Possible Selves and Performance: The Power of Self-Relevant Imagery

Abstract

Possible selves are elements of the self-concept that represent what individuals could become, would like to become, and are afraid of becoming. These representations of the self in the future are hypothesized to be an important component of effective performance. In Study 1, subjects either imagined being either successful in the future because of hard work, imagined being unsuccessful in the future despite hard work, or were given a positive mood inducement. These imagery manipulations were intended to increase the accessibility of specific possible selves. On a task involving effort and one involving persistence, subjects who imagined being successful performed the best. In Study 2, subjects either imagined being successful, imagined being unsuccessful, imagined another person being successful, or were put in a good mood. The success imagery group was relatively fast to accept positive, success-relevant possible selves as descriptive, and also relatively fast to reject negative, failure-relevant possible selves. These differences suggest that self-representations of future success were more readily accessible in the working self-concepts of these people than self-representations of future failure. In Study 3, people imagined themselves as either successful or unsuccessful in the future and imagined that either work or luck was responsible for these outcomes. Again, those in the “success due to work” condition were relatively fast to endorse positive, success-relevant possible selves and reject negative, failure-relevant possible selves. This group also worked the longest on a persistence task and scored the highest on a task-measuring effort. Together, the results suggest an important role for future-oriented representations of the self in performance.