9319570 SWANN ABSTRACT Recent research suggests that people's self-concepts lead them to behave in ways that make their self-concepts very resistant to change. For example, people seem to prefer and choose relationship partners who confirm and validate their self-views. This occur seven if their self-views are negative: in one study, married people with negative self-views committed themselves to spouses who held them in low esteem. Their behaviors, then, are reminiscent of Groucho Marz's quip, "I'd never join a club that would have me as a member." The investigators have studied these processes with emphasis on specifying why people with negative self-views behave as they do. They have also considered how these activities may make it difficult to change people's self-views. One remaining puzzle concerns the conflicted feelings people with negative self-views have about the evaluations they receive. On the one hand, such persons prefer and seek unfavorable evaluations. Nevertheless,they feel terrible when they actually receive such evaluations! The investigators hope to find out why people with negative self-views routinely behave in ways that generate such ambivalence. They will also try to determine the conditions under which they will break out of such vicious cycles. This research is designed to provide a deeper understanding of the feelings and thoughts that underlie the self-defeating behaviors of people with negative self-views. As such, it is likely to provide a perspective on these behaviors that is ultimately useful in developing strategies of prevention.
