Unit objectives
Understand the concept of multiple selves.
Understand why adolescence is a time for changing narratives.
Explain factors that influence an adolescent’s narrative.
Describe attributes of a healthy narrative.
Delineate the primary implicit motives that affect narratives.
Understand risk factors for an unhealthy narrative.
Adolescence and Multiple Selves
The founder of American psychology, William James, noted that we all have “multiple selves(Dennis, 1946).” He did not mean that we all have multiple personalities or dissociative states. That belief is primarily for movies and fiction. Instead, he noted that we are slightly different from every person we interact with. According to James, our personalities are so flexible that they are not always as consistent as we think.
As much as we want to believe that we always are guided by our true selves, many researchers believe this is not the case. Most researchers recognize that we behave based on our past learning, our traits, and aspects of the situation at hand. Part of the situation is the behavior of other people. Our ongoing interaction with others often determines how we may behave with them (Lester, 2015).
James believed that we are so influenced by our social group that we are inevitably shaped by them. James knew that this inconsistency became particularly important during the adolescent years. Partly this was because adolescents have more social and other opportunities away from more restrictive groups. Partly this was due to maturation and the tendencies of adolescents to be very creative. Compared to a child, the teenager is free to question and take on more roles. Society also allows the adolescent to have more freedom and hence more possibilities for diverse social interaction.
These opportunities create situations where behavior may be very inconsistent in one social situation as compared to another. We all have known people who, especially during their teenage years, act one way among parents and another way among friends. Moreover, they may have subgroups of friends where they talk, act, or work entirely differently. For example, they may act differently among religious friends compared to others. They may act more mature around certain groups and much less mature around others. This may cause outsiders or perplexed relatives to say that “That just doesn’t seem like it could be the same person.”
In James’s theory, although the person is the same, the self is flexible and potentially changing. It is exceptionally flexible during the adolescent years. The self is, in essence, experimenting with different aspects of the personality, trying on what fits, choosing what works for particular situations. It is almost like a person approaching a new and unknown wardrobe closet full of exciting clothes. Some of these new items fit. Other items do not work so well and are not retained. Some clothes in the wardrobe seem to fit for a while but not for very long. Only experience and