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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jul 26, 2025

Creating Virtual-hand and Virtual-face Illusions to Investigate Self-representation

Creating Virtual-hand and Virtual-face Illusions to Investigate Self-representation

Published on: March 1, 2017

The Functional Self.

Sarah Schäfer¹, Dirk Wentura², Tarini Singh¹

¹Cognitive Psychology Unit, University of Trier, Germany.

Experimental Psychology

|June 13, 2023

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

The minimal self, a basic self-concept component, shows robust protection against negative content. This self-concept integration mechanism reduces negative stimuli, demonstrating its functional complexity.

Keywords:

cognitive processes functionality minimal self self-concept self-protection

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Published on: March 8, 2019

Area of Science:

Cognitive Psychology
Social Psychology
Neuroscience

Background:

The minimal self is a foundational aspect of self-concept influencing cognitive processes.
Despite its basic nature, the minimal self appears highly functional and possesses protective mechanisms.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the protective functions of the minimal self against negative stimuli.
To test the hypothesis that the minimal self actively integrates and potentially modifies self-relevant information based on valence.

Main Methods:

A pilot experiment assessed self-assignments of negative versus neutral content.
A main experiment replicated the pilot study's findings, focusing on the interaction between stimulus valence and experimental blocks.
Behavioral data were analyzed to observe changes in self-concept integration over time.

Main Results:

No overall reduction in negative self-assignments compared to neutral ones was initially observed.
An initial difference in processing negative versus neutral self-assignments was found, decreasing over experimental blocks.
The data pattern from the pilot experiment was replicated in the main experiment.

Conclusions:

The minimal self demonstrates a mandatory integration of stimuli into the self-concept.
Negative valence leads to a reduction in the integration of stimuli into the self-concept.
These findings support the existence of a robust self-protection mechanism within the minimal self.