Generalizability of the false consensus effect in chronic psychiatric patients.

The selective exposure hypothesis argues that the false consensus effect occurs because people base their estimates about the prevalence of behaviors, beliefs, and traits on a mental sample of those around them, overrepresenting others who are similar. It was hypothesized that psychiatric patients would be less subject to the false consensus effect because they would recognize the deviance of their peers and avoid using them to make estimates. Sixty male and female college students and 32 psychiatric patients estimated the percentage of average Americans who endorsed 32 behaviors, beliefs, and self-descriptive traits. Contrary to prediction, the psychiatric patients' estimates were no less likely than the college students' to exhibit false consensus effects.

Information-seeking and maternal self-definition during the transition to motherhood.

The self-definitional processes accompanying the transition to motherhood were examined in this study. A cross-sectional sample of more than 600 women who were planning to get pregnant within 2 years, pregnant, or in the postpartum stage completed extensive questionnaires pertaining to their experiences of pregnancy and motherhood. On the basis of the assumption of the "self-socialization" perspective that individuals actively construct their identities in response to life transitions, our analyses focused on the role of information-seeking in the developing self-definitions of women becoming mothers. As predicted, (a) women actively sought information in anticipation of a first birth, (b) they used this information to construct identities incorporating motherhood, and (c) after the birth the determinants of their self-definitions shifted from indirect sources of information to direct experiences with child care. Hence, consistent with the self-socialization perspective, information-seeking did play an important role in the women's developing self-conceptions during this life transition. Mechanisms by which information gathered may alter self-conception are discussed.