Self- and interpersonal evaluations: Esteem theories versus consistency theories.

Jones, Stephen C.

doi:10.1037/h0033957

Cited by 388 publications

(292 citation statements)

References 49 publications

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“…Friendships can lead to selfenhancement via additional mechanisms. Individuals will feel more positively about the self when they receive glowing feedback from friends (Jones, 1973) or when they identify with a friend's success in a non-self-relevant domain (Tesser, 1988). The self may also be enhanced when a friend is outperformed in a self-relevant domain.…”

Section: Does Friendship Augment or Curtail Individual Self-enhancemementioning

confidence: 99%

Among friends? An examination of friendship and the self‐serving bias

Campbell

Sedikides

Reeder

et al. 2000

British J Social Psychol

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Do friends bound each other's self‐enhancement tendencies? Do friends display the self‐serving bias (SSB; i.e. taking individual credit for success but blaming a partner for failure)? Dyads consisting of either friends or strangers engaged in an interdependent‐outcomes creativity test, received bogus success or failure feedback at the dyadic level, and made responsibility attributions for the joint test performance. Strangers displayed the SSB. Friends, in contrast, refrained from the SSB: they shared responsibility for both successful and unsuccessful test outcomes. Friendship does place boundaries on self‐enhancement.

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Section: Does Friendship Augment or Curtail Individual Self-enhancemementioning

confidence: 99%

Among friends? An examination of friendship and the self‐serving bias

Campbell

Sedikides

Reeder

et al. 2000

British J Social Psychol

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“…At the same time, research in social psychology has consistently demonstrated that people strive to maintain a positive self-concept both privately and publicly (Adler, 1930;Allport, 1955;Jones, 1973, Rogers, 1959Rosenberg, 1979). In fact, people strive to maintain a positive self-image even when doing so requires a degree of self-deception, pretense, or guile (Schlenker, 1982;Tajfel, 1982).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The pot calling the kettle black: Distancing response to ethical dissonance.

Barkan

Ayal

Gino

et al. 2012

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

148

115

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Six studies demonstrate the -pot calling the kettle black‖ phenomenon whereby people are guilty of the very fault they identify in others. Recalling an undeniable ethical failure, people experience ethical dissonance between their moral values and their behavioral misconduct.Our findings indicate that to reduce ethical dissonance, individuals use a double-distancing mechanism. Using an overcompensating ethical code, they judge others more harshly and present themselves as more virtuous and ethical (Studies 1, 2, 3). We show this mechanism is exclusive for ethical dissonance and is not triggered by salience of ethicality (Study 4), general sense of personal failure, or ethically-neutral cognitive dissonance (Study 5). Finally, it is characterized by some boundary conditions (Study 6). We discuss the theoretical contribution of this work to research on moral regulation and ethical behavior.

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“…This is not so. Several decades of research have produced mixed results, with some studies favoring self-consistency theory and others favoring self-enhancement theory (for reviews, see Jones, 1973;Shrauger, 1975;Swann, 1985). Shrauger (1975) attempted to bring order to this confusing state of affairs by suggesting that some dependent variables tended to produce consistency effects and others tended to produce enhancement effects.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The cognitive–affective crossfire: When self-consistency confronts self-enhancement.

Swann

Griffin

Predmore

et al. 1987

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

513

396

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Self-consistency theory assumes that people want others to treat them in a predictable manner. Selfenhancement theory contends that people want others to treat them in a positive manner. We attempted to help reconcile the two theories by testing the hypothesis that people's cognitive responses conform to self-consistency theory and their affeetive responses conform to self-enhancement theory. We presented individuals who possessed either positive or negative self-concepts with either favorable or unfavorable social feedback. We then measured cognitive reactions to the feedback (e.g., perceived self-descriptiveness) and alfective reactions to the feedback (e.g., mood states). Cognitive responses were primarily driven by the consistency of the feedback and affeetive responses were controlled by how enhancing it was. We propose that conceptualizing cognition and affect as partially independent mental systems helps resolve some long-standing paradoxes regarding people's responses to selfrelevant social feedback.When we undertake to cure a patient, to free him from the symptoms of his malady, he confronts us with a vigorous, tenacious resistance that lasts during the whole time of the treatment. This is so peculiar a fact that we cannot expect much credence for it .... Just consider, this patient suffers from his symptoms and causes those about him to suffer with him.., and yet he struggles, in the very interests of the malady, against one who would help him. How improbable this assertion must sound! (Freud, 1921, p. 248) Improbable perhaps, yet Freud's assertion has fared well over the years. Self-consistency theorists, for example, contend that much like Freud's patients, people with negative self-concepts undermine opportunities to better themselves by engaging in cognitive and behavioral activities that perpetuate their selfviews. Yet, as Freud feared, such contentions have raised a fair number of eyebrows. Self-enhancement theorists, for example, have rejected self-consistency theory by arguing that in fact people with negative self-concepts are highly motivated to improve their self-views. This raises an important question: Does selfconsistency or self-enhancement theory offer a more compelling characterization ofhuman nature?

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Self- and interpersonal evaluations: Esteem theories versus consistency theories.

Cited by 388 publications

References 49 publications

Among friends? An examination of friendship and the self‐serving bias

Among friends? An examination of friendship and the self‐serving bias

The pot calling the kettle black: Distancing response to ethical dissonance.

The cognitive–affective crossfire: When self-consistency confronts self-enhancement.

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