Regulating impressions of others to affirm images of the self

People tailor their judgments of others to affirm images they possess of th emselves. Ii this assertion is correct, people with favorable self-views sh ould judge others in ways that aggrandize their own skills, but those with unfavorable self-views should not. We conducted an experiment in which part icipants with positive or negative views of their social skills took a test that purportedly measured those skills, achieving either a high or low sco re in the process. They then judged the social skills of a person who had a chieved a moderately high score and one who had achieved a moderately low s core. Positive self-view participants showed evidence of self-aggrandizemen t, Positive self-view participants who posted low performances themselves r ated both targets as high, thus protecting their favorable images of self. Positive self-view participants who achieved high scores themselves extolle d the skins of the high-performing target hut denigrated the skills of the low-performing one, thus heightening the uniqueness of their own achievemen t. Participants with negative sell-views showed no such self-aggrandizing p attern.