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DOI: 10.1177/0146167206287120 © 2006 Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc. Your Money or Your Self-Esteem: Threatened Egotism Promotes Costly Entrapment in Losing EndeavorsCarnegie Mellon University
Florida State University The present research explored egotismmaintaining favorable views of the selfas a motivation underlying entrapment in losing endeavors. Four studies suggested that threatened selfesteem would cause decision makers to invest and lose more money in a previously chosen course of action. Ego-threatened participants consistently lost more money than nonthreatened participants across diverse entrapping situations regardless of whether the outcome was ostensibly determined by luck (Experiments 1 and 4), ability (Experiment 2), or interpersonal competition (Experiment 3). Thus, pursuing favorable views of the self could be costly to decision makers' financial well-being and may produce self-defeating behaviors.
Key Words: ego threat self-esteem egotism entrapment decision making
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