Social Cognition, Vol. 15, No. 3, 1997, pp. 183-203 THE FUNCTIONAL INDEPENDENCE OF TRAIT AND BEHAVIORAL SELF-KNOWLEDGE: METHODOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS AND NEW EMPIRICAL FINDINGS STANLEY B. KLEIN AND SUSAN H. BABEY University of California, Santa Barbara JEFFREY W. SHERMAN Northwestern University In a series of studies, Klein and Loftus and their colleagues found that people who made self-descriptiveness judgments about trait words were no faster than people who performed a control task to subsequently retrieve behavioral memories about the same traits (e.g., Klein, Loftus, & Burton, 1989; Klein & Loftus, 1990, 1993a, 1993c). Based, in part, on these findings, Klein and Loftus (1993a; Klein, Loftus, & Kihlstrom, 1 996) proposed that functionally independent memory systems underlie trait self-descriptiveness judgments and behavioral retrieval. The present studies had two purposes. First, we evaluate recent concerns about whether the control task used by Klein and Loftus provides the proper baseline against which to assess the absence of priming between trait judgments and behavioral retrieval (e.g., Brown, 1993; Keenan, 1993). Second, we present converging evidence from a powerful new technique, Dunn and Kirsner's (1988) method of reversed associa tion, in support of Klein and Loftus's proposal that trait judgments and behavioral retrieval are mediated by functionally independent memory systems. In his classic work, Principles of Psychology (1890), William James pro claimed the self to be the elementary fact of mental life about which all other psychic phenomena revolve: Every thought tends to be part of a personal consciousness.... It seems as if the elementary psychic fact were not thought or this thought or that thought, but my thought, every thought being owned. ...On these terms the personal This work was supported by an Academic Senate research Grant to Stanley B. Klein from the University of California at Santa Barbara. We wish to thank Judith Loftus for her very helpful comments on this research and drafts of this article. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Stanley B. Klein, Depart ment of Psychology, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106. 183