Assessment, enhancement, and verification determinants of the self-evaluation process.

“In the face of a threat to the self, self-protective motives guide decreased attraction to an exceptional individual who could evaluate the self negatively (also see Fromkin, 1972; Sedikides, 1993; Sigall & Landy, 1973).”

“have had a prominent status in the field and are comparatively influential (Baumeister, 1998; Brown, 1998; Sedikides, 1993; Sedikides & Green, 2004).”

“Whereas people in general typically seek out and accept feedback that increases their sense of self-worth (see Sedikides, 1993 ), socially nonanxious people's responses to success appear to be motivated by factors other than pure self-enhancement.”

“For example, in relevant research (Sedikides, 1993), participants were presented with a list of candidate questions to ask themselves in private in order to find out if they truly possessed a number of traits.”

“This is followed by consistency, and unfortunately, the appraisal motive comes last when we process information referring to ourselves (Sedikides, 1993).”

“Whether in our personal relationships or in our dealings with strangers, whether at home or in the workplace, most of us welcome at least a little respect (e.g., Baumeister, 1998; Sedikides, 1993).”

“These criteria ensured that traits differed in their breadth but not in additional factors such as familiarity, social desirability, or self-descriptiveness (measured by certainty: Sedikides, 1993, 1995 ).”

“Self-assessment is another possible self-evaluative motive (e.g., Festinger, 1954; Sedikides, 1993; Trope, 1986).”

“In a direct test of the self-verification and self-protection perspectives (Sedikides, 1993, Experiment 4), participants with chronically negative or positive self-conceptions (i.e., traits) were invited to the laboratory for a “self-reflection” study.”

“…images of them (Baumeister, 1982; Frey, 1978; Goffman, 1967; Jones & Wortman, 1973; Leary & Kowalski, 1990; Schlenker, Weigold, & Hallam, 1990; Sedikides, 1993), and often engage in self-promotion to achieve this end, for example by enumerating their strengths and positive traits,…”

“Indeed, numerous studies have shown that individuals believe they possess, on average, more honesty and trustworthiness than any other characteristic, including intelligence, modesty, friendliness, determination, and independence (e.g., Alicke et al., 2001; Brown, 2012; Sedikides, 1993).”

“By establishing positive in-group distinctiveness, the self-concept can be enhanced (for the general importance of the self-enhancement motive, see Baumeister, 1998; Sedikides, 1993; Sedikides & Strube, 1995).”

“Several processes have been offered to account for selfenhancement, including some form of wishful thinking (e.g., Sedikides, 1993 ), self-serving resolutions of ambiguity (e.g., Dunning et al., 1989), and an egocentric substitution error (e.g., Klar & Giladi, 1997; Kruger, 1999; Moore & Small, 2007).”

“Although the accuracy of and motivation behind this process of evaluation clearly vary (Sedikides, 1993; Swann, 1990), it was assumed that one’s perceived standing on the general attribute of being “athletic” is determined through self-evaluation of its components (“how do I know?”).”

“Another transactional process is that people tend to selectively attend to and search for information that confirms their beliefs about themselves, including their self-evaluation (Sedikides, 1993; Swann & Read, 1981).”

“Laboratory studies have shown that under certain circumstances, people at- tempt to manage how they are seen by others (e.g., Leary et al., 1994; Leary & Kowalski, 1990; Sedikides, 1993; Stires & Jones, 1969; Tice, Butler, Muraven, & Stillwell, 1995).”

“…focus on desirable attributes and shun undesirable attributes when contemplating core self-attributes (Sedikides & Green, 2004), while selectively engaging in tasks diagnostic of desirable core self-attributes and avoiding tasks diagnostic of undesirable core self-attributes (Sedikides, 1993).”

“We acknowledge the common, sometimes defensive, tendency toward favorable self-evaluation (Brown & Hutton, 1995; Sedikides, 1993; Sedikides & Strube, 1997) that may carry over into self-reports.”

“Central self-aspects are more certain, strongly valenced, elaborated, consolidated, diagnostic and, critically for our aims, more likely to be perceived as representing the true self (Sedikides, 1993, 1995).”

“Compared with other motives like selfconsistency and self-accuracy, the self-enhancement motive appears to be particularly strong and robust (Sedikides, 1993).”

“…attributes when contemplating core self-attributes (Sedikides, 2012; Sedikides &Green, 2000, 2004), and selectively engage in tasks diagnostic of desirable core self-attributes and avoid tasks diagnostic of undesirable core self-attributes (Sedikides, 1993; for a review, see Gregg et al., 2011).”

“Validation of stimulus behaviors Past research (Sedikides, 1993, 1995; Sedikides & Green, 2000) had established that university (including UNC-CH) students regard the traits trustworthy and kind as central but the traits modest and uncomplaining as peripheral. In the present experiment, each of these four traits was e…”

“The core attributes of this self-representation are positive and important, influence the processing of subsequent information, and are resistant to unfavorable feedback but welcoming of favorable feedback (Markus 1977; Sedikides 1993).”

“Narcissists can be characterized by self-enhancing distortions in self-relevant situations (Sedikides, 1993) and are thought to display extreme affective reactions to positive and”

“" Such strivings have been well documented (Brown & Dutton, 1995 ; Sedikides, 1993 ; Sedikides & Strube, 1997).”

“We use the term “self-enhancement” to describe people’s desire “to enhance the positivity of their self-conceptions and to protect the self from negative information” (Sedikides, 1993, p. 18).”

“Possible mechanisms could for example be mental consistency (Heider, 1958; Newcomb, 1961) or self-enhancement (Markus, 1980; Sedikides, 1993; Taylor & Brown, 1988).”

“…and a motive for consistent and stable (self-verification motive) as well as accurate self-assessments (Elliot & Mapes, 2005; Festinger, 1957; Sedikides, 1993), the individual can be expected to fill this information gap by active information seeking (Pomerantz, Saxon, & Kenney, 2001; Ruble,…”

“Consequently, intimates may be more motivated to enhance their partners on global rather than specific attributes (cf. Sedikides, 1993).”

“It is followed by consistency and, unfortunately, the appraisal motive comes last (Sedikides, 1993).”

“Although some authors have studied the relationship of the four key motives to each other in order to establish a hierarchy among them (Sedikides, 1993), in attitude change situations, we suspect that any of the motives can be supreme depending on a number of individual and situational factors.”

“…social context, and self-enhancement, as both essential manifestations of self and significant indicators of effective adaptation and mental health (e.g., Block 1961; Donahue et al. 1993; Jarymowicz and Codol 1979; Lecky 1945 as cited in Swann 1990; Rogers 1959; Sedikides 1993; Swann et al. 2005).”

“The psychology literature has also studied the role of self-assessment (see, for example, Sedikides, 1993).”

“It has been suggested that people are motivated to achieve and maintain a self that is positive in terms of morality, skills, attributes, and so on (e.g., Aronson, 1992; Sedikides, 1993; Steele, 1988).”

“While similar relational concepts to self-compassion have long been studied in psychology (Baumeister, Heatherton, & Tice, 1993; Sedikides, 1993; Taylor & Brown, 1988), Neff (2003) developed Self-Compassion Scale (SCS) and showed that if a person has a higher score on this scale, s/he tends to have…”

“However, regardless of whether it is the individual’s motive to maintain selfconcept consistency or the need to enhance personal self-esteem that gains predominance (Sedikides, 1993; Sedikides & Skowronski, 2000), in certain cases all kinds of self-defense, reality negotiation, and interpretive neutralization result i…”

“In another study, Sedikides (1993) found that people preferred to answer questions about themselves to which the answers would enhance rather than confirm their self-views.”

“The difference between the attributions of actors and observers is known as the self-serving bias, and it appears to be motivated in large part by strategic self-enhancement (Sedikides, 1993; Sedikides, Campbell, Reeder, & Elliot, 1998).”

“The former are highly certain, self-descriptive, and important, whereas the latter are much less so (Sedikides, 1993, 1995).”

“For example, when self-reflecting in a neutral setting, people ask themselves questions whose answers predominantly (though not invariably) suggest they wish to self-enhance rather than self-verify, and self-verify rather than self-assess (Sedikides, 1993).”

“…choose to ask themselves questions that yield positive rather than diagnostic or confirmatory answers (i.e., they prioritize selfenhancement; Sedikides, 1993); or they sometimes choose negative confirming feedback over positive disconfirming feedback (i.e., they prioritize…”

“Although healthcare professionals often assume that patients want as much cancer information as possible, it is important to recognize individual differences in desire for cancer information.(12,19) Not everyone benefits from the same kind of informational support, and healthcare professionals are increasingly encoura…”

“The mnemic neglect model was formerly termed the inconsistency-negativity neglect model by Sedikides and Green (2000). 226 Jeffrey D.”

“Four motives have been identified and documented in the self-evaluation literature (Sedikides, 1993; Sedikides & Strube, 1997).”

“sentation of the kind of person we think we are) can: (a) force biases and distortions in autobiographical memories (Ross, 1989; Ross & Conway, 1986); (b) influence theways people perceive and remember other people (Markus, Smith & Moreland, 1985; Sedikides & Skowronski, 1993); (c) lead people to defend themselves aga…”

“Domain Mentions Q1 Hazards investments 771 418 investment (242), bought home (86), founded company (15), sold home (13) relationships 760 399 moving (132), conflicts (79), children: general (59), speaking out (44), separation (36), pregnant (26), marriage (24), moving in (14), divorce (13), colleagues (10), affairs (7…”

“As expected, participants in the success condition, (M = 6.63, SD = .64) reported that they did better on the test than those in the failure condition (M = 1.56, SD = .85), F(1, 206) = 2403.14, p .001.”

“A large body of work suggests that people prefer self-enhancing or self-verifying information about themselves rather than accurate information (Sedikides, 1993).”

“, 2006), tasks varying in objective diagnosticity (Sedikides, 1993), tasks requiring self-regulation abilities (Baumeister, Bratslavsky, Muraven, & Tice, 1998), and lie detection skills (Vrij, 2008).”

“In a sense, the research question we pursued here mirrors the question that drove the long-standing “Self-enhancement/Self-verification” debate (eg, Sedikides, 1993 ; Swann, 1990 ) in the self literature: Do people want to be perceived positively, or do they want to be perceived consistently? The answer, that people w…”

“These studies indicated that, while both motives are activated, the self-enhancement motive is typically stronger than the self-verification motive (Bernichon et al., 2003; Sedikides, 1993; Sedikides & Green, 2004; Sedikides & Gregg, 2003; Swann et al., 1989).”

“Consistent with these claims, research shows that people often seek clear and coherent self-conceptions independent of pursuing positive self-evaluations (Sedikides, 1993), although high levels of self-concept structure can support the maintenance of self-esteem (Campbell et al.”

“And although all individuals tend to self-enhance (e.g., Sedikides, 1993), those with narcissistic features self-enhance more and across a greater number of situations (Campbell, Reeder, Sedikides, & Elliot, 2000), which is perhaps due to the need for a positive self-presentation (Collins & Stukas,…”

“Considering positivity and seLf-eonsisteney strivings simultaneously, as suggested by multiple motives conceptions, unexpected negative feedback constitutes the most aversive information (e.g., Jussim, Yen, & Aiello, 1995; Sedikides, 1993; Shrauger, 1975; Stahlberg, Petersen, & Dauenheimer, 1999; Swann & Schroeder, 19…”

“The uncertainty reduction motive in feedback seeking is also echoed in the self-assessment motive in the self-motives domain in social psychology (Sedikides, 1993; Sedikides & Strube, 1995).”

“For instance, Sedikides (1993) has suggested a hierarchical organization of these two motives, with the self-enhancing motive being primary relative to the verifying motive.”

“It is also challenging to improve the accuracy of people ’ s self-views because people ’ s behavior is driven by powerful motives to think positively about the self and to verify their existing self-views more so than by motives to hold accurate views of the self (Sedikides 1993).”

“A selfassessment component was also introduced, which aimed to promote insight about potential misinformation or beliefs held about benzodiazepine use by providing feedback on incorrect assumptions [18,19].”

“…of the participants as indicated by the fact that only a minority of individuals show a strong self-assessment motive of self-evaluation (cf. Sedikides, 1993; Sedikides & Strube, 1997; see also the literature on self-handicapping; Higgins, Snyder, & Berglas, 1990) and many individuals enter…”

“However, there is also a number of conflicting studies arguing that the effects of low self-esteem on this relationships will be negative, while high self-esteem may lead to other problematic side effects such as excessive narcissism (Baumeister & Vohs, 2001), self-centeredness, lack of concern for others (Seligman, R…”

“Self-enhancement theory, for example, proposes that people are motivated to view themselves favorably (Jussim, Yen, & Aiello, 1995; Sedikides, 1993; Sedikides, Gaertner, & Toguchi, 2003; Swann, Pelham, & Krull, 1989).”

“Defending such beliefs may sometimes play an important role in self-evaluation (see Pelham, 1991; Pelham & Swann, 1994; Sedikedes, 1993; Sedikedes & Strube, 1995, 1997; Swann & Schroeder, 1995; Tesser et al., 1996).”

“the better-than-average effect) as the only acceptable measure of self-enhancement, and we have published articles in which we reviewed scores of selfenhancement measures (Sedikides, 1993; Sedikides & Strube, 1997; Gaertner, Sedikides, & Graetz, 1999; Sedikides & Gregg, 2003; Sedikides, Gregg, & Hart, 2007).”

“One benefit of this drive is that positive views of the self, even if inaccurate, promote adjustment and, importantly, instill the level of confidence needed to take on and meet new challenges (Baumeister 1998; Sedikides 1993; Taylor 1989).”

“As a foundation for this surprising prediction, we draw on self-enhancement theory (e.g., Sedikides 1993) and posit that for more innovative Martin Mende served as Area Editor for this article.”