Self-enhancement, self-regulation and self-improvement following failures

Exploring Asymmetries in Self-Concept Change After Discrepant Feedback

Receiving self-relevant feedback that is discrepant from one's self-concept can lead to self-concept change. However, it is currently unclear whether positive or negative feedback has a larger effect on self-concept change. Across four studies (total N = 1,438), we demonstrate that intentions for self-concept change (Study 1) as well as actual self-concept change (Studies 2, 3, and 4) are larger (a) for larger discrepancies between self-concept and feedback and (b) for negative compared to positive discrepancies. Exploring these effects further in Study 4, we find no evidence that the opportunity for improvement influences whether self-concept change is positively or negatively biased. In sum, the present research provides consistent evidence for a negativity bias in self-concept change, investigates a theoretical explanation, and discusses alternative explanatory approaches.

How can social needs impact on meaningful sports consumption?

The main goal of this study is to explore the drivers of meaningful sport consumption and its influence mechanism. In sports consumption, consumers not only seek hedonic value but also pursue to experience greater purpose and meaning in life, which is regarded as meaningful sports consumption. This study extends existing sports management literature by examining how social needs impact meaningful sports behavior with team affiliation, self-improvement, and self-esteem as mediators. Based on the questionnaire data collected from China, the empirical analysis results show that social needs have a significant positive impact on meaningful sports consumption behavior through the mediating effect of team affiliation and self-esteem motivation. However, self-improvement motivation does not have a mediating effect on the relationship between social needs and meaningful sports consumption. This study enriches the research content of sports consumption, adds research object of social needs, and expands the research scope of meaningful consumption by introducing meaningful sports consumption into the above domain.

Do People Devalue Sources of Threatening Health Feedback Particularly When Its Criteria Are Ambiguous and Its Consequences Enduring?

We tested the pre-registered hypotheses that receiving threatening health feedback would lead participants to disparage the health-assessment tool used to generate it and that quality of the assessment would moderate this effect. In Studies 1–3, undergraduate students completed a questionnaire including both unambiguous and ambiguous health-assessment items and were randomly assigned to receive either negative health feedback or no feedback. In Study 4, participants were randomly assigned to a control condition or to one of two experimental conditions that entailed receiving negative feedback about enduring or fleeting consequences of their health behaviors. Across all studies, contrary to our predictions, there were no significant effects of feedback on participants’ ratings of the accuracy of the assessment procedures. These findings have implications for understanding the specific conditions under which people disparage sources of threatening feedback in the domain of health.

Critical reflection, unlearning, and engagement

Although individual unlearning is believed to play a critical role in promoting higher-order learning, there has been little quantitative research on this process. This article aimed to investigate the antecedents and consequences of individual unlearning based on transformative learning theory. A survey was conducted among 301 employees working in various occupations and organizations in the United States. The results of structural equation modeling indicated that unlearning mediated the relationship between critical reflection and work engagement and that critical reflection mediated reflection and unlearning. This study contributes to the literature by quantitatively demonstrating the direct and indirect influences of critical reflection on work engagement through individual unlearning, which has been discussed only conceptually and qualitatively in the extant transformative learning literature.

When does self-improvement undermine materialistic tendencies, and when does it strengthen them?

<b>Background</b><br /> In view of the fact that materialism may be caused by feelings of insecurity and low self-esteem, this paper attempts to answer the question of what the role of self-improvement is in the development of materialistic tendencies.<br /> <br /> <b>Participants and procedure</b><br /> Two experiments were carried out (n = 144, n = 126). Half of the participants were exposed to self-threat (failure), which boosts materialistic tendencies, and the others were exposed to self-enhancement (success), which allows maintenance of good self-esteem. In both cases participants were given an opportunity to undertake self-improvement (i.e. redo a task that previously had turned out to be a failure/success). Analyses of materialistic tendencies were based on financial aspirations (study 1) and intentions to purchase luxurious good (study 2).<br /> <br /> <b>Results</b><br /> The results show that people have lower fiscal aspirations (study 1) and want to buy luxury products less (study 2) when they undertake self-improvement in a self-threat (failure) situation. However, when people undertake self-improvement in a self-enhancement situation (success) they have higher fiscal aspirations (study 1) and want to buy luxury products more (study 2).<br /> <br /> <b>Conclusions</b><br /> Self-improvement may be an antidote to materialistic aspirations if undertaken in a self-threat situation, but it may also be a source of materialistic aspirations if undertaken in a self-enhancement situation.

Trajectories of self-evaluation bias in primary and secondary school: Parental antecedents and academic consequences

Using a longitudinal approach spanning nine years of children's formal education, this study investigated the developmental trajectories of self-evaluation bias of academic competence. The study also examined how parenting styles were associated with the trajectories of bias in mid-primary school, and how those trajectories predicted academic outcomes at the end of secondary school and the beginning of college. A total of 711 children in 4th and 5th grades (mean age=10.71years old; 358 girls) participated in this study. Using a latent class growth modeling framework, results indicated that children can be classified in three latent growth trajectories of self-evaluation bias: the optimistic, realistic and pessimistic trajectories. These trajectories differed in their initial status of bias and also in their development over time. Children's adherence to a specific trajectory was associated with parenting variables in childhood. Finally, the optimistic, realistic, or pessimistic trajectories distinctively predicted achievement and persistence.

Effects of self-enhancement bias on perception of supervisory feedback in counseling

The purpose of this study was to assess how the self-enhancement bias of beginning counselors affects their perceptions of negative feedback in counseling supervision. It was predicted that the self-enhancement bias of beginning counselors would help lower the perceived threat of a counseling supervision, and lower perceived threat would mediate positive interpretation of the feedback in a negative feedback condition. In Korea, 203 volunteer beginning counselors (M = 30.2 yr., SD = 6.7) were shown a videotaped counseling supervision session in which a counseling supervisor delivered either largely positive or largely negative feedback to a beginning counselor. After viewing the tape, these beginning counselors rated their perceptions of the supervision setting and feedback as ego-threatening. Results were consistent with predictions.