ABSTRACT
With climate change and coronavirus pandemics as wake-up calls, this chapter criticizes mainstream research endeavors that define the self as an entity that has an existence in separation of the social and natural environment. As an alternative conception, Dialogical Self Theory (DST) defines the self as being extended not only to other individuals and groups, but also to humanity and the earth. The kernel of this theory is that the self functions as a multiplicity of voices involved in generative dialogical relationships. These voices are located at different levels of inclusion: individual, social, human, and ecological. For the promotion of dialogical relationships between these voices, the development of dialogical flexibility as a capacity of the self to move back and forth between voices at different levels of inclusiveness is indispensable.
