Superstars and me: Predicting the impact of role models on the self.

The authors propose that superstars are most likely to affect self-views when they are considered relevant.Relevant superstars provoke self-enhancement and inspiration when their success seems attainable but self-deflation when it seems unattainable.Participants' self-views were affected only when the star's domain of excellence was self-relevant.Relevant stars provoked self-enhancement and inspiration when their success seemed attainable in that participants either still had enough time to achieve comparable success or believed their own abilities could improve over time.Open-ended responses provided rich evidence of inspiration in these circumstances.Relevant stars provoked, if anything, self-deflation when their success seemed unattainable in that participants either had already missed the chance to achieve comparable success or viewed their abilities as fixed and so unlikely to improve.It is a cultural clich6 that superstars, that is, individuals of outstanding achievement, can serve as role models to others, inspiring and motivating them to do their utmost best.To promote such inspiration, prominent women scientists are often invited to address high school girls, eminent African Americans are introduced to African American children, and outstanding employees are profiled in corporate newsletters and bulletin boards.In the domain of public policy, affirmative action plans are often justified on the grounds that they will create role models who will inspire members of disadvantaged groups.In both the public and private sector, there are countless examples of programs showcasing the talents or successes of a superior individual that are designed to boost the aspirations and selfimages of a particular target group.However, our culture also holds the opposite clich6, that superstars can demoralize and deflate less outstanding others.This notion was brilliantly captured in the movie Amadeus (Forman, 1984) in the image of Salieri, the accomplished musician whose self-view, indeed whose whole life, was shattered by exposure to Mozart's genius.More familiar everyday scripts include the image of the "superwoman" who makes other, less extraordinary women feel incompetent by comparison and the image of the perfectly competent child who is demoralized by a gifted