Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin

 

Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

Click here for more information

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
0146167207312960v1
34/5/599    most recent
Right arrow References
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Nussbaum, A. D.
Right arrow Articles by Dweck, C. S.
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Nussbaum, A. D.
Right arrow Articles by Dweck, C. S.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati  
What's this?
This version was published on May 1, 2008
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Vol. 34, No. 5, 599-612 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/0146167207312960
© 2008 Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.

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


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati    What's this?