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We reasoned that high self-monitors’ responses may be influenced by the characteristic traits and behaviors associated with social roles. Results across four studies confirmed expectations. The findings from Experiments 1, 2, and 3 demonstrated that exposure to a particular role (e.g., nurse) led high self-monitors to respond in a manner consistent with the relevant role. Results from Experiment 4 showed that the effect found in the first three experiments was attenuated when the behavioral guidance of the particular role was reduced. Low self-monitors’ responses were not influenced by exposure to the role. Showing that high self-monitors use information embedded in a social role to tailor their behavior provides a novel finding that has heretofore been absent from the literature.

Abstract. In two studies, we examined how need to belong as a dispositional variable influences the relational interpretation of social cues and the subsequent effect on self-esteem. Across both studies, the results from a negative (vs. positive) social cue condition showed that individuals high in need to belong were more negatively affected by (i.e., lower self-esteem, social involvement, and relational value) than those low in need to belong. Results from Study 2 also showed that these negative effects can be attenuated when participants have the opportunity to engage in self-affirmation. In all, the findings contribute to the literature by demonstrating that need to belong at the trait level not only has cognitive effects, but also has important downstream relational effects that influence how people differentially interpret the cues in their social environment.

One specific area of communication that has the potential to elicit a wide range of outcomes, such as enhancing a couple's feelings of intimacy, offending one or both partners causing conflict, improving the communication climate within the relationship, or embarrassing the partners involved, is the discussion of sex. The current project theorized how to initiate and maintain sexual coaching conversations, taught participants the components of skillful and unskillful messages in an online training program, and then evaluated the overall effectiveness of said program. Forty couples participated in an online sexual coaching training program and completed several pretest and posttest measures. Results reveal that participation in the training program led to an increase in sexual and relationship satisfaction, a decrease in sexual communication apprehension, and an increase in sexual coaching knowledge and skill. These results, along with the value of interventive research and the implications of this...

Evidence indicates that people are motivated to interpret environmental cues to belongingness, but doing so can be challenging. Prior evidence shows that the self's regulatory resources are consumed when interpreting complex facial displays; with this study, we examined how the depletion of such resources may impact the ability to interpret vocal tones. Results showed that depletion decreased accuracy in identifying complex (vs. simple) vocal cues, which extends prior work and offers a more comprehensive understanding of the relationship between self-regulatory resources and the ability to effectively interpret one's social environment.

Individuals' self-concepts are inextricably entwined with their relationships [Reis, H. T., Collins, W. A., & Berscheid, E. (2000). Psychological Bulletin, 126, 844–872], and thus it stands to reason that information about close relationships will figure prominently in individuals' self-presentational efforts. Yet, little is known about how individuals present their relationship. We examined whether individuals present information about their relationship differently as a function of both the target audience and the individuals' attachment style. Findings revealed that when individuals expected to interact with a romantic couple (vs. two control conditions) those high in attachment anxiety engaged in greater self-presentational efforts. Implications for understanding how relationship information is self-presented, as well as the goals of individuals with different attachment styles are discussed.

Previous work has shown that both an appearance-contingent self-worth (i.e., staking one's overall self-evaluation on one's physical appearance) and self-objectification are associated with higher appearance anxiety and lower self-esteem among women. Although prior evidence separately links both appearance-contingent self-worth and self-objectification to these negative outcomes, no work has examined the mediating processes that may underlie this relationship. With the current project, we examined the relationship between appearance-contingent self-worth and self-objectification, and the degree to which this relationship is associated with higher appearance anxiety and lower overall self-esteem. We hypothesized that appearance-contingent self-worth would be positively associated with self-objectification; in turn, we expected self-objectification to be related to higher appearance anxiety, and ultimately, lower self-esteem. Across two studies, one cross-sectional (N=208) and one short-term longitudinal (N=191), we found compelling support for this hypothesis. These findings have practical and theoretical significance for both the self-objectification and contingent self-worth literatures.

This paper explores the effects of emotional suppression toward a stereotyped target as a function of the perceivers' prejudice. Heterosexual male participants watched a video of a gay couple with emotional suppression instructions or no instructions. Similar to the emotional regulation literature, low prejudice participants reported less positive emotion under emotional suppression compared to the control group. However, high prejudice participants reported more positive emotion under emotional suppression compared to the control group. These results suggest that high prejudice people were overcompensating in their emotional regulation attempts because of lesser regulation experience. Emotional suppression was also found to increase the desire for intergroup contact for those who were high in prejudice; positive emotion mediated this relationship. Possible benefits versus costs of emotional suppression toward stereotyped targets are discussed.

We designed a classroom activity to foster students' understanding of what schemas are and how they function. We used a video of the instructor as an infant to illustrate how schemas influence gender stereotyping. Before the video, we told students that the baby was either a boy or a girl. After the video, students rated whether the baby would grow up to possess stereotypically male or female traits. Students in the video condition displayed a greater increase in schema knowledge than a control group that did not watch the video. Students also evaluated the activity favorably. We suggest other possible variations of this activity.

Self-presentation is a social influence tactic in which people engage in communicative efforts to influence the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of others as related to the self-presenter. Despite theoretical arguments that such efforts comprise an automatic component, the majority of research continues to characterize self-presentation as primarily involving controlled and strategic efforts. This focus is theoretically challenging and empirically problematic; it fosters an exclusionary perspective, leading to a scarcity of research concerning automatic self-presentations. With the current chapter, we examine whether self-presentation involves an automatic cognitive mechanism in which such efforts spontaneously emerge, nonconsciously triggered by cues in the social environment.

The present study hypothesized that gender and expectation of future interaction affects the frequency and nature of lying. Male and female participants (208 undergraduates) were randomly assigned to same- or opposite-gender partners and given the expectation they either would not meet again or would meet 3 additional times. Participants engaged in a 10-min conversation that was videotaped covertly. Later, target participants evaluated the videotape identifying lies they told. During the conversation, 78% of participants lied, with females lying significantly more than males. Females, but not males, lied more when expecting future interaction than when expecting no future interaction. The nature of lies also varied between women and men. Findings suggest women and men differentially use deception as a self-presentational tactic.