Models of Self-Concept that are Neither Top-Down or Bottom-Up : The Rope Model of Self-Concept [ R ]

At the first International Self Conference, I argued that we have spent the past century writing footnotes to William James’ (1890) treatise on self, and as a consequence made major advances in understanding the structure of selfconcept (Hattie, 2003). For example, one of our successes of the past century is an agreed, understanding of the multidimensional nature of self-concept. Since the seminal work by Shavelson, Hubner, and Stanton (1976) we have identified at least 18 dimensions of academic (Marsh et al., 1993), 6 of music (Vispoel, 2000), 4 of arts, 15 of physical (Marsh, et al., 2002), 3 of religious, and also sub-dimensions of family, peer, social self-concepts. One of our successes of the past century is an agreed, understanding of the multidimensional nature of self-concept. We have less understanding, however, of the processes that link these various dimensions either to form an understanding of a person’s conception of self, or to make predictions about how a person would react given their proficiency on these various dimensions of self-concept. It is the relationships, the importance, and/or the appraisals of these dimensions that are now far more important that the dimensions per se. People, as James noted, are “choosers”, and we continually attempt “to impose some sort of order and coherence on the events in which they find themselves immersed. In order to survive we must extract some meaning from our experiences so that we can understand, anticipate, and, thus, exercise some control over life's experiences. We do this by making choices— choices about how to interpret events, choices among alternative courses of actions, (and) choices among evaluations of our actions (James, 1890, p. 56). Such an argument places much emphasis on choice, decision making and interpretation of the environments we find ourselves in and project ourselves into. The manner in which we do this, while maintaining or enhancing a conception of self, is the major focus of this paper.