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Mission Statement
The research program "Valuation Theory, self-confrontation and dialogical self" has two main purposes, one scientific, the other practical. The scientific aim is to give an original theoretical and methodological contribution at the frontiers of the academic psychology of the self. The practical aim is to stimulate the cooperation between scientists and practitioners by developing methods for self-investigation which are, at the same time, theory-based and applicable in a variety of practical settings. The two aims as formulated above, are realized by a distinction between three levels: theory, method, and practice. On the theoretical level, the program has produced a motivational theory of the self, valuation theory. This theory provides a conceptual framework for the study of the self as an organized process of valuation and, in a more recent stage of theory-development, in terms of multivoicedness and dialogicality. On the methodological level, a procedure for self-investigation, called the self-confrontation method, has been developed for investigating the content and organization of the self with proper attention for its motivational base.
The program aims at a further development of the self-confrontation method in such a way that the multivoiced and dialogical nature of the human mind can be investigated with refined and extended methodological tools. On the practical level the self-confrontation method has been applied in three fields: mental health, education, and personnel management.
The purpose is to device new versions of the self-confrontation method and other methods in such a way that the guiding theoretical framework (valuation theory and its dialogical elaborations) can be applied in a broad variety of practical settings.
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