Individual differences in attentional resources and self-complexity

The correlational study addressed the hypothesis that individuals with greater attentional resources have more complex self-representations. Female participants first described themselves by assigning descriptive trait terms to self-aspects according to the Linville (1987) self-complexity procedure. In what was described to them as a second study, participants then completed tasks that provided individual difference measures of processing speed (distinguished from baseline speed) and working memory. Principal components analysis of processing speed and working memory scores revealed one attentional-resource factor. As expected, participants with greater attentional resources had higher self-complexity scores.