ABSTRACT
Does everyone enjoy receiving praise about themselves, or do some people feel uncomfortable upon receiving such feedback? And if some people are uncomfortable with praise, why might this be so? Such has been the substance of the debate between advocates of self-enhancement and self-verification theories. Whereas self-enhancement theory argues that people seek and embrace positive evaluations (Jones, 1973), regardless of how well they fit with what they believe about themselves, self-verification theory (Swann, 1983) assumes that people seek and embrace evaluations that confirm their beliefs about themselves, even if those beliefs happen to be negative.
