When ego threats lead to self-regulation failure: Negative consequences of high self-esteem.

Abstract

The tendency for people with high self-esteem to make inflated assessments and predictions about themselves carries the risk of making commitments that exceed capabilities, thus leading to failure. Ss chose their performance contingencies in a framework where larger rewards were linked to a greater risk of failure. In the absence of ego threat, Ss with high self-esteem showed superior self-regulation: They set appropriate goals and performed effectively. Ego threat, however, caused Ss with high self-esteem to set inappropriate, risky goals that were beyond their performance capabilities so they ended up with smaller rewards than Ss with low self-esteem. The results indicate the danger of letting egotistical illusions interfere with self-regulation processes.The capacity to adjust one's actions and strivings according to a wide variety of complex, abstract, and distant circumstances is an important key to human nature. In recent years, researchers have begun to turn increasing attention to the study of self-regulation. The majority of these efforts have focused on fundamental processes of self-

Why do English players fail in soccer penalty shootouts? A study of team status, self-regulation, and choking under pressure

“…Players from highstatus countries may have an extra intense desire to avoid "losing face" and when this threat is imminent, the result may be high levels of emotional distress. Faced with such uncomfortable states, it has been shown that people tend to search the most immediate escape from the threat (e.g., Baumeister et al, 1993) and in our study we found that players on the high-status teams tended to display shorter response times than players on other teams, possibly indicating a desire to get the situation "over and done with". The same may be the case for teams who have won a major title (i.e., WC/EC) in the past, but then go through many years with no titles, possibly accompanied by accumulated frustration with not living up to this previously demonstrated high standard, which was shown to be related to low response times with a weak trend towards low performance.…”

Self-Esteem, Self-Prediction, and Living up to Commitments

“…Do high self-esteem subjects fail to self-regulate and continue to persist at tasks even when such behavior is countexproductive? Baumeister and Heatherton (1991) recently demonstrated the counterproductive influence of high selfesteem in the face of ego-threats on a complex self-regulatory task. Subjects in these experiments choose performance contingencies for themselves on a video game from among several options, such that larger monetary rewards were linked to greater chances of failure.…”

Stress, Coping, and Emotions on the World Stage: The Experience of Participating in a Major Soccer Tournament Penalty Shootout

“…This process may start when an athlete's self-image is threatened and he/she experiences intense emotional distress. This in turn may cause selfregulation and coping efforts to fail (e.g., Baumeister, Heatherton, & Tice, 1993). In essence, when experiencing intense distress, people seem to think about immediate issues and less on long-term implications from what they are doing.…”