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Effects of Personality and Profession on the Accuracy of Ego Development Self-Assessment

Student: Voevodina Elena

Supervisor: Vasily Kostenko

Faculty: Faculty of Social Sciences

Educational Programme: Psychology (Bachelor)

Final Grade: 10

Year of Graduation: 2021

The Loevinger’s (1976) theory of ego development is claimed by its authors as being shaped by the data obtained from the real people, not any other theory. However, the correspondence between layperson’s implicit theories of personality development and the Loevinger’s theory has not receiver scholar’s attention. The general purpose of this study is to reveal whether there is an implicit theory that corresponds to Loevinger theory of ego development. A quasi-experimental design was carried out in which the implicit theory was operationalized through the respondents' ability to assess other’s levels of ego development by assigning them a certain place in the general developmental sequence, and through the ability to self-assess their own level of ego development. Additionally, the role of psychological education other’s and self-assessment was tested. The results provide evidence for the existence of the sought implicit theory of personality development. Groups of respondents at different levels of ego development showed qualitatively different patterns of both constructing the sequence and self-assessment. In the first case, there was greater accuracy in determining the correct position of cards reflecting levels close to the respondent's own ego development level. While in the second case, the degree of discrepancy between the self-assessed and assigned rater's levels decreased along with an increase in ego development level. The unconfirmed hypothesis about the role of psychological education also suggests that the respondents' own level of ego development is the main factor that determines ability to assess other’s and one’s own ego level. Due to the pilot nature and methodological shortcomings of this study, it is not possible to make an unequivocal statement on the correspondence between the implicit theory of personality and respondent development and the theory of ego development on the sole basis of this study. In conclusion, the methodological difficulties of this study are discussed and ways of overcoming them in the following works are presented.

Full text (added May 27, 2021)

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