Managing motivational conflict: how self-esteem and executive resources influence self-regulatory responses to risk.
This article explores how self-esteem and executive resources interact to determine responses to motivational conflict. One correlational and 3 experimental studies investigated the hypothesis that high and low self-esteem people undertake different self-regulatory strategies in "risky" situations that afford opportunity to pursue competing goals and that carrying out these strategies requires executive resources. When such resources are available, high self-esteem people respond to risk by prioritizing and pursuing approach goals, whereas low self-esteem people prioritize avoidance goals. However, self-esteem does not influence responses to risk when executive resources are impaired. In these studies, risk was operationalized by exposing participants to a relationship threat (Studies 1 and 2), by using participants' self-reported marital conflict (Study 3), and by threatening academic competence (Study 4). Executive resources were operationalized as cognitive load (Studies 1 and 2), working memory capacity (Study 3), and resource depletion (Study 4). When executive resources were ample, high self-esteem people responded to interpersonal risk by making more positive relationship evaluations (Studies 1, 2, and 3) and making more risky social comparisons following a personal failure (Study 4) than did low self-esteem people. Self-esteem did not predict participants' responses when executive resources were impaired or when risk was absent. The regulatory function of self-esteem may be more resource-dependent than has been previously theorized.
Department of Psychology, Columbia University, 406 Schermerhorn Hall, 1190 Amsterdam Avenue MC 5501, New York, NY 10027, USA. jvc2124@columbia.edu
Justin V
JV
Cavallo
John G
JG
Holmes
Gráinne M
GM
Fitzsimons
Sandra L
SL
Murray
Joanne V
JV
Wood
D000328:Adult; D003220:Conflict, Psychological; D056344:Executive Function / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006040:Goals; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation / Q000502:physiology*; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D011581:Psychological Tests; D012309:Risk-Taking; D012649:Self Concept; D055815:Young Adult