Following the early work of James, mainstream social psychological approaches to the self have first treated individuals and society as separable and distinguishable entities and, second, located the psychology of the self within the individual. From a critical perspective, selves should instead be viewed as constructions that people produce in interactions with others to accomplish social outcomes, such as accounting for and justifying their actions, criticising other people, or otherwise. Rather than being properties of individuals, selves can more usefully be understood as descriptions that are produced in talk and occasioned in local social contexts.