James M. Tyler

After Depletion: The Replenishment of the Self's Regulatory Resources

Two experiments investigated how people replenish the selfs limited regulatory resource after it is depleted by self-control exertion. Specifically, in Experiment 1, when depleted participants received a 10-minute period between regulatory tasks, their subsequent performance equaled non-depleted participants. In Experiment 2, inducing participants to relax between self-regulation tasks reduced the typical depletion effects. Thus, these findings suggest that replenishment of the selfs depleted resources occurs given the occurrence of favorable conditions.

Examining self-presentation as a motivational explanation for comparative optimism.

Five studies examined a self-presentation explanation for comparative optimism. Experiments 1 and 2 laid the foundation for such an account by first showing that people associate a favorable identity-image with the conveyance of an optimistic outlook and that people recognize that an individual may be perceived in a negative light if his or her optimistic estimates are disconfirmed, hence raising the issue of potential accountability demands. Following the issue of accountability, the results across Experiments 3, 4, and 5 provided consistent evidence that people employ comparative optimism in their self-presentation efforts but only if the circumstances involve little risk of being held potentially accountable. Specifically, when self-presentational situations involved greater accountability demands, comparative optimism decreased (less optimistic), whereas, when these situations involved reduced accountability demands, comparative optimism increased (more optimistic). In short, the current experiments present compelling evidence demonstrating that comparative optimism may reflect an individuals goal to self-present a favorable identity-image, with the provision that such efforts are constrained by accountability pressures.

Triggering Self-Presentation Efforts Outside of People’s Conscious Awareness

Three studies utilized priming techniques to examine whether self-presentations can be activated without conscious awareness. The results across all experiments consistently demonstrated nonconscious self-presentation effects, in that people were unaware that their self-presentations were triggered automatically and that their self-presentations were comparable to participants who were explicitly instructed to self-present. The findings are novel because they are the first to demonstrate that self-presentations can be triggered without conscious awareness in a manner similar to self-presentations that are strategically selected. In addition, the results help undermine the common misconception that self-presentation typically involves conscious deliberation, pretense, or outright deception.

Organizational Impression Management: Utilizing Anticipatory Tactics

The current pair of studies are the first to empirically show that the proposed tactics/processes (i.e., accommodation, legitimation, intimidation, bureaucratic) of the anticipatory organizational impression management (OIM) model decrease initial challenges to an event and prevent the escalation of an already existing challenge. Moreover, our data showed that variables specified by the model mediated the relationship between the tactics and the respective dependent measures (i.e., initial challenges, escalation of challenges). Our results offer compelling evidence for the OIM model, an empirical case that has been heretofore absent from the literature.

Finding the Love Guru in You: Examining the Effectiveness of a Sexual Communication Training Program for Married Couples

ABSTRACT One specific area of communication that has the potential to elicit a wide range of outcomes, such as enhancing a couples feelings of intimacy, offending one or both partners causing conflict, improving the communication climate within the relationship, or embarrassing the partners involved, is the discussion of sex. The current project theorized how to initiate and maintain sexual coaching conversations, taught participants the components of skillful and unskillful messages in an online training program, and then evaluated the overall effectiveness of said program. Forty couples participated in an online sexual coaching training program and completed several pretest and posttest measures. Results reveal that participation in the training program led to an increase in sexual and relationship satisfaction, a decrease in sexual communication apprehension, and an increase in sexual coaching knowledge and skill. These results, along with the value of interventive research and the implications of this training program, are discussed.

Perpetuation of sexual objectification: The role of resource depletion

Women are sexually objectified when viewed and treated by others as mere objects. Abundant research has examined the negative consequences of being the target of sexual objectification; however, limited attention has focused on the person doing the objectification. Our focus is on the agent and how self-regulatory resources influence sexual objectification. Consistent with prior evidence, we reasoned that people have a well-learned automatic response to objectify sexualized women, and as such, we expected objectifying a sexualized (vs. personalized) woman would deplete fewer regulatory resources than not objectifying her. Findings across three studies confirmed our expectations, demonstrating the extent to which people objectify a sexualized woman or not is influenced by the availability of regulatory resources, a case that heretofore has been absent from the literature. These patterns are discussed in the context of the sexual objectification and self-regulation literature.

Exploring the relationship between appearance-contingent self-worth and self-esteem: The roles of self-objectification and appearance anxiety

Previous work has shown that both an appearance-contingent self-worth (i.e., staking ones overall self-evaluation on ones physical appearance) and self-objectification are associated with higher appearance anxiety and lower self-esteem among women. Although prior evidence separately links both appearance-contingent self-worth and self-objectification to these negative outcomes, no work has examined the mediating processes that may underlie this relationship. With the current project, we examined the relationship between appearance-contingent self-worth and self-objectification, and the degree to which this relationship is associated with higher appearance anxiety and lower overall self-esteem. We hypothesized that appearance-contingent self-worth would be positively associated with self-objectification; in turn, we expected self-objectification to be related to higher appearance anxiety, and ultimately, lower self-esteem. Across two studies, one cross-sectional (N=208) and one short-term longitudinal (N=191), we found compelling support for this hypothesis. These findings have practical and theoretical significance for both the self-objectification and contingent self-worth literatures.

The Influence of Acceptance Goals on Relational Perceptions

ABSTRACT We examined whether relational perceptions (social involvement, relational value, interaction experience) differ depending on interaction acceptance goals (establish, maintain, or repair). Results indicated that relational perceptions were more positive in the maintain condition compared to the establish condition, which in turn was more positive than the repair condition. The data also supported a moderated mediation model: the indirect effects of social involvement and relational value on the relationship between acceptance goals and participant’s interaction experience were contingent on self-esteem. These findings identify boundary conditions that influence the impact of acceptance goals on how much people experience an interaction positively. The findings provide an integrated framework outlining the potential relationship between acceptance goals, relational perceptions, interaction experience, and self-esteem.

High self‐monitors' cognitive access to self‐presentation‐related information

We examined whether high self-monitors cognitively process self-presentation-related information and concepts more readily than low self-monitors. Results across three studies indicate that compared to low self-monitors, high self-monitors have greater cognitive access to self-presentation-related information and concepts. High self-monitors produced more words related to self-presentation in a shorter amount of time (Study 1) and in a cognitive load condition (Study 2). In both studies, the number of words did not differ when participants took longer to create their list and when they were in a no cognitive load condition. In Study 3, high (vs. low) self-monitors showed faster reaction time to self-presentation-related concepts. In contrast, reaction time to non-self-presentation items did not differ. The findings contribute to both the theory and knowledge of self-monitoring by demonstrating that information processing related to self-presentational concepts is an important component of self-monitoring, in that such information is more cognitively accessible to high self-monitors.

The influence of acceptance goals on self-presentational efforts

The current work examined whether self-presentational efforts are influenced differently when people hold a goal to establish, maintain or repair an interpersonal connection. Results supported the counterintuitive prediction that participants with a repair goal would convey a less favourably oriented persona (e.g. less friendly, less similar and less genuine) compared to those with an establish or maintain goal. The efforts of repair goal participants were also perceived as less effective. The analysis also showed that certain self-presentation dimensions (i.e. friendliness, genuineness and similarity) mediated the relationship between acceptance goals and perceived effectiveness. The findings extend and contribute to the self-presentation and belongingness literatures.