People feel discomfort when they receive feedback about their relational value that is inconsistent with their self-esteem and certainty when they receive feedback that is consistent (Stinson et al., 2010). Feeling discomfort prompts additional feedback-seeking to confirm or disprove the original feedback (Swann, 1987). Feeling certainty does not. People base their self-views on years of experience and so are more likely to seek self-view consistent feedback (Swann, 1987). Participants were given high relational value feedback to invoke discomfort in individuals with low self-esteem (LSEs) but not individuals with high self-esteem (HSEs). Participants were then able to seek additional relational-value feedback. LSEs were expected to seek self-esteem consistent feedback to reduce discomfort whereas HSEs were not expected to seek additional feedback because they would not be experiencing discomfort. Results did not support these hypotheses for all participants: Single LSEs sought feedback as a function of self-esteem but mated LSEs did not. / Graduate

Philosophers, psychologists, and authors have long pondered the question of whether others’ expectations or one’s own self-views are more important in determining behavior and personality. Researchers have designated these two processes behavioral confirmation and self-verification, respectively, and the interaction of these processes is often referred to as identity negotiation. Little research has examined the process of identity negotiation during adolescence, a period during which individuals are attempting to forge unique identities. Therefore, the primary purpose of the present studies was to examine the identity negotiation process during adolescence. In Study 1, I examined whether adolescents (11-15 years of age) solicit self-verifying feedback. Adolescents first completed a measure of self-perceptions and then selected whether to receive positive or negative feedback from an unknown peer in areas of perceived strength and weakness. Adolescents desired feedback congruent with their own self-views; those with higher self-esteem tended to request more positive feedback than those with lower self-esteem. Further, adolescents were more likely to seek negative feedback regarding a self-perceived weakness than a self-perceived strength. In Study 2, I examined the joint operation of behavioral confirmation and self-verification in dyadic interactions among unacquainted adolescents. One member of each dyad (the target) completed a measure of self-perception. The second member of each dyad (the perceiver) was provided with false information regarding the attractiveness of their partner. I compared whether targets’ self-views or perceivers’ expectations of them were stronger determinants of behavior. Self-verification strivings were evident in these interactions; targets’ self-views influenced the perceivers’ final evaluations of their partners. Support for behavioral confirmation was lacking in same-sex dyads and dyads composed of male perceivers and female targets. Appearance based expectations influenced target behavior in dyads composed of female perceivers and male targets. The current findings suggest that adolescents’ self-views are important determinants of behavior. Significant implications for adolescent mental health and peer selection are discussed. / text

abstract: This research investigates the conditions under which people use consumption choices to signal accurate versus enhanced information about themselves to others. Across five studies, I demonstrate that activating a self-verification, as opposed to self-enhancement, motive leads consumers to choose products that signal accurate information about a self-view, even when this view is negative. I replicate this finding across several self-view domains, including physical attractiveness, power, and global self-esteem. However, I find that this effect is attenuated when consumers have a high fear of negative social evaluation. My findings suggest that this type of consumption, in which choice is driven by the desire to be seen accurately (vs. positively), can explain abundant real-world behavior; contradicting the notion that consumers choose products primarily for self-enhancement. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Business Administration 2016

This study investigates the connection between self-enhancement and self-verification and confirmation and emotional support. The hypotheses predicted that there is a positive relationship between confirmation and self-enhancement and self-verification; people feel good about themselves when confirmed by friends, people feel that friends know them well when they are confirmed. The hypotheses also predicted that there would be a positive relationship between emotional support and self-enhancement and self-verification; people feel good when friends provide emotional support, and people feel that friends know them well when provided emotional support. A research question was also posed: Does family functioning have an effect on perceptions of self-enhancement and self-verification messages? To find the answers, a questionnaire was completed by 279 individuals. The results indicate two types of enhancement messages; a more specific and positive form of enhancement and more global (and negative) self perception of rejection. The findings are interesting and unique to self-enhancement in communication research which provides many avenues for continued research. Results also suggest that different elements of confirming communication influences perceptions of enhancement in different ways, emotional support predicts verification.

When choosing a gift, the gift-giver has three distinct but interdependent goals: the item must 1) satisfy the recipient 2) be self-reflective for the gift-giver, and 3) indicate the nature of the relationship between the giver and the recipient. However, these goals are often mutually exclusive, making it infeasible for the giver to meet both his/her own and the recipient’s needs with his/her gift choices. In both essays we look at how the important moderator of social closeness between the giver and recipient influences givers’ prioritization of these goals. In Essay 1, we constrain givers to choose from a gift registry and posit that purchasing an identity-incongruent product can threaten an individual’s identity, particularly when purchasing for a close (vs. distant) friend who is an integral part of the self. Five experiments in the context of gift registry show that givers choosing identity-incongruent gifts for a close (vs. distant) friend experience an identity threat and seek to re-establish their shaken identities by endorsing the threatened identity and choosing identity-expressive products in subsequent decisions. In Essay 2 we loosen the constraints of the gift choice and allow givers to choose or reject the gift registry. Our main hypothesis is that when choosing for a close (vs. distant) friend, the giver will discount the recipient’s explicit preferences in favor of a gift that signals the giver’s identity or the relationship between them. However, prior research indicates that close friends choose inaccurately for one another as they conflate their own preferences with those of the recipients’. Thus we suggest that since givers are more likely to make a free choice (vs. registry choice) for a close (vs. distant) friend, they face an increased likelihood of choosing a less desirable gift for their close friends. / text

In this series of studies, I hypothesized that people’s perceptions of certain psychologically abusive acts as acceptable or not acceptable would impact whether they would remain in psychologically abusive relationships. In Study 1, I explored the historic link between low self-esteem in women and receiving high levels of abuse. I found that women who were low in self-esteem found psychologically abusive behavior depicted in a series of vignettes to be significantly more acceptable than did women who were high in self-esteem. In Study 2, I found that women who were currently in abusive relationships found psychologically abusive behavior depicted in a video to be significantly more acceptable than did women who were currently in non-abusive relationships. Furthermore, I found that the woman’s own abusive behavior toward her partner was a stronger predictor than the abusiveness of her partner of whether she endorsed that she would stay in the depicted abusive relationship. Also, I found that among women who were highly abusive toward their partners and high in self-esteem, the more abuse they were receiving from their current partners, the more acceptable they found the depicted abusive behaviors. Based on these findings, in Study 3 I explored whether priming women’s (a) awareness of their own aggressive behaviors and (b) how these behaviors could change might have stronger impact on women’s views of the acceptability of their own abusive behaviors than women’s awareness of their partner’s aggressive behaviors. Furthermore, I explored whether these different foci would have impact on real-life consequences in changing abuse levels in the current relationship. The findings were mixed; short-term effects implied that writing about conflict, no matter whether the focus is on the self’s aggression or the partner’s aggression, seemed to encourage women to regard leaving an abusive relationship as more acceptable than writing about a neutral topic. Over the long-term, however, writing about conflict, no matter whether the focus was on the self’s aggression or the partner’s aggression, exacerbated the partner’s psychologically aggressive behavior. / text

Terror management theory posits that self-esteem ultimately protects people from death anxiety. Much research has demonstrated that individuals reminded of death tend to self-enhance. However, more recent research suggests that need for closure and self-esteem might moderate these findings, but no research has directly tested this. It was hypothesized that for people high in self-esteem, mortality salience will not affect self-enhancement. However, for individuals low in self-esteem, it will either increase enhancement (if low in closure) or increase verification (if high in closure). These hypotheses were fully supported using Christian's perceptions of God's love as the dependent variable. Implications for terror management theory, self-verification theory, and religious belief are discussed.

Remembrance of one's personal past and the development of false memories have recently received intense public scrutiny. Based upon self-schema (Markus, 1977) and self-verification (Swann, 1987) theories, two studies were conducted to investigate the hypothesis that a self-schema guides cognitive processing of self-relevant information and thereby influences the construction of a memory that includes false information, particularly more so if this information is self-schema consistent than inconsistent. Study 2 also investigated the hypothesis that the cognitive processing goal of understanding a negative outcome (motivated cognition) would interact with self-consistent expectations to enhance the likelihood that a false memory would be created. Self-schematic Type A and Type B individuals (only self-schematic Type A individuals participated in Study 2) participated in a team problem solving task (the to-be-remembered event) and returned a week later for a "questionnaire" session during which a narrative was read that contained self-consistent or self-discrepant false information. In both studies, chi-square analyses showed participants given self-consistent false information were more likely to report this information on a recall and a recognition test than were participants given self-discrepant false information. Study 2 included team performance feedback (failure or neutral), which was presented just before participants read the narrative containing the false information. The purpose of this procedure was to assess the moderating effect of motivated cognitive processes on the acceptance of self-consistent false information on memory. A loglinear analysis provided confirmation for the expected interaction. The following pattern was obtained for false recall and false self-description (description of team problem solving behavior using the false information trait adjectives): Consistent/failure > Consistent/neutral > Discrepant/neutral = Discrepant/failure. Unexpectedly, this pattern was not obtained on the recognition test data. These findings expand current understanding of processes that contribute to the production of a false memory and extend the traditional, post event false information paradigm. The results are discussed in the context of the false memory debate and future research directions are noted. / Ph. D.

<p>Dinamika reagovanja na evaluaciju ličnosti rezultat je uticaja potrebe da se održi pozitivna slika o sebi &ndash; tj. motiva samopoboljšanja, i potrebe da se održi postojeća slika o sebi &ndash; tj. motiva samopotvrđivanja. Savremena istraživanja pokazuju da, pored nivoa eksplicitnog samopoštovanja, i kvalitativne razlike u samopoštovanju &ndash; razlike u nivou implicitnog i uslovnog samopoštovanja, utiču intenzitet i način ispoljavanja ovih motiva. Cilj ovog istraživanja je bio da se utvrdi da li implicitno i uslovno samopoštovanje dovode do razlika u samopoboljšavajućem i samopotvrđujućem reagovanju kod osoba sa niskim i sa visokim samopoštovanjem, kao i da li neki drugi faktori utiču na ispoljavanje ovih motiva.<br />Na uzorku od 341 studenta psihologije sproveden je eksperiment u kom je testiran uticaj povratne informacije o postignuću na testovima sposobnosti na način afektivnog i kognitivnog reagovanja na to postignuće. Polovina ispitanika je bila uverena da se informacija o postignuću odnosi na sposobnosti koje su važne u svakodnevnom životu, a druga polovina je bila uverena da su testirane sposobnosti irelevantne.<br />Među osobama kongruentnog i inkongruentnog niskog samopoštovanja dobijene su značajne razlike u samopoboljšavajućoj i samopotvrđujućoj motivaciji. Pokazalo se da osobe sa inkongruentnim niskim samopoštovanjem na adaptivniji način uspevaju da zavodolje potrebe za samopoboljšanjem i samopotvrđivanjem, nego osobe sa kongruentnim niskim samopoštovanjem. Osobe sa kongruentnim i inkongruentnim visokim samopoštovanjem uglavnom se ne razlikuju u načinu reagovanja na (ne)uspeh, mada neki rezultati sugerišu da osobe sa inkongruentnim visokim samopoštovanjem imaju intenzivniju potrebu za samopoboljšanjem. Uslovno samopoštovanje uglavnom u interakciji sa eksplicitnim samopoštovanjem nije imalo velikog uticaja na reakcije na evaluaciju, ali jeste samostalno. Poređenje rezultata dobijenih pomoću implicitnog samopoštovanja i uslovnog samopoštovanja sugeriše da se radi o potpuno različitim aspektima kvaliteta samopoštovanja, koji na različit način utiču na dinamiku samopoboljšanja i samopotvrđivanja.</p> / <p>Individuals&rsquo; reactions to evaluation of their personality are the result of the need to maintain positive self-image &ndash; i.e. self-enhancement motive, and the need to confirm the existing self-image &ndash; i.e. self-verification motive. Contemporary research showed that, aside from explicit self-esteem, the expression of these motives is influenced by qualitative differences in self-esteem &ndash; i.e. the levels of implicit and contingent self-esteem. The aim of this research was to determine whether implicit and contingent self-esteem lead to different self-enhancing and self-verifying reactions among individuals with high and low explicit self-esteem, as well as to examine some other factors that might influence these motives.<br />Three hundred and forty one students took part in the experimental study in which they received bogus feedback on two ability tests. The feedback was either positive, negative or no feedback was provided. Half of the participants from all three groups were made to believe that the tests are measuring very important abilities, whereas others were made to believe that the tests are measuring mostly irrelevant abilities. Participants&rsquo; affective (depressiveness, anxiety, and anger) and cognitive reactions (internal and external attributions, perceived change between ideal and actual self-concept) were measured following feedback on the tests.<br />Significant differences in reactions to evaluative feedback were found between individuals with congruent and incongruent low self-esteem. Individuals with incongruent low self-esteem use more adaptive ways to satisfy needs for self-enhancement and self-verification than individuals with congruent low self-esteem. No differences in reactions to success and failure were found between individuals with congruent and incongruent high self-esteem, although some results suggest that persons with incongruent high self-esteem have more intensive need for self-enhancement. Interaction of contingent and explicit self-esteem did not influence reactions to evaluation to a large extent, but contingent self-esteem alone did. The comparison of results obtained with implicit and contingent self-esteem suggests that these are completely different and independent aspects of quality of self-esteem and that they influence the dynamics of self-enhancement and self-verification in a different manner.</p>

The existing literature in marketing and consumer behavior tends to adopt a somewhat static view of membership and belonging, focusing on the status uncertainty that surrounds new group aspirants. In the literature, the portrayal of becoming a member is one of a logical step-by-step process as members move toward the top of the social hierarchy and secure status. An underlying assumption of this process is that once an individual secures membership through status, that individual is no longer uncertain about their membership or belonging. This thesis presents an alternative to this static step-by-step view and introduces the idea of the belonging paradox. A belonging paradox is a recursive cycle of an unsolvable duality of simultaneous inclusion and exclusion that can result from idiosyncratic factors such as gender, race, disability or self-doubt. This thesis also develops a new conceptual framework or perspective on the concept of belonging by integrating Uncertainty-Identity Theory, Self-Verification Theory and Symbolic Self-Completion Theory into a more dynamic and fluid understanding about the nature of belonging. Through the introduction of the belonging paradox and the new conceptual framework of belonging, a more comprehensive understanding of belonging emerges. Specifically, the belonging paradox suggests that beyond the initial stages of striving for group membership, uncertainty of belonging can continue to be a pervasive, continuous struggle even for committed hardcore group members. Through an analysis of the skateboarding subculture, this thesis illustrates how members continuously construct and shape their own belonging experience within groups. It also demonstrates the different ways members use consumption to try to cope with the duality and constant tension of the belonging paradox as well as explores the link between uncertainty and the ability to play with identities. This leads to a number of theoretical and managerial contributions. / Thesis (Ph.D, Management) -- Queen's University, 2011-11-27 17:42:26.54