Self-perception

The present study examined the relationship between Action Identification and Homosexual Identity Formation. Specifically, it examines how homosexual male individuals view their actions differently when they are “in the closet” (not open about their sexual orientation) compared to being out today (open about their sexual orientation). Homosexual male participants (N=142) took an online survey containing the internalized Homophobia scale, Self-concept clarity scale, and general demographics questions and took the Behavioral Identification Form with an additional 20 items twice (BIF+). The participants were instructed first to answer the BIF+ as if they were in the closet and later took the same form as they are today, being comfortable with their sexual orientation. Using the original 25-item BIF, a paired t-test revealed a significant difference in the out-of-the-closet (M = .65, SD = .19) from the closeted (M = .60, SD =.21), t(141) = 3.3, p < .001. The effect size measured by Cohen’s d was d=.28, indicating a small effect. With the additional 20 items, a paired t-test for the BIF+ revealed a significant difference in the out-of-the-closet (M = .69, SD = .15) condition, compared to being closeted (M = .63, SD = .19), t(141) = 4.4, p<.001. The effect size, measured by Cohen’s d, was d=.37, indicating a small effect. These findings suggest that when homosexual men are closeted, they tend to view their actions at a lower level compared to when they are open about their sexual orientation.

Previous research has demonstrated the deleterious effects of romantic relationship breakup on the self-concept and post-dissolution outcomes (Cope & Mattingly, 2021). However, individual differences in newly validated identity orientations (i.e., the preference to expand or conserve one’s sense of self; Hughes et al., 2020) may influence identity recovery. The current studies examined the influence of self-expansion preference on self-concept clarity and identity restoration mechanisms (i.e., relationship rekindling) following relationship dissolution using cross sectional (Study 1), intensive longitudinal (Study 2), and dynamical (Study 3) methods. Across studies, self-expansion preference emerged as a trait-level predictor of post-breakup experiences including self-concept clarity, distress, and relationship rekindling desire. Implications for individual experiences of romantic relationship dissolution are discussed.

Otway is a verse collection that explores the journey of the self in isolation. The
collection commences with the narrator's inability to make sense of involuntary isolation.
The subsequent melancholia prompts the narrator's journey of self-exploration, which
progresses outward into the natural world. This journey is signified through the
narrator's travels, which bring her into direct contact with the numinous (nature).
Consequently, both narrator and numen become integrated, leading to the transformation
of solitude as "undesirable" space into "sacred" space, one in which self-discovery can
occur.

This work argues that the self can be viewed as a dynamical system, with lower-level cognitive and affective elements that interact over time giving rise to global patterns of thought and behavior. The underlying structural features of the self-system promote temporal variation in self-evaluation in the stream of thought. To capture the dynamics of self-evaluation, a refinement of the "mouse paradigm" is employed. This procedure assesses the stream of self-evaluative thought and thus provides insight into the global structural features of the self. The goals of this research were to establish the validity of the "mouse paradigm" and to explore the relationship between the structure and dynamics of the self as expressed in self-reflection. The "mouse paradigm" is a procedure where individuals talk about themselves and subsequently indicate the valence of their self-description using a computer mouse. Participants move the mouse pointer (towards a target in the center of the screen to indicate a positive self-evaluation and away from the target to indicate a negative self-evaluation) while listening to the previously recorded version of their self-description. This technique makes it possible to examine self-evaluation as it changes over time. In study 1, participants described themselves after exposure to various self-relevant memory primes (positive, negative, mixed, and no prime). Traditional measures of the structural features of the self were found to be systematically related to the dynamic properties of participants' mouse movements (distance from target, variance, rate of change, and time at rest). Also, the priming manipulations were found to significantly alter the valence and dynamic properties of participants' self-evaluation. Study 2 explored the relationship between individual differences in self-structure and susceptibility to external influence. Participants were asked to describe themselves from three different perspectives (ideal self, actual self, and feared self). Perspective taking was found to systematically alter the nature of participants' self-evaluations. Furthermore, participants with relatively "weak" self-structures were found to be more influenced by the perspective manipulation. In general, results suggest that global properties of self-structure are related to the temporal flow of self-evaluation. Furthermore, individual differences in self-structure result in different levels of susceptibility to extrinsic influence.

Children's (Grades 4-8) perceptions of peer reactions to academic performance, affect, and conduct were examined in relation to achievement outcomes as measured by school grades, achievement test scores, and peer-based behavioral and affect judgments. Both sexes thought same-sex peers were more supportive of academic performance in boys than in girls. The hypothesis that expectations of peer reactions are related to achievement was partially supported, especially for the younger male subjects, whose achievement was systematically related to perceptions about the reactions of the female peer group to other girls. Theoretical and practical implications of the research findings were discussed.

The affects of level of abstraction on self-description inventories were investigated in this study. Seventy-five subjects were administered self-description inventories which assessed their overall standing on ten high level, abstract descriptors and ten low level, concrete descriptors. Subjects also indicated how much variability, certainty, and importance they associated with their responses. Results indicated that high level agents make judgments with more certainty than low level agents. Additionally, certainty and importance were unrelated thus indicating different aspects of self-understanding. Variability was negatively correlated with certainty yet positively correlated with the importance measure. This suggests that the notion of the self as a stable entity, as postulated by traditional self-concept theories, may be in error. It was advanced that variability be investigated as a flexible, adaptive aspect of self-understanding.

This study explored the extent and nature of academic peer reputation upon children's academic self-concept. Peer and self-perceptions of academic ability and affect were assessed for the subject domains of English, math, and science in order to investigate the generality of peer reputation influences across academic subject areas, and determine the extent to which gender differences might be evident. Gender differences were hypothesized, and peer reputation was expected to have the most influence on academic self-concept in school domains viewed as gender-normative and thus central to self-concept. MR analyses provided some support for this gender-congruency hypothesis, as it was primarily children's academic ability reputation in gender-congruent areas that was predictive of ability self-concept, and, influential with respect to perceived ability in normative domains. Contrary to expectations, peer affective reputation was more predictive with respect to gender-incongruent domains. Results were interpreted to suggest the dominance of gender-schema consistency concerns in relation to ability perceptions, but contrast effects in relation to school affect.

Dynamical systems research has found evidence that global properties of self-system, i.e., self-esteem (SE), self-stability (SS), and self-certainty (SC), emerge from coherence of self-relevant information. Self-certainty may play a role in self-esteem and self-stability. Traits were deconstructed into levels from extremely to not at all. Ss indicated frequencies of trait levels, completed Rosenberg SE, SS; and self-evaluations of traits, roles, certainty, and importance. Entropy H identifies meaningful distributions of deconstructed traits. H may be useful alternative to variance from the mean in identifying individuals for whom a trait is meaningful despite the high variability of endorsements. Low H indicated order. H correlated negatively with SC, SE, SS, ratings of traits, roles, and importance as predicted. SC accounted for some of the variance of the relations; SS, however, was found to play a greater role in the relations of entropy and global properties.

According to Kohlberg's (1975, 1976, 1978, 1980a, 1980b, 1981, 1985) theory of moral development, individuals progress sequentially through a series of stages as they develop more sophisticated moral reasoning skills. The purpose of this research was to consider the possible relationships between social role-playing, role conflict, self-conceptions, college experience, and level of moral reasoning. Subjects were 197 students enrolled in introductory social science courses at a public junior college in a metropolitan area in southeast Florida. The age range of the subjects in this study was from 17 to 66 years, with a mean age of 22 years. There were 78 males and 119 females involved. Rest's (1979a, 1979b) Defining Issues Test was used to measure level of moral reasoning. This test yields a "p" score representing the amount of principled moral reasoning demonstrated by the subject while taking the test. Social role-playing and role conflict were measured by a role-playing questionnaire. The number of social roles listed and the number of role conflicts reported by the subjects were counted. The social self-conception was determined through the use of the Twenty Statements Test, that is, the number of times subjects listed social roles and group memberships in answer to the question "Who am I?" Androgyny was measured by the Bem Sex-Role Inventory. College experience was measured by the question "Is this your first time in college?" Scholastic aptitude, social-economic class, age, and sex were included as control variables. The variables that were significantly correlated with the level of moral reasoning in this sample were scholastic aptitude (r =.47, p < .01), age (r =.23, p < .01), social role-playing (r =.35, p < .01), and college experience (r =.17, p < .05). Social role-playing was the only variable that significantly added to the predictability of moral reasoning when the control variables scholastic aptitude, social-economic class, age, and sex were considered. The increment to the R^2 was .03 (F (84,5) = 3.97, p < .05). Social role-playing also incremented the well documented contribution of age and scholastic aptitude in predicting the level of moral reasoning. The increment to the R^2 was .03 (F (3, 86) = 3.98, p < .05). These results suggest that social role-playing should be considered in a developmental model of moral development.

The Hurricane Notebooks is a manuscript-length memoir of the narrator's quest to piece together the enigmatic character of her late father. She does this through her discovery of his private notebooks as well as her unearthing of four generations of family turmoil.