How do people's perceptions of their former selves affect their current self-appraisals?

Abstract

People's evaluations of their personal pasts can influence how they regard themselves in the present. Because people are motivated to maintain currently favourable self-regard, they often subtly alter their perceptions of the past in ways that flatter current self. I have collaborated in the development of temporal self-appraisal (TSA) theory (Ross & Wilson, 1999; Wilson & Ross, in press), which delineates some of the factors determining how past self-assessments influence current self-regard. People may alter their appraisals of past selves, their psychological distance from those selves, or the personal importance of various dimensions in ways that benefit their present self-regard. The current studies extend past research on this theory by examining how people's assessments of past selves, distance, and importance affect their present self-regard. TSA theory suggests that attributes of recent selves are experienced as "belonging to" current identity, whereas attributes of distant selves are seen as distinct from current self. I predicted that superior past selves that are experienced as recent should have a more favourable impact on current self than will superior past selves that feel distant. Conversely, inferior former selves that are experienced as recent will have a more unfavourable impact on current self than will former failings that feel distant. In addition, I predicted that people's evaluations of their past selves will have a greater impact on their current self-regard for attributes that they regard as personally important and relevant to their self-esteem. In Study 1, I selected people who reported high and lower former social success and manipulated their perceptions of temporal distance from former selves. As expected, participants who reported unfavourable former selves rated their current social success more favourably when the past was regarded as distant instead of close. Temporal distance did no affect those with positive past selves. Study 2 replicated the unfavourable past selves conditions of the first study and added a manipulation of importance. People who were induced to see social success as important rated current selves more favourably when the past was seen as distant; conversely, those who were induced to see social success as insignificant were not affected by distance. In Studies 3 and 4, I examined the domain of academic performance, which is typically important to most university students. In the third study I selected people who reported a superior past academic self (grades were better in high school than they were currently). I also used a different approach to altering their experience of past selves, instead of temporal distance. Based on James (1890/1950), I reasoned that people would incorporate past selves into current identity when they re-experienced the original emotions felt by their former selves. I altered participants' emotional focus by either asking them to revisit past emotions or focus on current ones. As predicted, participants who reported a decline in grades were more currently satisfied after empathizing with their prior superior performance than after focusing on current emotions. Study 4 replicated this effect for participants with superior past selves. In this study, I also examined students who reported inferior past academic selves (grades had improved since high school). Individuals with inferior past selves reported lower current self-appraisals when they revisited their high school emotions. These findings are discussed in terms of their implications for TSA theory and for other research examining the influence of the past on the present.