The puzzle of negative self-views: An exploration using the schema concept.

People with negative self-views seem to behave more predictably than people with positive self-views. To explain this puzzle, the authors conceptualized a self-view as a schema and postulated that negative self-views are more tightly organized schemas than are positive self-views. Studies 1a and 1b demonstrated that the elements of a negative self-view are more tightly interconnected than those of a positive self-view. Studies 2-6 demonstrated and examined a consequence of this principle, namely, that negative self-descriptions are more consistent than positive self-descriptions. For people with negative self-views, different contexts evoke the same tight schema, producing more consistent self-descriptions. This explanation integrates several findings about the self and has important implications for personality theory and assessment