December 2016
There are different perspectives on the self, different possible definitions, and with each perspective and definition, naturally, comes a different explanation. Yet it is likely that something like an essence of self can be uncovered behind the multiplicity of views. In this article I suggest that a neurobiological account can help us find such an essence. The title of this article includes the words “feelings” and “self” because I believe the neural basis of feelings and of self have a shared neurobiological stem.
Bandura’s basic category of a person’s characteristics is the human agency. It’s a state of our being capable representatives of our own persons. It means, like any successful agent we shall be efficient to act for our own maximum benefit. That’s the root of another Albert Bandura’s basic category -- self-efficacy. Although it isn’t the best analogy, but if we view a person as an agency, we’re always at work doing some job responsibilities to benefit ourselves. Then come the questions of when and how we shall use the benefit we gain and what we are. However, these questions are outside the theory we’re talking about. One of the tasks of psychology, as a craft, is to give a person a more effective strategy for interaction with the world around him or her. In this context, they can easily interpret alcoholism as a phenomenon.