The ten papers in this special issue of Self and Identity use a variety of cutting-edge empirical approaches to advance social psychological theory and extend the applications of the implicit self to under-investigated domains, including the clinical consequences of the implicit self, the developmental trajectory of implicit associations, and the impact of being a minority member on implicit self-constructs. Principal questions guiding the special issue include: How does the implicit self regulate emotion and defend against ego-threats? When and how does it adapt to changes in social identity and social comparison? What are the consequences of discrepancies between explicit and implicit self-evaluations? When and how do implicit self-identities develop?
