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Motivated change in the self-concept
Abstract
Two studies suggest that the content of people's self-conceptions at a given time may be influenced by the perceived desirability of different attributes. Subjects induced to theorize that a given attribute—extraversion or introversion—was related to academic success came to view themselves as possessing relatively higher degrees of that attribute. We propose that motivation may provoke such changes in temporary self-conceptions by guiding the memory search among the wide array of potentially relevant self-conceptions and leading to the activation of only those self-conceptions that are consistent with the currently desired view of the self.
... Kunda & Sanitioso, 1989;Sanitioso, Kunda, & Fong, 1990). Doing so allows them to maintain a positive view of self. ...
... Finally, in Study 5 we explored whether experimental manipulations designed to influence people's self-descriptions achieve their success because they prompt individuals to revise their definitions of the relevant traits. In particular, past researchers have found that describing a trait as desirable causes people to claim to possess it to a greater degree, whereas characterizing a trait as undesirable has the opposite effect (Kunda & Sanitioso, 1989;Sanitioso et al., 1990). In Study 5 we explored whether such changes in self-descriptions were accompanied, and perhaps explained, by revisions in the trait definitions that people used in their judgments. ...
... Consider the work of Kunda and Sanitioso (1989), in which the researchers altered whether participants saw themselves as extraverted or introverted. They did so by exposing participants to two different versions of a fictitious social science study. ...
Descriptions of self (e.g., “I am dominant”) may reflect not only a person's behavioral tendencies but also idiosyncratic definitions of the social concepts and categories being considered. Five studies revealed that participants who differed in their self-ratings along trait dimensions also tended to associate different behaviors and performances with those traits. For example, participants who described themselves as dominant tended to emphasize desirable over undesirable behaviors and characteristics in their definitions of the trait, whereas self-described nondominants highlighted the opposite. Participants' self-ratings on dominance were also influenced by making positive or negative examples of dominant behavior salient to them. Moreover, when participants were induced to shift self-descriptions in self-serving ways, they tended to do so by revising their prototype of the trait in question. Discussion centers on the implications of these findings for the prediction of behavior and the interpretation of some social science results.
... Effectivement, des éléments empiriques continuent de souligner que nous n'abandonnons pas facilement nos croyances, et que nous sommes prêts à nous réfugier dans l'irréfutabilité de nos croyances afin de les préserver (Friesen, Campbell, & Kay, 2015). Kunda (1990) recense un grand nombre de travaux mettant en lumière le mécanisme de raisonnement motivé (e.g., Kruglanski & Ajzen, 1983 ;Kunda & Sanitioso, 1989 n'est pas un hasard si l'on en croit la théorie des métaphores conceptuelles (Lakoff, 1993). ...
... Pour manipuler le besoin d'unicité, nous nous sommes inspirés d'un protocole destiné à modifier le concept de soi en direction d'un attribut désiré (voir Kunda & Sanitioso, 1989 ;Sanitioso, Kunda, & Fong, 1990). Pour cela, nous allons faire croire aux participants qu'un attribut spécifique (i.e., les gens qui cherchent activement à se différencier vs. à être similaires aux autres) est lié, d'après la recherche scientifique, à un ensemble de conséquences positives (e.g., meilleure réussite dans les études, plus haut salaire, meilleure qualité de vie, etc.) et nous leur demanderons de trouver des raisons expliquant ces résultats. ...
... Pour cela, nous allons faire croire aux participants qu'un attribut spécifique (i.e., les gens qui cherchent activement à se différencier vs. à être similaires aux autres) est lié, d'après la recherche scientifique, à un ensemble de conséquences positives (e.g., meilleure réussite dans les études, plus haut salaire, meilleure qualité de vie, etc.) et nous leur demanderons de trouver des raisons expliquant ces résultats. Cette procédure devrait modifier le concept de soi des participants et les motiver à se percevoir comme quelqu'un qui cherche à se distinguer vs. à se conformer aux autres (Kunda & Sanitioso, 1989 ;Sanitioso et al., 1990). ...
Dans cette thèse, nous défendons l'idée que la motivation à se distinguer d'autrui (et plus précisément, le besoin d'unicité) pourrait favoriser l'adoption et l'augmentation des croyances aux théories du complot. Cette relation s'expliquerait par le fait que les individus ayant un fort besoin d'unicité auraient davantage tendance à être attirés par ce qui rare ou inaccessible, et nous argumentons que c'est justement ce qui caractérise les récits conspirationnistes (e.g., impression de détenir des informations secrètes). Nous présenterons 12 études ayant pour but de tester empiriquement cette hypothèse.Parmi les principaux résultats, nous avons montré que les individus disposant d'un niveau de croyances aux théories du complot supérieur à la moyenne pensent avoir un niveau de croyances à ces théories supérieur à celui attribué aux autres (Etudes 4, 5 et 6), ce qui correspond à un prérequis nécessaire à la formulation de notre hypothèse. Nous avons ensuite mis en évidence que plus les personnes possèdent un fort besoin d'unicité, plus elles croient aux théories du complot (Etude 8). Conformément à notre hypothèse, nous avons également démontré que les personnes qui croient aux théories du complot ont plus tendance à penser détenir des informations rares et secrètes à propos de divers complots (Etude 9). Une méta-analyse conduite sur deux études testant le rôle causal du besoin d'unicité sur les croyances aux théories du complot (Etudes 11 et 12) suggère enfin qu'une hausse situationnelle du besoin d'unicité favoriserait la formation des croyances aux théories du complot.Dans l'ensemble, il semblerait donc que le besoin d'unicité intervienne dans l'adoption des croyances aux théories du complot, même si cet effet semble de taille relativement modeste. En conclusion, cette thèse fait partie des rares travaux soulignant le rôle des explications motivationnelles dans l'adhésion aux théories du complot.
... If a clinician or attorney precedes an individual's self-report by stating that specific symptoms are frequently reported among other individuals under similar conditions, those symptoms will more likely be reported. Kunda and Sanitioso (1989) showed that by indicating to subjects that certain attributes (introversion or extroversion) were more desirable (related to success), subjects came to see themselves as possessing more,of that desired attribute. ...
... Further, by establishing a preference or value for certain traits, we can influence the facility with which those traits will be reported (Kunda & Sanitioso, 1989). This finding is especially salient in the light of specific behaviors by physicians, scientists, and attorneys following a perceived toxic exposure. ...
Reactions to chemical exposures often include fears of future illness, cancerphobia, reports of multiple chemical sensitivity, and other ill-defined complaints. Frequently, these complaints occur at levels of exposure not known to cause physiological harm. Although frequently dismissed as hysterical or hypochondriacal reactions, these complaints, along with other indefinite symptoms, may be better understood in terms of biases in perception and reporting. In this paper, we outline various sources of perceptual and response biases including prior beliefs, the media, influential others, reconstructed personal histories, self-perceptions, and the forensic environment. It is recommended that a thorough understanding of symptom-reporting and psychological distress following a chemical exposure involves consideration of these issues.
... One way to reduce this discrepancy is to engage in cognitively biased self-serving processes. Specifically, research has shown that individuals who want to achieve a desirable outcome (vs not) are more likely to engage in a variety of biased cognitive processes to assure themselves that the desired outcome is achievable (Jain and Maheswaran, 2000;Kunda, 1990;Kunda and Sanitioso, 1989). For example, individuals who had academic success goals and were told that academic success was associated with either extroverted or introverted personality traits actually viewed themselves as possessing a high level of whichever trait they believed was associated with academic success (Kunda and Sanitioso, 1989). ...
... Specifically, research has shown that individuals who want to achieve a desirable outcome (vs not) are more likely to engage in a variety of biased cognitive processes to assure themselves that the desired outcome is achievable (Jain and Maheswaran, 2000;Kunda, 1990;Kunda and Sanitioso, 1989). For example, individuals who had academic success goals and were told that academic success was associated with either extroverted or introverted personality traits actually viewed themselves as possessing a high level of whichever trait they believed was associated with academic success (Kunda and Sanitioso, 1989). As another example, consumers who had an active goal to maintain a positive attitude toward a brand engaged in more elaborate counter-argumentation to a goalinconsistent message than those who did not have the same goal (Jain and Maheswaran, 2000). ...
Purpose
This study aims to extend the previous research on contagion and proposes an integrative paradigm in which consumer goals and contagion recipient factors are identified as the key variables leading to the emergence of the contagion phenomenon. When a consumer has an active goal, a product touched by goal-congruent sources leads to positive product evaluation and enhances consumer performance when the product is used.
Design/methodology/approach
This research conducted five experimental studies in online and offline retail settings to examine the effect of contagion on evaluations of contagion objects and performance in goal-related tasks.
Findings
Across five studies, the authors demonstrated that the activation of a goal leads to contagion-based product evaluation and performance enhancement effects. The authors theorized and showed that the contagion-based process triggered during goal pursuit led to a more favorable evaluation of contagion products (Studies 1, 2 and 3). The authors also showed that enhanced consumers’ commitment toward a goal, which in turn led to enhanced performance in a real task that contributed to achieving one’s goal (Study 4). These effects emerged only when the object was physically touched by a goal-congruent contagion source and were more pronounced for the consumers who experience a high (vs low) degree of goal discrepancy (Study 5).
Research limitations/implications
The current research examined the contagion phenomenon in a few predetermined goal domains (e.g. health improvement goals, career success goals, marriage success goals). Although the authors found consistent effects across different types of goals, future research can examine a more comprehensive set of consumer goals and improve the limitation of the current research to generalize the goal-based contagion phenomenon to various consumer goals.
Practical implications
This study suggests that it is important for retailers, in particular sellers and buyers in the secondhand markets, to understand consumer goals and prepare an appropriate contagion environment for favorable evaluation of their offerings. One possible implication is that sellers may be best served as priming certain goals. The findings also indicate that secondhand sellers may be well served to emphasize seller characteristics in certain instances and de-emphasize them in others to maximize sales.
Originality/value
This research proposes a new variable, namely, goal activation, and presents an integrative contagion paradigm that not only helps explain previous research findings but also offers a new perspective on the contagion phenomenon.
... To manipulate the need for uniqueness, we adapted a procedure used in the domain of motivated self-concept (Kunda & Sanitioso, 1989;Sanitioso, Kunda, & Fong, 1990). In this previous work, Kunda and Sanitioso showed that people who were led to believe that being extraverted (or introverted) was related to positive consequences were more motivated to think about themselves as extraverted (or introverted). ...
... who search actively to be similar to others, experimental condition randomly determined) benefit from a number of advantages (e.g., better academic success, better quality of life, etc.). To strengthen this manipulation and in line with Kunda and Sanitioso (1989), participants were also asked to list three reasons that could, in their opinion, explain these advantages. After completing this first task, participants moved to the same belief in a conspiracy theory measure as the one used in Study 3 (α = .88). ...
... Prior research has not exogenously manipulated both motivation and specificity and thus has been unable to test this interaction. Some work in the motivated cognition literature has manipulated the importance of a single trait and measured either self-perceptions (Kunda & Sanitioso, 1989) or perceptions of others (Klein & Kunda, 1992). Yet, no research, to our knowledge, has manipulated the motivation to possess a single trait and then compared self-assessments with reality. ...
... Participants completed two ostensibly unrelated surveys on personality traits and leadership. Survey 1 manipulated the motivation to possess introversion by manipulating its importance (Kunda & Sanitioso, 1989). Participants read about one trait that helps people achieve success. ...
Are overconfident beliefs driven by the motivation to view oneself positively? We test the relationship between motivation and overconfidence using two distinct, but often conflated measures: better-than-average (BTA) beliefs and overplacement. Our results suggest that motivation can indeed affect these faces of overconfidence, but only under limited conditions. Whereas BTA beliefs are inflated by motivation, introducing some specificity and clarity to the standards of assessment (Experiment 1) or to the trait’s definition (Experiments 2 and 3) reduces or eliminates this bias in judgment overall. We find stronger support for a cognitive explanation for overconfidence, which emphasizes the effect of task difficulty. The difficulty of possessing a desirable trait (Experiment 4) or succeeding on math and logic problems (Experiment 5) affects self-assessment more consistently than does motivation. Finally, we find the lack of an objective standard for vague traits allows people to create idiosyncratic definitions and view themselves as better than others in their own unique ways (Experiment 6). Overall, the results suggest motivation’s effect on BTA beliefs is driven more by idiosyncratic construals of assessment than by self-enhancing delusion. They also suggest that by focusing on vague measures (BTA rather than overplacement) and vague traits, prior research may have exaggerated the role of motivation in overconfidence.
... To manipulate the need for uniqueness, we adapted a procedure used in the domain of motivated self-concept (Kunda & Sanitioso, 1989;Sanitioso, Kunda, & Fong, 1990). In this previous work, Kunda and Sanitioso showed that people who were led to believe that being extraverted (or introverted) was related to positive consequences were more motivated to think about themselves as extraverted (or introverted). ...
... who search actively to be similar to others, experimental condition randomly determined) benefit from a number of advantages (e.g., better academic success, better quality of life, etc.). To strengthen this manipulation and in line with Kunda and Sanitioso (1989), participants were also asked to list three reasons that could, in their opinion, explain these advantages. After completing this first task, participants moved to the same belief in a conspiracy theory measure as the one used in Study 3 (α = .88). ...
In the current research, we investigated whether belief in conspiracy theories satisfies people’s need for uniqueness. We found that the tendency to believe in conspiracy theories was associated with the feeling of possessing scarce information about the situations explained by the conspiracy theories (Study 1) and higher need for uniqueness (Study 2). A further two studies using two different manipulations of need for uniqueness (Studies 3 and 4), showed that people in a high need for uniqueness condition displayed higher conspiracy belief than people in a low need for uniqueness condition. This conclusion is strengthened by a small-scale meta-analysis. These studies suggest that conspiracy theories may serve people’s desire to be unique, highlighting a motivational underpinning of conspiracy belief.
... Motivated Self-Perception (MSP; Sanitioso, Kunda, & Fong, 1990) is the perception of socially desirable attributes as true of one's self (e.g., Kunda, 1987). MSP has been found to affect self-ratings (Kunda & Sanitioso, 1989), autobiographical memory (e.g., Brunot & Sanitioso, 2004), desirable behaviour (e.g., Augustinova, Collange, Sanitioso, & Musca, 2011), and even implicit self associations (Peters & Gawronski, 2011). MSP research has demonstrated that inducing the desirability of a characteristic can result in the perception of this characteristic as being part of the self at explicit, remembered, and implicit levels. ...
... The typical MSP paradigm was developed by Kunda and Sanitioso (1989) who had student participants read that Extraversion (E) or Introversion (I) was associated with academic success and attempt to explain the finding. The students then completed a purportedly unrelated measure of personality and demonstrated higher self-ratings for the desirable trait (e.g., E or I, respectively). ...
Motivated Self-Perception (MSP) facilitates the positive perception of the self via the endorsement of desirable characteristics, selective recall of autobiographical memories, and performance of desirable behaviour. Peters and Gawronski (2011) proposed a model of MSP as “hypothesis-driven” self-construal integrating implicit and explicit self-concepts, motivation, and autobiographical memory. The current study provides the first complete test of this model. One hundred and twenty-seven participants read a summary of a fictional study before completing measures of motivation, personality self-ratings, autobiographical memory, and implicit self-personality associations. Explicit self-concept, autobiographical memory, and the implicit self-personality association were affected by the manipulation, consistent with predictions. Results also revealed that implicit self-personality associations were predicted by motivation and autobiographical memory, providing evidence for the proposed model of MSP, and further evidence for the interconnectedness of implicit and explicit self-constructs. Finally, these results are interpreted as evidence for the effect of MSP-based self-enhancement across all levels of the self.
... To manipulate the need for uniqueness, we adapted a procedure used in the domain of motivated self-concept (Kunda & Sanitioso, 1989;Sanitioso, Kunda, & Fong, 1990). In this previous work, Kunda and Sanitioso showed that people who were led to believe that being extraverted (or introverted) was related to positive consequences were more motivated to think about themselves as extraverted (or introverted). ...
... who search actively to be similar to others, experimental condition randomly determined) benefit from a number of advantages (e.g., better academic success, better quality of life, etc.). To strengthen this manipulation and in line with Kunda and Sanitioso (1989), participants were also asked to list three reasons that could, in their opinion, explain these advantages. After completing this first task, participants moved to the same belief in a conspiracy theory measure as the one used in Study 3 (α = .88). ...
In the current research, we investigated whether belief in conspiracy theories satisfies people’s need for uniqueness. We found that the tendency to believe in conspiracy theories was associated with the feeling of possessing scarce information about the situations explained by the conspiracy theories (Study 1) and higher need for uniqueness (Study 2). Further two studies using two different manipulations of need for uniqueness (Studies 3 and 4) showed that people in a high need for uniqueness condition displayed higher conspiracy belief than people in a low need for uniqueness condition. This conclusion is strengthened by a small-scale meta-analysis. These studies suggest that conspiracy theories may serve people’s desire to be unique, highlighting a motivational underpinning of conspiracy belief.
... For example, when scientific arguments are written in ways that are accessible to non-scientists, people are more likely to overestimate their knowledge, and less likely to defer to experts; this is known as the "comprehensibility effect" (Scharrer et al., 2014). Motivated reasoning -that is, the effect when one's reasoning is subconsciously biased by a desire; in this case, the desire to believe that one is competent -may also have a role to play in people's overestimation of their competence (Kunda & Sanitioso, 1989;Dunning et al., 1989). Moreover, some research supports the claim, known as the "Dunning-Kruger effect", that those who lack competence are more likely to overestimate their competence (Dunning, 2011). ...
... Another is self-enhancement. People tend to have inflated self-assessments of the extent to which they possess and manifest socially desirable traits (Dunning, Meyerwotz & Holtzberg 1989;Kunda and Sanitioso 1989;Gilovich 1991). To the extent that intellectual humility is socially desirable, we should expect most people to think of themselves as humbler than they actually are because this is how they want to be perceived by others. ...
While there are many competing accounts and scales of intellectual humility, philosophers and psychologists are generally united in treating it as an epistemically beneficial disposition of individual agents. I call the research guided by this supposition the traditional approach to studying intellectual humility. The traditional approach is entirely understandable in light of recent findings that individual differences in intellectual humility are associated with various deleterious epistemic tendencies. Nonetheless, I argue that its near monopoly has resulted in an underestimation of important limitations of human cognition. In particular, it neglects the fact that intellectual arrogance can be both deeply recalcitrant and significantly beneficial for bounded cognitive agents whose reliance on one another is profound. I propose to integrate these insights into the study of intellectual humility by treating it as a collective virtue that gets manifested in the structure of epistemic environments. More specifically, it is an interactive virtue that harnesses and constrains intellectual arrogance to yield benefits for both individuals and collectives. I claim that this can happen only within humbling environments, such as forecasting tournaments and open institutional science.
... Johnson et al. (1985) suggested that both cognitive and motivational factors are involved in the acceptance of personality feedback. In the context of the present experiments, it can be suggested that the tendency to use a positive test strategy results in more confirming evidence for general than for specific personality descriptions-a cognitive factor-but this tendency is affected by the favorability of the feedback such that people search for confirming evidence more thoroughly for favorable than for unfavorable feedback-a motivational effect, or an interaction of cognitive and motivational factors ( Kunda & Sanitioso, 1989). ...
Cognitive-response analysis was carried out to investigate people's acceptance of personality feedback. In 3 studies with 223 male and female college students 18–38 years old, participants generated more confirming than disconfirming evidence for personality feedback. Availability of confirmatory evidence was found to be closely related to the rated accuracy of the feedback. Both rated accuracy and amount of confirmatory evidence were greater for general than specific and for true than false feedback. Analyses of covariance showed that availability of confirmatory evidence accounted for the effects of general versus specific and true versus false feedback on rated accuracy. Findings are discussed in terms of the use of positive test strategies and the influence of confirmatory evidence retrieval on working self-concepts.
... When asked to make a self-description on a set of bipolar scales, as Nisbett et al. asked their participants to do, the participants were essentially being presented with two hypotheses; "Am I X ?" "Am I not X ?" But people confront such questions with a confirmatory hypothesis testing set and search through their autobiographical memories for confirmatory evidence, particularly when motivated to answer the question affirmatively (cf.Kunda et al., 1993;Kunda & Sanitioso, 1989;Sanitioso, Kunda & Fong, 1990). Thus, they could probably justify a partial yes answer to both questions about themselves, and so, selecting the "it depends" option was reasonable for participants in Nisbett et al. ...
The relationship between trait ambiguity and self–peer agreement in personality judgment was examined. In Study 1, self–peer agreement was lower on ambiguous traits (those with many behavioral referents) than on unambiguous ones (those with few behavioral referents). This finding was partially moderated by the level of friendship between peers. These results suggest that people disagree in their judgments because they use idiosyncratic trait definitions when making judgments on ambiguous traits. Study 2 tested this explanation by exploring self–peer agreement when participant pairs were forced to use the same trait definition versus different ones when judging themselves and each other. Forcing participants to use the same trait definition increased the degree to which their judgments covaried with one another. Discussion centers on the cognitive and motivational forces that can influence the degree to which personality judgments differ.
... and Violent Extremism. Although NFC has typically been conceived as a stable individual difference, situational influences and associated motivations can influence trait variables in systematic ways (27). It has long been noted that threat perceptions and motives to resolve ambiguity can prompt various cognitive and/or motivational strategies that are relatively rigid and simple (18,28). ...
Understanding the psychological processes that drive violent extremism is a pressing global issue. Across six studies, we demonstrate that perceived cultural threats lead to violent extremism because they increase people's need for cognitive closure (NFC). In general population samples (from Denmark, Afghanistan, Pakistan, France, and an international sample) and a sample of former Mujahideen in Afghanistan, single-level and multilevel mediation analyses revealed that NFC mediated the association between perceived cultural threats and violent extremist outcomes. Further, in comparisons between the sample of former Afghan Mujahideen and the general population sample from Afghanistan following the known-group paradigm, the former Mujahideen scored significantly higher on cultural threat, NFC, and violent extremist outcomes. Moreover, the proposed model successfully differentiated former Afghan Mujahideen participants from the general Afghan participants. Next, two preregistered experiments provided causal support for the model. Experimentally manipulating the predictor (cultural threat) in Pakistan led to higher scores on the mediator (NFC) and dependent variables (violent extremist outcomes). Finally, an experiment conducted in France demonstrated the causal effect of the mediator (NFC) on violent extremist outcomes. Two internal meta-analyses using state-of-the-art methods (i.e., meta-analytic structural equation modeling and pooled indirect effects analyses) further demonstrated the robustness of our results across the different extremist outcomes, designs, populations, and settings. Cultural threat perceptions seem to drive violent extremism by eliciting a need for cognitive closure.
... Our results are in line with the previous studies of which indicated that there exist a positive correlation between all the five elements of self-esteem and emotional intelligence. (Hasanvand & khaledian, 2012 ;Kunda & Sanitioso, 1989 ;Young & Mroczek, 2003). There should be more focus on self-esteem and emotional intelligence to build better for healthy functioning. ...
Emotional intelligence is our ability to identify, understand, evaluate, control and express our emotions as well as the emotions of others. It helps us to deal with our mood swings, get rid of anxiety and avoid depression. It affects our outlook and attitude to develop quality relationships, a skill everyone should have. It helps us to improve self motivation and more effective communication skills. The ability of emotional intelligence is mainly influences by self-esteem or feeling of worthiness. Self-Esteem is the way we perceive ourselves and our self value. This study was conducted to examine the association between self esteem and emotional intelligence. A purposive sample of 100 adolescents with the mean age range of 12 to 17 years was taken in present study. Self esteem scale by Rosenberg (1963) and emotional intelligence scale (EIS) by Singh (2004) were used to fulfill the purpose of the study. Results of the study revealed that self esteem is significantly associated with all the dimensions of emotional intelligence except motivation and social awareness in a positive direction. Feeling of worthiness helps or develops self regulation, self awareness, social skill, and overall emotional intelligence. In adolescence period these two positive constructs e.g. self esteem and emotional intelligence should be focused and nurtured for healthy functioning among adolescence.
... Si les schémas de soi sont flexibles en fonction de l'accessibilité des informations en mémoire, un facteur a été montré comme particulièrement déterminant dans l'accessibilité de certaines connaissances spécifiques : le contexte (Kunda & Sanitioso, 1989 ;Neisser & Jopling, 1997). Cela signifie que différentes caractéristiques connexes au Soi vont être plus ou moins saillantes en fonction du contexte dans lequel elles sont activées. ...
Ce travail de thèse est pensé comme une contribution originale à la recherche sur le handicap, en adoptant une approche neuro-socio-cognitive de la perception sociale. L’objectif général est de poursuivre l’analyse des facteurs contribuant à comprendre les barrières à l’inclusion sociale auxquelles font face les personnes en situation de handicap. Dans ces recherches, nous discutons l’opérationnalisation du handicap comme une catégorie univoque. Nous abordons également la question centrale de la mesure en psychologie sociale et comment celle-ci peut approcher au mieux la réalité sociale. A partir de ces réflexions, ce travail de thèse suit une ambition double. D’une part, élargir l’objet d’étude du handicap en prenant en compte l’(in)visibilité de la déficience. D’autre part, diversifier les outils d’investigation concernant notre objet d’étude. Pour répondre à ceci, la thèse s’organise autour de deux volets principaux. Le premier volet, centré sur la perception de Soi des individus en situation de handicap, propose quatre études dont deux font l’objet de publications. Globalement, les résultats mettent en évidence le rôle déterminant de facteurs subjectifs, tels que les jugements de soi en terme de compétence. Le deuxième volet de cette thèse se focalise sur l’étude de la perception sociale à l’égard des personnes en situation de handicap. Il s’organise autour de sept études dont quatre s’inscrivent dans deux publications. Les résultats mettent en évidence l’impact du handicap sur la perception d’autrui, modulé par la visibilité de celui-ci. Pour mettre en évidence l’ensemble de ces résultats, les études se sont appuyées sur des outils relevant de la psychologie cognitive, de la cognition sociale et des neurosciences sociales. Cette approche neuro-socio-cognitive permet d’aborder les questions soulevées par le handicap de façon transversale tel que le préconise actuellement la recherche dans ce domaine.
... Anticipated regret is useful in explaining why those who are vaccine-hesitant and who believe in conspiracy theories about the pandemic and the vaccines continue to hold on to their distorted perceptions. Not feeling anticipated regret intensifies their skewed views (i.e., lack of regret about not getting vaccinated is further justified), validating a confirmation bias that they already have (Kunda & Sanitioso, 1989). Confirmation bias occurs when there is an inclination to recall and understand information that corroborates our prevailing beliefs (Nickerson, 1998). ...
A national survey (N = 1025) conducted in August 2021 reveals that Americans’ belief in misinformation about COVID-19 was negatively associated with vaccine acceptance. Importantly, the more participants believe in misinformation, the less anticipated regret they experience for not getting vaccinated. Reduced anticipated regret is associated with lower levels of vaccination intention and vaccine acceptance. To counteract the negative impact of misinformation, this study reveals the potential of an under-researched emotion in overcoming vaccine hesitancy.
... Thus, the activated information seems to be influenced by the context in which activation is triggered. This idea is supported by Kunda and Sanitioso (1989), ...
Faking on personality assessments remains an unsolved issue, raising major concerns regarding their validity and fairness. Although there is a large body of quantitative research investigating the response process of faking on personality assessments, for both rating scales (RS) and multidimensional forced choice (MFC), only a few studies have yet qualitatively investigated the faking cognitions when responding to MFC in a high‐stakes context (e.g., Sass, Frick, Reips, & Wetzel, 2020). Yet, it could be argued that only when we have a process model that adequately describes the response decisions in high stakes, can we begin to extract valid and useful information from assessments. Thus, this qualitative study investigated the faking cognitions when responding to MFC personality assessment in a high‐stakes context. Through cognitive interviews with N=32 participants, we explored and identified factors influencing the test‐takers’ decisions regarding specific items and blocks, and factors influencing the willingness to engage in faking in general. Based on these findings, we propose a new response process model of faking forced‐choice items, the Activate‐Rank‐Edit‐Submit (A‐R‐E‐S) model. We also make five recommendations for practice of high‐stakes assessments using MFC. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
... While unique in their definitions, we connect these terms to describe the mental processes that relate to the individual self. They each can be constructed and reconstructed in response to external or internal motivations [22,37,49,66]. Our study describes how major life events can cause the construction or reconstruction of identity through the mental processes described above by shifting how one views oneself and the world around them. ...
Major life events can cause great upheaval in one’s life. Many people perceive their identities to change due to major life events. During identity shifts, impression management and self-presentation, online communities, and social media affordances can allow individuals to better facilitate their experiences. To examine how people perceive their identity to change during major events and how they use social media in the process, we interviewed 28 participants who recently experienced major life events. We found that many people perceived their identity to change through various avenues that they felt were important to their identity: mental processes, identity roles, and identity fulfillment. However, some people perceive their identity to be maintained rather than changed. During identity changes or maintenance, participants utilized impression management and self-presentation to curate their online presence. Participants also used online communities to build relationships with similar others or virtual friends and enable more connections via what we call the domino effect. Social media sites also provided the affordances of editability, visibility control, and spreadability, which can help ease life transition and identity change processes.
... For the purpose of connecting the organizational level of analysis with the individual level of analysis, we may observe that research on motivated reasoning and self-perception has shown that when people perceive that a certain characteristic is valued, these perceptions influence their current self-concept, and lead to the activation of those self-conceptions that are consistent with the currently desired view of the self (Kunda & Sanitioso, 1989;Schlenker & Wowra, 2003). Thus, if an organizational mindset (i.e., fixed or growth) affects people's beliefs about the qualities that are valued in the organization, people will tend to display these qualities in a wish to be accepted and to belong. ...
... In particular, performing tensions strengthen the positive link from UPB to OBSE. According to self-enhancement theory, an individual can selectively perceive or construe ambiguous information to make themself more accomplished and capable (Kunda & Rasyid, 1989), while ignoring or avoiding information that threatens their positive self-conception (Sedikides & Green, 2000). As performing tensions signal ambiguity, employees who engage in UPB are prone to highlight their efforts in terms of facilitating the organization's functions and to neglect the immoral aspect of these behaviors (Thau et al., 2015;Umphress & Bingham, 2011). ...
This research examines the mixed work-to-family spillover effects of unethical pro-organizational behavior. Drawing on conservation of resources theory and the work–home resources model, we develop a dual-pathway model to explain such effects. Based on a three-wave field study involving 214 respondents in China, we find engagement in unethical pro-organizational behavior to be positively associated with employees’ organization-based self-esteem and stress at work, which in turn, leads to work-to-family positive spillover and work-to-family conflict, respectively. We also find that performing tensions moderate the mixed effects of unethical pro-organizational behavior on organization-based self-esteem and work stress and the indirect effects of unethical pro-organizational behavior on work-to-family positive spillover and work-to-family conflict. Our findings have theoretical implications for business ethics scholars and practical implications for managers.
... In turn, this highly accessible and salient goal-related information (e.g., memories that disconfirm negative self-view) then influences construal of one's own characteristics. In this way, autobiographical memories can be recruited to satisfy a frustrated need (Kunda and Sanitioso 1989;Sanitioso et al. 1990). Similarly, recent experimental work conducted by Waterschoot and colleagues (2020) reported that participants high in resilience exhibited an attentional bias for competence-related words after receiving negative feedback on a puzzle task. ...
The present investigation examined whether autobiographical memory can function to regulate competence need satisfaction. Across two experiments, we examined how autobiographical memories affected perceived competence after competence was threatened or satisfied in a previous task. Experiment 1 results from an undergraduate student sample (N = 150) indicated that reflecting on a competence-satisfying memory increased perceived competence for all participants, but this increase was particularly large for participants whose competence was previously threatened. Experiment 2 results using an undergraduate student sample (N = 245) indicated that participants were not more likely to select a competence-satisfying autobiographical memory over a relatedness-satisfying memory after experiencing a competence threat in a previous task; however, those who selected a competence-satisfying memory reported greater competence need satisfaction and more positive affect than those who selected a relatedness-satisfying memory. Moreover, degree of competence need satisfaction predicted positive affect which in turn predicted self-esteem and optimism. The present experiments highlight the powerful role of reflecting on important autobiographical experiences on need fulfillment and general psychological well-being.
... When people have a preference for a particular outcome, they do not simply conclude that there will be a positive outcome. They strive to construct a defensible justification that supports their preferred outcome rather than objectively considering multiple perspectives (Kunda, 1990; see also Boiney, Kennedy, & Nye, 1997;Kunda & Sanitioso, 1989). This generally occurs through a selective interpretation of the available information. ...
A growing literature has suggested that high performance goals can have unintended consequences within organizations as employees engage in unethical behavior to achieve outcomes associated with goal attainment. Extending research on the dark side of goal setting, we suggest that high performance goals not only create a desire to achieve a particular outcome but also alter moral reasoning processes related to goal attainment. Integrating goal‐setting theory (Locke & Latham, 1990) with motivated moral reasoning (Ditto, Pizzarro, & Tannenbaum, 2009), we hypothesize an indirect effect of high performance goals on unethical behavior via state moral disengagement. We also examine goal commitment—which tends to amplify the relationship between high goals and performance—as a key boundary condition associated with this indirect effect. We build this conditional indirect effect model across three studies conducted in the field and the laboratory. Our results provide new insight into both when and why high goals can facilitate moral disengagement and unethical behavior within organizations.
... An alternate self-concept, activated by the classroom context, may be the mechanism behind the shift in behavior. Kunda and Sanitioso (1989) asserts that motivation may provoke the activation of an alternate selfconcept with desirable attributes in a given context. For example, the introverted professor may be motivated to be an engaging presenter in a classroom context because dynamic professors often receive more favorable teacher evaluations. ...
Purpose
Previous research studies assume that influential consumers (“influentials”), who play a powerful role in the marketplace, are persuasive (or not) based on innate, static personality traits. By contrast, this paper proposes an emergence-based view of influentials. Grounded in dynamic self-concept theory, this research establishes that individuals possess an “influential” self-concept that can be activated by firm-originated communications. Specifically, the authors examine the impact of firm feedback on the three dimensions of influentials (and the corresponding traits and behaviors): who they are (propensity to connect with others), who they know (WOM) and what they know (expert power).
Design/methodology/approach
The study tests whether an influential self can be evoked by marketers using a longitudinal experimental test with data collected in three periods. The data are analyzed using a multi-mediation model and partial least squares structural equation modeling.
Findings
The results reveal that even after controlling for the extroversion trait, firm-originated positive feedback increases perceived expert power of participants, which increases word-of-mouth behavior in a subsequent period, both directly and indirectly via an enhanced propensity to connect with others.
Research limitations/implications
Cultivating the influential self-concept requires time to ensure that the self-concept is sufficiently realized to become an enduring self-concept.
Practical implications
By cultivating influentials, practitioners are able to leverage diffusion mechanics and reduce costs and inefficiencies associated with traditional customer relationship management marketing strategies focused on finding them.
Social implications
These findings have implications across all domains that rely on the diffusion and adoption of ideas or products via influentials, including but not limited to public policy, politics, public health and sustainability, in that influentials can be evoked and leveraged to diffuse ideas in these important social domains.
Originality/value
... In addition to distorting past memories, the self may also bias the selection of memories at recall. For example, research findings indicate that one tends to recall memories related to traits that are believed to be desirable to the individual (Kunda & Sanitioso, 1989;Sanitioso, Modesty, Self, and Cognition 24 Kunda, & Fong, 1990). For example, Sanitioso et al. (1990) led participants to believe that either introversion or extroversion was desirable by presenting them with fictitious information that either introversion or extroversion was related to academic and job success. ...
In Western thinking, modesty is considered a socio-communicative tool whereby one publicly under-represents one’s favorable traits. In contrast, modesty is perceived as a personal and moral virtue in East Asian cultures. Based on extant data, we suggest in this chapter that modesty is not only a self-presentation strategy utilized in interpersonal contexts, but also a representation of the East Asian self that motivates individuals toward self-improvement. We provide new findings indicating that modesty principals are differently correlated with aspects of the self in Easterners and Westerners. We further suggest that this modest East Asian self affects cognitive processes of attribution, personal remembering, and moral reasoning.
Kulkofsky, S. & Wang, Q. (2006). The role of modesty in the East Asian self and implications for cognition. In M. A. Vanchevsky (Ed.), Focus on Cognitive Psychology Research (pp. 1-23). New York: Nova Science Publishers.
... This proposal aligns with work that shows the realityconstrained nature of motivated cognition (Dunning, Meyerowitz, & Holzberg, 1989;Kruglanski et al., 2012;Kunda & Sanitioso, 1989). People are flexible in their ability to feel good about their good behavior and to justify their bad behavior, but this flexibility is not unlimited. ...
The motivation to feel moral powerfully guides people's prosocial behavior. We propose that people's efforts to preserve their moral self-regard conform to a moral threshold model. This model predicts that people are primarily concerned with whether their prosocial behavior legitimates the claim that they have acted morally, a claim that often diverges from whether their behavior is in the best interests of the recipient. Specifically, it predicts that for people to feel moral following a prosocial decision, that decision need not have promised the greatest benefit for the recipient but only one larger than at least one other available outcome. Moreover, this model predicts that once people produce a benefit that exceeds this threshold, their moral self-regard is relatively insensitive to the magnitude of benefit that they produce. In 6 studies, we test this moral threshold model by examining people's prosocial risk decisions. We find that, compared with risky egoistic decisions, people systematically avoid making risky prosocial decisions that carry the possibility of producing the worst possible outcome in a choice set-even when this means avoiding a decision that is objectively superior. We further find that this aversion to producing the worst possible prosocial outcome leads people's prosocial (vs. egoistic) risk decisions to be less sensitive to those decisions' maximum possible benefit. We highlight theoretical and practical implications of these findings, including the detrimental consequence that people's desire to protect their moral self-regard can have on the amount of good that they produce. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).
... Techniques for inducing these needs are omnipresent in social psychological research. For example, participants may be told or asked to explain why having a certain quality will increase their chance of success in an upcoming laboratory task or in the future (Kaufmann, Sojo, Genat, Wheeler, & Wood, 2017;Kunda & Sanitioso, 1989;Markus & Kunda, 1986). In one study, Sanitioso, Kunda, and Fong (1990) had students read an article that alleged that introversion (vs. ...
In this article, we champion the study of autobiographical memory functions. We review the proposed functions and how they have been investigated. We describe seven commonly used research designs. We argue that although each design offers unique benefits, none of these designs is ideally suited to test the functional nature of autobiographical memory with high internal validity. We stress that each design does have a unique set of benefits in the exploration of autobiographical memory and none should be abandoned. However, we encourage researchers interested in function in particular to consider designs that will illuminate the use, adaptivity, and fulfillment of needs that is inherent in the definition of function.
... Respondenti po této informaci obvykle aktualizují, resp. mění interpretaci vlastního chování do více žádoucí podoby (Kunda & Sanitioso, 1989;Dunning & McElwee, 1995). Stojí za pozornost, že i samotná volba škály, kte- rá má přesněji vystihnout přítomnost nějaké charakteristiky, může být důvodem takto zkreslené odpovědi. ...
The CPACT (Computational Psycholinguistic Analysis of Czech Text) is a project of basic research focusing on the study of interpersonal communication. The research examined the relationship between the personality and words use. The research took place from January 2016 to December 2018 at the Pedagogical Faculty of the University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice under the management of the researcher Dalibor Kučera (author of the chapter). The project was financially supported by the Czech Science Foundation by grant No. 16-19087S. This chapter will set out the basics and objectives of the project, pilot studies, research progress, technical background, staffing and ethical aspects of research.
... Respondenti po této informaci obvykle aktualizují, resp. mění interpretaci vlastního chování do více žádoucí podoby (Kunda & Sanitioso, 1989;Dunning & McElwee, 1995). Stojí za pozornost, že i samotná volba škály, kte- rá má přesněji vystihnout přítomnost nějaké charakteristiky, může být důvodem takto zkreslené odpovědi. ...
The chapter builds on the text Self-report and other report questionnaires in psychological research, in which the question of using questionnaires in psychological testing was described in detail, esp. in terms of possible respond bias, among others influenced by the role and perspective of the assessor (judge). The key issue was description of the asymmetry that often occurs between the different variants of the assessment. This asymmetry, studied in the data of the CPACT research, is presented here in the practical methodological framework. We elaborate three selected hypotheses based on theoretical assumptions, and present concrete research results and following discussion.
... Respondenti po této informaci obvykle aktualizují, resp. mění interpretaci vlastního chování do více žádoucí podoby (Kunda & Sanitioso, 1989;Dunning & McElwee, 1995). Stojí za pozornost, že i samotná volba škály, kte- rá má přesněji vystihnout přítomnost nějaké charakteristiky, může být důvodem takto zkreslené odpovědi. ...
The chapter presents current research and relevant theoretical background in the field of psychological and psychodiagnostic use of modern computational linguistics. The text includes an introduction to current state of knowledge, description of text processing options for the purpose of psychological research and possibilities of detecting psychologically relevant characteristics using computational linguistic analysis, including specifications of the analysis of the Czech text.
... Respondenti po této informaci obvykle aktualizují, resp. mění interpretaci vlastního chování do více žádoucí podoby (Kunda & Sanitioso, 1989;Dunning & McElwee, 1995). Stojí za pozornost, že i samotná volba škály, kte- rá má přesněji vystihnout přítomnost nějaké charakteristiky, může být důvodem takto zkreslené odpovědi. ...
The chapter is focused on contemporary psychological testing, specifically on the use of psychological questionnaires and the limits of their application. Attention is paid not only to the topics and mechanisms of bias in respondents' answers, but also to the specifics of administration, in which respondents in different roles judge/assess (express themselves towards) another target person. Beyond the areas of classical self-report, we will also focus on the other-report, either in the role of a familiar or close person, or in the role of a stranger-report. The text also deals with the asymmetry (discrepancy) that may occur between the different assessments (judges) in this context.
... In certain contexts, people construct a positive view of the self in the present by readily and selectively recalling past behaviors that showcase their positive traits and qualities (Markus & Wurf, 1987;Pasupathi, Mansour, & Brubaker, 2007;Ross, 1989;Sanitioso, Kunda, & Fong, 1990). In one line of research, experimenters led participants to believe that either extroverts or introverts tend to be more successful (Kunda, Fong, Sanitioso, & Reber, 1993;Kunda & Sanitioso, 1989;Sanitioso, Kunda, Fong, 1990). Those led to believe that extroversion is conducive to success more readily recalled past events showcasing their extroversion relative to those led to believe that introversion is conducive to success. ...
Having positive moral traits is central to one’s sense of self, and people generally are motivated to maintain a positive view of the self in the present. But it remains unclear how people foster a positive, morally good view of the self in the present. We suggest that recollecting and reflecting on moral and immoral actions from the personal past jointly help to construct a morally good view of the current self in complementary ways. More specifically, across four studies we investigated the extent to which people believe they have changed over time after recollecting their own moral or immoral behaviors from the personal past. Our results indicate that recollecting past immoral actions is associated with stronger impressions of dissimilarity and change in the sense of self over time than recollecting past moral actions. These effects held for diverse domains of morality (i.e., honesty/dishonesty, helping/harming, fairness/unfairness, and loyalty/disloyalty), and they remained even after accounting for objective, calendar time. Further supporting a motivational explanation, these effects held when people recollected their own past actions but not when they recollected the actions of other people.
... For example, each of the subjects was asked to give two reasons for and one example of how achievement-motivation led to less social exclusion, better romantic relationships, and more lucrative careers. This procedure was adapted from a previous study in which participants were induced to temporarily change their self-perceived levels of extraversion or introversion (Kunda & Sanitioso, 1989; also by linking them to academic success, as we did in the current study). See Appendix A in the Supplemental Material to see the paragraph and questions used. ...
Previous research (Sharman & Calacouris, 2010. Motivated imagination inflation: Implicit and explicit motives predict imagination inflation for achievement and affiliation events. Experimental Psychology, 57, 77–82) found that participants’ achievement-motivation was associated with the inflation of memory and confidence for unlikely achievement-related events in childhood. Similarly, other research has shown correlations between achievement motivation and grade inflation. In the current studies, we experimentally investigate the effect of false feedback and achievement-motivation on memory distortion for an unlikely childhood event (e.g. inventing an important device). In Experiment 1, we found that false feedback did have an effect, but contrary to previous research, self-reported achievement-motivation was not a statistically significant correlate of memory distortion. In Experiment 2, we again found a main effect for false feedback, no main effect of motivation, and an interaction. Both Experiments did not find, as earlier research had, a significant relationship between achievement-motivation and achievement-related memory distortion. We suggest others use different methods to ours when attempting to demonstrate a causal relationships between motivation and false memories.
... Indeed, focusing on memories related to specific traits can influence the type of self-concept individuals report in relation to these traits (Fazio, Effrein, & Falender, 1981). Selfconcept content may also be influenced temporarily by the perceived desirability of certain attributes, which may trigger a search for, and retrieval of, memories that reflect these attributes (Kunda & Sanitioso, 1989). Memory recall can also affect self-perceptions. ...
This chapter presents literature indicating that memory retrieval can have an immediate impact on affect, self-perceptions, and behaviour. This impact can depend on factors such as memory characteristics (e.g., affective intensity, specificity), individual characteristics (e.g., culture, psychological well-being), and the way in which memories are processed at the time of retrieval. It is explained in light of the self-memory system (e.g., Conway, Singer, & Tagini, 2004), according to which the retrieval of an autobiographical memory is associated with the activation of a related working self.
... They then guessed why such results might arise. Based on the notion of motivated reasoning (Kunda, 1990;Kunda & Sanitioso, 1989), participants who read that high [low] overlap is good should be motivated to think of themselves as being high [low] in self-overlap. After the self-overlap manipulation, participants took part in a study described as being on intuition, and in which they had to predict the outcome of a private coin flip. ...
People represent knowledge about their self-concept in terms of multiple cognitive structures or self-aspects. “Self-overlap” refers to the extent to which people perceive their various self-aspects as interconnected, such that their thoughts and feelings about themselves are similar across these self-aspects. The present research shows self-overlap influences moral behavior. Specifically, people high in self-overlap (interconnected self-aspects) are more likely to behave ethically than people low in overlap (independent self-aspects), because they tend to see their actions as “self-diagnostic” (i.e., representative of the type of person they are). In six studies, we find this pattern of behavior for chronic/measured (Studies 1 and 2) and situational/manipulated self-overlap (Studies 3 – 6). We show people low in self-overlap behave as though they have “no self to spare”—unless their actions are presented as non-diagnostic for inferences about the self (Study 5), or unless they do not value the context-relevant moral characteristic (e.g., being altruistic; Study 6). Finally, we introduce a 7-item measure of perceptions of self-diagnosticity (SDS).
... In resource allocation dilemmas, we posit that individuals might come to view themselves as being entitled to a larger share of a resource due to, for example, having outperformed the other party, even if this is not the case. In the past, scholars have shown that when individuals believe a given trait leads to academic or business success, they come to view themselves as possessing that trait more than other people (Dunning et al. 1989;Kunda and Sanitioso 1989). Based on this literature, we posit that when decision makers contemplate the possibility of engaging in a selfserving resource allocation (i.e., keeping more for themselves at the expense of others), they will convince themselves they deserve a larger share of that resource than others, thereby justifying their self-serving behavior. ...
In this article, we demonstrate that individuals use motivated reasoning to convince themselves that their self-serving behavior is justified, which in turn affects the distribution of resources in business situations. Specifically, we explore how ambiguous contextual cues and individual beliefs can jointly form motivated reasoning. Across two experimental studies, we find that whereas individual ideologies that endorse status hierarchies (i.e., social dominance orientation) can strengthen the relationship between contextual ambiguity and motivated reasoning, individual beliefs rooted in fairness and equality (i.e., moral identity) can weaken it. Our findings contribute to person–situation theories of business ethics and provide evidence that two ubiquitous factors in business organizations—contextual ambiguity and social dominance orientation—give rise to motivated reasoning, enabling decision makers to engage in self-serving distributions of resources.
... As a result, people can evaluate their attributes in ways that serve their selfinterested motives. For instance, people claim to possess more of a personality characteristic, like extraversion, when it is described positively rather than negatively, and are able to do so because the attribute is ambiguous (Kunda & Sanitioso, 1989;Sanitioso, Kunda, & Fong, 1990). People justify these self-serving descriptions by using their own strengths to construct the definition of specific attributes (Dunning, Perie, & Story, 1991). ...
This research shows how job postings can lead job candidates to see themselves as particularly deserving of hiring and high salary. We propose that these entitlement beliefs entail both personal motivations to see oneself as deserving and the ability to justify those motivated judgments. Accordingly, we predict that people feel more deserving when qualifications for a job are vague and thus amenable to motivated reasoning, whereby people use information selectively to reach a desired conclusion. We tested this hypothesis with a two-phase experiment (N = 892) using materials drawn from real online job postings. In the first phase of the experiment, participants believed themselves to be more deserving of hiring and deserving of higher pay after reading postings composed of vaguer types of qualifications. In the second phase, yoked observers believed that participants were less entitled overall, but did not selectively discount endorsement of vaguer qualifications, suggesting they were unaware of this effect. A follow-up pre-registered experiment (N = 905) using postings with mixed qualification types replicated the effect of including more vague qualifications on participants’ entitlement beliefs. Entitlement beliefs are widely seen as problematic for recruitment and retention, and these results suggest that reducing the inclusion of vague qualifications in job postings would dampen the emergence of these beliefs in applicants, albeit at the cost of decreasing application rates and lowering applicants’ confidence.
While existing research on pay-what-you-want often focuses on specific factors within the tourism context (e.g., time pressure, social crowding) that impact customers’ payment magnitude, little is known about how the tourism context per se may shape customers’ responses in pay-what-you-want pricing. Building on the multiple self-aspects framework, self-diagnosticity theory, and escapism characteristics of tourism, this research proposes that, because one’s core self-aspects are less available and accessible in the tourism environment, customers in the tourism (vs. daily) context undergo a diminished perception of self-diagnosticity, which motivates them to pay less in pay-what-you-want. Intriguingly, the negative effect of tourism (vs. daily) context on customers’ pay- what-you-want payments will be reversed when customers are engaged in eudaimonic (vs. hedonic) experiences. The focal effect is examined in both pure consumption and cause marketing situations and the underlying mechanism is explored using both mediation and moderation approaches. Theoretical and managerial impli- cations are also discussed.
NMR crystallography has emerged as promising technique for the determination and refinement of crystal structures. The crystal structure of compounds containing quadrupolar nuclei, such as 27Al, can be improved by directly comparing solid-state NMR measurements to DFT computations of the electric field gradient (EFG). The high computational cost of these first-principles calculations limits the applicability of this method to all but the most well-defined structures. We developed a fast, low-cost machine learning model to predict EFG parameters based on local structural motifs and elemental parameters. We computed 8081 EFG tensors using DFT and benchmarked them against 105 experimental parameters. Surprisingly, simple local geometric features dominate the predictive performance of the resulting random-forest model, yielding an R2 value of 0.98 and an RMSE of 0.61 MHz. This model accuracy should enable pre-refining future structural assignments before finally validating with first-principles calculations. Such a catalogue of 27Al NMR tensors can serve as a tool for researchers assigning complex quadrupolar spectra.
We draw from theory on motivated reasoning to suggest that men would be more prone toward gender pay gap scepticism (PGS) than women because doing so maintains a valued but illusory belief that society is currently fair. Integrating theory on wisdom and wise reasoning —a self‐transcendent thinking process composed of intellectual humility, contextualism, perspectivism and dialecticism—we also hypothesised that men who engaged in stronger (vs. weaker) wise reasoning about the pay gap would be less prone toward PGS. Two pre‐registered studies ( N = 651) supported the predictions: generally, men were more prone toward gender PGS than women, while wise reasoning tended to attenuate scepticism in men. The patterns of effects remained stable when controlling for income, education, political orientation, and perceptions of the effects of COVID‐19 on women's economic and psychological well‐being. Our studies pave the way for interventions that alter how people reason about inequities such as the gender pay gap in an effort to create fairer workplaces and societies.
Social behavior is ordinarily treated as being under conscious (if not always thoughtful) control. However, considerable evidence now supports the view that social behavior often operates in an implicit or unconscious fashion. The identifying feature of implicit cognition is that past experience influences judgment in a fashion not introspectively known by the actor. The present conclusion—that attitudes, self-esteem, and stereotypes have important implicit modes of operation—extends both the construct validity and predictive usefulness of these major theoretical constructs of social psychology. Methodologically, this review calls for increased use of indirect measures—which are imperative in studies of implicit cognition. The theorized ordinariness of implicit stereotyping is consistent with recent findings of discrimination by people who explicitly disavow prejudice. The finding that implicit cognitive effects are often reduced by focusing judges’ attention on their judgment task provides a basis for evaluating applications (such as affirmative action) aimed at reducing such unintended discrimination.
Résumé L’exposition sélective est une proposition centrale de la théorie de la dissonance cognitive de Festinger (1957). Selon cette dernière, les individus tendent à s’exposer aux informations consistantes et évitent les informations inconsistantes. Si la théorie a suscité lors des premières années un véritable engouement, celui-ci s’est amenuisé du fait de l’inconsistance des résultats expérimentaux et de l’hypothèse d’un effet de contexte (Freedman & Sears, 1965). Nous nous proposons dans un premier temps de dresser un bilan concernant la théorie de l’exposition sélective. Ce dernier permettra de montrer que les facteurs susceptibles d’affecter la mise en évidence de l’effet peuvent rendre compte de l’inconsistance des résultats. Dans un second temps, la théorie sera mise en perspective au regard de cinq éléments théoriques ou méthodologiques.
Models of trust have focused on the notion that an employee's trust in a coworker is based on that coworker's trustworthiness and the employee's trust propensity-a generalized tendency to believe others are trustworthy. Although these models capture the general assessment of risk associated with trusting a particular coworker, they provide insufficient insight into why an employee might take the risk associated with trust on a particular day. Bringing the concept of risk propensity-the tendency to accept or avoid risk-from the decision-making literature into the trust literature, we build a model of trust that suggests employees' trusting behaviors stem from both their calculated assessment of risk (encapsulated in trustworthiness and trust propensity) and their tendency to take those risks. We draw on motivated reasoning theory (Kunda, 1990) and the decision-making literature to suggest that employees' daily strivings for achievement, affiliation, stimulation, and security induce a biased reasoning process that influences employees' risk propensity that day. Our test of this theoretical model demonstrates that generalized work motives have an indirect effect on employees' trust in their coworkers, through risk propensity, that goes above and beyond established bases of trust. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).
Rather than exhibiting bias or open‐minded reasoning at baseline, we argue that information processing is motivated by whatever goals a context makes salient. Thus, if politics feels like debate, people will be motivated to argue for their side. If politics feels like deliberation, they will be motivated to seek consensus through open‐minded processing. Results from three experiments demonstrate: (1) Politics evokes thoughts similar to conflictual contexts and dissimilar from deliberative contexts. (2) Consequently, information labeled “political” primes the motivation to counterargue, leading to opinion polarization. Absent such labeling, no such motivation is evident, explaining why bias is common but not inherent to politics. (3) Despite this capacity for bias, people can be motivated to actively process and accept counterattitudinal information by simply making the value of open‐mindedness salient. This suggests open‐minded discourse is possible even absent motivation to evaluate information accurately. We conclude by discussing the implications of our research for political discourse.
To date, there is no experimental evidence for the influence of need for uniqueness (NfU) on risk-taking. In the present research, four studies involving risk tasks and a measure of NfU showed a positive association between NfU and risk-taking. Studies 1 and 3, in which we manipulated the risk-taking descriptive norm (low, medium, high), showed that NfU predicts willingness to take more risk than the norm, whatever the level of that norm. By manipulating the desirability of risk-taking (Study 2), we also found that NfU predicts risk-taking only when it is a desirable attribute. In studies 3 and 4, before participants carried out a risk-taking task, we gave them fictitious test feedback describing them as either different from or similar to the majority of participants. Induced similarity to others increased risk-taking. These studies provide the first experimental evidence for a causal link between NfU and risk-taking.
Although conspiracy theories have arguably always been an important feature of social life, they have only attracted the attention of social psychologists in recent years. The last decade, however, has seen an increase in social psychological research on this topic that has yielded many insights into the causes and consequences of conspiracy thinking. In this article, we draw on examples from our own programme of research to highlight how the methods and concepts of social psychology can be brought to bear on the study of conspiracy theories. Specifically, we highlight how basic social cognitive processes such as pattern perception, projection, and agency detection predict the extent to which people believe in conspiracy theories. We then highlight the role of motivations such as the need for uniqueness, and the motivation to justify the system, in predicting the extent to which people adopt conspiracy
This chapter addresses the controversial question of whether happy minds gain happiness by cultivating positive illusions, that is, views of self that exaggerate one’s good qualities and degree of control over life and that involve unrealistically optimistic outlooks. Much evidence indicates that positive illusions contribute to well-being, but there are limits and contrary findings, and it is not viable to claim that engaging in endless rounds of self-flattering self-deception is a reliable guide to happiness. Illusions do confer benefits, including self-fulfilling prophecies and interpersonal appeal. We contrast two theories: a direct route by which self-deception makes one happy, and an indirect route by which positive illusions contribute to pragmatic, objective benefits, which in turn increase happiness. The evidence is mixed as to which route is more relevant. We note some negative effects of positive illusions, such as when they reduce effort and achievement.
The self-concept literature is characterized by a continuing controversy over whether the self-concept is stable or malleable. In this article we suggest that it is both but that the stability observed for general descriptions of the self may mask significant local variation. In this study the social environment was varied by creating a situation in which subjects found themselves to be either very unique or very similar to others. Following this manipulation, subjects responded to a series of self-concept measures. Although the uniqueness and similarity subjects did not differ in the trait terms they used to describe themselves, they did differ systematically in their latency for these judgments, in positivity and negativity of their word associations, and in their judgments of similarity to reference groups. These findings imply that subjects made to feel unique recruited conceptions of themselves as similar to others, whereas subjects made to feel similar to others recruited conceptions of themselves as unique. The results suggest that very general self-descriptive measures are inadequate for revealing how the individual adjusts and calibrates the self-concept in response to challenges from the social environment.
The chapter proposes a model to integrate the cognitive and motivational perspectives on social inference. The model specifies (1) the conditions under which affective and motivational factors do and do not influence inferential processes and (2) the mechanisms through which affective and motivational processes influence inferential processes to produce biased conclusions. The chapter focuses on the role of a self-esteem motive in producing the self-serving attribution bias. This particular motive is chosen because a wide variety of theorists throughout the history of psychology have suggested that the need for self-esteem exerts a powerful influence on people's cognitions and behavior. It should be pointed out; however, the model is quite general and applicable to the mechanisms through which other motives influence inferences as well. Influenced by recent developments in cognitive psychology and information processing, the theorists focus on the way people encode and organize—the retrieve information and on the knowledge structures—transformation rules and heuristics that are used to make inferences of various kinds. The chapter briefly discusses some of the major influences on various steps in the sequence when the only goal of the process is to arrive at an accurate attribution for the observed event.
The long-standing debate over motivational biases as explanations for asymmetrical (i.e., sell-serving) attribution patterns for success and failure is examined in the present paper. Following the suggestion of Tetlock and Levi (1982), our analysis focuses on development of a more precise model of attribution processes, rather than on pitting motivational and cognitive models against each other. We propose a two-stage attribution model, in which motivational manipulations influence the selection of the knowledge structures to be used in the subsequent selection of an attribution. Three experiments demonstrate that a popular ego-involvement manipulation does, in fact, change the perceived relevance of several self-beliefs, and that this knowledge-structure effect does produce the typical asymmetrical pattern of attributions for success and failure, even in uninvolved (i.e., not ego-motivated) observer subjects. It is suggested that the location of motivational impact is at the problem-formulation stage of ...
Previous research has demonstrated that people recall their past in ways that exaggerate its consistency with their current condition. It is argued that whether people perceive stability or change in themselves depends, in part, on the theory they invoke to reconstruct their past. Two studies, with 106 undergraduates, addressed the impact of a potentially invalid theory of change on the recall of personal histories. Some Ss participated in a study-skills improvement program that promised more than it delivered. Ss initially evaluated their study skills and then were randomly assigned either to a waiting list control condition or to the study skills program. Three weeks later, all Ss were asked to recall as accurately as possible their initial skills evaluation. Program participants recalled their evaluations as being worse than they had actually reported; waiting list Ss exhibited no systematic bias in recall. Program participants also reported greater improvement in study skills and expected better final exam grades than did waiting list Ss. Actual grades did not differ in either study. Nonetheless, 6 mo later program participants overestimated their academic performance for the term during which the program was conducted. Results support the hypothesis that people can claim support for invalid theories of change by reconstructing their pasts. (23 ref)
Examined the effects of strategic self-enhancement (SE) or self-deprecation (SD) on private self-appraisal. Previous work by E. E. Jones et al (see record
1982-07768-001) indicated that self-perception variables (whether Ss self-referenced) best account for elevations in self-esteem after SE behavior, whereas cognitive dissonance variables (whether Ss were given a clear choice to engage in the behavior) best account for decreases in self-esteem after SD behavior. It was proposed that these findings can be accommodated by a model that represents the phenomenal self as a latitude of acceptance that incorporates both positive and negative self-referent material and as latitudes of rejection containing potential positive and negative material not currently stored in self-referent form. The present study tested the prediction that self-perception would account for positive and negative shifts in self-esteem within Ss' latitudes of acceptance and that cognitive dissonance would explain positive and negative shifts in self-esteem within Ss' latitudes of rejection. Accordingly, 128 depressed and nondepressed undergraduates (as assessed by the Beck Depression Inventory) were instructed to self-reference or to role-play SE or SD during an interview while under high- or low-choice instructions. In support of the model, the results indicate that self-perception processes mediated subsequent shifts in self-esteem for SE nondepressed and SD depressed Ss. Cognitive dissonance processes mediated subsequent shifts in self-esteem for SD nondepressed and SE depressed Ss. (33 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Social theories—beliefs about relations between variables in the social environment—are often used in making judgments, predictions, or decisions. Three experiments, with 146 undergraduates, examined the role of explanation in the development and use of social theories. It was found that explaining how or why 2 variables might be related led to an increased belief in and use of the explained theory. A counterexplanation task was effective in eliminating this initial explanation bias. These explanation and counterexplanation effects occurred with simple belief measures and with complex social judgments involving multiple predictor variables. New, explanation-induced beliefs did not lead to biased evaluation of new data. However, exposure to new data indicating a zero relation between the social variables in question moderated but did not eliminate the explanation-induced theories. Implications for decision making in real-world contexts and for understanding the cognitive underlying explanation effects in the present and in related judgment domains were also examined. (26 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Attempts to organize, summarize, or explain one's own behavior in a particular domain result in the formation of cognitive structures about the self or self-schemata. Self-schemata are cognitive generalizations about the self, derived from past experience, that organize and guide the processing of the self-related information contained in an individual's social experience. The role of schemata in processing information about the self was examined in 2 experiments by linking self-schemata to a number of specific empirical referents. In Exp I, 48 female undergraduates either with schemata in a particular domain or without schemata were selected using the Adjective Check List, and their performance on a variety of cognitive tasks was compared. In Exp II, the selective influence of self-schemata on interpreting information about one's own behavior was investigated in 47 Ss. Results of both experiments indicate that self-schemata facilitate the processing of information about the self, contain easily retrievable behavioral evidence, provide a basis for the confident self-prediction of behavior on schema-related dimensions, and make individuals resistant to counterschematic information. The relationship of self-schemata to cross-situational consistency in behavior and the implications of self-schemata for attribution theory are discussed. (23 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Introduces the concept of possible selves (PSs) to complement current conceptions of self-knowledge. PSs represent individuals' ideas of what they might become, what they would like to become, and what they are afraid of becoming, and thus provide a conceptual link beteen cognition and motivation. PSs are the cognitive components of hopes, fears, goals, and threats; they give the specific self-relevant form, meaning, organization, and direction to these dynamics. It is suggested that PSs function as incentives for future behavior and to provide an evaluative and interpretive context for the current view of self. The nature and function of PSs and their role in addressing several persistent problems (e.g., the stability and malleability of the self, the unity of the self, self-distortion, the relationship between the self-concept and behavior) are discussed. (143 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Two studies involving 135 university students examined the relation between attitudes and the recall of past behaviors. Both experiments utilized the same paradigm: First, Ss' attitudes on an issue were manipulated; then Ss were asked to recall past behaviors relevant to the newly formed attitude. The results indicate that attitudes can exert a directive influence on recall of personal histories. It is suggested that much like a self-fulfilling prophecy, the process of behavioral review may increase the control that attitude exerts over future behavior, producing an increase in attitude–behavior consistency. (30 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Recent research has indicated that a perceiver's expectancies about a target person can lead that perceiver to channel social interaction with the target in such a way that the target person's behavioral response may confirm the original expectancy, thus producing a self-fulfulling prophecy. It is suggested that once the target person behaves, the target may undergo a self-perception process and internalize the very disposition that the perceiver expected him or her to possess. Such a change in the target person's self-concept is apt to affect his or her behavior in future and different situations not involving the original perceiver. To test this hypothesis, 40 undergraduates first participated in an initial interaction with the experimenter, which purposefully was biased to produce either introverted or extraverted behavior on the part of the target S. On both a subsequent self-description measure and on a variety of behavioral measures involving a subsequent interaction with a confederate, Ss displayed evidence of having internalized the dispositions implied by their earlier responses during this initial interaction. Implications for the self-fulfilling prophecy are discussed. (29 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Two experiments tested the notion that people select actions that are diagnostic of favorable outcomes even though the actions do not cause those outcomes. In Exp I, 38 undergraduates immersed their forearm into a chest of circulating cold water before and after physical exercise. Depending on condition, Ss learned that a long life expectancy was associated with either increases or decreases in tolerance to cold water after the exercise. As predicted, Ss showed changes in tolerance on the 2nd trial in the direction correlated with a long, healthy life. In Exp II, 315 undergraduates encountered 1 of 2 theories about the sort of voters who determine the margin of victory in an election. Only one of the theories would enable voting Ss to imagine that they could induce other like-minded persons to vote. As predicted, more Ss indicated that they would vote given that theory than given a theory in which the S's vote would not be diagnostic of the electoral outcome, although the causal impact of the S's vote was the same under both theories. (14 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
A total of 130 Ss in 2 experiments within a debriefing paradigm examined the perseverance of social theories. Ss were initially given 2 case studies suggestive of either a positive or a negative relationship between risk taking and success as a firefighter. Some Ss were asked to provide a written explanation of the relationship; others were not. Experimental Ss were thoroughly debriefed concerning the fictitious nature of the initial case studies; some Ss were not debriefed. Subsequent assessments of Ss' personal beliefs about the relationship indicated that even when initially based on weak data, social theories can survive the total discrediting of that initial evidential base. Correlational and experimental results suggest that such unwarranted theory perseverance may be mediated, in part, by the cognitive process of formulating causal scenarios or explanations. Normative issues and the cognitive processes underlying perseverance are examined, and possible techniques for overcoming unwarranted theory perseverance are discussed. (20 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Two experiments with 268 paid volunteers investigated the possibility that assessment of confidence is biased by attempts to justify one's chosen answer. These attempts include selectively focusing on evidence supporting the chosen answer and disregarding evidence contradicting it. Exp I presented Ss with 2-alternative questions and required them to list reasons for and against each of the alternatives prior to choosing an answer and assessing the probability of its being correct. This procedure produced a marked improvement in the appropriateness of confidence judgments. Exp II simplified the manipulation by asking Ss first to choose an answer and then to list (a) 1 reason supporting that choice, (b) 1 reason contradicting it, or (c) 1 reason supporting and 1 reason contradicting. Only the listing of contradicting reasons improved the appropriateness of confidence. Correlational analyses of the data of Exp I strongly suggested that the confidence depends on the amount and strength of the evidence supporting the answer chosen. (21 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Three experiments (88 male and 36 female undergraduates) explored the effects of self-enhancement or self-deprecation on the actor's self-esteem as measured in a separate context. In Exp I, Ss were influenced, by observing others in a screening interview, to emulate their self-enhancing or self-deprecating behavior when they themselves were interviewed. This carried over and was reflected in their subsequent self-esteem. In Exp II, this carry-over effect was replicated in a setting in which S was interviewed while playing the role of a job candidate. In Exp III, Ss instructed to be self-enhancing in an interview subsequently showed elevated self esteem (unless their interview behavior was prescribed by the experimenter and thus not self-referring). Ss instructed to be self-deprecating subsequently showed lowered self-esteem if they had been given a clear choice as to whether to engage in the interview. It is concluded that self-perception theory can account for self-enhancing carry-over, whereas dissonance theory offers a more appropriate explanation for the carry-over or internalization of self-deprecating actions. (12 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Employing a new self-report technique (paging devices), this study assessed the self-feelings of 35 adolescents (mean age 13.3 yrs) in various naturalistic contexts. Regression analysis was used to assess the stability of self-feelings. Ss fell into 3 groups: stable, oscillating, and unpredictable (the largest). For the sample as a whole, self-feelings were not influenced by the immediate context, although specific settings, activities, and others present within the contexts elicited various levels of self-feelings. More crucial for predicting the self-feelings were such enduring characteristics as sex, social class, pubertal maturation, stability group, birth order, and number of siblings. The authors argue for a baseline conceptualization of adolescent self-conception from which fluctuations occur. (44 ref)
The results of four studies suggest that people tend to generate and evaluate causal theories in a self-serving manner. They generate theories that view their own attributes as more predictive of desirable outcomes, and they are reluctant to believe in theories relating their own attributes to undesirable events. As a consequence, people tend to hold theories that are consistent with the optimistic belief that good things will happen to them and bad things will not. I argue that these self-serving biases are best explained as resulting from cognitive processes guided by motivation because they do not occur in the absence of motivational pressures.
A discrimination theory of selective perception was used to predict that a given trait would be spontaneously salient in a person's self-concept to the exten that this trait was distinctive for the person within her or his social groups. Sixth-grade students' general and physical spontaneous self-concepts were elicited in their classroom settings. The distinctiveness within the classroom of each student's characteristics on each of a variety of dimensions was determined, and it was found that in a majority of cases the dimension was significantly more salient in the spontaneous self-concepts of those students whose characteristic on thedimension was more distinctive. Also reported are incidental findings which include a description of the contents of spontaneous self-comcepts as well as determinants of their length and of the spontaneous mention of one's sex as part of one's self-concept.
Three experiments were conducted to examine the use of historical knowledge to test contemporary hypotheses about the personal attributes of other people. In the first and second experiments, participants read an extensive account of events in one week of the life of a woman named Jane. Two days later, they used this previously learned information to test hypotheses about Jane's suitability for one of two jobs: either the rather extraverted job of real estate salesperson, or the rather introverted job of research librarian. In their hypothesis-testing activities, participants first reported all those previously learned facts that they regarded as relevant to assessing Jane's suitability for the job under consideration, and then reported their judgments of her job suitability. Participants reported greater amounts of hypothesis-confirming than hypothesis-disconfirming factual material. Moreover, having tested hypotheses about Jane's suitability for one job, participants judged her to be better suited for that job than for the other job. In the third experiment, participants framed hypotheses for assessing job suitability and defined the task of testing these hypotheses. Participants framed hypotheses in terms of those attributes whose presence would confirm the hypotheses and defined the hypothesis-testing task as one of preferentially collecting hypothesis-confirming evidence. The nature and consequences of confirmatory hypothesis-testing strategies are discussed.
Introduces the concept of possible selves (PSs) to complement current conceptions of self-knowledge. PSs represent individuals' ideas of what they might become, what they would like to become, and what they are afraid of becoming, and thus provide a conceptual link beteen cognition and motivation. PSs are the cognitive components of hopes, fears, goals, and threats; they give the specific self-relevant form, meaning, organization, and direction to these dynamics. It is suggested that PSs function as incentives for future behavior and to provide an evaluative and interpretive context for the current view of self. The nature and function of PSs and their role in addressing several persistent problems (e.g., the stability and malleability of the self, the unity of the self, self-distortion, the relationship between the self-concept and behavior) are discussed. (143 ref)
Past research has demonstrated the effects of explaining hypothetical events on estimates of the probability that these events will occur. Two experiments examined the effects of explaining hypothetical outcomes for oneself on actual behavior in that situation and in a related situation. Subjects first explained hypothetical success or failure on an upcoming anagram task. They then either stated explicit expectations for the anagram task or did not. When subjects were asked to state expectations, those who had explained hypothetical success not only expected to do better but also actually outperformed those who had explained failure. That is, the events explained were behaviorally confirmed. However, when explicit expectations were not made following the explanation, those who had first explained failure did best of all, suggesting that raising the possibility of failure without forming concrete failure expectancies motivates better performance. Experiment II demonstrated that the self-fulfilling effects of prior explanation and expectation statements generalize to situations similar but not identical to the event that was explained. In addition, the effects of initial explanation predominated over the effects of actual performance feedback. The processes underlying these effects as well as the implications of the effects were discussed.
The self-concept literature is characterized by a continuing controversy over whether the self-concept is stable or malleable. In this article we suggest that it is both but that the stability observed for general descriptions of the self may mask significant local variation. In this study the social environment was varied by creating a situation in which subjects found themselves to be either very unique or very similar to others. Following this manipulation, subjects responded to a series of self-concept measures. Although the uniqueness and similarity subjects did not differ in the trait terms they used to describe themselves, they did differ systematically in their latency for these judgments, in positivity and negativity of their word associations, and in their judgments of similarity to reference groups. These findings imply that subjects made to feel unique recruited conceptions of themselves as similar to others, whereas subjects made to feel similar to others recruited conceptions of themselves as unique. The results suggest that very general self-descriptive measures are inadequate for revealing how the individual adjusts and calibrates the self-concept in response to challenges from the social environment.
48 MALE AND 48 FEMALE UNDERGRADUATES TOOK PART IN A STUDY OF "IMPRESSION FORMATION," DURING WHICH THEY EVALUATED A "PARTNER" PRESENTED AS EITHER SIMILAR OR DISSIMILAR TO THEMSELVES, AND WHO WAS FURTHER PRESENTED AS EITHER NORMAL OR EMOTIONALLY DISTURBED. SS RATED THE PARTNER'S ATTRACTIVENESS, SIMILARITY TO THEMSELVES, AND INDICATED THEIR WILLINGNESS TO INTERACT WITH HIM. WHEN THE PARTNER WAS BELIEVED TO BE NORMAL, SS INDICATED A GREATER DESIRE TO INTERACT WITH A SIMILAR THAN A DISSIMILAR PARTNER. HOWEVER, WHEN THE PARTNER WAS PERCEIVED AS DISTURBED, SS SHOWED GREATER WILLINGNESS TO INTERACT WITH A DISSIMILAR VS. SIMILAR PARTNER. (25 REF.)
Hot cognition: Mechanisms for motivated inference
- Thagard
Thagard, P., & Kunda, Z. (1987). Hot cognition: Mechanisms for motivated inference. In E. Hunt (Ed.), Proceedings of the ninth annual conference of the cognitive science sociefy (pp. 7.53-763). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
To be or not to be a single self
- Gergen
The self as architect of social reality
- Swann
Hypothesis testing in social interaction
- Snyder