Self-Enhancement, Self-Assessment, and Self-Evaluative Task Choice

Past research on self-evaluation indicates that there are two contrasting viewpoints concerning the acquisition of self-knowledge. According to the self-assessment view, accurate information is sought, regardless of its implications for self-esteem. According to the self-enhancement view, accurate information is desirable, but only if it also has positive implications for the self. We examined the conditions under which each view provides an adequate description of self-evaluative task choice. We predicted that both individuals with high self-esteem and individuals with low self-esteem but no tendency to use self-protective strategies would choose maximally informative tasks. By contrast, individuals with low self-esteem and a tendency to use self-protective strategies were expected to choose tasks that were maximally self-enhancing. Subjects chose among four forms of a cognitive abilities test that varied in diagnosticity of success and diagnosticity of failure. As expected, subjects with ego-protective tendencies and low self-esteem preferred the test form that was high in diagnosticity of success but low in diagnosticity of failure, whereas subjects with low self-protective tendencies (both high and low self-esteem) preferred the test form high in diagnosticity of both success and failure. Subjects with both high self-esteem and high self-protective tendencies did not exhibit a clear preference between test forms allowing maximal self-assessment and those allowing self-enhancement. The results suggest the importance of considering both diagnosticity and self-esteem protection in the study of self-evaluation.