The strength to face the facts: Self-regulation defends against defensive information processing

Abstract

Five studies examined the impact of self-regulatory capacities on defensive information processing—the tendency to deny, distort, or avoid diagnostic self-threatening information. Across domains, we found that people low in trait (Studies 1 and 5) and state (Studies 2, 3, and 4) self-regulatory capacities were more likely to deny the validity and importance of negative feedback, and were less willing to seek improvement based on this information. Alternative explanations based on self-esteem and competence-based deficits were ruled out. Moreover, we demonstrated a boundary condition of this effect: For participants high in self-improvement motivation, reduced self-regulatory capacities did not affect defensive processing (Studies 4 and 5). Taken together, these results suggest that trait and state levels of self-regulatory capacities are a key factor in determining whether people engage in defensive information processing.