Naïve beliefs shape emotional reactions to evaluative feedback.
Cogn Emot
; 35(2): 375-384, 2021 03.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-32964801
ABSTRACT
People are motivated to acquire self-evaluative information that favours themselves (self-enhancement) or information that confirms their present self-views (self-consistency). We proposed that participants' naïve theories characterising self-esteem as important may moderate their self-enhancement motivations. Across three samples, we demonstrated that increasing self-esteem importance causes prevention-based emotional reactions to become increasingly dependent on the favorability of feedback. We thus infer that self-enhancement motivation increases when people hold favourable beliefs about the importance of maximising self-esteem. We also replicated past findings in which people regard positive (versus negative) self-relevant information as more valid when they have high (versus low) self-esteem, revealing self-consistency. Individual differences in self-esteem importance and trait self-esteem thus play distinct roles in shaping people's enhancement and consistency motivations.
Key words
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Self Concept
/
Motivation
Limits:
Humans
Language:
En
Journal:
Cogn Emot
Year:
2021
Document type:
Article
Affiliation country: