Defining ourselves: Past and future self-defining events increase the accessibility of psychological self-concepts

Recent research suggests that the retrieval of self-defining memories (SDMs)—the memories of the most important events in our lives—influences an individual’s current sense of self and identity, notably by increasing the tendency to conceptualize oneself in relation to psychological traits. In addition to being supported by such memories, our current sense of self may also be nourished by the anticipation of meaningful future events—referred to as self-defining future projections (SDFPs). To test this hypothesis, this study examined how SDFPs and SDMs modulate the current sense of self and identity. Three groups of participants wrote a description of a SDFP, a SDM or a non-self-related control topic, following which they had to provide ten stable aspects of their identity in the form of statements beginning with "I am". Participants engaging in SDFP and SDM descriptions generated significantly more psychological self-statements than those in the control condition. These results suggest that the act of projecting oneself into meaningful future events modulates the current sense of self to the same extent as autobiographical memory retrieval, by increasing the accessibility of psychological, trait-like self-conceptions.