One personality, multiple selves: integrating personality and social roles.
How do people maintain multiple, role-specific self-conceptions as well as a consistent sense of self? In a sample of middle-aged women, we examined three issues: (a) the ways in which people view themselves as both different and similar across social roles (e.g., parent, friend, worker), (b) how role-specific self-conceptions and general self-conceptions are related, and (c) the merits of predicting role-specific criteria from role-specific and general self-conceptions. Results showed that subjects' self-conceptions were specific to role contexts, yet highly correlated across those same role contexts. In addition, role-specific self-conceptions were more similar to the general self-concept for roles with which the individual was more satisfied. Finally, as predicted from the bandwidth-fidelity trade-off, ratings of the general self correlated moderately with outcomes across all role domains, whereas ratings of role-specific self-conceptions correlated strongly with outcomes for the same role, but not in other roles.
Roberts
B W
BW
Institute of Personality and Social Research, University of California, Berkeley 94720.
Donahue
E M
EM
D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D010551:Personality; D012381:Role Playing; D012649:Self Concept; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires