Interpersonal Consequences of Self-Views 339Thus, aspects of self-concept can influence the perception
of others (however, it is also possible that greater interest in
the area relevant to the self leads to the expertise). The key
point appears to be that a particularly well developed aspect
of self-knowledge makes one act like an expert in that sphere.
If your view of yourself emphasizes loyalty, for example, you
will probably be more sensitive to loyalty or disloyalty in
others.
One mechanism driving the link between self-views and
person perception is the self-image bias (Lewicki, 1983,
1984). According to this bias, people tend to judge others on
the basis of traits in their own areas of strength. Thus there is
a correlation between the favorability and the centrality of
self-ratings (Lewicki, 1983). That is, people’s most favorable
traits are also those that are most central and important
for their judgments of others—people judge others by a stan-
dard that favors them (the perceiver). For example, students
who did well in a computer science course tended to place
more emphasis on computer skills when judging others than
did students who did not perform well in the computer course
(Hill, Smith, & Lewicki, 1989). Lewicki (1984) showed that
the self-image bias serves a defensive function: When people
receive negative feedback, the effect of self-image bias on
perception of others is increased. Along these lines, Dunning,
Perie, and Story (1991) found that people construct proto-
types of social categories such as intelligence, creativity, and
leadership in ways that emphasize their own traits. Thus, in-
quisitive people think inquisitiveness is a valuable aid to cre-
ativity, but noninquisitive people do not believe that
inquisitiveness has any far-reaching implications for other
outcomes. These prototypes thus influence how people eval-
uate others.
Rejecting a view of self through a defensive process also
affects person perception. Newman, Duff, and Baumeister
(1997) proposed a new model of the Freudian defense
mechanism ofprojection(basically, seeing one’s faults in
other people rather than in oneself). This model builds on
evidence that suggests that when people try not to think
about something, it instead becomes highly accessible in
memory (Wegner & Erber, 1992). Newman et al. showed
that when people tried to suppress thoughts about a bad trait
that had been attributed to them, they then interpreted other
people’s behavior in terms of that bad trait. Thus, person
perception can be shaped by the traits you are trying to deny
in yourself, just as much as by the traits that you do see in
yourself.
All of these effects can be explained by accessibility. The
attributes the self emphasizes, and those the self seeks to deny,
operate as highly accessible categories for interpreting others’
behavior (Higgins, King, & Mavin, 1982). Social perception
thus tends to be self-centered and self-biased. Still, these ef-
fects appear to be specific and limited; not all interpersonal
perception is wildly distorted by self-appraisals. In particular,
these effects seem to be limited to situations in which infor-
mation about the target person is ambiguous (Lambert &
Wedell, 1991; Sedikides & Skowronski, 1993).Self-Evaluation MaintenanceSeveral important links between self-esteem and inter-
personal relations have been elaborated in Tesser’s (1988)
self-evaluation maintenance theory. Among other conse-
quences, this theory explains how people may become closer
to or more distant from relationship partners as a result of
pressures to maintain self-esteem. According to Tesser, two
main processes link self-views to interpersonal outcomes.
First is the process of reflection;one can gain esteem when a
close other achieves something. One’s self-esteem may get a
boost simply from having an uncle who is a Congressman or
a child who is quarterback of the football team; from sleeping
with a movie star, or from learning one’s college basketball
team has won a championship. Cialdini and his colleagues
have shown how people bask in reflected glory of institu-
tions, for example, by wearing school colors more frequently
following a team victory than following a defeat (Cialdini &
Richardson, 1980).
The other process is one of comparison(see Festinger,
1954; Wills, 1981); this process can instead lead to a decrease
in self-esteem. People may compare themselves with others
close to them and feel bad if the other person is outperform-
ing them. If your sibling gets better grades than you, if your
dimwit brother-in-law earns double your salary, or if your
friend wins a scholarship or a job you wanted, you may lose
esteem.
Thus, the processes of reflection and comparison with
close others produce opposite effects on self-esteem. Tesser’s
work has therefore gone on to look for factors that determine
which process will operate in a given situation. One factor is
therelevanceof the accomplishment to one’s self-concept.
Thus, a friend’s football victory may bring you esteem, as the
reflection process predicts—but only if your own football-
playing ability is not highly relevant to your own self-esteem.
If you played in the same football game and performed terri-
bly, your friend’s success would make you look that much
worse by comparison. For this reason, people sometimes pre-
fer to see strangers succeed rather than close friends, because
the stranger’s success does not invite comparison and is less
humiliating. Tesser and Smith (1980) showed that people will
do more to help a stranger than a friend to succeed at a task
that is relevant to the person’s own self-esteem.