Motivation and emotion/Book/2023/Multiple selves theory, motivation, and emotion

Multiple selves, motivation, and emotion:
How does the concept of multiple selves impact our motivational and emotional experiences?

Multimedia presentation (3 min)

Overview

Figure 1. We each have different dimensions to ourselves as we navigate different situations.

Multiple selves can be linked to many different disciplines of Psychology. In Skinner's understanding that we as humans react to stimuli from the environment around us, from Freud's theory of a multi-layered self. In simplest terms, multiple selves theory looks at how one person can be a psychologist, a scholar, a mother, a friend, and/or a daughter and how each of these interact with each other. This chapter summarises psychological theory and research about this topic and discusses how multiple selves can affect motivation and emotion within an individual.

To help further understanding of the individual perspective this chapter will also address a case study conducted by Džinović (2022). In which 25 total, 11 successful and 14 unsuccessful students were selected from a prior focus group to gain rich qualitative information about multiple selves theory in terms of success, polyphonic identity and begin conceptualising opposing experiences that may occur during schooling.

Focus questions: What is Multiple Selves Theory? What are the implications of Multiple Selves Theory? How is Multiple Selves theory relevant to Motivation and Emotion?

Understanding multiple selves theory

In the basics of psychology and personality studies we are taught that the self is important to stability. More specifically, seeing yourself as a whole single person with your own traits, abilities, thoughts and feelings, and self-chosen actions is essential for positive psychological well-being (Džinović, 2022). This idea brings forth that a continuous personality should exist, evolving through personal experience but not changing completely to form fragmented selves. This however is unrealistic when seeing the different facets we face on a day to day basis and the different environments we must adapt and react to (Lester, 2012). This is the basis of multiple selves theory.

Multiple selves’ theory is the understanding that each person has multiple different identities formed through connections to those around them and the groups/communities they identify with. Within social psychology these different identities would be seen as part of the self-schema some of which would be seen as core parts of an individual’s identities, others could be aschematic traits, identities that are linked to the person but that the individual may not personally associate themselves closely with or be unaware of an association at all (Alós-Ferrer & Strack, 2014).

Understanding multiple selves theory helps us understand how we navigate different environments in our lives. For example the way you may behave in a social setting would be completely different to how you would conduct yourself in a work environment. Multiple selves theory seeks to explain this through identifying the different parts of a person’s identity and what environmental triggers cause these shifts within a person (Karpen, 2022).

An alternative to understanding multiple selves theory is through the understanding of the polyphonic self, a concept that instead of seeing through the lens of a self-schema we instead see the different parts of a person as their different ‘voices’. Each of which are individual and serve different purposes and different points of view, a key part of the polyphonic self is that each voice represents a different aspect of an identity and are aware of the other voices. The awareness of other voices is a core part of the polyphonic approach to multiple selves theory because it helps explain how a personality can be different when environmental triggers shift it without disrupting the psychological well-being of a person. Due to the awareness of different voices the different aspects of a person can interact with each other and come to joint conclusions. For example, even within a completely social setting, voices associated with a ‘work personality’ or a ‘school personality’ still hold influence and speak with the social voice to help come to conclusions.

Application of theory through Džinović (2022)

Both self-schema’s and the polyphonic self, are applicable when looking at Džinović’s (2022) study. Student’s were interviewed on why they made specific choices when studying and their answers were then compared to their achieved grades. In this study ‘the real me’ is defined as the dominant voice in a person's polyphonic self and other voices were analysed. Voices from influential people in participants lives, such as parents, held weight on the importance students saw in their success and held positive influence on their grades. More clearly, participants when interviewed would state that they would recall their parent’s ideals while studying, telling them that they needed good grades in order to have a good life which motivated their ‘real voice’ to do better.

Additionally, concepts such as ‘the lazy me’ were looked at. Students would sometimes report a voice telling them not to study so much. Although this would disagree with other voices including that of ‘the real me’ it had the chance of undermining the position of power ‘the real me’ holds as the dominant voice. An explanation on why this may occur is that ‘lazy’ is within the self-schema of a person, even if it is an aschematic trait.

Quiz

An aschematic trait is closely related to a person's core identity.

	True
	False

A brief overview of motivation and emotion

In order for us to talk about the effects of multiple selves on motivation and emotion we must first understand these two concepts from a psychological perspective. Motivation from a psychological perspective helps us understand why behaviour occurs, why it persists and what influences this. Understanding this is essential, without motivation why would we do anything? There are different types of motivation that are dependent on the outcome expected from the behaviour being motivated. Motivation will vary greatly for each person, meaning that the behaviour produced will also vary in the likelihood of it occurring, the success of the behaviour and its likelihood to occur again, all three of which also hold influence over each other (Reeve, 2018).

In simplest terms, motivation is the basis to understanding all behaviour and as a result shapes all behavioural sciences, especially within the psychology distinction.

Emotion from a psychological perspective are patterns of neural activity that shape the way we interact with ourselves and the world around us. They occur as a reaction to important life events and help us adapt accordingly to this through generating feelings, arousing body actions, creating motivational states and produce facial expressions. Emotions are more than what we first classify as feelings, this being just one facet of the multidimensional reality of emotions, due to this defining simply what emotions are is hard to simplify.

Emotions can generate goals and, as a result, motivation. However, due to the complexity and diversity of emotions these goals differ greatly depending on the emotion generated by a life event due to the differences in the four activated aspects of emotions (Reeve, 2018). Furthermore, while certain life events may have an expected emotional response different people react differently in terms of emotions so behavioural responses from life events cannot always be predicted (Asano, 2019).

For further information on this the motivation and emotion chapter’s from 2010 goes into depth about these two concepts within psychology.

Key points

• Motivation is the source behind all behaviour
• Emotion is multifaceted and more complex than just feelings

Multiple selves and motivation

Motivation shapes all behaviour made, without motivation there would be no reason for why we do anything. So how do multiple selves influence the motivation of a person?

McConnell et.al. (2012) explain that each individual self within the whole person will have its own needs, goals, and motives. If the environment where a self is needed does not strictly relate to achievement than that will not be a motivating factor within that self. This in itself helps us better understand why multiple selves start to form in the first place. With motivation being the beginning of all behaviour and we as humans being nothing without behaviour the different motivational needs dependant on the situation and environment make multiple selves essential.

While there may be central goals and motivations for the self as whole the separate areas of a persons lives and multiple selves within this will then have separate goals and motives as a result.

Reiterating this point with the polyphonic self, the different voices one has will have different motives behind why they seek to behave a certain way. Behaviours that someone would not follow in academic, or work environments may seem rational in social settings due to the motivation of peer approval and continued acceptance within a group.

Additionally, consider aschematic traits. Would these influence your motivation? If we take being lazy as an aschematic trait of someone then it may not be realised as a motivation when deciding to do something but do to it being tied to the self-schema (or a voice within the polyphonic self) it would be a facet in determining if a behaviour occurs or not.

Džinović (2022) and motivation

When looking at the study done by Džinović (2022) motivation played a large role in the success of students. Those who saw themselves as high achieving students and had largely influential voices within their polyphonic self that encouraged them to achieve high grades would more often do so.

The dominant voice being influenced highly by the motivation of achievement within these students helped them to not only study in the first place but to continue to study. This further builds up a tendency within the academic self of the participant and further solidifies the part of their self-schema related to schooling and achievement.

Key points

• Motivation can vary depending on which self is relevant in an environment
• Each self has its own needs, goals, and motives
• There are central goals and motivations for the dominant voice

Multiple selves and emotion

Now let’s look at multiple selves with our knowledge of emotions. Looking at multiple selves theory in terms of different facets of a person formed through self-schema raises the question will people react differently emotionally depending on which facet they are in at the time of the life event occurring?  Alós-Ferrer and Strack (2014) discuss that the environment a person is shaping to does not affect emotional variability but rather what aspect of their life is being affected by the event creating the emotion to being with.

As people are see different parts of themselves as more intrinsically tied to their core self the emotional reactions vary drastically as a result. Moreover, this can drastically change not only their emotional response but also their goals, perceptions, and actions following the life event. For example, would you react to the same life event occurring within your workplace as you would within your close group of friends?

In addition to this emotions typically tied to personality can vary greatly within a person when looking at multiple selves in a faceted point of view. Someone who may be seen as reserved and shy by their family may be seen as outgoing and boisterous by their friends. Both of which are true but dependant on environmental stimuli and the different selves of the person.

If we apply the polyphonic selves approach to emotional responses within multiple selves you find a similar response. Emotions can vary greatly, this time determined on which voices hold the greatest influence on the dominant self. Emotional responses are dependant on the four facets, some of which will not change between situations (e.g., arousal), and dependant on the situation different voices may favour different emotional responses (Džinović, 2022).

Application To put this into context imagine a student who does volleyball on the weekends. This student is used to getting high marks and does volleyball as per their parents requested they do a sport but they personally are not that interested in it. Their self-schema would have being a high achieving student intrinsically linked to them but being part of the volleyball team is a less important trait, potentially even an aschematic trait. Due to this their reaction to failing a test or loosing a volleyball game will be extremely different.

Key points

• Each self does not have its own set of emotions
• Emotion prevalence changes depending on the self that is affected
• Emotional intensity and variability changes depending on how intrinsically associated a self is to the dominant voice

Conclusion

Understanding multiple selves theory helps us understand how we navigate different environments in our lives. This chapter focussed on the theories regarding self-schema and the polyphonic self but there are many more theories that help us understand multiple selves, why they exist and how they help us navigate out lives.

Motivation and emotion vary depending on which self is present as each self has its own needs, goals and motives. Additionally, some selves are seen as more intrinsically associated with the dominant self and more important for achieving core system goals. Motivation and emotion helps us better understand the existence of multiple selves as it helps explain why we are more focussed on specific aspects of our lives and why we react differently.

Do the multiple selves influence motivation and emotion?

	Motivation is influenced but emotion is not.
	Emotion is influenced but motivation is not
	Neither are influenced and stay the same across the multiple selves
	Both are influenced and differ accordingly

See also

• Self-schemas and motivation (Book chapter, 2021)
• Self-concept (Textbook chapter)
• Motivation (Book chapter, 2010)
• Emotion (book chapter, 2010)

References

Alós-Ferrer, C., & Strack, F. (2014). From dual processes to multiple selves: Implications for economic behavior. Journal of Economic Psychology, 41, 1-11.

Asano, K. (2019). Emotion processing and the role of compassion in psychotherapy from the perspective of multiple selves and the compassionate self. Case Reports in Psychiatry, 2019.

Džinović, V. (2022). The multiple self: Between sociality and dominance. Journal of Constructivist Psychology, 35(1), 199-217 https://doi.org/10.1080/10720537.2020.1805063

Karpen, S. C. (2022). The multiple selves framework in transformative learning. Journal of Transformative Education, 20(4), 268-280. https://doi.org/10.1177/15413446211051278

Lester, D. (2012). A multiple self theory of the mind. Comprehensive psychology, 1, 02-09. DOI 10.2466/02.09.28.CP.1.5

McConnell, A. R. (2011). The multiple self-aspects framework: Self-concept representation and its implications. Personality and social psychology review, 15(1), 3-27. DOI: 10.1177/1088868310371101

McConnell, A. R., Shoda, T. M., & Skulborstad, H. M. (2012). The self as a collection of multiple self-aspects: Structure, development, operation, and implications. Social Cognition, 30(4), 380-395.

Reeve, J. (2018). Understanding motivation and emotion. John Wiley & Sons.

External links

• APA Dictionary of Psychology - American Psychological Association
• “The self” doesn’t exist. Instead, you constantly shape multiple selves - Brian Lowery