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An address of Professor Allport stimulated the author to consider the various aspects of the ego. The point of departure of his discussion is a statement of Allport's eight principal conceptions of the ego: (1) as a knower, (2) as an object of knowledge, (3) as primordial selfishness, (4) as dominator, (5) as a passive organizer and rationalizer, (6) as a fighter for end, (7) as one segregated behavioral system among others, (8) as a subjective patterning of cultural values.
Distinctions are pointed out between awareness of self and awareness of the body: the object of awareness is considered as the body, while the content is regarded as the awareness of the self. According to Chein the failure to distinguish between awareness of body and self has resulted in confusion. The ego is portrayed as a system of motives centered about awareness of the self. Allport's main conceptions of the ego are each briefly considered in terms of these distinctions. The discussion purports to show the validity of the definition of the ego as a 'motivational-cognitive structure built up around the self'. Such a definition is believed to satisfy the experimental and clinical evidence of, perhaps, a single entity operating in a variety of ways, i.e., the ego.