Aleksandra Pilarska

Epistemic motivation and sense of identity among women in emerging adulthood and later adulthood

The article presents the results of a study carried out in a group of 80 women in early adulthood and 72 women in later adulthood. The primary goals were to examine the relationships of need for cognition and two forms of cognitive processing of self-related information (reflective self-focus and integrative self-knowledge) to multiple dimensions of sense of identity, and to test for life stage differences in the magnitude of these relationships. Significant differences were observed in the reflective self-focus levels and strength of sense of identity between the two groups of women. The obtained results also indicated that – regardless the stage of life – a tendency to engage in and enjoy effortful cognitive tasks as well as a tendency to integrate past, present, and desired future self-experience into a meaningful whole favored maintenance of sense of identity. The effects of reflection appeared more complicated.

Attachment and Capacity for Self-care in Explaining Chronic Self-Destructiveness

The study aimed to analyze the role of attachment in the formation of chronic selfdestructive tendency. It was hypothesized that high levels of attachment anxiety and avoidance impair self-care functions and limit capacities for self-control, which may then lead to the development of an indirect self-destructive personality pattern. The study was conducted among 137 young adults, using the Chronic Self-Destructiveness Scale, Experiences in Close Relationships Scale, Self-Control Scale and Self-Care Competence Questionnaire. The obtained results showed that the relationship between anxiety about rejection and chronic self- -destructiveness was only indirect – its infl uence was primarily through self-control and partly also through self-care functions. With regard to avoidance of intimacy, the analysis revealed it had both direct and mediated effects (through self-care functions and self-control) on chronic self-destructiveness.