Personality theorists have given a great deal of attention to the relation between the real self and the ideal self with the implication that they are contrasting entities. The concept of an undesired self is introduced as a more compelling contrast with the ideal self. It is argued that the undesired self, in comparison with the ideal self, is the preferred reference point for making judgments of present-day life satisfaction. Hypotheses derived from this theoretical perspective were tested by using Identities X Features matrices generated by 45 college subjects. The distance between the real self and the ideal self and the distance between the real self and the undesired self were calculated. It is shown that the latter distance correlates more highly with ratings of life satisfaction than does the distance between the real and ideal selves, which suggests that satisfaction (in both male and female subjects) is more a function of one's subjective distance from unwanted affects and circumstances than a function of one's proximity to ideal states of existence.
An experiment was conducted to assess the effect of a subtle reminder of death on voting intentions for the 2004 U.S. presidential election. On the basis of terror management theory and previous research, we hypothesized that a mortality salience induction would increase support for President George W. Bush and decrease support for Senator John Kerry. In late September 2004, following a mortality salience or control induction, registered voters were asked which candidate they intended to vote for. In accord with predictions, Senator John Kerry received substantially more votes than George Bush in the control condition, but Bush was favored over Kerry following a reminder of death, suggesting that President Bush's re‐election may have been facilitated by nonconscious concerns about mortality in the aftermath of September 11, 2001.
A total of 32 retirement-age subjects (17 men and 15 women) provided information about their lives by rating each of their identities in terms of a list of self-generated features. They also rank-ordered their currently enacted identities in terms of time spent in each and completed a life-satisfaction questionnaire. The Identities X Features matrices were analyzed by algorithms that generated a hierarchical model of identity structure for each subject based on feature ratings. The hierarchical levels of identities were combined with time-spent rankings to obtain an index of personal style, a measure that reflected the unique organization of identities for each subject. Personal style indices were then correlated with life-satisfaction scores. Results confirmed the prediction that life satisfaction in this age group is a function of the amount of time spent in identities that give expression to multiple aspects of the self.
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