Self-aspects as social categories: the role of personal importance and valence

Building on a self-aspect model (SAM) of the individual self and the collective self, the authors hypothesized that personally important and positive aspects of the self would facilitate the construal of a collective self. Following a self-description task, research participants selected either two positive or two negative self-aspects. One aspect in each pair had to be of high personal importance and one of low personal importance. Then, measures of self-categorization, perceived ingroup and outgroup homogeneity and intergroup differentiation were administered. Our hypothesis received convergent support from all measures. It is concluded that personally important and positive self-aspects are very likely to function as meaningful social categories.