The authors propose distinct reasons why individuals exaggerate their current and past performance. Current performance is of motivational and self-evaluative significance, and exaggerations of current performance often stem from motivated self-enhancement concerns. Self-reports of past performance are influenced less by motivated self-enhancement, instead reflecting more subtle biases in reconstructive memory. For students currently in college, grade point averages (GPAs) reflect a currently important goal pursuit, whereas Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores reflect a goal that was important in the past. Study 1 demonstrated that dispositional self-enhancement predicted greater GPA (but not SAT) exaggeration, whereas advanced class standing predicted greater SAT (but not GPA) exaggeration. Study 2 demonstrated that a self-affirmation manipulation attenuated the association between dispositional self-enhancement and GPA exaggeration but not the association between class standing and SAT exaggeration. The distinction between motivated self-enhancement and reconstructive memory bias has important implications for the broader literature on self-evaluation.
Aiken, L. S., & West, S. G. (1991). Multiple regression: Testing and interpreting interactions. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
2.
Alicke, M. D. (1985). Global self-evaluation as determined by the desirability and controllability of trait adjectives. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,49, 1621-1630.
3.
Bahrick, H. P., Hall, L. K., & Dunlosky, J. (1993). Reconstructive processing of memory content for high versus low test scores and grades.Applied Cognitive Psychology,7, 1-10.
4.
Campbell, D. T., & Kenny, D. A. (1999). A primer on regression artifacts. New York: Guilford.
5.
Christensen, T. C., Wood, J. V., & Barrett, L. F. (2003). Remembering everyday experience through the prism of self-esteem. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin,29, 51-62.
6.
Colvin, C. R., & Block, J. (1994). Do positive illusions foster mental health? An examination of the Taylor and Brown formulation. Psychological Bulletin,116, 3-20.
7.
Crocker, J., Karpinski, A., & Quinn, D. M. (2003). When grades determine self-worth: Consequences of contingent self-worth for male and female Engineering and Psychology majors. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,85, 507-516.
8.
Cronbach, L. J., & Furby, L. (1970). How should we measure “change”: Or should we?Psychological Bulletin,74, 68-80.
9.
Crary, W. G. (1966). Reactions to incongruent self-experiences. Journal of Consulting Psychology,30, 246-252.
10.
Dobbins, G. H., Farh, H. L., & Werbel, J. D. (1993). The influence of self-monitoring and inflation of grade-point averages for research purposes. Journal of Applied Social Psychology,23, 321-334.
11.
Dunning, D., Heath, C., & Suls, J. M. (2004). Flawed self-assessment: Implications for health, education, and the workplace. Psychological Science in the Public Interest,5, 69-106.
12.
Elliot, A. J., & Church, M. A. (1997). A hierarchical model of approach and avoidance in achievement motivation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,72, 218-232.
13.
Fein, S., & Spencer, S. J. (1997). Prejudice as self-image maintenance: Affirming the self through derogating others. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,73, 31-44.
14.
Gramzow, R. H., Elliot, A. J., Asher, E., & McGregor, H. A. (2003). Self-evaluation bias and academic performance: Some ways and some reasons why. Journal of Research in Personality,37, 41-61.
15.
Gramzow, R. H. & Gaertner, L. (2005). Self-esteem and favoritism toward novel in-groups: The self as an evaluative base. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,88, 801-815.
16.
Greenwald, A. G. (1980). The totalitarian ego: Fabrication and revision of personal history. American Psychologist,35, 603-618.
17.
Heine, S. J., Lehman, D. R., Markus, H. R., & Kitayama, S. (1999). Is there a universal need for positive self-regard?Psychological Review, 106, 766-794.
18.
Karniol, R., & Ross, M. (1996). The motivational impact of temporal focus: Thinking about the future and the past. Annual Review of Psychology,47, 593-620.
19.
Kihlstrom, J. F., & Cantor, N. (1983). Mental representations of the self. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology,21, 159-187.
20.
Kirk, B. A., & Sereda, L. (1969). Accuracy of self-reported college grade averages and characteristics of non and discrepant reporters. Educational and Psychological Measurement,29, 147-155.
21.
Kitayama, S., & Karasawa, M. (1997). Implicit self-esteem in Japan: Name letters and birthday numbers. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 23, 736-742.
22.
Kitayama, S., Markus, H. R., Matsumoto, H., & Norasakkunkit V. (1997). Individual and collective processes in the construction of the self: Self-enhancement in the United States and self-criticism in Japan. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72, 1245-1267.
23.
Kitayama S., & Uchida, Y. (2002). Explicit self-criticism and implicit self-regard: Evaluating self and friend in two cultures. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology,39, 476-482.
24.
Meng, X., Rosenthal, R., & Rubin, D. B. (1992). Comparing correlated correlation coefficients. Psychological Bulletin,111, 172-175.
25.
Neisser, U. (1981). John Dean's memory: A case study. Cognition, 9, 1-22.
26.
Newby-Clark, I. R., & Ross, M. (2003). Conceiving the past and future. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin,29, 807-818.
27.
Paulhus, D. L. (1998). Interpersonal and intrapsychic adaptiveness of trait self-enhancement: A mixed blessing?Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,74, 1197-1208.
28.
Paulhus, D. L., & John, O. P. (1998). Egoistic and moralistic biases in self-perception: The interplay of self-deceptive styles with basic traits and motives. Journal of Personality,66, 1025-1060.
29.
Pelham, B. W., & Swann, W. B. (1989). From self-conceptions to self-worth: On the sources and structure of global self-esteem. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,57, 672-680.
30.
Robins, R. W., & John, O. P. (1997). The quest for self-insight: Theory and research on the accuracy of self-perceptions. In R. Hogan, J. Johnson, & S. R. Briggs (Eds.), Handbook of personality psychology(pp. 649-679). New York: Academic Press.
31.
Robinson, M. D., & Ryff, C. D. (1999). The role of self-deception in perceptions of past, present, and future happiness. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin,25, 595-606.
32.
Ross, M. (1989). Relation of implicit theories to the construction of personal histories. Psychological Review,96, 341-357.
33.
Ross, M., Heine, S. J., Wilson, A. E., & Sugimori, S. (2005). Crosscultural discrepancies in self-appraisals. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin,31, 1175-1188.
34.
Ross, M., & Wilson, A. E. (2000). Constructing and appraising past selves. In D. L. Schacter & E. Scarry (Eds.), Memory, brain, and belief(pp. 231-258). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
35.
Ross, M., & Wilson, A. E. (2002). It feels like yesterday: Self-esteem, valence of personal past experiences, and judgments of subjective distance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,82, 792-803.
36.
Ross, M., & Wilson, A. E. (2003). Autobiographical memory and conceptions of self: Getting better all the time. Current Directions in Psychological Science,12, 66-69.
37.
Sedikides, C., Campbell, W. K., Reeder, G., & Elliot, A. J. (2002). The self in relationships: Whether, how, and when close others put the self “in its place.” European Review of Social Psychology,12, 237-265.
38.
Sedikides, C., Gaertner, L., & Toguchi, Y. (2003). Pancultural self-enhancement. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,84, 60-70.
39.
Sedikides, C., & Green, J. D. (2000). On the self protective nature of inconsistency negativity management: Using the person memory paradigm to examine self referent memory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,79, 906-922.
40.
Sedikides, C., Green, J. D., & Pinter, B. (2004). Self-protective memory. In D. R. Beike, J. M. Lampinen, & D. A. Behrend (Eds.), The self and memory (pp. 161-179). Philadelphia: Psychology Press.
41.
Sedikides, C., & Gregg, A. P. (2003). Portraits of the self. In M. A. Hogg & J. Cooper (Eds.), Sage handbook of social psychology (pp. 110-138). London: Sage Ltd.
42.
Sedikides, C., & Strube, M. J. (1997). Self-evaluation: To thine own self be good, to thine own self be sure, to thine own self be true, and thine own self be better. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 29, pp. 209-269). New York: Academic Press.
43.
Shepperd, J. A. (1993). Student derogation of the Scholastic Aptitude Test: Biases in perceptions and presentations of College Board scores. Basic and Applied Social Psychology,14, 455-473.
44.
Sherman, D. K., & Cohen, G. L. (2002). Accepting threatening information: Self-affirmation and the reduction of defensive biases. Current Directions in Psychological Science,11, 119-123.
45.
Steele, C. M. (1988). The psychology of self-affirmation: Sustaining the integrity of the self. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 21, pp. 261-302). New York: Academic Press.
46.
Stouffer, S. A., Suchman, E. A., DeVinney, L. C., Star, S. A., & Williams, R. M. (1949). The American soldier: Adjustment during army life. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
47.
Taylor, S. E., & Brown, J. D. (1988). Illusion and well-being: A social psychological perspective on mental health. Psychological Bulletin, 103, 193-210.
48.
Taylor, S. E., & Gollwitzer, P. M. (1995). The effects of mindset on positive illusions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,69, 213-226.
49.
Taylor, S. E., Lerner, J. S., Sherman, D. K., Sage, R. M., & McDowell, N. K. (2003). Portrait of the self-enhancer: Well adjusted and well liked or maladjusted and friendless?Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,84, 165-176.
50.
Tesser, A. (2000). On the confluence of self-esteem maintenance mechanisms. Personality and Social Psychology Review,4, 290-299.
51.
von Hippel, W., Lakin, J. L., & Shakarchi, R. J. (2005). Individual differences in motivated social cognition: The case of self-serving information processing. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 31, 1347-1357.
52.
Walker, W. R., Skowronski, J. J., & Thompson, C. P. (2003). Life is pleasant—and memory helps to keep it that way!Review of General Psychology,7, 203-210.
53.
Wells, L. E., & Sweeney, P. D. (1986). A test of three models of bias in self-assessment. Social Psychology Quarterly,49, 1-10.
54.
Willard, G., & Gramzow, R. H. (2006). Exaggeration in memory: Systematic distortion of self-evaluative information under reduced accessibility. Manuscript submitted for publication, Northeastern University, Boston.
55.
Wright, S. S. (2000). Looking at the self in a rose-colored mirror: Unrealistically positive self-views and academic performance. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology,19, 451-462.
