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Selfunderstandingand social cognitivedevelopmentDaniel Hart a & William Damon ba RutgersThe State Universityb Clark UniversityPublished online: 09 Jul 2006.

To cite this article: Daniel Hart & William Damon (1988) Selfunderstanding andsocial cognitive development, Early Child Development and Care, 40:1, 5-23,DOI: 10.1080/0300443880400102

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Early Child Development and Care,1988, Vol. 40, pp. 5-23Photocopying permitted by licence onlyReprints available directly from the publisher

1988 Gordon and BreachScience Publishers, Inc.Printed in Great Britain

Self-understanding and social cognitivedevelopment

DANIEL HARTRutgers-The State University

WILLIAM DAMONClark University

(Received 31 May 1988)

Self-understanding is described as a multi-faceted conceptual system.Utilizing the distinctions among facets proposed by William James, anew model of self-understanding development is presented. Accordingto the model, the various facets of self-understanding evolve through asequence of four developmental levels. The relationship betweendevelopment in self-understanding, as described by the model, andinterpersonal reasoning is considered in a study of children. The resultsindicate that self-understanding develpment is related to, butindependent from, the development of interpersonal reasoning.Theoretical and research implications of these findings are considered.

KEY WORDS: Self-understanding, Cognition, Childhood, Friendship,Authority, Morality

OUR PURPOSE in this article is to examine the developmentalrelationships between self-understanding and social cognition. Therehas been an unfortunate tendency among some researchers todescribe development in one as merely a reflection of development inthe other; to claim, for instance, that self-understanding exhibits thesame ontogenetic transformations exhibited in other domains (e.g.Montemayor and Eisen, 1977), or that age-related changes in socialreasoning follows from the development of the self (e.g. Kegan, 1982).Broad claims of isomorphism such as these obscure both thedistinctive qualities of self-understanding and social cognition, andthe relationships between the two domains. In the first part.of thisarticle, the nature and development of self-understanding isthoroughly described. This explication serves as a basis for an

Address correspondence to Daniel Hart, Department of Psychology, Rutgers-TheState University, Camden, NJ 08102, USA.

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examination of the relationship of self-understanding to socialcognitive development, an issue which is taken up in the second half.

The nature of self-understanding

Understanding oneself is a fundamental human concern that startsearly and continues throughout life. The toddler searching forfamiliar facial features in a mirror, the teenager brooding over afriend's teasing remark, the philosopher working through abstractverbal puzzles about personal continuity, all are captured by thesame intriguing problem: the nature of self. It is a problem thatattracts not only intellectual curiosity but the deepest sorts ofemotional response. For a conceptual exercise, it bears more than theusual cognitive risks and rewards, for it provides the material for self-judgment and evaluation.

Thoughts and attitudes about oneself form a conceptual systemthat we call 'self-understanding.' This system's domain encompassesall the considerations that an individual uses to define the self and todistinguish the self from others. Included among these considerationsmay be (depending on the individual) physical and material qualities(e.g., size, possessions), activities and capabilities (e.g., hobbies,talents), social or psychological characteristics (e.g. manners, habits,dispositions), and philosophical beliefs (e.g., moral values, politicalideology).

Further, self-understanding can extend beyond the definition ofone's current characteristics to the consideration of one's past andfuture life directions. It may include notions of how one changes overtime, and of how one remains the same over time. Included too maybe conceptions of the processes accounting for personal changes, andbeliefs about one's own role in shaping or guiding these processes. Iteven may include reflections on one's own consciousness of selfhood.

As part of its task of distinguishing self from others, self-understanding incorporates one's self-interests and how these maydiffer from the interests of others. Self-understanding also drawsconnections between the interests of self and others, defining ways inwhich mutual self-interests may overlap. Finally, self-understandingincludes evaluative insights that provides the cognitive bases for self-esteem, shame and guilt, and personal identity.

The odd thing about self-understanding, as conceptual systems go,is that it is the self that does the understanding of itself. This leads us

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SOCIAL COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT 7

commonly to make reflexive statements like 'I am mad at myself,' or'I don't know myself very well.' In such seemingly contradictorydualisms, T and 'myself are both part of the same 'self that is beingunderstood.

Here we turn to the self theory of William James, still the classicpsychological analysis of this elusive concept. James' framework, withsome more recent modifications to be discussed below, has shaped ourinvestigations from their inception. When we explore the self-understanding of children and adolescents, we focus in large part ontheir understanding of the experiential territory that James mappedout a century ago.

James divided the self into two main components, the 'me' and theT . The 'me' aspect is 'the sum total of all a person can call his'.(James 1892/1961, p.44). The primary elements of the 'me' are whatJames called the 'constituents'. These constituents are the actualqualities that define the self-as-known. They include all the materialcharacteristics (body, possessions), all the social characteristics(relations, roles, personality), and all the 'spiritual' characteristics(consciousness, thoughts, psychological mechanisms) that identifythe self as a unique configuration of personal attributes.

James analyzed his three primary constituents in terms of theirnature and relation to one another. His suggestion was that eachindividual organizes the constituents of the 'me' into a hierarchicalstructure that assigns differential value to each of the variousmaterial, social, and spiritual constituents. James's assertion was thatall individuals hierarchize the basic constituent 'me' categoriessimilarly, with 'the bodily me at the bottom, the spiritual me at thetop, and the extra-corporeal material selves and the various socialselves between' (p.57). When James writes of individuals organizingtheir 'me' constituents into hierarchies, he is of course referring toindividuals' cognitive representations of the 'me' aspect of self. This isthe place of self-concept in James' theory. As such, it presents a fairlycomprehensive notion. It suggests a self-concept that cognizes allaspects of the self that one can objectively know, either through one'sown observations or through feedback from others.

For our purposes it is important to note here that this Jamesianversion of a self-concept, however comprehensive, did not imply anydevelopmental component. Although James admitted to someindividual variation in how the 'me' constituents were formulated, hedid not recognize the possibility that their hierarchical interrelations

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might vary significantly across individuals or within one individualover time. Thus James foresaw no need for developmentalcomparisons between modes of'me' organization.

James' introduction of the second major aspect of self, the 'self-as-F, drives his theory deep into the heart of the selfs exclusive domain.For the T incorporates precisely those experiential features of selfthat elude all other constructs. It is the T more than any other aspectof the person that requires a special 'self notion to express.

James presented the T as the 'self-as-knower,' the aspect of self thatinitiates, organizes, and interprets experience in a subjective manner.Individuals- are aware of the 'I ' through four types of experience:agency, distinctness, continuity, and reflection. Each of theseexperiences has profound consequences for the individual,particularly in creating the sense of personal identity.

From the sense of agency derives a belief in the autonomy of theself, a conviction that one actively structures and processes one's ownexperience. From the sense of continuity derives stability of self: asJames wrote, '...each of us spontaneously considers that by 'I ' hemeans something always the same' (p.63). From the sense ofdistinctness from others derives individuality: 'Other men'sexperiences, no matter how much I may know about them, neverbear this vivid, this peculiar brand' (p.71). From reflection derivesthe self-consciousness that shapes the personal identity's eventualmeaning to oneself.

Here we depart a bit from James' approach. In his own writings,James advocated avoiding the T for the purposes of empirical studybecause of the 'IV indeterminate nature. It is of course difficult toobserve or characterize a phenomenon that is totally subjective andthat, therefore, may change unpredictably from moment to moment.Also, unlike the somewhat circumscribed nature of the 'me' (whichconsists of a definable collection of definitions that one and othersconstruct for one's self), the T enters into all of a person's interactionswith the world. It determines the very meaning of all life events, sinceit influences a person's interpretation of every encountered person,place, or experience; and even provides itself with a reflection onitself. James' conclusion was that inquiry into the T was best left tophilosophy or religion, and that psychologists interested in self-concept should focus on the 'me.'

But some years later, George Herbert Mead proposed an

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SOCIAL COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT 9

important modification to James' position (Mead, 1934). Mead'smodification suits our present purposes well, since it grants someaccess to the subjective self for the study of self-understanding. Meadsuggested approaching the T through the 'me' by studyingindividuals' knowledge of both their objective and subjective selves.This, of course, is not the same as studying the actual experience of thesubjective self. But it does broaden the domain of self-understandingbeyond the circumscribed 'me' to include at least conceptualknowledge of the 'I. ' Another way of putting this is to say that theJamesian 'me' in this new definition becomes a bit enlarged in orderto incorporate some vital intellectual sense of the 'I. ' In this mostcomprehensive definition, which we have adopted, selfunderstanding is an individual's knowledge of the self-as-object aswell as of the self-as-subject; of the self-as-known as well as of the self-as-knower; of the 'me' as well as of the 'I. ' The reason that we adoptthe term self-understanding rather than self-concept is to make thisinclusiveness clear; for traditionally self-concept has referred solely tothe James' 'me' (with James himself setting the precedent).

In other words, self-understanding in our usage starts with anindividual's self-definition, the domain of the Jamesian 'me.' But italso includes the individual's conception of the self-as-subject, inparticular the individual's understanding of his/her agency,continuity, distinctness, and reflection. It does not, however, includethe actual T itself, because the self-as-subject extends well beyond therealm of self-understanding to the entire domain of psychologicalfunctioning.

The developmental model of self-understanding development

The multi-faceted nature of self-understanding precludes a uni-dimensional model of development. Based upon our review of theliterature (Damon and Hart, 1982, 1988), and our cross-sectional(Hart and Damon, 1986) longitudinal (Damon and Hart, 1986; Hartand Damon, 1985; Hart, Maloney, and Damon, 1987), cross-cultural(Hart, Lucca-Irizarry, and Damon, 1986) and clinical (Hart,Schorin, and Damon, in press) studies, we have proposed and verifiedthe multi-faceted developmental model of self-understandingdepicted in Figure 1.

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Figure i . A developmental model for self-understanding.

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SOCIAL COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT 11

The developmental model of self-understanding is organizedhorizontally along two major dimensions, represented by the frontand side faces of the cube depicted in Figure i. The front-facedimension corresponds to the Jamesian 'Me' or 'self as object' (James,1892/1961), and the side-face dimension to the conceptual awarenessof the Jamesian 'I ' or 'self as subject'. Four self-as-object schemes areposited: the physical self-scheme, the active self-scheme, the socialself-scheme, and the psychological self-scheme. These various self-schemes are represented by the columns on the face of the model inFigure 1. The physical self-scheme includes within it the variousphysical and material characteristics of self: height, weight,appearance, possessions, and so on. Within the active self-scheme arethe selfs typical activities (e.g. 'bowl once a week') and capabilities('good pilot'). The social self-scheme is constituted of the individual'ssocial relationships ('I have a mother') and social personalitycharacteristics ('friendly', 'shy'). Finally, the psychological self-scheme represents the variety of psychological characteristics that theindividual perceives in the self: beliefs ('I believe in freedom'),affective states ('I'm moody'), and cognitive faculties ('smart' or'perceptive'.

Development in the 'Me' component of self-understanding isgraphically depicted by the rows on the front face of the model. Eachrow represents a developmental level. At the first developmentallevel, Categorical Identifications, the self as 'Me' is understood as anumber of separate categorical identifications with taxonomic valueonly. Categories like group memberships, typical activities, andphysical characteristics are offered as simple face descriptions withoutfurther underlying significance. Rather, they are seen as sufficient inthemselves. At the second developmental level, ComparativeAssessments, the self is denned in relation to others and to normativephysical or social standards. Self-understanding focuses oncomparisons between the performances and capabilities of self versusthe performances and capabilities of real or imagined others. Suchcomparisons can be explicit ('I do X better than he does') or implicit('I can't stay in the sun very long'). In either case, categories of self aretransformed into relational statements that make a claim about theselfs capabilities or quality or performance. At developmentallevel 3, Interpersonal Implications, self-understanding focuses oncharacteristics of self as they determine the nature of one'sinteractions with others. The main concern is now transformed from

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drawing relational analogies between self and others (as was the caseat level 2) to identifying one's manner of interacting with others.Implicit or explicit comparative statements, therefore, assess thequality of one's interactional capacities. Beyond comparisons, there isalso a concern at level 3 for the nature of any stable personality traitsthat may define one's place and manner of operating in the socialnetwork. At level 4 Systematic Beliefs and Plans categories of the self-as-object are organized through systematic beliefs and*life plans.Characteristics of self draw their meaning for one's identity throughsuch beliefs and plans, which may include philosophical or moralbelief systems, ideological choices, or any variety of personal goals. Itis at this level, therefore, that a consciously systematic conception ofself is first achieved.

The side face of the model corresponds to the 'self-as-subject' or theT in William James's description (1892/1961). Rather than attemptto represent the actual development of the T component of the self,which James believed would be impossible, the side face of the modelpresents the developmental changes that occur in an understanding ofthree of the four types of awareness that derive from the I (in our ownempirical work, we have found it difficult to elicit children's andadolescents' understanding of self-reflection, and, for this reason,have omitted this dimension from our model). The developmentalprogressions for the T components of self-understanding aredescribed separately below. They are described separately becauseour research indicates that there is not a general developmentalsequence applying to all three components of the T . Instead, eachcomponent represents a distinctive type of self-understanding thatdevelops along its own trajectory, although there certainly arecommonalities among the three developmental paths, as well asconceptual connections to the general sequence for the 'Me'described above.

Within the agency component of self-understanding, at level 1, theindividual believes that biological or social forces determine theexistence and formation of self. At level 2, the individual asserts that itis the self s own talents, abilities, efforts, or wishes, that shape thedirection of one's life. Level 3 agency understanding emphasizes theinfluence of communication with others as a force directing the self slife course. And finally, at level 4, the individual's own personal ormoral evaluations of life possibilities are believed to determine thenature of the self.

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The understanding of personal continuity develops through fourlevels as well. At level i, personal continuity is viewed as derivingfrom the unchanging nature of physical characteristics or othercategorical identifications. At level 2, self-continuity is attributed topermanent cognitive and active capabilities, such as one's memory orknowledge. At level 3, self-continuity is established with reference tothe ongoing recognition of self by others. At the last level, level 4, self-continuity is believed to derive from the relation between one's earlierand present characteristics of the self.

Finally, there are four developmental levels for the development ofan understanding of personal distinctness. At Level 1, the self'sdistinctness over time is defined with reference to simple categoricalidentifications such as one's body or possessions. The Level 2understanding of distinctness is based on comparisons between selfand other along isolated personality, behavioral, or cognitivedimensions. At Level 3, self-distinctness is believed to stem from one'sunique combination of psychological and physical characteristics. Atthe last level, Level 4, self-distinctness is established with reference toone's unique subjective experiences and interpretations of the world.

Applications of the self-understanding model

Our presentation of the model is necessarily brief and abstract; here,we provide several examples of self-understanding from a clinicalstudy that demonstrate both how actual reasoning corresponds to themodel, and how the model can be applied. In one study (Schorin andHart, 1988), self-understanding was elicited from anorexic and non-anorexic adolescent females. Our hypothesis derived from a readingof the clinical literature was that anorexic adolescents are likely tohave developmentally immature understandings of agency, relativeto age-matched non-anorexics. This hypothesis was confirmedthrough statistical analyses that revealed that Level 1 responses weremore typical of the anorexics than of the normal adolescents. Anexample of an understanding of agency from each group is providedbelow in order to demonstrate the form and significance of thisdifference. In response to a standard interview question used to elicitan understanding of agency 'How did you get to be the way you arenow?', one 15-year-old anorexic responded:

I think I got the caring for people part from my mother, I think I inherited that. I

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think I inherited a good sense of humor too. I was raised with humor. My mother cantell a joke and it changes me.

Within the framework of the model, this is a typical example of aLevel i understanding of agency, because it reflects a belief in thedetermination of self by external, social forces (the mother). Comparethe anorexic's responses with an age-appropriate response from anon-anorexic adolescent:

How did you get to be like you are now? I really tried hard... I tried really hard to be like Iam now.

This response corresponds to Level 2 in the model, because it revealsan understanding of self in which effort and motivation influence thelife course of the individual.

The anorexic's Level 1 understanding of agency commits her to abelief in the lack of control over her own life, a belief that results in asense of helplessness in the face of many of the demands of adolescencerequiring decisions (e.g. about educational, relationship, and careerdirections). One possibility is that the self-starvation characteristic ofthe anorexia syndrome is an attempt to defend some sense of personalcontrol through the strict regulation of a biological mechanism. Anawareness that the anorexic's understanding of agency is oriented tobiological mechanisms and external determination can provide theclinician with a lens through which the syndrome can be viewed.Furthermore, the model suggests the direction in which the anorexic'sunderstanding of agency will move, as she escapes from the grip of thesyndrome and develops a more developmentally appropriateunderstanding.

Because of space limitations we cannot give examples of each levelof reasoning in all the various facets of self-understanding. However,these two brief examples provide a glimpse of the richness of self-understanding, as well as suggest how its development is intertwinedwith an individual's life circumstances. The examples also illustratehow the model can be used to illuminate the developmental processesinvolved in adolescent adjustment difficulties (see also Damon andHart, 1988; Hart, Schorin, and Damon, in press).

Developmental relationships with social cognition

In the preceding section, we described the nature of self-understanding and its development. The purpose of this detailed

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exposition is to highlight the unique developmental qualities of self-understanding, which have been frequently overlooked (Damon andHart, 1982). The absence of comprehensive descriptions of self-understanding development prior to the one presented in our work isin marked contrast to the abundance of developmental descriptionsof other concepts such as logical reasoning (Piaget, 1929), moraljudgment (e.g. Damon, 1977; Kohlberg, 1983), social conventions(e.g. Turiel, 1983), friendship (e.g. Youniss, 1979), social perspectives(e.g. Selman, 1980), and person perception (Livesly and Bromley,1973) to name but a few. Here, we shall consider the developmentalrelationships that exist between self-understanding and these other,more frequently studied concepts.

What type of developmental relationship should a researcherexpect to find between self-understanding and the various domains ofdevelopment? One common line of theorizing is that a single generalstructure pervades all of a child's or adolescent's reasoning, and asthis general structure evolves into a qualitatively new one, reasoningin different domains evidences parallel changes. Most usually,researchers have assumed that the sequence of general structures isbest captured by Piaget's stages of logical reasoning. The researchstrategy is to place individuals at different stages of developmentbased on performance in Piagetian tasks and then attempt to identifyreflections of that stage in the individual's reasoning in the domain ofinterest. For instance, Noppe (1983) tested children and adolescentson several different formal operational tasks, and also asked them towrite descriptions of themselves. Her hypothesis was that thoseindividuals who achieved formal operational thought and thereforewere capable of hypothetico-deductive reasoning would describethemselves differently than those capable only of the reality-boundcognitive processing characteristic of the concrete operationalthinker. The self-descriptions of formal operational adolescents mightbe more oriented than those of concrete operational adolescentstowards psychological characteristics because of an ability to deducecauses (motives, emotions), from results (behaviors). Within this sortof theoretical paradigm, however, it is surprising that Noppe foundno significant differences in the self-description of the two groups ofadolescents.

A similar argument has also been made by some self theorists, whohave argued that developments in various domains are primarily areflection of the development of the self. This conception of the self isinherent in much of the self-esteem literature, in which a single global

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self-esteem score is presumed to represent a person's self (e.g.Coopersmith, 1967; for exceptions, see Harter, 1983 and Rosenberg,1985). One example is Kegan's (1982, 1985) theory of thedevelopment of self. In Kegan's theory, the self is a construct thatincludes self-understanding but also is considerably broader,covering the diversity of phenomena that might be subsumed withinErikson's construct of identity or Loevinger's model of egodevelopment. Nonetheless, because self-understanding is oneconstituent of Kegan's construct of self, and his theory makes thebroadest claims of any self theory we know of, it is a goodrepresentative of the monolithic self-concept type of theorizing.

According to Kegan, the development of self consists of a series ofrestructuring the subject-object distinction. This restructuring occursthrough a series of stages, each of which composes an underlying logicthat guides behavior. Each stage constitutes a particular type of selfthat permeates all facets of an individual's world. For instance,Kegan proposes that the following types of measurements would allbe meaningfully correlated, because of the underlying self logic:

(1) Piagetian physical-cognitive conservation; (2).Selman-type social perspective;(3) Kohlberg-type moral judgment; (4) reality-oriented or fantasy-oriented fantasy,play, drawing; (5) ability to narratize in the retelling of a heard story or seen film; (6)ability to 'conserve the self in a 'Describe Yourself interview; (7) class-oriented oraction-oriented word association; color-oriented or form-oriented three-waycomparisons; (8) impulsivity versus impulse control; (9) involvement with parentsversus involvement with own projects; (10) open- or closed-boundary orientation inthe home (1985 p.201).

Although Kegan offers no research evidence, he predicts that thesevarious measures would all correlate highly, because they all measuredifferent facets of the same underlying structure.

Our own position is that the search for general structures solelyresponsible for development across domains fails to respect the uniquefeatures and functions of knowledge in each domain. Piagetian formaloperational reasoning tasks, for instance, assess an individual's abilityto deduce general principles about the physical world. Althoughthere may be some commonalities between thinking about thephysical world and social relationships, social reasoning differs in onefundamental respect (Damon, 1979). In the course of socialinteraction, individuals intentionally alter their actions in order tocoordinate them with the actions of others. The child, whethertalking with his parents or playing with friends, must construct

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knowledge about the relationships between self and others within theawareness that one's own actions can radically affect the nature anddirection of the ongoing social interaction. Knowledge acquisitionabout the physical world is different; the child learns that the windblows and the sun shines without intentional coordination with thechild's actions or participation. One relatively molar distinctionbetween domains, then, is between social-cognitive and scientificreasoning. The developmental connections between the two broaddomains are likely to be relatively weak, as a consequence of theabove mentioned fundamental difference (Damon, 1977). It is for thisreason that Noppe's failure to find meaningful relationships betweenformal operational thinking and self-description in the studydescribed above seems to us predictable.

Although it is not surprising that there is little evidence for a directconnection between the developmental trajectories of physicalcognition and self-understanding, we do expect self-understandingdevelopment to be related to development in other social cognitiveconcepts. This is because self-understanding is itself a social cognitiveconcept. Like other concepts within the social domain, the process ofconstructing knowledge about the self occurs within a network ofrelationships in which different persons intentionally modify theiractions in reaction to the actions of others; this has become a point ofdeparture for virtually every major theorist (e.g. Baldwin, 1902;Mead, 1934; Mahler et al 1975).

Even with the domain of social cognition, however, there areimportant distinctions among the functions of different types ofknowledge. The most commonly studied social cognitive conceptsconcern an understanding of interpersonal relationships andregulations: friendship, authority, and justice, to name just a few.Primarily, the child's understanding of these interpersonalrelationships and regulations functions to facilitate effectiveparticipation in social interaction and in society (Damon, 1983).Although self-understanding too serves this goal, it is distinct fromthese interpersonal concepts in that it aids in the differentiation of theindividual from society. For this reason, self-understandingdevelopment is unlikely to be identical with development of theinterpersonal concepts. Empirically, then, in contrast with Kegan,we would predict that self-understanding developmental levels wouldexhibit only a moderate degree of association with developmentallevels of interpersonal concepts.

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A research example

To our knowledge, there are no studies that empirically examine thedevelopmental relationships among self-understanding and socialcognitive reasoning. Here, we would like to describe one small studyfrom our ongoing program of research (e.g. Damon and Hart, 1988)that addresses exactly this issue.

Thirty-eight children, approximately equally divided by grade (k,1,3,5) a n d sex> were individually interviewed on four topics: self-understanding, positive justice, authority, and friendship. Each childwas interviewed in his or her own school in four different sessions (onesession for each topic), with each session lasting approximately 30minutes. The order of the presentation of interview topics wasrandomized, in order to prevent possible order effects. The interviewsessions were tape-recorded and later transcribed.

Self-understanding was elicited using clinical interview questionssuch as 'How would you describe yourself as a person?' and 'Whatkind of person do you want to be?' (the complete list of questions canbe found in Hart and Damon, 1986). The interviewer askedadditional questions as necessary in order to fully elicit the child'sunderstanding of self. Responses to the clinical interview questionswere coded with a developmental scoring manual corresponding tothe model presented earlier (see Damon and Hart, 1988; Hart andDamon, 1986, for details). This means that each response wasassigned to a developmental level, ranging from 1 to 4. Followingafter Damon (1977), the highest or 'best' level score received on theinterview was used as a summary index.

The interview procedures and coding manuals for positive justiceand authority were from earlier work on these topics (Damon, 1977).The format for these interviews consisted of several hypotheticaldilemmas concerning sharing and authority to which childrenresponded. For both the positive justice and authority interviews,children's responses were assigned to 1 of 6 developmental levels. Foreach interview, the child's highest level is used as a summary index.

Finally, an understanding of friendship was elicited and codedusing parts of Selman's (1980) interview and coding manual. In thisinterview, children again respond to a hypothetical friendshipdilemma and a series of interview questions. Responses are assignedto 1 of 5 developmental levels, with the highest level evidenced on theinterview serving as a summary index.

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The results of this study are summarized in Table i.

Table I Correlations Among Best Level Scores for Self-Understanding, PositiveJustice, Authority, and Friendship

Positive Justice Authority Friendship

Self-Understanding '49(38)** "34(34)* 0-38(37)*Positive Justice 0-48(33)** 0-38(36)*Authority "5'(33)**Note. * p

20 D. HART AND W.DAMON

operates. Throughout this article, we have argued that self-understanding is a unique type of knowledge, serving both to aid theindividual's integration into, and differentiation from, thesurrounding social world. The dual functions and multi-facetednature of self-understanding demand that it receive its owndevelopmental investigation aimed at elucidating its specificqualities. It is this descriptive task with which we, and others, havebeen primarily concerned over the past ten years (see Damon andHart, 1988, for details).

The construction of preliminary descriptions of self-understandingdevelopment, such as the one presented in our model, can permit self-understanding investigation to enter a new phase. From ourperspective, the most pressing need is for research that examines thedevelopment of self-understanding in social context. We have arguedthat self-understanding develops primarily within the medium ofintentional, social relationships, and for this reason self-understanding is one domain of social cognition. Although thisposition is firmly entrenched in the self theories of Baldwin (1902),Luria, (1976), Mahler et al. (1975), Mead (1934), and is consonant

xwith the speculations of Vygotsky as well (see Corsaro, 1985, or Hart,Wertsch, and Kohlberg, 1987 for a review of many of these theories)the unfortunate truth is that little developmental research has soughtto delineate the relationship, between the social context and anunderstanding of self. As a consequence, little is known about how thesocial environment affects the individual's construction of a sense ofself.

There appear to be several possible levels of analysis forinvestigating social influence on self-understanding development. Ata molar level, it seems probable that culture has a major impact.Anthropological research, while not directly exploring children's self-concept development, has reported marked cultural differences inhow persons, and, by implication, selves, are conceived. This is not tosay that the notions of self and person are themselves ephemeralcultural artifacts. In every culture people have some mode ofunderstanding these basic concepts (Levine and White, 1986).Further, because these concepts serve essential human cognitivefunctions, these modes of understanding no doubt have something incommon across cultures. Instead, culture is most likely to affect thefocus of self-understanding. In the reported anthropological data,perhaps the most broad-based cultural differences in how persons are

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understood is that in agrarian cultures persons are perceived in termsof their contextual features, such as social roles, whereas inindustrialized societies individuals are considered in terms of theirqualities abstracted from their context. In our own initial cross-cultural study (Hart, Lucca-Irizarry, and Damon, 1986), we foundthat children from a small fishing village in Puerto Rico were morelikely to describe themselves in terms of their social characteristicsthan were an age-matched group of children from the U.S. Althoughthis initial research is promising, much more research is needed inorder to elucidate the relationships between culture and self-understanding development. We need to know, for example, howparenting practices, cultural beliefs, education, and economic statusshape the child's understanding of self.

Against the large backdrop of culture, there is a need for researchon the interrelationships among specific social relationships and thedevelopment of self-understanding. Relationships with others bothreveal facets of self-knowledge as well as shape or influence the selfthat is known (Hart, in press; Hart, 1988). An adolescent is morelikely to become aware of his or her own popularity in the presence ofpeers, for instance, than in the presence of parents. There is someevidence that the acquisition of infant self-understanding can beaccelerated or retarded by the quality of the infant-motherattachment relationship (Lewis, M., Brooks-Gunn, J., and Jaskir, D.,1985). We have found that anorexic adolescents, who aretraditionally presumed to have difficult relationships with theirmothers, also are retarded in their sense of agency. There is a greatneed, however, for more research on how social relationships affectthe development of self-understanding.

Finally, at a molecular level of analysis, there is a need for researchon the specific qualities of social interactions that contribute to orretard self-understanding development. In some recent work inspiredby Baldwin's (1902) theory, Hart and Fegley (1988) have found thatthe infants who imitate their mothers most in a free play settingbetween the ages of 14-18 months of age develop an awareness of theself at an earlier age. This suggests that imitation may be one form ofsocial interaction through which infants gain knowledge about theirselves.

The identification of the types of interactions that lead to self-understanding development is of practical significance as well. Iffuture research confirms initial findings that suggest that delayed self-

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22 D. HART AND W. DAMON

understanding development contributes to adjustment problems inadolescence (Damon and Hart, 1988; Hart, Schorin, and Damon, inpress), it is of practical importance to identify the types of interactionscounselors might use in order to facilitate development. On atheoretical plane, an understanding of the types of interactions thatlead to development provide new insights into the mechanisms thatresult in change from one developmental level of self-understandingto the next. It is through examining the social influences on self-understanding at all three levels, culture, relationships, andinteractions, that we will be able to describe the relationship betweensocial cognition and self-understanding.

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