Public Self and Private Self
Psychology has worked hard to explore the inner self. Modem psychology was born in Wundt's laboratory and Freud's consulting room, where the inner self was pressed to reveal some of its secrets. Freud, in particular, devoted most of his life to explor in
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SSSP Public Self and Private Self Edited by Roy R Baumeister
Springer-Verlag New York Berlin Heidelberg London Paris Tokyo
Roy F. Baumeister Department of Psychology Case Western Reserve University Cleveland, Ohio 44106 U.S.A.
With 4 Figures Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Public self and private self. (Springer series in social psychology) Bibliography: p. Includes index. 1. Self-presentation. 2. Self. I. Baumeister, Roy F. II. Series. BF697.5.S44P82 1986 155.2 86-1905 ©1986 by Springer-Verlag New York Inc. Softcover reprint of the hardcover \ st edition 1986 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be translated or reproduced in any form without written permission from Springer-Verlag, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10010, U.S.A. The use of general descriptive names, trade names, trademarks, etc. in this publication, even if the former are not especially identified, is not to be taken as a sign that such names, as understood by the Trade Marks and Merchandise Marks Act, may accordingly be used freely by anyone. Typeset by Publishers Service, Bozeman, Montana.
987 654 3 2 1 ISBN-13: 978-\-4613-9566-9 00\: 10.\007/978-\-4613-9564-5
e-ISBN-13: 978-\-46\3-9564-5
Preface
Psychology has worked hard to explore the inner self. Modem psychology was born in Wundt's laboratory and Freud's consulting room, where the inner self was pressed to reveal some of its secrets. Freud, in particular, devoted most of his life to exploring the hidden recesses inside the self-hidden even from the conscious mind, he said. From Freud's work right down to the latest journal article on self-schemata or self-esteem, psychologists have continued to tell us about the inner self. More recently, psychology has turned some of its attention to the outer self, that is, the self that is seen and known by other people. Various psychologists have studied how the outer self is formed (impression formation), how people control their outer selves (impression management), and so forth. But how is the outer self related to the inner self? There is an easy answer, but it is wrong. The easy answer is that the outer self is mostly the same as the inner self. Put another way, it is that people reveal their true selves to others in a honest and straightforward fashion, and that others accurately perceive the individual as he or she really is. Sometimes it works out that way, but often it does not. The issue is far too complex for the easy answer. The terms "inner self" and "outer self" have several misleading meanings. They seem to imply that the psyche is layered like an onion, and that all visible action goes with the outer self while the inner self can never be glimpsed in action. Both implications are probably quite wrong. As a result, the inner-outer metaphor has fallen into disuse among most psychologists interested in the self. For this book, the terms "public self" and "private self" were preferred. The public self is the self that is manifested in the presence of others, that is formed when other people attribute
