Know thyself: Misperceptions of actual performance undermine achievement motivation, future performance, and subjective well-being.

Contrary to the popular assumption that self-enhancement improves task motivation and future performance, the authors propose that both inflated and deflated self-assessments of performance are linked to an increased likelihood of practicing self-handicapping and having relatively poor performance in future tasks. Consistent with this proposal, we found that irrespective of the level of actual performance, compared with accurate self-assessment, both inflated and deflated self-assessments of task performance are associated with a greater tendency to (a) practice self-handicapping (Study 1: prefer to work under distraction; Study 2: withhold preparatory effort), (b) perform relatively poorly in a subsequent task (Study 3), (c) have relatively low academic achievement (Study 4), and (d) report a relatively low level of subjective well-being (Study 5). The authors discuss these results in terms of their educational implications. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The performance of narcissists rises and falls with perceived opportunity for glory.

Narcissists consider themselves to be exceptional performers, but past research has found no consistent relationship between narcissism and performance. The present research tested the hypothesis that the relationship between subclinical narcissism and performance is moderated by a motivational factor: perceived self-enhancement opportunity. Four experiments were conducted, each using different manipulations of self-enhancement opportunity and different performance tasks. In each study, narcissists performed better when self-enhancement opportunity was high rather than low. In contrast, the performance of participants with low narcissism was relatively unaffected by self-enhancement opportunity. Other findings suggested that narcissists' self-enhancement motivation stems more from a desire to garner admiration than from a desire to self-evaluate. Implications and directions for future research are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Some affective consequences of social comparison and reflection processes: The pain and pleasure of being close.

A self-evaluation maintenance (SEM) model of social behavior was described. According to the comparison process, when another outperforms the self on a task high in relevance to the self, the closer the other the greater the threat to self-evaluation. According to the reflection process, when another outperforms the self on a task low in relevance to the self, the closer the other the greater the promise of augmentation to self-evaluation. Affect was assumed to reflect threats and promises to self-evaluation. In 3 studies, Ss were given feedback about own performance and the performance of a close (friend) and distant (stranger) other on tasks that were either low in self-relevance (Study 2) or that varied in self-relevance (Studies 1 and 3). In Study 1 (N?=?31), being outperformed by a close other resulted in greater arousal than being outperformed by a distant other. In Study 2 (N?=?30), results indicate that when relevance was low, more positive affect was associated with a friend's outperforming the self than either a friend's performing at a level equal to the self or being outperformed by a stranger. In Study 3 (N?=?31), pleasantness of expression was an interactive function of relevance of task, relative performance, and closeness of comparison other. All 3 studies are interpreted as being generally consistent with the SEM model. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

High-maintenance interaction: Inefficient social coordination impairs self-regulation.

Tasks requiring interpersonal coordination permeate all spheres of life. Although social coordination is sometimes efficient and effortless (low maintenance), at other times it is inefficient and effortful (high maintenance). Across 5 studies, participants experienced either a high- or a low-maintenance interaction with a confederate before engaging in an individual-level task requiring self-regulation. Self-regulation was operationalized with measures of (a) preferences for a challenging task with high reward potential over an easy task with low reward potential (Study 1) and (b) task performance (anagram performance in Study 1, Graduate Record Exam performance in Studies 2 and 3, physical stamina in Study 4, and fine motor control in Study 5). Results uniformly supported the hypothesis that experiencing high-maintenance interaction impairs one's self-regulatory success on subsequent, unrelated tasks. These effects were not mediated through participants' conscious processes and emerged even with a nonconscious manipulation of high-maintenance interaction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Positive illusions about the self: Short-term benefits and long-term costs.

Two studies addressed parallel questions about the correlates and consequences of self-enhancement bias. Study 1 was conducted in a laboratory context and examined self-enhancing evaluations of performance in a group-interaction task. Study 2 assessed students' illusory beliefs about their academic ability when they first entered college and then followed them longitudinally to test claims about the long-term benefits of positive illusions. Both studies showed that self-enhancement bias was related to narcissism, ego involvement, self-serving attributions, and positive affect. Study 2 found that self-enhancement was associated with decreasing levels of self-esteem and well-being as well as with increasing disengagement from the academic context. Self-enhancement did not predict higher academic performance or higher graduate rates. Thus, the findings suggest that self-enhancing beliefs may be adaptive in the short term but not in the long term. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The self salience model of other-to-self effects: Integrating principles of self-enhancement, complementarity, and imitation.

In a series of studies the Self Salience Model of other-to-self effects is tested. This model posits that self-construal salience is an important determinant of whether other-to-self effects follow the principles of self-enhancement, imitation, or complementarity. Participants imagined interactions (Studies 1 and 2) or were confronted (Studies 3 to 5) with dominant, submissive, agreeable, or quarrelsome person targets. Findings support the prediction that subsequent self-evaluations (Studies 1 to 3) and behaviors (Studies 4 and 5) follow the principles of self-enhancement when the personal self is activated (contrast away from undesirable targets, assimilation toward desirable targets); the principles of complementarity when the relational self is activated (contrast on the dominant-submissive dimension, assimilation on the agreeable-quarrelsome dimension); and the principles of imitation when the collective self is activated (assimilation regardless of desirability or dimension). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Happy, healthy, and productive: The role of detachment from work during nonwork time.

Mentally distancing oneself from work during nonwork time can help restore resources lost because of work demands. In this study, we examined possible outcomes of such psychological detachment from work, specifically well-being and job performance. Although employees may need to mentally detach from work to restore their well-being, high levels of detachment may require a longer time to get back into “working mode,” which may be negatively associated with job performance. Our results indicate that higher levels of self-reported detachment were associated with higher levels of significant other-reported life satisfaction as well as lower levels of emotional exhaustion. In addition, we found curvilinear relationships between psychological detachment and coworker reported job performance (task performance and proactive behavior). Thus, although high psychological detachment may enhance employee well-being, it seems that medium levels of detachment are most beneficial for job performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

When modesty prevails: Differential favorability of self-presentation to friends and strangers.

Although most interpersonal interactions take place between people who know each other, most self-presentation research has focused on self-presentation to strangers. Five studies showed that self-presentational favorability differed as a function of whether the interaction partner was a friend or a stranger. Studies 1 and 2 found that self-presentations to friends were consistently more modest than self-presentations to strangers. In Studies 3 and 4, self-presentations were manipulated by instructing participants to present themselves in either a self-enhancing or modest manner. Modesty with strangers and self-enhancement with friends both resulted in impaired recall for the interaction, consistent with the view that those strategies contradict familiar, overlearned patterns. Study 5 distinguished self-deprecation from modesty. Taken together, the results indicate that people habitually use different self-presentation strategies with different audiences, relying on favorable self-enhancement with strangers but shifting toward modesty when among friends. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

How chronic self-views influence (and mislead) self-assessments of task performance: Self-views shape bottom-up experiences with the task.

Self-assessments of task performance can draw on both top-down sources of information (preconceived notions about one’s ability at the task) and bottom-up cues (one’s concrete experience with the task itself). Past research has suggested that top-down self-views can mislead performance evaluations but has yet to specify the exact psychological mechanisms that produce this influence. Across 4 experiments, the authors tested the hypothesis that self-views influence performance evaluations by first shaping perceptions of bottom-up experiences with the task, which in turn inform performance evaluations. Consistent with this hypothesis, a relevant top-down belief influenced performance estimates only when learned of before, but not after, completing a task (Study 1), and measures of bottom-up experience were found to mediate the link between top-down beliefs about one’s abilities and performance evaluations (Studies 2–4). Furthermore, perception of an objectively definable bottom-up cue (i.e., time it takes to solve a problem) was better predicted by a relevant self-view than the actual passage of time. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Learning to bypass the central bottleneck: Declining automaticity with advancing age.

Does advancing age reduce the ability to bypass the central bottleneck through task automatization? To answer this question, the authors asked 12 older adults and 20 young adults to first learn to perform an auditory–vocal task (low vs. high pitch) in 6 single-task sessions. Their dual-task performance was then assessed with a psychological refractory period paradigm, in which the highly practiced auditory–vocal task was presented as Task 2, along with an unpracticed visual–manual Task 1. Converging evidence indicated qualitative differences in dual-task performance with age: Whereas the vast majority of young adults bypassed the bottleneck, at most 1 of the 12 older adults was able to do so. Older adults are either reluctant to bypass the bottleneck (as a matter of strategy) or have lost the ability to automatize task performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of anxiety level and psychological stress on verbal learning.

"It was predicted that under neutral conditions high anxiety (high drive) Ss would exhibit a performance superior to that of low anxiety (low drive) Ss on a paired-associate learning task with minimal intratask interference but that under conditions of psychological stress (report of inadequate prior performance) high anxiety Ss, due to the greater arousal of interfering extratask responses, would no longer exhibit the superiority found under neutral conditions. Results indicated that while the high anxiety Ss under neutral instructions were significantly superior to the low anxious, as predicted, and the Ss operating under stress were inferior to their neutral controls, the predicted interaction between anxiety level and stress was not found." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Conceptualizing and assessing self-enhancement bias: A componential approach.

Four studies implemented a componential approach to assessing self-enhancement and contrasted this approach with 2 earlier ones: social comparison (comparing self-ratings with ratings of others) and self-insight (comparing self-ratings with ratings by others). In Study 1, the authors varied the traits being rated to identify conditions that lead to more or less similarity between approaches. In Study 2, the authors examined the effects of acquaintance on the conditions identified in Study 1. In Study 3, the authors showed that using rankings renders the self-insight approach equivalent to the component-based approach but also has limitations in assessing self-enhancement. In Study 4, the authors compared the social-comparison and the component-based approaches in terms of their psychological implications; the relation between self-enhancement and adjustment depended on the self-enhancement approach used, and the positive-adjustment correlates of the social-comparison approach disappeared when the confounding influence of the target effect was controlled. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-esteem and direct versus indirect forms of self-enhancement.

Two studies explored the relation between self-esteem and self-enhancement biases. It was proposed that people with high self-esteem engage in forms of self-enhancement in which the self is directly linked to positive identities and outcomes, whereas people with low self-esteem engage in forms of self-enhancement in which the self is indirectly linked to positive identities and outcomes. To test the hypothesis, we examined group favoritism as a function of self-esteem and group involvement. As expected, high self-esteem subjects were most apt to display favoritism when they were directly involved in group processes, whereas low self-esteem subjects were most apt to display favoritism when they were not directly involved in group processes. Furthermore, consistent with the view that these tendencies reflect a motivated desire to enhance self-worth, these effects were less evident after subjects had received positive feedback than after they had received negative feedback. The discussion centers on the nature of high and low self-esteem and the influence of self-enhancement and self-consistency motives in social behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Are self-enhancing cognitions associated with healthy or unhealthy biological profiles?

Self-enhancement is variously portrayed as a positive illusion that can foster health and longevity or as defensive neuroticism that can have physiological-neuroendocrine costs. In a laboratory stress-challenge paradigm, the authors found that high self-enhancers had lower cardiovascular responses to stress, more rapid cardiovascular recovery, and lower baseline cortisol levels, consistent with the positive illusions predictions and counter to the predictions of the defensive neuroticism position. A second set of analyses, replicating the "illusory mental health paradigm" (J. Shedler, M. Mayman, & M. Manis, 1993), also did not support the defensive neuroticism hypothesis. The association between self-enhancement and cortisol was mediated by psychological resources; analyses of the cardiovascular results provided no definitive mediational pathway. Discussion centers on the potential stress-buffering effects of self-enhancing beliefs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Employee self-enhancement motives and job performance behaviors: Investigating the moderating effects of employee role ambiguity and managerial perceptions of employee commitment.

This study examined the effects of employee self-enhancement motives on job performance behaviors (organizational citizenship behaviors and task performance) and the value of these behaviors to them. The authors propose that employees display job performance behaviors in part to enhance their self-image, especially when their role is not clearly defined. They further argue that the effects of these behaviors on managerial reward recommendation decisions should be stronger when managers believe the employees to be more committed. The results from a sample of 84 working students indicate that role ambiguity moderated the effects of self-enhancement motives on job performance behaviors and that managerial perceptions of an employee's commitment moderated the effects of those organizational citizenship behaviors that are aimed at other individuals on managers' reward allocation decisions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Accuracy and bias in self-perception: Individual differences in self-enhancement and the role of narcissism.

Accuracy and bias in self-perceptions of performance were studied in a managerial group-discussion task. 102 Ss (aged 21–41 yrs) ranked their own performance and were ranked by the 5 other group members and by 11 assessment staff members. Although the self-perceptions showed convergent validity with the staff criterion, Ss were less accurate when judging themselves than when judging their peers. On average, Ss evaluated their performance slightly more positively than their performance was evaluated by either the peers or the staff; however, this general self-enhancement effect was dwarfed by substantial individual differences, which ranged from self-enhancement to self-diminishment bias and were strongly related to 4 measures of narcissism. Discussion focuses on issues in assessing the accuracy of self-perceptions and the implications of the findings for individual differences in self-perception bias and the role of narcissism. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The relative accuracy of self-predictions and judgments by others in psychological assessment.

Compared the validity of individual's self-assessments with other assessment procedures commonly used in psychological evaluation. Comparisons are made in the prediction of all criteria investigated: intellectual achievement, vocational choice, job performance, therapy outcome, adjustment following hospitalization, and peer ratings. Self-assessments were at least as predictive of these criteria as were other assessment methods against which they have been pitted. Limitations of this conclusion and its implications for current psychological evaluation procedures are examined. It is argued that greater attention should be given to self-assessments and to the evaluation procedures that may enhance their predictive validity. Steps are outlined for deciding when self-assessment should be used, and suggestions are offered as to how the validity of self-judgments might be maximized. (129 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychometric truths in the absence of psychological meaning: A reply to Zuckerman and Knee.

M. Zuckerman and C. R. Knee (see record 199601769-012) contend that the relationship we reported between self-enhancement and psychological maladjustment (C. R. Colvin, J. Block, D. C. Funder; see record 1995-33022-001) is "not warranted" because a difference score was used to operationalize self-enhancement. In this article we discuss the issues raised by Zuckerman and Knee, the warnings historically issued about the use of difference scores, and the problems associated with alternative statistical procedures. We conclude that difference scores can provide statistically valid and psychologically meaningful results. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Ability analysis of gender relevance and sex differences in cardiovascular response to behavioral challenge

Cardiovascular effects of gender-specific ability perceptions (ability perceptions linked to one's identity as being female or male) were examined under different task conditions. In Study I, participants were led to believe that either men (masculine task) or women (feminine task) tend to do well on a memory task and then were provided the chance to avoid noise by attaining a low or high performance standard. As expected, sex differences in systolic blood pressure response during performance depended not only on task type but also on the degree of challenge. In Study 2, high standard effects were strengthened and extended through the use of an appetitive procedure and the inclusion of conditions in which the performance standard was extreme. Findings are discussed in terms of an interactional analysis of ability percepts, task demand, and cardiovascular responsivity.