Quiet Ego Study

Consistency of Individual Differences in the Quiet Ego during Emerging Adulthood and their Developmental Implications

What is the quiet ego (QE)? Do differences in QE persist over time? Do emerging adults with quieter and noisier egos endorse different aspirations for their lives? What role models do emerging adults with quieter and noisier egos nominate and seek to emulate, and how do they explain their motivations to emulate those role models? Do emerging adults with quieter and noisier egos differ in how they narrate past self-defining memories and script their life's "next chapter"? 

Using an emerging adult sample (18-25 years) in a one-year longitudinal design with three measurement waves, we aim to answer these questions, and more. All participation took place in the lab from fall 2024 through fall 2025. Participants completed a Qualtrics survey (Oct 2024, Apr 2025, Oct 2025) composed of a variety of measures of quiet ego, psychological well-being, aspirations, subjective happiness, personality, and more, and responded to a variety of narrative prompts related to their character role models and biggest challenge. Questions about the QE Study should be directed to the primary investigator, Dr. Leigh Shaw (lshaw@weber.edu).

Part of the QE Study data will be presented as these posters (download Virtues poster here and Flourishing poster here) at the 2026 Utah Conference on Undergraduate Research (UCUR) held at Weber State University, and the 2026 Rocky Mountain Psychological Association (RMPA) held in Boise, Idaho.