How the Self-Concept Structures Social Role Learning: Insights from Computational Models

Learning about the social expectations tied to upcoming social roles can prompt a strong drive for personal change, yet effective adaptation requires balancing this external pressure with the preservation of stable self-views. Here, we use computational models to provide a mechanistic account of how individuals at the onset of significant life transitions utilize their self-concept to modulate self-role dissonances during social role learning. We conducted two studies with distinct populations at the onset of important life transitions: first-year university students and pregnant women. Participants engaged in a learning task where they first provided self-ratings for different traits and then estimated how these traits would apply to an individual well-adapted to their forthcoming social role and received trial-by-trial feedback about their estimations of role-specific traits from reference groups (i.e., senior university students and experienced mothers). We hypothesized that individuals would employ strategies to minimize dissonances between their current self-concept and role expectations during the learning process. We formalized a series of computational models including strategies that straightforwardly integrate social expectations about new roles to more complex strategies that involve leveraging the current self-concept against the pure incorporation of role-related information. The best-performing computational model indicated that the self-concept acts as a modulatory mechanism, guiding the integration of incoming role information to minimize conflicts between existing identities and role-related expectations. Critically, comparative analysis of computational parameters indicated that this strategy was strongly accentuated in individuals learning about forthcoming social contexts. Our work provides a mechanistic perspective on role learning that could inform interventions to support individuals facing important life transitions.