Development of self-relatedness in descriptions of others over adolescence

This paper takes a positive view of the functions of self-related thinking in social conception. Free, written descriptions of self and various others were elicited from 190 school children aged 13 to 17. A measure of the commonality (use of common dimensions and concepts) between self and other descriptions was defined and called projection. Drawing on a theory that stresses the adaptive and positive functions of self-related thinking, it was predicted that projection would be positively related to other measures indicating developmental maturity: age, intelligence, amount of information, and use of sophisticated psychological, organized, and qualified vocabulary in describing persons. Some, but not all of these predictions were supported and their theoretical implications are discussed.