Table 1.

Elements of the self-pattern [reproduced with the permission of Gallagher (2024)].

Elements of the pattern	Brief description
Bodily processes	Includes core bio-systemic and autopoietic processes related to motoric, autonomic, endocrine, enteric, immune, interoceptive functions, allowing the overall system to maintain homeostasis necessary for survival, and to distinguish between itself and what is not itself.
Prereflective experiential processes	Includes prereflective self-awareness, a structural feature of first-person consciousness constrained by bodily factors; the sense of ownership (mineness) and the sense of agency, which can involve various sensory-motor modalities, such as proprioception, kinaesthesia, touch and vision. These aspects form the experiential core of what is sometimes called the minimal self.
Affective processes	The fact that someone manifests a certain temperament or emotional disposition reflects a particular mix of affective factors that range from very basic and mostly covert or tacit bodily affects (e.g., hunger, fatigue, libido) to what may be a typical emotion pattern, a set of existential feelings, a background mood.
Behavioral/action processes	Behaviors and actions make us who we are – behavioral habits and skills reflect, and perhaps actually constitute, our character. This is a classic view that goes back at least to Aristotle.
Social/intersubjective processes	Humans (possibly some non-human animals) are born with a capacity for attuning to intersubjective existence; at a certain point in social relations a more developed self-conscious recognition of oneself as being distinct from others, a sense of self-for-others, and a sense of being part of a group or community.
Cognitive/psychological processes	These are aspects emphasized in traditional theories of personal identity highlighting psychological continuity and memory, including one’s conceptual understanding of oneself, beliefs, cognitive dispositions, as well as personality traits.
Reflective processes	The ability to reflect on one’s experiences and actions – closely related to notions of autonomy and moral personhood, including the capacity to reflectively evaluate and form second-order volitions about one’s desires.
Narrative processes	Self-interpretation has a narrative structure and recursively reflects (and often reinforces) the self-pattern. On some theories, selves are inherently or constitutively narrative entities.
Ecological processes	We tend to identify ourselves with our stuff -- physical pieces of property, clothes, homes, and various things that we own, the technologies we use, the institutions we work in, etc. Our embodied-situated actions engage with (and sometimes incorporate) artifacts, instruments, bits and structures of the environment in ways that define us and scaffold our identities. Situations shape who we are, and affordances define our possibilities.
Normative processes	Our extensive engagement with the environment includes social and cultural practices. These are not just what we do, but involve what we ought to do, and obligations that we keep or not. Constraints (and sometimes well-defined roles) imposed by social, cultural, institutional factors shape our habitual behaviors, and our self-conceptions of who we are, and who we think we should be.