Turning up the contrast: Self-enhancement motives prompt egocentric contrast effects in social judgments

“…inferior other (Fein, Hoshino‐ Browne, Davies, & Spencer, 2003), gossiping negatively about a third party (Wert, 2004; Wert & Salovey, 2004), or harshly judging a political ingroup member who fails to demonstrate as much fervor for the cause as one personally does (Beauregard & Dunning, 1998).”

“…compensatory self-enhancement (e.g., Baumeister & Jones, 1978; Gollwitzer & Wicklund, 1985; Greenberg & Pyszczynski, 1985); downward comparison (Beauregard & Dunning, 1998; Crocker, PURSUIT OF SELF-ESTEEM Thompson, McGraw, & Ingerman, 1987; Pyszczynski, Greenberg, & Laprelle, 1985; Wills,…”

“…in legions of social-psychological studies in which important interests (such as to be intelligent) are threatened in order to assess the effects on various aspects of behaviour or judgement (Beauregard & Dunning, 1998; Buckingham & Alicke, 2002; Green & Sedikides, 2004; Guenther & Alicke, 2008).”

“…1996); (3) used an experimental manipulation eliciting self-enhancement strategies other than selfaffirmation (such as derogation of others; Beauregard & Dunning, 1998); or (4) used measures to assess self-affirmation as a dependent variable—either survey-based (Lockwood, Dolderman,…”

“…then use these idiosyncratic trait definitions when judging others, sometimes in ways that produce self-favoring comparative trait judgments (Beauregard & Dunning, 1998, 2001; Dunning & Cohen, 1992; Dunning & McElwee, 1995; Dunning et al., 1991; McElwee, Dunning, Tan, & Hollman, 2001; Story…”

“Threatened self-esteem leads to “egocentric contrast” in perceiving others (Beauregard & Dunning 1998).”

“They emphasize self-esteem as the fundamental resource that people protect with compensatory defenses and include theories of egocentricity (Beauregard & Dunning, 1998; Dunning & Hayes, 1996; Tesser, 2000), self-evaluation maintenance (Sedikides, 1993; Tesser, 1988), and the totalitarian ego…”

“In fact, people are especially likely to seek out comparisons with others whom they consider to be less skilled in a particular domain when they feel threatened in that domain (Beauregard & Dunning, 1998; Friend & Gilbert, 1973; Hakmiller, 1966).”

“It has been shown that failure feedback can lead to increased prejudice (Fein & Spencer, 1997) and out-group derogation ( Beauregard & Dunning, 1998 ).”

“Examples include asking subjects to rate themselves and a hypothetical average other (or a typical college student; e.g., Alicke, 1985; Beauregard & Dunning, 1998 ) or even combining self-perception and other perception into one single rating task that asks subjects to indicate how they perceive themselves compared wi…”

“They are also less likely to hold others to performance standards that put the self in a positive light (Beauregard & Dunning, 1998; Dunning & Beauregard, 2000).”

“For example, Beauregard and Dunning (1998) found that negative social comparison is less threatening to low-self-esteem persons than to high self-esteem persons.”

“Although social comparisons can also be used to boost self-esteem following threat (Beauregard & Dunning, 1998; Brown & Gallagher, 1992; Dunning & Beauregard, 2000; Dunning & Cohen, 1992), it may not be necessary to involve others in defense of the self.”

“In the same vein, some authors have demonstrated that threat (in their studies, failure) could decrease the evaluation that some participants made of a target (Beauregard & Dunning, 1998) and enhance selfserving bias (Dunning, Leuenberger, & Sherman, 1995).”

“This basic finding has appeared in numerous studies of trait perceptions (e.g., Beauregard & Dunning, 1998; J.D. Brown & Gallagher, 1992; Crocker, Thompson, McGraw, & Ingerman, 1987; Dunning, Leuenberger, & Sherman, 1995; Friend & Gilbert, 1973; Gollwitzer & Wicklund, 1985).”

“Several studies have provided evidence for this assumed relationship in many research contexts (e.g., Beauregard & Dunning, 1998; Jetten, Spears, & Manstead, 1997; McGregor et al., 1998).”

“This position is most consistent with existing anchoring and adjustment explanations of the BTAE (e.g., Beauregard & Dunning, 1998; Kruger, 1999).”

“…better after being allowed to exhibit this bias (Lemyre & Smith, 1985), and the bias is strongest after selfworth has been threatened, suggesting that it is in service of restoring and promoting positive feelings of self-worth (Beauregard & Dunning, 1998; Brown & Gallagher, 1992; Dunning, 1999).”

“The tendency for adults to rate accepting peers more favorably (36), respond to negative feedback by denigrating others (5, 9, 10), and engage in retaliatory impression updating (11) aligns with previous work.”

“…negative feedback (Crocker, Thompson, McGraw, & Ingerman, 1987), to make self-serving judgments about others’ intelligence after an ego-threat (Beauregard & Dunning, 1998), to disidentify with threatened aspects of personal identity (Mussweiler, Gabriel, & Bodenhausen, 2000), and to become…”

“Egocentric contrast effects in social judgements Beauregard and Dunning (1998) suggest that ‘self-enhancement motives’ are salient following test failure and that attempts to avoid the negative impact of failure may include egocentric contrast in social judgements.”

“When people at- tempt to safeguard themselves psychologically, they have been found to do so though downward comparisons (Beauregard & Dunning, 1998), derogation of others (Fein & Spencer, 1997), and ostracism (Bourgeois & Leary, 2001)—all components of feeling contempt toward another.”

“For instance, previous studies have shown that negative judgments toward peers are motivated by self-enhancement goals, particularly when contrast implies a threat to a person’s self-worth (Beauregard & Dunning, 1997).”

“Those confronted with this version in previous research have generally answered only 2 or 3 of the 10 items correctly (Beauregard & Dunning, 1998; Kruger, 1999).”

“This, in turn, may lead to a heightened motivation to enhance self-esteem (Beauregard & Dunning, 1998; Steele, 1988).”

“When our self-esteem is threatened, we are even more likely to arrive at self-enhancing social comparisons ( Beauregard & Dunning, 1998 ).”

“…the negative feedback, derogate out-group members, make selfserving judgments, and express increased zeal about value-laden opinions and ideologies (Beauregard & Dunning, 1998; Blaine & Crocker, 1993; Crocker, Thompson, McGraw, & Ingerman, 1987; Dodgson & Wood, 1998; McGregor & Marigold, 2003;…”

“Our research adds to the evolving consensus that impression formation is a dynamic process which serves, to a substantial extent, egocentric and perceiver-enhancing motives ( Beauregard & Dunning, 1998; Dunning, 1999; Dunning & Beauregard, 2000; Lewicki, 1983).”

“Additionally, these effects are often found to be stronger when an individual’s self-image is threatened (Beauregard and Dunning, 1998; Brown and Gallagher, 1992) and weaker when an individual’s self-image is affirmed (Steele, 1988; Tesser and Cornell, 1991), suggesting that a motivation to…”

“…of the narrative serve the followers for the purpose of constructing a positive self identity (Reicher & Hopkins, 2003) and self-enhancement (Beauregard & Dunning, 1998), strengthening social identity (Hogg, 2001), and for constructing and giving meaning to reality (Bruner, 1986; Weick,…”

“…a principal source of the bias reflects self-enhancement motives: people notoriously view their lives as ever-progressing in a positive light (Beauregard & Dunning, 1998; Kunda, 1990; McAdams, 2008; Wilson & Ross, 2001), and thus, even the mere concept of change may be coded as change for…”

“Dunning and colleagues (Beauregard & Dunning, 1998; Dunning & Cohen, 1992) argued that people can be very creative in protecting self-esteem when confronted with people who are “better off”.”

“By doing so, they highlight the distinctiveness of their accomplishments and can ensure a belief that they are superior to others ( Beauregard & Dunning, 1998; Dunning & Cohen, 1992; Dunning & Hayes, 1996; Dunning & McElwee, 1995).”

“Beauregard and Dunning (1998) showed that the threat to self following this failure”

“Stressful events also have been shown to increase one’s need for self-enhancement (Beauregard & Dunning, 1998).”

“Experimental studies have shown that self-enhancement bias is strongest after self-worth has been threatened (Beauregard and Dunning 1998; Dunning 1999).”

“were probably associated with individual attitudinal processes ( Beauregard & Dunning, 1998 ),”

“Unfortunately, believing one’s own behavior is the product of one’s character gives license to assume that others’ behaviors reveal their character as well (Beauregard & Dunning, 1998; Dunning & Cohen, 1992; Dunning & Hayes, 1996).”

“Once again, critical to a motivational account, people adopt more self-serving standards after a failure experience that calls their self-esteem into question than they do after a success experience ( Beauregard and Dunning, 1998 ).”

“For instance, the BTAE is accentuated at the presence of a self-esteem threat (e.g., Beauregard & Dunning, 1998) and predicts psychological adjustment and well-being (e.g., Gaertner et al., 2008).”

“…the feedback only to make self-esteem concerns salient, as past work indicates that this is sometimes necessary to “activate” self-enhancement (Beauregard & Dunning, 1998; Spencer et al., 1993), so this does not threaten our hypotheses—but remains a characteristic of the data that is…”

“Indeed, it is failure and not success that leads to a self-serving bias (Agostinelli, Sherman, Presson, & Chassin, 1992; Beauregard & Dunning, 1998; Tesser & Campbell, 1982).”

“We consider this tactical and egocentric use of the self in the waxing and waning of social judgment as manifestations of the selfenhancement and self-protection motives (Beauregard & Dunning, 1998; Dunning & Beauregard, 2000).”

“Humans tend to interpret or distort evidence about themselves in order to amplify a relatively positive self-image (Beauregard & Dunning, 1998; Krueger, 1998; Sedikides & Strube, 1995).”

“Perceiving similarities to people who are worse off does little to boost self-esteem, so it is more likely that downward comparisons involve a contrast effect than assimilation (Beauregard and Dunning 1998; Dunning and Cohen 1992; Eiser and White 1974; Marsh 1987, 1991).”

“…suggests that people momentarily shift their self-definitions by overemphasizing their distinct self-conceptions in response to contextual influences such as the presence of similar others (McGuire & McGuire, 1988) or the introduction of a psychological threat (Beauregard & Dunning, 1998, Study 3).”

“In addition, after situations involving threats to self-esteem, self-enhancement becomes even more important (Beauregard & Dunning, 1998; Krueger, 1998; Wills, 1981).”

“Shielding oneself from rejection is a self-protective strategy (Beauregard & Dunning, 1998; Hughes & Beer, 2012) that orients individuals toward attainment of hedonically positive feedback at the expense of complete or realistic information, which is theorized to maintain favorable self-views and…”

“Without question, judgments are prone to bias and can limit one’s ability to view people, events, and phenomena in accurate or informative ways (e.g., Beauregard & Dunning, 1998; Perdue, Dovidio, Gurtman, & Tyler, 1990).”