How we change what others think, feel, believe and do

Self-Enhancement Theory

Explanations > Theories > Self-Enhancement Theory

Description | Example | So What? | See also | References 

Description

People who seek self-enhancement want to be perceived in the best possible light. This includes actions, speech, personality and other individual characteristics. As such, they will act to achieve this end.

In building their external image they may well come to believe it and perceive themselves as superior. As an example, most people believe themselves to be above average in many personal attributes. We also tend to take credit for successes and blame others for failures, and may deliberately push others down as we seek the perception of relative superiority.

The corollary to self-enhancement is avoidance of things that might make one look bad in any way.

Whilst we all tend to self-enhance, some people can become obsessive in avoiding anything that might make them look bad and shamelessly grab that which they believe will help their image and deny any blame for anything. Such people may also spend inordinate time boasting and otherwise praising themselves.

The reality of high self-enhancers may be that this is a coping mechanism, in that they personally have a poor self-image and so seek to bolster this with an enhanced external image.

Interestingly, self-enhancement seems to appear more in Western contexts, indicating that it has a cultural basis rather than being genetic. 

Example

A person chooses friends who are less intelligent and less attractive than them in order to use the contrast to look better.

Another person seeks to friends with a poplar and attractive person, with the idea that when they are together they will seen in a similar light.

(These opposites, show the importance of perception in self-enhancement).

So What?

Using it

Offer others ways to make themselves look good in exchange for what you want from them.

Defending

Beware of people who seek to push you down in order to make themselves look good. They may steal your ideas, criticize you unfairly and blame you for the things that they do wrong.

See also

Self-Evaluation Maintenance Theory, Self-Perception Theory, Self-Serving Bias

References

Brown, Jonathan D. (1986). Evaluations of self and others: Self-enhancement biases in social judgments. Social Cognition, 4, 353–376

Pfeffer, J. and Fong, C.T. (2005). Building Organization Theory from First Principles: The Self-Enhancement Motive and Understanding Power and Influence, Organization Science, 16, 4, 372–388