ABSTRACT
This chapter examines self-motives toward consistency, accuracy, and improvement and discusses each of the motives in detail, explores how people resolve conflicts that inevitably arise among them. Research involving the motivation for consistency has been dominated by two perspectives—cognitive dissonance and self-verification. Excessive pressures toward self-verification may interfere with healthy changes in attitudes, personality, and behavior. Effective self-regulation requires accurate information about one's attributes and abilities, so that failing to see oneself clearly impedes one's ability to self-regulate. Given the importance of having accurate knowledge about oneself, people possess a motive for accurate self-assessment that involves the desire for objective and accurate information about oneself. In extreme cases, the self that the person creates to obtain acceptance and approval from other people may be quite different from the person's natural inclinations. The person must deny—both to others and to himself— motives, thoughts, and feelings that are incongruent with the self that has been created.
