The Classification and Ordering of Responses to the Question “Who am I?”

Abstract

The question “Who Am I?” (WAI?) has generated considerable research by social psychologists concerned with self phenomena. “Self theory,” from which the “WAI?” technique was derived, hypothesizes an ordinal pattern among consensual self statements. Our data do not confirm this hypothesis nor do they confirm the widespread assumptions of a direct relationship between the salience and importance of self statements or between salience and positively evaluated self statements. We discuss the implications of these findings for the principles of “self theory” and for the validity and reliability of the “WAI?” question.