The Multiple Self-Aspects Framework: Self-Concept Representation and Its Implications

The multiple self-aspects framework (MSF) conceives of the self-concept as a collection of multiple, context-dependent selves. From this perspective, five principles are derived, addressing issues such as how context activates particular regions of self-knowledge and how self-relevant feedback affects self-evaluations and affect. Support for these principles is discussed. Further-more, the MSF advances several novel predictions, including how active self-aspects filter one’s experiences and perceptions, how the impact of chronic accessibility is more circumscribed than previously realized, and how self-concept representation modulates the experience of affect. In addition, the MSF helps integrate isolated lines of research within several diverse litera-tures, including self-regulation, stability and variability for the self, the integration of others into the self-concept, and several individual difference factors as well. Overall, the current work speaks to issues of relevance to several subdisciplines in psychol-ogy (e.g., cultural, developmental, personality, social) interested in the self, providing conceptual and methodological insights. Keywords self, identity, social cognition, self-regulation Indisputably, “the self ” is one of the most central topics in psychology, with far-ranging implications for social inter-actions (e.g., Baumeister, 1998), personality (e.g., Robins