Stanley L. Brodsky served as action editor for this article.The authors cooperate in a larger project on valuation, Hermans as a personality psychologist, Kempen as a cultural psychologist, and van Loon as a philosopher. We thank Lee Ann Weeks and Brigit van Widenfelt for their detailed editorial comments.

is characterized by "independence, autonomy, and differentiation" (p. 290) and a non-Western self that is "extended to include a wide variety of significant others" (p. 290). Weisz, Rothbaum, and Blackburn (1984) described American culture in terms of primary control, that is, individuals enhance their rewards by influencing existing Editor's note. Kenneth Gergen served as action editor for this article.

The story a person tells about his or her life is viewed as a polyphonic novel. This metaphor implies that the self is multivoiced; that is, there is no single "I" as an agent of self-organization but several, relatively independent "I" positions that complement and contradict each other in dialogical reiatibnsiiips. From this perspective the role ot'imagihaf figures in the organization of the self is analyzed. A theory and method are presented allowing us to study both the content and the organization of multivoiced self-narratives. The method is illustrated with two idiographic studies, where people tell their life story not only from the perspective of the familiar "I" but also from the perspective of an imaginal figure with whom they have had a long-lasting relationship. Finally, it is argued that the metaphor of a polyphonic novel is particularly useful because it allows us to decentralize the Western concept of the self.There is a recent upsurge of interest in story or narrative as a way of understanding human experience, and this upsurge transcends the boundaries of psychological subdisciplines. Strong interest in narrative can be seen in social psychology (K.

Elaborating on Wertsch's central argument, our thesis is two-fold: (a) mediated action is dialogical; (b) dialogue as a basic feature of the human condition far exceeds the boundaries of verbal conversation. In discussing the difference between logical and dialogical relationships, Bakhtin's 'ventriloquation' is defined as a collective voice. Emphasis is given to the role of the body in pseudo-and pre-hnguistic dialogues. Finally, the central argument is rephrased in terms of Leontiev's three forms of history: evolutional, societal and individual.

No abstract