**3. Self and economy**

The communications speed, the reduction of the space–time distance between the various countries has paradoxically caused increasing social disparities, the exploitation of wage labor and the reduction of the local economies autonomy. From an individual level, globalization has also promoted a sort of needs homogeneity, often standardizing the individual tastes to an imposed standard influenced by advertising. Another globalization consequence is the fact that it favors the ideological visions conformity and the lifestyles conformity, determining individual identification with the consumers mass. Paradoxically today in parallel there is also a generalized individualism. Assuming that the specific economic aspect is important for human development, however, it is necessary to explain why, despite the globalization pressures, different populations live in socio-economic conditions which are often very different from each other; even in the same context of the industrialized world, and in the "rich nations", there are profound social inequalities regarding earnings, and consequently regarding the opportunities that individuals can have: today in many nations, the differences in economic conditions between poor and rich people have widened. At this point we can ask ourselves: which influence do these socio- economic circumstances have on the development of the individual self? In this regard there are some scientific evidences [2], for example, considering a particularly important and complex issue: it have been observed that individuals living in environments characterized by low and medium socio-economic conditions, often experience higher levels of psychological distress, such as depression and anxiety; this result may appear very ambiguous: it is not clear whether the individual personality characteristics indicate that they reside in more disadvantaged neighborhoods, or if it is on, the contrary, the fact that they live in these neighborhoods which can cause psychological malaise: thanks

to scientific research it has emerged that between these aspects there are complex and significant interactions. Some studies have been carried out on this topic [3–6] and of a very important result emphasize that the relations of cause and effect vary precisely according to the personality characteristics. We can ask ourselves is it the personality that exerts an influence on the social class or if it is the social class that influences the personality? It has been observed that social circumstances and self are deeply connected to each other: the children who grow up in disadvantaged families often become more anxious adolescents, and adolescents who have access to a lower education level often become more anxiety-prone adults; the relationship, however, does not seem to be one-to-one: the available data show how anxiety can develop from predisposing social contexts but that the reverse phenomenon is not so evident. In contrast, the data regarding antisocial disorders revealed a different result: the antisocial behavior has a social class effect; as a matter of fact, individuals who exhibit antisocial conduct show more difficulty at school, which in turn create a negative economic condition when they are adults. In general, scientists are able to explain the mutual influences of personality and economic status/social class but only by specifying the exact personality characteristics and studying the people development over time (through longitudinal studies) [2]. From what has been explained up to now, it is evident that the social, economic and cultural context can influence the self development, as well as the personality structuring can in turn determine important consequences in the various socioeconomic contexts.
