Book review: Construction of the Self

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Publication Title:  The Construction of the Self: A Developmental Perspective
Publication Author:  Susan Harter
Publisher, year of publication: The Guilford Press, 1999.

This is a fairly dense text, written by the Professor of Psychology and Head of the Developmental Psychology Program at the University of Denver in Colorado, USA. The book sets out to explore the important developmental goal of the cognitive and social construction of a sense of self that that increasingly becomes less dependant on external evaluations, and that represents a core set of inner attributes perceived to reflect one’s true self. Harter is strongly committed to a developmental approach to understanding human beings and this was the first aspect of the book that attracted me. She also presents good potted histories of the concepts she discusses, helping to put current thinking in the context of ideas from the past.
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