Overview
of Research in the SIR Lab
Social Bases of the Self &
Identity
Relationships from the Past in
the Present
Social Power
General Overview
Broadly
speaking, research in the SIR Lab has three major objectives: (1) to
illuminate
social bases of the self and identity; (2) to reveal the impact of
prior
relationships on present-day interpersonal life; and (3) to understand
the
effects of social power on the self, social perception, and social
behavior. Across
areas, much of the research in the lab is conducted at a
social-cognitive level of analysis,
embracing assumptions regarding underlying cognitive structures and
processes,
or directly testing them. However, unlike the vast majority of
social-cognitive
research, which is characterized by the use of nomothetic stimuli in
highly-controlled
designs, most of our research uses a combination of idiographic (i.e.,
unique to the
person) and nomothetic (i.e., general across people) methods. In other
words, we incorporate idiographic elements without sacrificing the
rigor offered by
experimental designs. As such, our research can shed light on basic
processes
across people, while capturing the idiographic, personal nature of the
self and
daily experience. A second, defining feature of research in the SIR Lab
is that most of it
lies at the intersection of sub-areas in our discipline. For example,
our work
on the legacy of past relationships bridges the social cognition and
close
relationships literatures, while our research on social power brings
together theorizing on power with longstanding theories of the self and
personality. Below are more detailed descriptions of the three main
lines
of research in the lab.
Social Bases of the Self &
Identity
Lab members
study both relational and collective bases of the self. Relational
selves refer to conceptions and aspects of the self that characterize
the person in the context of his or her relationships with significant
others (e.g., “me with Mom” or “me with my spouse”). Collective selves
refer to conceptions and aspects of the self that reflect the person in
the context of his or her group memberships (e.g., “me as an Asian” or
“me as a Democrat”). A guiding aim in our work on the relational self
is to reveal the pervasiveness of relational influences on the self.
Thus far, findings from the lab demonstrate that relational selves are
implicated in several fundamental self processes, among them
self-evaluation, self-esteem, and self-defense. Further information on
our thinking about the relational self can be found in a recent
integrative review of relevant literatures on the relational self
(Chen, Boucher, & Tapias, 2006).
Regarding the
collective self, our research has been focused on challenging
widespread self-enhancement assumptions in the broad literature on
collective or social identities. More specifically, we have been
conducting studies examining self-verification strivings with regard to
the collective self—that is, the desire people have for others to
confirm their existing collective self-views, be they favorable or
unfavorable. Collective self-views reflect the characteristics a person
views as self-descriptive when thinking about himself or herself as a
member of a particular group. For example, the collective self-views
associated with John’s gender group membership might include beliefs
about his athleticism (e.g., “As a man, I think of myself as lacking
athletic skills”), while the collective self-views Jenny associates
with her Asian group membership might include the value she places on
family (“As an Asian, I see myself as very family-oriented”). Our
research has documented numerous antecedents (e.g., high group
identification), as well as consequences of collective
self-verification (e.g., heightened self-perceptions of group
prototypicality).
Relationships from the Past in
the Present
Originally a
clinical concept, transference refers to the phenomenon whereby
assumptions and tendencies learned in prior relationships re-surface in
present-day interactions. In the lab, we study the phenomenon of
transference from a social-cognitive perspective, which assumes that
mental representations of significant others are stored in memory, and
that their activation and use are governed by basic social-cognitive
principles of construct activation. Transference occurs when a
significant-other representation is activated—for example, by virtue of
a newly encountered person’s resemblance to the significant other—and
subsequently used to “go beyond the information given” about the new
person. This social-cognitive approach to transference is supported by
over a decade of evidence. Research has repeatedly shown that when a
perceiver’s significant-other representation is activated in an
encounter with a new person, the perceiver makes
representation-consistent inferences and evaluations about the person.
In other words, the perceiver comes to view the new person as if he or
she were the relevant significant other, thus planting the seeds for
the re-creation of past relationships in the present.
Currently, lab members are focused on exploring the
self-related implications of transference. As articulated in Andersen
and Chen (2002), we assume that when a perceiver’s significant-other
representation is activated in an encounter with a new person, not only
do the perceiver’s inferences and evaluations of the new person come to
reflect those held about the significant other, but the nature of the
perceiver’s self-concept shifts toward the self he or she typically is
in relation to the significant other. In short, relational selves are
activated in the context of transference. Put another way, transference
not only perpetuates aspects of prior relationships, but also
constitutes a mechanism by which relational aspects of the self, formed
in past relationship contexts, find their way into present-day
interpersonal life.
A second line
of research focused on the legacy of past relationships is our work
examining the link between adult attachment and exploration. Attachment
theory maintains that attachment and exploration are complementary
systems; secure attachment fosters unhindered, authentic exploration of
novel stimuli in the environment, whereas insecure attachment impedes
such exploration. The attachment-exploration link has been
well-established in infancy and early childhood, and has only just
begun to be examined in adulthood. We have several ongoing studies
examining the relationship between individual differences in attachment
and both exploration-relevant construals and behaviors in adults.
A final line of
research in this area examines the
content, structure, and use of significant-other representations. An
especially noteworthy finding in this realm is that significant-other
representations are chronically accessible—indeed more accessible than
at least some stereotype representations. Thus, transference occurs
readily and frequently,
implying that past relationships exert a strong, ongoing influence on
the
present. Other work pertains to people’s lay theories about significant
others.
Relevant to longstanding debates in the cognitive and developmental
literatures
on the bases of concepts and categorization, our research indicates
that because
people are especially motivated to make sense of their significant
others, the
content and structure of significant-other representations are
particularly
likely to be characterized by lay theories, rather than feature lists.
Overall, research on significant-other representations fills an
important gap in the social cognition literature, the vast majority of
which
has focused on trait and stereotype representations. If
significant-other
representations are chronically accessible, as our data suggest, much
of
everyday social cognition, and the judgments and behaviors that result,
may in
fact be shaped by them.
Social Power
Over the past
two decades, there has been a marked rise in theory and research on
power among social and personality psychologists. To date, a central
focus in the literature has been on the “corruptive” effects of power.
For example, researchers have argued that relative to subordinates,
powerholders engage in more stereotyping, are inclined to dominate
conversations, are more self-serving in their evaluations of others,
and are more apt to pursue their self-interests. Most of our research
in this domain, by contrast, has focused on identifying factors that
give rise to prosocial or socially responsible responses among
powerholders. For example, our research suggests that communal
relationship orientation or, more broadly, a powerholder’s sense of
interdependence with his or her subordinates, may elicit socially
responsible uses of power.
Reflecting a
continued emphasis on potential positive consequences of power, as well
as a
merging of social power and the self, some of our latest research
examines
the effects of power on authentic self-expression. Authenticity has
been linked
to psychological well-being, as well as to relationship
intimacy and satisfaction, rendering it crucial to identify
circumstances that
promote it. Our work asks whether power may be one such circumstance.
The
majority of research on power has focused on either dispositional or
situational sources of power. Yet the realities of life often dictate
that
dispositionally high- and low-power people will find themselves in a
mix of
high- and low-power roles. Capturing these realities, our recent
studies
examine dispositional and situational power jointly. Drawing on a large
literature on person-environment fit, the central hypothesis guiding
our recent work is that fit
between a person’s dispositional power and the high- and low-power
situational roles
that he or she must occupy is associated with authentic
self-expression,
whereas lack of fit thwarts such expression.