In the Article Swann (1997) indicates that people have not only the strong need to be approved, to be positively evaluated but also the need for self-confirmation or self-verification. Also, the author of the article notes that researchers are more likely to pay attention and to study the need for high self-esteem but often forget about the need for self-verification. The need for self-verification is unconscious desire to see that responses of other people about a person comply with this person`s self-conception, self-view.
Also, an individual can perceive inadequately actions of his/her partner to keep own self-view stable. For example, Swann (1997) describes in the article the case of the woman who believed that her husband was unfaithful with her despite the husband treated her as an attentive and responsible partner. This woman also indicated that past abuses she experienced were the one she actually deserved.
So she perceived abuses as a normal process and felt discomfort when her partner tried to care for and love her. So to save and to confirm own negative self-image she was ready to seek the information that her husband treated her inadequately.
For example, if a woman believes that she is ugly and unattractive she will be likely to feel discomfort hearing that other people call her beautiful. At the same time, she will be likely to seek those people who can confirm her negative view about own appearance.
Swann (1997) points out that the negative self-verification is not the same as masochism. A person with a negative self-view experiences ambivalent desires about positive and negative feedbacks from other.
For example, one with negative self-views can express the desire to receive positive feedback but, at the same time, he/she also indicates it is be easier for them to accept negative feedback because such feedback is more fair for them.
Sometimes people with positive and negative self-views get the “discrepant” feedback from other people. Such feedbacks are opposite to expected ones and do not correspond to self-view of a person. When a person receive feedbacks which are discrepant to her/his view about oneself this person is more likely to use some strategies to diminish the feeling of discomfort induced by discrepancy (Swann, 1997).
One of the strategies to reduce the discrepancy is to break relationships with a person who express the opinion which do not comply with our own negative or positive self-view. Another strategy is associated with trying to correct, to change a partner`s point of view. For example, if a person get from his/her partner positive feedback which is discrepant to one`s negative self-view, he/she will be likely to tell a partner about his/her mistake or to try changing partner`s opinion by own actions.
If a person cannot regulate what another individual thinks about him/her this person will be likely to misperceive what a partner tells about him/her. For example, a person with positive self-view will be likely to remember and perceive compliments and positive appraisal and forget critique and negative evaluations provided by one`s partner.
People need to use such strategies because when they get evaluations which are discrepant to their self-view they are prone to experience disintegration anxiety, disorientation. Although, these strategies can help people to keep stability in their self-conception and avoid disintegration anxiety, these strategies also may interfere with self-development of a person.
Swann indicated that there are many scientific proofs of the theory of self-verification. The author indicates that women and men are equally prone to seek for verification of their self-images.
Also, results of different studies demonstrate that individuals with negative self-views tend to seek negative feedbacks and partners who will evaluate them negatively. Other studies demonstrated that people are likely to choose interactions with “self-verifying” partners even if they have other alternatives.
Also, studies showed that more stable and firm self-images of people are the more these people will be likely to seek for verification. That is why the need for negative self-verification is more strong and severe in clinical depressed or anxious patients than in individuals with low self-esteem, etc.
References
Swann, W. B. (1997). The trouble with change: Self-verification and allegiance to the self. Psychological Science, 8(3), 177-180.
