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Toward a Self-Evaluation Maintenance Model of Social Behavior

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Abstract

This chapter discusses social behavior through self-evaluation maintenance (SEM) model. It describes several studies to provide a feel for the kind of research that has been completed in an attempt to explore the predictions of the model. The SEM model is composed of two dynamic processes. Both the reflection process and the comparison process have as component variables the closeness of another and the quality of that other's performance. These two variables interact in affecting self-evaluation but do so in quite opposite ways in each of the processes Model establishes the comprehensiveness of the research and the interactive quality of its predictions. Next, the SEM model is fit into the perspective of related work, including self-theories, social comparison theory, and Cialdini's BIRGing research. The chapter reviews the epistemological status of the model. It discusses some of the implications of the research for a variety of areas in psychology.
... This dynamic is especially pronounced in competitive social environments, where social hierarchy plays a role in behavior. Those who feel they have higher status may devalue or dismiss others as a way to reinforce their perceived dominance (Tesser, 1988) Ignoring someone is also a passive-aggressive behavior, frequently tied to maintaining a sense of control in social interactions. By ignoring others, individuals may feel as though they are exerting control over the social dynamic, effectively determining who is worthy of attention (Leary, 1999). ...
... People who engage in these behaviors may be seeking to elevate their own sense of power or dominance in social settings, especially if they feel powerless in other areas of their life. These individuals may view social interactions as a battleground where they must assert their superiority to maintain or improve their standing (Tesser, 1988). ...
... The behaviors of one-upping, ignoring others, and attempting to control speech can all be traced to learned behaviors that are reinforced by societal expectations (Bandura, 1977). From a young age, individuals are taught to conform to certain social norms, which can sometimes prioritize competition and power over collaboration and empathy (Tesser, 1988). ...
Research Proposal
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Human behavior is complex, shaped by a mix of internal psychological factors, external societal influences, and interpersonal dynamics. Whether it’s someone trying to one-up you, ignoring you because they believe they are better, or attempting to control your thoughts and speech, these behaviors are often rooted in deeper psychological and social mechanisms. While each individual case may vary, several key factors typically drive these behaviors, including insecurity, a need for validation, power dynamics, and social conditioning.
... Numerous studies on adult samples demonstrate that social ostracism generates robust emotional, cognitive, and behavioral responses, which have been mostly explained and predicted using the temporal need threat model (Williams, 2007(Williams, , 2009. This model posits that ostracism experiences threaten four different fundamental needs, essential to grant personal well-being: the need to belong (Baumeister & Leary, 1995), the need to maintain high self-esteem (Steele, 1988;Tesser, 1988), the need to maintain the sense of control over one's interactions with others (Burger, 1992;Peterson et al., 1995), and the need to feel one's existence as meaningful and worthy of attention (Greenberg et al., 1986(Greenberg et al., , 1990(Greenberg et al., , 1992. ...
... Typically, moral behaviors boost one's moral self-concept (Gneezy, Imas, et al., 2012;Khan & Dhar, 2006), and moral transgressions damage one's sense of being a good, moral person (Smith et al., 2002). Because people are motivated to see themselves as good and moral (Steele, 1988;Strohminger & Nichols, 2014;Tesser, 1988), the moral self-regulatory process tends to guide them to behave morally and refrain from immoral acts (Bodner & Prelec, 2003;Savary & Goldsmith, 2020). ...
Article
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This research examines the effect of self-concept clarity (i.e., having self-beliefs that are clearly and confidently defined, internally consistent, and stable) on moral behavior. Seven preregistered studies (N = 3,373) document that low (vs. high) self-concept clarity decreases moral behavior (e.g., donation, volunteering, tax compliance, honesty in an incentivized game). This effect occurs because low self-concept clarity increases moral disengagement, leading people to behave in morally questionable manners without damaging their self-concept. As evidence for this proposed underlying mechanism, we show that the effect of self-concept clarity on moral behavior is mediated by state moral disengagement and attenuates (a) among people with low trait moral disengagement, (b) among people with high trait moral identity internalization, and (c) in the presence of an honor pledge cueing moral engagement. We then show that the effect holds only when a prosocial act is congruent with personal values. Overall, these findings contribute to the literature on self-concept and moral self-regulation and have implications for how to promote morality and curb unethical behavior in society.
... Taken together, positive work behaviors can result in perceived ostracism treatment from others. This result confirms social comparison theory (Festinger, 1954;Tesser, 1988) in that upward social comparisons elicit negative perceptions and behaviors toward the referent employee. Especially in team settings where team members are doing similar types of work within the same domain, upward social comparisons tend to evoke more contrastive effects than assimilative ones. ...
Article
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As the workplace becomes more team based, interpersonal relationships at work are a central topic that affects both employees and the organization. Despite ample evidence showing the detrimental effects of workplace ostracism on employees’ health and productivity, why someone is ostracized by others at work warrants more research. Based on social comparison theory, we predict that task proactivity could be perceived negatively and can elicit ostracism from team members; this effect is dependent upon the boundary condition of team envy. Furthermore, perceived coworker ostracism explains why task proactivity may turn into production deviance. We tested these predictions based on data from 630 employees in 131 teams collected in various industries in China. The results showed that individual-level task proactivity positively predicted coworker ostracism perceived by the proactive employee, and this relationship was moderated by team envy. Task proactivity was indirectly and positively related to production deviance via perceived coworker ostracism, especially in teams with high levels of team envy. Based on these results, we suggest that proactive employees need to be aware of possible unexpected interpersonal consequences in the workplace, given that proactive work behaviors may elicit unwanted and unintended treatment from team members. Managers should monitor team contextual factors, which may affect the extent to which good soldiers turn into bad apples.
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Researchers in psychology and management have recently examined what leads competitors to perceive that they are in a rivalry (e.g., repeated competitions) and what the consequences of rivalry are (e.g., better performance). Other researchers have long focused on the importance of social identity for how people evaluate themselves and others. In two studies, we connect and extend this past work by examining whether having the same identity as an opponent (specifically, gender or nationality) produces rivalry effects. In an online experiment, we found that sport competitors are more likely to perceive their same-gender opponents as rivals than their different-gender opponents (and this was especially the case for men). These stronger rivalry perceptions were predicted by competitors’ greater similarity, greater frequency of past competitions, and greater competitiveness with their same-gender opponents. Then, in an analysis of data from Major League Baseball (MLB), we found that batters from the Dominican Republic and the United States hit better when a same-nationality catcher was behind the plate. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of identity-based rivalry.
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Tested the hypothesis that empathy leads to altruistic rather than egoistic motivation to help. 44 female college students watched another female undergraduate receive electric shocks and were then given a chance to help her by taking the remaining shocks themselves. In each of 2 experiments, Ss' empathic emotion (low vs high) and their ease of escape from continuing to watch the victim suffer if they did not help (easy vs difficult) were manipulated in a 2 × 2 design. It was reasoned that if empathy led to altruistic motivation, Ss feeling a high degree of empathy for the victim should be as ready to help when escape without helping was easy as when it was difficult. But if empathy led to egoistic motivation, Ss feeling empathy should be more ready to help when escape was difficult than when it was easy. Results followed the former pattern when empathy was high and the latter pattern when empathy was low, supporting the hypothesis that empathy leads to altruistic rather than egoistic motivation to help. (19 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved).
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The tendency to "bask in reflected glory" (BIRG) by publicly announcing one's associations with successful others was investigated in 3 field experiments with more than 300 university students. All 3 studies showed this effect to occur even though the person striving to bask in the glory of a successful source was not involved in the cause of the source's success. Exp I demonstrated the BIRG phenomenon by showing a greater tendency for university students to wear school-identifying apparel after their school's football team had been victorious than nonvictorious. Exps II and III replicated this effect by showing that students used the pronoun we more when describing victory than a nonvictory of their school's football team. A model was developed asserting that the BIRG response represents an attempt to enhance one's public image. Exps II and III indicated, in support of this assertion, that the tendency to proclaim a connection with a positive source was strongest when one's public image was threatened. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved).
Article
Forty-three subjects were stimulated in the laboratory to "fear" and "anger," during which the following physiological reactions were recorded: (1) heart rate, (2) ballistocardiogram, (3) respiration rate, (4) face temperature, (5) hand temperature, (6) skin conductance, and (7) integrated muscle potential. The scores used were the maximum rise and maximum fall from the preceding resting level and the number of responses of a critical value per unit time. Of the 14 scores thus obtained, 7 showed significant discrimination between anger and fear. Diastolic blood pressure rises, heart rate falls, number of rises in skin conductance, and muscle potential increases, were greater for anger than for fear, whereas skin conductance increases, number of muscle potential increases, and respiration rate increases were greater for fear than for anger. Profile difference scores, computed from appropriate combinations of these differences, were found to be greater than zero in 42 of the 43 cases and to have a mean which deviated very significantly from zero, which rejects the null hypothesis that there is no difference in physiological reaction between anger and fear. The patterns obtained for anger and fear argue against the Arnold proposal that anger is a strong reaction of both the sympathetic and parasympathetic branches of the autonomic nervous systems, whereas fear is but a sympathetic reaction. Another finding was the very low correlations among the physiological reactions and the significantly higher intercorrelations for anger than for fear, which was interpreted as indicating greater physiological integration during anger. Between-subject variance was significantly greater than within-subject variance, which supports the findings of Lacey and Malmo that there is considerable specificity in physiological response patterns. The physiological response patterns of anger were suggested as being similar to those produced by injections of epinephrine and nor-epinephrine combined, and those of fear as being similar to injections of epinephrine. Copyright (C) 1953 by American Psychosomatic Society
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One's self-definition is hypothesized to change, in the service of self-esteem maintenance, as a function of the relative performance and the psychological similarity (closeness) and dissimilarity (distance) of others. Specifically, a dimension should become less self-definitional if another performs better on that dimension, particularly if that other is psychologically similar. Fifty-two subjects were given an opportunity to perform on a "social sensitivity" task and an "esthetic judgment" task with an experimental confederate. Half of the subjects were led to believe (on the basis of pretest materials) that the confederate was very similar to them, i.e., close, and the remaining subjects were led to believe that the other was dissimilar, i.e., distant. Subjects found that they performed at the same level as the confederate on one of the tasks and that the confederate outperformed them on the other task. The dependent variable, self-definition, was measured by task choice, an interview regarding the self-definitional character of the two dimensions, and the subjects' self-descriptions on these dimensions. The hypothesis is supported on the choice and the self-description measures.
Article
A recently developed self-evaluation maintenance model suggests that relative quality of another's performance and the relevance of the performance dimension to one's self-definition will interact in determining how close one will choose to be to that other. Specifically, the better another's performance on a dimension relevant to an individual's self-definition, the more threatening this would be for the individual. Thus the individual should progressively decrease interpersonal closeness toward that other with the other's improving performance. However, when the dimension in question is not relevant to the individual, as the other's performance increases interpersonal closeness should also increase. Male subjects engaged in a question-answering competition with a confederate. The questions dealt with a topic that was important to the subject (high relevance) or not important (low relevance). All subjects were given feedback that had performed at about the 50th centile. The confederate's performance differed across subjects: 20th, 40th, 60th, or 80th centile. Although an affective measure was not influenced by these manipulations, the predicted interaction between relative performance and relevance held for behavioral, behavioroid, and cognitive measures of closeness, but only when the confederate outperformed the subject.
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Earlier experiments (see Wheeler et al., 1969) showed that when a person has a vague idea that he is somewhere in the middle of the group with respect to an ability, he will choose the person ranking highest in the ability as a comparison other when given the chance to gain more information about his position. These experiments utilized a private comparison situation where the outcome of the comparison would be known only by the subject. It was predicted that in a public situation, where comparison occurs through compettition with another member while others evaluate the outcome, there would be more defensive avoidance of the highest ranking person than in the private situation. It was also predicted that in the public situation a person with high self-esteem would be more likely to choose the highest in ability as a comparison other while those with low self-esteem would choose someone lower in ability. Further, it was expected that in the public situation, defensive avoidance of the highest ranking person, and the effect of self-esteem would be greater when a person was certain about his standing in the group. An experiment was designed to test these predictions. The predictions were supported for male subjects while females showed some deviations from the predictions.
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Subjects were tested in groups of nine for the presence of the positively valued trait of intellectual flexibility (Pos conditions) or the negatively valued trait of intellectual rigidity (Neg conditions). The subjects were told the approximate range of the group's test scores (R conditions) or they were not told the range (NR conditions). After the tests were scored, all subjects were told that they ranked fifth in the group of nine and were given their own scores. In the first variation of the experiment, the subjects were then asked to indicate which other score in the group (according to rank) they would most like to see. The subjects were then asked to indicate a second choice. It was predicted that: (1) NR subjects would attempt to determine the range by first choosing the highest numerical score, and (2) among R subjects, those in the Pos condition would choose a higher score for their first choice, while those in the Neg condition would choose a lower score, both groups thus comparing in the positively valued direction, and (3) among R subjects, the most frequent choice in the positively valued direction would be of the most similar other. All predictions were supported.
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In a 2 × 2 factorial design, goal valence, and assumed similarity to someone better off than oneself were manipulated and locus of social comparison measured. Comparison with someone better off than oneself was found to be more frequent under (a) conditions of positive than of negative goal valence, and (b) conditions of low than of high assumed similarity. These results appear partially explicable in terms of two postulated ends served by the social comparison of abilitics—one self-evaluative and the other self-enhancing. Data on degree of interest expressed in the scores of others provide independent support for this interpretation. The major difference between Festinger's and the present conceptualization involves the role of similarity in mediating self-evaluation. Within reasonably broad limits, it appears to be the positive instance, rather than the similar one, which affords accurate self-evaluation.