Abstract

This paper starts with an usual presupposition that self is social and interacts with others, and agrees with a thesis that human conditions are such that roles people play are pluralistic and force people to have relational selves. But this paper pays an attention to the theories that women construct relational selves more than men due to physiological states or developmental processes, and proposes an alternative interpretation that if women show relational selves more than men, the cause of the difference may be found not in some essential substances but in historical-cultural contexts in which women ate placed. The difference is analyzed from a non-essential social psychological perspective by showing that conditions like social stereotypes. non-symmetrical roles, and unequal power status are operating in leading women to be more relational. This paper concludes by suggesting what kind of dangers would result when women's selves are constructed only in relational terms.