Self-Complexity and Affective Extremity: Don't Put All of Your Eggs in One Cognitive Basket

TLDR

The study tests whether lower self‑complexity predicts more extreme affective and self‑appraisal swings. They developed a model linking self‑complexity to affective and evaluative responses and tested it empirically. Results show that lower self‑complexity predicts larger affective swings after events, greater affective variability over two weeks, and may serve as a marker for depression vulnerability.

Abstract

This research develops and tests a model relating complexity of self-representation to affective and evaluative responses. The basic hypothesis is that the less complex a person's cognitive representation of the self, the more extreme will be the person's swings in affect and self-appraisal. Experiment 1 showed that those lower in self-complexity experienced greater swings in affect and self-appraisal following a failure or success experience. Experiment 2 showed that those lower in self-complexity experienced greater variability in affect over a 2-week period. The results are discussed, first, in terms of self-complexity as a buffer against the negative effects of stressful life events, particularly depression; and, second, in terms of the thought patterns of depressed persons. The results reported here suggest that level of self-complexity may provide a promising cognitive marker for vulnerability to depression.