Possible Selves in Adolescence: Development and Validation of a Scale for their Assessment

ABSTRACT

Possible selves (PSs) have a significant role in adolescents' development. For this reason, it is of great importance to have adequate measures to operationalize them. The aim of this work is to present the construction and validation of a scale to assess PSs at the end of high school in multiple domains. Participants were adolescents (n = 320) of both sexes (female = 51.3%) from high-schools in Buenos Aires City, Argentina (age, M = 14.9, SD = 1.5). The scale was developed based on a literature review and a previous qualitative study. Expert judges' assessment revealed that it has good content validity. The scale's structure was studied with exploratory factor analysis and a 5-factor structure with theoretical meaning was found. Spearman's correlations between current and future self-perceptions show evidence of convergent validity. Mann-Whitney U test shows that the scale can discriminate by sex and age. The scale shows adequate to very good internal consistency. These results show that the scale has adequate psychometric properties to assess PSs in Argentine adolescents. The advantages of this scale relative to existing measures of PSs are discussed. Scale development allows us to know more about how adolescents think they will be during a significant life transition such as the end of high school. This is particularly important for planning interventions that focus on motivation and behavior regulation.

KEYWORDS:

• Adolescence
• possible selves
• scale
• self-perception

Author Notes

María Fernanda Molina has a PhD in Psychology. Postdoctoral Scholarship: The perception of the self in the future: Its' relation with the current self-concept and the perception of family functioning in adolescence. Argentine National Council of Scientific and Technological Research (CONICET). Director: Vanina Schmidt. co-director: Nora Leibovich de Figueroa.

Vanina Schmidt has a PhD in Psychology. Associate researcher: Positive experiences in youth through sport and music. Its relationship with alcohol consumption in social context. Argentine National Council of Scientific and Technological Research (CONICET). Director of the Project: Positive subjective experiences in musicians and athletes. Its relation with personality and contextual variables (P-20020130100434BA). Research Institute of the Faculty of Psychology (UBA). Director: Dr. Vanina Schmidt. Co-director: Dr. Nora B. Leibovich de Figueroa. Coordinator of the Professional Practice: Promotion of Health in Adolescents. Practices in Evaluation, Diagnosis and Prevention in Educational Institutions. Faculty of Psychology, University of Buenos Aires.

María Julia Raimundi has a PhD in Psychology. Postdoctoral Scholarship: Engagement in elite youth athletes: Its relationship with motivational and context variables. Argentine National Council of Scientific and Technological Research (CONICET). Director: Dr. Vanina Schmidt. Head of practical work (Tutor) in the Professional Practice: Promotion of Health in Adolescents. Practices in Evaluation, Diagnosis and Prevention in Educational Institutions. Faculty of Psychology, University of Buenos Aires.

Funding

This research was supported by the Argentine National Council of Scientific and Technological Research (Res. No 4823/13) and the Secretary of Science and Technology of the Buenos Aires University (No. UBACyT P-20020130100434 BA).