People's desire to enhance their self-esteem is considered one of the basic human motivations. Whether this self-enhancement is functional or not, however, has been hotly debated in the research literature: Is an exaggerated perception of oneself adaptive? The specific question to be addressed in this application is whether self-enhancement is beneficial or detrimental to motivation and achievement. A literature review suggests that there are two divergent perspectives in the research to date: The first, termed here the persistence view, holds that self-enhancement leads to increased achievement via greater persistence in tasks. The second, termed here the complacency view, holds that self-enhancement leads to decreased achievement via self-satisfied complacency with one's current state. Although both of these perspectives are apparent in the research literature, they have yet to be adequately reconciled. Given the importance of motivation for achievement, health behavior, and adaptive functioning, the contradiction in the literature is a significant one that needs to be addressed. The proposed research tests a model that reconciles these divergent perspectives through an analysis of the types of tasks that promote persistence versus complacency. Research will employ a variety of measures and manipulations of the self-enhancement of participants engaged in various tasks (e.g., cognitive skills tests, academic-type achievement tasks, health behaviors). Measurements of their persistence and motivation in these tasks will be analyzed. The proposed research has implications for the general debate over the implications of self-enhancement for mental health.
