Is the person you are now the person you were five years ago?

It’s possible to update one’s beliefs about oneself: What did we used to be like, and when/how/why did we change? The self-concept can change in response to any number of events: significant personal events such as entering college, or large societal events like a presidential election. Different types of events will cause changes to different facets of the self-concept. In addition, these events can alter our ability to remember what we used to be like.

I have investigated these questions using the 2020 and 2024 U.S. presidential elections. Using data collected both before and after the election, I ask how the election altered people’s traits and values, as well as their ability to remember their past traits and values.

In my postdoc, I’m running an evaluation of a community violence intervention called Project Restore to better understand how the intervention impacted participants’ self perceptions and narrative identities.

Silver, B.M., Meyer, M.L., Davachi, L., Ochsner, K.N. (in revisions). “Did I really used to be like that?” Self-views and memory across the 2020 U.S. presidential election. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/pq4k5