ABSTRACT
The assumption that people are motivated to achieve and maintain positive self-views is so commonplace in psychological theory that it is rarely challenged. William James (1890), in his seminal writings about the self, saw this motive as a fundamental aspect of human nature. It has since then figured prominently in the theories and models of many reputable psychologists working from a number of diverse perspectives (e.g., Allport, 1955; Epstein, 1973; Greenwald, 1980; Maslow, 1943; Rogers, 1951; Solomon, Greenberg, & Pyszcynski, 1991; Steele, 1988; Tesser, 1988). Elsewhere in this volume, Wolfe and Crocker note that self-enhancement and self-protection are two of the motives most commonly ascribed to the self in social psychology. It is these motives that we are primarily concerned with in this chapter. In particular, we are concerned with the many mechanisms that have been identified as satisfying the motives for self-protection and self-enhancement—which collectively have been dubbed the “self-zoo” by Tesser and his colleagues (Tesser, Martin, & Cornell, 1996; Tesser, 2000)—and their relations to self-esteem.
