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William James, the Self, and the Selective Industry of the Mind

University of Iowa

Christine A. Marco

State University of New York at Albany

William James observed that there was a "selective industry of the mind, " by which he meant that people attend to and define as meaningful those stimuli and experiences that they perceive as personally relevant and as suiting their private interests. James considered "selective industry " to be integral to all basic cognitive processes but to hold a special place with respect to the self system because of its role in the formation of identity and the energization and direction of behavior. In James's discussion of the self, selective industry is manifested as (a) the selection of identities to be valued and invested in and (b) the selective processing of information to support advantaged standing on valued domains. This article discusses major developments in the contemporary psychology of the self that demonstrate and elaborate on these two forms of "industry" and discusses at least one lapse in James's thinking about the self and one of his observations awaiting exploitation.

Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Vol. 16, No. 4, 688-698 (1990)
DOI: 10.1177/0146167290164009


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