Biomedical subjects

H R Markus

Publications and source records attributed to H R Markus.

5 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed1998

Activities and well-being in older age: effects of self-concept and educational attainment.

The positive effect of activities on well-being is proposed to be mediated by self-conceptualizations and facilitated by socioeconomic status. The hypothesized processes were estimated with LISREL VIII using data from a large cross-sectional survey with a sample of 679 adults aged 65 and older who were representative of older adults living in the Detroit area. Findings indicate that the frequency of performing both leisure and productive activities yields an effect on physical health and depression and that these effects are mediated in part by a sense of self as agentic, but less clearly by a sense of self as social. Furthermore, socioeconomic status, operationalized as formal educational attainment, facilitates the effect of leisure to a greater extent than that of productive activities.

Activities of Daily Living↗

PubMed1997

Individual and collective processes in the construction of the self: self-enhancement in the United States and self-criticism in Japan.

A collective constructionist theory of the self proposes that many psychological processes, including enhancement of the self (pervasive in the United States) and criticism and subsequent improvement of the self (widespread in Japan), result from and support the very ways in which social acts and situations are collectively defined and subjectively experienced in the respective cultural contexts. In support of the theory, 2 studies showed, first, that American situations are relatively conducive to self-enhancement and American people are relatively likely to engage in self-enhancement and, second, that Japanese situations are relatively conducive to self-criticism and Japanese people are relatively likely to engage in self-criticism. Implications are discussed for the collective construction of psychological processes implicated in the self and, more generally, for the mutual constitution of culture and the self.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1992

Gender and self-esteem.

Where does self-esteem (SE) come from? Three experiments explored the idea that men's and women's SE arise, in part, from different sources. It was hypothesized that SE is related to successfully measuring up to culturally mandated, gender-appropriate norms--separation and independence for men and connection and interdependence for women. Results from Study 1 suggested that men's SE can be linked to a individuation process in which one's personal distinguishing achievements are emphasized. Results from Study 2 suggested that women's SE can be linked to a process in which connections and attachments to important others are emphasized. Study 3 demonstrated that failing to perform well on gender-appropriate tasks engendered a defensive, compensatory reaction, but only in subjects with high SE. These findings are discussed with regard to their implications for the structure and dynamics of the self.

Adult↗

PubMed1990

Possible selves and delinquency.

The relationship between possible selves and delinquency is explored. In this study, 238 youths between the ages of 13-16 who varied in the degree of their delinquency were asked to describe their possible selves. Although many similarities were found among their hoped-for selves, the groups of youth differed markedly in the nature of their expected and feared selves. The balance between expected possible selves and feared possible selves was the particular focus. Balance is hypothesized to occur when expected possible selves are offset by countervailing feared selves in the same domain (e.g., expecting a job, but fearing being unemployed). It was found that the officially nondelinquent youths were quite likely to display balance between their expectations and fears, unlike the most delinquent youth. In contrast, a conventional measure of self-esteem that indicates how people feel about themselves currently did not predict degree of delinquency.

Adolescent↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Self-schemas and possible selves as predictors and outcomes of risky behaviors in adolescents.

BACKGROUND: Although there is extensive evidence that the self-concept changes in many important ways during the adolescent years and that these changes influence behavioral choices, the majority of studies completed to date have been based on a static model in which the self-concept is viewed solely as an antecedent of the risky behaviors. OBJECTIVES: To investigate the pattern of relationships between three components of the self-concept--the popular, the conventional, and the deviant selves--and risky behaviors in a sample of middle adolescents during their transition from junior high to high school. METHODS: A sample of 160 adolescents completed questionnaires measuring the content of their self-schemas and possible selves and involvement in four risky behaviors (tobacco and alcohol use, sexual intercourse, poor school performance) during the winter of eighth and ninth grades. RESULTS: Popular self-schema score in the eighth grade positively predicted ninth grade risky behaviors. Risky behavior involvement in the eighth grade predicted ninth-grade deviant self-schema and possible self-scores. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that the self-concept may not only play a role in the early stages of engagement in the risky behaviors but may also be one means through which the behaviors become structuralized into potentially enduring aspects of the self.

Adolescent↗