NEW LATENT VARIABLE APPROACHES TO OLD, UNRESOLVED PROBLEMS: THE JAMESIAN SELF-CONCEPT MODEL OF INDIVIDUALLY IMPORTANCE-WEIGHTED AVERAGE

According to the Individually Importance-Weighted Average (IIWA) model (James, 1890/1963), the contribution of specific areas of self-concept to global self-esteem varies systematically with the individual importance placed on each specific component. Although intuitively appealing, this model has weak support; thus, we proposed a multiple-item latent approach to IIWA model as applied to a range of self-concept domains (physical self-concept, academic self-concept, spiritual self-concept) and subdomains (appearance self-concept, math self-concept, verbal self-concept) in young adolescents (13- to 15-years old) from two countries (Italy: N=250; UK: N=402). Tests simultaneously considering all self-concept domains did not support the IIWA model. On the contrary, support for a normative group importance model was found in which the importance varied as a function of domains but not individuals. Therefore, individuals differentially weight the various components of self-concept; however, the weights are largely determined by normative processes so that little additional information is gained from individual weights.