DOI: 10.6129/CJP.20150429
Chinese Journal of Psychology 2015, Vol.57, No.2, 195-211

Self Accompanied by One’s Own Name -- Exploring the Self-Concept of Buddhism

Jen-Hao Li（Department of Psychology, National Taiwan University）；Kuei-An Li（Department of Psychology, National Taiwan University）；Ya-Yeh Tsai（Department of Psychology, National Taiwan University）；Su-Ling Yeh（Department of Psychology, National Taiwan University）

Abstract

Naming (i.e., people giving objects arbitrary labels) is important for communication andrepresentation. Without
it, however, we can still perceive and identify an object. “Self” seems specific and so does a person's own  name.We examine the question that when the referring object is self, is it necessary toattach one's own name? In Buddhism, the self-concept for ordinary people is nothing but a convenient label, sothe answer is yes. We used the modified Stroop paradigm to examine this. Participants were restricted to those whosefamily names are “黃”, meaning “yellow” in English. In Experiment 1, the Chinese character “我”, meaning “I” and referringto self, was displayedin yellow or blue, and used to elicit self. Participants were asked to respond to the ink color. If selfnameis concomitant with self, a Stroop effect on the colored word “I” (shorter reaction times to yellow “I” than blue “I” )would be found. Results showed that was the case. In Experiment 2, the participants' own  faceswere used to elicit self, eitherconsciously or unconsciously. Results showed that self was accompanied by self-name only when elicited consciously. These results are consistent with the selfconcept of Buddhism:activation of “self” is accompanied by one' s own name.

Keywords: conventional truth (samvrti), objective me, selflessness (anatman), subjective I, ultimate truth (paramartha)