From future self to current action: An identity-based motivation perspective

Abstract

Adults ask children what they want to be when they grow up, hoping that this will motivate children to focus on their schoolwork- this does not necessarily happen. Identity-based motivation theory predicts that one way to increase the odds is for children to experience their adult future self as connected to their current self. Five studies test this prediction (N = 641). We find that children can be guided to experience connection between their current and adult future self. Children guided to experience high connection work more and attain better school grades than children guided to experience low connection. Experienced connection works by moderating the effect of seeing school as the path to one’s adult future self.

Keywords:

• Future self
• possible self
• school engagement
• connection
• identity-based motivation

Acknowledgments

Appreciation and thanks go to our funders – the European Association of Social Psychology, University Grenoble 1 (Nurra) and the Humboldt Foundation (Oyserman), participating schools, teachers and children, and our colleagues for feedback and comments on earlier drafts of this manuscript especially to the University of Southern California Culture and Self Lab, Grenoble’s Psychology Lab, Laetitia Larroque and Dominique Muller.

Notes

1. We use the term “identity” to refer to the personal traits and characteristics, social relationships, roles, and group memberships that define who a person is or might become, the combination of which defines their sense of self (Oyserman, Elmore, & Smith, 2012).

2. Including these children does not change the pattern of results.

3. The other item (“Working at high school will help me to become what I would like to become in the future”) did not load and was not used.