Abstract: Developmental perspectives on self and identity view a sense of personal sameness and continuity as critical for positive adjustment. Thus, the degree to which individuals perceive change over time in self and direction constitutes an important individual difference. Here, we offer an empirically sound instrument for assessing the extent to which people feel temporally discrepant and off course-a sense we term derailment. First, we develop and empirically validate a self-report measure that is sensitive to our conceptualization of derailment (S...
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Topics: 
Social psychology
Developmental psychology
Cognitive psychology