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 impacts affect and self-evaluations. Support for these principles is discussed. Further, the MSF advances several novel predictions, including how active self-aspects filter one’s experiences and perceptions, how the impact of chronicity 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 literatures, 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 a number of disciplines in psychology (e.g., cultural, developmental, personality, social) interested in the self, providing conceptual and methodological insights.