#hazel markus

[loveandknowledge]

Abstract: The concept of possible selves in introduced to complement current conceptions of self-knowledge. Possible selves represent individuals’ ideas of what they might become, what they would like to become, and what they are afraid of becoming, and thus provide a conceptual link between cognition and motiviation. Possible selves are the cognitive components of hopes, fears, goals, and threats, and they give the specific self-relevant form, meaning, organization, and direction to these dynamics. Possible selves are important, first, because they function as incentives for future behavior (i.e., they are selves to be approached or avoided) and second, because they provide an evaluative and interpretive context for the current view of self. A discussion of the nature and function of possible selves is followed by an exploration of their role in addressing several persistent problems, inluding the stability and malleability of the self, the unity of the self, self-distortion, and the relationship between the self-concept and behavior.

[themomsandthecity]

Study: Tigers mothers and their critics are both right

Are Tiger Mothers doing kids a favor or a disservice? Is parental pressure a good thing or a bad thing? New research confirms what many cultural psychologists have suspected for a long time: It depends on how a child feels about his parent. Want to get the full story? Click on the headline above. And thanks for reading the BabyCenter Blog. http://bit.ly/1jnUXE2

[eveewing]

"Possible selves derive from representations of the self in the past and they include representations of the self in the future. They are different and separable from the current or now selves, yet are intimately connected to them. Possible future selves, for example, are not just any set of imagined roles or states of being. Instead they represent specific, individually significant hopes, fears, and fantasies. I am now a psychologist, but I could be a restaurant owner, a marathon runner, a journalist, or the parent of a handicapped child. These possible selves are individualized or personalized, but they are also distinctly social. Many of these possible selves are the direct result of previous social comparisons in which the individual’s own thoughts, feelings, characteristics, and behaviors have been contrasted to those of salient others. What others are now, I could become.

An individual is free to create any variety of possible selves, yet the pool of possible selves derives from the categories made salient by the individual’s particular sociocultural and historical context and from the models, images, and symbols provided by the media and by the individual’s immediate social experiences. Possible selves thus have the potential to reveal the inventive and constructive nature of the self but they also reflect the extent to which the self is socially determined and constrained (cf. Elder, 1980; Meyer, 1985; Stryker, 1984).”

- Hazel Markus & Paula Nurius, “Possible Selves,” American Psychologist, 1986. Emphasis mine.

I think this theory is super important for anyone who works with adolescents to understand, and has really important intersections with sociology, public policy, and lots of other fields. This, for instance, is why media representations matter. It’s why having diversity in various employment sectors matters (teaching field, I’m looking at you).