Verification Versus Enhancement Revisited: Clarifying the Effect of Identity Discrepancies on Distress and Moral Emotions

• In Event: 231 - Regular Session. Issues in Identity Measurement

Abstract

Previous research on identity theory has produced mixed findings with regard to whether people seek self-verifying or self-enhancing feedback. An issue in this research, however, is that the conventional statistical approach to testing competing explanations does not take into account the direction of an identity discrepancy, yet this is critical for determining which self-motive is at play. In this research we examine three different models of identity processes, including self-verification, self-enhancement, and a "mixed motivations" model where we assume that self-verification is biased by a concurrently operating desire to self-enhance. We compare these models using the conventional statistical approach versus polynomial regression with response surface analysis, the latter of which allows us to determine whether identity discrepancies involving over-evaluation are as deleterious as those involving under-evaluation, as identity theory predicts. To estimate these models we use nationally representative data from a multi-stage cluster sample of 1,409 U.S. adults, and we compare the results across four different identities and four separate measures of psychological distress and moral emotions. The two different statistical approaches lead to the same conclusions more often than not and mostly support identity theory. However, response surface tests reveal patterns that are mistaken for self-verification by conventional procedures, especially for the spouse identity, where over-evaluation is clearly the "lesser of two evils." We also find that identity discrepancies have different effects on distress and moral emotions. The research has implications for future empirical and theoretical research on identity theory and related lines of work.

Authors

• Will Kalkhoff, Kent State University

• Kristen Marcussen, Kent State University

• Richard T. Serpe, Kent State University