You don't know me, but I know you: The illusion of asymmetric insight.

People, it is hypothesized, show an asymmetry in assessing their own interpersonal and intrapersonal knowledge relative to that of their peers. Six studies suggested that people perceive their knowledge of their peers to surpass their peers' knowledge of them. Several of the studies explored sources of this perceived asymmetry, especially the conviction that while observable behaviors (e.g., interpersonal revelations or idiosyncratic word completions) are more revealing of others than self, private thoughts and feelings are more revealing of self than others. Study 2 also found that college roommates believe they know themselves better than their peers know themselves. Study 6 showed that group members display a similar bias—they believe their groups know and understand relevant out-groups better than vice versa. The relevance of such illusions of asymmetric insight for interpersonal interaction and our understanding of "naive realism" is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Intuitions about situational correction in self and others.

People's attributional phenomenology is likely to be characterized by effortful situational correction. Drawing on this phenomenology and on people's desire to view themselves more favorably than others, the authors hypothesized that people expect others to engage in less situational correction than themselves and to make more extreme dispositional attributions for constrained actors' behavior. In 2 studies, people expected their peers to make more extreme dispositional inferences than they did themselves for a situationally constrained actor's behavior. People's expectation that they engage in more situational correction than their peers was diminished among Japanese participants, who have less desire to view themselves as superior to their peers (Study 3), and among participants who were led to view dispositional attributions more favorably than situational attributions (Study 4). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Beyond the actor's traits: forming impressions of actors, targets, and relationships from social behaviors

Perceivers who observe social behaviors may form impressions not only of actors' traits but also of people as targets and of interpersonal relationships. In Study 1, Ss read about 4 individuals' behaviors under instructions to form actor-, target-, and relationship-based impressions. Ss then read additional behavioral information that they later tried to recall. Ss accurately perceived actor, target, and relationship effects in the presented information, and they better recalled subsequent behaviors that were consistent with all 3 types of impressions. In Study 2, Ss thought of 4 people they knew and judged how much each liked the other 3. These ratings revealed actor, target, and relationship effects as well as individual and dyadic reciprocity. Perceivers can form relatively accurate impressions of people as actors and as targets and accurate impressions of relationships between people, and these impressions influence memory for further behaviors.     

Attention to behavioral events during interaction: Two actor–observer gaps and three attempts to close them.

In social interactions, people must pay attention to many behavioral events unfolding in themselves and the other person—events that can be observable or unobservable, intentional or unintentional. Three studies explored how people distribute their attention to these different event types and, as a result, build up representations of self and partner during the interaction. Relying on basic principles of attention, the authors predicted 2 actor-observer gaps: Actors pay more attention to unobservable events and less to observable events than do observers, and actors pay more attention to unintentional events and less to intentional events than do observers. Study 1 documents both gaps. Studies 2 and 3 explore factors that might close the gaps, such as relational intimacy and empathy. Implications of these results for the role of attention in attribution and interpersonal behavior are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Do people with low self-esteem really want to feel better? Self-esteem differences in motivation to repair negative moods.

This research examined the hypothesis that people with low self-esteem (LSE) are less motivated than people with high self-esteem (HSE) to repair their negative moods. In Study 1, participants completed diaries in response to either a success or a failure in their everyday lives. Participants described what they intended to do next and the reasons behind those plans. After failure, fewer LSE than HSE participants expressed a goal to improve their mood. A follow-up investigation (Study 2) suggested that this difference was not due to a self-esteem difference in knowledge of mood repair strategies. In Study 3, after undergoing a negative mood induction, fewer LSE than HSE participants chose to watch a comedy video, even though both groups believed the comedy video would make them happy. Studies 4 and 5 explored possible reasons why LSE people are less motivated than HSE people to repair their negative moods. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Do others judge us as harshly as we think? Overestimating the impact of our failures, shortcomings, and mishaps.

When people suffer an embarrassing blunder, social mishap, or public failure, they often feel that their image has been severely tarnished in the eyes of others. Four studies demonstrate that these fears are commonly exaggerated. Actors who imagined committing one of several social blunders (Study 1), who experienced a public intellectual failure (Studies 2 and 3), or who were described in an embarrassing way (Study 4) anticipated being judged more harshly by others than they actually were. These exaggerated fears were produced, in part, by the actors' tendency to be inordinately focused on their misfortunes and their resulting failure to consider the wider range of situational factors that tend to moderate onlookers' impressions. Discussion focuses on additional mechanisms that may contribute to overly pessimistic expectations as well as the role of such expectations in producing unnecessary social anxiety. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Creating and undermining social support in communal relationships: The role of compassionate and self-image goals.

In 2 studies, the authors examined whether relationship goals predict change in social support and trust over time. In Study 1, a group of 199 college freshmen completed pretest and posttest measures of social support and interpersonal trust and completed 10 weekly reports of friendship goals and relationship experiences. Average compassionate goals predicted closeness, clear and connected feelings, and increased social support and trust over the semester; self-image goals attenuated these effects. Average self-image goals predicted conflict, loneliness, and afraid and confused feelings; compassionate goals attenuated these effects. Changes in weekly goals predicted changes in goal-related affect, closeness, loneliness, conflict, and beliefs about mutual and individualistic caring. In Study 2, a group of 65 roommate pairs completed 21 daily reports of their goals for their roommate relationship. Actors' average compassionate and self-image goals interacted to predict changes over 3 weeks in partners' reports of social support received from and given to actors; support that partners gave to actors, in turn, predicted changes in actors' perceived available support, indicating that people with compassionate goals create a supportive environment for themselves and others, but only if they do not have self-image goals. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Acting, behaving, and the selfless basis of metaperception.

The desire to create a particular impression of oneself to others is a fundamental interpersonal motive that should be followed by an assessment of the success of the self-presentation. The authors integrate the areas of self-presentation and metaperception in the present research by assigning participants to enact roles during 2 dyadic interactions and measuring the actors' metaperceptions and their partners' trait judgments. They found a high level of accuracy in actors' metaperceptions but no accuracy in partners' trait judgments of the actors. Instead, partners' trait judgments corresponded closely to the actors' interpersonal behavior, indicating that there was little or no "personality leakage" in the actors' behavior. Random assignment to role created a situation in which private self was uncorrelated with public self. Results indicate that actors were able to disregard their self-concepts when determining the impressions they created. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Seeking security or growth: A regulatory focus perspective on motivations in romantic relationships.

Using a multimethod approach, we examined how regulatory focus shapes people's perceptual, behavioral, and emotional responses in different situations in romantic relationships. We first examined how chronic regulatory focus affects romantic partners' support perceptions and problem-solving behaviors while they were engaged in a conflict resolution discussion (Study 1). Next, we experimentally manipulated regulatory focus and tested its effects on partner perceptions when individuals recalled a prior conflict resolution discussion (Study 2). We then examined how chronic regulatory focus influences individuals' emotional responses to hypothetical relationship events (Study 3) and identified specific partner behaviors to which people should respond with regulatory goal-congruent emotions (Study 4). Strongly prevention-focused people perceived their partners as more distancing and less supportive during conflict (Studies 1 and 2), approached conflict resolution by discussing the details related to the conflict (Study 1), and experienced a negative relationship outcome with more agitation (Study 3). Strongly promotion-focused people perceived their partners as more supportive and less distancing (Studies 1 and 2), displayed more creative conflict resolution behavior (Study 1), and experienced a negative relationship outcome with more sadness and a favorable outcome with more positive emotions (Study 3). In Study 4, recalling irresponsible and responsible partner behaviors was associated with experiencing more prevention-focused emotions, whereas recalling affectionate and neglectful partner behaviors was associated with more promotion-focused emotions. The findings show that regulatory focus and approach–avoidance motivations influence certain interpersonal processes in similar ways, but regulatory focus theory also generates novel predictions on which approach–avoidance models are silent. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of introspecting about reasons: Inferring attitudes from accessible thoughts.

Previous research has shown that analyzing reasons can change people's attitudes, but the exact mechanisms of this effect have not been entirely clear. It was hypothesized that introspecting about reasons focuses people's attention on thoughts that are accessible in memory and increases the extent to which people view their accessible thoughts as applicable to their current attitudes. In Study 1, college students formed initial impressions of a target person, and then positive or negative thoughts about the target person were made memorable. After a delay, half of the participants analyzed reasons for their attitude and half recalled the target person's behaviors. As predicted, people who analyzed reasons reported attitudes toward the target person that were based more on what they could recall about her. Study 2 showed that this effect occurs regardless of whether people initially form an online impression. Implications for the effects of analyzing reasons and for attitude formation are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Temporal differences in trait self-ascription: When the self is seen as an other.

Seven studies exploring people's tendency to make observer-like attributions about their past and future selves are presented. Studies 1 and 2 showed temporal differences in trait assessments that paralleled the classic actor-observer difference. Study 3 provided evidence against a motivational account of these differences. Studies 4-7 explored underlying mechanisms involving differences in the focus of attention of the sort linked to the classic actor-observer difference. In Study 4, people perceived past and future selves from a more observer-like perspective than present selves. In Studies 5 and 6, manipulating attention to internal states (vs. observable behavior) of past and future selves led people to ascribe fewer traits to those selves. Study 7 showed an inverse relationship for past and present selves between observer-like visual focus and salience of internal information. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Why Susie sells seashells by the seashore: Implicit egotism and major life decisions.

Because most people possess positive associations about themselves, most people prefer things that are connected to the self (e.g., the letters in one's name). The authors refer to such preferences as implicit egotism. Ten studies assessed the role of implicit egotism in 2 major life decisions: where people choose to live and what people choose to do for a living. Studies 1-5 showed that people are disproportionately likely to live in places whose names resemble their own first or last names (e.g., people named Louis are disproportionately likely to live in St. Louis). Study 6 extended this finding to birthday number preferences. People were disproportionately likely to live in cities whose names began with their birthday numbers (e.g., Two Harbors, MN). Studies 7-10 suggested that people disproportionately choose careers whose labels resemble their names (e.g., people named Dennis or Denise are overrepresented among dentists). Implicit egotism appears to influence major life decisions. This idea stands in sharp contrast to many models of rational choice and attests to the importance of understanding implicit beliefs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of self-focused rumination on negative thinking and interpersonal problem solving.

Hypotheses about the effects of self-focused rumination on interpretations of events and interpersonal problem solving were tested in 3 studies with dysphoric and nondysphoric participants. Study 1 supported the hypothesis that dysphoric participants induced to ruminatively self-focus on their feelings and personal characteristics would endorse more negative, biased interpretations of hypothetical situations than dysphoric participants induced to distract themselves from their mood, or nondysphoric participants. Study 2 showed that dysphoric participants who ruminated were more pessimistic about positive events in their future than the other 3 groups. Study 3 showed that dysphoric ruminating participants generated less effective solutions to interpersonal problems than the other 3 groups. In Studies 1 and 3, dysphoric ruminating participants also offered the most pessimistic explanations for interpersonal problems and hypothetical negative events. In all 3 studies, dysphoric participants who distracted were as optimistic and effective in solving problems as nondysphoric participants. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-knowledge and social inference: I. The impact of cognitive/affective and behavioral data.

Two studies investigated the sources of information that people would perceive as diagnostic of self. In Study 1, 40 undergraduates completed a questionnaire in which they rated private thoughts and feelings, other peoples' as well as their own, as far more informative and prototypic of self than overt actions. In Study 2, 48 undergraduate speakers participated in a structured interview during which they revealed either a sample of their past thoughts and feelings, a sample of their past behavior, or a mixture of these 2 types of information to 71 undergraduate observers who watched and listened from behind a 1-way mirror. The interviews offering cognitive/affective revelations were perceived, both by the speakers themselves and by observers, to be more informative than interviews offering behavioral revelations. Analyses from both studies, however, suggest that the tendency to weight cognitive/affective information more heavily than behavioral information may be stronger and more consistent for self-perception than social perception. Study 2, in particular, indicates that speakers made more extreme dispositional inferences based on cognitive/affective interviews, whereas observers did not. Ratings of interpersonal liking closely paralleled ratings of perceived informativeness for the questionnaire responses in Study 1 but not for the responses to explicit revelations of thoughts and feeling vs behavior in Study 2. Sex differences were also observed on several measures. (38 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Some Aspects of the Positive Value of Hostility.

In the study of pathological behavior, it is customary to study symptoms from the viewpoint of economics: what is the tension-reduction purpose they serve? In terms of this well established tendency, it is somewhat strange that one major symptom, which we view as pathological, has not been widely explored from this standpoint. This symptom, possibly the most common one we observe, is interpersonal hostility. A brief discussion of some of the tension-reduction aspects of hostility (literally of its positive value to the individual) may be productive. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Why people are reluctant to tempt fate.

The present research explored the belief that it is bad luck to "tempt fate." Studies 1 and 2 demonstrated that people do indeed have the intuition that actions that tempt fate increase the likelihood of negative outcomes. Studies 3-6 examined our claim that the intuition is due, in large part, to the combination of the automatic tendencies to attend to negative prospects and to use accessibility as a cue when judging likelihood. Study 3 demonstrated that negative outcomes are more accessible following actions that tempt fate than following actions that do not tempt fate. Studies 4 and 5 demonstrated that the heightened accessibility of negative outcomes mediates the elevated perceptions of likelihood. Finally, Study 6 examined the automatic nature of the underlying processes. The types of actions that are thought to tempt fate as well as the role of society and culture in shaping this magical belief are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Give a person power and he or she will show interpersonal sensitivity: The phenomenon and its why and when.

The goal of the present research was to investigate whether high or low power leads to more interpersonal sensitivity and what potentially mediates and moderates this effect. In Study 1, 76 participants in either a high- or low-power position interacted; in Study 2, 134 participants were implicitly primed with either high- or low-power or neutral words; and in Study 3, 96 participants were asked to remember a situation in which they felt high or low power (plus a control condition). In Study 4, 157 participants were told to identify with either an egoistic, empathic, or neutral leadership style. In all studies, interpersonal sensitivity, defined as correctly assessing other people, was then measured using different instruments in each study. Consistently, high power resulted in more interpersonal sensitivity than low power. Feeling respected and proud was partially responsible for this effect. Empathic power as a personality trait was related to more interpersonal sensitivity, and high-power individuals who adopted an empathic instead of an egoistic leadership style were more interpersonally sensitive. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)