The Hero Within: Inclusion of Heroes into the Self

Abstract

Despite the commonly accepted belief that people are influenced by their heroes, researchers have yet to examine the process by which this occurs. The current study examined whether the process of inclusion-of-other-in-self (IOS; Aron & Aron, 1986), previously used to describe how significant others and social groups influence individuals' self-concepts, can explain individuals' connections to cultural heroes. A Stroop-like self-description test used previously to test IOS was presented to 63 participants. As expected, information about people's heroes affected their ability to complete self-descriptions whereas information about comparable non-heroes did not. Implications of these findings are discussed in the context of self-concept research.