Admission of failure and symbolic self-completion: Extending Lewinian theory.

Abstract

The present research examined the dynamic relation between two self-relevant actions, one self-supportive and the other self-abasing. These self-relevant actions were undertaken by subjects within the context of particular self-definitions (e.g., journalist, guitarist) to which subjects were actively committed. In the first ex-periment, subjects were offered an opportunity to compose a supportive self-descriptive essay to be seen later by others. Half of the subjects wrote to com-pletion, while the others were interrupted. Subsequently, in a different context, all subjects were asked to list mistakes they had made previously in the realm of their respective self-definitions. Uninterrupted subjects admitted more readily to mistakes than did interrupted subjects. In the second experiment, the extent of subjects ' self-abasement became the independent variable. Following that manipulation, all subjects were given 15 minutes to write a supportive self-de-scriptive essay. Subjects who had been induced to be self-abasing were the least likely to interrupt themselves while writing the essay. The results of both studies are interpreted within the framework of symbolic self-completion theory (Wick-lund & Gollwitzer, 1981, in press). When a person is unusually modest, self-deprecating, or especially ready to confess to mistakes, it is commonly thought that these negative, public self-commentaries re-flect definite weaknesses in the person's abil-ities or other qualities. For instance, a phy-sician who admits to having administered the wrong antibiotic to a patient is thought to be lacking in various ways central to a phy-sician's status. One might conclude that the training is poor, the overall performance is below average, and that little respect from colleagues is generally accorded. Similarly, in the domains of criminal and religious

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