Remembrance of one's personal past and the development of false memories have recently received intense public scrutiny. Based upon self-schema (Markus, 1977) and self-verification (Swann, 1987) theories, two studies were conducted to investigate the hypothesis that a self-schema guides cognitive processing of self-relevant information and thereby influences the construction of a memory that includes false information, particularly more so if this information is self-schema consistent than inconsistent. Study 2 also investigated the hypothesis that the cognitive processing goal of understanding a negative outcome (motivated cognition) would interact with self-consistent expectations to enhance the likelihood that a false memory would be created. Self-schematic Type A and Type B individuals (only self-schematic Type A individuals participated in Study 2) participated in a team problem solving task (the to-be-remembered event) and returned a week later for a "questionnaire" session during which a narrative was read that contained self-consistent or self-discrepant false information. In both studies, chi-square analyses showed participants given self-consistent false information were more likely to report this information on a recall and a recognition test than were participants given self-discrepant false information. Study 2 included team performance feedback (failure or neutral), which was presented just before participants read the narrative containing the false information. The purpose of this procedure was to assess the moderating effect of motivated cognitive processes on the acceptance of self-consistent false information on memory. A loglinear analysis provided confirmation for the expected interaction. The following pattern was obtained for false recall and false self-description (description of team problem solving behavior using the false information trait adjectives): Consistent/failure > Consistent/neutral > Discrepant/neutral = Discrepant/failure. Unexpectedly, this pattern was not obtained on the recognition test data. These findings expand current understanding of processes that contribute to the production of a false memory and extend the traditional, post event false information paradigm. The results are discussed in the context of the false memory debate and future research directions are noted. / Ph. D.

The focal objective of this thesis was to examine the potential advantage of introducing the self-schema concept, indexed by response time, into personality assessment. The basic rationale for the use of response time is that a self-schema facilitates response time for self-referent information as it permits people to make assessments easier and automatic. A self-schema is a cognitive structure containing the generic knowledge that people have about themselves, influencing all aspects of the processing of self-relevant information in order to organize, summarize and explain their behavior. Paper I examined the self-schema proposition that the relation between personality score and response time for the Big Five personality factors is curvilinear in accordance with the inverted-U effect. Using more appropriate statistical methods than in previous studies, Study 1 and Study 2 confirmed the existence of the inverted-U effect for all Big Five factors. Thus the results provided support for the self-schema perspective as people scoring low or high on the Big Five traits responded faster than those scoring in the middle. Previous research has shown that the Big Five personality factors Openness to Experience and Agreeableness are powerful predictors of prejudice. The main question in Paper II was whether this prediction could be improved by including a measure of self-schema (schematicity). The results of Study 3 demonstrated that response time significantly improved the prediction of generalized prejudice from the mentioned personality factors and disclosed both an additive and a moderating effect. Thus, the relation between personality trait score and generalized prejudice is moderated by how schematic a person is. Paper III examined the potential linkage between heritability and self-schema. In Study 4, 5, and 6, the relation between heritability and response time for the Big Five personality facets (subfactors) was examined. The results revealed that personality response time is related to personality heritability so that shorter response times are associated with higher heritabilities. Putting the present results into the context of self-schemas, this means that Big Five personality facets with a large heritability on the average would have higher schematicity than those with small heritability estimates. The results of the present thesis extend previous work in the area of self-schema. The findings suggest that self-schema, measured by response time, may be a useful additional tool to fine-tune personality assessment. Also, the findings put emphasis on the importance of considering possible curvilinear relationships and interaction effects in order to better comprehend the rationale underlying self-schemata processing.  Finally, the results imply that the heritability of personality traits should be taken into account when we construct theories and models in personality psychology. The implications of these results are discussed and directions for future research are highlighted.

Physical activity has been demonstrated in the literature as an effective way to reduce the risk for development of chronic disease. The Transtheoretical Model (TTM) of behavior change has been developed as a means to predict and facilitate movement into healthier lifestyle behaviors. The model is centered on "stages of change", which describe a continuum of readiness to engage in a health behavior change. Stages contain temporal, qualitative, and quantitative characteristics. This was a six-month study that evaluated the effectiveness of stage-matched (theorized to be pertaining only to the maintenance stage of change) vs. generic (theorized to be pertaining to anyone, regardless of stage) newsletters in assisting subjects to attain the Maintenance stage of change. It also sought to identify further qualitative characteristics that can differentiate between the Action and Maintenance stages of change. Results indicated that monthly stage-matched newsletters were no more effective in helping subjects reaching Maintenance than were the generic newsletters. Exerciser self-schema was related to stages of change, but those relationships differed from baseline to six-month follow-up, indicating development of exerciser self-schema during the study period. Implications of this are discussed. Other concepts discussed included "structure" of change process, in that three new scores were developed and correlated with self-efficacy as well as intercorrelated. Motivation was also evaluated and compared across levels of success at adhering to exercise during a three-month period. Limitations of the study and implications are discussed.

Self-belief about exercise strongly influences people's exercise behavior. This relationship may have significant impact on health-related physical fitness and help to address the exercise behavior deficit in the US. However, it is not known if self-belief about exercise significantly impacts physical fitness levels. The purpose of this study was to identify self-beliefs about exercise and determine if these beliefs influence behaviors and result in greater levels of physical fitness. Exercise self-schema theory is a social cognitive psychological theory that is uniquely capable at explaining and predicting chronic exercise behaviors. It posits that established self-images are based on cognitive generalizations about the "self" creates a very powerful and prevailing impetus to behave in ways that correspond with established self-images. Preliminary research has found self-images (also called self-schemas) concerning exercise to more reliably predict both exercise intention and reported exercise behavior better than beliefs concerning exercise alone. In the present study we sought to evaluate whether exercise self-schema theory could differentiate levels of health-related physical fitness in college students. We also included gender as an independent variable to investigate gender-specific behavioral predictability of the theory. The results of this study revealed a significant link between exercise self-schema classification and indices of health-related physical fitness. This link existed independent of gender. In this study exerciser schematics were found to be significantly more physically fit, leaner, and to exercise at significantly greater frequency than individuals not classified as exerciser schematics. These findings provide preliminary evidence that exerciser self-schema is positively associated with increased physical fitness. These results could inform strategies oriented toward modifying exercise behaviors to reduce hypokinetic risk factors for disease.