Level Of Self-concept Clarity Research Articles

Knowing Who You Are: Neural Correlates of Self-concept Clarity and Happiness

Self-concept clarity (SCC) focuses on the internal consistency and stability of individual self-concept and is assumed to be a critical indicator for one’s subjective well-being (SWB), which is assumed to include emotional well-being (EWB) and cognitive well-being (CWB). However, the neurobiological basis of SCC and the neurological mechanisms underlying the relationship between SCC and SWB have not been well defined. Thus, this study explored the neural basis of SCC by correlating the fractional amplitude of low frequency fluctuations (fALFF) and resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC) with the self-reported SCC in 574 healthy first-year university students. A whole-brain correlation analysis indicated that higher levels of SCC was associated with increased fALFF in the right precentral gyrus (PreCG). Additionally, SCC was associated with decreased RSFC of the right PreCG and left inferior parietal lobe (IPL). Furthermore, mediation analysis demonstrated that the fALFF in the right PreCG and PreCG-IPL connectivity strength might be associated with EWB and positive affect through SCC. Our findings contribute to understanding the neurobiological basis of SCC and the neural mechanism underlying the relationship between SCC and EWB.

Development of self-concept clarity from ages 11 to 24: Latent growth models of Chinese adolescents

ABSTRACT This study examined the growth trajectory of self-concept clarity (SCC) and explored the influence of this trajectory on the development of life satisfaction (LS) and positive affect (PA) among Chinese adolescents (N = 2001, 56.97% females). Results of latent growth models showed no significant mean-level change of SCC across three waves in a year. However, significant inter-individual variability was presented in the developmental patterns of SCC over time. Specifically, older adolescents showed higher initial levels of SCC; and males were related to increased SCC in development rates. Moreover, we found gender-specific nature of the relationship between SCC and well-being outcomes (e.g., LS and PA). Our results have significant practical implications for mental health programs in adolescence.

Self-concept clarity and appearance-based social comparison to idealized bodies

Exposure to images of idealized bodies in the media has been shown to increase body dissatisfaction among women. One of the mechanisms through which exposure influences body dissatisfaction is appearance-based comparison with the people in the images. The present study tested the hypothesis that individuals low in self-concept clarity (i.e., individuals who lack a clear sense of their own identity) would be more likely to compare themselves to images of thin models, and would consequently experience greater body dissatisfaction. White female participants (N = 489) were exposed to either images featuring idealized bodies or neutral control images, and then indicated the extent to which they compared their appearance to that of the targets and reported their level of body dissatisfaction. A moderated-mediation model showed that the effect of exposure condition on body dissatisfaction via appearance comparison to the targets depended on the participant's level of self-concept clarity. Those with lower self-concept clarity engaged in greater comparison when exposed to idealized images relative to control images, leading to greater post-exposure body dissatisfaction. These findings suggest that low self-concept clarity might increase vulnerability to the negative effects of exposure to idealized media images.

Obsessive-Compulsive Tendencies & Self-Concept Clarity Among Females With and Without Hormonal Imbalance

Background: The role of hormones in the female body is well known in reproductive age. Several studies have been conducted regarding hormonal fluctuations and their association with obsessive-compulsive disorder, but the role of psychological issues relevant to it has been ignored and only hormonal fluctuation and its impact were the target. Thus, the main purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between Self-Concept Clarity (SCC) and obsessive-compulsive tendencies (Obsessive-Compulsive Concerns about Cleanliness (OCC) and Obsessive-Compulsive concerns about Harm and Injury (OCHI)). Another objective was to identify the difference between SCC, OCC, and OCHI in healthy and unhealthy females. Methods: A sample of (N=210) females, an equal number of healthy and unhealthy females, from different hospitals and the general population, with a mean age of 21 years, was selected by using convenience sampling technique as a type of non-probability sampling. Study participants were selected from the same city. Results: Comparison of healthy and unhealthy females revealed high levels of SCC and obsessive-compulsive tendencies among unhealthy females and also a significant positive correlation was found between these constructs. Conclusion: The females with irregular hormonal fluctuations develop obsessive-compulsive tendencies and these people are most sensitive to unimportant affairs, even sensitive to themselves that might create clarity in their self-concept.

The Third Transitional Identity of Migrant Adolescents. The Case of Hotel House, an Italian Multi-Ethnic Skyscraper-Ghetto

The adolescent’s identity achievement is a complex task, even more so if they are migrants living in a particular context of ethnic ghettoization. Hotel House is an enormous, isolated condominium situated on the outskirts of Porto Recanati, a small Italian town. It is a unique reality poorly studied from a social psychological perspective. The present paper aims to measure the perceived levels of self-concept clarity, self-determination, ethnic group identification, relationship with parents, depression and life satisfaction in a group of 91 adolescents (11–19 years; 30% females; 1.5 immigrant’s generation) living in this context. The analysis shows low levels of self-concept clarity and self-determination, especially in female adolescents, quite satisfactory relationships with their parents and medium levels of group identification and life satisfaction. The identification with their ethnic subgroups seems to provide a third transitional identity which works as a temporary link between native country values and host country values. The regression analysis shows significant associations: self-determination is negatively associated with depression and positively associated with the perception of life satisfaction; the father’s closeness is a negative predictor for depression and a positive predictor for life satisfaction; mother’s closeness is negatively associated with depression.

Finding Myself Fast and Furiously: The Role of Agency-Communion Orientation and Self-Concept Clarity in Support for Radicalism

The past research on radicalism is equivocal regarding the ways in which self-concept clarity shapes intentions to engage in radical behavior. Seeking to address the previous mixed findings in the literature, the present research examines how an individual’s agency-communion orientation moderates the effect of self-concept clarity on behavioral intentions for radical groups. Specifically, we propose that agency-oriented individuals show greater intentions to participate in radical groups when they experience low (vs. high) self-concept clarity, whereas communion-oriented individuals show no significant differences in their intentions to participate in radical groups across levels of self-concept clarity. A 2 (agency-communion orientation: low vs. high) × 2 (self-concept clarity: low vs. high) experimental design was used to test the hypotheses. Using gender as a proxy variable for agency-communion orientation, Study 1 shows that agency-communion orientation moderates the effect of self-concept clarity on intentions to participate in radical groups. Using chronic individual differences in agency-communion orientation, Study 2 shows that psychological entitlement mediates the interactive effect of self-concept clarity and agency-communion orientation on behavioral intentions for radical groups. Taken together, these findings support the role of agency-communion orientation and self-concept clarity in radicalism.

The Impact of Recommendation System Overuse on the Subjective Wellbeing of Internet Users

The stress in identifying useful information on the internet facilitated the use of recommendation systems by e-commerce and social network platforms to help users find their interested information quickly. However, this study seeks to investigate the impact of recommendation system overuse on the subjective wellbeing of internet users. The study reviewed previous studies in developing a research framework from the SOBC model that identifies social media overload as a (Situation) that triggers the intentions of internet users (Organism) to excessively use recommendation systems on the internet based on their level of self-concept clarity (Behavior) which (Consequently) affect their subjective wellbeing. SmartPLS 3.0 and SPSS v.22 software were deployed to analyze the research data and discover links between the constructs. The obtained results of the study confirm that, overuse of online recommendation systems negatively affect users’ subjective wellbeing.

Measurement Invariance of the Self-Concept Clarity Scale across Race and Sex

Self-concept clarity refers to the extent to which one holds a coherent, consistent, and stable view of one’s attributes and conceptualization of the self. Self-concept clarity is related to a number of constructs including psychopathology, adaptive development, cultural identity, coping style, and leadership. The most commonly used measure is the Self-Concept Clarity Scale (SCCS; Campbell et al. 1996). The SCCS has been used in diverse groups and provides evidence that self-concept clarity varies among ethnicities and between sexes. This study tested the measurement invariance of SCCS scores across large samples of White (n = 696), East Asian (n = 794), Southeast Asian (n = 489), Pacific Islander (n = 238), and Multiracial (n = 490) participants, and between sexes. Findings indicate that the SCCS has configural, metric, scalar, and strict invariance among races and between sexes. The latent factor variance and means were also equal across groups. These results suggest that the SCCS measures the same construct among groups and that scores represent the same level of self-concept clarity among groups. The current study found small but statistically significant differences among races in SCCS scores, which likely represent actual differences in self-concept clarity rather than different psychometric properties among groups.

대학생의 자기개념 명확성과 스트레스 대처방식이 우울에 미치는 영향

The present study examined the effects of self-concept clarity and stress coping styles on depression in undergraduate students, and whether stress coping styles moderated the relation between self-concept clarity and depression. The participants of this study were 355 students (145 males and 209 females) from 15 universities located in Seoul and Gyeonggi-do. To measure the level of depression, the Center for Epidemiological Studies-Depression(CES-D) Scale was used. The level of self-concept clarity was assessed by the Self-concept Clarity Scale. Also, stress coping styles were measured by Coping Styles Inventory. The data was analyzed by means of descriptive statistics and hierarchical regressions. The moderating effects of stress coping styles were investigated using the analysis procedures proposed by Baron and Kenny . The results indicated that the levels of self-concept clarity and problem-focused coping decreased the level of depression. Moreover, problem-focused coping, emotion-focused coping and aesthetic thinking moderated the effects of self-concept clarity on depression.

The Association Between Body Surveillance and Body Satisfaction Moderated by Self-Concept Clarity in Adult Women in the United States: A Cross-Sectional Study

Study Background: Eating disorders are associated with significant negative health outcomes for women. Body dissatisfaction is a primary risk factor for eating disorders in women and girls. Informed by objectification theory, this study investigated whether a) body surveillance was negatively associated with body satisfaction, and b) whether self-concept clarity moderated the association between body surveillance and body satisfaction in adult women. Self-concept clarity refers to holding a stable, consistent, and clear sense of self, while body surveillance refers to habitually monitoring the appearance of one’s body. Methods: A cross-sectional, non-experimental, correlational design was employed in this study. Several well-established self-report measures were administered to adult women (n=230) online in the United States between the ages of 18 and 63 (M=34.13) who were recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk. Results: Results of multiple regression analysis indicated that, when controlling for age and body mass index, body surveillance was negatively associated with body satisfaction, whereas selfconcept clarity was positively associated with body satisfaction. Results also evidenced that, when controlling for age and body mass index, self-concept clarity moderated the association between body surveillance and body satisfaction such that the negative association between body surveillance and body satisfaction was weaker among women who had high levels of self-concept clarity, as opposed to low self-concept clarity. Conclusion: Being the first study to investigate self-concept clarity in the context of objectification theory, results are discussed in terms of how and why self-concept clarity might attenuate the association between body surveillance and body satisfaction. Echoing other researchers, integrating self-concept clarity into eating disorder and body image prevention programs in order to improve women’s health is discussed.

Zakupy w centrum handlowym a klarowność Ja – różnice międzypłciowe

The study examines the relationship between the different aspects of symbolic consumption expressed in shopping in a mall and self-concept clarity and the moderating effect of gender on these relationships. Self-concept clarity describes the extent to which people with a clear self-concept know who they are, do not have beliefs that conflict with each other, and have viewpoints that remain consistent over time. The study involved 93 consumers who, upon exiting a mall, answered questions relating to shopping and assessed the level of self-concept clarity they felt while shopping. The procedure provided some insights into the dynamics of the self-concept clarity processes experienced during shopping. The results of the study demonstrated that as time spent on shopping increases, the level of self-concept clarity decreases for women, but not for men. There was a non-significant relationship between the purchase of products of high symbolic value and the amount of money spent and self-concept clarity. I discuss the results in the context of the threatening impact of consumer behaviour on self-concept clarity, and in the context of creating the Self through symbolic consumption.

Self-concept clarity is predicted by amygdala: Evidence from a VBM study

Self-concept clarity (SCC) refers to the degree to which individual has clearly defined, internally consistent, and temporally stable self-concept. Given that individuals attempt to define themselves positively, SCC is also regarded as the degree of individuals seeing themselves in positive and consistent ways. According to previous studies, SCC is mainly influenced by negative daily events, such as setbacks in daily personally valued goals, social rejection and inappropriate social comparison. Because the favorable views about ourselves are questioned, contradicted, impugned, mocked, or challenged by this daily events, SCC is influenced by self-threat, which is a very important and common threat in our daily life (such as mental threat and physical threat). Thus, the brain regions which are involved in self-threat processing, such as amygdala, might predict the level of SCC. Therefore, in the present study, the predictability of amygdala to SCC was investigated by using voxel-based morphology (VBM). According to the perspective of uncertainty and anticipation in anxiety, anxious individuals have defection in threat processing, which was related to abnormal structure in amygdala. Thus, we might learn about the relationship the brain regions related to threat processing in amygdala by analyzing the relationship between anxiety and amygdala among anxious individuals, which might be helpful for us to investigate the predictability of amygdala to SCC furtherly. Trait anxiety is a stable disposition related to frequent and/or intense state anxiety. Considering that trait anxiety is very common and easy-operation, the predictability of amygdala to SCC was investigated based on analyzing the relationship between trait anxiety and amygdala. In addition, although amygdala is very important in threat processing, such as lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC), ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPFC), anterior insula (AI), hippocampi, para hippocampal gyrus and anterior cingulated cortex (ACC) had also been found to be involved in threat processing. Except amygdala, the relationship between trait anxiety and the brain regions motioned above were also investigated using whole-brain analysis. The result of the present research showed that trait anxiety was negatively correlated with self-concept clarity; trait anxiety was positively associated with right basolateral amygdala (BLA), which can negatively predict SCC. According to these results, we believed that the enlarged BLA might make individuals be prone to detect threats around them and form, consolidate and retrieve threatened memory. Therefore, the negative predictability of BLA to SCC might reflect that with BLA increasing, individuals might be easily influenced by self-threat which make them be more easy to develop lower SCC. In addition, according to our whole-brain analysis, trait anxiety was also positively associated with right AI, which can also negatively predict SCC. Based on the role of AI playing in processing aware visceral responses into subjective feeling states, we thought that with BLA increasing individuals might easily generate more intense subjective feeling, which also make them be prone to be influenced by self-threat and develop lower SCC.

Increasing leaders’ self-concept-clarity in the authentic leadership coaching group

Introduction:It is suggested that authentic leaders can be distinguished by four self-related characteristics: ‘the salience of the leadership role in their self-concept, the level of self-concept clarity, the extent to which their goals are self-concordant, and the degree to which their behaviour is consistent with their self-concept’ (Shamir & Eilam, 2005, p.399). The aim of this research was to establish if and how authentic leadership group-coaching impacts a leader’s self-concept and self-concept clarity.Design:25 senior leaders participated in one of five authentic leadership coaching groups run over a two-year period. Each group met one day a month over three months to discuss how their past/present/future domains influence their leadership practice. The Self-Concept Clarity Scale (Campbell, Trapnell, Heine, Katz, Lavalle & Lehman, 1996) was administered at the beginning of day one and at the end of day three to see if there was any difference between pre-coaching and post-coaching scores.Results:Paired sample t-tests were conducted on the questionnaire data and results showed both statistical significance (p<.001) and a large Cohen effect size (d=1.01).Conclusion:This paper considers the relevance of the self-concept in the context of authentic leadership development and the results suggest that authentic leadership group-coaching works at a sufficiently deep level to increase participant’s self-concept-clarity. It examines how group-coaching can help individual’s achieve a greater clarity of their self-concept and proposes a combination of social psychology theories to explain why this group format may be so effective.

Self-concept clarity’s role in meaning in life among American college students: A latent growth approach

Meaning in life (MIL) is a fundamental building block of well-being, and MIL theory heavily emphasizes the importance of using self-knowledge to identify what makes life meaningful and to select suitable purposes to pursue in life. However, few studies have investigated this important theoretical point. The purpose of the present study was to investigate individual growth trajectories of self-knowledge, measured with a construct of self-concept clarity (SCC), and MIL. This study also examined whether the change of SCC predicts the change pattern of MIL using cross-domain latent growth analyses, controlling for the level of perceived stress. A longitudinal data-set with seventh measurement points was gathered from a total of 285 college students at a large Midwest university in the US during the period of 8 weeks. On average, a student’s levels of MIL and SCC tend to show a small amount of linear increase during the first semester of college, with individual differences in patterns of change. From a change perspective, SCC significantly predicted the sense of MIL, supporting the significance of having a clear self-view in perceiving life as more meaningful.

Signs of transcendence? A changing landscape of multiraciality in the 21st century

The relation between multiracial identity selection and psychological outcomes related to the self and well-being was explored among minority/White biracials spanning four different mixed-race groups (n=201): Black/Whites, East Asian/Whites, Latino/Whites, and South Asian/Whites. The mixed-race groups showed considerable variability in their selection of multiracial identity categories and different patterns of identity selection, as well as a higher overall representation of transcendent identity (i.e., identity that challenges traditional notions of race) than reported in previously published studies. Our findings demonstrated that biracial identity selection, especially when differentiating between identities that are socially validated or not socially validated by others, was related to a person's level of multiracial identity integration, identification with Whites, perceived discrimination from Whites and non-Whites, and psychological well-being. Identity selection groups did not significantly differ from each other in levels of self-concept clarity or identification with their non-White racial group. Theoretical implications for extending a multidimensional model to other mixed-race groups and redefining race as a social and cultural construction are discussed.

Day-to-Day Relationships among Self-Concept Clarity, Self-Esteem, Daily Events, and Mood

Twice a week for up to 10 weeks, 103 participants provided measures of their daily self-concept clarity (SCC), mood (negative affect [NA] and positive affect [PA]), and self-esteem (SE), and they described the events that occurred each day. Multilevel random coefficient modeling analyses found that daily SCC covaried with daily positive and negative events, with daily NA, and with daily SE. None of these relationships was moderated by trait levels of SE, SCC, PA, NA, or measures of depressogenic self-concept, anxiety, or depressive symptoms. Analyses that simultaneously included SE, mood, and events suggested that relationships between daily SCC and daily events were mediated by daily NA and daily SE. Such mediation suggests that daily events lead to changes in mood and SE, which in turn lead to changes in SCC. Additional analyses found that temporal variability of SE, PA, NA, and SCC was negatively correlated with trait SCC.

Master of One’s Psychological Domain? Not Likely if One’s Self-Esteem is Unstable

The authors examined the extent to which self-esteem (SE) stability relates to self-regulatory styles, self-concept clarity (SCC), and goal-related affect. The results supported the notion that individuals with unstable SE are not likely to possess a strong sense of self. Specifically, unstable as compared to stable SE was associated with (a) self-regulatory styles reflecting lower levels of self-determination, (b) lower SCC, and (c) goal-related affect characterized by greater tenseness and less interest. Theoretical implications are discussed.

Self-concept clarity: Measurement, personality correlates, and cultural boundaries.

Self-concept clarity (SCC) references a structural aspect oftbe self-concept: the extent to which selfbeliefs are clearly and confidently defined, internally consistent, and stable. This article reports the SCC Scale and examines (a) its correlations with self-esteem (SE), the Big Five dimensions, and self-focused attention (Study l ); (b) its criterion validity (Study 2); and (c) its cultural boundaries (Study 3 ). Low SCC was independently associated with high Neuroticism, low SE, low Conscientiousness, low Agreeableness, chronic self-analysis, low internal state awareness, and a ruminative form of self-focused attention. The SCC Scale predicted unique variance in 2 external criteria: the stability and consistency of self-descriptions. Consistent with theory on Eastern and Western selfconstruals, Japanese participants exhibited lower levels of SCC and lower correlations between SCC and SE than did Canadian participants.