Development of self-relatedness in descriptions of others over adolescence.
This paper takes a positive view of the functions of self-related thinking in social conception. Free, written descriptions of self and various others were elicited from 190 school children aged 13 to 17. A measure of the commonality (use of common dimensions and concepts) between self and other descriptions was defined and called projection. Drawing on a theory that stresses the adaptive and positive functions of self-related thinking, it was predicted that projection would be positively related to other measures indicating developmental maturity: age, intelligence, amount of information, and use of sophisticated psychological, organized, and qualified vocabulary in describing persons. Some, but not all of these predictions were supported and their theoretical implications are discussed.
D000293:Adolescent; D006801:Humans; D007360:Intelligence; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D010553:Personality Development; D011385:Projection