『甘肃龙网摘要_威海学为贵：【听力】耶鲁大学校长2018年耶鲁大学本科生毕业典礼（四）』I am, of course, proud to be a psychologist, and my discipline in fact does provide some empirical evidence to support my personal experience. Patricia Linville is a social psychologist who studies h...
I am, of course, proud to be a psychologist, and my discipline in fact does provide some empirical evidence to support my personal experience.
Patricia Linville is a social psychologist who studies how people think of themselves and how these self-perceptions influence well-being. She is now at Duke, but she was my teacher here at Yale when she completed several studies of what she terms “self-complexity.”
Greater “self-complexity,” according to Linville, means a person has many aspects of themselves. In other words, they draw many circles. For example, a woman who thinks of herself as a student, a marathon runner, a theater-goer, a reader of the New Yorker magazine, and – let’s say a bass player in a bluegrass band would demonstrate greater self-complexity than someone who thinks of himself only as a lawyer.
Professor Linville, in her research, found that greater self-complexity acts as a “buffer” against negative experiences. For example, if you define yourself almost entirely in terms of your job, getting passed over for a promotion might be devastating for your sense of self-worth. Linville calls this“putting all your eggs in one cognitive basket.” People such as our marathon-running bass player, on the other hand, bounce back more quickly after a setback. Linville even found that college students with greater self-complexity were less likely to get sick or experience depression or stress.
Third and finally, let me suggest one important way we can expand our circles by reaching out and engaging with others.
Here, I would like to turn again to Pauli Murray and one of her more surprising relationships.
Murray’s papers contain thousands of letters a reflection of a full life, animated by many interests, commitments, and relationships. A life of many circles.
