Research has been conducted on a) relations between academic self-concept and academic achievement, which is well established in the literature, however there remains disagreement about the causal ordering of these constructs b) relations between motivation and academic achievement which show moderate-to-strong correlations and c) relations between academic self-concept and motivational indicat...

Two studies examined the effect of self-image threat on the use of social comparisons by those who have high and low trait self-esteem. In the absence of threat, trait high and low self-esteem people engaged in similar social comparison processes. When threatened, however, trait high self-esteem people made more downward social comparisons and trait low self-esteem people made more upward socia...

an ability to update our self-concept based on information from others. In college, students weave together the feedback from grades and test scores, coaches and directors, and friends and loved ones and form a fairly accurate picture of how others see them” (p. 199). Accordingly, college students’ self-perceptions affect their performance positively and negatively both inside and outside of th...

The attainment of financial independence is a key marker of the contemporary transition to adulthood. In this study we ask, how do young adults gain the capacity to support themselves? We contend that communication about work in the family during adolescence is an important precursor of economic self-efficacy during adolescence, which is positively associated with financial independence in earl...

This review considers recent theoretical and empirical developments in cross-cultural studies within social and organizational psychology. It begins with a description of the importance and the difficulties of universalizing psychological science. It then continues with an examination of theoretical work on both the internal-proximal and the external-distal constraints that mediate culture's in...

Evidence from explicit measures (e.g. favourability ratings, valuations) has led to the prevalent hypothesis that owned objects become cognitively associated with self-concept. Using a novel version of the Implicit Association Test (self-object IAT), wherein participants categorized objects by colour, we evaluated implicit cognitive associations involving self with already-owned and newly-owned...

OBJECTIVE Research has found that writing about stress can confer physical and psychological health benefits on participants and that adopting a self-compassionate stance may have additional benefits. This pilot study evaluated a self-compassionate expressive writing intervention in a Day Hospice setting. METHOD Thirteen patients with life-limiting illnesses wrote on two occasions about recen...

Children’s self-concept and theory of mind are both important factors in children’s social, cognitive and emotional development. Research on gender diff erences in children’s theory of mind understanding reveals contradictory fi ndings such as higher degree of social understanding or theory of mind in girls (Villaneuva Badenes, Clemente Estevan, & Garcia Bacete 2000), boys score higher than gir...

The purpose of this study was two-fold: to determine the relationship between ethnic identity and self-esteem as dimensions of one's self-concept; and to determine if differences exist among one's ethnicity, ethnic identity, and/or self-esteem when examining at-risk eating disordered behaviors. A total of 893 urban adolescent females completed three behavioral subscales: the Eating Disorder Inv...