The renegotiation of social identities in response to a threat to self-evaluation maintenance |
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Authors: | Matthew T. Crawford |
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Affiliation: | Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Bristol, 8 Woodland Road, Bristol, BS8 1TN, UK |
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Abstract: | Two experiments examine the strategic re-negotiation of social identities as a method of alleviating threats to self-evaluation. Participants were given a partner who shared one, and had one non-shared identity. After completing a self-relevant or non-self-relevant task, participants received either no feedback or learned that they had performed poorly compared to the partner. Participants showed identity distancing in response to being outperformed on a self-relevant task, but affiliation in response to being outperformed on a non-self-relevant task. This effect was reversed when participants were given the opportunity to self-affirm after the feedback. Overall, the results provide evidence that individuals are quite adept at altering their self-categorizations and that self-evaluation serves an important role in identity selection. Results are discussed in relation to the substitutability of self-esteem maintenance mechanisms and self-definition. |
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Keywords: | Social-identity Social-comparison Self-esteem Self-evaluation |
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