Uniqueness of the self-concept across the life span

Abstract

College students and elderly subjects made self-descriptiveness and other-descriptiveness ratings for the same set of 120 trait adjectives representing three levels of likability. Elderly subjects attributed a greater number of likable traits uniquely to their best friend than to themselves alone, whereas young adults judged themselves more favorably than the other person. The elderly were generally slower at making the descriptiveness decisions, but particularly for uniquely descriptive items, as though trait distinctiveness information was still obtained on a comparative rather than a prestored basis even after many years of developing the self-concept. Scores on a self-consciousness questionnaire revealed that elderly subjects were lower on both public and private self-consciousness, but not on social anxiety.

Self-referent processing of age-specific material.

“…However, there was no evidence to indicate that self-referencing eliminated the memory deficit of elderly adults relative to young adults. Because this outcome corroborates previous findings (e.g., Mueller & Ross, 1984), it seems unlikely that age differences in spontaneous self-referencing explain much of the retention deficit.…”

“…Some studies have indicated that self-awareness differences are directly related to the benefits of self-referencing material. One previous study (Mueller & Ross, 1984) found that certain aspects of self-awareness, as measured by this instrument, are lower in elderly subjects. This pattern was also apparent here (see Table 1), with the elderly showing significantly lower scores on the private self-consciousness scale, t (38) = 2.92, p < .01 , and nonsignificantly lower scores on public self-consciousness, t (38) = 1.98, p < .06 , and social anxiety, t (38) = 1.45, p < .16 .…”

“…In terms of incidental recall, there was the common slight advantage for the young adults relative to the elderly, and the typical advantage for self-referenced items relative to other-referenced items, but no interactions with age. Because this has been noted before (Mueller & Ross, 1984), it seems that elderly adults can benefit from the process of self-referencing just as the young adults do, but it does not completely eliminate the age deficit in retention. Thus, it would appear unlikely that differences in spontaneous self-referencing have much bearing on the general age deficit in retention.…”

“…To the extent that self-referencing improves memory in young adults, age-related differences in the self-concept may be involved in the memory deficit associated with aging (e.g., Kausler, 1982). There are several reasons why elderly people may not benefit from self-referencing as much as young adults (Mueller & Ross, 1984). Of specific interest here are two interrelated aspects that may vary with age.…”

Distinguishing me from thee

“…As to the reliability of the difference in reaction time for Self-Qnly and Both items, it appears that the slower speed of access for unique traits is reproducible. Mueller and Ross (1984), using the same adjectives, procedures, and target other (best friend) as were used here , observed that elderly subjects took longer for SelfOnly items than for Both items. It also seems this result holds for several variations in procedures.…”