"This book offers a rendering of developments in a growing area of social psychology - the scientific study of self and identity. In each chapter, leading scholars describe their cutting-edge work on such topics as self-dynamics, self-structure, impression management, intimate relationships, and the interplay between self-motives and consistency motives. Do individuals with low self-esteem benefit from intimate relationships? What is the relationship between self-knowledge and psychological adjustment? Is self-presentation on special engagements, like first dates and employment interviews, automatic or conscious? When do role models inspire us, and when do they demoralize us? These and other questions are explored in chapters that offer readers the pleasure of discovering new insights into an area that has fascinated philosophers, poets, and scientists since antiquity."--BOOK JACKET.