Evaluative Organization of the Self-Concept in Younger, Midlife, and Older Adults

Abstract

Showers’s model of evaluative organization is a fruitful way to conceptualize the self-concept and is related to self-esteem, depressive symptoms, and emotion regulation. In this study, the authors developed and piloted a card-sort measure to compare the evaluative organization of the self-concept in healthy older, midlife, and younger adults (approximately two thirds of participants were women). The results support the primary hypothesis that older adults would exhibit greater compartmentalization of the self-concept than younger and middle-aged persons. Older adults may think about their positive and negative self-aspects in a more differentiated fashion (i.e., categorize positive and negative self-aspects into separate roles) than younger and midlife persons, who are more integrative (i.e., categorize positive and negative self-aspects under the same role heading) in their self-concepts. The results are consistent with cognitive priming, memory, and emotion regulation studies, which suggest that the way persons organize information about themselves may be different in younger, midlife, and older adults.