Philippe Rochat

On his book Others in Mind: Social Origins of Self-Consciousness

Cover Interview of November 24, 2009

In a nutshell

Others in Mind is a book about self-consciousness: how it originates and how it shapes our lives. Self-consciousness is arguably the most important and revealing of all psychological issues. Why are we so prone to guilt and embarrassment? Why do we care so much about how others see us, about our reputation? What are the origins of such afflictions? The book deals with the issue of self-consciousness as a unique feature of the human psychological condition.

It is because we are members of a species that evolved the unique propensity to reflect upon the self as object of thoughts—and one that is potentially evaluated by others. But, the argument goes, this propensity comes from a basic fear: the fear of rejection, of being socially “banned” and ostracized.

From this simple premise, I look at young children and their development, but also at many other intriguing human propensities, to see what they have to tell us about the social origins and nature of human self-consciousness.

The main idea I develop in the book is that human psychic life is predominantly determined by what we imagine others perceive of us. We exist and gauge the worth of our existence primarily through the eyes of others. More importantly, others also determine whether I am right to feel safe, in particular, safe of not being rejected by them. Feeling safe is part of the “good life” and it is inseparable from the feeling of being affiliated. The argument I propose is that it all depends on the recognition and acknowledgment of self by others.

biography / art / anthropology / psychology / evolution / children / developmental psychology / pollock jackson /

[T]he Holocaust transformed our whole way of thinking about war and heroism. War is no longer a proving ground for heroism in the same way it used to be. Instead, war now is something that we must avoid at all costs—because genocides often take place under the cover of war. We are no longer all potential soldiers (though we are that too), but we are all potential victims of the traumas war creates. This, at least, is one important development in the way Western populations envision war, even if it does not always predominate in the thinking of our political leaders.

Carolyn J. Dean,
Interview of February 01, 2011

The dominant premise in evolution and economics is that a person is being loyal to natural law if he or she attends to self’s interest and welfare before being concerned with the needs and demands of family or community. The public does not realize that this statement is not an established scientific principle but an ethical preference. Nonetheless, this belief has created a moral confusion among North Americans and Europeans because the evolution of our species was accompanied by the disposition to worry about kin and the collectives to which one belongs.

Jerome Kagan,
Interview of September 17, 2009