1983/04/01 by Abraham Tesser, Del Paulhus · 204 citations
Psychology · Social Sciences · #Behavioral Health and Interventions #Cognition #Cognitive psychology #Interview #Motivation and Self-Concept in Sports #Perception #Psychology #Relevance (law) #Social and Intergroup Psychology #Social psychology #Subject (documents) #Trait
paper · doi:10.1037/0022-3514.44.4.672
published in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 44(4), 672-682 (American Psychological Association)
openalex publication_date 1983/04/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/11
Evaluation of subjects' own performances and beliefs about an audience's evaluation of subjects' own performances were manipulated to examine their effects on self-definition. Pairs of subjects worked independently on tasks said to be valid indicators of a fictitious trait called cognitive perceptual integration (CPI). Relevance of CPI to a subject's self-definition was indexed by (a) an oral measure taken by an interviewer, (b) a self-descripti on measure, and (c) an unobtrusive behavioral measure. Subjects who believed they actually outperformed another subject indicated on all three indexes that CPI was more relevant than did subjects who were outperformed by the other subject. This difference was more pronounced when the other subject was described as similar than when described as dissimilar. Subjects confronted by an audience who believed that they (the subjects) outperformed the other subject (independent of the subjects' actual performances) indicated that CPI was more relevant than did subjects confronted by ap audience who believed they were outperformed by the other. Similarity of the other subject did not moderate this effect. The results were interpreted as evidence for both private and public self-evaluation management strategies.