Methodological Approaches To Studying The Self In Its Social Context (LSERO)

Citation

Jasper C, Moore H, Whittaker L & Gillespie A (2011) Methodological Approaches To Studying The Self In Its Social Context (LSERO). In: Handbook of Dialogical Self Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 319-334. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139030434.022

Abstract
Methodological approaches to studying the self in its social context “The literature in the dialogical self field,” Hermans (2008: 186) writes, “shows more theoretical advances than methodological and empirical elaborations.” The idea, that the self is dialogical in its nature and origin, clearly fits with theoretical ideas not only within psychology, but also within literary studies, anthropology, sociology, and clinical fields. But what methodologies are most suitable for guiding research? Research to date has been interdisciplinary, and accordingly, a wide range of methodologies have been used. In the literature one can find experiments (Hermans 1999; Stemplewska-Zakowicz, Walecka, and Gabinska 2006), self-report questionnaires (Rowiński 2008), self-confrontation method (Hermans and Hermans-Jansen 1995), anthropological data (Gieser 2008), interview data (Aveling and Gillespie 2008) and close textual analysis of biographical material (Barresi 2008; Gillespie 2005). Our aim, in the present chapter, is to discuss some of the main methods for studying the dialogical self and, elaborating on that, to introduce an additional methodology that is of a more interpersonal nature than most of the existing methods. As we will argue, such an additional methodology is needed in the light of the mutual complementing nature of intra- and interpersonal dialogues in Dialogical Self Theory.

Keywords
self-experience; phenomenological views; psychoanalytic view; schizophrenia; intrapersonal-interpersonal dialogue; existential vantage points; dialogical self theory