Abstract
People construct self-representation beyond the experiential self and the self-concept can expand to interpersonal as well as intrapersonal dimensions. The cognitive ability to project oneself onto expanded selves in different time points and places plays a crucial role in planning and decision-making situations. However, no research to date has shown evidence explaining the early mechanism of how processing the experiential self-information differs from processing the expanded self-information across temporal, social, spatial, and probability domains. We report novel effects showing a systematic information prioritization toward the experiential selves (i.e., the self that is now, here, and with highest certainty) compared to the expanded selves (i.e., the self that is in the future, at a distant location, and with lower certainty; Experiments 1a, 2, and 3). Implicit prioritization biases lasted over time (Experiment 1b; i.e., 4 months) indicating a trait-like more than a state-like measure of individual differences. Different biases, however, did not consistently correlate with each other (Experiments 1a to 3) suggesting separate underlying mechanisms. We discuss potential links to the basic structure of self-representation and individual differences for implications.
Highlights
Self-bias literature to date has mostly focused on comparing self- versus other-referential processing
Understanding the function of the self-representation in multiple domains is often conceptualized within the framework of self-projection: the ability to put the immediate self into the shoes of future or past selves, another person’s mind, and counterfactual situations (Buckner & Carroll, 2007; De Brigard et al, 2013; Schacter & Addis, 2007)
How do we maintain the stability and continuity of the self when the self is flexibly represented in a dynamic environment across time, space, and probable situations? What is the basic mechanism that successfully differentiates what is being experienced and what is beyond that? These are important questions because understanding the mental structure of the self that expands to temporal, social, spatial, or probability domain can advance the theoretical framework of self-representation into a more integrative system
Summary
Participants were instructed to make associations between shapes and social or temporal self-labels. “Cross is myself,” “Reversed triangle is friend,” “Hexagon is stranger” and in the temporal self-label blocks, participants read “Vertical rectangle is me ,” “Horizontal ellipse is me tomorrow,” and “Diamond is me in a year.”. After participants had viewed the shape–label associations and thought that they knew them by heart (approximately 1–2 min), they performed two shape–label matching tasks representing two sets of labels each (i.e., social or temporal self-labels) across six blocks. Each block had either social or temporal-self labels and at the beginning of each block, participants were reminded of the shape–label associations. Matching and non-matching pairs occurred often in random order Participants were shown their overall accuracy and average reaction time at the end of each block
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