Constantine Sedikides

Self-Evaluation: To Thine Own Self Be Good, To Thine Own Self Be Sure, To Thine Own Self Be True, and To Thine Own Self be Better

Publisher Summary This chapter tries to accomplish three objectives. Firstly, it defines the four motives and provides a selective review of research that indicates their prevalence. Secondly, it addresses the issue of the operation of four motives together to regulate self-evaluation. This chapter presents a conceptual framework for understanding the interplay of the four motives. This framework serves as a useful heuristic for consideration of potential moderators that govern the expression of the four motives. Finally, this chapter discusses several problems related to the self-evaluation motives that one believes are in need of empirical attention. This chapter serves to justify the claim that four basic self-evaluation motives have been demonstrated convincingly. Finally, the speculations of this chapter are meant to remind researchers that empirical work to date has taken certain aspects of the self-evaluation process for granted or has neglected other important issues.

Pancultural self-enhancement.

The culture movement challenged the universality of the self-enhancement motive by proposing that the motive is pervasive in individualistic cultures (the West) but absent in collectivistic cultures (the East). The present research posited that Westerners and Easterners use different tactics to achieve the same goal: positive self-regard. Study 1 tested participants from differing cultural backgrounds (the United States vs. Japan), and Study 2 tested participants of differing self-construals (independent vs. interdependent). Americans and independents self-enhanced on individualistic attributes, whereas Japanese and interdependents self-enhanced on collectivistic attributes. Independents regarded individualistic attributes, whereas interdependents regarded collectivistic attributes, as personally important. Attribute importance mediated self-enhancement. Regardless of cultural background or self-construal, people self-enhance on personally important dimensions. Self-enhancement is a universal human motive.

Assessment, Enhancement, and Verification Determinants of the Self-Evaluation Process

The 3 major self-evaluation motives were compared: self-assessment (people pursue accurate self-knowledge), self-enhancement (people pursue favorable self-knowledge), and self-verification (people pursue highly certain self-knowledge). Ss considered the possession of personality traits that were either positive or negative and either central or peripheral by asking themselves questions that varied in diagnosticity (the extent to which the questions could discriminate between a trait and its alternative) and in confirmation value (the extent to which the questions confirmed possession of a trait)

Self-threat magnifies the self-serving bias: A meta-analytic integration

Experiments testing the self-serving bias (SSB; taking credit for personal success but blaming external factors for personal failure) have used a multitude of moderators (i.e., role, task importance, outcome expectancies, self-esteem, achievement motivation, self-focused attention, task choice, perceived task difficulty, interpersonal orientation, status, affect, locus of control, gender, and task type). The present meta-analytic review established the viability and pervasiveness of the SSB and, more important, organized the 14 moderators just listed under the common theoretical umbrella of self-threat. According to the self-threat model, the high self-threat level of each moderator is associated with a larger display of the SSB than the low self-threat level. The model was supported: Self-threat magnifies the SSB.

Narcissism, Self-Esteem, and the Positivity of Self-Views: Two Portraits of Self-Love

The authors hypothesized that both narcissism and high self-esteem are associated with positive self-views but each is associated with positivity in different domains of the self. Narcissists perceive themselves as better than average on traits reflecting an agentic orientation (e.g., intellectual skills, extraversion) but not on those reflecting a communal orientation (e.g., agreeableness, morality). In contrast, high-self-esteem individuals perceive themselves as better than average both on agentic and communal traits. Three studies confirmed the hypothesis. In Study 1, narcissists rated themselves as extraverted and open to experience but not as more agreeable or emotionally stable. High-self-esteem individuals rated themselves highly on all of these traits except openness. In Study 2, narcissists (but not high-self-esteem individuals) rated themselves as better than their romantic partners. In Study 3, narcissists rated themselves as more intelligent, but not more moral, than the average person. In contrast, high-self-esteem individuals viewed themselves as more moral and more intelligent.

Are Normal Narcissists Psychologically Healthy?: Self-Esteem Matters

Five studies established that normal narcissism is correlated with good psychological health. Specifically, narcissism is (a) inversely related to daily sadness and dispositional depression, (b) inversely related to daily and dispositional loneliness, (c) positively related to daily and dispositional subjective well-being as well as couple well-being, (d) inversely related to daily anxiety, and (e) inversely related to dispositional neuroticism. More important, self-esteem fully accounted for the relation between narcissism and psychological health. Thus, narcissism is beneficial for psychological health only insofar as it is associated with high self-esteem. Explanations of the main and mediational findings in terms of response or social desirability biases (e.g., defensiveness, repression, impression management) were ruled out. Supplementary analysis showed that the links among narcissism, self-esteem, and psychological health were preponderantly linear.

Nostalgia: content, triggers, functions

Seven methodologically diverse studies addressed 3 fundamental questions about nostalgia. Studies 1 and 2 examined the content of nostalgic experiences. Descriptions of nostalgic experiences typically featured the self as a protagonist in interactions with close others (e.g., friends) or in momentous events (e.g., weddings). Also, the descriptions contained more expressions of positive than negative affect and often depicted the redemption of negative life scenes by subsequent triumphs. Studies 3 and 4 examined triggers of nostalgia and revealed that nostalgia occurs in response to negative mood and the discrete affective state of loneliness. Studies 5, 6, and 7 investigated the functional utility of nostalgia and established that nostalgia bolsters social bonds, increases positive self-regard, and generates positive affect. These findings demarcate key landmarks in the hitherto uncharted research domain of nostalgia.

Self-enhancement: food for thought

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

Self-enhancement and self-protection: what they are and what they do

We define self-enhancement and self-protection as interests that individuals have in advancing one or more self-domains or defending against negative self-views. We review ways in which people pursue self-enhancement and self-protection, discuss the role of these motivational constructs in scientific explanations, argue for their importance in maintaining psychological and physical well-being, and consider the conditions in which they are likely to operate. At various points, we address the perennial “cognition–motivation” debate. We argue that, despite the conceptual and practical difficulties that attend this distinction, the pervasiveness of the self-enhancement and self-protection motives makes it impossible and imprudent to ignore them in explaining self-related findings and theories.

Intergroup Cognition and Intergroup Behavior

Contents: C. Sedikides, J. Schopler, C.A. InskoIntroduction. Part I:Intergroup Cognition and Intergroup Behavior: Conceptual Issues. M. Schaller, M.C. Rosell, C.H. Asp, Parsimony and Pluralism in the Psychological Study of Intergroup Processes. D. Wilder, A.F. Simon, Categorical and Dynamic Groups: Implications for Social Perception and Intergroup Behavior. Part II:Interindividual Versus Intergroup Cognition and Behavior. D.L. Hamilton, S.J. Sherman, B. Lickel, Perceiving Social Groups: The Importance of the Entitativity Continuum. C.A. Insko, J. Schopler, Differential Distrust of Groups and Individuals. C.A. Insko, J. Schopler, C. Sedikides, Personal Control, Entitativity, and Evolution. Part III:Processes Affecting Intergroup Cognition and Intergroup Behavior: Perceptual and Judgmental Processes. P.W. Linville, G.W. Fischer, Group Variability and Covariation: Effects on Intergroup Judgment and Behavior. M. Biernat, T.K. Vescio, M. Manis, Judging and Behaving Toward Members of Stereotyped Groups: A Shifting Standards Perspective. B. Wittenbrink, B. Park, C.M. Judd, The Role of Stereotypic Knowledge in the Construal of Person Models. Part IV:Processes Affecting Intergroup Cognition and Behavior: Motivational and Social Processes. T. Clare, S.T. Fiske, A Systemic View of Behavioral Confirmation: Counterpoint to the Individualist View. R.M. Kramer, D.M. Messick, Getting By With a Little Help From Our Enemies: Collective Paranoia and Its Role in Intergroup Relations. B. Simon, Individuals, Groups, and Social Change: On the Relationship Between Individual and Collective Self-Interpretations and Collective Action. J.M. Levine, R.L. Moreland, C.S. Ryan, Group Socialization in Intergroup Relations. Part V:On the Reduction of Unwanted Intergroup Cognition and Behavior. G.V. Bodenhausen, C.N. Macrae, J. Garst, Stereotypes in Thought and Deed: Social-Cognitive Origins of Intergroup Discrimination. J.F. Dovidio, S.L. Gaertner, A.M. Isen, M. Rust, P. Guerra, Positive Affect, Cognition, and the Reduction of Intergroup Bias. M. Hewstone, C.G. Lord, Changing Intergroup Cognitions and Intergroup Behavior: The Role of Typicality. N. Miller, L.M. Urban, E.J. Vanman, A Theoretical Analysis of Crossed Social Categorization Effects. Part VI:Concluding Commentary. D.M. Mackie, E.R. Smith, Intergroup Cognition and Intergroup Behavior: Crossing the Boundaries.