Theories of the Self
This approach avoids psychological explanations for the self, focusing on the self that is “revealed” and“constituted” in acts of communication.
What is the Humanist Approach?
This is the conceptual pairing of the signified object and the signifier. It exists apart from the signified and the signifier.
What is the Sign?
This is what we choose to examine or attend to.
What is Selection?
Any information, evidence or argument that the author must “invent” or “craft” to make the message persuasive.
What is an Artistic Proof?
I taught that humans were “divided” between three different parts—a rational mind, a spiritual aspect, and a self of appetites and desires.
Who is Plato?
This approach looks at the interaction between psychological explanations for the self and the impacts of communication and social interaction.
What is the Social Scientific Approach?
This is what we attribute to other people when they act, when they engage in meaningful (symbolic) behavior.
What is Motive?
Human beings engage in cognitive representation, the forming of mental maps or models that help us understand the world before communication happens.
What are Mental Schema and Scripts?
Penn State and Michigan football fans unite against Ohio State fans.
What is Identification by antithesis and “common enemy?"
I theorized the self as an autonomous thinking and feeling being is often referred to as the Subject and the state of being a subject is called Subjectivity.
Who is Rene Descartes?
These theorists believe that the “self” is shaped by society and institutions, and the “identities” (plural) we embrace is largely a matter of performance.
What are Critical Theorists?
This is the pre-linguistic foundation.
What is the Human System?
Human beings tend to categorize information withinand among messages during the act ofcommunication.
What are Labels and Stereotypes?
For a social scientist this indicates likely behavior.
What is Attitude?
I am responsible for these ideas of communication Man [sic] is a symbol-using animal, Inventor of the negative, Separated from his natural condition by instruments of his own making, Goaded by the spirit of hierarchy, And rotten with perfection.
Who is Kenneth Burke (The Kenny B)?
One’s self-knowledge.
What is the Self-Concept
This encodes meaning into messages.
What is the Linguistic System?
This is cognitive and verbal processes used to judge our own and other’s behavior.
What is Attribution?
These are assessments of the desirability or value of that outcome
What are Evaluations?
I wrote The Rhetoric which begins with the assumption that persuasion happens best through the giving of “proofs” to another human being.
Who is Aristotle?
This is socially constructed through communication.
What is Identity?
This is based on “motive” of communication.
What is the Attribution System?
We see it as caused by the person/self; within the person’s control.
What is Internal Attribution?
This is the effort of any institution, often multiple
institutions working together, to direct, conform, and shape the conduct of a population.
What is Governmentality?
I stipulate that power is everywhere; it is inseparable from knowledge. We are incorrect to assume that only powerful people have “power.” Because power is inseparable from knowledge, everyone has power.
Who is Michel Foucault?