Lisa K. Libby, Ph.D. - US grants

DESCRIPTION (provided by candidate): This research project investigates the role that experiential aspects of memory and imagination play in defining explicit beliefs about the self over time. Some autobiographical memories have a very immediate quality in which one relives past experience; in contrast, other memories have a distant quality in which one feels disconnected from a past self. The same phenomena can be observed when thinking about future selves. The first set of studies involves autobiographical memory and tests two main hypotheses: 1) people feel psychologically closer to past selves when there is a match between past behavior and present psychological state than when there is a mismatch, 2) these feelings of psychological distance influence explicit judgments of change in the self over time, independent of top-down influences of abstract theories about the self over time. The second set of studies tests the same hypotheses with regard to imagined future selves. In therapeutic contexts people are trying to change themselves for the better. If the experiential aspects play a fundamental role in the self-concept, then true change in the self should be accompanied by feelings of psychological distance from the negative past self. The third set of studies uses behavioral measures in order to test whether subjective reports of distance from past selves is predictive of actual behavior in the present.

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Chronic low self-esteem is associated with numerous emotional and mental health problems. However, surprisingly little is known about the causal mechanisms responsible for this association, despite widespread interest in self-esteem amongst researchers and the lay public alike. The present research addresses this gap in the literature, focusing specifically on the relationships between low self-esteem, visual perspective in imagery of negative autobiographical events, and the propensity to experience shame. When people recall or imagine events in their lives, they often see those events in their mind's eye. Sometimes people see these images from their own first-person perspective, looking out through their own eyes; other times they see images from an outside observer's third-person perspective, so that they see themselves in the images . Preliminary data demonstrate that individuals with chronically low self-esteem (LSEs) experience significantly more third-person imagery when recalling negative autobiographical events than do those with chronically high self-esteem (HSEs). One purpose of the present studies is to investigate how LSEs' beliefs about the determinants of interpersonal acceptance and LSEs' tendency to overgeneralize from negative events contribute to their tendency to recall negative events from the third-person. Existing research demonstrates that LSEs are prone to experiencing the self-focused emotion of shame and that shame promotes maladaptive response styles. The second purpose of the present studies is to explore how the tendency to recall negative events from the third-person may contribute to LSEs' vulnerability to experiencing shame, and thus put them at risk for mental health threats. Identifying causal mechanisms that link low self-esteem to mental health threats highlights thought processes that may be targeted in therapeutic interventions.