Goals and responses to failure: Knowing when to hold them and when to fold them

The ability to disengage from hopeless situations is critical to goal attainment and effective self-regulation. Two experiments investigated the effects of striving to attain success (approach goals) versus striving to avoid failure (avoidance goals) on persistence. Participants completed anagrams designed so that less persistence during an initial set of unsolvable anagrams was beneficial. In Study 1, participants reported how motivated they were by approach and avoidance goals. In Study 2, participants were primed to set approach or avoidance goals. Participants with avoidance goals persisted longer during failure, with more intense and enduring emotional distress, than those with approach goals. Greater anger predicted spending more time on subsequent unsolvable anagrams and accounted for differences in persistence. The results suggest that people with approach goals are better able to identify when they should disengage during failure, and disengage more completely, than people with avoidance goals. An earlier version of this article was presented at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology conference, Palm Springs, CA, January, 2006.     

句子阅读的内隐自尊研究

本研究尝试通过22名被试在阅读自我成败句子及他／她成败句子时的眼动数据来探讨内隐自尊,结果发现阅读主语人称为“我”的句子时．自我成功句子与自我失败句子的第二次注视时间及瞳孔大小存在差异,这提示内隐自尊存在,个体会无意识地对自我积极信息进行深度加工。     

The pursuit of self-esteem: contingencies of self-worth and self-regulation

Successful self-regulation is defined as the willingness to exert effort toward one's most important goals, while taking setbacks and failures as opportunities to learn, identify weaknesses and address them, and develop new strategies toward achieving those goals. Contingencies of self-worth can facilitate self-regulation because people are highly motivated to succeed and avoid failure in domains of contingency. However, because boosts in self-esteem are pleasurable and drops in self-esteem are painful, protection, maintenance, and enhancement of self-esteem can become the overriding goal. Several pitfalls for self-regulation can result, especially when tasks are difficult and failure is likely. In this article, we describe a program of research examining these self-regulation pitfalls associated with contingent self-worth and suggest that learning orientations, particularly the willingness to embrace failure for the learning it affords, foster successful self-regulation even in people with highly contingent self-esteem.     

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.     

The Contingencies of Interpersonal Acceptance: When Romantic Relationships Function as a Self-Affirmational Resource

Existing research suggests that people with high, but not low, self-esteem use their dating partners' love and acceptance as a resource for self-affirmation when faced with personal shortcomings. The present research examines the role that perceived contingencies of acceptance play in mediating these effects. In Experiment 1, we activated either conditional or unconditional working models and then gave experimental participants failure feedback on an intelligence test. In Experiment 2, we activated thoughts of rejection (or control thoughts) and then gave experimental participants feedback suggesting that their romantic partners would discover their secret sides. Experiment 1 revealed that low and high self-esteem women both embellished their partners' love and acceptance to compensate for self-doubt when the unconditional audience was primed. When rejection was primed in Experiment 2, however, high self-esteem men reacted to the self-threat by doubting their partners' love. These findings suggest that people with low self-esteem may not typically use their relationships to self-affirm because contingencies linking failure to rejection and acceptance to success are chronically accessible in their interpersonal schemas.     

Self-esteem and responses to success and failure: Subsequent performance and intrinsic motivation

A model is proposed in which the goal of people with high self-esteem is to cultivate personal strengths in order to excel, whereas the goal of people with low self-esteem is to remedy personal deficiencies in order to become adequate In two experiments, subjects received initial outcome feedback of either success, humiliating failure (internal attribution), or failure that allowed face-saving (external attribution) Experiment 1 then measured subjects intrinsic motivation to pursue the task during free-choice time Subjects with high self-esteem had the highest intrinsic motivation after success Subjects with low self-esteem had the highest intrinsic motivation after the humiliating failure Experiment 2 required a second performance on a similar task Performance results were consistent with the intrinsic motivation results of Experiment 1, with one exception High self-esteem subjects were sensitive to the different failure treatments, performing well after humiliation but poorly after face-saving Subjects with low self-esteem performed the same in both failure conditions The relation of the present model and results to previous work is discussed     

内隐自尊的功能:缓冲器,还是滤波器

用内隐联想测验（IAT）测量被试的内隐自尊,通过成败操纵来检验内隐自尊的缓冲器假设。研究发现,无论面对成功反馈还是失败反馈,高内隐自尊者对自己的表现均比较满意,且成功时的满意度显著高于失败时的满意度;低内隐自尊者面对成功时对自己的表现满意,面对失败时对自己的表现不满意,且二者差异显著。这表明内隐自尊可能并非具有缓冲作用,而是具有滤波作用。较之低内隐自尊者,高内隐自尊者在应对压力或威胁时能够更多地过滤负面效应。据此,本文提出了内隐自尊的滤波器假设。     

Contingencies of self-worth, academic failure, and goal pursuit

Two studies examine the effects of failure on explicit and implicit self-esteem, affect, and self-presentation goals as a function of people's trait self-esteem and academic contingency of self-worth. Study 1 shows that participants with low self-esteem (LSE) who receive failure feedback experience lower state self-esteem, less positive affect, and less desire to be perceived as competent the more they base self-worth on academics. In contrast, participants with high self-esteem (HSE) who strongly base self-worth on academics show a slight boost in state self-esteem and desire to be perceived as competent following failure. Study 2 shows that following failure, academically contingent LSE participants downplay the importance of appearing competent to others and associate themselves with failure on an implicit level. Taken together, these findings suggest that academically contingent HSE people show resilience following failure, whereas academically contingent LSE people experience negative outcomes and disengage from the pursuit of competence self-presentation goals.     

Managing motivational conflict: How self-esteem and executive resources influence self-regulatory responses to risk

This article explores how self-esteem and executive resources interact to determine responses to motivational conflict. One correlational and 3 experimental studies investigated the hypothesis that high and low self-esteem people undertake different self-regulatory strategies in "risky" situations that afford opportunity to pursue competing goals and that carrying out these strategies requires executive resources. When such resources are available, high self-esteem people respond to risk by prioritizing and pursuing approach goals, whereas low self-esteem people prioritize avoidance goals. However, self-esteem does not influence responses to risk when executive resources are impaired. In these studies, risk was operationalized by exposing participants to a relationship threat (Studies 1 and 2), by using participants' self-reported marital conflict (Study 3), and by threatening academic competence (Study 4). Executive resources were operationalized as cognitive load (Studies 1 and 2), working memory capacity (Study 3), and resource depletion (Study 4). When executive resources were ample, high self-esteem people responded to interpersonal risk by making more positive relationship evaluations (Studies 1, 2, and 3) and making more risky social comparisons following a personal failure (Study 4) than did low self-esteem people. Self-esteem did not predict participants' responses when executive resources were impaired or when risk was absent. The regulatory function of self-esteem may be more resource-dependent than has been previously theorized. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

The psychological distance of memories: Examining causal relations with mood and self-esteem in young,middle-aged and older adults

Three studies examined the self-enhancement function of autobiographical memory (measured with subjective temporal distance of memories). Participants recalled a memory of an attained and a failed goal and rated the subjective distance between each memory and the present. Study 1 showed that young adults with higher self-esteem felt closer to memories of attained goals and farther from failure memories than those with lower self-esteem. In Study 2, young, middle-aged and older adults with higher self-esteem felt closer to success memories, whereas self-esteem was unrelated to the temporal distance of failure memories. In both studies, feeling closer to success memories (and far from failure) led to enhanced mood. In Study 3, state self-esteem was experimentally manipulated. The manipulation had no effect on young and older adults, but middle-aged adults whose self-esteem was decreased, felt closer to success memories than failure memories. Results are discussed in relation to the temporal self-appraisal theory.     

Attribution of success and failure revisited, or: The motivational bias is alive and well in attribution theory

Do causal attributions serve the need to protect and / or enhance self-esteem? In a recent review, Miller and Ross (1975) proposed that there is evidence for self-serving effect in the attribution of success but not in the attribution of failure; and that this effect reflects biases in information-processing rather than self-esteem maintenance. The present review indicated that self-serving effects for both success and failure are obtained in most but not all experimental paradigms. Processes which may suppress or even reverse the self-serving effect were discussed. Most important, the examination of research in which self-serving effects are obtained suggested that these attributions are better understood in motivational than in information-processing terms.     

Emotions in memories of success and failure: a cultural perspective

Americans and Chinese tend to behave differently in response to success and failure: Americans tend to persist on a task after success, whereas Chinese tend to persist after failure. This study examined whether cultural differences in emotional reactions to success and failure account for these differences. American and Chinese students recalled personal success and failure events, evaluated the primary emotion evoked by the event, and responded to measures of concerns, appraisals, and willingness to try the same task again. Americans were more likely than Chinese to report that their success enhanced their self-esteem. Chinese were more likely than Americans to estimate that their success would make others jealous and enhance others' respect for their family. Chinese, compared to Americans, viewed failures as more tolerable, as less problematic for their goals, and as less damaging to their self-esteem. Culture moderated the relations between these components of emotion and willingness to try the task again. In short, culturally framed emotional reactions to success and failure result in different patterns of anticipated self-regulation.     

Self-esteem and persistence in the face of failure

In 2 studies, the authors examined self-esteem, persistence, and rumination in the face of failure. Study 1 manipulated degree of failure and availability of goal alternatives. When an alternative was available, high self-esteem (HSE) participants persisted more than low self-esteem (LSE) participants after a single failure, but less after repeated failure. When no alternative was available, no self-esteem differences in persistence emerged. LSE participants ruminated more than HSE participants. Study 2 examined persistence and rumination for 10 personal goals across an academic year. HSE participants were better calibrated (higher within-subject correlations between perceived progress and persistence across goals), had higher overall levels of persistence, higher grade point averages, and lower levels of rumination than LSE participants. Although traditional views that emphasize the tenacious persistence of HSE individuals need revision, HSE people appear more effective in self-regulating goal-directed behavior.     

Self-serving biases in the perception of freedom: the impact of previously experienced failure

The purpose of five experiments was to investigate the use by Israeli students of a perceived lack of freedom as a self-protective device against the negative implications of poor performance in an achievement task. I hypothesized that a reduction in perceived freedom might be used to protect self-esteem following failure. A reduction in perceived freedom would weaken a person's sense of responsibility for failure and thereby protect self-esteem. Experiments 1 and 2 showed that subjects exposed to failure retrospectively reported having had less freedom during the experimental sessions than those who experienced success or no feedback at all. Experiments 3, 4, and 5 demonstrated that failure reduces the perception of freedom when other external rationalizations for failure (high consensus, high distinctiveness, low consistency) are unavailable. The results are interpreted in the light of self-protective strategies.     

Motivational correlates of need for cognition

Need for cognition is usually characterized as an intrinsic desire to engage in challenging intellectual activity. In achievement situations, however, it could be associated with more extrinsic goals such as success or the avoidance of failure. Three experiments examined this possibility. Participants in all studies were led to believe they would perform either an easy or a difficult intellectual task that they were likely to fail. After inducing this expectation, indices of extrinsic motivation were obtained. Participants with high need for cognition became more motivated to avoid negative consequences of their behavior (e.g., failure) when they expected the task they would perform to be difficult. In contrast, participants with low need for cognition were not appreciably affected by these expectancies. The anticipation of engaging in intellectual activity apparently stimulates different motives in people with high and low need for cognition, and the mindset induced by these motives influences their later behavioral decisions. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

成就目标启动对风险偏好的调节作用

新近研究发现,目标可以在无意识的条件下被激活并自动地引导行为以达成目标,但其内部机制尚不清楚。本研究试图考察风险偏好是否受无意识目标调节。实验采用问卷作为启动刺激,分别启动被试追求成功的目标与避免失败的目标,并在收益框架下和损失框架下测量被试的风险偏好。结果发现：在收益框架下,受到追求成功目标启动的被试比受到避免失败目标启动的被试更加偏好风险;而在损失框架下,两组被试间未发现显著差异。上述结果表明自动激活的成就目标可以影响个体的风险偏好,使个体面对风险情境时能做出更合适的行为以达成目标,即对风险偏好的调节是无意识目标自动影响行为的途径之一。     

Do people need self-esteem? Comment on Pyszczynski et al. (2004)

In spite of impressive empirical evidence consistent with aspects of terror management theory (TMT) reviewed by T. Pyszczynski, J. Greenberg, S. Solomon, J. Arndt, and J. Schimel (2004), several fundamental assumptions of the theory remain untested or lack support. Specifically, Pyszczynski et al. (2004) have not demonstrated that (a) people need self-esteem, (b) pursuing self-esteem is an effective means for reducing anxiety, (c) pursuing self-esteem helps people achieve their important goals, (d) having or pursuing self-esteem is the only way to deal with anxiety to achieve important goals, or (e) death is the real issue driving the pursuit of self-esteem. The authors suggest there is a different paradigm for thinking about death, one in which awareness of one's mortality serves as a precious reminder of the limited time one has to accomplish one's most important goals. All of these questions can be addressed with empirical research.     

内隐自尊的稳定性--成败操纵对内隐自尊的影响

本研究以瑞文智力测验为成败操纵基本任务,对成败操纵前后、接受成功反馈和失败反馈的个体在内隐联想测验中的反应及其内隐自尊情况进行了分析研究,结果表明：(1)不论是接受成功反馈还是失败反馈,成败操纵后,被试的反应速度都显著地快于操纵前;(2)不论是接受成功反馈还是失败反馈,成败操纵后,被试的内隐自尊水平都显著地低于操纵前。内隐自尊易受即时的关于自我的情绪体验的影响,具有不稳定性,当个体兴奋水平、情绪唤醒水平较高,动机较为强烈时,内隐自尊作用将受到抑制。     

Not Motivated to Act During Goal Pursuit: Powerlessness Blocks Motivation Transfer in Goal Systems

The current research investigates a motivational mechanism that contributes to the inferior goal striving and attainment of powerless individuals: the transfer of motivation from goals to means. We expected that this mechanism would work effectively only in powerful individuals. The results of an experiment and a field study confirmed our assumptions. The more motivated powerful people were to attain the goals, the more they engaged in self-determined action and, in turn, the more positively they experienced goal-related activities. No such relation was found for their powerless counterparts. Implications for power research and goal systems theory are discussed.     

From the top down: Self-esteem and self-evaluation

The affective model of self-esteem development assumes that: (a) self-esteem forms early in life in response to relational and temperamental factors; and (b) once formed, endows high self-esteem people with the ability to promote, protect, and restore feelings of self-worth. In this article, we use the model to examine the relation between self-esteem and self-evaluations, showing that one way high self-esteem people maintain feelings of self-worth is by claiming to possess socially valued qualities. We conclude by considering the implications of the affective model for understanding the nature and functions of self-esteem.