The current project uses our university’s new student survey to compare previously reported trends in first-generation college student (FGCS) retention with those found on our campus and discusses potential directions for future research and intervention programs. Consistent with previous research, our data showed that financial concerns were a particularly strong predictor of freshman-to-sophomore retention. FGCS reported that they were significantly more concerned about money and expected to maintain employment throughout their college career at higher rates. This emphasis on work reduces the amount of time FGCS engage in college-related activities and hinders their feeling of connection with their peers. For example, our FGCS expected to encounter more difficulty performing well academically, fitting into the campus environment, and making new friends than non-FGCS students. Our future research agenda extends these findings to other aspects of campus life, examining issues such as cultural fit, family ties, and university inclusiveness.

The present study examines the relationship between individual differences in evaluative self-organisation and mental toughness in sport, proposing that motivation and emotional resiliency (facets of mental toughness) stem from differences in core self. A cross-sectional assessment of 105 athletes competing at a range of performance levels took part in an online study including measures of self-reported mental toughness (Sport Mental Toughness Questionnaire; Sheard, M., Golby, J., & van Wersch, A. (2009). Progress towards construct validation of the Sports Mental Toughness Questionnaire (SMTQ). European Journal of Psychological Assessment, 25(3), 186-193. doi:10.1027/1015-5759.25.3.186) and self-organisation (self-descriptive attribute task; Showers, C. J. (2002). Integration and compartmentalisation: A model of self-structure and self-change. In D. Cervone & W. Mischel (Eds.), Advances in personality science (pp. 271-291). New York, NY: Guilford Press). As predicted, global mental toughness was associated with self-concept positivity, which was particularly high in individuals with positive-integrative self-organisation (individuals who distribute positive and negative self-attributes evenly across multiple selves). Specifically, positive integration was associated with constancy (commitment to goal achievement despite obstacles and the potential for failure), which extends presumably from positive integratives' emotional stability and drive to resolve negative self-beliefs.

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Objective Explores the hidden vulnerability of individuals with compartmentalized self-concept structures by linking research on self-organization to related models of self functioning. Method Across three studies, college students completed self-descriptive card sorts as a measure of self-concept structure and either the Contingencies of Self-Worth Scale; Likert ratings of perceived authenticity of self-aspects; or a response latency measure of self-esteem accessibility. In all, there were 382 participants (247 females; 77% White, 6% Hispanic, 5% Black, 5% Asian, 4% Native American, and 3% Other). Results Consistent with their unstable self-evaluations, compartmentalized individuals report greater contingencies of self-worth and describe their experience of multiple self-aspects as less authentic than do individuals with integrative self-organization. Compartmentalized individuals also make global self-evaluations more slowly than do integrative individuals. Conclusions Together with previous findings on self-clarity, these results suggest that compartmentalized individuals may experience difficulties in how they know the self, whereas individuals with integrative self-organization may display greater continuity and evaluative consistency across self-aspects, with easier access to evaluative self-knowledge.

Most people hold both positive and negative beliefs about themselves. The way individuals organize, or structure, these beliefs in their self-concepts can facilitate realistic acceptance and confrontation of negative self-beliefs (integration), or defensive avoidance and denial of negative self-beliefs (compartmentalization). This article focuses on the distinction between individuals with a realistic, secure self and a defensive, fragile self. We present evidence that compartmentalization is associated with several indicators of a defensive, fragile self, such as contingent self-esteem and unstable self-evaluations. In addition, individuals with this structure are likely to engage in defensive processes that enhance or protect the self. This model of self-organization can provide a window on the defensive self, allowing researchers to observe the process by which individuals think about and defensively avoid negative self-beliefs.memories. These elements may overlap across different self-aspects or may be largely distinct (cf. Linville, 1987). Some self-aspects may be more important than others, and some more positive or negative than others. Additionally, some self-aspects may be more evaluatively complex than others, meaning that some self-aspects may contain a mixture of both positive and negative self-knowledge rather than purely positive or purely negative self-knowledge.According to Showers's (1992) model, the organization of self-knowledge (i.e., self-structure) exists on a continuum from evaluatively integrative to evaluatively compartmentalized based on how positive and negative self-beliefs are distributed across a person's self-aspect categories. In a compartmentalized self-structure, an individual's positive and negative self-beliefs, referred to here as "attributes", are separated into distinct self-aspect categories. For example, Sara, a compartmentalized individual, has two different self-aspects: a "student" self and an "athlete" self. She describes her student self as hardworking, organized, and competent, and she describes her athlete self as insecure, worthless, and inferior. In this type of self-organization, positive and negative attributes are experienced in separate contexts. Only positive attributes are accessible when her student self is made salient, and only negative attributes are accessible when her athlete self is made salient. Alternatively, in an integrative self-structure, positive and negative attributes exist in the same self-aspect categories. Andy, an integrative individual, whose self-aspects are "myself at home" and "myself in class", uses the attributes loveable and fun but also lazy to describe himself at home and the attributes immature and disorganized but also intelligent to describe himself in class. Each selfaspect contains both positive and negative attributes. Regardless of which of Andy's self-aspects is activated, both positive and negative attributes are accessible. Table 1 displays more detailed illustrations of compartmentalized (Panel A) and integrative (Pan...