SELF-SCHEMAS, POSSIBLE SELVES, AND COMPETENT PERFORMANCE

College students were classified as either schematic for being a good problem solver (i.e., they believed they were very good in this area, and this ability was very important to their self-evaluation) or asche matic for this ability (i.e., they believed they had moderate ability in this area, and this ability was of moderate to low importance to th eir self-evaluation). In Study 1, schematic and aschematic Ss performe d equally well in an initial problem-solving test; however, aschematic Ss did not enjoy the task and had negative possible selves related to logical ability active in working memory. In Study 2, aschematic Ss m aintained competent performance on a problem-solving test only when gi ven failure feedback on an earlier test. The results point to the impo rtance of the self-concept in the development and maintenance of compe tence.