Psychology of Self

Within Developmental Discourses, learning is understood as a recursively elaborative process rather than a linear accumulative one. Most Developmental Discourses focus on how learners’ key habits of perception and interpretation change amid predictable sequences of biological, psychological, and emotional transformation.

Second-Order Cybernetics is an elaboration of Cybernetics’ core interest in circular causal relationships (feedback) between systems. The interest is extended to include phenomena that can involve feedback to feedback – that is, that have some level of responsive awareness. Second-Order Cybernetics thus simultaneously sparks and addresses issues of autonomy, self-referentiality, knowing, mind, and ethics.

Complex Systems Research focuses on systems comprising sets of agents that form unified wholes in their interactions, relationships, or dependencies. Their emergent, global behaviors cannot be predicted on the basis of the rules governing the individual agents. Definitions and descriptions of complex systems revolve around such terms as emergent, adaptive, nonlinear, irreducible, noncompressible, non-decomposable, multi-level, self-organizing, context-sensitive, and adaptive.

Psychoanalytic Theories comprise several schools of thought that are concerned with the study of the actions and beliefs that are not mediated (and often not moderated) by the conscious mind. Psychoanalytic Theories are most often focused on mental-health disorders. Many of these theories’ core constructs have come to be embedded in Western culture, and some are commonly assumed in prominent educational discourses.

Symbolic Interactionism aims to offer insight into how culture is preserved through interactions among individuals. It posits that formal symbolic systems – and, in particular, language – are the sources and media of all meaning. Symbolic Interactionism is focused on how individuals interact to create and recreate symbolic worlds and, in turn, how those co-created symbolic worlds shape each individual’s actions and interpretations.

Self-Perception Theory runs counter to the commonsense assumption that one’s attitudes determine one’s behaviors. The theory asserts that one’s attitudes arise as one derives rational explanations of one’s own overt behavior in terms of attitudes that must have caused it – in the same way one attempts to explain others’ actions.

“Social identity” is defined as the part of one’s self-concept that’s based on affiliations with social groups. Social Identity Theory looks at such group qualities as status, permeability, and stability to understand their impact on social identity. The theory argues that individual behavior and sensibilities can be significantly affected by different levels of affiliation and engagement.

Often used as a synonym to “learning,” memory is more specific and applies to the ability to recall something learned after a period of time. Memory Research thus look at multiple memory systems – that vary according to the type of memory, the location of the memory, the extent of conscious control, the manner of maintenance, the span of preservation, and the role in learning. Several categories and varieties of memory have been identified and studied.