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Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
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Defensiveness Versus Remediation: Self-Theories and Modes of Self-Esteem Maintenance

A. David Nussbaum

Stanford University, davenuss{at}psych.stanford.edu

Carol S. Dweck

Stanford University

How people maintain and repair their self-esteem has been a topic of widespread interest. In this article, the authors ask, What determines whether people will use direct, remedial actions, or defensive actions? In three studies, they tested the hypothesis that a belief in fixed intelligence (entity theory) would produce defensiveness, whereas a belief in improvable intelligence (incremental theory) would foster remediation. In each study, participants assigned to the entity condition opted for defensive self-esteem repair (downward comparison in Studies 1 and 3; a tutorial on already mastered material in Study 2), but those in the incremental condition opted for self-improvement (upward comparison in Studies 1 and 3; a tutorial on unmastered material in Study 2). Experiment 3 also linked these strategies to self-esteem repair; remedial strategies were the most effective in recovering lost self-esteem for those in the incremental condition, whereas defensive strategies were most effective for those in the entity condition.

Key Words: defensiveness • remediation • self-esteem • theories of intelligence

This version was published on May 1, 2008

Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Vol. 34, No. 5, 599-612 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/0146167207312960
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