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INTERPERSONAL RELATIONS AND GROUP PROCESSES

Managing Motivational Conflict: How Self-Esteem and Executive

Resources Influence Self-Regulatory Responses to Risk

Justin V. CavalloColumbia University

John G. HolmesUniversity of Waterloo

Grainne M. FitzsimonsDuke University

Sandra L. MurrayUniversity at Buffalo, State University of New York

Joanne V. WoodUniversity of Waterloo

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.

Keywords: risk regulation, self-esteem, executive control

Romantic partners and avid skiers Dennis and Charlotte descend

from the chairlift and find themselves atop a particularly difficult

slope. After the long ride, a confident Dennis eagerly begins to

race down the hill, while a less self-assured Charlotte ultimately

decides to ski to a slightly easier portion of the slope. As they ride

the lift to the next hill, they become immersed in a taxing discus-

sion about renovating their new house. Though the second hill is

as difficult as the first, they both ski down it at a moderate pace and

enjoy their run.

Although it may seem strange that Dennis and Charlotte would

behave differently when skiing on one difficult hill but not the

other, we propose that this example reflects self-regulatory re-

sponses to risk that are shaped by self-esteem and the availability

of executive resources. In the present research, we test the hypoth-esis that self-esteem serves as the foundation of a resource-

dependent regulatory system that functions to resolve motivational

conflict in situations that afford the opportunity to pursue opposing

goals. When people have sufficient executive resources, they re-

solve situational goal conflict in ways that are consistent with their

chronic motivational agendas. In particular, and in line with prior

research (Cavallo, Fitzsimons, & Holmes, 2009; Murray, Holmes,

& Collins, 2006; Murray, Rose, Bellavia, Holmes, & Kusche,

2002), we suggest that high self-esteem people (HSEs) like Dennis

This article was published Online First June 4, 2012.

Justin V. Cavallo, Department of Psychology, Columbia University;

John G. Holmes, Department of Psychology, University of Waterloo,

Waterloo, Ontario, Canada; Grainne M. Fitzsimons, Fuqua School of

Business, Duke University; Sandra L. Murray, Department of Psychology,University at Buffalo, State University of New York; Joanne V. Wood,

Department of Psychology, University of Waterloo.

This research was supported by a doctoral fellowship awarded to Justin

V. Cavallo by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of

Canada. Study 3 was supported by a grant from the National Institute of

Mental Health (MH 60105-08) awarded to Sandra L. Murray.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Justin V.

Cavallo, Department of Psychology, Columbia University, 406 Schermer-

horn Hall, 1190 Amsterdam Avenue MC 5501, New York, NY, 10027.

E-mail: [email protected]

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2012, Vol. 103, No. 3, 430451 2012 American Psychological Association 0022-3514/12/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0028821

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respond to regulatory conflict in a relatively approach-directed

way by pursuing reward in the face of risk. In contrast, we suggest

that low self-esteem people (LSEs) like Charlotte become more

attentive to risk and less willing to pursue positive outcomes.

However, when executive resources are impaired, as they were for

Dennis and Charlotte during their taxing discussion, we hypothe-

size that self-esteem is less influential in determining regulatoryresponses to risk.

We test our predictions in one correlational study and three

experimental studies. Using a variety of operationalizations of

executive resource depletion, we examine how such depletion

interacts with self-esteem to determine responses to regulatory

dilemmas that arise when people face riskthat is, situations in

which opportunities to obtain rewards are coupled with potential

hazards. In doing so, we present a novel perspective on traditional

theorizing about individual differences in self-esteem. As we detail

shortly, the impact of self-esteem on a number of regulatory

phenomena may be more dependent on executive resources than

has been previously believed.

Regulating Situated Goal Conflict

Self-regulatory conflict is a ubiquitous part of daily life. People

often hold multiple goals of varying strength that compete for

psychological and tangible resources, and conflict can occur when

pursuing one goal inhibits ones ability to pursue an alternative

goal (Emmons, King, & Sheldon, 1993). Although the structure of

this conflict may differ (Cavallo & Fitzsimons, 2011), it often

takes the form of an approachavoidance conflict in which the goal

to obtain a positively valenced reward is entwined with a goal to

avoid a negative outcome. For example, one might be tempted to

eat a delicious cupcake but experience conflict because doing so

would thwart ones goal of losing 10 pounds. Existing research has

focused largely on how people resolve a goal conflict that ariseswhen tempting short-term goals threaten progress toward longer

term objectives (Fishbach, Friedman, & Kruglanski, 2003; Fish-

bach & Zhang, 2008; Shah, Friedman, & Kruglanski, 2002; Trope

& Fishbach, 2000). However, little is known about how people

reconcile motivational conflict that occurs in situations that afford

the opportunity to pursue goals that are equivalent in immediacy

and importance.

Such regulatory conflict is highly prevalent in interpersonal

relationships. At the broadest level, many interdependent situa-

tions put the fundamental goal of seeking belongingness and

intimacy (Baumeister & Leary, 1995) in conflict with the motiva-

tion to avoid the pain of social rejection (G. MacDonald & Leary,

2005). Fostering intimate connections with others requires people

to cede control over their personal outcomes to others, an action

that makes people vulnerable to social pain if the other person is

unresponsive to ones needs (Murray, Aloni, et al., 2009; Murray

et al., 2006). For example, excusing a partners bad behavior may

ultimately foster closeness (Rusbult, Verette, Whitney, Slovik, &

Lipkus, 1991) if he or she is receptive, but it also leaves one

susceptible to rejection should that partner continue to behave

badly.

This motivational tension between connectedness and self-

protection is most acute when people face interpersonal risk. We

define interpersonal riskas situations that afford opportunities for

both gain and loss. In relationships, risky situations might call a

partners responsiveness or the relationships quality or stability

into question, perhaps by highlighting sources of conflict. Such

situations afford people the opportunity to seek connection with

their partners, quelling the threat of rejection and enhancing rela-

tionship quality as a result. However, they also afford people the

opportunity to protect themselves from rejection by distancing

themselves psychologically or behaviorally from their partners,thus preempting the sting of imminent rejection. Risky situations

that afford opportunities to pursue both approach- and avoidance-

directed goals provide an ambiguous guide to self-regulation.

When competing situational affordances are roughly equivalent in

incentives and costs, people must prioritize one goal over the other

if they are to enact a coherent cognitive and behavioral response

(Cacioppo, Gardner, & Berntson, 1999).

Prior research examining self-regulatory dynamics has sug-

gested that executive resources may play a central role in allowing

people to reconcile the goal conflict posed by risky situations. We

use the encompassing term executive resources to describe the

various cognitive processes that are essential in guiding self-

regulation and exerting self-control (Baumeister, Schmeichel, &

Vohs, 2007). These resources govern several aspects of effective

goal pursuit, such as inhibiting dominant responses (Engle, 2002;

Richeson & Trawalter, 2005) and sustaining attentional focus

(Kane, Bleckley, Conway, & Engle, 2001; Payne, 2005). When

people attempt to reconcile goal conflict by engaging in one goal

over a motivationally opposing one, they are likely to utilize these

executive-dependent cognitive processes to do so. Gawronski and

Bodenhausens (2006) associative-propositional evaluative model

makes a similar point. Namely, when people experience inconsis-

tency between nonconscious and more deliberate attitudes, they

often resolve it by using propositional reasoning, which requires

executive control. However, growing evidence has suggested that

such executive resources are in limited supply (Baumeister et al.,

2007); burdening or depleting such resources also reduces theirinfluence on self-regulation (Vohs et al., 2008). As such, impair-

ment of these resources is often detrimental to peoples ability to

enact a preferred behavior or goal (Vohs, Baumeister, & Ciarocco,

2005). Thus, we contend that executive resources are critical in

peoples determination to pursue one situational goal over another

and, furthermore, that impairing these resources restricts goal

prioritization that is essential in resolving regulatory conflict.

Self-Esteem and Risk Regulation

When people face situated goal conflict, executive control alone

is likely not sufficient to allow people to implement a clear

regulatory response. That is, people must not only be able to

prioritize one goal over another, they must also determine which

goal they are going to pursue. In some contexts, the nature of the

situation offers a clearer affordance for pursuing one goal over

another. For example, if skiers Dennis and Charlotte were to find

themselves deciding whether to traverse an area of the ski slope

that was unattended and clearly marked as being dangerous, they

may both choose to avoid the severe risk and forgo the relatively

unappealing reward. However, many risky situations afford

roughly equal opportunity to pursue both goals. When situational

affordances present an ambiguous guide to self-regulation, we

propose that peoples chronic motivational agendas serve to direct

regulatory responses. Specifically, we hypothesize that self-esteem

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serves as the foundation of a regulatory system that serves to shape

responses to risk by aligning situational goals with chronic moti-

vations.

High self-esteem people are more chronically approach-

motivated than low self-esteem people are, whereas low self-

esteem people are chronically more avoidance-motivated (Heim-

pel, Elliot, & Wood, 2006). In situations of riskthat is, whenthere is the potential for both gain and loss within the same

contextHSEs and LSEs direct themselves toward goals consis-

tent with these chronic motivational preferences and resist the

influence of alternative goals that the risky situation affords. Spe-

cifically, HSEs respond to risk by prioritizing approach-directed

goals and set aside the competing opportunities to protect them-

selves from risk. LSE, in contrast, direct their regulatory efforts to

prioritize situational goals that reflect their chronic motivation to

avoid negative outcomes, forgoing opportunities for reward.

Many investigations of interpersonal risk regulation have pro-

vided evidence for these divergent regulatory strategies.1 When

facing risky interpersonal situations, HSEs respond by pursuing

opportunities for closeness more vigorously. For example, they

evaluate their relationships more positively when under relation-

ship threat than they otherwise do (Murray et al., 2002), a tactic

reflective of the motivation to draw their partner closer and pursue

intimacy despite the inherent risk of rejection. Their approach-

directed responses to risk extend beyond relationship-specific con-

texts to contexts that are more general. HSEs facing relationship

threat focus broadly on situational rewards and direct their regu-

latory efforts toward it, for example by making riskier financial

decisions in hopes of obtaining greater reward (Cavallo et al.,

2009). In contrast, LSEs react to interpersonal risk by prioritizing

self-protection goals. They implement these strategies by derogat-

ing their partners and their relationships (Murray et al., 2002), a

tactic that serves to blunt the pain of rejection they believe to be

imminent (Murray, Derrick, Leder, & Holmes, 2008; Murray et al.,2006). This regulatory strategy also influences responses outside

of relationship domains. LSEs exposed to relationship threat show

greater aversion to risk generally, for example, by becoming more

conservative when making decisions in which opportunity for

reward is coupled with potential for loss (Cavallo et al., 2009).

Self-Esteem as an Executive-Based Regulatory System

In the present research, we integrate literature on the importance

of executive resources to self-regulation and the moderating role of

self-esteem in responses to risk to elucidate the processes by which

people manage motivational conflict. We propose that when goal

affordances in risky situations create goal conflict, people utilize

executive resources to prioritize situational goals that fit with their

chronic motivational agendas. We examine this within the context

of self-esteem, which has been shown to have a profound influence

on how people regulate risk, particularly in interpersonal domains.

We contend that when people have sufficient executive resources

available to them, HSEs and LSEs will be able to prioritize and

pursue goals that fit with their chronic regulatory concerns, and as

such, self-esteem will predict goal-directed responses to risk.

When such resources are usurped or taxed, HSEs and LSEs will be

unable to implement their preferred self-regulatory aims (Muraven

& Baumeister, 2000), and thus the impact of self-esteem on

self-regulation will be mitigated.

This logic contrasts somewhat with a common assumption about

the nature of self-esteems influence. Although no one, to our

knowledge, has made this issue explicit, our reading of the liter-

ature suggests that self-esteem is often conceptualized as shaping

self-regulation relatively automatically. This may be because much

of the literature examining the role of self-esteem on responses to

threat has examined how people deal with threats to the self-concept rather than goal conflict specifically. When given negative

feedback about their performance, HSEs appear more motivated to

reaffirm their self-worth than LSEs do. For HSEs, the activation of

a self-enhancement goal may indeed be relatively automatic, given

the lack of another, conflicting goal. For example, HSEs often

downplay the validity of the negative feedback, compare them-

selves more favorably to others, and more readily recruit positive

thoughts about themselves, whereas LSEs often do not defend

against negative feedback in the same way (Beauregard & Dun-

ning, 1998; Blaine & Crocker, 1993; Dodgson & Wood, 1998;

Park, 2010; see vanDellen, Campbell, Hoyle, & Bradfield, 2011,

for an extensive review). Because such investigations have focused

on how people cope with threats to deeply ingrained beliefs aboutthe self, most investigations have assumed that HSEs and LSEs

regulatory responses to threat arise with little deliberation and

mental control. However, the role of executive control in shaping

regulatory responses to other types of situationsnamely, those

that afford the opportunity to pursue competing goalshas not yet

been investigated directly.

It is important to note when the role of conscious control has

been studied in the former context, the approach has been to

investigate the extent to which the tactics that people use to

implement regulatory goals rely on such control. For example,

Dodgson and Wood (1998) demonstrated that HSEs demonstrated

greater cognitive accessibility of strengths versus weaknesses after

receiving negative feedback, suggesting that this particular means

of obtaining a self-enhancement goal requires little mental effort.

However, it has also been generally assumed that the overarching

goal that such tactics serve (in this example, self-enhancement) is

adopted by HSEs and LSEs relatively automatically. However, we

propose that deciding which goal to pursue requires some level of

cognitive resources. The behavioral processes involved in imple-

menting it may unfold relatively automatically, but executive

control is required for HSEs and LSEs to select goals consistent

with their broader motivations. In this way, we focus on how

executive resources and self-esteem shape regulatory responses at

the strategic, rather than tactical, level (e.g., Scholer, Stroessner, &

Higgins, 2008).

Of course, the influence of self-esteem on regulatory responses

to risk may be automatic in some respects (Bargh, 1994). Forexample, it is highly unlikely that people are aware that the

motivations adopted to deal with interpersonal risk can guide

self-regulation in unrelated domains, as has been shown in previ-

1 It is important to note that in these relationship-specific investigations

of risk regulation, self-esteem is often used as a proxy for chronic trust in

a partners regard. Although individual differences in chronic trust are

central in guiding interpersonal risk regulation, we contend that HSEs and

LSEs chronic motivational preferences also play an important role in

shaping responses to goal conflict afforded by both relational and nonre-

lational risky situations.

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zation of avoidance goals that match their chronic goal orientation

(Heimpel et al., 2006). Thus, assessing relationship evaluations

allowed us to observe the extent to which participants

relationship-specific responses to risk reflected a preference for

approach or a preference for avoidance in the reconciliation of goal

conflict. We expected to replicate the finding that HSEs and LSEs

differentially shift relationship evaluations when facing threat,depending on whether they have sufficient executive resources

(i.e., are under low cognitive load) or not (i.e., are taxed by high

cognitive load).

Additionally, we measured participants willingness to pursue

reward over risk by assessing their self-reported global approach

motivation and their willingness to make risky decisions to obtain

rewards outside of relational domains. Prior research (Cavallo et

al., 2009) has demonstrated that relationship-specific risk elicits

differential global shifts in approach motivation among HSEs and

LSEs, suggesting the activation of a more general mind-set. HSEs

bolster their approach goals and pursue reward in the face of risk,

whereas LSEs inhibit these goals. We expected to replicate this

finding in the present study among participants who had fullexecutive resources available to them. We hypothesized that under

low cognitive load, self-esteem would predict responses to risk

such that, relative to LSEs, HSEs would make more positive

relationship appraisals, report greater approach motivation, and be

more willing to make risky decisions, even when those decisions

were accompanied by risk. We expected the impact of self-esteem

to be attenuated when executive resources were taxed (i.e., partic-

ipants were under high cognitive load). Moreover, we expected

that HSEs under low load would show greater evidence of

approach-directed responses to risk than would HSEs under high

load, whereas LSEs under low load would be less willing to

approach positive outcomes than would high-load LSEs.

Method

Participants. Participants were 55 undergraduates (44 fe-

male, 11 male; Mage 20.85 years, SD 1.62) from the Univer-

sity of Waterloo who were currently in dating relationships

(Mlength 27.53 months, SD 21.55).

Procedure. Participants believed the study examined cogni-

tive processing and memory. Participants began by completing a

measure of self-esteem and were then instructed to read a passage

from which they would be later asked to recall details. This

passage served as our induction of relationship threat (Cavallo et

al., 2009). It contained a short vignette of a fictional couple

engaging in several common activities (e.g., preparing dinner,

attending a movie). Accompanying these events were descriptionsof research findings ostensibly collected at the University of Wa-

terloo demonstrating how people tend to overestimate the quality

of their relationships. These annotations implied that the common

behaviors exhibited by the couple belied a lack of mutual respon-

siveness. For example, one of these annotations began, Many

romantic couples regularly cooperate and share responsibilities.

One surprising fact that we have discovered is that this cooperation

is frequently motivated by self-interest. Though the passage de-

scribed a fictional couple, prior research has demonstrated that

these materials activate relationship threat among both HSE and

LSE participants (Cavallo et al., 2009; Murray et al., 2011). When

participants had read the passage, the experimenter sat them at a

computer that guided them through the remainder of the session.

Participants were then assigned randomly to cognitive load

condition. In the high-load condition, participants were asked to

learn a nine-digit alphanumeric string and rehearse it for the

duration of the study. In the low-load condition, this string con-

tained only three digits (Gilbert & Hixon, 1991). Participants thencompleted measures of relationship quality, approach-motivation

strength, and risky decision making. We ensured that participants

were rehearsing their alphanumeric string by asking them to report

it three times throughout the experimental session. To maintain the

cover story, the computer asked participants 10 questions at sev-

eral points during the sessionquestions that required them to

recall details from the passage. These questions served not only as

a means to keep the threat salient but also as a manipulation check

that assessed participants comprehension of the passage. When

participants had completed the study, they were debriefed and

thanked for their participation.

Measures.

Self-esteem. Rosenbergs (1965) 10-item scale was used to

measure self-esteem. Participants responded to each item on a

7-point scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) t o 7 (strongly

agree) rather than Rosenbergs original 4-point scale. Scores were

averaged across the 10 items ( .84).

Relationship appraisals. As an index of the extent to which

participants shifted their relationship appraisals as a function of

risk, participants responded to a series of items on 7-point scales,

with higher scores indicating more positive relationship appraisals.

Three items ( .89) adapted from Rusbult, Martz, and Agnew

(1998) assessed participants satisfaction with their romantic rela-

tionship (e.g., My relationship makes me very happy). An ad-

ditional three items ( .88) assessed participants commitment

to their romantic partners (Rusbult et al., 1998). Participants

feelings of closeness to their partners were assessed with thetwo-item ( .79) Subjective Closeness Inventory (Berscheid,

Snyder, & Omoto, 1989). As well, participants optimism about

the future of their romantic relationship was assessed with a

seven-item scale in which they were asked to evaluate the likeli-

hood that they and their partner would be together across six

different times ranging from 2 months to a lifetime (T. K. Mac-

Donald & Ross, 1999). These six items were aggregated ( .94),

with higher scores indicating more optimistic predictions about

relationship longevity.

Approach strength. To assess the strength of participants

approach motivation, we used a measure originally developed by

Lockwood, Jordan, and Kunda (2002) to assess promotion-

oriented goal pursuit (Higgins, 1997). Prior research has demon-

strated that this measure indexes the strength of participants

approach motivation (i.e., their focus on obtaining rewards; Cav-

allo et al., 2009; Summerville & Roese, 2008). Participants indi-

cated their endorsement of nine statements (e.g., In general, I am

focused on achieving positive outcomes in my life) using a 1 (not

at all true of me) to 9 (very true of me) scale, and responses were

averaged across all items ( .78).

Risky decision making. We also assessed participants focus

on positive outcomes indirectly by presenting participants with

two hypothetical scenarios in which they had to indicate the extent

to which they would endorse a risky but relatively rewarding

course of action (e.g., accepting a high-paying job offer with


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uncertain job security) over a safer but less appealing alternative

(e.g., a lower paying but more secure offer). Following Cavallo et

al. (2009), participants indicated how likely they would be to

engage in the risky alternative in each scenario on a 1 ( not at all

likely) to 7 (extremely likely) scale. Reliability for these two items

was low (r .45), but the pattern of responding was similar for

both, so we averaged across the two items.

Results

To test our hypothesis that self-esteem would moderate re-

sponses to relationship threat when participants had full executive

resources but would fail to do so when participants were under

cognitive load, we first created a composite measures of connect-

edness (satisfaction, closeness, commitment, and optimism, each

transformed to a z score and averaged; .86). We submitted all

dependent variables to a hierarchical regression analysis. Follow-

ing Aiken and West (1991), the dummy-coded main effect of

cognitive load (0 low load, 1 high load) and centered

self-esteem scores were entered on the first step, while the two-

way interaction was entered on the second step. Simple effectswere calculated at one standard deviation above and below the

mean. For clarity, regression coefficients are presented in Table 1,

and we discuss only the simple effects involving the hypothesized

interaction below. Predicted values are reported in Table 2.

Recall of threat passage. To ensure that participants fully

understood the threat passage and that the introduction of our

cognitive load manipulation did not reduce the salience of the

threat, we assessed how accurate participants were in recalling

details from the passage (e.g., on what day did the couple attend

the movie?). Results suggest that participants understood the pas-

sage well, inasmuch as they answered 83.64% of questions cor-

rectly (SD 10.99). Importantly, the load manipulation did not

significantly detract from participants recall of the passage, F(1,

53) 1.26, p .27, indicating that participants under high load

remembered the details of the manipulation as well as did those

who were under low load.

Connectedness. Examination of participants relationship

connectedness scores revealed a pattern of results that supported

our hypothesis. As we predicted, the interaction between cognitive

load and self-esteem was significant. When participants had full

use of their executive resources (i.e., low-load condition), HSEs

reported being significantly closer to their partners than did LSEs

( .68), t(51) 3.47, p .001. However, HSEs and LSEs

ratings of closeness did not differ when they were under high

cognitive load ( .002), t(51) 0.01, p .99. Further, HSEs

who had full use of executive resources (i.e., low-load condition)

reported marginally greater connectedness to their partners than

did HSEs in the high-load condition ( .32), t(51) 1.82,

p .08. Conversely, LSE participants in the low-load condition

reported less connectedness relative to those who were in thehigh-load condition ( .36), t(51) 1.98, p .05.

Approach strength. Examination of participants approach

strength again revealed the hypothesized interaction. Though this

effect was marginally significant (see Table 1), examination of the

simple slopes revealed that as expected, HSEs reported signifi-

cantly greater approach strength than did LSEs in the low-load

condition ( .56), t(51) 2.86, p .01, and this difference was

again eliminated in the high-load condition ( .08), t(51)

0.45, p .65. HSEs self-reported approach motivation was rel-

atively unaffected by the cognitive load manipulation ( .02),

t(51) 0.73, p .47. However, as predicted, LSEs reported

significantly weaker approach motivation in the low-load condi-

tion than in the high-load condition ( .65), t(51) 2.54, p

.01.

Risky decision making. Analysis of participants risk-taking

scores revealed a similar pattern. As predicted, the two-way inter-

action was significant. When they had sufficient executive re-

sources, HSEs reported significantly greater willingness to partake

in the risky options than did LSEs ( .59), t(51) 2.97, p .01.

In contrast, as predicted, this self-esteem difference was not ob-

served when participants were placed under cognitive load (

.10), t(51) 0.57, p .57. Examination of the simple effects

revealed that as we hypothesized, HSEs in the low-load condition

were riskier than were HSEs in the high-load condition ( .53),

Table 1Summary of Regression Analyses in Study 1

Dependent measure

Cognitive loadcondition

(low vs. high)a Self-esteemaCognitive load

Self-esteemb

t t t

Connectedness .01 0.09 .28 2.11 .52 2.65

Approach strength .23 1.78 .28 2.13 .37 1.86

Risky decision making .06 0.44 .19 1.41 .53 2.63

a Error terms are based on 52 degrees of freedom. b Error terms are based on 51 degrees of freedom.p .10. p .01.

Table 2

Predicted Scores for the Condition Self-Esteem Interactions

in Study 1

Dependent measure

Low self-esteem High self-esteem

Low load High load Low load High load

Connectedness 0.60 0.01 0.53 0.01Approach strength 6.65 7.63 7.81 7.79Risky decision making 4.86 5.68 6.06 5.49

Note. Low and high self-esteem refer to participants one standard devi-ation below and above the mean, respectively.


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t(51) 2.05, p .046, whereas cognitive load made LSEs

significantly less risky ( .66), t(51) 2.52, p .02.

Discussion

The results of Study 1 provide the first experimental demon-

stration that HSEs and LSEs differential regulatory responses torisk require executive resources. When they had ample executive

resources (i.e., low load), HSEs prioritized approach-directed

goals. They bolstered their relationship appraisals, reported height-

ened global approach motivation, and made riskier decisions rel-

ative to cognitively taxed HSEs. In contrast, LSEs who had ample

executive resources responded to a risky relationship situation by

decreasing the priority of these goals relative to cognitively taxed

LSEs. They downplayed their relationship appraisals, inhibited

general approach motivation, and ultimately were more attentive to

risk in their decision making. As anticipated, HSEs were more

willing to approach positive outcomes than LSEs were when

participants were under low cognitive load. However, high cogni-

tive load eliminated this self-esteem difference, suggesting that

cognitive busyness disrupted HSEs and LSEs ability to align

situational goal pursuit with their chronic regulatory agendas.

In addition to replicating prior research (Murray et al., 2002)

showing shifts in relationship evaluations as a function of self-

esteem among participants in the low-load condition, the present

study also demonstrated that underlying motivational shifts can

affect self-regulation outside of that domain in which risk is

activated. While the risky decision-making measure used in this

study involved hypothetical scenarios, prior research has suggested

that the divergent self-regulatory patterns of HSEs and LSEs are

also likely to shape decisions that have real and meaningful con-

sequences (Cavallo, Fitzsimons, & Holmes, 2009, Study 4). We

suggest that when regulatory resources are depleted, self-esteem

would again have little bearing on these decisions, as people areunable to implement their preferred self-regulatory strategy.

The results of the first study challenge the way that self-esteem

is traditionally represented in the literature. Many commentaries

on regulatory differences between HSEs and LSEs have tacitly or

overtly speculated that such differences arise relatively automati-

cally from ingrained beliefs about self-worth (e.g., Baumeister,

Heatherton, & Tice, 1993; Brown & Smart, 1991; Heatherton &

Vohs, 2000; J. V. Wood, Giordano-Beech, & Ducharme, 1999).

LSEs, in particular, exhibit many potentially destructive patterns

of thought and behavior that have often been characterized as

habitual (e.g., Blaine & Crocker, 1993; Murray, Holmes, MacDon-

ald, & Ellsworth, 1998; Sommer & Baumeister, 2002). However,

the implementation of such strategies may be more dependent on

executive resources than was previously realized, particularly

when situations offer the possibility for both gain and loss. HSEs

and LSEs may be equally capable of responding similarly to risk

but usually implement different regulatory strategies that lead to

divergent outcomes.

In many previous investigations of self-esteems role in shaping

cognition and behavior, the conditions may have been such that

people had ample executive resources, and thus self-esteems

impact was unfettered. However, this study suggests that self-

esteem may be less influential when such resources are dimin-

ished. Because daily life often involves situations in which exec-

utive resources are taxed, the extent to which these resources allow

self-esteem to shape various outcomes has important implications

for understanding of how self-esteem truly functions. Given these

implications, and because our claim that executive resources are

critical in determining HSEs and LSEs responses to risk runs

counter to conventional thinking about the nature of self-esteem

differences, we felt that it was important to demonstrate that the

findings of Study 1 were robust by replicating them in Study 2.One limitation of Study 1 was that it lacked a no-threat com-

parison group. All participants in this study were exposed to

interpersonal risk, and as a result, the findings are subject to

alternative interpretations. For example, it may be that cognitive

load impaired participants ability to properly comprehend and

consider the dependent measures. Self-esteems lack of influence

in the high-load condition may not have resulted from a disruption

of regulatory processes but instead from this methodological arti-

fact. We sought to rule out this explanation in Study 2 by dem-

onstrating that burdening executive resources influences responses

only in the presence of risk and not when it is absent.

Study 2In Study 2, we employed a design similar to that in the previous

study but added a control group in which participants were not

threatened. In this study, we chose to focus exclusively on partic-

ipants relationship-specific appraisals. Constructs such as rela-

tionship satisfaction and commitment are typically seen as difficult

to shift in experimental designs due to their relative stability (cf.

Finkel, Rusbult, Kumashiro, & Hannon, 2002). In hopes of repli-

cating the shifts in these evaluations that we observed in Study 1,

we again assessed these relationship-specific responses in Study 2.

Additionally, we also assessed how accepted participants felt by

their partners. Perceived acceptance serves a primary role in the

risk regulation system by influencing risk appraisal. HSEs respond

to risk by embellishing the extent to which their partner acceptsthem, thus facilitating pursuit of preferred connectedness goals.

LSEs, in contrast, exaggerate their partners lack of affection when

facing risk, thereby enabling them to pursue their self-protection

goals (Murray et al., 2006, 2002). Given this, we expected that the

effects of our experimental manipulations would extend beyond

participants own relationship appraisals as observed in Study 1

and shape feelings of acceptance, a metaperspective on the part-

ners relationship appraisals, in Study 2.

In this study, we expected to find a three-way Self-Esteem

Threat Cognitive Load interaction. We further expected the

two-way Self-Esteem Threat interaction to be significant under

conditions of low, but not high, cognitive load. We also expected

to observe simple effects of both self-esteem and threat when

participants were not under cognitive load. Specifically, when

participants had full use of their executive resources, we expected

threatened HSEs to make more positive relationship appraisals

than would threatened LSEs. When participants were not threat-

ened, and thus there was no goal conflict for self-esteem to

arbitrate, we expected to observe small or no differences between

HSEs and LSEs (Murray et al., 2006). Put in terms of the simple

effects of threat, we expected nonbusy HSEs to report more-

positive relationship evaluations in the threat condition than in the

control condition. In contrast, we expected nonbusy LSEs to report

less-positive relationship evaluations in the threat condition than in

the control condition. When executive resources were taxed, we


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did not expect threat to predict different regulatory responses as a

function of self-esteem. Indeed, the inability for threatened HSEs

and LSEs to resolve goal tension in their preferred direction would

result in them taking no directed action toward a specific goal and

thus would lead them to respond in a way similar to that of

participants who were not threatened.

Method

Participants. One hundred twenty-one undergraduates (90

female, 31 male; Mage 20.13 years, SD 1.83) from the

University of Waterloo who were currently in dating relationships

(Mlength 22.32 months, SD 16.54) participated in exchange for

course credit.

Procedure. The procedure was similar to that used in Study

1. After completing the Rosenberg (1965) self-esteem scale (

.73), participants were presented with a written passage and in-

structed to read it carefully. Participants were assigned randomly

to threat and no-threat conditions. Those in the threat condition

were given the same passage used in Study 1. Those in the

no-threat condition were given a control version (Cavallo et al.,2009). In this control vignette, the fictitious research findings

suggested that people generally underestimate their relationship

quality and that the interpretations of the couples behaviors iden-

tified how seemingly mundane events can be reflective of mutual

caring. In contrast to the threat passage, this passage was not

designed to activate interpersonal risk. When participants had

finished reading the passage, the experimenter directed them to a

computer that guided them through the remainder of the session.

Again, participants who were assigned to the high-cognitive-load

condition were instructed to learn and rehearse a nine-digit alpha-

numeric string, whereas those assigned to the low-load condition

were told to rehearse a three-digit string. Following this, partici-

pants completed the same measures of relationship satisfaction

( .90), commitment ( .78), closeness ( .71), and

optimism ( .93) as in Study 1. Additionally, participants

completed a five-item measure ( .70) that captured partici-

pants beliefs about their partners acceptance and continued re-

sponsiveness (e.g., I am confident that my partner accepts and

loves me). They responded to each item on a scale ranging from

1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). To assess positive (

.82) and negative ( .89) affect, participants completed the state

measure of the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS;

Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988) using a 7-point scale. To ensure

that participants had attended to the written passage and to the

cognitive load instructions, they were asked to recall the alphanu-

meric string and details about the passage three times throughout

the session. When participants had completed the study, they were

debriefed and thanked for their participation.

Results

To test our hypothesis that self-esteem would moderate the

influence of relationship threat on relationship appraisals when

participants had full use of executive resources but would fail to do

so when these resources were taxed by cognitive load, we submit-

ted the dependent measures to hierarchical regression analyses in

which the dummy-coded main effects of threat (0 no threat, 1

threat) and cognitive load (0 low load, 1 high load), as well

as centered self-esteem scores, were entered on the first step. All

two-way interactions were entered on the second step, while the

three-way interaction was entered on the final step. Simple effects

were calculated at one standard deviation above and below the

mean. For clarity, regression coefficients are presented in Table 3,and we discuss only the simple slopes and simple effects involving

the hypothesized interaction below. Predicted values are reported

in Table 4.

Recall of threat passage. As in Study 1, participants were

generally accurate in the recall of correct details from the passage

(M 88.22%, SD 11.78). Cognitive load had no impact on

accuracy, F(1, 119) 1.62, p .21, nor did recall vary between

the threat and no-threat passages, F(1, 119) 1.05, p .31.

Mood. Analysis of participants mood ratings revealed no

differences in positive, F(1, 119) 1, or negative, F(1, 119) 1,

affect as a result of the threat manipulation. Importantly, the

cognitive load manipulation also did not significantly affect par-

ticipants mood (all Fs 1), suggesting that their responses cannot

be attributed to unintended shifts in affect caused by our experi-

mental design.

Connectedness. We again created a composite measure of

connectedness ( .86) from participants relational evaluations.

As anticipated, a significant three-way interaction emerged on this

measure (see Figure 1). When participants were under low cogni-

tive load, there was a significant two-way interaction between

self-esteem and threat ( .52), t(113) 3.47, p .001. As we

predicted, however, self-esteem did not interact with threat when

Table 3

Summary of Regression Analyses in Study 2

Dependent measure

Cognitive loadcondition (low

vs. high)a

Relationshipthreat

condition(no threat vs.

threat)a Self-esteema

Cognitiveload

Relationshipthreatb

Cognitive load Self-esteemb

Relationshipthreat Self-

esteemb

Cognitive load Relationshipthreat Self-

esteemc

t t t t t t t

Connectedness .02 0.17 .01 0.17 .43 5.18 .23 1.77 .41 3.73 .25 2.20 .36 2.65

Perceived acceptance .02 0.22 .02 0.28 .43 5.18 .19 1.43 .41 3.61 .23 2.03 .36 2.65

a Error terms are based on 117 degrees of freedom. b Error terms are based on 114 degrees of freedom. c Error terms are based on 113 degrees offreedom.p .10. p .05. p .01.


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participants were under high cognitive load ( .05), t(113)

0.30, p .77.

We then decomposed the significant two-way Threat Self-

Esteem interaction for people not under cognitive load and exam-

ined the simple effects of both self-esteem and threat. The simple

effects for self-esteem and threat were consistent with our expec-

tations. As in Study 1, HSEs reported greater connectedness than

did LSEs when under threat ( 1.02), t(113) 7.79, p .001.

However, HSEs and LSEs did not differ significantly in the ab-

sence of threat ( .26), t(113) 1.52, p .13. HSEs under

threat tended to feel more connected to their partners than did

HSEs who were not threatened ( .26), t(113) 1.80, p .08.

In contrast and as anticipated, LSEs under threat reported being

less close to their partners than did nonthreatened LSEs (

.50), t(113) 3.21, p .002. None of the simple effects of

threat or self-esteem were significant for participants under cog-

nitive load (all ps .20).

Perceived acceptance. A similar pattern of results emerged

for participants perceptions of their partners acceptance. The

three-way interaction was again significant, as was the two-way

interaction between self-esteem and threat when participants were

under low cognitive load ( .53), t(113) 3.34, p .001, butnot when participants were under high cognitive load.

Decomposing the significant Self-Esteem Threat interaction

for low-load participants revealed the predicted simple effects of

self-esteem and threat. Threatened HSEs reported feeling more

accepted by their partners than did threatened LSEs ( 1.00),

t(113) 7.61, p .001, whereas HSEs and LSEs did not differ

significantly when not faced with relationship threat ( .27),

t(113) 1.54, p .13. Moreover, HSEs tended to feel that their

partners accepted them more when threatened than when not

threatened ( .26), t(113) 1.80, p .08. LSEs, in contrast,

felt less accepted when threatened ( .47), t(113) 3.03, p

.003. None of the simple effects of self-esteem or threat were

significant for participants under high cognitive load (all ps .27).

Discussion

The results of Study 2 replicated those of Study 1 and provided

additional support for our hypothesis. When participants were

under relationship threat and had full executive resources, self-

esteem moderated their responses to interpersonal risk: HSEs and

LSEs diverged drastically in their evaluations of their relation-

ships. In comparison to participants in the control condition, HSEs

tended to exhibit greater positivity, suggesting that they actively

bolstered relationship appraisals to counteract feelings of vulner-

ability. In contrast, threatened LSEs seemed to devalue their rela-

tionships. This active derogation of their relationships is indicative

of a self-protective response commonly observed in risk regulation

research, whereby people reduce the psychological stakes frompotential rejection by distancing themselves from partners (Murray

et al., 2002, 2006).

As we predicted, this pattern did not emerge when participants

were under high cognitive load. HSEs and LSEs made equally

positive relationship appraisals regardless of relationship threat

when their executive resources were taxed. Moreover, people in

the threat condition resembled those in the no-threat condition,

suggesting that cognitive load disrupted risk regulation processes.

Studies 1 and 2 provided initial experimental support for our

hypothesis that self-esteem and executive resources are critical in

resolving goal conflict. Buoyed by these results, we sought to

examine whether this phenomenon would generalize beyond a

laboratory context in Study 3.

Study 3

Do self-esteem and executive resources operate this same way

in real-life situations of interpersonal riskin the daily negotia-

tions of closeness versus self-protection among married couples?

And would our results replicate with new operationalizations of

approach/avoidance of risk, of executive resources, and of indi-

viduals resolution of the goal conflict? In this study, we examined

responses to interpersonal risk among a sample of newly married

couples. We indexed interpersonal risk via participants own self-

reported marital conflict. We theorized that newlyweds who re-

Table 4

Predicted Scores for High and Low Self-Esteem Participants in Each Condition in Study 2

Dependent measure

Low self-esteem High self-esteem

No threat/lowload

No threat/highload

Threat/lowload

Threat/highload

No threat/lowload

No threat/highload

Threat/lowload

Threat/highload

Connectedness 0.11 0.21 0.94 0.12 0.33 0.05 0.76 0.18Perceived acceptance 6.13 6.02 5.45 6.27 6.51 6.20 6.89 6.31

Note. Low and high self-esteem refer to participants one standard deviation below and above the mean, respectively.

Figure 1. Relationship connectedness as a function of condition and

self-esteem in Study 2.


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ported more frequent and intense conflict with their partners would

more consistently face the kinds of conflict-of-interest situations

that put connectedness and self-protection goals in conflict (cf.

Murray, Bellavia, Rose, & Griffin, 2003). Rather than placing

participants under cognitive load as we did in Studies 1 and 2, we

operationalized executive resources as chronic working memory

capacity. Individual differences in working memory capacity(WMC) are a key determinant of peoples ability to control self-

regulatory behavior and override automatic determinants of goal

pursuit (Hofmann, Gschwendner, Friese, Wiers, & Schmitt, 2008).

As in the previous studies, we measured participants relation-

ship appraisals to gauge reconciliation of this situated goal con-

flict. Rather than focus on participants perceptions of their own

satisfaction and commitment, we assessed how they viewed their

partners valuation of the relationship. The results of Study 2 were

consistent with prior research demonstrating that in the face of

interpersonal risk, HSEs and LSEs perceptions of their partners

relational appraisals tend to mirror their own. That is, HSEs

respond to threat by bolstering their partners dedication to the

relationship, whereas LSEs tend to perceive their partners as lessinvested in the relationship (Murray et al., 2002). We sought to

replicate this effect in Study 3, as these perceptions play a critical

role in determining the extent to which one feels positively re-

garded by his/her partner and thus are essential to relationship

functioning (Murray et al., 2006).

We predicted that among participants with sufficient execu-

tive resources (i.e., those with high chronic working memory

capacity), self-esteem would interact with self-reported conflict

to determine perceptions of a partners connectedness. We

predicted that among participants who reported greater relation-

ship conflict, self-esteem would predict relationship appraisals

such that HSEs would report greater perceived connectedness

than would LSEs. Among participants who reported little rela-

tionship conflict, meaning that the goal tension between ap-proach and avoidance is relatively absent, we anticipated that

self-esteem would not be predictive of perceived connected-

ness. For people with high working memory capacity, we also

anticipated a simple effect of threat such that HSEs who re-

ported greater conflict would feel their partners were more

connected to the relationship than would HSEs who reported

less conflict. Conversely, we expected that LSEs who reported

greater conflict would feel their partners were less connected to

them than would LSEs who reported less conflict.

When executive resources were diminished (i.e., among partic-

ipants with low chronic working memory capacity), we again did

not expect self-esteem to interact with self-reported conflict. We

anticipated that when such resources are unavailable to facilitatehigh-conflict HSEs and LSEs engagement in preferred regulatory

strategies, their evaluations of their partners connectedness would

be similar.

Method

Participants. One hundred fifty-nine married couples who

had previously completed a larger longitudinal study of newly-

weds (see Murray, Aloni, et al., 2009; Murray, Holmes, et al.,

2009) participated for $150. Marriages averaged 48.96 months in

length (SD 10.06).

Procedure. As part of a larger study, participants first com-

pleted the measure of working memory capacity and the same

measure of self-esteem used in Studies 1 and 2 ( .88). They

then completed measures of conflict, perceived partner commit-

ment, and perceived partner closeness (described below).

Measures.

Working memory capacity. Following Hofmann et al. (2008),we assessed working memory capacity ( .76) with a task that

presented participants with a set of four to eight equations involv-

ing a mixture of addition and subtraction (e.g., 3 5 8, 11 7

5). These were presented sequentially on a computer screen for 3 s,

followed by a 1-s interstimulus interval. Participants were asked to

complete two tasks simultaneously. During the initial presentation,

they had to indicate whether each equation was true or false, and

they were tasked with remembering the result of each equation and

entering them in the correct sequence (e.g., 8, 5) at the end of the

set. Thus, participants had to memorize the sequence of results,

while being engaged in a distracting secondary task. Participants

completed two practice and 10 test trials. WMC was computed by

adding the number of correctly entered sequences weighted by the

number of equations in each set.

Conflict. To assess the extent to which couples regularly

faced relationship threat, we assessed the frequency and intensity

of relational conflict using five items (e.g., How often do you and

your partner have arguments or disagreements? In general, how

serious are your arguments and disagreements?). Participants

responded to these items on 7-point scales, and responses were

averaged such that higher numbers indicated greater conflict (

.91).

Perceived partner commitment. We assessed participants

agreement with three items tapping the degree to which they felt

partners were committed to them (e.g., My partner is deeply

committed to maintaining our marriage; My partner wants to

spend the rest of his/her life with me). Participants responded toeach item on a scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) t o 7

(strongly agree), and responses were averaged ( .95).

Perceived partner closeness. Participants reports of their

partners closeness were assessed with four items (e.g., My part-

ner is very much in love with me; My partner is closer to me

than any other person in his/her life). Participants indicated their

agreement with these statements on a 7-point scale ranging from 1

(strongly agree) to 7 (strongly agree), and responses were indexed

across all four items ( .93).

Results

Because both perceived commitment and perceived closeness

tap the partners perceived connection to the relationship, we

created a composite measure of perceived connectedness by stan-

dardizing and averaging responses to these measures ( .92). As

in Study 2, we expected to observe a three-way interaction be-

tween WMC, self-esteem, and threat (operationalized as relation-

ship conflict). Specifically, when people were high in WMC and

living in a high conflict (i.e., high threat) relationship, we expected

people who were high in self-esteem to perceive their partner as

more close and committed. However, we did not expect such

regulatory responses among people high in WMC to emerge in the

absence of risk. In contrast, when people were low in WMC, we

did not expect self-esteem to predict perceptions of the partners


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closeness and commitment in either high-conflict or low-conflict

relationships.

Given the dependent nature of our data, we used structural

equation modeling to test our hypotheses because it allows both

actor and partner effects and estimates pooled effects across gen-

der (Kenny, 1996; Kenny & Cook, 1999; Kenny, Kashy, & Cook,

2006). We examined participants perceived connectedness withthe predictors of self-esteem, working memory capacity, and re-

ported conflict, as well as all two- and three-way interactions. We

estimated the intercepts and correlations among exogenous vari-

ables and the correlations between the residuals. Table 5 lists

coefficients that are pooled across gender because model tests that

compared unconstrained and constrained paths revealed no signif-

icant differences.

As we predicted, we found a significant three-way interaction

between self-esteem, WMC, and conflict predicting self-reported

perceived connectedness ( .07, z 2.17, p .03). Decom-

posing this interaction revealed a two-way interaction between

self-esteem and conflict (i.e., threat level) among those high in

chronic WMC ( .17, z 2.59, p .01). Self-esteem andconflict did not significantly interact among participants who were

low in working memory capacity ( .01, z .22, p .82).

We then decomposed the significant Self-Esteem Conflict

interaction into both the simple effects of self-esteem and the

simple effects of conflict. For people high in WMC, self-esteem

predicted feelings of perceived connectedness among people who

experienced high chronic conflict, with HSEs reporting greater

partner connectedness than did LSEs ( .31, z 3.63, p

.001). When chronic conflict was low, HSEs and LSEs with high

WMC felt their partners were equally connected ( .03, z

.27, p .79). This again suggests that self-esteem is less influ-

ential in determining self-regulatory outcomes when motivational

conflict is absent. Decomposing the interaction into the simple

effects of conflict on perceived connectedness among high WMC

participants revealed that high-conflict LSEs felt their partners

were less connected than did low-conflict LSEs ( .53, z

5.52, p .001). In contrast, HSEs who reported higher levels of

conflict did not significantly differ in perceived connectedness

from HSEs who reported lower levels of conflict ( .17, z

1.50, p .13).

Discussion

The results of Study 3 provided a conceptual replication of the

experimental findings in Studies 1 and 2 and again demonstrated

that executive resources play a critical role in moderating the

influence of self-esteem on responses to goal conflict. Among

newlywed couples, those who have frequent and intense conflictregularly face tension between their goals to deepen intimacy with

their new spouse and to protect themselves from feelings of hurt or

rejection at the hands of this person. When respondents had high

working memory capacity and thus had a wealth of regulatory

resources at their disposal, HSEs reported higher levels of per-

ceived connectedness than did LSEs. This finding is highly con-

sistent with past research on interpersonal risk regulation, which

has shown that peoples relationship appraisals shift in response to

relationship threats. HSEs respond to risk by making more positive

relationship evaluations and attributing more positive evaluations

to their partners (Murray et al., 2002), suggesting they are moti-

vated to seek connection when risk is salient. In contrast, LSEs

respond to risk by derogating their relationships and their partners

(Murray et al., 2002), suggesting that they are oriented towardminimizing the importance of the relationship when faced with

risk. However, this pattern of results did not occur among partic-

ipants who had low working memory capacity. Additionally, it did

not occur when participants reported little conflict. This finding

supports our hypothesis that self-esteem is influential primarily in

situations of risk. When risk is minimal and there is little tension

between approach and avoidance goals that requires resolution,

HSEs and LSEs have no impetus to prioritize one goal over the

other, and thus they perceive their relationships similarly.

Taken together, the results of Studies 1, 2, and 3 indicate that

executive resources are fundamental in governing how self-

esteem influences responses to risky situations. These results

have important implications for understanding interpersonalrisk regulation processes. When executive resources were min-

imal, HSEs and LSEs responses to threat were indistinguish-

able from those of participants who were not under threat,

providing the strongest evidence thus far that risk regulation is

an executive-based system. These findings imply that for HSEs,

executive resources allow them to prioritize approach-directed

connectedness goals adaptively. By recruiting compensatory,

positive beliefs about their relationships, HSEs protect their

interpersonal relationships from threat. In contrast, for LSEs,

executive resources enable them to reinforce chronic self-

protection goals. When such resources are impaired, LSEs

appear to be better off; they feel as committed and as satisfied

as HSEs even in higher conflict relationships. Because LSEs

generally have more unwarranted insecurities and probably

experience motivational conflict more regularly than do HSEs

(Murray, Holmes, Griffin, Bellavia, & Rose, 2001), it is likely

that having sufficient ability to exert executive resources un-

dermines LSEs relationship quality (see also Murray, Aloni, et

al., 2009; Murray et al., 2008). We discuss the implications of

this finding further in the General Discussion section.

Together the three studies described thus far suggest that self-

esteem is essential to regulatory functioning when responding to

interpersonal risk and that executive resources play a critical role

in allowing it to do so. We hypothesize that this regulatory process

is not limited to interpersonal contexts but also guides behavior

Table 5

Results of Structural Equation Modeling Analysis in Study 3

Showing Perceived Connectedness

Predictor b z

Working memory capacity (WMC) .009 2.43Self-esteem (SE) .089 1.86

Conflict .364 9.11WMC SE .005 1.23WMC Conflict .008 2.64SE Conflict .069 1.82

WMC SE Conflict .006 2.17

Note. Comparative fit index 1.00; root-mean-square error of approx-imation .000. 2(14, N 152) 13.39, p .50. p .10. p .05. p .01.


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outside of these contexts as well; that is, we suggest that self-

esteem will require executive resources to shape responses to other

kinds of risks. The results of Study 1 support this hypothesis, in

that interpersonal risk spurred regulatory behavior in noninterper-

sonal domains (i.e., on self-reported goals and on risky decision

making). However, if these processes are truly global, nonrela-

tional risks should also trigger them. We tested this idea in Study4 by examining the effects of self-esteem on reactions to a threat

to academic competence.

Study 4

Evidence from prior research has suggested that self-esteem

plays a critical role in regulating responses to risk in domains

other than interpersonal ones. That is, when situational contexts

offer opportunities for reward that are coupled with risk, HSEs

tend to set aside risk in pursuit of positive outcomes, whereas

LSEs forgo potential rewards and protect themselves from

negative outcomes (Cavallo et al., 2009). Research examining

how self-esteem influences social comparison processes follow-

ing a failure experience (J. V. Wood, Giordano-Beech, Taylor,

Michela, & Gaus, 1994) illustrates this pattern. After experi-

encing a personal failure, comparing ones own performance to

others can be inherently risky. On the one hand, such compar-

isons might serve a beneficial self-regulatory function. They

might allow people to assess why they failed and thereby

suggest means of improvement (Festinger, 1954; Gibbons &

Buunk, 1999; Taylor & Lobel, 1989). On the other hand, doing

so is perilous because comparing oneself to others can highlight

ones shortcomings and have a detrimental impact on mood and

self-worth (Brickman & Bulman, 1977; Tesser, Millar, &

Moore, 1988). Thus, social comparisons in the face of failure

are likely useful for ultimate goal success (Carver & Scheier,

1998) but potentially costly in terms of protecting a positivesense of self. When presented with such a conflict between

goals to improve in an important domain and goals to protect

the ego, HSEs and LSEs tend to show differential preference for

risky social comparison information (Baumeister, Tice, & Hut-

ton, 1989; J. V. Wood et al., 1994) that we believe corresponds

to their responses to interpersonal risk observed in Studies 13.

When they fail, HSEs show a greater willingness to make

social comparisons than do LSEs, at least in contexts in which

such comparisons could inform further action (J. V. Wood et

al., 1994). Though making comparisons after failure carries the

risk that such comparisons may be unflattering, HSEs are

inclined to set aside these concerns when the information

gleaned from them will be beneficial (J. V. Wood et al., 1994).

In contrast, LSEs often avoid making such comparisons and

thereby protect themselves from further blows to their self-

evaluation while forgoing potential rewards (Baumeister et al.,

1989; J. V. Wood & Lockwood, 1999). We hypothesized that

this self-esteem difference in social comparison following

threat also results from executive-based regulatory processes.

That is, when people face conflict between the goal to protect their

self-esteem and the goal to obtain diagnostic information that

fosters improvement, we theorize that HSEs require executive

resources to set aside risks and pursue potential rewards. In con-

trast, LSEs relinquish opportunities for improvement and instead

use executive resources to pursue goals that will guard them from

risk. Thus, we theorize that when such resources are depleted or

disrupted, people will be unable to prioritize their preferred goal

and as such, self-esteem will have little bearing on responses to

failure.

In Study 4, we tested this hypothesis by having participants

complete a test that ostensibly assessed a skill that was central to

academic success. This test also served as a manipulation ofexecutive resources. In service of conceptual replication, in place

of the cognitive load manipulation from Studies 1 and 2, the task

instructions required participants to engage in an easy or difficult

act of self-control. Such acts require exertion of executive strength

and thereby deplete resources available for subsequent tasks (Mu-

raven & Baumeister, 2000). Although such processes are theoret-

ically distinct from cognitive load and working memory capacity,

we anticipated that taxing regulatory ability this way would have

similar implications for HSEs and LSEs regulatory responses to

situated goal conflict. Half of the participants received (false)

negative feedback about their performance after taking the test. We

then provided all participants with an opportunity to make social

comparisons.

To provide a context that would elicit an approach/avoidance

conflictoffering both risk and rewardour social comparison

context differed from those in most previous comparison studies.

Specifically, participants believed they would perform two tasks,

and their opportunity to make social comparisons fell between the

two tasks. That is, participants were told that the second task

would allow them the opportunity to use any social comparison

information they had garnered from the first task (cf. J. V. Wood

et al., 1994, 1999). In addition, the social comparison information

available to participants was more informative than that available

through most social comparison measures (J. V. Wood, 1996);

rather than learning merely others scores, participants could os-

tensibly learn others strategies for earning such scores.

We predicted that HSEs and LSEs would differ in their will-ingness to make social comparisons following failure only when

the test did not deplete executive resources. In this condition, we

predicted that HSEs would be more likely to compare themselves

to others after receiving failure feedback than LSEs would be. In

contrast, we predicted that receiving neutral feedback would be

unlikely to create situated goal conflict, and thus self-esteem

would not influence social comparison in this condition. We also

predicted that HSEs would be more willing to make social com-

parisons following failure relative to control participants, whereas

LSEs would be less willing to engage in these risky comparisons

following failure.

Moreover, we anticipated that these differences would be exac-

erbated by the relative degree of risk posed by high- and low-per-

formance social comparison targets. That is, we anticipated that

relative to control participants, HSEs who experienced failure

would be particularly willing to compare themselves to targets that

performed poorly, as this context would afford greater opportunity

to pursue self-improvement with minimal risk. Similarly, we an-

ticipated that LSEs who experienced failure (relative to control

LSEs) would be especially likely to avoid social comparisons with

high-performance targets. Comparing themselves to these targets

would entail heightened risk of experiencing further decrements in

their self-worth and thus afford LSEs greater opportunity to pursue

preferred self-protection goals. However, when participants re-

sources were depleted, we did not expect self-esteem to interact


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with failure feedback, as such resources are necessary for HSEs

and LSEs to implement the divergent regulatory strategies that

shape their social comparison behavior.

Method

Participants. One hundred fifty-four undergraduate partici-pants participated in the study in exchange for course credit. The

data from six participants who failed to complete the writing task

were eliminated automatically by our server, and two participants

denied us permission to use their data after being debriefed about

the deception used in the study, leaving 146 participants (103

female, 43 male; Mage 20.10, SD 1.57).

Procedure. Participants who volunteered for an online study

on cognitive performance were sent a web link that directed them

to the study. After first completing the Rosenberg (1965) self-

esteem scale ( .92), participants were presented with a task that

ostensibly measured verbal integration. In the introductory text

(adapted from Di Paula & Campbell, 2002), participants were told

that this construct was highly important for university students.

They read that those who score highly on the test tend to have

higher averages, are more likely to be successful in admission to

graduate school and in the job market and are generally successful

in academic and career endeavors. Participants were informed

that they would have 5 min to write a short story and that their

writing sample would be immediately transmitted to a secure

database and scored electronically on several metrics. They were

told that these metrics would then be standardized and presented to

them as a score ranging from 0 to 100, with higher scores indi-

cating greater verbal integration ability. After reading these in-

structions, participants proceeded to this task, which actually

served as the manipulation of executive resource depletion.

Participants in both conditions were given 6 min to write a story

about a recent trip they had taken. They were told that the storymay be fictional or based on true events but must be written from

the first-person perspective. In the depletion condition, participants

were instructed not to use the letters a or n anywhere in their story.

This restriction required participants in this condition to regulate

their writing, thereby consuming their executive resources. In the

no-depletion condition, participants were instructed not to use the

letters q or z in their story, a task that required less self-regulation

and thus was less taxing of their executive ability (Schmeichel,

2007; Schmeichel & Vohs, 2009).

After this writing task, participants were presented with their

verbal integration feedback, which was ostensibly derived from an

electronic analysis of their writing. In the failure-feedback condi-

tion, participants were presented with a score of 55 out of a

possible 100 points and were told this score reflected poor

performance on the integration task. Those in the no-feedback

condition were told that their score had been successfully com-

puted but would not be presented due to a computer error on the

remote server. As a manipulation check, participants were asked to

indicate how well they thought they had done on the verbal

integration task on a scale ranging from 1 ( very poor) to 7 (excel-

lent).

After viewing this feedback, participants were informed that

they would be able to take another verbal integration test later in

the session. They were told that to assist them in the subsequent

task, they would be given the opportunity to view strategies for

completing the task that were provided by prior participants.

Participants read that the researchers had identified four specific

prior participants whose feedback would be particularly useful.

These four prior participants served as targets of social compari-

son. Targets were mixed in terms of their own performance, with

two targets presented as having high scores (i.e., 85 and 88 out of

100) and two presented as having relatively low scores (i.e., 27 and32 out of 100).

After participants viewed summary information, they were

shown each targets strategies individually in a counterbalanced

order. Each of the four pages displayed the targets verbal inte-

gration score followed by a short paragraph describing the targets

advice for improvement. The strategies were of roughly equal

length for each target and were intentionally broad. For example,

one of the high-performance targets suggested that participants

watch the timer to make sure you dont run out of time, and one

of the low-performance targets suggested that participants pay

close attention to the instructions so that they did not inadver-

tently use the prohibited letters. Instructions atop each page in-

formed participants they could skip over any strategies they were

not interested in seeing. The computer recorded the amount of time

(in seconds) that participants spent viewing each strategy, and this

served as our behavioral dependent measure of social comparison.

We theorized that devoting time to reading and interpreting each

strategy would reflect a desire to use this information to improve

their verbal integration ability (for similar logic see Butler, 1992).

This measure can be classified as a looking measure of social

comparison, which is underutilized in social comparison research

(J. V. Wood, 1996). In this instance, this measure offers to par-

ticipants not only a choice of comparison target (high performance

vs. low performance) but whether to seek comparisons or avoid

them altogether. Thus, participants choices provide a behavioral

reflection of self-regulation in this approach/avoidance conflict.

Participants completed the same measures of positive ( .91)and negative ( .91) affect used in Study 2 and were then asked

to complete the verbal integration task again, this time writing

about a value that was important to them and having no restrictions

placed on the letters they were able to use. This task served not

only as a means to maintain the cover story but also as a self-

affirmation task that would offset any negative effects stemming

from our earlier feedback manipulation or from resource depletion

(Fein & Spencer, 1997; Schmeichel & Vohs, 2009). Participants

were then thanked and fully debriefed.

Results

To test our hypothesis that HSEs and LSEs would differ in their

desire to compare themselves to others after failure feedback, but

not after neutral feedback, and that these differences would emerge

only when executive resources were available, we used a data

analysis strategy similar to that employed in Study 2. The depen-

dent measures were regressed onto the dummy-coded main effects

of test feedback (0 neutral feedback, 1 failure feedback),

resource depletion (0 not depleted, 1 depleted), and centered

self-esteem scores on the first step of a hierarchical regression anal-

ysis. All two-way interactions were entered on the second step, and

the three-way interaction was entered on the third step. Again, all

simple effects were calculated at one standard deviation above and

below the mean of participants self-esteem scores.


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Manipulation check. Analysis of participants perceived per-

formance on the verbal integration task revealed that the manipu-

lations were effective. Results revealed a main effect of feedback

such that, as intended, participants in the failure feedback condi-

tion (M 3.29) believed they performed more poorly than did

those in the neutral feedback condition (M 3.99; .19),

t(142) 2.46, p .02. There was also a main effect of depletionsuch that those in the depletion condition (M 2.98) believed they

performed more poorly than did those in the no-depletion condi-

tion (M 4.30; .36), t(142) 4.70, p .001. This result

is indicative of the greater difficulty of the depleting task, which

required more response inhibition. Finally, there was a marginal

main effect of self-esteem ( .14), t(142) 1.91, p .06,

indicating that HSE participants were more assured of their verbal

integration ability than were LSEs. Importantly, there were no

significant interactions among these variables (all ps .50),

indicating that self-esteem did not moderate the effectiveness of

the experimental manipulations.

Mood. As in Study 2, one-way analyses of variance revealed

no significant differences in positive or negative affect as a func-tion of resource depletion or of failure feedback, all Fs(1, 145)

1, suggesting that mood was not a factor in this experiment.

Social comparison. Analysis of the mean time participants

spent viewing each target revealed that participants generally spent

more time examining the strategies of the high-performance tar-

gets (M 37.85, SD 21.37) than they did the strategies of the

low-performance targets (M 27.54, SD 48.59), F(1, 145)

6.02, p .02. However, this difference was not affected by either

of the experimental manipulations or by self-esteem (all ps

.13).2

Low-performance targets. We first examined if our exper-

imental manipulations and self-esteem influenced the time partic-

ipants spent examining low-performance targets. The coefficients

for the full regression model are presented in Table 6, and only the

relevant simple effects are discussed here. The predicted values

from this analysis are displayed in Table 7. The three-way inter-

action was marginally significant, yet examination of the simple

effects revealed support for our predictions. Similar to the case in

Studies 2 and 3, the Test Feedback Self-Esteem interaction was

significant among participants who were not cognitively depleted

( .42), t(139) 2.46, p .02, but did not emerge among

depleted participants (p .90), nor were any of the simple effects

significant in the depletion condition (all ps .68).

We decomposed the significant two-way interaction into both

the simple effects of self-esteem and the simple effects of threat.

As predicted, nondepleted HSEs who received failure feedback

spent more time viewing low-performance social comparison tar-gets than did nondepleted LSEs who received this feedback (

.57), t(138) 3.52, p .001. However, nondepleted HSEs and

LSEs spent equal time viewing the targets when they received

neutral feedback ( .02), t(138) 0.11, p .92. Nonde-

pleted HSEs who received failure feedback spent more time view-

ing the targets relative to nondepleted HSEs who received neutral

feedback ( .41), t(138) 2.49, p .01. In contrast, nonde-

pleted LSEs who received failure feedback spent less time viewing

the targets than did nondepleted LSEs who received neutral feed-

back ( .18), t(138) 1.07, p .29, although this effect was

not significant.

High-performance targets. Our examination of the time

participants spent viewing information about high-performance

targets again revealed a marginally significant three-way interac-

tion. As with the low-performance targets, exploration of the

simple effects revealed a significant Test Feedback Self-Esteem

two-way interaction among nondepleted participants ( .43),

t(139) 2.44, p .02. However, neither this interaction nor anyof the simple effects were significant for depleted participants (all

ps .46).

Decomposition of the significant two-way interaction revealed

that when participants were not depleted and received failure

feedback, HSEs devoted more time to making social comparisons

than did LSEs ( .44), t(138) 2.70, p .01, as we hypoth-

esized. However, this self-esteem difference did not emerge when

nondepleted participants received neutral feedback ( .15),

t(138) 0.83, p .41. As we expected, HSEs who were not

depleted spent more time examining targets after receiving failure

feedback than

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