scholarly journals Self-Enhancement and Self-Protection Motives

Author(s):  
Constantine Sedikides ◽  
Mark D. Alicke

People desire to maximize the positivity, and minimize the negativity, of their self-views. The tendency to exalt one's virtues and soften one's weaknesses, relative to objective criteria, manifests itself in many domains of human striving. We focus illustratively on three strivings: the self-serving bias (crediting the self for successes but blaming others or situations for failures), the better-than-average effect (considering the self superior to the average peer), and selective self-memory (disproportionately poor recall for negative self-relevant information). Nonmotivational factors (e.g., expectations, egocentrism, focalism, individuated-entity versus aggregate comparisons) are not necessary for the emergence of these strivings. Instead, the strivings are (at least partially) driven by the self-enhancement and self-protection motives, as research on self-threat and self-affirmation has established. The two motives serve vital functions: They confer benefits to psychological health and psychological interests (e.g., goal pursuit).

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yi Ding ◽  
Motoaki Sugiura

People tend to perceive themselves in a positive light. Typically, they believe themselves to be better than average in accordance with the better-than-average effect (BTAE). The BTAE has been examined with respect to social values (morality and competence) and motivations (self-enhancement and self-protection). Moreover, “competence BTAE” was found to be associated with personality traits while “moral BTAE” was not. However, it is not known whether the BTAE in four domains correlate with certain psycho-behavioral characteristics, particularly moral BTAE. In this study, we recruited 667 Japanese participants (302 males; mean age = 25.80 ± 2.80 years) to assess self- and average other-evaluations in four domains. Self-enhancement and self-protective motives were examined using positive and negative adjectives. We further explored the relationship between BTAE and 22 psycho-behavioral characteristics. The results revealed that moral BTAE only existed in the presence of the self-protection motive. A worse-than-average effect was found in the context of both motives for competence. In contrast to the BTAE in the other three domains, which showed correlations with various characteristics, “negative moral BTAE” was not associated with any psycho-behavioral characteristic. Our results demonstrated that moral BTAE existed only in the presence of the self-protection motive and was “uniquely prevalent”, i.e., was not associated with any psycho-behavioral characteristics. Thus, the psychological mechanisms underlying the negative moral BTAE may differ from the other three domains, potentially reflecting different sociocultural dynamics.


2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-53
Author(s):  
Eka Mahyuni ◽  
Kalsum ◽  
Muhammad Makmur Sinaga

Welding worker was not the easy task because it has a very high physical risk and the process requires special skills and equipment to prevent accident exposed. This devotional activity is carried out in the welding industry at Jl. Mahkamah with two partners, namely CV. M. Nauli and CV. Cahaya. The aim of training activity made the worker able to analyze the hazards in the workplace so that it will be more careful in their work. The result show that the training could develop the worker to be aware about safety and health work patterns. In order to support the work in accordance with occupational safety and health standards, workers are also given pocket books that contain safety and health working methods and also given the self-protection of welding like welding clothes, welding gloves, welding mask, welding glasses and masks. Based on the evaluation of activities, it show that the worker has develop and always using the self protector in their work evenly. It build the good collaboration between them and they are could arrage the rest time with ergonomics relaxation in 5-10 minutes. The workshop station looks better than before and the workshop doing good house keeping before and after their work.


Author(s):  
Constantine Sedikides ◽  
Mark D. Alicke

This chapter discusses two self-evaluation motives, self-enhancement (to pursue, maintain, or augment the positivity of self-views—more so than objective standards would warrant) and self-protection (to avoid, repair, or minimize the negativity of self-views—even at the expense of truthful feedback). Under the self-centrality breeds self-enhancement principle (i.e., self-enhancement and self-protection will be particularly influential in personally important domains), the chapter elaborates on five pillars of the two motives: self-serving bias, better-than-average effect, selective self-memory, socially desirable responding, and overclaiming. The chapter also considers other reasons for why self-enhancement and self-protection are motivated (e.g., fluctuations in motive strength as a function of self-threat and self-affirmation) and rules out nonmotivational explanations (e.g., expectancies, egocentrism, focalism). Self-enhancement and self-protection are worthy of a place in the pantheon of human motivation.


2020 ◽  
pp. 194855062094897
Author(s):  
Ignazio Ziano ◽  
Pui Yan (Cora) Mok ◽  
Gilad Feldman

People tend to regard themselves as better than average. We conducted a replication and extension of Alicke’s classic study on trait dimensions in evaluations of self versus others with U.S. American Mechanical Turk workers in two waves (total N = 1,573; 149 total traits). We successfully replicated the trait desirability effect, such that participants rated more desirable traits as being more descriptive of themselves than of others (original: [Formula: see text] = .78, 95% confidence interval [CI] [.73, .81]; replication: sr 2 = .54, 95% CI [.43, .65]). The effect of desirability was stronger for more controllable traits (effect of Desirability × Controllability interaction on self–other-ratings difference; original: [Formula: see text] = .21, 95% CI [.12, .28]; replication: sr 2 = .07, 95% CI [.02, .12]). In an extension, we found that desirable traits were rated as more common for others, but not for the self. Thirty-five years later, the better-than-average effect appears to remain robust. All materials, data, and code are available at https://osf.io/2y6wj/ .


2014 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tamara Feldman

This paper is a contribution to the growing literature on the role of projective identification in understanding couples' dynamics. Projective identification as a defence is well suited to couples, as intimate partners provide an ideal location to deposit unwanted parts of the self. This paper illustrates how projective identification functions differently depending on the psychological health of the couple. It elucidates how healthier couples use projective identification more as a form of communication, whereas disturbed couples are inclined to employ it to invade and control the other, as captured by Meltzer's concept of "intrusive identification". These different uses of projective identification affect couples' capacities to provide what Bion called "containment". In disturbed couples, partners serve as what Meltzer termed "claustrums" whereby projections are not contained, but imprisoned or entombed in the other. Applying the concept of claustrum helps illuminate common feelings these couples express, such as feeling suffocated, stifled, trapped, held hostage, or feeling as if the relationship is killing them. Finally, this paper presents treatment challenges in working with more disturbed couples.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (8) ◽  
pp. 106
Author(s):  
Sheikh Saifur Rahman Jony ◽  
Ubydul Haque ◽  
Nathaniel J. Webb ◽  
Emily Spence ◽  
Md. Siddikur Rahman ◽  
...  

COVID-19 has harshly impacted communities globally. This study provides relevant information for creating equitable policy interventions to combat the spread of COVID-19. This study aims to predict the knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP) of the COVID-19 pandemic at a global level to determine control measures and psychosocial problems. A cross-sectional survey was conducted from July to October 2020 using an online questionnaire. Questionnaires were initially distributed to academicians worldwide. These participants distributed the survey among their social, professional, and personal groups. Responses were collected and analyzed from 67 countries, with a sample size of 3031. Finally, based on the number of respondents, eight countries, including Bangladesh, China, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Pakistan, the United States, and Zambia were rigorously analyzed. Specifically, questionnaire responses related to COVID-19 accessibility, behavior, knowledge, opinion, psychological health, and susceptibility were collected and analyzed. As per our analysis, age groups were found to be a primary determinant of behavior, knowledge, opinion, psychological health, and susceptibility scores. Gender was the second most influential determinant for all metrics except information about COVID-19 accessibility, for which education was the second most important determinant. Respondent profession was the third most important metric for all scores. Our findings suggest that greater encouragement from government health authorities and the promotion of health education and policies are essential in the dissemination of COVID-19-awareness and increased control of the spread of COVID-19.


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