Extraversion as a Moderator of the Efficacy of Self-Esteem Maintenance Strategies.

Four experiments explored how extraversion's connection with self-esteem may depend on specific self-enhancement strategies. Participants' self-esteem threatening feedback indicating that they had performed poorly on a vocabulary or emotional intelligence test. In Experiment 1, participants (N = 80) were randomly assigned to either a control condition (no self-enhancement) or a downward social comparison condition. The procedures for Experiments 2 (N = 470) and 3 (N = 514) were similar, adding a self-serving attribution condition (Experiments 2 and 3) and Basking-in-Reflected-Glory (BIRG) condition (Experiment 3). Across the experiments, extraversion was more related to self-esteem under downward social comparison versus other conditions. BIRGing produced higher self-esteem in Experiment 3 across extraversion levels. Experiment 4 (N = 355) focused on downward social comparison versus control, and provided evidence that an increased perception of being similar to the comparison targets may partially explain extraversion's self-esteem link. Theoretical implications concerning both extraversion and self-enhancement are discussed.

Knowledge of the self-control benefits of high-level versus low-level construal.

Research indicates that inducing high-level construal (processing that highlights invariant, essential features) relative to low-level construal (processing that highlights idiosyncratic, peripheral features) promotes self-control (Fujita & Carnevale, 2012). In the present work, we investigate to what extent people recognize the self-control benefits of high-level construal, and explore the consequences of this knowledge. Studies 1 and 2 provide initial evidence that individuals are aware that high-level relative to low-level construal promotes self-control in the dieting domain. Studies 3 and 4 find that individual differences in this knowledge predict self-control success outcomes (i.e., body mass index) among those who are motivated by dieting goals. Examining academics as a domain of self-control, Study 5 demonstrates that those with higher knowledge of construal level's impact on self-control earned higher end-of-semester grades to the extent that they were motivated to do well academically. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record