People who verify a negative self-view expose themselves to criticism and rejection. Because people with low global self-esteem are hurt more by negative feedback than are people with high global self-esteem, the authors predicted that they would be less apt to verify a negative self-view in a more specific domain. Three investigations found support for this hypothesis. In all 3 investigations,...

We propose that a preference for favorable social feedback (i.e., self-enhancement) requires only that feedback be characterized as favorable or unfavorable but that a preference for self-confirming feedback (i.e., self-verification) is based on a more elaborate set of cognitive operations that requires both the characterization of feedback and a subsequent comparison of that feedback to a repr...

This study aimed to investigate associations between: (a) psychological distress, self-perceived health status and sleep duration among a large representative general population sample; and (b) patterns of sleep duration, physical activity and Body Mass Index among a subgroup of participants who self-reported as being in good health with low psychological distress. Data collected from six waves...

Self-esteem is a facet of personality that influences perception of social standing and modulates the salience of social acceptance and rejection. As such, self-esteem may bias neural responses to positive and negative social feedback across individuals. During functional magnetic resonance imaging scanning, participants (n = 42) engaged in a social evaluation task whereby they ostensibly recei...

Three studies explored the role of television viewing in eliciting subjective self-awareness and positive self-feelings. Study 1 assessed the effects of self-awareness manipulations via exposure to a neutral television program on actual-ideal discrepancies. Those who watched television showed significantly smaller self-discrepancies than those who did not, independent of mood. Study 2 demonstra...