ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the notion of selfhood and presents a brief foray into the past for the purpose of documenting the evolution of intellectual inquiry regarding the self. Intellectual interest in the self started much earlier than the discipline of psychology, within which most empirical inquiry is done. As the intellectual treatment of selfhood made its way from philosophy through sociology into psychology, the focus and methods of inquiry changed. In order to better understand why and how researchers in social psychology study selfhood, it is important to have at least a general appreciation of the history of intellectual inquiry about selfhood. The legacy of intellectual inquiry about selfhood is long and is strewn with names that would be familiar to even the most casual student of the humanities or social sciences. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
