Chapter 3 - Selvations theory I: Value infusion

Summary

In this third chapter, I outline the first step of the motivational process (the process of value infusion). In this first step, I introduce the novel notion of selvations, which I use to integrate three major theories about the proto-self (e.g., Damasio, 2001), attachment (e.g., Bowlby, 1969; Mikulincer & Shaver, 2007), and relational models (e.g., Fiske, 1991). Although these theories originate from different (sub)fields and (sub)disciplines, ranging from neuropsychology to cultural anthropology, their synthesis suggests that humans are ultra-sensitive to changes in their network of social relationships because feeling those changes enables them to regulate those relationships through social interaction. Selvations safeguard the integrity of one’s network of social relationships that reflects a safe haven (in which to retreat) or a secure base (on which to explore the world). As such selvations generate social motivation, but it is the second step in the process that transforms such motivation, through the culturally construed self, into culturally appropriate thought, feeling, and action, which is the topic of the next chapter.