CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 883Personality Traits and PsychologySocial and Intergroup PsychologyEmotions and Moral Behavior

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 231 of the 231 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Self-Enhancement: Food for Thought

Open access
Sedikides, Constantine, Gregg, Aiden P.·2008·Perspectives on Psychological Science
DOI 10.1111/j.1745-6916.2008.00068.x
Open this paper in CoChat — free accountOpen PDF

Abstract

Self-enhancement denotes a class of psychological phenomena that involve taking a tendentiously positive view of oneself. We distinguish between four levels of self-enhancement—an observed effect, an ongoing process, a personality trait, and an underlying motive—and then use these distinctions to organize the wealth of relevant research. Furthermore, to render these distinctions intuitive, we draw an extended analogy between self-enhancement and the phenomenon of eating. Among the topics we address are (a) manifestations of self-enhancement, both obvious and subtle, and rival interpretations; (b) experimentally documented dynamics of affirming and threatening the ego; and (c) primacy of self-enhancement, considered alongside other intrapsychic phenomena, and across different cultures. Self-enhancement, like eating, is a fundamental part of human nature.

Overview

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1111/j.1745-6916.2008.00068.x

Cites

231 of 231 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Verification

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Citations

Cites

Research works printed but not linked: 22

  1. Alicke M.D., 2005, Studies in self and identity, 85
  2. Brown B.R. (2000). When moral entitlement leads to immoral acts. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Stanford University, Stanford, CA.
  3. Brown J.D., 1998, The self
  4. 10.1037/0022-3514.68.6.1152 · DOI
  5. Dauenheimer D.G., 2002, Revue Internationale De Psychologie Sociale, 15, 89
  6. 10.1207/s15324834basp1601&2_9 · DOI
  7. Elster J., 1986, The multiple self
  8. Gallagher S., 1999, Models of the self
  9. Greenwald A.G., 1985, The self and social life, 126
  10. Hamamura T., 2007, Self-criticism and self-enhancement: Theory, research, and clinical implications, 105
  11. Heatherton T.F., 2007, Frontiers in social psychology: The self, 3
  12. Hobbes T., 1991, Leviathan
  13. 10.1037/0022-3514.62.1.26 · DOI
  14. Klein M.P., 2007, Self-criticism and self-enhancement: Theory, research, and clinical implications, 37
  15. Mandeville B., 1705, The fable of the bees: or private vices, public benefits, 1
  16. Nietzche F. (1972). Beyond good and evil (R.J. Hollongdale, Trans.). London: Penguin Books. (Original work published 1886)
  17. Parfit D., 1984, Reasons and persons
  18. Sedikides C., 2007, The self: Frontiers in social psychology, 163
  19. Sedikides C., 2002, Revue Internationale De Psychologie Sociale, 15, 113
  20. 10.1037/0022-3514.83.3.592 · DOI
  21. Segerstrom S.C., 2007, Self-criticism and self-enhancement: Theory, research, and clinical implications, 37
  22. Uhlmann E.L. (2007). Toward an understanding of motivated discrimination: The roles of constructed criteria and self-perceived objectivity in hiring decisions. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Yale University, New Haven, CT.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

See all 883

Related

See all

Metadata

Authors
Sedikides, C., & Gregg, A. P.
Affiliations
University of Southampton (GB)
Corresponding author
Gregg, Aiden P.
ORCID
Venue
Perspectives on Psychological Science
Publisher
SAGE Publications
Published
2008-03
Volume
3
Issue
2
Pages
102-116
ISSN
  • 1745-6916 (ISSN-L)
  • 1745-6924
DOI
10.1111/j.1745-6916.2008.00068.x
OpenAlex
W2023041445
Cited by
880
References
228
Citations by year
2026: 43 · 2025: 52 · 2024: 42 · 2023: 38 · 2022: 49 · 2021: 64 · 2020: 100 · 2019: 50 · 2018: 82 · 2017: 48 · 2016: 43 · 2015: 39 · 2014: 42 · 2013: 56 · 2012: 43
FWCI
31.97
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
journals.sagepub.com/page/policies/text-and-data-mining-license (tdm)
Locations
  • Perspectives on Psychological Science (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • ePrints Soton (University of Southampton) (acceptedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Personality Traits and Psychology
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Social and Intergroup Psychology
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Emotions and Moral Behavior
Keywords
self-enhancement, self-enhancement motive, ego threat

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review