untitled

what happened,” “identify the situation,” and
“follow directions.” Cognitive processing of know-
ing awareness involves retrieving information from
one’s mind and recognizing what has worked for
the person in the past. It can be viewed as a self-
regulating process (Carver & Scheier, 1991). The
overall function of such cognitive processing is to
minimize discrepancies between a desirable sense
of self and a present perception of self. It includes
cognitive input processing of receiving, analyzing,
storing, memory, successive processing, and
arousal-attention (Roy, 1988b, 2001). Example
items were “gather information,” “recall past strate-
gies,” “keep eyes and ears open,” “get more re-
sources,” “learn from others,” “feel alert and active,”
and “be creative.”
Cognitive processing of sensory regulation in-
volves immediate sensory experience, output pro-
cessing, motor response, movement, and regulating
tone (Roy & Hanna, 1999). Examples of items in-
clude “try to maintain balance,” “change physical
activity,” “picture actions,” and “share concerns
with others.” Cognitive processing of selective focus
refers to one’s cognitive efforts to select attention
and focus in coping with stressful encounters.
Some examples of items were “useful to focus,”
“tend not to blame self,” “get away by self,” and “put
the events out of mind.” These five cognitive
processes form subscales of the CAPS. Internal con-
sistency reliability of these five subscales ranged
from .56 to .89 (Zhan, 1993b). Later development
of the tool improved the reliability of the subscales
(Roy, in review).

SELF-CONSISTENCY

Roy (Roy & Andrews, 1999) describes “self-con-
cept” as one adaptive mode of the individual within
an adaptive system. The self-concept mode for the
individual has two subareas: the physical self and
the personal self. The physical self includes two
components: body sensation and body image; and
the personal self has three components: selfconsis-
tency, self-ideal, and moral-ethical-spiritual self.

Conceptual Development

Self-consistency was introduced during the devel-
opment of the Roy Adaptation Model based on the
work of Coombs and Snyggs (1959). These authors
noted that people strive to maintain a consistent
self-organization and thus avoid disequilibrium

(Coombs & Snyggs, 1959; Lecky, 1961; Roy &

Andrews, 1991). Lecky (1961) proposed the Theory

of Self-consistency to conceptualize a person as a

holistic and consistent structure. Central to Lecky’s

Self-consistency Theory is that people are moti-

vated to act in a way that is congruent with their

sense of self and thereby maintain intactness when

facing potentially challenging situations. To main-

tain self-consistency in the transaction between the

person and the environment (Elliot, 1986, 1988;

Lecky, 1961; Rogers, 1961; Roy & Roberts, 1981),

one initiates cognitive and emotional responses

(Roy & Andrews, 1991).

An individual’s sense of self may influence the

person’s ability to heal and to do what is necessary

An individual’s sense of self may influence

the person’s ability to heal and to do what

is necessary to maintain health.

to maintain health. In particular, related to the ap-

plication exemplar in this chapter, previous studies

(Atchley, 1988; Kaufman, 1987; Klarkowska &

Klarkowska, 1987; Ahan and Zhan, 1994) report

that older persons with greater self-consistency had

more positive levels of well-being. Further, they

coped better with physical and psychosocial

changes in aging than did those who had less con-

sistency of self-perceptions. Being old does not nec-

essarily mean one forms a new self-concept.

Instead, older people carry their sense of self and

personality with them into the later stage of their

lives and adapt to a given situation as best as they

can (Gove, Ortage, & Style, 1989). Lieberman and

Tobin (1988) examined how older people coped

with certain stressful life events such as the loss of

loved ones, relocation, the experience of chronic

conditions, and the approach of death. Their find-

ings suggested that the older people who had a

stability of self-concept coped well in stressful en-

counters. Therefore, the critical task for older

The critical task for older people is to

maintain self-consistency by transcending

internal and external losses in the aging

process.

people is to maintain self-consistency by transcend-

ing internal and external losses in the aging process.

274 SECTION III Nursing Theory in Nursing Practice, Education, Research, and Administration