Swann, W. B., Jr. (2005). The self and identity negotiation. Interaction Studies, 6, 69-83.
Seeking Self-Verifying Partners
For example, people who have a negative view of themselves tend to prefer interacting with a partner who also views them negatively. One might have expected that everyone would prefer interacting with someone who views them positively, but a large number of experiments from different labs and with varied experimental conditions seem to show that confirming one's self-assessments takes priority.
Interestingly, this effect disappears when subjects are unable to reflect on their self-assessments:
They had participants choose an interaction partner while unable to access their self-views because the experimenter rushed their decision or had them decide while rehearsing a phone number. Those with positive and negative self-views alike displayed a preference for a positive partner. Only when people had available the mental resources to compare the fit between their self-views and the partners’ evaluation did people with negative self-views display a preference for the negative evaluator.
Evoking Self-Verifying Reactions
When subjects interact with someone who doesn't share their self-understanding, they act in ways designed to evoke confirmations of their self-understanding. In other words, they act so as to change the views of their interaction partner to match their own.
Targets who thought of themselves as likeable elicited particularly favorable reactions when they thought perceivers disliked them, and targets who thought of themselves as dislikeable elicited particularly unfavorable reactions when they suspected that perceivers liked them. In short, targets were especially inclined to elicit self-confirmatory feedback from perceivers when they suspected that perceivers’ appraisals were incompatible with their self-views.
Terminating The Relationship
When subjects are involved in a long-term relationship with someone who doesn't share their self-view, they will tend to withdraw psychologically or even terminate the relationship.
Several studies of divorce rates verify they are highest in couples that differ in their understanding of one or both members. Similarly for the stability of room-mate relationships in the first year of college. One of the more interesting studies focused on how people with a low self-image would respond to jobs with increasing wages.
[We] measured the self-esteem of 7758 male and female college students using Tafarodi and Swann’s (1995) self-esteem measure.....obtained employment information for participants between 1994 and 1999. This allowed us to determine how much each participant earned from any given employer in any given calendar quarter.....The results showed that self-esteem and wage trend began to interactively predict turnover afer 24 months of employment. Most strikingly, those with low self-esteem preferred remaining in jobs in which they received no raises and preferred leaving jobs with increasing wage. In contrast, those with high self-esteem were more apt to remain with the original employer if their wages increased. Apparently, when faced with a choice between their negative self-views or high salaries, people with low social worth chose to retain their negative self-views.
They hypothesized that prior to 24-months, the subjects didn't deem their employers well-informed judges and so were able to overlook the fact that employer evaluations conflicted with their own self-assessments. This effect is also present in dating studies in which people with negative self-image prefer dates who view them positively. After a sufficient number of dates, self-confirmation behaviors become more intense, presumably because the subjects feel that their dates should have had enough time to really know them.
Value In Diversity Effect
The so-called "value in diversity" hypothesis is that more diverse groups will perform better because they have a more diverse set of resources to draw from. While support for this hypothesis has been mixed, self-verification effects influence the effects of diversity on group performance.
...they found that self-verification achieved within the first ten minutes of interaction moderated the impact of demographic diversity on performance. Specifically, among groups that achieved high levels of self-verification, diversity facilitated performance. In contrast, among groups that failed to achieve substantial self-verification, diversity undermined performance. Thus, group members who quickly recognized the unique qualities of their fellow group members were optimally positioned to capitalize on the diversity in their group.
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Here is a short list of experimental studies in this area:
Swann, W. B., Jr., Stein-Seroussi, A. & Giesler, B. (1992). Why people self-verify. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 62, 392–401.
Burke, P. J., & Stets, J. E. (1999). Trust and commitment through self-verification. Social Psy-
chology Quarterly, 62, 347–360.
Curtis, R. C., & Miller, K. (1986). Believing another likes or dislikes you: Behavior making
the beliefs come true. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 284–290
De La Ronde, C., & Swann, W. B., Jr. (1998). Partner verification: Restoring shattered images
of our intimates. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75, 374–382.
Giesler, R. B., Josephs, R. A., & Swann, W. B., Jr. (1996). Self-verification in clinical depression:
Te desire for negative evaluation. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 105, 358–368.
Hogg, M. A., & Hardie, E. A. (1991). Social attraction, personal attraction, and self categori-
zation: A field study. Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin, 17, 175–180.
Jones, S. C., & Panitch, D. (1971). Te self-fulfilling prophecy and interpersonal attraction.
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 7, 356–366.
Katz, J., Beach, S. R. H, & Anderson, P. (1996). Self-enhancement versus self-verification:
Does spousal support always help? Cognitive Terapy and Research, 20, 345–360.
Kelley, H. H., & Stahelski, A. J. (1970). Te social interaction basis of cooperators’ and com-
petitors’ beliefs about others. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 16, 66–91.
McNulty, S. E., & Swann, W. B., Jr. (1994). Identity negotiation in roommate relationships:
Te self as architect and consequence of social reality. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 67, 1012–1023.
Pelham, B. W., & Swann, W. B., Jr. (1994). Te juncture of intrapersonal and interpersonal
knowledge: Self-certainty and interpersonal congruence. Personality and Social Psy-
chology Bulletin, 20, 349–357.
Polzer, J. T., Milton, L. P. & Swann, W. B., Jr. (2002). Capitalizing on Diversity: Interpersonal
Congruence in Small Work Groups. Administrative Science Quarterly, 47, 296–324.
Ritts, V., & Stein, J. R. (1995). Verification and commitment in marital relationships: An
exploration of self-verification theory in community college students. Psychological Re-
ports, 76, 383–386.
Robinson, D. T., & Smith-Lovin, L. (1992). Selective interaction as a strategy for identity
maintenance: An affect control model. Social Psychology Quarterly, 55, 12–28.
Schafer, R. B., Wickrama, K. A. S., & Keith, P. M. (1996). Self-concept disconfirmation, psycho-
logical distress, and marital happiness. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 58, 167–177
Snyder, M. (1984). When belief creates reality. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimen-
tal social psychology (Vol. 16, pp. 248–305). New York: Academic Press.
Snyder, M., & Klein, O. (Tis volume). Construing and constructing others: On the reality
and generality of the behavioral confirmation scenario.
Swann, W. B., Jr. & Pelham, B. W. (2002). Who wants out when the going gets good? Psycho-
logical investment and preference for self-verifying college roommates. Journal of Self
and Identity, 1, 219–233.
Swann, W. B., Jr., De La Ronde, C., & Hixon, J. G. (1994). Authenticity and positivity strivings
in marriage and courtship. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66, 857–869.
Swann, W. B., Jr., Hixon, J. G., Stein-Seroussi, A., & Gilbert, D. T. (1990). Te fleeting gleam
of praise: Behavioral reactions to self-relevant feedback. Journal of Personality and So-
cial Psychology, 59, 17–26.
Swann, W. B., Jr., Milton, L. P., & Polzer, J. T. (2000). Should we create a niche or fall in line?
Identity negotiation and small group effectiveness. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 79, 238–250.
Swann, W. B., Jr., Pelham, B. W., & Chidester, T. (1988). Change through paradox: Using self-
verification to alter beliefs. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 268–273.
Swann, W. B., Jr., Pelham, B. W., & Krull, D. S. (1989). Agreeable fancy or disagreeable truth?
Reconciling self-enhancement and self-verification. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 57, 782–791.
Swann, W. B., Jr., Stein-Seroussi, A. & Giesler, B. (1992). Why people self-verify. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 62, 392–401.
Swann, W. B., Jr., Wenzlaff, R. M., & Tafarodi, R. W. (1992). Depression and the search for
negative evaluations: More evidence of the role of self-verification strivings. Journal of
Abnormal Psychology, 101, 314–371.
Swann, W. B., Jr., & Ely, R. J. (1984). A battle of wills: Self-verification versus behavioral con-
firmation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 46, 1287–1302.
Swann, W. B., Jr., & Hill, C. A. (1982). When our identities are mistaken: Reaffirming self-
conceptions through social interaction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,
43, 59–66.
Swann, W. B., Jr., & Read, S. J. (1981). Self-verification processes: How we sustain our self-
conceptions. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 17, 351–372.
Swann, W. B., Jr., Rentfrow, P. J., & Guinn, J. (2002). Self-verification: Te search for coher-
ence. In M. Leary and J. Tagney, Handbook of self and identity (pp. 367–383). Guilford:
New York.
