LITMIR.BIZ

      Figure 4.6 Processes of Ironic Control

      Source: Adapted from Study 2, Wegner, D. M., Ansfield, M., & Pilloff, D. (1998). The putt and the pendulum: Ironic effects of the mental control of action. Psychological Science, 9, 196–199.

      Self-Regulation: The capacity to control one’s thoughts, feelings, and behavior

      Willpower: Mental energy needed to change the activities of the self to meet the desired standards

      Ironic Process of Mental Control: Trying to control one’s thoughts or behavior in a way that produces the very thoughts or behavior that one is trying to avoid

      Think Again!

      Confirming the Self: Self-Verification

      The final “self” concept that we will discuss in this chapter is based in a motive related to self-regulation and self-concept: what is called the need for self-consistency or self-verification. In the chapter on persuasion we’ll describe consistency theory in more detail; for now suffice it to say that people often seek feedback from others that is consistent with their self-concept. That is, they wish to confirm or verify what they believe is true about themselves, a tendency called self-verification (North & Swann, 2009a; Swann, 1990; Valentiner, Hiraoka, & Skowronski, 2014). According to Swann (1990), people want to maximize their perceptions of control and predictability with respect to themselves and their situation, and doing so involves confirming one’s beliefs about the self. Perhaps, paradoxically, people don’t just want others to verify their positive attributes, but they also seek feedback consistent with their self-identified negative attributes (Swann, 1990; Valentiner, Skowronski, McGrath, Smith, & Renner, 2011). For instance, in one study participants who held negative self-views chose to interact with individuals who had negatively evaluated them rather than others who had given them a positive evaluation (Swann, Pelham, & Krull, 1989). Note how this motivation differs from that for accurate self-knowledge and for self-enhancing information: Seeking true accuracy would require soliciting and being open to feedback that may not be consistent with one’s self-view, whereas self-enhancing implies searching for and/or attending to only positive feedback (Sedikides & Gregg, 2003). In contrast, self-verification invokes strategies designed to reinforce one’s self-concept, whether or not it results in accurate self-knowledge or unflattering evaluation (Swann, 1990; Swann, Chang-Schneider, & Angulo, 2008). Despite the fact that self-verification can provide individuals with negative feedback, this and other drawbacks are often outweighed by the benefits of self-verification (North & Swann, 2009b). By way of example, people tend to seek romantic partners who help verify their self-concepts, including their less desirable features (Swann et al., 2008).

      Self-Verification: Seeking information that will confirm one’s self-concept

      A Clash of Motives?

      As you can see from the preceding paragraph, the motives of accuracy, enhancement, and verification may be at loggerheads: Efforts to satisfy one of them may prevent the satisfaction of the others (Kwang & Swann, 2010). For instance, in one study, when given the option of choosing what feedback to receive, participants preferred self-enhancing to self-verifying feedback and were least interested in obtaining self-evaluative information (Sedikides, 1993). In other words, feeling good about oneself was more important than confirming the self, and obtaining accurate feedback was least important. Although direct research examining conflicts among these three motives is sparse, what is available suggests that self-enhancement may be one of the most fundamental of all motives (Anseel & Lievens, 2006).

      Final Thoughts: The Paradox of The Self

      As you can see from reading this chapter, the seemingly simple question, “what is the self?” is actually quite complex. The self is not one “thing.” Instead it is a nexus of motives, cognitions, and other features that intersect, overlap, and interact in complicated and fascinating ways. We learn about our selves in several ways, including introspection and by the self-perception process of observing how we behave. The self presents a bit of a paradox: It is defined as the experience of the self, suggesting that it is independent, stable, and coherent. However, research shows that it is also dependent on and tied closely to other people— at least how we perceive our relationships with others and how we think they view us—and other people play a particularly large role in self-evaluation. Moreover, our many selves differ from each other and may vary across situations as we engage in self-monitoring and impression management. The self is the product of all of these activities and is continually evolving even as we try to hold it steady. Finally, the self lies at the core of several of the fundamental issues of social psychology, including the extent to which we have free will and the rationality of our thought processes.

      Core Concepts