ABSTRACT
This chapter acknowledges the vastness of the material and focuses on a few issues to provide readers with a sense of self-research, hoping to whet their appetite to begin their own exploration. It discusses three self-functions: esteem, enhancement, and projection. All three are critical to an understanding of the social nature of the self. The chapter explores some issues of self-control and (claims of free) will. It begins with a discussion of self-reflection and its paradoxes. In The Sickness Unto Death, Søren Kierkegaard descended into the rabbit hole of self-reflective paradoxa. One development arising from the Jamesian approach was the study of self-conscious emotions, such as shame, guilt, embarrassment, and pride. These emotions reveal the reflection of the world in the self. The concept of self-esteem refers to the attitudinal or affective orientation the self takes toward itself. Sociometer theory is concerned with the social determinants of self-esteem; it addresses the consequences of self-esteem only indirectly.
