A priming procedure (e g, Klein, Loftus Trafton, & Fuhrman, 1992) was used to test a hierarchical model of self-knowledge According to this model, people simultaneously hold multiple representations of themselves that differ both in their context specificity and in the type of knowledge of which they consist Specifically, context-independent self-knowledge is assumed to be represented abstractly without reference to any particular behaviors, whereas the representation of context-dependent self-knowledge includes knowledge of one's behavior in specific situations Our results support a hierarchical model Subjects accessed abstract knowledge when describing their context-independent personality characteristics, but accessed behavioral episodes when describing themselves in a specific context Possible implications of this research are discussed, as is the relation of a hierarchical model of self-knowledge to a mixed model of self-knowledge (e g, Klein & Loftus, 1993b)