When flattery gets you nowhere : discounting positive feedback as a relationship maintenance strategy

Gagne, Faby and Khan, Alisa and Lydon, John and To, Michelle (2008) When flattery gets you nowhere : discounting positive feedback as a relationship maintenance strategy. Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science, 40 (2). pp. 59-68. ISSN 0008-400X

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Abstract

Intimates can rely on a number of strategies to protect their relationships from potential threats. In the present article, the authors investigate a new strategy: to discount flattering comments received from an attractive alternative to a dating partner by making a situational attribution. However, the authors did not expect everyone to adopt this strategy, as not everyone is likely sufficiently motivated to override both the tendencies to make dispositional attributions and to accept positive feedback from others. Dating and single participants were informed that an attractive alternative's positive impression of them had been made freely or under constraint. As expected, dating participants in the constraint condition were less likely than were those in the no-constraint condition to believe that the alternative's impression of them was genuine. In contrast, single participants believed that the confederate's impression of them was genuine, irrespective of their experimental condition. Self-esteem further moderated this effect. As hypothesised, only dating participants with low self-esteem were sufficiently motivated to recognise the situational constraint and discount the positive feedback. High self-esteem daters who were less inclined to discount the positive feedback instead protected their relationships by devaluing the alternative's attractiveness compared to singles.

Item Type:
Journal Article
Journal or Publication Title:
Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science
Uncontrolled Keywords:
/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/3200/3200
Subjects:
?? self-esteemrelationship maintenanceclose relationshipsself-esteemculturedevaluationhypothesisdevaluationverificationenhancementcorrespondence biasattractive alternativescommitmentattributiongeneral psychologypsychology(all) ??
ID Code:
65487
Deposited By:
Deposited On:
09 Jul 2013 08:37
Refereed?:
Yes
Published?:
Published
Last Modified:
16 Jul 2024 09:24