Naïve beliefs shape emotional reactions to evaluative feedback

People are motivated to acquire self-evaluative information that favours themselves ( ) or information that confirms their present self-views ( ). We proposed that participants' naïve theories characterising self-esteem as important may moderate their self-enhancement motivations. Across three...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Cognition and emotion 2021-03, Vol.35 (2), p.375-384
Main Authors: Vaughan-Johnston, Thomas I, Jacobson, Jill A
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Emotional responses
Emotions
Feedback
Individual differences
Information processing
Motivation
Self esteem
Selfenhancement
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Summary:People are motivated to acquire self-evaluative information that favours themselves ( ) or information that confirms their present self-views ( ). 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.
ISSN:0269-9931
1464-0600
DOI:10.1080/02699931.2020.1822296