To know oneself is to like oneself: self-certainty and self-affect

Abstract

Four experiments demonstrated that certainty about self-attributes is associated with positive affect about the self. In Experiments (Exps.) 1-3, low esteem was associated with less certainty about possessing several trait attributes, as measured by confidence intervals (Exps. 1-2) and reaction time (Exp. 3). The finding that low-esteem Ss were less certain was reversed when Ss rated the traits in public (Exp. 2a), suggesting that low-esteem Ss do not simply respond to impression management cues, and was attenuated when Ss estimated the traits of friends (Exps. 2b and 3), suggesting that lack of certainty of low-esteem people is specific to self-judgments. In Exp. 4, Ss exposed to certain diagnoses of their self-perceived traits showed an improvement in self-affect and egotism. Links between prediction and control, and subsequent affect about the self are discussed.