Self-enhancement serves self-protection by reshaping environments or group standards

Evidence

Self-protective and self-enhancing motives converge when self-enhancement operates in a threatening context. This can happen in two ways. First, it can occur by altering the negative elements of a threatening environment so that one’s personal sense of security is enhanced. For example, creating microcontexts in which one feels comfortable is one way to enable self-enhancing motives to be served (see Tatum, 2002). By creating a nonthreatening environment within a threatening one, a greater degree of comfort follows when self-defining values are a standard for self-judgment and freedom of self-expression adheres to core individual or collective principles. Second, one may align with others in the group to alter the values attached to certain behaviors so that self-worth is not based on matching an “other-group standard” but depends upon embracing an “ingroup criterion” ( Jones, 1999). — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 1086

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines how self-protective and self-enhancing mechanisms converge, distinguishing ingroup-criterion-based self-worth from other-group standards.
• XREF: connects to: Deflationary self-protection by individuals is zero-sum against everyone else — Mark Blyth, Austerity: The History of a Dangerous…, 47