Ethogenicists argue that the unified self (or 'I') emerges through everyday discourse and is enabled through metaphors. Rom Harré states: All that is personal in our mental and emotional lives is individually appropriated from the conversation going on around us and perhaps idiosyncratically transformed. The structure of our thinking and our feeling will reflect, in various ways, the form and content of that conversation. The main thesis of this work is that mind is no sort of entity, but a system of beliefs structured by a cluster of grammatical models. The science of psychology must be reformed accordingly (1983: 20). Methodologically, ethogenics starts with the social formation as the primary human reality
and then shows how the human self exists within it via personally modified 'templates.'(Harré 1983: 64-65). While Harré makes a distinction between personal and social being, he does not claim that personal being is prior to social being. By contrast, John Shotter's approach to ethogenics analyzes social action with others (as opposed to individual rule-following and performances), which is said to give individuals 'social powers.' There is no cognitive structure of the social self-independent of social context (Shotter 1983: 33). Therefore, Shotter emphasizes the practical necessities which bring individuals together in moral configurations, which it is necessary to hermeneutically approach. Shotter believes this is a better way to understand the "accounting practices" (and resulting consciousness) of individuals than Harré's methods.
Kenneth Gergen argues that scientific activity (theories) also plays a significant role in
constructing the reality and values of individuals. Gergen argues that scientific theories appeal to the common sense within our everyday symbolic world. Societal power relations are affected by groups who try to impose certain frameworks for understanding selfhood, which then guide action (Gergen 1989). == Critique of mainstream social psychology ==