The contingencies of interpersonal acceptance: When romantic relationshipsfunction as a self-affirmational resource

Existing research suggests that people with high, but not low, self-esteem use their dating partners' love and acceptance as a resource for self-affir mation when faced with personal shortcomings. The present research examines the role that perceived contingencies of acceptance play in mediating thes e effects. In Experiment 1, we activated either conditional or unconditiona l working models and then gave experimental participants failure feedback o n an intelligence test. In Experiment 2, we activated thoughts of rejection (or control thoughts) and then gave experimental participants feedback sug gesting that their romantic partners would discover their secret sides. Exp eriment I revealed that low and high seif-esteem women both embellished the ir partners' love and acceptance to compensate for self-doubt when the unco nditional audience was primed. When rejection was primed in Experiment 2, h owever high self-esteem men reacted to the self-threat by doubting their pa rtners' love. These findings suggest that people with low self-esteem may n ot typically use their relationships to self-affirm because contingencies l inking failure to rejection and acceptance to success are chronically acces sible in their interpersonal schemas.