than those not processed through self-schemas. But might this finding be ex-
plained in other ways? Could it be that the self-referent question was simplyharder than the other questions, thus causing participants to think about it
more? Apparently not. When people are asked if a word describes a celebrity,
they don’ t recall the words as well as when they are asked about themselves
(Lord, 1980).
Possible Selves
Suppose two college students, Denise and Carlos, receive an identical poor
grade in a course on deductive logic and argumentation. Neither of them is
pleased with the grade, but Denise quickly dismisses it as a bad semester,whereas Carlos frets about the grade for weeks. Denise turns her attention to
the next term, but Carlos looks over his final exam several times and thinks
about taking another course in this area. Although many explanations canbe suggested to account for the two students ’different reactions, a key piece
of information may be that Carlos is thinking about going to law school andbecoming a trial attorney someday, but Denise is not. A negative evaluationof his deductive logic and argumentation skills means something quite differ-
ent to Carlos than it does to Denise.
Our behavior is directed not only by cognitive representations of the way
we think of ourselves at the moment, but also by representations of what wemight become. You might think about a future self with a lot of friends, with
a medical degree, or with a physically fit body. Psychologists refer to these
images as our possible selves (Markus & Nurius, 1986; Ruvolo & Markus,
1992; Vignoles, Manzi, Regalia, Jemmolo, & Scabini, 2008). Possible selves
are cognitive representations of the kind of person we might become some-
day. These include roles and occupations we aspire to, such as police officer
or community leader, as well as the roles we fear we might fall into, such as
alcoholic or divorced parent. Possible selves also include the attributes we
think we might possess in the future, such as being a warm and loving per-
son, an overworked and underappreciated employee, or a contributor to soci-
ety. In a sense, possible selves represent our dreams and aspirations as well as
our fears and anxieties. Like other personality constructs, possible selves are
fairly stable over time (Frazier, Hooker, Johnson, & Kaus, 2000; Morfei,
Hooker, Fiese, & Cordeiro, 2001).
Possible selves serve two important functions (Markus & Nurius, 1986).
First, they provide incentives for future behavior. When making decisions,
we ask ourselves whether a choice will take us closer to or further awayfrom one of our future selves. A woman might enter an MBA program be-
cause this decision moves her closer to becoming her powerful business exe-
cutive possible self. A man might stop seeing old friends if he thinks the
association could lead him to the criminal self he fears he might become.
The second function of possible selves is to help us interpret the meaning
of our behavior and the events in our lives. A man with a professional base-
ball pitcher possible self will attach a very different meaning to an arm injury
than someone who does not think of himself this way. A woman with a pos-
sible self of cancer patient will react differently to small changes in her health422 CHAPTER 15 The Cognitive Approach