Roy Baumeister – I salute you!

I recently had the pleasure of reading a paper by Roy. F. Baumeister on the changing nature of self definition (Baumeister, 1987). Unusually for a psychologist, his analysis took a historical perspective; starting in the Middle Ages and concluding in the present day. He suggests at the end of the paper that modern ideas of self are based on an uneasy compromise between taking values from society, but also seeing ourselves as private individuals who operate outside society. His paper is dazzlingly perspicacious and stimulating.

His most interesting suggestion was that the Protestant Revolution took place only because of the Catholic Church’s emphasis on the final day of judgement. Although this notion had been present in doctrine well before the Twelfth Century, it was only at that time it received particular emphasis, according to Baumeister. Inevitably, when people started to consider the final day of judgement, and to reflect upon their chances of getting into heaven, they also thought about their actions during their lives. Once they started to do that, they were only a short step away from asserting they were better placed to judge their own lives better than any priest. From this germ the Protestant Revolution was born. Unusual to put this down in a Psychology article don’t you think?

Having read this paper, I wanted to read it again. Very rarely does an academic paper sum up a period of 500 years of development in a readable way - it is even rarer to find it in a Psychology article. If I could end up doing research like this, I would indeed be a happy man.

There is just one problem with the article – what is the self the paper talks about? No definition is provided, although he does allude to internal drives as a key part of conceptions of the self in discussions on the matter. Nevertheless, Baumeister’s paper is still readable despite this omission. The lack of a definition really reflects that no two psychologists agree what the self is.

Baumeister keep them coming!