. In that case, the constructive potentials of the experience of uncertainty would become obscured with the consequence that the welcome, even necessary, strength of uncertainty tolerance in processes of democratic decision-making, with atention to future possibilities, would become invisible or unused.

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Stimulating Tolerance of Uncertainty Between Citizen and Consumer Position

In chapter  5, I  extensively discussed the phenomenon of economic overpositioning. he main part of that chapter was devoted to the process of marketization and economizing in modern societies and their manifestation in consumerism as forms of over-positioning that inally may lead to a point that the self is locked up in a (comfortable or uncomfortable) I-prison. As part of an examination of viable alternatives, I referred to the awareness of the distinction between enrichment (qualitative diversity of I-positions) and impoverishment (one-way penetration by one type of I-position only). In this section, I elaborate on this idea by proposing that stimulating tolerance of uncertainty would be beneicial to creating a balance between the positions of citizen and consumer. My thoughts on this issue are largely stimulated by Berglund and Mati (2006) who investigated the dual position of consumer and citizen in contemporary environmental policy in Sweden. In their view, the consumer position responds to economic incentives and makes rational choices determined by egocentered preferences and economic constraints. In their position as citizen, on the other hand, people prefer decisions led by values that are more in line with an altruistic outlook. If they realize that society at large is beter of in the long run, they may refrain from individual short-run gains. Why is this distinction relevant? he answer derives from the authors’ observation that the predominant environmentalist view of green movements and activists since the beginning of the environmentalist wave in the late 1960s are concerned about the strong ties between capitalist economy and individual freedom in contemporary democracies. In their view, these irmly established connections “have turned individuals into passive, rights-claiming consumers and given raise to institutions unable to cope with the societal changes needed for preventing a future ecological crisis” (p. 7).11 For most environmentalists, the key for amending the present environmental situation “lies in the movement of individuals from being preferencemaximizing consumers to becoming citizens concerned with the common good of the community” (p. 7, emphasis added). Instead of being based on individualism and economic rationality, a future-oriented environmental policy requires that “each individual’s moral concerns and sense of responsibility for a common good must prevail if the collective action problems of the environment are to be solved in the long run” (p. 7). With the distinction of the two positions, each with their speciic motivations, Berglund and Mati (2006) are touching the quintessence of the model as depicted in Figure 8.1. While the consumer position refers primarily to the 11

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personal level, the citizen position appeals to the human level of inclusiveness. Given the worldwide impact of overconsumption on climate change, the situation of our planet requires a capacity of moving up and down between the individual level (“I as a consumer”), the social level (“we as Americans,” “we as Europeans,” “we as Chinese”), and the global level (“we as human,” “we as world citizens in a cosmopolitan democracy”) and, correspondingly, alternating between individual, social, and global levels of responsibility. However, the question can be posed whether the individual is able to take both positions (consumer and citizen) or is limited to the one or the other. Building on literatures addressing this question, Berglund and Mati (2006) assume that each individual can have “multiple preference orderings, applying diferent preference maps in diferent contexts” (p. 8). For example, individuals take a consumer point of view when asked to value a market good (e.g., a bottle of beer, a car). However, when faced with issues of collective interests (e.g., global warming), rather than individual ones, the same individual might also make a choice from the citizen point of view. hey hold that diferent situations may activate diferent values “causing the individual to choose either a citizen or a consumer perspective, depending both on the nature of the situation and the activity proposed” (p. 8, emphasis added).12 I go one step further than Berglund and Mati (2006): people may ind themselves located in situations that appeal to the consumer and citizen position at the same time. When an individual has the choice between a cheaper polluting car or a more expensive, cleaner one, is he or she able to take both positions and make a decision in a ield of tension between the two positions and their diferent motivations? I assume that this person needs a certain tolerance of uncertainty in order to make a decision that takes both positions in their contradicting relationship, drawing him or her into diferent, even opposite, directions (the polluting car is emotionally very atractive, but it is more “reasonable” to take the cleaner one). In this ield of tension, a well-developed meta-position with its long-term view is a helpful ally. A practical implication of the preceding considerations is that for arriving at “responsible consumption” the following learning devices are appropriate: (a) taking a consumer and a citizen position in situations where they are relevant, (b) considering the distinction between the two positions and being aware of their diferent societal implications, (c) developing the lexibility of moving from the one to the 12 he distinction between the consumer and the citizen position parallels the spatial distinction between “market” and “forum.” Referring to the later distinction, Jon Elster remarks: “the consumer [in the market] chooses between courses of action that difer only in the way they afect him. In political choice situations, however, the citizen [in the forum] is asked to express his preference over states that also difer in the way in which they afect other people” (Elster, 1997, quoted by Held, 2006, p. 235).

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other position and engaging them in a generative dialogue, (d) tolerating uncertainty of being located in two (competing) positions, and (e) making a decision in which both positions are taken into account in the form of relative dominance of one of them or as a coalition from which both proit. As part of these guidelines, uncertainty is not an experience to be avoided but something worth to be stimulated. Practical implications of uncertainty tolerance are incomplete as long as the important role of government policies is not acknowledged. Berglund and Mati (2006) explicitly address this issue in their analysis of the content of national Swedish policy documents in which “pro-environment behavior” is promoted. hey observe that policy measures formulated in order to promote pro-environmental action at the household level are more directed to the consumer than to the citizen. In these documents individuals are advised to base their decisions more on economic rationality than on becoming politically competent subjects ready to act as participants in moral deliberations. here is an emphasis on the positive outcomes for the individual person when acting according to the policy demands. Recommendations for changing behavior in a more pro-environmental direction are typically portrayed as being in the service of individual interests rather than being relevant to rights or justice aspects. For example, “Swedish trade and industry sector can strengthen its competitiveness with a ‘green business idea.’ [. . .] In such a way, the ecological adjustment can become a carrier of long-term growth and stability in the employment sector” (p. 11). In this context, the authors make a distinction between intrinsic motives where the person perceives value in the activity in itself and extrinsic motives where the person acts in the service of monetary payment or other external rewards. An environmental application of this distinction is that one can become engaged in pro-environmental behavior either because our environmental consciousness tells us to do so or because we are told by authorities that it is inancially beneicial.13 his last consideration (environmental behavior in the service of inancial or economic proit) touches a point of central concern in chapter 5 of this book, where I suggested, in agreement with Schimank and Volkmann (2012), that the relative autonomy of I-positions in the self is in close correspondence with the relative autonomy of the diferent value spheres in society. In this conception 13

In their own research Berglund and Mati (2006) administered Schwartz’s (1992) value inventory scale, including a Self-Transcendence cluster (altruism) and a Self-Enhancement cluster (ego-centered). In a mail survey that was distributed to about 4,000 individuals in four Swedish municipalities, they found that self-transcendence was of greater importance as guiding principle in life than the opposing values of self-enhancement. he researchers interpreted this as indicating that the citizen role carries values relevant to policymaking. Moreover, they considered these indings as representing a mismatch between Sweden’s policy documents and the general value orientation held by Swedish people.

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each sphere includes an original value in itself and, moreover, has value to ofer to the other spheres (e.g., science to health care, the educational to the social, the law to the political). he crucial point is that the spheres ofer their value to the other spheres from their own speciic point of view and from their own specialization, as each sphere is an original source of experience. When one of these spheres reaches the stage of over-positioning so that the other ones become structurally subordinated, this originality is lost and society is seriously impoverished and becomes “mono-manic.” A practical implication is here that governments, if they want to stimulate pro-environmental behavior, would do well to acknowledge the relative autonomy of the diferent societal spheres and their intrinsic values.

Democratic Self: Its Shadows One of the greatest challenges for a democratically organized self is the question regarding the place of shadow experiences in the self. From a practical point of view, an immediately related question is how to deal with them in a society where many individuals and groups tend to perceive the shadows exclusively outside, rather than acknowledging them as residing in themselves. In order to explore the relationship between shadow and democracy, I irst bring together diferent lines of thought concerning the notion of “shadow” as it has occurred in diferent chapters of this book and then elaborate on the connection between shadow and the functioning of a democratic self.

Shadow Positions Revisited For a proper understanding of shadow positions the phenomenon of over-positioning (chapter 5) is crucial as it transcends any good–bad dichotomy and makes the otherwise rigid boundaries between the good and the bad more permeable. For an analysis of this phenomenon, insight into its dynamic character is needed. he basic idea is that positively evaluated positions bear the seed of its exaggeration or derailment in themselves. Virtually every positively evaluated I-position has an implied shadow side that can, if not limited by counter-positions, turn into its negative “overdrive.” Being critical can change into being destructive, self-love into narcissism14, self-esteem into grandiosity, caring into cuddling-todeath, optimistic into unrealistic, pessimistic into doom thinking, adventurous 14

In their study of the development of narcissism, Brummelman and colleagues (2015) referred to the general observation that narcissistic individuals feel superior to others, have imaginations about personal successes, and believe they deserve special treatment. In contrast, when they feel

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into reckless, self-relection into self-absorption, and so on. he commonality in these examples is that relationships with the social environment, generally considered as acceptable and adaptive, have the inherent tendency to turn into unacceptable and maladaptive forms of positioning in their exaggeration. For responding to shadow positions, the distinction between comfort, challenge, and danger zones in the self (chapter  6) is useful. When we ind ourselves in our comfort zone, we feel safe and relaxed and want to stay there until we become bored and desire change. his may motivate us to move from the comfort to the challenge zone. However, when external threats are strong and pervasive, they bring us, even if we do not want it, into the danger zone of the self where we feel uncomfortable and even unsafe. hese zones are not purely “outside” and not only in the external domain of the self but also in the internal domain. Confrontation with one’s own strongly negative emotions or passions (e.g., inferiority, greed, jealousy, hate, revenge) entails the threat of being placed in the danger zone. he spontaneous reaction may be to move to the comfort zone by denying this threat or projecting it to the outside so that negative selfevaluations are reduced or avoided. he unfamiliar and strange evoke strong emotions such as fear, aggression, hate, aversion, and expulsion. A  practical implication is to learn the skills to actively confront one’s undesired emotions and passions and respond to them by moving to the challenge zone rather than moving and staying into the artiicial safety of the comfort zone. If this happens there is a chance that the shadows are lited up to the light of awareness and become changed as part a productive dialogue.15 In chapter 3, the concept of emotional distance was applied to shadow positions, with large distances emerging between positions that are associated with shame or guilt and cherished positions, like “I as respecting myself ” or “I as an honorable person.” he later highly valued positions keep their boundaries tightly closed toward despised positions and refuse any dialogue with them. As many psychoanalysts have argued, such shadows, if not recognized and accepted

humiliated, they oten react aggressively or even violently. Interested in the origins of narcissism, they studied a group of children (ages 7–12) and found that narcissism in children is stimulated by parental overvaluation: parents considering their child as more special and more entitled than others. When the investigators made a distinction between narcissism and self-esteem, they found that high self-esteem in children is cultivated not by parental overvaluation but by parental warmth: parents expressing afection and appreciation toward their child. From an educational point of view, they suggested that parent-training interventions are helpful to curtailing narcissistic development and reducing its costs for society. he notion of parental overvaluation corresponds with our concept of over-positioning (chapter 5), with narcissism as an obstacle for the development of a dialogical self (chapter 7). 15

For an illustrative example of including a shadow in a dialogical process, see the example of the witch in chapter 6.

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as part of the self, may become unrelexively and uncritically projected onto others with the efect that the boundaries with these others become closed, leading to sharp ingroup versus outgroup separations. Taking into account the workings of society in the self (chapter 1), this process goes also the other way around: a society built on separating walls between social or cultural groups, in turn, conirms large emotional distances toward the rejected other in the form of groupthink and shared prejudices.16

Shadows of Freedom and Equality What about central democratic values, like liberty and equality? Do they also have their shadow sides, or are they hovering above such “primitive tendencies”? his question leads us once again to the phenomenon of over-positioning. If democratic values are conceived of as individual positionings on the personal level of inclusiveness (“I as free,” “I as equal”) or as collective positionings on the social level (“we as free,” “we as equal”), with the simultaneous neglect of the human level, then both values have the potential of over-positioning. When one position is, on personal, historical, or cultural grounds, inlated and dominating the other positions in a structural way, it is involved in a process of over-positioning. With this in mind, I  referred in chapter  5 to the phenomenon of overpositioning on the societal level by comparing the Soviet communist system, which found itself in a situation of over-positioning equality by placing the other (the community) above the self (the individual), and the capitalist society in its neo-liberal manifestation that, in its strong emphasis on individual freedom, places the self above the other. As examples of communist over-positioning, I dwelled on its housing policy with its restrictions on personal space and private initiative and with its totalitarian policy that had the efect of transforming critical positions into anti-positions in the case of the so-called “dissidents.” In the same chapter I discussed several phenomena as expressions of an overpositioning economy in Western countries: the “empty self ” resulting from the combination of individualism and consumerism ater World War II, the shadow side of the American dream, the excesses of hyperconsumption in an aluent

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Shadows exist not only on the level of the self but also on the level of society. For instance, the US government suppressed cultural minorities (e.g., Native Americans and African Americans) and invaded other nations in the absence of provocations (e.g., Iraq). he Germans have their historical shadow in the Holocaust, and the Dutch have their dark past in war crimes in Indonesia in the period from 1947 to 1949. Typically, such shadows are covered by masking positions (e.g., “freedom” by the Americans, “purity of race” by the Nazis, and “police actions” by the Dutch; for the concept of “masking position” see chapter 7).

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society, and the psychological implications of marketization in modern societies. Such developments suggest that both freedom and equality, if exaggerated, have shadows that may cause, if structurally established, an imbalance that is problematic on the levels of both self and society.17 It follows from the previous discussion that the democratic values of liberty and equality, translated as Ipositions in the self, ind themselves in a highly dynamic ield of mutual tension in which the individual has the space of moving from one position (“I as free in relation to X”) to the other (“I as equal in relation to X”) in lexible ways. When in this book the self is conceived of as a dynamic multiplicity and diversity of I-positions moving in personal, social, and societal spaces, then the positions of freedom and equality are, in their dynamic equilibrium, the quintessence of a democratic organization of the self. With “dynamic equilibrium” I do not mean a static balance but the willingness and capacity of moving from one position to the other and back in contingency with the demands of the situation at hand. hese movements take place in ields of tension between self and other at diferent levels as depicted in Figure 8.1. Above all, social power is susceptible to over-positioning, as expressed in the truism “power corrupts.” his consideration is especially signiicant to an agonistic conception of democracy as presented by Moufe (2000). As discussed in the beginning of this chapter, she proposes that a model of democracy in terms of “agonistic pluralism” is most suitable to envisage the main challenge facing democratic politics today. She argues that democratic forms of identiication are in need of recognizing passions and emotions in a context of social power. Given its deep impact on democratic relationships, social power is in need of a 17

As the examples of neo-liberalism and Soviet communism demonstrate, freedom and equality are subjected to the threats of their own over-positioning. However, the same values may also be threatened by over-positioning in another domain of life, particularly in the ield of technology. In his book Homo Deus, Harari (2014; for review see Runciman, 2016)  suggests that the project of modernity was founded on the assumption that individuals, as free and autonomous beings, are supposed to be in control of what happens to them. However, in our time of big data, this is no longer self-evident. Powerful data-processing machines and intelligent algorithms know beter and quicker than we ourselves what our wishes are, Harari continues. In place of the fundamental tenets of modernity—liberalism, equality, and personal autonomy—there is a new religion, Dataism, that has many followers, particularly in the Bay Area of California, who put their faith in information as the only true source of value. However, there is a dystopian aspect to this utopian technological view: the adopters of the Dataist project will be the only ones with any real power. It will be extremely hard to gain entry into this new super-elite of beings, whose personal identities are permanently connected with super-intelligent machines and vast networks. A small, priestly caste of seers has access to the ultimate source of knowledge with the rest of humanity being separated from them as members of a lower caste. Although the future of these technologies is unknowable (as Harari agrees), we have here a clear case of “technological over-positioning.” See also mathematician Cathy O’Neil’s (2016) book Weapons of Math Destruction, in which she demonstrates how big data increases inequality and threatens democracy.

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counterforce to make it work without arriving at structural forms of over-positioning. herefore, I proposed that in the ields of tension between self and other (Figure 8.1), lexible movements are needed between social power and dialogue in order to keep the dynamic equilibrium going. When Moufe (2000) argues that the aim of democratic politics is to construct the “them” no longer as an enemy to be destroyed but as an “adversary,” then a ield of tension is created in the self in which individuals and groups are invited to enter their challenge zone, which stimulates them to move from a situation of social power to generative dialogue. his lexibility is a learning device that is needed for the practice of democracy not only in politics but also in everyday life. Social power is not only constitutive of society but also of the self. Remember Callero’s (2003) statement that the self “is a fundamentally social phenomenon, where concepts, images, and understandings are deeply determined by relations of power. When these principles are ignored or rejected, the self is oten conceptualized as a vessel for storing all the particulars of a person” (p.  127). In chapter 2, I presented a model that depicts communication channels between positions (Figure 2.4) permiting changes in power distance and emotional distance dependent on circumstances. In chapter 3, the terms “lexible democracy” and “lexible democratic leadership” were introduced in order to allow movements on the power dimension as they are required in a rapidly changing and crisis-laden globalizing society. At the same time, individuals and groups vary on the dimension of emotional distance. Whereas a democratic self requires movements in power distance in order to give an efective answer to crisis situations that do not allow time for dialogue, movements along the dimension of emotional distance are needed to come closer to the other and to oneself in situations in which space for generative dialogue is needed.

he Shadows of Utopian Visions and the Destructive Potential of End-Positions Democracy functions as a ield of tension between freedom and equality, each with their characteristic risks of over-positioning. Even though “perfect freedom” or “perfect equality” can never be reached, democracy is always like traveling on a thorny path with abysses on both sides and, therefore, requires an alert mind to be continuously involved in an ongoing learning process. In contrast to this view, authorities or authoritarians have, over the course of history, presented utopian visions that have advocated, or forced, people to go for a “inal purpose” as the end position that would liberate them from all suferings, miseries, and failures. Christianity has done so by promising the existence of a heaven in the aterlife, communism by opening the vista of an empire of freedom, Nazism by the iction of a community of pure race, and neo-liberal capitalism by the

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ultimate blessings of a free market paradise. Along these lines, many people have come to believe in “pure race,” “pure religion,” “pure culture,” “pure nation,” and even “pure market.” hese utopian visions were or are for many atractive and seductive enough to foster hope for an inal future as an idealized dream that has thwarted the recognition of being involved in a ceaseless process of positioning, counter-positioning, and repositioning. In order to make a democratic society work, an awareness is needed of being immersed in a permanent learning process, in which every new and successful stage creates new and speciic problems to be resolved in consonant and dissonant dialogical encounters. Given the permanent risk of over-positioning, an essential part of this learning process is the insight that any sharp good–bad dichotomy is unproductive in a democratic society and that the “bad” is in the seed of the “good.” he problem of “puriication” is that it introduces absolutes in the realm of relative values. When individuals or communities think in absolutes--in the form of inal truths, ideals, or utopias--they isolate a particular position from its necessary connection with counter-positions that are needed to relativize them and keep them within the limits of “reasonable” boundaries. he democratic process gets stuck as the inal and absolute position does not allow any uncertainty, criticism, or counterforce. herefore, history shows that the adherents of utopian religious, political, or ideological visions, based as they are on idealized end positions, are involved in a permanent struggle or war with the defenders of other visions because the competing view is considered as a threat that undermines their absolute truth regimes. Because they are not able and willing to acknowledge the rightful existence of the other ideology, religion, or culture, as an alternative position, worthy of discussion, criticism, and investigation, believers in absolutes cannot tolerate the basic democratic value of human equality. hey are also not able or willing to celebrate the value of freedom, on the assumption that freedom, as a cornerstone of a cosmopolitan democracy, is a value for all individuals and all groups. One of the advantages of considering democratic values as ways of positioning of people in relation to each other is that positions are always considered in the context of other positions. Referring to the distinction between shadow and shining positions in chapter 6, one can take into account that what appears, in the light of any utopian vision, to be a shining position gleaming at the horizon of history is intrinsically linked to the existence of a visible or invisible shadow position. In this respect, it is instructive to learn from history. One of the most dramatic historical examples of the confusion of shining and shadow positions is the holocaust. In his book Fascism & Democracy in the Human Mind, Charny (2006), who spent most of his professional life studying incidents of genocide, was interested in the way Nazi doctors perceived their work. he perplexing truth is that they considered their acts more in the nature of healing than

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killing because they saw it as serving the greater “good” of society rather than as a ruthless removal of one’s enemies. Writing about the Holocaust perpetrators in a more general way, Charny depicts the astonishing lack of awareness of the criminal nature of their acts during the Nuremberg trials. He quotes the historian George Krens who observed: here is something very strange and odd in the fact that almost all of the perpetrators of what arguably is the most radical horror of this century, while awaiting execution, argued, with obvious sincerity, that they had done no wrong. A recurrent theme found in all the trial records of individuals who had participated in mass killing is the indignant surprise they express that anyone should blame them for their actions, since they were only doing their duty. (Krens, 1987, cited by Charny, 2006, p. 39) he link between shadow and shining position comes clearly to the fore when Krens (1987) refers to the ideals of the perpetrators and even their perception of racial “beauty” and “purety”: he commitment to ideals and the ability for transcendence, rather than simple selishness, are made to account for most of the horrors of human history. he Nazi image of racial beauty and purity is at the root of the Holocaust. It is diicult to accept the proposition that much of human destructiveness has its roots in utopian visions, in the desire to transform the world as it is into a beter, purer or even more beautiful world. (Krens, 1987, cited by Charny, 2006, p. 39) As Charny describes, the readiness to destroy nonbelievers more oten derives from the totalizing pretension of political or religious ideas that seduce and impel devotees to adopt policies that function to protect their ultimate truth and absolute certainties. Indeed, the utopian ideal shines at the outside but has its threatening shadow in the inside.18

18 A shadow position is not something that exists in itself. Someone or something is deined and positioned as a shadow from the perspective of another, more cherished position. What is a shadow for one individual or group is a shining position for another. A practical implication of this assumption is that for educational purposes it would be benevolent to become aware of the relativity of any shadow position as deined and experienced as contrasting or conlicting with one’s own shining position. Shining and shadow imply each other like light and darkness in nature.

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Including Shadows in Dialogue: Moving Up and Down on the Dialogical Ladder A quote atributed to George Orwell says: “Freedom is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” If that is right, what are the limits of what people are allowed to tell to each other? I would suppose that tolerance is challenged, particularly in an agonistic democracy, when individuals or groups who consider themselves to be tolerant toward others with diferent political or ideological ideas may discover that they are intolerant toward intolerant others (e.g., we may be intolerant toward particular political or religious groups that express intolerance toward our own political or religious views). In a similar way, adherents of “freedom of speech” may consider individuals or groups, who deny this freedom, as unacceptable “shadows,” who, therefore, do not deserve the freedom of speech that they claim for themselves. If the response to individuals or groups preaching intolerance or denial of freedom would be to forbid them to express themselves in societal discourses (e.g., media, parliament, regional or international deliberations), then their opportunity to become involved in dialogical interchanges would be seriously limited or even made impossible. he risk would be that the shadows go even deeper underground and spread their mission along alternative channels, uncontrolled and unchecked by open criticism and discussion. herefore, drawing on the agonistic recognition and tolerance of social power in societal discourses, I propose that any individual or group who is positioned as a shadow, even those who advocate prejudice, racism, or hatred, are invited to participate in a dialogical interchange such that all parties have an opportunity to express their concerns and stories, including the background of their positions. Given the role of emotions and power in an agonistic view of democracy, that would be a dissonant form of dialogue in combination or alternation with consonant dialogues.19 If the dialogue does not result in the construction of new meanings and decisions acceptable to all parties involved, the process can be continued by going

19 Take the example of family members meeting each other at hanksgiving just ater the presidential elections in 2016, with the daughter voting for Clinton and the father for Trump. As they know this about each other, there is not only a strong ield of tension between them but also within their selves. he daughter feels a litle emotional distance toward her father as a loving daughter but a large and maybe unbearable distance to him as a Trump voter. In the father there may be a similar ield of tension. hey may become involved in a dissonant form of dialogue with a risk that they cannot reconcile their conlict and are not able to deal with their strong negative emotions. In such a situation it may be helpful to look for common positions (e.g., as family members, as having similar experiences in the past, including other areas than politics). Such positions may provide a common ground, helpful to coping with the diferences and conlicts that are part of a dissonant dialogue. Dealing with a conlict may proit from the alternation of consonant and dissonant dialogues.

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down the dialogical ladder (Table 7.1): from generative dialogue, to negotiation, to debate, to persuasion, and even, in cases of violence, to command, prohibition, or obligation (e.g., by governmental regulations and national or international laws). his implies that the ladder model is applied in a lexible way. It includes the possibility that, depending on circumstances and urgencies, not dialogue but command is the irst step, followed by “higher” steps on the ladder at some later point in time. his proposal is in agreement with what is presented as “lexible democracy” in chapter 3, where I discussed the terms “lexible democracy” and “lexible democratic leadership” in order to include movements on the power dimension required in a rapidly changing and crisis-laden globalizing society. As a variation on Orwell’s quote, it could be said that inner freedom is the right to tell oneself what ones does not want to hear. One may enter into a dissonant dialogue with oneself in a situation of inner conlict (e.g., how to deal with one’s addiction as an inner shadow position). If such a dialogue would not work, the self may go down the ladder of communication: from generative dialogue, to negotiation with oneself, to inner debate, to persuading oneself to change one’s behavior, and even, in the cases of self-destruction, to command (e.g., forcing oneself to stop this behavior or to look for professional help). Depending on changing circumstances, one may move up, the other way around, to higher levels of the communication ladder (e.g., to plan one’s future again in a productive inner dialogue). Moreover, like external conlicts, inner conlicts may proit from the alternation of dissonant and consonant dialogues with oneself and others.

he Contribution of Positive Inequality Although it may look strange at irst sight, inequality is not without value for a democracy. From a dynamic point of view, a period of initial inequality in the development of society and self may contribute signiicantly to equality in the development of a democratic society later on. In his book he Great Escape: Health, Wealth, and the Origins of Inequality, Deaton (2013) argues that knowledge, as the centerpiece of education, is humanity’s most important engine of improvement. Based on empirical data, he concludes that rising education, even more than high income, is the most powerful cause of the recent longevity boom in most poor countries.20 He also explains that new pieces of knowledge are not equally spread over the population but are “diferentially” taken up. New technological and medical advances are initially available to the happy

20

An elaborate application of dialogical self theory to the ield of education, with atention to practical implications, is presented by Meijers and Hermans (2018).

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few before going down the market. A small group is proiting in the irst phase, but the knowledge is extended over the larger population later on. his creates a temporary inequality that, however, in a later stage is beneicial to larger parts of the community. A positive inequality, if followed by a phase of a broader spread of knowledge, can certainly be part of the growth toward a democratic society. he challenging question may be posed whether there exists a positive inequality within the self also. Certainly, a new I-position in the self may initially dominate the organization of the system as a whole. A  person starting a new study may invest all his or her efort in this new challenge, a person falling in love may give high priority to the contact with the loved one, and the person preparing a book may give full concentration to the project with the exclusion of competing interests. In these examples, there is a dominating new I-position involved that will, in some later phase, change or inluence other positions in the self-system. his brings us to the heart of the promoter position. If a new study, a new loved one, or a new project becomes central in the self-system initially, and is important enough to receive the status of a promoter, then this new position starts to contribute to the development of other positions as well and is even able to create new positions (e.g., developing inspiring relationships with new teachers and friends in the case of starting a study; becoming a traveler around the world ater falling in love with a like-minded friend; or, ater publication of a book, meeting readers who broaden and enrich one’s further explorations). A promoter position that assumes social power in the self-system in the initial stage may contribute signiicantly to the development of other positions in some later stage. hus positive inequality may contribute to the development of a democratically organized self in which social power is acknowledged as belonging to the “society of mind.”

Health in a Democratic Self and Its Practical Implications What is “health” conceived of as a deining property of a democratically organized self? In a most comprehensive way, health refers to the capacity of the self to give adaptive responses to the ways in which one is positioned by the physical, emotional, social, and societal opportunities and constraints, provided by the context in which one lives. What then is a healthy organization of the democratic self? Phrased in this way, the question needs a deinition of health that takes into account that the self as a society of mind functions, at the same time, as an intrinsic part of the society at large. Such a deinition goes beyond a formulation of health as a purely individual or personal state of mind, separated from its societal context.

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he essence of a healthy democratic organization in the self is in the development of a capacity of inding one’s way in ields of tension—between self and other positions and between individual, group, and human positions—via processes of positioning, counter-positioning, and repositioning as answers to the challenges of life (individual, social, and global). As presented in this chapter, there are three basic ields in which the self is positioned and in which it can counter-position and reposition itself as part of a globalizing and localizing society: (a) between self and other, with the other understood both as the actual other and as the imagined other-in-the-self; (b) between diferent levels of inclusiveness: the self as an individual person, as part of a (local) group, and as part of the (global) society; and (c) between social power and generative deliberation and dialogue both in the self and in a macro-society that is in need of a cosmopolitan democracy. For a democratic self it is of crucial importance that it does not derail, in a structural way, to any of the polarities contained in the different ields. he self is democratically healthy if it can tolerate the tension, can move hence and forth, and can respond with adaptive and creative solutions to the problems to which it is exposed. As already said in the introduction of this book, democracy is not a “trait” but a learning process, which is never inalized because there are always new power structures and new challenges to be faced on the thorny path to the democratic ideal. From a practical point of view, a multitude of learning devices could be formulated. In the present chapter, I have limited myself to three, which I ind particularly relevant to democracy as a learning process: (a) in a time in which the original thesis “reason above emotion” is becoming increasingly obsolete or at least controversial, a democratically organized self is in need of a dialogue between reason and emotion as basic positions in the self (chapter 4); teaching and learning dialogical skills are indispensable qualities for people wanting to participate in deliberative communities as the living basis of democracy; (b) in a society that is increasingly unpredictable and loaded with uncertainties and ambiguities, tolerance of uncertainty is a capacity needed to prevent prematurely formulated opinions or conclusions; any opinion is primarily an input in a process of formation rather than a ixation in a predialogical point of view; and (c) the self can only function in democratic ways if shadow positions, rather than being suppressed or avoided, are recognized as intrinsic aspects of human nature and receive a voice from which they can speak from their own speciic point of view. As I-positions entail the risk of over-positioning, the “good guy” and the “bad guy” are not mutually excluding opposites but rather the bad guy lives its hidden life in the seed of the good guy (and reversed). Acknowledgment of shadows, both in the self and in the macro-society, require the courage of moving into the challenge zone of the self rather than retreating to the certainties of positive self-evaluations as safe heavens in one’s comfort zone.

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A democratically organized self requires lexibility of mind, enabling movements in ields of tension, meta-positions that allow long-term and broad-picture views, and promoter positions that give direction and developmental impetus to the self-system as a whole. My message in this book is an expression of trust in the self-governing potentials of the self and in readers who not only relect on the democracy in their own selves but also make it true. If more people are willing to explore and develop democracy in their own selves, an essential avenue is created for developing a more democratic society.

Summary In this chapter I  placed the dialogical self in the broader context of cosmopolitan, deliberative, and agonistic democracy as relevant developments in a boundary-crossing world and addressed the question of what this means for the organization of a democratic self. Building on the previous chapters, a model was presented with three ields of tension: between the self and the other as an extension of the self, between three levels of inclusiveness (individual, social, and human), and between dialogue and social power. Elaborating on this model three implications and their practical signiicance were discussed:  creating a dialogical relationship between reason and emotion, stimulating tolerance of uncertainty, and giving space to shadow positions as inluential voices in the self. he question was posed whether reason as a basic human capacity, celebrated since Plato, is “strong” enough to provide an efective response to the force of our emotions. his question is crucial to a conception of democracy, particularly the agonistic one, that focuses on power and passion as essential components. Within the limits of the present theoretical framework, two possible answers with the potential of supporting reason in dealing with emotional associations were given: introducing promoter-positions associated with counter-emotions and activating meta-positions that have the potential of transforming short-term emotions into long-term feelings. Five reactions to the experience of uncertainty were outlined:  (a) diminishing the number and heterogeneity of positions in the repertoire, (b) giving the lead to one powerful position that is allowed to dominate the self-system as a whole, (c) sharpening the boundaries between oneself and the other and between ingroup and outgroup, and (d) increasing instead of diminishing the number of positions in the self. he ith response, advocated in the context of a democratically organized self, is a dialogical one: going into uncertainty rather than avoiding it. Dialogue with other individuals and with oneself broadens a range of possibilities that are not ixed and not predictable at the beginning of the interchange but remain lexible and susceptible to new input during the

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process itself. Such a proposal its with the observation that the quintessence of deliberative democracy is not in the exchange of ixed opinions or preferences but in the process of their formation. One of the greatest challenges for a democratically organized self is the response to shadow experiences as unrecognized, rejected, suppressed, or denied I-positions in the self. Atention was given to the process of over-positioning, which transforms positions into their own shadows and to the large emotional distance between shadows and accepted positions. hree domains in the self were distinguished: comfort, danger, and challenge zones. Instead of responding to shadows by retreating from a danger to the comfort zone, the possibility of responding to them from the challenge zone was considered to be an adequate response in uncertain situations. Finally, taking into account that democracy and a democratic self is to be conceived as a permanent learning process, the question was addressed what is the implication of a democratic view on the self for health. I proposed a deinition of health that, instead of focusing on individual functioning, considers health of the self as a learning process in a democratic society.

Acknowledgments he section “Model of a Democratically Organized Self ” is an abbreviated version of Hermans, Konopka, Oosterwegel, and Zomer (2017). Parts of the section “Uncertainty and Democracy in the Self ” were published by Hermans and Konopka (2010) and Hermans (2012) and have been placed here in the context of democracy.

G L O S S A RY

Main Concepts in Positioning Theory Anti-position A position that places itself against another position as an act of opposition or protest Anti-promoter A position that functions as an obstacle to the development of a self, team, or organization as a whole Atmosphere he afective “climate” of the ield in which positions are located Boundaries Borders (open, closed, rigid, lexible) that link and separate positions Centering processes Centripetal movements that lead to order and structure in the position repertoire Challenge zone Space in the self where new positions emerge or existing positions are renewed and that is associated with feelings of uncertainty Coalition of positions Positions that cooperate and strengthen each other in achieving a particular goal Comfort zone Space in the self, where one feels conident and at ease and which is associated with a sense of certainty and predictability Conscious position Position of which one is aware and from which one is able to relect on self and situation Core position Central position on which the functioning of many other positions depends Counter-position A position that responds to another position from which it is spatially diferentiated Danger zone Space in the self that is loaded with anxiety and other negative emotions and that one typically wants to avoid Decentering processes Centrifugal movements that disorganize the existing order in the position repertoire and create space for its innovation Dialogical space In-between space where participants involved in generative dialogue sense the emergence of new and common meanings Dialogue Sign-mediated interchange between localized positions Emotional distance he extent to which one position feels afectively remote or alienated from another position Emotional position Position that is experienced as a physiological and psychological arousal evoked by a change in self or situation External position Position in the external domain in the self: the “other-in-the-self ” (e.g., the voice of a parent, teacher, or group) Feeling position Long-term and cross-situational accumulation of emotional positions

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Generative dialogue A dialogical relationship that leads to the emergence of new and common meanings Internal position Position in the internal domain of the self (e.g., “I as a dedicated professional” or “I as ighter who never gives up”) I-position A position in which one places oneself towards other positions in the self or towards the positions of other people in the world Masking position A position that functions as a façade for covering unacceptable (shadow) positions Meta-position A superordinate position that allows a helicopter view of other positions and their paterning and ofers a long-term and cross-situational perspective Nonconscious position Position that works below the level of conscious awareness Outside position Persons, groups, or institutions in the outside world (located beyond the internal and external domain of the self) Over-positioning Exaggerating a position to a degree that the balance in the self is lost due to the lack of efective counter-positions Power distance he extent to which one position is able to dominate other positions and to control them with rewards or punishments Promoter position A position that organizes and gives direction to the development of other positions in the repertoire and is able to generate new ones Reasoning position Position from which one argues, analyzes, considers, compares pros and cons, and draws conclusions Shadow position A disowned position that is rejected as unacceptable Shining position A position that radiates a positive and inspiring energy to other positions hird position A position that combines and reconciles two diferent, opposite or conlicting positions Under-positioning A position that lacks the energy to play a constructive role in the microsociety of the self We-position Collective I-position

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INDEX

Page numbers followed by f indicate igures; page numbers followed by t indicate tables Abdollah, Kader, 95 acceptance. See also under Richard; self-acceptance shadows and, 89, 94, 256–57, 271, 387, 397 accepting atmosphere, 364, 377, 379. See also acceptance; atmosphere accepting position, 70, 71 accessibility of positions and their layered organization, 74, 89–91 teams and, 110 accountability of rulers, strategies for maintaining the, 36n10 acculturation, 62 addiction, 86 Adorno, T. W., 139n, 374 adversary. See also enemy image from enemy to, 365–66 afect. See also emotion; feelings implicit, 159 afective democracy, 292, 297 happiness and, 267–68 afective diferentiation, 263–64 afective meta-position, life satisfaction as an, 261 African American stereotypes, 176n African cultures, 87 agents, 8 agonistic democracy and dissonant dialogue, 363–65 giving space to social power and passions, 361–63 agonistic pluralism, 363, 365, 366, 388 agreement, 308, 344–45 Albarracin, D., 79n Ali, Muhammad, 369 alienation, 227n All Lives Mater, 358n

Altbach, P. G., 39 Altemeyer, Bob, 375n ambiguity. See also identity confusion as a challenge to self and society, 201 dealing with, 60–65 deined, 373 seeing black and white faces, 173–75 uncertainty and, 201, 373 ambivalent experiences, 259 American dream, shadow side of the, 226–28, 253 American Home Products, 127 Amnesty International, 360 amygdala, 162, 165, 166f, 174, 336, 372n and seeing black and white faces, 173–75 anima and animus, 33 anti-position(s), 241, 242, 250n, 278, 358n collective, in Soviet Union, 212 vs. counter-positions, 213, 216, 313 deined, 212, 213 dissidents and, 13, 213, 253 and homogenization vs. heterogenization of the self, 255 movements, organizations, and, 232 obedience and, 313 transformation of critical positions into antipositions in totalitarian society, 213–14, 253, 387 anti-promoter(s), 77n, 86 promoters and, 86, 86n26 United Nations (UN) as promoter vs., 130–34 antisocial behavior, 86. See also psychopathy; sociopaths antisocial I-position, 86n25 anxiety, 227n. See also ight-or-light response optimal level zone of, 291–92. See also challenge zone

417

418

Index

anxiety (cont.) and performance, 290–92 appraisal. See also dialogue-inhibiting factors emotions and, 162 nature of, 162 appraisal theories, 162–64 Arabs, 271, 273 Aristippus, 258 Aristotle, 148 Aron, A., 59, 150 Aronson, E., 239 art, religious, 286 associations. See implicit associations and racial biases; Implicit Association Test assumptions, holding to and defending, 312 atmosphere, 7, 96, 227n, 290, 308. See also trust: atmosphere of accepting, 364, 377, 379. See also acceptance creating a safe, 123, 125 democratic, 111, 114–16, 133, 138 dialogical space and its, 326–27 in groups, 115–16 humorous, 52n, 54 of openness, 125, 326 radiation of an I-position and the concept of, 52–53 of trust, 7, 324, 326, 344 atachment theorists, 18 atention. See also difuse (forms of) atention and ability to delay gratiication, 251 evenly suspended, 183 two kinds of, 182 atentional ampliication, role of language in, 180–81 atentional system, 146 atribution bias, egocentricity as, 2, 233n auditory imagery, 180–81 authoritarianism, democracy, and democratic self, 375 authoritarian leadership, 75, 134, 139n, 375n vs. democratic leadership, 85, 119, 122 authoritarian personality, 139n low tolerance of uncertainty and, 374–76 political conservatism and, 375 authoritarian regimes. See also Soviet Union; totalitarian societies vs. open societies, 213, 273n Authoritarians, he (Altemeyer), 375n autonomous self, 244. See also speciic topics autonomous subsystems, 217, 219, 245–47 autonomy, 87, 136, 139, 333, 356, 388n. See also individualism; individualized autonomy; self-government and democracy, 34 of I-positions, 56n, 217, 236, 245, 384–85 nature of, 200n neo-liberalism and, 220

and the new interdependence of a risk society, 215 psychological climate and, 135n relatedness and, 157, 245 relational forms of, 100, 200, 200n relative, 219, 223, 236 Avruch, K., 340 awareness (quality of leaders), 121 Baddeley, A., 56n Bahl, S., 84n24, 238 Bakhtin, Mikhail M., 9, 310 on child development, 315–16 David Bohm and, 314–16, 350, 351 on dialogue, 310–12, 314–16, 350 Holquist and, 310–11, 315 language and, 78, 315 on learning, 315, 316 notion of the other as “another,” 148, 188, 245–46 overview, 310 on relationship between “I” and “we,” 78 Bakhtinian view of dialogue, 316, 333, 334, 344 Baldwin, M. W., 58 Baltes, P. B., 316n banality of evil, 26n Barret, L. F., 192, 193 Bartels, J. M., 26n Beck, Ulrich, 215 beginner’s mind deined, 347n vs. stereotyping, 347n benefectance, deined, 2 Berglund, C., 382–84 Bhatia, S., 61–62 Bhowmik, D. K., 294, 365 biases. See atribution bias; cognitive biases; prejudice; racial biases big data, 388n Big Five personality traits, 260n biracial identities, 63–64 Biswas-Diener, R., 265–67, 278 Black, P. W., 340 black and white faces, amygdala seeing, 173–75 Black Like Me (Griin), 188n, 369–70n Black Lives Mater (BLM), 358n black–white dichotomy, 64, 370n. See also racial boundaries blindsight, 178 body illusions, 186–89 body-ownership illusion, 188 body’s capacity to open rigid self–other boundaries, 193 Bohm, David cement metaphor, 332 on dialogue, 312–16, 322, 333, 350 learning and, 313, 315, 316, 332, 333, 350

Index Mikhail Bakhtin and, 314–16, 350, 351 overview, 312 on thought as content vs. process, 314, 354n Bohm: On Dialogue, 312 Boin, R. Arjen, 118n9 boomerang efect, 379 borderline personality disorder, 224n boundaries, 51, 379. See also group boundaries of collective comfort zones, 293 concept of, 95 between danger zone and comfort zone, 257, 341 functions, 99–100 of an I-prision, self locked up in the, 257 permeability of work and family role boundaries, 260 of personal space, 96 of positions, 60n, 63, 95–99, 110, 189, 262n power distance, emotional distance, and, 198–200 of self, 173, 176, 266. See also self–other boundaries opening, 378, 380 between self and non-self, 3, 17, 64. See also self–other boundaries types of, 96–99 between zones of the self, 289, 290, 371 boundary seting with children, 206, 320 boundary spanning deined, 108 functions, 108–9 teams and, 108–10 boundary-transcending world, 288n bounded self, 3, 17, 200n Bradburn, N. M., 258, 259 brain, diagrams of, 149f, 166f brain laterality. See let and right hemispheres of brain brain regions. See hubs; speciic regions Branco, A. L., 329–30 Branco, A. U., 329–30 bridging theory, 9 toward a, 9–10 Brinthaupt, T. M., 302, 304 broaden-and-build theory, 74n Brown, J., 364, 373, 377 Brown, S. P., 115n Buber, Martin, 148, 224, 359 Buchholz, R. A., 34n Buresh, B., 21–22 Burgoon, J. K., 95–96, 289 Burke, C. S., 107–10, 120n bystand (action in dialogue), 128, 129 Caine, G., 192 Caine, R. U., 192 Callero, Peter, 103, 105, 389

419

Callinicos, Alex, 246n Cameron, J. E., 360, 372n cancer treatment, integrative, 28 Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (Schumpeter), 361 Capitalist Realism (Fisher), 234–35 Carlson, S. M., 153–54 Cassirer, E., 309 Caughey, J. L., 77, 305 centering (centripetal) and decentering (centrifugal) movements in the self, 327n, 330–32, 335, 351. See also centralizing; decentralizing egocentricity as a centering process, 233n mutual complementing nature of, 331, 332, 345, 351 centralized, Western self as, 3 centralized worldview, 102 centralizing (function of meta-position), 74, 75 centralizing movements, 99, 103–4. See also centering (centripetal) and decentering (centrifugal) movements in the self centralizing potentials of the self, 75, 81 cerebellum, 166f CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research), 118n8 certainty(ies). See also uncertainty pre- vs. post-dialogical, 377–78 suspending, 128, 129 challenge zone, 288, 292, 395, 397. See also zones in the self-space broadening the, 288n, 341 comfort zone and, 257, 288–90, 293, 294, 341, 345, 386, 395, 397 danger zone and, 257, 345 disagreement and, 344–45 empty, 289 entering, 7, 257, 288, 290, 293, 294, 331, 341, 345, 386, 389, 395 I-positions and, 291t, 323t, 344–45, 395 overview and nature of, 257, 289, 291, 291t receding from, 289, 293, 294 shadow positions and, 395, 397 uncertainty and, 324, 397 Charlie Hebdo shooting, 81n child development, Mikhail Bakhtin on, 315–16 children boundary seting with, 206, 320 emotional distance between parents and, 209, 392n inhibitory control in, 153–55 internal positions in, 295 self-esteem in, 386n China, 39, 87, 211n Chomsky, Noam, 203 Churchill, Winston, 119, 255, 321–22

420

Index

citizen position. See consumer position and citizen position Clore, G. L., 89n closed boundaries, 136, 181, 240, 324, 353. See also open boundaries excessively closed boundaries becoming rigid, 97 between good and bad, 374. See also good and bad between member states, 133 to the opposite group, 273. See also ingroup–outgroup boundaries to outgroups, 60, 113, 273. See also ingroup–outgroup boundaries of positions, 188, 206–7, 349. See also boundaries: of positions between races, 60n, 188 of the self, 136 shadow positions, emotional distance, and, 386–87 between social classes, 3 spongy boundaries and, 97 closed vs. open societies, 213, 273n closing boundaries categorization, dichotomies, and, 344 negative emotions and, 340 of positions, 199, 206–7, 344, 345 of self, 266, 289 cluter, 225–26 coalition(s) of the positions, 70, 71, 75, 90, 202, 236, 248, 377, 384 coalition between extremist religious and political positions, 102 coalition between reason and emotion, 167n16, 337–38 communication channels and, 195–96 and creative decision-making, 377 “dictatorship” in the self as a maladaptive, 65–69 examples of, 67–68, 71, 90, 222 including a shadow in a new coalition, 283–85, 297 maladaptive, 67–68 nature of, 67 and the perfectionist, 68, 70, 71, 284, 285 coercive power/punishment, 86–87 cognition. See also reasoning implicit, 159 primary vs. secondary, 72n terminology, 195n “cognition controls emotion,” 158, 335–36. See also emotion and cognition; reason and emotion cognitive appraisals. See appraisal; dialogueinhibiting factors cognitive biases, 2, 346. See also atribution bias cognitive conservatism, 2

cognitive dissonance, 307. See also third positions tolerance of, 342–43 cognitive empathy, 155–56 cognitive reappraisal, 162. See also reappraisal coherence and dialogue, 312 collective unconscious, 273 collectivism. See also Soviet Union: housing policy in vs. individualism, 88n28 collectivist societies, 213–14, 262. See also Soviet Union comfort zone, 111. See also zones in the self-space certainty and, 395 challenge zone and, 257, 288–90, 293, 294, 341, 345, 386, 395, 397 courage to step out of, 48 danger zone and, 257, 288–90, 341, 386, 395, 397 entering, 257, 293, 294, 345, 395, 397 homophily and, 293 I-positions and, 289, 289n10, 290, 291t, 323t, 324, 344 leaving, 293, 294, 341, 344. See also challenge zone: entering negative emotions and, 289n10 overview and nature of, 257, 288–89, 291t, 293, 295, 386 shadow positions and, 397 staying in, 324, 344, 386 uncertainty, and, 341 command, 317t, 320, 321 commitment to the growth of people, 121 commodiication, 233 commonality-in-diference, 333, 351, 363–64 commonality as, 333 common meaning as, 332–34 communal housing. See Soviet Union: housing policy in communication, implicit, 159 communication channels between conscious and nonconscious positions, 186, 198, 199, 276 emotional distance and, 176, 188, 189, 199, 209, 214, 216, 349n15 lexible communication channels between Ipositions, 244, 247, 251. See also lexible movements: between I-positions in the network of positions, 195–97 one-way vs. two-way, 246–49 power distance and, 216, 389 communicative rationality, 362 communism. See also Marxism; Soviet Union other above self in a societal context, 210–11 community, building, 121 compass function of promoter positions, 71, 85 for self-system, 71, 235

Index compassion, 20, 57, 157n, 238 compassionate empathy, 156, 184 complexity deined, 373 uncertainty and, 373 Composition Method, 90n conceptualization (quality of leaders), 121 confrontational dialogue, 307, 308 congruence, 160 conscious and nonconscious. See also unconscious–conscious dynamics interactive relationship between the, 177–79 conscious and nonconscious positions, 194f, 197–98. See also nonconscious positions communication channels between, 186, 198, 199, 276 emotional positions and, 196, 198, 200, 202 generative dialogue between, 338–39 conservatism cognitive, 2 political, 375 consonant dialogue, 364 constructive cacophony, 334 consumerism, 388 the empty self in the historical context of, 224–25 unfulilled (and unfulillable) desire in, 226–27 Consumerism as a Way of Life (Mils), 240 consumer position and citizen position distinction between, 383n stimulating tolerance of uncertainty between, 382–85 consumer self, 221–24 as an I-position, 231–32 and the over-positioning of the economic I-position, 231–41 consumption. See also overconsumption and production, reversal of the relationship between, 222–23 context-dependency of I-positions, 95 context-dependent learning, 56–57n context-dependent memory, 56n context-dependent nature of I-positions, 56n continuity and discontinuity of the self, promoters and, 71 contradictions, tolerance of, 342–43 control, maintaining perceived personal, 269–70 conversation, ields of, 322 conversational narcissism, 348, 349 deined, 348 conversations, dialogical, 315 Cooley, C. H., 58n cosmopolitan democracy, 355–56 and levels of inclusiveness in the self, 356–58 counter-arguments and counter-argumention, 378–80 counter-associations, 368

421

counteratacking, 123, 132, 336 counter-democracy, 36n10 counter-emotions, 337 meta-positions and, 337, 371, 396 pre-dialogical certainty and, 378 promoter positions with, 368–71, 396 as supportive to reason in a democratic self, 368 counterforces, 61, 75, 86, 242, 332, 389, 390 counter-movements, 242 counter-positioning, 45, 47, 48, 84, 137, 138, 195, 306, 357, 390, 395 democratic self and, 353, 355 distancing and, 164, 329 leaders and, 106, 126 meta-positions and, 371 over-positioning and, 203, 216, 235, 243 within the self, 176, 242, 250n, 295 teams and, 106, 110 UN decision procedures and, 132 counter-positions, 47n3, 63, 68, 73n17, 86, 101, 255, 349n15, 376, 380 vs. anti-positions, 213, 216, 313 consumer self and, 231 dialogical process and, 342 economics and, 230–32, 235, 241–43, 248 I-positions and, 220, 231, 232, 242–43, 371 and the perfectionist, 68–70, 86 self-binding and, 250n shadow positions and, 385 Soviet communist system and, 216 uncertainty and, 354 counterweight, 203, 220, 232, 251, 367 Cramer, O. J., 49n6 creativity, 52n crisis management, 118n9 crisis situations, need for social power in, 118–20 Cruikshank, Barbara, 33–35 culture. See also under let and right hemispheres of brain emotions and, 192–93 servant leadership and, 122 social power and, 87 cultures, ield of tension between diferent, 61–62 Curse of the Self, he (Leary), 302, 303 Cushman, P., 224, 226–27, 237, 245 Daly, J. A., 347–48 Damasio, Antonio R., 165–66, 168, 198 danger zone. See also zones in the self-space challenge zone and, 257, 345 comfort zone and, 257, 288–90, 341, 386, 395, 397 overview and nature of, 257, 288–89, 291t safety zone and, 96 uncertainty and, 341 dark tourism, 290 Dasein, 47n2

422

Dataism, 388n de Abreu, G., 61 Deaton, A., 393 debate, 317t, 320, 321, 323–24 vs. generative dialogue, 317t, 322–23, 323t deceased loved ones living on in your self, 57 decentering movements, 334, 344. See also centering (centripetal) and decentering (centrifugal) movements in the self decentralizing movements, 81, 99, 103–4. See also centering (centripetal) and decentering (centrifugal) movements in the self decentralizing phenomena in the self-space, 45 decentralizing positions, 31 decentralizing society, 33 decentralizing trends, 101, 102 Decety, Jean, 148–49, 151–52 DeCotiis, T. A., 115n deicit knowledge deined, 373 uncertainty and, 373 Dehaene, S., 177–81, 202, 275, 338, 370 de-individualization, 272 delay of gratiication, research on, 249–51 deliberation, 112, 117, 122, 123, 142, 356, 361, 363 intuition and, 198 intuitive positioning and, 184–85 meta-position and, 196 deliberative behaviors, 363, 367n5 deliberative democracy, 357, 362, 366 agonistic democracy and, 361, 362, 364 cosmopolitan democracy and, 354, 355–56, 362, 366 democratically organized self and, 354 dialogical democracy and, 354–55 moral principle of, 354 quintessence of, 354, 364, 377 demagogues, 349n15 democracy, 15. See also speciic topics countries it for vs. becoming it through, 5 inner, 142 nature of, 5–6 in need of personal and social responsibility, 33–36 outside the self, 139 as permanent learning process, 397 radical, 141 rise of, 5 in the self, 6. See also democratic self democracy and society and, 4–7 uncertainty and, 373 ways it enriches the lives of its citizens, 5–7 democratically organized self, 1. See also democratic self model of a, 354–60

Index democratic atmosphere, 111, 115–16, 133, 138. See also atmosphere nature of, 114 democratic ideal, limitations and problems of the, 105 democratic perspective, 246n, 367 democratic self, 71, 353. See also democratically organized self authoritarianism and, 375 health in a, 394–96 implications for learning to develop a, 378–83 model of a, 358–59 lexibility and motivation, 359–60 meta-position and promoter position, 360 as permanent learning process, 397 shadows, 385–94 uncertainty and, 373 democratic society, 15, 353 self-centeredness and, 2–3 democratic values, shadow sides of, 387–89 Democritus, 258 depositioning, 335n depression and the problem of under-positioning, 208–10 depressive positions and self-space, 92, 114 Derber, C., 348 Descartes, René, 3, 10, 17, 191 descriptive–prescriptive distinction, 315 deterritorialization, 62 developmental stages, 80, 167 devil’s advocate, 113 Dewey, John, 34n, 141 Dhaka atack (2016), 100–101n dialogical approach to the self, 193 dialogical capacities, 30–31, 152, 207 dialogical communication, 160 dialogical conception of the self, 357 dialogical concepts, 371 dialogical conversations, 315 dialogical democracy, 355, 378. See also speciic topics dialogical interchanges, 392. See also speciic topics dialogical ladder, 316–18, 317t, 320, 321 moving up and down the including shadows in dialogue and, 392–93 positioning and repositioning, 320–22 dialogical leaders, 128 dialogical leadership, 127, 129. See also leadership dialogical learning, 344 dialogical meta-position, 181 dialogical perspective, 308, 364 dialogical processes, 199, 327, 334, 335, 342, 378 dialogical processing, 139, 370 subjectivity and, 373 uncertainty and, 373 dialogical reaction to uncertainty, 377

Index dialogical relationships, 135n, 181, 202. See also reason and emotion and agents at higher vs. lower levels of the mind, 8 basic structure of, 327–29 contradiction and, 342 conversational narcissism and, 348 I-positions and, 56, 129, 215n, 307, 320–21, 327n, 354, 358 language and, 311 (nonspatial) logical relationships and (spatial), 308, 309, 342, 343 multiple levels of intention and, 30 neurobiology and, 165n with others who are both the same and diferent from ourselves, 156 within the self, 351, 355 silence and, 327 dialogical self, 113, 188, 282, 283, 300, 306 balancing reason and emotion, 201. See also reason and emotion democracy and, 15 democratically organized, 396 in psychotherapy, 326n7, 331n self-confrontation method and, 130n17 uncertainty and, 378, 396 dialogical self theory (DST), 4n, 54n, 101n, 393 agonistic democracy and, 361n Big Five personality traits and, 260n conceptions of the self in, 101n consumerism and, 238 ma and, 327 promoter position and, 71n dialogical skills, 395 dialogical space, 67f, 317, 333, 345, 364 emergence of a, 52, 71, 319–20, 323t, 326 and its atmosphere, 326–27 dialogical steps, making, 327–29 dialogical thinking and logical thinking, 342 dialogical view of the self, 354–55 dialogism, 310 dialogue, 309–10. See also generative dialogue; speciic topics comparison of Bakhtinian and Bohmian, 314–16 essential features, 313 functions, 326 helpful qualities for the development of, 128 interpretations of. See Bakhtin, Mikhail M.; Bohm, David obstacles to open, 312 as positioned, 299, 305–9 spatial basis of, 308–9 types of, 307. See also dialogical ladder types of action participants may take in, 127–28 dialogue-facilitating factors (dialogue facilitators), 339–44

423

deined, 340 dialogue-inhibiting factors (dialogue inhibitors), 339–40 deined, 344 types of, 344–50 “dictatorial” I-positions, 6. See also “dictatorship” in the self as a maladaptive coalition of positions “dictatorship” in the self as a maladaptive coalition of positions, 65–69. See also perfectionist: as dictator; Richard dictatorships, 349, 375n. See also authoritarian regimes Diehl, Volkel, 28 Diener, E., 257–61, 263n diferentiation theory, sociological, 219, 223, 232, 253 difuse (forms of) atention, 182, 196 novelty and the relevance of, 334–35 disagreement, 308, 344–45 discourse, deined, 51 discursive practice, positioning as a form of, 51 disidentiication, 164n. See also self-distancing disowned selves, 88n30. See also shadow position(s) dissatisiers, 258 dissent, 128 constructive vs. destructive, 128n increasing tolerance for, 380n dissidents, 214 anti-positions and, 13, 213, 253 in Soviet Union, 213, 214, 216, 253 dissonant dialogue, 364 distance. See emotional distance; power distance distress tolerance, 266–67, 270. See also delay of gratiication distrust, 227n diversity vs. multiplicity of I-positions, 248n Doan, P. L., 63 Dolcos, S., 79n domain satisfaction(s), 259 deined, 262–63 a multiplicity of, 259–60 domestic self-nationalization, 37 dominance reversal, 283 Dove, C. T., 302, 304 dreamer. See under Richard dreams. See also American dream access to, 185–86 dualistic perspective, 161, 164, 202 dual-motive model of scapegoating, 269–70, 275 Dunne, J., 3, 17 dynamic equilibrium, 388, 389 dynamic multiplicity of afective I-positions, happiness as a, 262. See also happiness/ subjective well-being: as a multiplicity of I-positions

424

Index

dynamic multiplicity (and diversity) of I-positions, 64n and the meaning of “dynamic,” 242–43 self as a, 46, 99n, 217, 242, 247, 351 brain regions and, 200 consumer position and, 231 deliberative democracy and, 354 democratic, 7 dialogical relationships emerging from, 351 diferentiation theory and, 219 equality, freedom, and, 388 positioning theory and, 245 UN charter and, 137 the word “I” as a, 137 dynamic multiplicity of relatively autonomous subsystems, society as a, 247 dynamic multiplicity of value spheres. See also value spheres diferentiation theory and, 219 ecocentricity, 233n economic over-positioning, 250, 267 alternative ways for the self to respond to, 243–44 awareness of the tension between enrichment and impoverishment, 244 meta-positions, promoters, and, 249–52 toward a balance between self and other, 244–46 two-way communication channels, 246–49 boundaries of, 241–43 promoter positions and, 236–39 economic position consumer self and over-positioning of the, 231–41 core but no promoter, 235–39 penetrative power of the, 233–35 economics counter-positions and, 230–32, 235, 241–43, 248 destructive character of the economic sphere and its penetrative impact, 218–19 economy, open boundary-crossing, 130 education and let-brain dominance, 191–92 Edwards, D., 339 ego, 2, 3, 17, 148, 345–46 egocentricity. See also egocentrism; self-centered nature of the individual as atribution bias, 2, 233n deined, 2 democratic society and, 4 ego as imprisoned by its own, 3 nature of, 233n egocentric nature of the self, totalitarian states and, 2, 345–46 egocentric perspective, 162, 346. See also selfimmersed perspective

egocentric position, 61 egocentrism, 345–46. See also egocentricity; self-centered nature of the individual ego-oriented perspective, 345 ego-skepticism, 303 Elster, Jon, 383n emodiversity, 277, 289n9, 292, 306 and afective richness, 263–65, 267, 268 compared with biodiversity, 265 deined, 6, 13 distress tolerance and, 270 happiness and, 267 kernel of the concept of, 263–64 overcoming the positive–negative dichotomy and developing, 278–79, 297 and physical and mental health, 263–65, 268, 279 emotion, 92 nature of, 192 science of, 192 emotional distance (horizontality), 90n, 98n, 133, 139, 207, 234, 387. See also emotional fusion anti-positions and, 213 boundaries, power distance, and, 198–99 communication channels and, 176, 188, 189, 199, 209, 214, 216, 349n15 conversational narcissists and, 349 deined, 88 between demagogic leaders and their followers, 349n15 democracy and, 138 generative dialogue and, 389 globalization, localization, and, 293 group cohesiveness and, 120 group size and, 117n6 homophily and, 293 individualism vs. collectivism and, 88n28 from ingroups, 88n28 meta-positions and, 138, 303 money and, 228, 229 and negative self-talk and rumination, 303 over-positioning and, 209, 397 between parents and children, 209, 392n positioning model and, 120n prejudice and, 188, 189 between self and other, and well-being, 262, 263 shadow positions and, 88–89, 386, 397 between team members, 115, 120, 121,  123–25 between team members and leader, 115, 120, 121 under-positioning and, 209 United Nations (UN) and, 131, 133, 137 variation among individuals and groups in, 389 variations in, 88, 137, 199, 389

Index centralizing and decentralizing movements and, 104 servant leadership and, 120–22 and the word “we,” 134 emotional empathy, 156 emotional fusion, 116n5 emotional positioning. See also emotional position(s) enemy construction, scapegoating, and, 274, 275, 277, 279 emotional position(s), 156, 164n, 194f, 196, 254 and conscious and nonconscious positions, 196, 198, 200, 202 vs. feeling position, 171. See also feelings: vs. emotions internal and external domains of, 197 meta-position and, 196, 250, 279, 303 in psychotherapy, 226n reasoning position and, 194f, 196. See also reasoning position dialogue between, 198, 250–51, 254, 335–38 relation between, 199, 200, 202, 250 split between, 196 use of the term, 156n5 emotional state, 156n5. See also emotional position(s) emotion and cognition. See also “cognition controls emotion”; reason and emotion beyond dualism, 161–69 from cognition to emotion, 162–64 from emotion to cognition, 164–65 emotion learning, 277–78 emotion–reason communication, 336. See also reason and emotion emotions. See also afect; counter-emotions; emodiversity vs. feelings, 169–71, 170t, 196–97, 237, 371 nature of, 170 layered, 276 need for integration of the biological, social, and cultural aspects of, 192–93 negative, 267 strong, 344–45 positive, 267 primary vs. secondary, 276, 277 as responding to each other, 276 “emotion shapes cognition” thesis, 164 emotion-with-reason model, 169, 207 empathy, 151, 278, 345, 360, 369n as-if/fake, 223–24 beyond a limited conception of, 155–57 deined, 121 eye contact and, 223 face recognition and, 147–48 I-positions and, 128–29, 277–78, 326 lack of, 165, 272t, 349. See also narcissism in leaders, 121, 123

425

meta-positions and, 184, 371 narcissism and, 155, 348, 360 nature of, 129, 277, 278 neurobiology, 148 sot boundaries and excessive, 96 types/forms of, 155–56, 184 empathy learning, 277–78 empowerment, 108 teams, promoter positions, and, 107–8 empowerment behaviors, deined, 108 emptiness, 225n empty mind, 347n empty self, 224, 237 in the historical context of individualism and consumerism, 224–25 end-positions, the destructive potential of, 389–91 enemy image, 274. See also adversary construction of an, 271–72, 274 essential features, 274 as inadequate reality claim, 273–75 potentials of the self to give answer to, 276–79 enfacement illusion, 186–87 Engelen, Lucien, 29, 30 Enlightenment, 3, 17, 77, 136, 190, 274 enmeshment, 97, 116n5, 120 entrepreneurial position, 232–33 entrepreneurial self, 220–21, 232, 253 entrepreneurship, 129, 212n, 221, 253 environmental behavior and policy in Sweden, 382, 384 equality. See also inequality shadow sides of, 387–89 European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), 118n8 excluded third/excluded middle, logical principle of the, 342–43 executive function (meta-position), 74 executive functioning and ToM development, 153 exhibitionism, 347–48 exiles, 88n30. See also shadow position(s) expert power, 84, 117 deined, 117 exploitation, 347 extended positions. See also external position(s) examples of, 66, 68, 72, 85, 92 extended self the other as I-position in an, 53–60 outgroup becoming part of the, 59–60 William James on, 9, 54, 77, 148, 188, 245, 277 external position(s), 58n, 92, 138, 278, 283, 295, 296, 329, 340. See also other-in-the-self economic over-positioning, thinking ahead, and, 250 enemy images, scapegoating, and, 274, 275 internal positions and, 66, 91n32, 148, 262, 262n, 263, 274, 275, 284, 304, 307 insight into the connection between, 277

426

Index

external position(s) (cont.) meaning and scope of the term, 304 meta-positioning and, 72n nature of, 58n, 304 Personal Position Repertoire (PPR) method and, 66, 283 society (as metaphor for self) and, 53 well-being and, 262, 263 zones in the self and, 290 zones in the self and examples of, 291t eye contact, commercial use of, 223 face recognition and empathy, 147–48 face-saving vs. direct honesty, 122 false belief, location and, 154 family name is in your self, 54–56 Fascism & Democracy in the Human Mind (Charny), 390–91 fear of missing out (FoMO), 225n7 feeling position, 171 feelings, 171–72. See also afect vs. emotions, 169–71, 170t, 196–97, 237, 371 iction, sexually permissive private audience and the pleasure of reading, 58–59 ields of conversation, 322 ield(s) of tension, 7, 51, 342 between diferent cultures, 61–62 between gender positions, 62–63 interconnectedness of intrapersonal and interpersonal, 380 meta-position and, 383 positioning as placing oneself toward each other in, 50, 50f between socioeconomic classes, 64–65 FIFA World Cup (2014), 123–25, 125f ight-or-light response, 169, 336 irst-order phenomenology, 274–75 Fisher, M., 234 lexibility, 389 leadership and, 120, 124, 128, 138, 149 motivation and, 359–60 of movement, 383–84 lexible boundaries, 107, 119–20, 243, 324. See also boundaries; rigid boundaries in a border-crossing world, 99–100 boundary spanning and, 108–9 and communication between positions, 104 between group identities, 135n between I-positions, 110. See also boundaries: of positions to outgroups, 113. See also ingroup–outgroup boundaries overview, 96–99 religious extremists and, 99–102 teams and, 124, 324. See also leadership: lexibility and

lexible communication channels between Ipositions, 244, 247, 251. See also lexible movements: between I-positions lexible democracy, 105, 120, 122, 138, 321, 393 features of, 138–39 nature of, 122, 139 lexible democratic leadership, 120, 124. See also leadership: lexibility and lexible movements, 372, 389 between emotions, 267, 304 between I-positions, 100, 122, 129, 130, 138, 199, 204, 247, 304, 322. See also lexible communication channels between I-positions lexible perspective taking vs. exclusive truth claims, 340–41 lexible positioning, capacity of, 340–41 lexible shadow position, the witch as a, 280–82, 281t focused atention, 182 follow (action in dialogue), 127, 129 Fomerand, J., 130–33 foresight (quality of leaders), 121 Four-Player Model, 127–28 fragmentation, 60, 227n. See also ambiguity Fred, case of, 281t, 284–85 Fredrickson, B. L., 74n freedom inner, 393 from I-prison, 243, 244, 303 nature of, 392, 393 political, 6 shadow sides of, 387–89 Freud, Sigmund, 183 Fromm, Erich, 33 frontal lobe, 149 fusion, emotional, 116n5 Galdoini, James, 91 game stage, 80 Gandhi, Mahatma, 15 Gastil, J., 112 gay marriage, 32 Geertz, Cliford, 3 gender positions. See also anima and animus boundaries between, 63 ield of tension between, 62–63 generalized other, 80–81 generative dialogue, 317t. See also dialogue; speciic topics between conscious and nonconscious positions, 338–39. See also conscious and nonconscious positions consonant vs. dissonant forms of, 333, 364 contrasted with other forms of dialogue, 317t, 320, 321 and the creation of meaning, 322–35

Index vs. debate, 317t, 322–23, 323t development of, 320 emotional distance and, 389 factors relevant to the facilitation of, 340–44 hallmark of, 340 is multipositioned, 333 listening as generative dialogue on the self–other interface, 318–19 reading as generative dialogue on the reader–author interface, 319–20 genuine voices, 128 Germany, 136, 269. See also Nazi Germany Ghana, 87 Glaser, J., 375 global consciousness, 357 deined, 357–58 globalization deinitions, 19n1 and democracy, 355 nature of, 356 of students, 39–40 globalizing self, 39–40 globalizing society, 19 boundary-crossing, 204, 257, 339, 353, 356, 365 global responsibility, 359 glocalization, 40 Godden, D., 56n Gofman, Erving, 50–51 Goldman, Emma, 1 Goleman, Daniel, 155 Goodall, Jane, 299 good and bad. See also positive–negative dichotomy boundaries between, 374, 385 Goode, M. R., 228, 229, 245 Gordon, S., 21–22 gossiping, 287, 287f grandiosity, 347, 385. See also narcissism gratiication, delay of, 249–51 Greenberg, L. S., 161n, 163n, 207, 276, 336 Greenleaf, Robert, 121 Greenwald, Anthony G., 2, 233n, 345, 346, 366, 367n4 Gregg, G. S., 64 group atmosphere. See atmosphere: in groups group boundaries. See also closed boundaries; ingroup–outgroup boundaries interactions across, 294, 365 sharpened by threats to self-esteem, 376 groupthink vs. diversity, 113, 128n emotional distances and, 387 lexible democracy and, 139 followers and, 197 nature of, 113 remedies to, 113

427

teams and, 112–13, 128n we–they dichotomy and, 271 growth of people, commitment to the, 121 Habermas, Jürgen, 362, 363, 366 Haidt, J., 167–68 Hamilton, 222, 223, 225–27, 237, 245 Hanin, Y. L., 291, 292 happiness/subjective well-being, 278 factors inluencing, 229–30, 230f as a multiplicity of I-positions, 257–58 diferences between one’s own and others’ well-being, 261–62 emodiversity, health, and afective richness, 263–65 happiness and afective democracy, 267–68 life satisfaction as an afective meta-position, 261 a multiplicity of domain satisfactions, 259–60 satisiers and dissatisiers, 258–59 subjective well-being considered from the positioning model, 262–63 value of negative emotions and the experience of wholeness, 265–67 nature of, 297 Happy Planet Index (HPI), 229 Harari, Y. N., 388 Harré, R., 51 healing (quality of leaders), 121 health. See also self-medication in a democratic self deined, 394 nature of, 394–95 practical implications of, 394–96 emodiversity and, 264–65 health care, participatory, 29 healthPatch, 29–30 Heidegger, Martin, 47n2 Heidmets, Mati, 134n, 210–12, 214, 215 Heinz dilemma, 167 Held, D., 246n, 354–56, 363, 364, 377 helplessness, 238, 303, 308, 347 helpless position, 238 hemineglect, 178–79 hemispheric lateralization/hemispheric specialization, 145–47, 151, 182. See also let and right hemispheres of brain emotion and, 159, 160 and learning, 192 Hermans, Willem-Frederik, 172n Hermans-Jansen, Els, 65, 66, 280 Hermans-Konopka, Agnieszka, 337. See also Konopka, Agnieszka hero archetype contrasted with shadow archetype, 285 Herzberg, F., 258–59 Hespos, S. J., 150–51

428

Index

heterophily. See also homophily deined, 365 vs. homophily, 293–95, 365 hippocampus, 166f Hoch, S. J., 250n Hochschild, Arlie Russell, 92 Hofstadter, Douglas R., 57 Hofstede, G., 88n28 holistic medicine. See integrative medicine Holmes, J. G., 58 Holocaust, 269, 387n, 390–91. See also Nazi Germany Holquist, M., 310–11, 315 homogeneous society metaphor, 80 limitations of a, 79–81 homophily deined, 298, 365 vs. heterophily, 293–95, 365 Horberg, E. J., 161, 164, 202 “hot” cognitions, 195n housing, communal. See Soviet Union: housing policy in Hubbard, T. L., 180–81 hubs (brain regions), 200–202 human identity, 357 humorous atmosphere, 52n, 54 Huxley, Aldous, 286 Hymer, S. M., 91n33 hyperarousal. See ight-or-light response hyperconsumption as over-positioning, 225–26 hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis, 158–59, 165 “I.” See also speciic topics as internally diferentiated, 136–37 I Am a Strange Loop (Hofstadter), 57 identity. See also speciic topics nature of, 99n problem of, 99, 101 relationship of, 308 terminology, 99n, 357 types of, 357 identity confusion, 7, 60–62, 101. See also ambiguity identity crisis, 331 I-dentity(ies), 99 and the relevance of lexible boundaries in a border-crossing world, 99–100 identity-in-diference, 64 identity search, young jihadists and, 100–102 Charlie Hebdo shooting, 81n imaginary igures and imaginary dialogues, 304–5 imagined and imaginary beings as promoters, 77 implicit associations and racial biases, 366–68 Implicit Association Test (IAT), 366, 367n4, 369n implicit cognition, 159 imprisoned self, 91n33. See also I-prison(s)

inatentional blindness, 179–88 “inatentional consumer blindness,” 251 included third, dialogical principle of the, 342–43 inclusion-of-other-in-the-self model, 59 incoherence, awareness of, 314 India, 98 individual internationalization, 39 individualism, 215 vs. collectivism, 88n28 consumerism and, 227n emotional distance from ingroups, 88n28 the empty self in the historical context of, 224–25 and hyperconsumption, 226 money and, 229 narcissism and, 347 over-positioning and, 210 individualistic cultures, 261–62 individualized autonomy, 3, 54, 79, 139. See also autonomy Enlightenment and, 3, 17, 18, 42, 54, 136 and narcissism, 42 power diference and, 87 self–society dichotomy and, 17, 82 individual zones of optimal functioning (IZOF), 291–92 inequality the contribution of positive, 393–94 justiication of, 375 ingroup–outgroup boundaries, 36, 60, 101–2, 113, 173, 213, 273, 371 and identity, 376 sharpening, 376 uncertainty and, 376 inhibitory control, 207 empathy and, 155, 156 ToM and, 153–55, 207 initiating structure and meta-position, 109 innovative moments, 331n instructional self-talk, 301 instrumental rationality, 362 integration of positions, 71 integrative dialogue, 307–8 integrative medicine nature of, 28 self-cure in, 28–31 interaction perspective, 161, 202 interdependence of a risk society, the new, 215–16 internalization, 18–19 internal positions in children, 295 external positions and, 66, 91n32, 148, 262, 262n, 263, 274, 275, 277, 284, 304, 307 Personal Position Repertoire (PPR) method and, 66 in psychotherapy, 70 spongy boundaries between, 97

Index internal working models, 18 internationalization, 40 of students, 39–40 intuition, 165, 184 as communication between positions, 198 deinition and nature of, 184 vs. reasoning, and morality, 167–69 intuitive positioning, nature of, 184–85 invisible powers, 240–41, 253, 255 invisible (but felt) space, 52, 95–96, 227n, 326. See also zones in the self-space I-positioning. See positioning; positioning theory I-position(s). See also positioning theory; speciic topics as an alternative nomenclature, 76–77 closeness vs. distance between, 88–89. See also emotional distance collective. See we-position conlicts between, 260n deepening the meaning of, 76–81 density of, 43, 256, 330 enmeshed, 97. See also enmeshment family name, irst name, and, 54–56, 55f heterogeneity of diminishing the number of and the, 375–76 increasing the, 43n how we know the diferent aspects of our, 93–94 increasing the number of, 376–77 model of, 82–83, 83f lexibility of the, 82, 86n25, 195, 197 multiplicity vs. diversity of, 248n nature of, 11, 46–53 active and passive tense, 47–48 the problem of reiication, 48 paterns of, 60n, 65 self as organized society of, 4 in a societal self, 60–65 I-prison(s), 257 with double walls, 93 freedom and liberation from, 243, 244, 303 has no exit, 91–93 nature of, 91 origin of the term, 91n33 over-economy and, 241 over-positioning and, 204, 209, 210, 231, 243–45 positions becoming, 92, 214 self-talk and, 303 societal restrictions and, 93 transgender persons feeling locked up in, 63, 93 Ireland, 61 Isaacs, W. N., 127–30, 323 Islam, 101, 102n, 269. See also Arabs Itzchakov, G., 378–80

429

Jacobs, M., 339 James, William, 77, 251 on extended self, 9, 54, 77, 148, 188, 245, 277 pragmatism and, 9, 79 Janis, I., 113 Japanese culture, 122, 326–27 Japin, Arthur, 47n3 Jarret, C., 144 Jaynes, Julian, 47n2 Jean-Klein, Iris, 36–38 Jensen, E. P., 144, 145 Jessop, B., 252 Jews, prejudice against, 269, 374. See also Holocaust jihadists, young, 100n and identity search, 100–102 job satisfaction, 258–59 Johnson, Mat, 64 Jones, S. B., 95–96, 289 Jost, J. T., 375 judgment (ruler accountability), 36n10 judgment, suspension of initial, 313–14 Jung, Carl Gustav on anima and animus, 33 on dialogue between conscious and unconscious, 339 on self-realization, 339 on shadow vs. persona, 94 on transcendent function, 339 Jungian psychology, 339. See also shadow(s) Kaka, Franz, 295–96 Kashdan, T. B., 265–67, 278 Kasser, T., 227–29, 245 Keeley, J., 290–91 Kelly, P., 220–21 Keltner, D., 161, 162, 164, 202 Khan, Janaya, 358n Knapp, M. L., 347–48 Knight, J., 39 Koch, Pyke. See Mercedes de Barcelona Koda, Katalin, 32–33 Kokee, Yvete, 98n Kolk, Herman, 180, 181 Konopka, Agnieszka, 91n33. See also Hermans-KonopkaAgnieszka Konrath, S. H., 59 Koys, D. J., 115n Krens, George, 391 Kross, E., 162–63 Kruglanski, A. W., 375 Kundera, Milan, 341 landscape of I-positions, metaphor of, 90 language, 311 Mikhail Bakhtin and, 78, 315 role in atentional ampliication, 180–81

430

Index

layered organization of positions, 90–91 Lazarus, R. S., 162 leaders, 349n15 dialogical, 128 team, 107f. See also team(s) leadership. See also speciic topics and democracy in organizations, 126–37 in the self, 81–102 in teams, 111–26 dialogical, 127, 129 lexibility and, 120, 124, 128, 138, 149 as situation-dependent, 111–12 leadership styles, 116–17 from slow democracy to quick leadership and back, 116–18 learning. See also context-dependent learning David Bohm and, 313, 315, 316, 332, 333, 350 dialogical, 344 empathy, 277–78 hemispheric specialization and, 192 state-dependent, 57n Leary, Mark R., 302, 303 LeDoux, J., 336 let and right hemispheres of brain. See also hemispheric lateralization/hemispheric specialization; inatentional blindness culturally-based power relations between, 190–93 cultural triumph of let hemisphere, 190–91 education and let-brain dominance, 191–92 emotion as regulated by right hemisphere, 158–61 evolutionary origin of, 145–48 let–right brain myths, 144–45 “right brain types” vs. “let brain types,” 145 legitimate power, 117 deined, 117 Leigh. T. W., 115n Lengelle, R., 318–19 Lewis, Marc, 174–75 liberalism, classic, 234. See also neo-liberalism liberty. See freedom life satisfaction. See also happiness/subjective well-being as an afective meta-position, 261 life story model of identity, 327n “like me” theory, 149 limbic system, 165, 336 Linville, P. W., 265n listening, 121 active, and uncertainty tolerance, 378–80 deeply, 128, 129 as generative dialogue on the self–other interface, 318–19 suspension and, 344 Liu, J. H., 357–58

Loewenstein, G. F., 250n logical relationships. See under dialogical relationships logical thinking and dialogical thinking, 342 looking glass self, 58n Lupyan, G., 301–2 ma, 326–27 Maathai, Wangari, 369 Macdonald, M., 357–58 MacNeilage, P. F., 145–47 macro-society, 66 Madureira, A. F., 329–30 Mandela, Nelson, 15, 323, 359, 369 marketization, 243, 246–47, 251 boundary-crossing nature of, 234 increasing marketization of society and its iniltrating power, 216–30 nature of, 216, 247 penetration into the private world of consumers, 233 as societal principle that iniltrates noneconomic subsystems, 216 Markus, H., 73n marriage to self. See self-marriage Marsella, A., 19n1 Marshall, G., 372n Marxism, 219, 246n. See also communism; Soviet Union Mary, case of, 280–83, 281t masking positions, 136, 349–50, 387n Mati, S., 382–84 Maturana, Humberto, 312 Mausner, B., 258–59 McAdams, Dan P., 327n McCauley, Clark, 23–25 McGilchrist, I., 159–61, 165, 182, 190–91, 202 McPherson, M., 293 Mead, George Herbert, 9 developmental stages, 80 on games, 76, 80, 81 on the generalized other, 18, 19, 76, 80–82 homogeneous society metaphor and, 79–81 on knowing oneself via taking the role or position of the other, 8, 148 on play, 76, 80 and relationship between self and society, 79–81 Mead, N. L., 228, 229, 245 meaning, 342n, 342–43 common meaning as commonality-in-diference, 332–34 deinition of, 311–12, 342n drive to, 311–12 meaning construction in a boundary-crossing world, 332

Index generative dialogue and the creation of meaning, 322–35 meaningfulness, 342–43 meaningfulness reversal, 283 Mehrabian, A., 160, 198 Meltzof, A. N., 149 memory. See also context-dependent memory episodic and semantic, 90n mental jumps, 43, 256, 330 Mercedes de Barcelona (painting), 328, 329 mergers, 127 Merskin, D., 271–73, 346, 376 Merton, Robert, 175 metacognition, 72, 72n deined, 72n meta-dialogue, 314 meta-level, 73, 341 meta-perspective, 183, 201 meta-positioning, two versions of, 182–84 meta-position(s), 194f, 303–4. See also under promoter positions; speciic topics atention and the development of, 251 authoritarianism and, 85 counter-emotions and, 337, 371, 396 difuse, 183–84 emotional distance and, 121, 138, 303 emotional positions and, 196, 279, 303 emotions, feelings, and, 196–97 overarching view and long-term perspective, 72–75 overview and nature of, 11 place and function(s) of the, 74, 76, 196–97, 275 power distance and, 121, 199 qualities, 75–76 reason, reasoning, and, 250, 251, 371 rich hubs and, 201 servant leadership and, 121 social power and, 138 teams, initiating structure, and, 109 third position and, 330 well-developed, 93, 279 awareness of incoherence and, 314 capacities and positive efects of a, 74, 84, 109, 250, 251, 268, 275, 276, 279, 297, 383 and feeling of safety, 96 importance of a, 275, 279 nature of, 74, 81, 84, 276, 279 requirements for a, 81, 153, 164, 183, 251, 276, 279 micro-society, 66 Milgram experiment on obedience to authority igures, 24, 25n, 27 Miller, J. C., 339 Miller, J. D., 224n Mils, Steven, 240

431

Mind, Self, and Society (Mead), 79–80. See also Mead, George Herbert Minsky, Marvin, 8–9 mirror neuron system, 147–48 Mischel, W., 162, 241, 248–51 modernity, 388n modularity, theory of, 178n money, 234, 245. See also economics psychological consequences of, 228–29 Monroe, Marilyn, 91 Monsanto, 127 mood, 114 moral development, Kohlberg’s stages of, 167 morality, Haidt’s social intuitionist model of, 167–68 moral reasoning vs. intuition, 167–69 moral value, maintaining perceived personal, 269–70 Morioka, Masayoshi, 52, 326–27 Moses, L. J., 153–54 Moskalenko, Sophia, 23–25 motivational self-talk. See self-talk Moufe, Chantal, 361–63, 365–66, 388, 389 move (action in dialogue), 127, 129 Mukhopadhyay, Samhita, 31 multiperspectives, 354 multiple identiications, 62–63. See also ambiguity; identity confusion multiplicity vs. diversity of I-positions, 248n multipositioning, linking dialogue and, 307–8 multiracial identities, 63–64 Murphy, S. T., 177, 181, 239, 338 Muybridge, Eadweard, 164–65 Naccache, L., 177–81, 202, 275, 338, 370 narcissism, 224n, 348, 349 dialogical self and, 386n14 as dialogue inhibitor, 347–50 empathy and, 155, 348, 360 empty self and, 224 origins and development of, 385n14 overview, 347 self-love and, 385 society and, 42 narcissistic individuals, features of, 347–48, 385n14 narcissistic personality disorder, 99, 224n narrative position, 327 narratives, 327n8 nationalization, 38–39 nationalizing subjects/nationalizing subjectivities, turning people into, 37 nations enemy. See enemy image need for scapegoats, 271 Nazi Germany, 214, 269, 374, 387n, 390–91. See also Germany; Holocaust

432

Index

negation and negating statements, 308, 342 negative thoughts. See positive and negative thoughts negotiation, 317t, 320, 321 negotiational self theory, 307 neo-liberalism, 20n, 203, 220–21, 231–35 vs. classic liberalism, 234 and formation of identity, 234 marketization and, 216, 234 nature of, 234 over-positioning and, 210, 235 self above other principle and, 210, 231 Neumann, P. R., 26 neurobiology. See brain; let and right hemispheres of brain new relationships, capacity to move things into, 10 9/11 terrorist atacks, 271 1984 (Orwell), 2, 233n Nir, D., 307 Nishida, 302n3 Nolen-Hoeksema, S., 303 “nonconscious.” See also unconscious terminology, 195n nonconscious cognitions, 195n nonconscious positions, 251. See also conscious and nonconscious positions intuition and, 184, 198 meta-position and, 196 normative rationality, 362 North–South split, 132 novelty the emergence of, 327–29 and the relevance of difuse atention, 334–35 Obama, Barack, 368 obedience, 205, 212–13 to authority, 24–27, 139n, 205 objective atitude ambivalence, 379–80 object relations theory, 18 Ofe, C., 355 “omni-channel retailing,” 247–48 oncology, integrative, 28 O’Neil, Cathy, 388n open boundaries, 98, 123, 136, 324. See also closed boundaries of background positions, 334–35 democratic leadership and, 119 excessively open boundaries becoming sot, 97 between group identities, 135n between internal and external positions, 262n between positions taken by leader and team members, 115 scientiic organizations and, 118n spongy boundaries and, 97 opening (closed) boundaries, 3, 60, 160, 176, 188, 199, 240–41, 289, 324, 326, 330, 332

and relations between races, 60n of self, 378, 380 openness atmosphere of, 125, 326. See also atmosphere toward the future, 71 Open Society and Its Enemies, he (Popper), 213, 273n open vs. closed societies, 213, 273n opinions, holding to and defending, 312 oppose (action in dialogue), 127–28, 128n opposition, 309 orbitofrontal cortex, 165, 166f organizations, types of positions in, 194, 194f, 197–98 Orwell, George, 2, 233n O’Sullivan-Lago, R., 61 other, the. See also speciic topics as I-position in an extended self, 53–60 position of, 197–98 other above self, principle of, 210. See also communism other-in-the-self, 59, 150, 183, 197, 307, 329, 340. See also external position(s) contrasted with society-in-the-self, 20–21 enemy image and, 274 extended self and, 9, 58n meta-positions and, 183 nature of, 58n, 274 from other-in-the-self to society-in-the-self, 18–20 pronouns and, 78 vs. the “real other,” 274 technological extensions and, 78n outgroup. See also ingroup–outgroup boundaries becoming part of the extended self, and reducing prejudice, 59–60 outside enemy. See enemy image outside positions, 109, 270, 275. See also outside world; self–other boundaries; shadow positions outsiders, 108, 109, 113, 173. See also ingroup–outgroup boundaries outside world, 51. See also outside positions overconsumption, 251, 388 over-positioning, 203–5. See also economic over-positioning counter-positioning and, 203, 216, 235, 243 of the economic I-position, consumer self and the, 231–41 emotional distance and, 209, 397 hyperconsumption as, 225–26 I-prison and, 204, 209, 210, 231, 243–45 pushy parents and the problem of, 205–8 in the self, 219–20 penetrating spheres in society and, 219–21

Index in social contexts, 204–16 vs. under-positioning, 204, 208, 209, 245 oversight of rulers, 36n10 Palestinians, 36–38, 40 parents emotional distance between children and, 209, 392n pushy, and the problem of over-positioning, 205–8 parietal lobe, 149 Parks, Rosa, 369 participatory health care, 29 Paul, H., 215n perceptual blindness. See inatentional blindness “perfect freedom” and “perfect equality,” 389 perfectionist. See also Richard: perfectionist in accepting the, 284–85 as dictator, 69, 70, 86, 87 doubter and, 284 enjoyer and, 284–85 promoter position and, 75, 87, 89 as shadow position, 285 persona, 94 personal control, maintaining perceived, 269–70 personal identity, 357 Personal Position Repertoire (PPR) method, 66, 90n, 283–84 personal responsibility, 359 personal space, 95. See also boundaries deined, 95–96 personiication, 337 perspective taking, 155. See also empathy lexible, vs. exclusive truth claims, 340–41 perspective-taking approach, 380n persuasion, 121, 317t, 320, 321 playing with positions, 344 play stage, 80 pluralism. See agonistic pluralism Podsakof, P. M., 86–87 political extremists, 23. See also religious extremists; self-radicalization poly-centric society, 217 polytheistic beliefs, 286 Popper, Karl, 213, 215, 273n positioning. See also under dialogical ladder contrasted with related concepts, 49–51 meaning and scope of the term, 51 as a movement, 203 nature of, 7, 51, 52, 203 as placing oneself toward each other in ields of tension, 50, 50f as spatial-relational process, 57n, 203 positioning model, 128–30, 204 democracy and, 5 diagram of, 107f emotional distance and, 120n, 150

433

invisible power and, 240 leadership and, 107f, 108, 110, 119, 128 over-positioning economy and, 241 subjective well-being considered from, 262–63 teams and, 107f, 108, 110, 120n United Nations (UN) and, 132 positioning theory, 245. See also I-positions on the level of teams, 107–11 as spatial and relational, 7–8 position leaps, 43, 256, 330 position repertoire matrix with prominence ratings, 66, 66t, 67 position shit, 262n, 329 position theory (PT), 133n. See also speciic topics core idea of, 4 positive and negative thoughts the golden ratio of, 305–6 tension between, 306 positive homogenization, 268 positive–negative dichotomy, 307. See also good and bad overcoming the, 278–79 positive thinking, 268, 306 post-dialogical certainty, 377–78 power deined, 85 of the situation, 26n temporary, 116–18 types/forms of, 86–87, 117 “power corrupts,” 388 power diferences, 85, 87, 118, 135, 234, 235, 321, 364 power distance (verticality), 88, 122, 123, 125, 365 boundaries, emotional distance, and, 198–99 of central position, 85–86 communication channels and, 216, 389 communism, Soviet Union, and, 213, 216 consumerism, money orientation, and, 234, 245 cultural inluences on, 87 democracy and leadership in teams and, 115, 119–22 democratic self and, 389 economic over-positioning and, 216, 235 group size, emotional distance, and, 117n6 meta-positions and, 199 in the organization of the self, 234 between the powerful and powerless, 213 promoter positions and, 87, 121, 199 servant leadership and, 121 United Nations (UN) and, 133 when it needs to increase vs. decrease, 85 and the word “we,” 134 powerful position allowed to dominate self-system, 199, 231, 232, 234, 376, 394, 396 giving the lead to one, 376 Pratkanis, A. R., 239

434

Index

pre-dialogical certainty, 377–78 predialogical point of view, 395 predictability, low, 373 prediction, tolerance of uncertainty and the art of, 380–81 prefrontal cortex, 166f prejudice. See also racial biases emotional distance and, 188, 189 reducing, 59–60 the illusion of being in another body and, 186–88 prescriptive–descriptive distinction, 315 presence, 47n2 Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, he (Gofman), 50–51 Preuss, U., 355 prevention (ruler accountability), 36n10 prison experiment. See Stanford Prison Experiment private audience, 58 production and consumption, reversal of the relationship between, 222–23 promoter positions (promoters), 81, 83, 89, 94, 104, 198, 394 anti-promoters and, 86, 86n26 associated with stories, 369–70 atention and the development of, 251 authoritarianism and, 85 as centering movements in the self, 330, 331 in challenge zone, 289n9 comfort zone and, 111 compass function, 71, 85 concept of, 71, 198n and context dependency of I-positions, 95 counter-emotions and, 360, 368–71, 396 democratic leaders as, 111, 116, 117, 125, 138–39 economic position, economic over-positioning, and, 235–39 emergence of, 74 emotional distance and, 121, 138 empowerment and, 107–8 features, 235 feelings and, 171–72, 237 lexible leaders as, 138 forms of power and, 87, 117 imagined and imaginary beings as, 77 as innovators of the self, 71 in internal and external domains of self, 172 long-term inluence in the self, 370 meta-positions and, 138, 194f, 198, 198n, 199, 201, 254, 289n9, 331, 332, 396 context dependency of I-positions and, 95 contrasted, 75 leadership and, 103, 104, 111, 117, 121 model of a democratic self and, 359f, 360 model of I-positions and, 83, 83f

over-positioning and, 249–52 self as a society with, 65–75 social power of, 84–87, 138 subpositions and, 94 teams and, 111, 194f, 197–98 origin of the term, 71n overconsumption and, 251 overview and nature of, 11, 69 perfectionists and, 75, 87, 89 power distance and, 87, 121, 199 reward power and, 87, 117 rich hubs and, 201 servant leadership and, 121 stimulating the development of the self, 69–71 teams and, 107f, 111, 117, 119, 124, 125 terminology, 69, 71n third positions and, 330, 331 UN as promoter vs. anti-promoter, 130–34 promoter sign, 71n protective circle, 295 and atachment, 295–96 psychoanalysis, 18, 76, 183, 195n, 256–57 psychological climate deined, 115n dimensions, 115n psychopathy, 86n25, 165, 168, 224n, 350. See also sociopaths psychotherapy, 67, 70, 90, 91n33, 156n6, 161n, 326n7 case material. See Mary; Richard dialogical self in, 331n emotions and feelings in, 163n, 169, 276, 336–37 meta-position and, 95, 183, 334 self-confrontation method, 280 public atmosphere, 227n. See also atmosphere Puchalska-Wasyl, M., 307 punishment/coercive power, 86–87 “puriication,” 390 the problem of, 390 racial, 387n, 390, 391 Quoidbach, J., 264, 265, 279 racial “beauty” and “purety,” perceptions of, 387n, 390, 391 racial biases, 59–60, 173–74, 271. See also Jews; stereotyping implicit associations and, 366–68 racial boundaries. See also black–white dichotomy opening, 60n racial positions, ield of tension between, 63–64 racial relations, 60n racial stereotypes, 176n. See also enemy image racial terminology, 64 radical democracy, 141 Raggat, P. T. F., 260n

Index rape, 93, 380n rationalist approach to moral judgment, 167, 169n rationalist perspective, 362 rationality. See also reasoning terminology, 195n types of, 362 rational knower (Descartes), 3, 17 Rawls, John, 362, 363, 366 reading as generative dialogue on the reader–author interface, 319–20 reality claims, 312–13 enemy image and scapegoating as inadequate, 273–75 reappraisal, 162, 164 “reason above emotion,” 158, 335–36 reason and emotion, 396. See also “cognition controls emotion”; emotion and cognition; emotion-with-reason model coalition between, 167n16, 337–38 dialogical relationship between, 201, 337, 395 toward a, 336, 337, 361 in need of each other, 366–68 reasoning, 196, 342, 362, 363 about one’s own vs. another person’s problems, 163–64 declarative knowledge and, 166 emotion vs. feeling and, 371 ield of tension and, 342 vs. intuition, 167, 168 moral, 167–69 nature of, 306 in psychotherapy, 337 terminology, 195n reasoning position, 194f, 196. See also emotional position(s): reasoning position and internal and external domains of, 197 meta-position and, 196, 263 Reese, G., 360, 372n relational being, 200n relationships new, 10 types of, 317t religion, 52, 87, 286, 329–30, 389–91 religious extremists, 99–102 repositioning, 7. See also under dialogical ladder repression, 195n Republican marches, 81n respect, expressing, 128 responsibility, types of, 36, 359 responsible consumption, learning devices for arriving at, 383–84 reversed extension, 77n reward power, 85–87, 117. See also Richard deined, 117

435

of promoter, 85 vs. punishment/coercive power, 86–87 Richard, case of, 65–71, 75, 92 acceptance in, 69–71, 75, 86, 87 acceptant in, 87 accessibility of positions and their layered organization, 74, 89 background, 65–66 coalitions in, 68, 90 “dictatorship” in self as a maladaptive coalition of positions, 65–69 dreamer in, 66t, 67f, 67–71, 86, 90 “innocent activities,” 69–71 I-positions in self-space, 66, 67f meta-level reached in, 73 meta-positions in, 74, 75, 90–91 perfectionist in, 66t, 67f, 67–71, 74, 75, 86, 87, 89–91 self as a society and, 75 spongy boundaries between his and his parents’ internal positions, 97 Richardson, F. C., 17 rigid boundaries, 97, 99, 101. See also boundaries; lexible boundaries authoritarian regimes and, 213, 273n and the body, 193 between good and bad, shadow positions and, 385 between ingroup and outgroup, 101–2, 213. See also ingroup–outgroup boundaries of racial positions, 60n, 189 rigid identity positions, 100 rigid I-positions, 92 risk society, the new interdependence of a, 215–16 Ritzer, G., 19, 80, 81 Robertson, R., 40 Robinson, M. D., 89n Rochat, P., 150–51 Rogers, Carl, 33, 70, 379, 380 Rogers, E. M., 294, 365 Rogers, L. J., 145–47 Roosevelt, Franklin Delano, 15 Rosanne, case of, 329–30, 332, 337 Rosanvallon, Pierre, 36n Rosenmann, A., 360, 372n Rosenthal, S. B., 34n Ross, M., 59 Rothschild, Z. K., 269, 275 Rowan, J., 76, 337 rubber hand illusion, 186, 187, 369n experimental seting for, 187f rumination, 303 deined, 303 Russia, 132, 136. See also Soviet Union Ryan, R. M., 227–29, 245 Rychlak, J. R., 300n, 306

436

Index

safety atmosphere of, 379. See also atmosphere well-developed self-boundary structure needed for a feeling of, 96 Sampson, E., 3, 17, 54 Sandel, Michael, 338 Sartre, Jean-Paul, 290 satisiers and dissatisiers, 258. See also happiness/ subjective well-being Sato, Tatsuya, 104n Saul, John Ralston, 353 scapegoating, 268 construction of enemy image and, 275 deined, 269 emodiversity and, 278 emotional learning and, 277 as inadequate reality claim, 273–75 internal–external connection and, 277 meta-position and, 275, 276, 279 nature of, 269, 275 positive–negative dichotomy and, 278 primary and secondary emotions and, 276 and reduction of guilt and powerlessness, 269–70, 275 stereotyping and, 297, 347 scapegoats, nations’ need for, 271 Scharmer, C. O., 322, 323 Schein, E. H., 325 Schimank, Uwe, 216–19, 223, 233, 245, 384–85 Schoeneman, T. J., 58n Schore, Allan N., 158, 159, 165, 182, 184, 198 Schriesheim, C. A., 86–87 Schumpeter, Joseph, 361 Schwartz, R. M., 305–6 Schweigert, Nadine, 31 scientiic management, 222 second order awareness, 274 secrets, sharing, 287, 287f self. See also speciic topics conceptions of, 101n. See also dynamic multiplicity (and diversity) of I-positions: self as a Western conception of self, 3 darker spaces in the, 51. See also shadow(s) as a democracy, 4. See also democracy: in the self; democratic self as democratically organized. See democratically organized self heterogeneity, 256, 296 vs. identity, 99n modern sense of, 17 monopolization of the, 231–32 nature of, 351. See also dynamic multiplicity (and diversity) of I-positions: self as a overindividualized and overconsuming, 226–27 terminology, 76, 345 wholeness of the, 3

self above other, principle of, 210. See also neo-liberalism self-acceptance, 71, 86, 256–57 self as society, 65. See also society-in-the-self; speciic topics self as a society of mind, 299 self as a society with promoters and meta-positions, 65–75 self as democratic vs. bureaucratic society, 8–9 self-boundary structure, well-developed, 96 self-categorization vs. I-positioning, 49–50 levels of, 356–57 self-categorization theory (SCT), 356, 357 self-centered nature of the individual, 2–3. See also egocentricity self-complex individuals, highly, 265n self-concept, working, 73n self-confrontation method, 130n17, 280 self-control strategies, 250n self-cure in integrative medicine, 28–31 self-deinition vs. I-positioning, 49–50 self-distanced perspective, 162–63 self-distancing, 164 as a form of reappraisal, 164 nature of, 163–64 self-empathy, 276, 278 self-empowerment, 31, 34 self-enhancement, 35, 86n25, 384n self-esteem, 31, 239 in children, 386n egocentrism and, 346 and esteem of the other, 35–36 grandiosity and, 347, 385 group membership and, 360, 372n ingroup–outgroup boundaries and, 376 I-positions and, 256 narcissism and, 386n self-government and, 34–36 striving for and pursuit of, 35 threats to, 68, 376 self-evaluation, 59 self-fulilling prophecies, 193 and the erroneous construction of reality, 175–77 origin of the term, 175 self-fulilling prophecy hypothesis, 176n, 177, 189 self-governing potentials of the self, trust in the, 15, 396 self-government, 33–35, 40 autonomy and, 200n. See also autonomy principle of, 139 responsibility and, 34, 42 self-help audio recordings, 239 self-immersed perspective, 162, 163 self-importance, 347 self-institutionalization, 31. See also self-marriage

Index self-instruction, 301 self-internationalization, 56 and the globalizing self, 39–40 self-leadership, 108 self-love, 33, 385 institutionalized form of. See self-marriage self-management, 108 self-marriage, 31–33, 41 components of, 32 deined, 32 self-medication, 227 self-motivation, 301, 302 self-nationalization, 40, 56 from victimization to national identity, 36–39 self–other boundaries, 18, 51, 54, 136, 151, 188, 371 listening as generative dialogue on the self–other interface, 318–19 sharpening, 376 self–other connection, 148 and sharedness between self and other, 148 sharedness of self and others in social psychology, 150 self–other distinction, 18, 148, 262 in infants, 150–51 self–other overlap, 150 self–other relationship(s) and the brain, 151–52 toward a balance between self and other, 244–46 types of, 317t self-perception, 58n self-positions crossing the boundaries of established, 354 internal and external, 72n types of, 194, 194f, 197–98 self-presentation vs. I-positioning, 50–51 self-promoting, 221 self-radicalization, 41, 56 and the slippery slope of violence, 23–28, 41 self-realization, 3, 141, 339 self-reference, 79n self-referential orientations, 217–18 self-referential value systems, 217 self-relection, 300, 302, 303, 330, 336 self-regulation, 79n, 302 implicit, 159 self-talk as, 300 self-rule, 34, 35 self-sabotage forms of, 21–22 nature of, 22 ranking yourself lower than you deserve, 21–23 self–self relationships, types of, 317t self-skepticism, 303–4 self-socialization, 11 self-societalization, 19, 20, 31, 41–44

437

deinition and nature of, 41 how to understand, 40–42 nature of, 41 self-society, 4, 41, 75. See also self as society self–society dichotomy, 17, 18, 20 overcoming, 4, 20, 82, 105 self–society dualism, problem of, 1 self-space, 42, 309, 319, 370. See also zones in the self-space decentralizing phenomena in, 45 depressive positions and, 92, 114 division into safety and danger zones, 96 emptiness and the need to ill, 225n7 homophily and, 293 positioning leaving its traces in, 48 Richard’s I-positions in, 67f shadows and, 279, 290 totalizing positions becoming central and dominant in, 93 self-stimulation, 237 vs. external stimulation, 151 self-storage industry, 236 self-suiciency, 228, 229, 233, 245, 353 self-system, 100, 203, 284, 360 assuming a mono-culture, 236–37 “compass function” for, 71, 235 economic position and, 235 homogenization of, 251 I-positions and, 101, 220, 232, 234, 394 meta-position and, 75, 84 powerful position allowed to dominate, 199, 231, 232, 234, 376, 394, 396 promoter positions and, 71, 84, 235, 251, 394, 396 uncertainty and, 376, 396 self-talk, 300, 307–9 as focusing atention, 301–2 forms of, 301 role of imaginary companions in, 304–5 as self-regulation, 300 self-transcendence, 384n self-with-other model, 245–46 semantic memory, shit from episodic memory to, 90n Sen, Amartya, 4–7 Senge, Peter, 312 servant leadership, 85, 120–22 sexuality, 58–59, 88 shadow archetype, 271, 273–74, 285. See also shadow position(s); shadow(s) shadow imagery, Jungian, 271 shadow position(s), 51, 68, 88, 89, 176–77, 349. See also enemy image; shadow(s) accessibility of positions and, 89 becoming revealed, 94 challenge zone and, 395, 397 coalition of, 68

438

Index

shadow position(s) (cont.) constructive potentials for functioning of the self, 279–85, 395, 397 democratic self and, 385–87 destructive efects of, 89 emotional distance and, 88–89, 386, 397 as hidden positions, 93–94 from meaningless to meaningful, 282–83 meta-position and, 88n30, 93–94 nature of, 88, 93–94, 257, 297, 391n over-positioning and, 385 overview, 268–69, 297 vs. persona, 94 positioning model and, 110 responding to, 386 vs. shining positions, 285–87, 391, 391n strategies of dealing with, 275. See also shadow(s): projection of subpositions and, 94 terminology, 88n30, 94 witch as a lexible, 280–82, 281t shadow(s). See also shadow position(s) acceptance and, 89, 94, 256–57, 271, 387, 397 comfort zone, challenge zone, and, 395, 397 of democratic self, 385–94 democratic self and, 395, 397 of freedom and equality, 387–89 including a shadow in a new coalition, 283–85 including shadows in dialogue, 392–93 nature of, 387n, 391n projection of, 89, 271, 278 of utopian visions, and the destructive potential of end-positions, 389–91 shadow side(s), 204, 205 of the American dream, 226–28, 253 Sharpley, R., 290 shining models, 370 shining positions, 369 examples of, 286 vs. shadow positions, 285–87, 391, 391n Shrauger, J. S., 58n signaling (function of meta-position), 74, 75 silence, 327, 334–35 and depositioning, 335n “similarity breeds connection,” 293 Simon, Herbert A., 161 Singer, T., 273–74, 285 situations, strong vs. weak, 241–43, 248 Snyderman, B. B., 258–59 social constructionism, 3, 103, 200n social extension, 78n social identity, 357 social identity theory (SIT), 356 social position, 357, 359 social positioning, the process of, 173–93

social power giving space to, 361–63 of meta-position and promoters, 84–87, 138 need for, in crisis situations, 118–20 social responsibility, 36, 359 social–societal distinction, 36 societal responsibility, 36 societal self, 65 I-positions in a, 60–65 societies, closed vs. open, 213, 273n society. See also speciic topics as metaphor for the self, 53, 65 scope of the term, 65 society-in-the-self, 40. See also self as society contrasted with other-in-the-self, 20–21 from other-in-the-self to, 18–20 Society of Mind, he (Minsky), 8 socioeconomic classes, ield of tension between, 64–65 sociopathic behavior, 168. See also psychopathy sociopaths, 155. See also psychopathy sot boundaries, 96–97 Solomon’s paradox, 163 somatic marker hypothesis, 165–67, 198 Sommerville, J. A., 148–49, 151–52 Sopranos, he (TV program), 91 sovereign self, modern sense of self as a, 3, 17 Soviet Union, 13, 136, 213–15, 310 dissidents and anti-positions, 213, 214, 216, 253 housing policy in, 211–13, 226 principles of, 211 over-positioning in, 215–16, 226, 231 “us” vs. “them” opposition in, 213 “we” placed above “I” in, 134n space, notion of, 47n2 spatial basis of dialogue, 308–9 spatial dialogical relationships. See dialogical relationships spatial-relational process positioning as a, 57n, 203 positioning theory as spatial and relational, 7–8 Spears, L. C., 121 Sperry, Roger, 191–92 Spillmann, Kati, 271, 272 Spillmann, Kurt R., 271, 272 spiritual position, 238 spongy boundaries, 97, 160 Sporns, O., 200–202 Spronck family, 54–56, 55f Stanford Prison Experiment, 25, 26, 26n state-dependent learning, 57n Staudinger, U. M., 316n stereotype efect, becoming conscious of the preceding afective stimulus reduces the, 177–78

Index stereotyping, 369 authoritarian personality and, 139n, 374–75 vs. beginner’s mind, 347n as dialogue inhibitor, 346–47 enemy image and, 272, 273, 297 nature of, 346–47 nonconscious inluence on behavior, 176n stewardship (quality of leaders), 121 Stewart, G. L., 108n Stiles, W., 48n Stone, P. R., 290 Strahan, E. J., 239–40 Straus, E. W., 96 stress response, acute. See ight-or-light response strong situations, 241–43, 248 subjective atitude ambivalence, 379, 380 subjective well-being. See happiness/subjective well-being subliminal perception, 240, 242, 243, 253 subliminal persuasion techniques, 239, 243 subliminal priming, 176n, 177, 239–40 subliminal stimuli, 176n, 177, 181 sub-personality, 76 subpositions, 73, 116, 241, 273, 326 meta-position and, 93–94, 183 nature of, 102–3 the necessity of, 83–84 positive and negative, 268 shadow positions and shadowy, 93–94 Sulloway, F. J., 375 superego, 18 superforecasters, 380–81 survivor position, 238 suspension of certainties, 128, 129 importance of suspension and listening for generative dialogue, 344 of initial judgment, 313–14 Suzuki, S., 347n Sweden, 382, 384 Swingley, D., 301–2 symbolic interactionists, 18 sympathy, 156 team members emotional distance between, 115, 120, 121, 123–25 emotional distance between leader and, 115, 120, 121 knowledge, 112–13 team(s). See also under power distance boundary spanning and, 108–10 counter-positioning and, 106, 110 lexible boundaries and, 124, 324 groupthink and, 112–13, 128n positioning model and, 107f, 108, 110, 120n positioning theory on the level of

439

boundary spanning and lexibility, 108–9 empowerment and promoter positions, 107–8 initiating structure and meta-position, 109 positions in a, 106–7, 107f, 194, 194f, 197–98 promoters and, 107f, 111, 117, 119, 124, 125 technological extension, 78n types of, 78n technological over-positioning, 388n technology, use of, 29–30 temporal lobe, 149 terrorism, 23–24, 26, 81n, 100–101n thanatourism, 290 theory of mind (ToM), 152–55, 157, 175n, 207 in chimpanzee, 152–53 and inhibition of impulses, 152–57, 207 and inhibitory control in children, 153–55 third positions, 331–32, 337, 342–43 black–white dichotomy and, 188n, 370n emergence of, 329–30, 332, 337–38 necessary conditions for the, 330 examples of the construction of, 188n, 329–30, 337–38, 342, 370n ield of tension and, 342 generative dialogue and construction of, 330 promoter positions and, 330, 331 thought control, 2 tolerance. See also uncertainty tolerance of cognitive dissonance, 342–43 of contradictions, 342–43 for deviant/opposing points of view, 380n for dissent, increasing, 380n of distress, 266–67, 270 ToM. See theory of mind Totalitarian Ego, he (Greenwald), 2 totalitarian self vs. democratic self, 353 totalitarian societies, 2, 233n, 346. See also authoritarian regimes; Soviet Union egocentric nature of the self and, 2, 345–46 transformation of critical positions into antipositions in, 213–14, 253, 387 Trajectory Equiinality Model, 104n transference, 91n32 transgender, 62–63, 93 meaning and scope of the term, 63n transpositioning, 129n trust, atmosphere of, 7, 324, 326, 344. See also atmosphere umbrella positions, 83, 84 uncertainty, 324, 374, 379. See also certainty(ies) ambiguity and, 201, 373 aspects of the experience of, 373–74 as a challenge to self and society, 201 deined, 373–74

440

Index

uncertainty (cont.) and democracy in the self, 372–85 going into vs. avoiding, 377 reactions to the experience of, 396. See also speciic reactions strategies to cope with a heightened level of, 375–78 travel into, 378 the wisdom of, 341–42 uncertainty tolerance, 341, 374–75 advantages of, 378–85 authoritarian personality and low, 374–76 deined, 395 unconscious, 275. See also conscious and nonconscious positions collective, 273 Jung on, 339 in psychoanalysis, 183, 334, 339 terminology, 195n unconscious–conscious dynamics, 144, 181n23, 339. See also conscious and nonconscious positions unconscious knowledge/unconscious knowing, 159, 184 unconscious perception, 178 underperformance phenomena, 346 under-positioning, 209 depression and the problem of, 208–10 vs. over-positioning, 204, 208, 209, 245 unexpected positions, “visits” by, 330 United Nations (UN), 126 General Assembly, 130–32, 133n power problems in, 131–34 as promoter vs. anti-promoter, 130–34 Security Council, 131–33 United Nations (UN) Charter, 131, 133n, 134, 137 democracy and, 134 “We the peoples,” 134, 135, 137 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 134, 137 us vs. them division, 212–13, 274. See also we– they dichotomy utopian visions, shadows of, 388n, 389–91 Vallortigara, G., 145–47 Valsiner, Jaan, 71n, 104n value conlicts. See third positions value inventory scale, 384n value spheres, 217, 232, 236, 245, 246, 385 penetrating spheres in society and overpositioning in self, 219–21 value threat condition, 270 Van den Heuvel, M. P., 200–202 van Gaal, Louis, 123–25, 125f Vangelisti, A. L., 347–48

Van Gulik, L., 52–53 Van Loon, R., 129 van Meijl, T., 62 ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC), 155, 168 Verhaeghe, P., 234 Vicary, James, 239 Vico, Giambatista, 10 Virtue, B., 116n5 ViSi-Mobile System, 30 Vohs, K. D., 228, 229, 245 Volkmann, Ute, 216–19, 223, 233, 245, 384–85 Voris, J., 169–71 vulnerable dark triad (VDT), 224n Vygotsky, Lev, 18, 257, 315 Wang, Zilin, 39, 40 war and wartime, 57n, 271–73 wastefulness, 225n8 “we” “I” and, 78. See also we-position: I-position and as internally divided, 134–36 weak situations, 241–42, 248 wealth and happiness, 229–30 Weatherly, T., 260n Weber, Max, 217 we-feeling, 116 we-leader, 116 well-being. See happiness/subjective well-being we-position, 101, 135, 273, 359 contrast between a homogeneous and a diversiied, 272–73 deined, 99n extended, 135n identity and, 99n I-position and, 81n, 232, 272. See also “we”: “I” and oppositional, 212–13, 232 promoters and, 81 Soviet Union and, 212–13 “We the peoples” (UN Charter), 134, 135, 137 we–they dichotomy, 271. See also us vs. them division wholeness, 3, 121 the value of negative emotions and the experience of, 265–67 “wholeness above happiness,” 297 Wilson, Woodrow, 141 Wimmer, Paul, 60n win–lose relationships, 307, 308, 321 winner–loser mentality, 227n, 308 win–win relationships, 307, 321 wisdom-related performance, 316n witch as a lexible shadow position, 280–82, 281t

Index Woolfolk, R. L., 17 Word, C. O., 175–76, 181, 346–47 working self, 73, 94 working self-concept, 73n world citizens, 102n Wurf, E., 73n xenophobia, 271, 277, 359, 376

Yerkes–Dodson law, 291 Zajonc, R. B., 177, 181, 239, 338 Zomer, Peter, 128n zone of proximal development, 257 zones in the self-space, 288–89, 293. See also speciic zones dynamic nature of, 289–90

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