Selection of Information after Receiving more or Less Reliable Self-Threatening Information

In this article two experiments are reported in which the degree of seriousness of a "self-threat" was varied and both behavioral and cognitive consequences were tested. Subjects in both experiments received fictitious intelligence test results that were always negatively discrepant from their self-evaluations (self-threat), but varied in their degree of seriousness. The degree of seriousness was manipulated by telling subjects that their fictitious test results were either reliably or not reliably scored. Subjects were then given the opportunity to choose among several articles containing information that emphasized either the validity or invalidity of intelligence tests. In both experiments it was found that subjects in the serious self-threat conditions were more prone to search selectively for information disparaging intelligence tests and to rate being highly intelligent as less important compared with subjects in the less serious self-threat conditions. The implications of these results for self-esteem theory are discussed.