The Temporal Dynamics Of Self-perspective In A Sample Of University Students

Self-regulation is a highly adaptive capacity that facilitates success in myriad domains of life. The capacity, however, is far less than what many would regard as ideal, and self-regulation failures are central to the majority of personal and social problems that plague citizens in modern societies. A literature review on self-regulation reveals that successful self-regulation requires one to make decisions and to act in accordance with long-term rather than short-term outcomes.To explore the dynamic mechanism of efficient self-regulation, the present research extended construal level theory (Liberman, Sagristano, & Trope, 2002; Liberman & Trope, 1998; Trope & Liberman, 2003) to self-concept. Construal level theory was put forward on the basis of time discounting. It suggests that people form more abstract representations, or higher-level construal, of psychologically distal objects than psychologically proximal objects. Based on the theory, the present research posits that people also use higher-level representation to construe distant future self-concept. That is, when future self-concept is activated, because possible self and current self are co-activated in one's working self-concept, the mental representation is more central to the definition of one's self, which would trigger self-improvement motivation. In the same way, when current self is primed, the mental representation is more concrete and contextual that is incidental to one's true self. Because of the arousal of current self, the current goal is activated at the same time in one's working self-concept especially in negative feedback context, which would trigger self-enhancement motivation.Building on these assumptions, we further propose that, the above effect should be mediated by value orientation. That is, distal rather than proximal self-perspective enhances the preference for idealistic over pragmatic value. The principle has important implications for self-regulation: distal self-perspective benefit self-regulation by enhancing behavioral intention, value-behavior correspondence and resistance of temptation. A series of 7 studies was conducted to test these assumptions.Study 1 explored the relationship between self-perspective and self-motivation. In study 1 A, participants first completed a creativity test to prime self-perspective, were then given negative feedback about the test. After that, Stroop task was employed to estimate the level of self-motivation. Results showed that, when distal self-perspective was primed, participants reacted to the words of self-improvement slower than the control group or the proximal group. For the proximal group, when they were told that the creativity test was authoritative, they then showed longer reactive time for the words of self-enhancement than the control group. But it wasn't the case for the new test manipulation condition. Analysis indicated that when the possible self was activated, people focused on the information that can facilitate their self-development. Maybe it's because of this, they were glad to accept all kinds of feedback, even if the feedback would threat their self-esteem. But when current self was activated in one's working self-concept, they chose to escape from negative feedback in order to maintain their positive self-regard.Study 1B manipulated the self-concept of freshmen and seniors with a piece of news for a superstar student. By this mean, we examined the impact of the positive role on the freshmen and seniors. Statistical analysis showed that the freshmen evaluated the superstar more positive than the seniors, but evaluated themselves less positive than seniors. The results indicated that the freshmen were more prone to see the superstar as future possible self than the seniors, who focused more on the differences between the superstar and themselves, which in turn triggered self-improvement. Whereas the seniors would see the superstar as current goal in order to protect their self-concept, they were more likely to show self-enhancement bias.Study 2 to study 6 addressed the mechanism of how self-perspective induced different self-motivation. Study 2 explored the relationship between self-concept and value preference. Study 2A asked participants to describe their current self or their possible self 5 years later, then presented them a choice context which involved a decision between two conflicting classes, with one class emphasized idealistic value, and the other pragmatic value. Results showed that, when current self was activated, people preferred the pragmatic class. Employed the same procedure, study 2B replicated the results of study 2A, and extended the temporal distance to 3 intervals (current, 1 month later, 5 years later) and the percept to others. It implied that temporal distance didn't bear a roughly a linear relationship with value orientation. Besides, the influence of temporal distance on value orientation was only for self, not others.Study 3A primed participants with overall possible self-difference by asking them to describe current self and possible self at the same time. Results showed that greater self-difference interrelate with greater preference for idealistic class. Study 3C set 4 conditions to induce possible self-difference or current self-difference: asked participants (1) and (2), to describe their future self-concepts using words like optimism/ pessimism, extroversion/ introversion and social/antisocial, and evaluate the difference between the possible self and their current self; (3) to describe their current self with words as optimism/ pessimism, extroversion/ introversion and social/antisocial, and write down their thoughts if their best friends don't agree with what they describe; (4) to describe their current self only, no other instruments. Results showed when expected possible self were activated, people preferred idealistic value, but it wasn't the case for feared possible self. When current self was primed, people preferred pragmatic value whether or not current goal was primed.Study 4 examined the assumption of automatic self-difference. After described the possible self or current self, study 4A then asked participants to list the other thoughts that appeared in their mind at the same time. Analysis indicated that once possible self was primed, current self was co-activated immediately. But current self-difference didn't show the same principle; perhaps the exception can be attributed to the deficit of self-reported method in this study. Employed evaluative conditioning techniques, study 4B aimed to explicate the relationship. Results showed that, when current goal and negative emotion were co-activated, the tension between current self and current goal decreased or even disappeared, which damped the value orientation. In all, the results implied that self-difference was the main mediator between self-perspective and value orientation.Study 5 focused on the role of emotion on value orientation. Participants were first asked to recall the happy or unhappy days in the past, and then were instructed to describe their current creativity or creativity potential to manipulate their percept of self-concept. Results showed that, happy people preferred pragmatic value than unhappy people.Building on a synthesis of the foregoing studies, study 6 investigated the relationship among self-perspective, value orientation and self-motivation. Participants were first instructed to complete an IQ test. While waiting for the outcome of the test, another experimenter entered and asked the students to take another survey by college administration. The survey involved two parts, one of which asked the subjects to indicate how likely they were to choose climbing Mount Everest or a trainee in a very famous company, and the other part was a choice context which stresses different value orientation. After completion of the survey, the first experimenter returned and gave the participants bogus negative feedback. Then they completed another value orientation form and self-motivation measures. Analysis showed that when people chose more likely to be a trainee, they were scored higher in value and motivation measures. The results indicated that value orientation was partly mediated the relationship between self-perspective and self-motivation.The above principle has implications for self-regulation. A series of three sub-studies in study 7 verified the assumption. Study 7A demonstrated that distal self-perspective drew participants' attention shift to the benefits of psychological studies, which accordingly led to stronger behavioral intention to participate but only in studies that involve conflicts between costs and valued benefits. In study 7B, participants first completed the Psychological Distance Scaling Task, which provided an index of the cognitive organization of interpersonal and achievement self-referent content, and were then presented a hypothetical choice dilemma (helping friends or preparing for examination). Analysis implied that more central values induced by distal self-perspective influenced value-behavior correspondence than less central values. That is, when people valued interpersonal self more, they were more likely to choose to help friends rather than prepare for examination. It would reverse for people who valued achievement much more. The quantification analysis of self-differences was performed in Study 7C to verify the impact of self-activation on evaluation for the temptation words. It revealed that people rated the temptation words less positively when primed with possible self-difference than those primed with current self-difference. In all, distal self-perspective would benefit self-regulation more than do proximal self-perspective.Implications of the results of the present research were discussed, and the need for future research was indicated.