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Abstract and concrete self-evaluative goals.

A L Freitas1, P Salovey, N Liberman

  • 1Department of Psychology, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06520, USA. antonio.freitas@yale.edu

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
|April 13, 2001
PubMed
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People prefer self-enhancement when focusing on how tasks are done (low-level construals). This leads to more interest in downward social comparison and less interest in negative feedback, driven by avoiding inconvenience.

Area of Science:

  • Psychology
  • Social Psychology
  • Cognitive Psychology

Background:

  • Individuals seek accurate feedback but prefer comfortable self-evaluation.
  • Self-enhancement motivation can be influenced by how situations are mentally represented.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate whether low-level construals (how) increase self-enhancement motivation compared to high-level construals (why).
  • To examine the effect of construal level on preferences for social comparison and feedback.

Main Methods:

  • Studies 1-6 employed various methods including chronic construal level, temporal distance manipulation, and measuring interest in downward social comparison and negative feedback.
  • Specific studies investigated aversion to inconvenience and approach-avoidance conflict as explanations.

Related Experiment Videos

Main Results:

  • Chronic low-level construals correlated with greater interest in downward social comparison (DSC) and less interest in negative feedback (NF).
  • Reduced temporal distance, fostering low-level construals, also increased DSC interest and decreased NF interest.
  • The effect was attributed to an aversion to inconvenience, not approach-avoidance conflict.

Conclusions:

  • The level of abstraction in construing self-evaluative situations significantly impacts feedback preferences.
  • Low-level construals promote self-enhancement by increasing preference for favorable social comparisons and avoidance of negative feedback.