About this Research Topic
Self-concept is one’s idea of who one is as a person. This complex mental representation is structured around one’s gender, nationality, age, social roles, etc. During everyday life, self-concept helps us to make sense of the world, plan our future, and motivate our behaviors. Some psychiatric disorders are related to an atypical self-concept, for example, depressed individuals often have negative and rigid beliefs about themselves. Brain imaging studies have linked the representation of self-concept to the neural activity of the medial prefrontal cortex, temporoparietal junction, and medial temporal lobe brain regions.
Although the content and structure of self-concept appear relatively stable over time, there is a growing body of evidence that the mental representation of oneself can be dynamically updated by certain external or internal factors. What are these factors? What neural mechanisms underlie such self-concept plasticity? How does the neural representation of the self-concept change during the lifespan, as the sense of self and the brain mature? What role does this plasticity play in everyday life and what happens if this mechanism becomes impaired? These outstanding questions relate to one of the most fundamental problems in psychology and cognitive neuroscience: what makes us who we are? Apart from general relevance, the plasticity of self-concept has important developmental and clinical implications.
The aim of this Research Topic is to synthesize and discuss the most recent evidence about self-concept plasticity. We invite psychologists, philosophers, clinicians, and cognitive scientists to submit their work focusing on, but not limited to the following topics:
- Behavioral evidence and neural correlates of self-concept plasticity
- Plasticity of self-concept across the lifespan
- Self-concept updating in neurological and psychiatric disorders
- Body representation changes and their influence on self-concept
- Ownership as means to modify self-concept
All types of articles, including Original Research, Review, Perspective, and Mini Review, are welcome.
Although the content and structure of self-concept appear relatively stable over time, there is a growing body of evidence that the mental representation of oneself can be dynamically updated by certain external or internal factors. What are these factors? What neural mechanisms underlie such self-concept plasticity? How does the neural representation of the self-concept change during the lifespan, as the sense of self and the brain mature? What role does this plasticity play in everyday life and what happens if this mechanism becomes impaired? These outstanding questions relate to one of the most fundamental problems in psychology and cognitive neuroscience: what makes us who we are? Apart from general relevance, the plasticity of self-concept has important developmental and clinical implications.
The aim of this Research Topic is to synthesize and discuss the most recent evidence about self-concept plasticity. We invite psychologists, philosophers, clinicians, and cognitive scientists to submit their work focusing on, but not limited to the following topics:
- Behavioral evidence and neural correlates of self-concept plasticity
- Plasticity of self-concept across the lifespan
- Self-concept updating in neurological and psychiatric disorders
- Body representation changes and their influence on self-concept
- Ownership as means to modify self-concept
All types of articles, including Original Research, Review, Perspective, and Mini Review, are welcome.
Keywords: Self-Representation, Plasticity, Flexibility, Self-Concept
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
