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Re-Presenting the Presentational Self

The concept of self is surely one of the most important and one of the slipperiest constructs in psychology. Indeed, a simple Google Scholar search for ‘self-concept’ yields more than 3,000,000 hits! Yet, paradoxically, given the level of research interest in the self, definitions of self remain elusive. Beginning with William James [1890], the self has often been conceptualized as comprising multiple components. For example, Neisser [1988] posited 5 types of self and Damasio [1999] posited 3 types of self. Komatsu [this issue] posits another type of self, the ‘presentational self ’, defined as the self that ‘emerges at the point of contact between a person’s behaviors (especially the verbal kind) and the observers’ perspectives and frameworks that they may see the self in’. This notion of self resonates with postmodern conceptualizations of the person, including critical theory within sociology [e.g., Goffman, 1959], feminist identity politics [e.g., Alcoff & Potter, 1993] and sociolinguistics [e.g., Bamberg, 2004], which have argued for a contextually driven fluid construction of self in the moment. The idea of a presentational self highlights the moment-to-moment coconstruction of identity in conversations with others, as the individual positions the self in relation to others, and others observe and position themselves in relation to the self. Through these arguments, Komatsu underscores the role of everyday interactions with others as critical grist for self-presentation, and perhaps, although not as clearly stated, for self-understanding. The problem is that, as in many other scholarly discussions of the self, the presentational self is never clearly defined or elucidated, either theoretically or methodologically. Beginning with theoretical definitions, the first definition that Komatsu provides for the presentational self is: