Assessing the Structure of Self-concept: Evidence for Self-defensive Processes by Using a Sentence Priming Task

It was assumed that the definition of traits that are central to the individual self-concept is adapted to individual competencies (self-concept immunization), i.e., skills that individuals believe themselves to be good at are conceived as diagnostic whereas skills that individuals do not possess are considered as less diagnostic. The mental representation of traits was investigated by semantic priming. Targets were self-relevant traits whereas the primes described observable skills that were either semantically related to the target or not. Corresponding to the hypothesis, priming effects were observed for skills that participants believed themselves to possess and that were related to traits central to the self-concept. The pattern was reversed for participants with low self-esteem, thereby underscoring a coping-theoretical interpretation.