Self-complexity is a person's perceived knowledge of themself, based upon the number of distinct cognitive structures, or self-aspects, they believe to possess. These self-aspects can include context-dependent social roles, relationships, activities, superordinate traits, and goals of the individual, which combine to form the larger, associative network of their self-concept. According to self-complexity theory, an individual who has a number of self-aspects that are unique in their attributes will have greater self-complexity than one who has only a few self-aspects, or whose self-aspects are closely associated to one another. In other words, self-complexity may invoke the question, “How full is the self-concept”?
The self-complexity model
The term self-complexity was first coined by psychologist Patricia Linville (1985, 1987), who also developed a model for the concept. Linville's model for self-complexity suggests that self-aspects are “activated” in the context of a relevant experience, and it is these experiences that impact how particular self-aspects are viewed. If an individual experiences a favourable event towards which they feel positively, self-aspects that have been activated by the experience will be associated with positive feelings. In contrast, self-aspects will be associated with negative thoughts and feelings when they are activated by unfavourable experiences. In addition, the more similar self-aspects are to one another, the more likely it will be for the thoughts and feelings associated with one self-aspect to “spillover”, influencing the thoughts and feelings linked to other, overlapping self-aspects. Consequently, the self-complexity model suggests that highly self-complex individuals who possess the greatest number of distinct self-aspects will be less vulnerable to swings in affect and self-appraisal in response to life events, relative to individuals who possess limited and/or indistinct self-aspects (i.e., low self-complexity). This is due to the fact that highly self-complex individuals are suspected of being better able to compartmentalize their life events, as well as having a smaller proportion of their self-aspects affected by any salient emotional event, whether positive or negative. In essence, after receiving any form of self-relevant feedback individuals high in self-complexity will have less of their self-concept represented, and as a result will exhibit less extreme affective responses.
Approaches
Developmental perspective
A variety of different views are held concerning the nature of self-complexity. From a developmental perspective, self-complexity is viewed as one of the primary features of development, and it is thought to increase with age. Young children are believed to possess relatively few and undifferentiated self-aspects (i.e., low self-complexity), resulting in a simplified self-concept. As children grow in terms of their physical, social, and cognitive selves, they should attain the cognitive capacity necessary to identify a greater number of distinct self-aspects (i.e., increasing self-complexity) and thus reflect a more developed, multi-faceted self-concept. The developmentalist perspective would therefore expect older children to have not only a greater number of self-aspects in comparison to younger children, but also to have less interrelation between their self-aspects. The perspective also stresses the need to examine other indices of development, including identity status, cognitive developmental level, and ego development, as factors that have the potential to provide an enhanced understanding of self-complexity development.
Clinical and personality perspectives
Contrary to the developmental viewpoint, clinical and personality perspectives focus predominantly upon the potential protective factors of self-complexity that carry into adulthood. Specifically, the perspective suggests that highly self-complex individuals are at less risk for depression and psychopathologies, such as borderline personality disorder, because they can compensate for their negatively affected self-aspects by focusing on their unaffected self-aspects, thus preserving their global self-worth. In comparisons of clinical and normal adolescent populations, the self-concept domains of psychiatric inpatients are often found to be significantly more interrelated, suggesting low self-complexity. Additionally, clinical and personality perspectives not only consider low self-complexity as a factor in psychopathology, they also infer that individuals with psychopathologies may be delayed in the normal development of self-complexity.