Conclusion
Overall, the results of the present studies paint a picture of people as pragmatic self-evaluators, flexibly taking into account various motivational considerations in deciding how to select self-relevant information (see Trope & Liberman, 1996). When individuals think their abilities are deficient and, therefore, need to improve themselves, they tend to be sensitive to what the feedback diagnoses (weaknesses or strengths) and to the controllability or changeability of the diagnosed abilities. When the feedback diagnoses controllable abilities, these individuals will seek negative feedback because such feedback is informationally useful and emotionally tolerable. However, when the feedback diagnoses uncontrollable abilities, the same individuals will avoid negative feedback because the feedback becomes less informationally useful and more emotionally aversive. We think that this pragmatic information search strategy is an important aspect of individuals’ attempts to cope with their social environment.
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Trope, Y., Hassin, R., Gervey, B. (2001). Overcoming Defensive Feedback Seeking. In: Efklides, A., Kuhl, J., Sorrentino, R.M. (eds) Trends and Prospects in Motivation Research. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/0-306-47676-2_12
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/0-306-47676-2_12
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