Chris Moore - The self in time: developmental perspectives

Cover

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Developmental Perspectives

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THE SELF IN TIME

Developmental Perspectives

Edited by
Chris Moore
Karen Lemmon
Dalhousie University

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The final camera copy for this work was supplied by the editors.

Copyright 2001 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any
form, by photostat, microfilm, retrieval system, or any other
means, without prior written permission of the publisher.

Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Publishers
10 Industrial Avenue
Mahwah, NJ 07430

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

The self in time : developmental perspectives / edited by Chris
Moore & Karen Lemmon.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and indexes.
ISBN 0-8058-3455-9 (hardcover : alk. paper)
1. SelfCongresses. 2. Self in childrenCongresses. 3. TimePsycho
logical aspectsCongresses. I. Moore, Chris, 1958- II. Lemmon,
Karen.
BF697 .S4375 2001
126dc21 00-067720
CIP

Books published by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates are printed on acid-free paper, and their bindings are chosen for strength and durability.

Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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As the chapters in this volume will attest, there are a variety of routes to an interest in the idea of the self in time. We first became interested in the topic in considering the function of theory of mind. Having a theory of mind had always been supposed to be useful in the organization of social behavior. However, it also seemed to us to be an essential component of the organization of one's own future behavior. In other words, to show adaptive future behavior, the child must come to grips with the idea that his or her own immediate mental states are connected to his or her own future mental states. Meanwhile, in the memory literature, research on episodic and autobiographical memory seemed to require the notion of an extended self. In particular, the developmentalists working on early memory were forced to tackle head on the relations between autobiographical memory and self-development. And then there were those with perhaps a more direct interest in self-development faced with the idea that mirror self-recognition did not seem to capture all that was entailed by having an understanding of self. This convergence of a variety of research interests around the notion of the temporally extended self called out for an attempt at integration, and so, in 1997, we organized a symposium at the meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development in Washington, DC. This volume is an expanded version of that symposium. We are grateful to Judi Amsel for her faith in the project and for her encouragement. Judi was a great ally for developmental psychology during her time with Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. We are also most grateful to Bonita D'Amil and Sarah Wahlert of Lawrence Erlbaum Associates for their excellent editorial work.

- Chris Moore
- Karen Lemmon

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Chris Moore
Karen Lemmon
Dalhousie University

What would it take to have the foresight to send a letter to one's future self (Fig. 1.1)? And what would it take for someone, on receiving such a letter, to feel sorrow for the sender? Because the persistence of personal identity through time is such a fundamental feature of our self-concepts, it is likely that these questions rarely enter into our day-to-day thinking. However, they are significant questions because, in a very real sense, Hobbes is correct: None of us is the same either as we were in the

FIG. 1.1.
Calvin and Hobbes Watterson. Reprinted with permission of
Universal Press Syndicate. All rights reserved.

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