PSP 103 3 430

INTERPERSONAL RELATIONS AND GROUP PROCESSES
Managing Motivational Conflict: How Self-Esteem and Executive Resources Influence Self-Regulatory Responses to Risk
Justin V. Cavallo
Columbia University
John G. Holmes
University of Waterloo
Gra inne M. Fitzsimons

Duke University
Sandra L. Murray
University at Buffalo, State University of New York
Joanne V. Wood
University of Waterloo
This article explores how self-esteem and executive resources interact to determine responses to motivational conflict. One correlational and 3 experimental studies investigated the hypothesis that high and low selfesteem people undertake different self-regulatory strategies in risky situations that afford opportunity to pursue competing goals and that carrying out these strategies requires executive resources. When such resources are available, high self-esteem people respond to risk by prioritizing and pursuing approach goals, whereas low self-esteem people prioritize avoidance goals. However, self-esteem does not influence responses to risk when executive resources are impaired. In these studies, risk was operationalized by exposing participants to a relationship threat (Studies 1 and 2), by using participants self-reported marital conflict (Study 3), and by threatening academic competence (Study 4). Executive resources were operationalized as cognitive load (Studies 1 and 2), working memory capacity (Study 3), and resource depletion (Study 4). When executive resources were ample, high self-esteem people responded to interpersonal risk by making more positive relationship evaluations (Studies 1, 2, and 3) and making more risky social comparisons following a personal failure (Study 4) than did low self-esteem people. Self-esteem did not predict participants responses when executive resources were impaired or when risk was absent. The regulatory function of self-esteem may be more resource-dependent than has been previously theorized. Keywords: risk regulation, self-esteem, executive control
Romantic partners and avid skiers Dennis and Charlotte descend from the chairlift and find themselves atop a particularly difficult slope. After the long ride, a confident Dennis eagerly begins to race down the hill, while a less self-assured Charlotte ultimately
This article was published Online First June 4, 2012. Justin V. Cavallo, Department of Psychology, Columbia University; John G. Holmes, Department of Psychology, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada; Gra inne M. Fitzsimons, Fuqua School of Business, Duke University; Sandra L. Murray, Department of Psychology, University at Buffalo, State University of New York; Joanne V. Wood, Department of Psychology, University of Waterloo. This research was supported by a doctoral fellowship awarded to Justin V. Cavallo by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Study 3 was supported by a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health (MH 60105-08) awarded to Sandra L. Murray. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Justin V. Cavallo, Department of Psychology, Columbia University, 406 Schermerhorn Hall, 1190 Amsterdam Avenue MC 5501, New York, NY, 10027. E-mail: jvc2124@columbia.edu
decides to ski to a slightly easier portion of the slope. As they ride the lift to the next hill, they become immersed in a taxing discussion about renovating their new house. Though the second hill is as difficult as the first, they both ski down it at a moderate pace and enjoy their run. Although it may seem strange that Dennis and Charlotte would behave differently when skiing on one difficult hill but not the other, we propose that this example reflects self-regulatory responses to risk that are shaped by self-esteem and the availability of executive resources. In the present research, we test the hypothesis that self-esteem serves as the foundation of a resourcedependent regulatory system that functions to resolve motivational conflict in situations that afford the opportunity to pursue opposing goals. When people have sufficient executive resources, they resolve situational goal conflict in ways that are consistent with their chronic motivational agendas. In particular, and in line with prior research (Cavallo, Fitzsimons, & Holmes, 2009; Murray, Holmes, & Collins, 2006; Murray, Rose, Bellavia, Holmes, & Kusche, 2002), we suggest that high self-esteem people (HSEs) like Dennis
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2012, Vol. 103, No. 3, 430 451 2012 American Psychological Association 0022-3514/12/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0028821
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MANAGING MOTIVATIONAL CONFLICT
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respond to regulatory conflict in a relatively approach-directed way by pursuing reward in the face of risk. In contrast, we suggest that low self-esteem people (LSEs) like Charlotte become more attentive to risk and less willing to pursue positive outcomes. However, when executive resources are impaired, as they were for Dennis and Charlotte during their taxing discussion, we hypothesize that self-esteem is less influential in determining regulatory responses to risk. We test our predictions in one correlational study and three experimental studies. Using a variety of operationalizations of executive resource depletion, we examine how such depletion interacts with self-esteem to determine responses to regulatory dilemmas that arise when people face riskthat is, situations in which opportunities to obtain rewards are coupled with potential hazards. In doing so, we present a novel perspective on traditional theorizing about individual differences in self-esteem. As we detail shortly, the impact of self-esteem on a number of regulatory phenomena may be more dependent on executive resources than has been previously believed.
Regulating Situated Goal Conflict

Self-regulatory conflict is a ubiquitous part of daily life. People often hold multiple goals of varying strength that compete for psychological and tangible resources, and conflict can occur when pursuing one goal inhibits ones ability to pursue an alternative goal (Emmons, King, & Sheldon, 1993). Although the structure of this conflict may differ (Cavallo & Fitzsimons, 2011), it often takes the form of an approachavoidance conflict in which the goal to obtain a positively valenced reward is entwined with a goal to avoid a negative outcome. For example, one might be tempted to eat a delicious cupcake but experience conflict because doing so would thwart ones goal of losing 10 pounds. Existing research has focused largely on how people resolve a goal conflict that arises when tempting short-term goals threaten progress toward longer term objectives (Fishbach, Friedman, & Kruglanski, 2003; Fishbach & Zhang, 2008; Shah, Friedman, & Kruglanski, 2002; Trope & Fishbach, 2000). However, little is known about how people reconcile motivational conflict that occurs in situations that afford the opportunity to pursue goals that are equivalent in immediacy and importance. Such regulatory conflict is highly prevalent in interpersonal relationships. At the broadest level, many interdependent situations put the fundamental goal of seeking belongingness and intimacy (Baumeister & Leary, 1995) in conflict with the motivation to avoid the pain of social rejection (G. MacDonald & Leary, 2005). Fostering intimate connections with others requires people to cede control over their personal outcomes to others, an action that makes people vulnerable to social pain if the other person is unresponsive to ones needs (Murray, Aloni, et al., 2009; Murray et al., 2006). For example, excusing a partners bad behavior may ultimately foster closeness (Rusbult, Verette, Whitney, Slovik, & Lipkus, 1991) if he or she is receptive, but it also leaves one susceptible to rejection should that partner continue to behave badly. This motivational tension between connectedness and selfprotection is most acute when people face interpersonal risk. We define interpersonal risk as situations that afford opportunities for both gain and loss. In relationships, risky situations might call a
partners responsiveness or the relationships quality or stability into question, perhaps by highlighting sources of conflict. Such situations afford people the opportunity to seek connection with their partners, quelling the threat of rejection and enhancing relationship quality as a result. However, they also afford people the opportunity to protect themselves from rejection by distancing themselves psychologically or behaviorally from their partners, thus preempting the sting of imminent rejection. Risky situations that afford opportunities to pursue both approach- and avoidancedirected goals provide an ambiguous guide to self-regulation. When competing situational affordances are roughly equivalent in incentives and costs, people must prioritize one goal over the other if they are to enact a coherent cognitive and behavioral response (Cacioppo, Gardner, & Berntson, 1999). Prior research examining self-regulatory dynamics has suggested that executive resources may play a central role in allowing people to reconcile the goal conflict posed by risky situations. We use the encompassing term executive resources to describe the various cognitive processes that are essential in guiding selfregulation and exerting self-control (Baumeister, Schmeichel, & Vohs, 2007). These resources govern several aspects of effective goal pursuit, such as inhibiting dominant responses (Engle, 2002; Richeson & Trawalter, 2005) and sustaining attentional focus (Kane, Bleckley, Conway, & Engle, 2001; Payne, 2005). When people attempt to reconcile goal conflict by engaging in one goal over a motivationally opposing one, they are likely to utilize these executive-dependent cognitive processes to do so. Gawronski and Bodenhausens (2006) associative-propositional evaluative model makes a similar point. Namely, when people experience inconsistency between nonconscious and more deliberate attitudes, they often resolve it by using propositional reasoning, which requires executive control. However, growing evidence has suggested that such executive resources are in limited supply (Baumeister et al., 2007); burdening or depleting such resources also reduces their influence on self-regulation (Vohs et al., 2008). As such, impairment of these resources is often detrimental to peoples ability to enact a preferred behavior or goal (Vohs, Baumeister, & Ciarocco, 2005). Thus, we contend that executive resources are critical in peoples determination to pursue one situational goal over another and, furthermore, that impairing these resources restricts goal prioritization that is essential in resolving regulatory conflict.
Self-Esteem and Risk Regulation

When people face situated goal conflict, executive control alone is likely not sufficient to allow people to implement a clear regulatory response. That is, people must not only be able to prioritize one goal over another, they must also determine which goal they are going to pursue. In some contexts, the nature of the situation offers a clearer affordance for pursuing one goal over another. For example, if skiers Dennis and Charlotte were to find themselves deciding whether to traverse an area of the ski slope that was unattended and clearly marked as being dangerous, they may both choose to avoid the severe risk and forgo the relatively unappealing reward. However, many risky situations afford roughly equal opportunity to pursue both goals. When situational affordances present an ambiguous guide to self-regulation, we propose that peoples chronic motivational agendas serve to direct regulatory responses. Specifically, we hypothesize that self-esteem
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serves as the foundation of a regulatory system that serves to shape responses to risk by aligning situational goals with chronic motivations. High self-esteem people are more chronically approachmotivated than low self-esteem people are, whereas low selfesteem people are chronically more avoidance-motivated (Heimpel, Elliot, & Wood, 2006). In situations of riskthat is, when there is the potential for both gain and loss within the same contextHSEs and LSEs direct themselves toward goals consistent with these chronic motivational preferences and resist the influence of alternative goals that the risky situation affords. Specifically, HSEs respond to risk by prioritizing approach-directed goals and set aside the competing opportunities to protect themselves from risk. LSE, in contrast, direct their regulatory efforts to prioritize situational goals that reflect their chronic motivation to avoid negative outcomes, forgoing opportunities for reward. Many investigations of interpersonal risk regulation have provided evidence for these divergent regulatory strategies.1 When facing risky interpersonal situations, HSEs respond by pursuing opportunities for closeness more vigorously. For example, they evaluate their relationships more positively when under relationship threat than they otherwise do (Murray et al., 2002), a tactic reflective of the motivation to draw their partner closer and pursue intimacy despite the inherent risk of rejection. Their approachdirected responses to risk extend beyond relationship-specific contexts to contexts that are more general. HSEs facing relationship threat focus broadly on situational rewards and direct their regulatory efforts toward it, for example by making riskier financial decisions in hopes of obtaining greater reward (Cavallo et al., 2009). In contrast, LSEs react to interpersonal risk by prioritizing self-protection goals. They implement these strategies by derogating their partners and their relationships (Murray et al., 2002), a tactic that serves to blunt the pain of rejection they believe to be imminent (Murray, Derrick, Leder, & Holmes, 2008; Murray et al., 2006). This regulatory strategy also influences responses outside of relationship domains. LSEs exposed to relationship threat show greater aversion to risk generally, for example, by becoming more conservative when making decisions in which opportunity for reward is coupled with potential for loss (Cavallo et al., 2009).
Self-Esteem as an Executive-Based Regulatory System

In the present research, we integrate literature on the importance of executive resources to self-regulation and the moderating role of self-esteem in responses to risk to elucidate the processes by which people manage motivational conflict. We propose that when goal affordances in risky situations create goal conflict, people utilize executive resources to prioritize situational goals that fit with their chronic motivational agendas. We examine this within the context of self-esteem, which has been shown to have a profound influence on how people regulate risk, particularly in interpersonal domains. We contend that when people have sufficient executive resources available to them, HSEs and LSEs will be able to prioritize and pursue goals that fit with their chronic regulatory concerns, and as such, self-esteem will predict goal-directed responses to risk. When such resources are usurped or taxed, HSEs and LSEs will be unable to implement their preferred self-regulatory aims (Muraven & Baumeister, 2000), and thus the impact of self-esteem on self-regulation will be mitigated.
This logic contrasts somewhat with a common assumption about the nature of self-esteems influence. Although no one, to our knowledge, has made this issue explicit, our reading of the literature suggests that self-esteem is often conceptualized as shaping self-regulation relatively automatically. This may be because much of the literature examining the role of self-esteem on responses to threat has examined how people deal with threats to the selfconcept rather than goal conflict specifically. When given negative feedback about their performance, HSEs appear more motivated to reaffirm their self-worth than LSEs do. For HSEs, the activation of a self-enhancement goal may indeed be relatively automatic, given the lack of another, conflicting goal. For example, HSEs often downplay the validity of the negative feedback, compare themselves more favorably to others, and more readily recruit positive thoughts about themselves, whereas LSEs often do not defend against negative feedback in the same way (Beauregard & Dunning, 1998; Blaine & Crocker, 1993; Dodgson & Wood, 1998; Park, 2010; see vanDellen, Campbell, Hoyle, & Bradfield, 2011, for an extensive review). Because such investigations have focused on how people cope with threats to deeply ingrained beliefs about the self, most investigations have assumed that HSEs and LSEs regulatory responses to threat arise with little deliberation and mental control. However, the role of executive control in shaping regulatory responses to other types of situationsnamely, those that afford the opportunity to pursue competing goals has not yet been investigated directly. It is important to note when the role of conscious control has been studied in the former context, the approach has been to investigate the extent to which the tactics that people use to implement regulatory goals rely on such control. For example, Dodgson and Wood (1998) demonstrated that HSEs demonstrated greater cognitive accessibility of strengths versus weaknesses after receiving negative feedback, suggesting that this particular means of obtaining a self-enhancement goal requires little mental effort. However, it has also been generally assumed that the overarching goal that such tactics serve (in this example, self-enhancement) is adopted by HSEs and LSEs relatively automatically. However, we propose that deciding which goal to pursue requires some level of cognitive resources. The behavioral processes involved in implementing it may unfold relatively automatically, but executive control is required for HSEs and LSEs to select goals consistent with their broader motivations. In this way, we focus on how executive resources and self-esteem shape regulatory responses at the strategic, rather than tactical, level (e.g., Scholer, Stroessner, & Higgins, 2008). Of course, the influence of self-esteem on regulatory responses to risk may be automatic in some respects (Bargh, 1994). For example, it is highly unlikely that people are aware that the motivations adopted to deal with interpersonal risk can guide self-regulation in unrelated domains, as has been shown in previ1 It is important to note that in these relationship-specific investigations of risk regulation, self-esteem is often used as a proxy for chronic trust in a partners regard. Although individual differences in chronic trust are central in guiding interpersonal risk regulation, we contend that HSEs and LSEs chronic motivational preferences also play an important role in shaping responses to goal conflict afforded by both relational and nonrelational risky situations.
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ous research (Cavallo et al., 2009; Cavallo, Fitzsimons, & Holmes, 2010). It is also probable that the mere presence of risk initiates HSEs and LSEs regulatory responses relatively immediately, without requiring conscious intention (Leary & Baumeister, 2000; Murray et al., 2008). Nevertheless, we contend that self-esteems influence on self-regulation following risk is more controlled than has been previously assumed. In order for HSEs and LSEs to obtain their preferred regulatory objectives and withstand motivational competition from other possible goals afforded by a specific situation, we propose that they must have sufficient executive resources. If this is the case, taxing or usurping these resources should short-circuit the usual role of self-esteem in directing goal pursuit. In other words, both HSEs and LSEs should act similarly in the face of risk when their executive capacity is depleted. We believe the present studies represent a first effort to examine this important issue directly by comparing HSEs and LSEs responses under different levels of executive resources. There is some indirect support for our assertion that executive strength is needed for self-esteem to influence self-regulation in the face of motivational conflict. Specifically, when the capacity to exert conscious control over behavior is compromised, it is hard to tell low and high self-esteem people apart. For example, when faced with a relatively direct relationship threat, both HSEs and LSEs show heightened nonconscious activation of avoidancedirected goals (Cavallo et al., 2010; Downey, Mougios, Ayduk, London, & Shoda, 2004). Conversely, less immediate relationship threats have been shown to activate approach-motivated connectedness goals regardless of ones level of self-esteem (Murray et al., 2008). Thus, when the capacity to exert deliberative control over ones goals is limited, LSEs are just as likely as HSEs to connect to their partner; conversely, HSEs are just as likely as LSEs to avoid their partner (Murray et al., 2008; Murray, Holmes, et al., 2009). Such findings suggest that compromised executive control might result in HSEs and LSEs being unable to prioritize their chronically preferred goals. Consequently, self-esteem might not serve as an effective guide to self-regulation when executive resources are somehow limited or taxed. Though the literature on interpersonal self-regulation heavily informs our theorizing, we do not intend our model to be limited to relational contexts. We hypothesize that HSEs and LSEs responses to goal conflict should be similar when that conflict is aroused by nonrelational stimuli. We base this argument on findings that relationship-specific events often activate broader motivational systems that influence self-regulation outside of these domains (Cavallo et al., 2009, 2010; Downey et al., 2004). For example, one investigation found that after experiencing a relationship threat, HSEs reported stronger global approach motivation and were more willing to engage in risky recreational activities relative to a control group, whereas LSEs reported weaker global approach motivation and became more conservative in their decision making (Cavallo et al., 2009). As well, the divergent pattern of responding by HSEs and LSEs to situational risk often generalizes beyond the specific context in which risk was aroused (Heatherton & Vohs, 2000; Park, 2010; Vohs & Heatherton, 2001). We suggest that attempts to resolve goal conflict in ways that are consistent with chronic motivational agendas drive such patterns of responding and that as such, executive resources and self-esteem will be critically important in resolving this tension
when it is aroused by nonrelationship situations as well as relationship ones.
Overview of the Present Studies

The current article tests the novel hypotheses that (a) selfesteem serves a regulatory function that resolves goal conflict in situations of risk and (b) this function is dependent on executive resources. We operationalized goal conflict and executive resources in several ways to test our hypotheses robustly. In Studies 1 and 2, we experimentally manipulated relationship threat (thus creating a risky situation that afforded the opportunity for approach and avoidance goals), and we manipulated executive resources through cognitive load. In Study 3, we tested our hypothesis among newly married couples by using self-reported conflict as a proxy for interpersonal risk, and we operationalized executive resources through chronic working memory capacity. In Study 4, we sought to move beyond interpersonal risk to test the generalizability of the phenomenon. We manipulated risk by having experimental participants undergo a failure experience and giving them the opportunity to improve on a subsequent task (an approach goal) by making potentially unflattering social comparisons (an avoidance goal). In all studies, we examined whether participants resolved goal conflict by prioritizing approach- or avoidancedirected goals, as evidenced by cognitive appraisals of their relationships (Studies 1, 2, and 3), their self-reported goals (Study 1), and goal-directed behavior (Study 4). We hypothesized that when participants have sufficient executive resources, self-esteem guides regulatory responses to goal conflict afforded by situational risk. That is, we anticipated that HSEs would be more inclined to pursue rewards than would LSEs, who would be more cautious in these contexts. However, we predicted that self-esteem would be less influential in determining responses to risk when executive resources are depleted and people are less able to reconcile competing goals. Under such conditions, we theorized that HSEs and LSEs would exhibit similar responses to goal conflict because they would be unable to enact their respective preferred regulatory responses.
Study 1
In an initial test of our hypotheses, all participants were exposed to a relationship-specific threat that served to create conflict between, on the one hand, the opportunity to reestablish connection with ones partner, and on the other hand, the opportunity to protect oneself from potential rejection. Participants were then placed under high or low cognitive load to diminish versus not diminish, respectively, their executive resources. We examined responses to goal conflict by measuring participants cognitive appraisals of their relationship. Prior research has shown that these evaluations often shift in response to threat as a function of self-esteem (Murray et al., 2002). When facing risk, HSEs bolster their appraisal of their relationship with their partner, emphasizing its strengths. This focus on positive aspects of their relationship reflects a relative prioritization of approach-directed goals that facilitates HSEs more specific goal to connect with their partner. In contrast, LSEs evaluations of their relationship are often more negative when facing risk. LSEs devaluation of their relationship reflects a focus on negative outcomes that characterizes prioriti-
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zation of avoidance goals that match their chronic goal orientation (Heimpel et al., 2006). Thus, assessing relationship evaluations allowed us to observe the extent to which participants relationship-specific responses to risk reflected a preference for approach or a preference for avoidance in the reconciliation of goal conflict. We expected to replicate the finding that HSEs and LSEs differentially shift relationship evaluations when facing threat, depending on whether they have sufficient executive resources (i.e., are under low cognitive load) or not (i.e., are taxed by high cognitive load). Additionally, we measured participants willingness to pursue reward over risk by assessing their self-reported global approach motivation and their willingness to make risky decisions to obtain rewards outside of relational domains. Prior research (Cavallo et al., 2009) has demonstrated that relationship-specific risk elicits differential global shifts in approach motivation among HSEs and LSEs, suggesting the activation of a more general mind-set. HSEs bolster their approach goals and pursue reward in the face of risk, whereas LSEs inhibit these goals. We expected to replicate this finding in the present study among participants who had full executive resources available to them. We hypothesized that under low cognitive load, self-esteem would predict responses to risk such that, relative to LSEs, HSEs would make more positive relationship appraisals, report greater approach motivation, and be more willing to make risky decisions, even when those decisions were accompanied by risk. We expected the impact of self-esteem to be attenuated when executive resources were taxed (i.e., participants were under high cognitive load). Moreover, we expected that HSEs under low load would show greater evidence of approach-directed responses to risk than would HSEs under high load, whereas LSEs under low load would be less willing to approach positive outcomes than would high-load LSEs.
Method
Participants. Participants were 55 undergraduates (44 female, 11 male; Mage 20.85 years, SD 1.62) from the University of Waterloo who were currently in dating relationships (Mlength 27.53 months, SD 21.55). Procedure. Participants believed the study examined cognitive processing and memory. Participants began by completing a measure of self-esteem and were then instructed to read a passage from which they would be later asked to recall details. This passage served as our induction of relationship threat (Cavallo et al., 2009). It contained a short vignette of a fictional couple engaging in several common activities (e.g., preparing dinner, attending a movie). Accompanying these events were descriptions of research findings ostensibly collected at the University of Waterloo demonstrating how people tend to overestimate the quality of their relationships. These annotations implied that the common behaviors exhibited by the couple belied a lack of mutual responsiveness. For example, one of these annotations began, Many romantic couples regularly cooperate and share responsibilities. One surprising fact that we have discovered is that this cooperation is frequently motivated by self-interest. Though the passage described a fictional couple, prior research has demonstrated that these materials activate relationship threat among both HSE and LSE participants (Cavallo et al., 2009; Murray et al., 2011). When
participants had read the passage, the experimenter sat them at a computer that guided them through the remainder of the session. Participants were then assigned randomly to cognitive load condition. In the high-load condition, participants were asked to learn a nine-digit alphanumeric string and rehearse it for the duration of the study. In the low-load condition, this string contained only three digits (Gilbert & Hixon, 1991). Participants then completed measures of relationship quality, approach-motivation strength, and risky decision making. We ensured that participants were rehearsing their alphanumeric string by asking them to report it three times throughout the experimental session. To maintain the cover story, the computer asked participants 10 questions at several points during the session questions that required them to recall details from the passage. These questions served not only as a means to keep the threat salient but also as a manipulation check that assessed participants comprehension of the passage. When participants had completed the study, they were debriefed and thanked for their participation. Measures. Self-esteem. Rosenbergs (1965) 10-item scale was used to measure self-esteem. Participants responded to each item on a 7-point scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree) rather than Rosenbergs original 4-point scale. Scores were averaged across the 10 items ( .84). Relationship appraisals. As an index of the extent to which participants shifted their relationship appraisals as a function of risk, participants responded to a series of items on 7-point scales, with higher scores indicating more positive relationship appraisals. Three items ( .89) adapted from Rusbult, Martz, and Agnew (1998) assessed participants satisfaction with their romantic relationship (e.g., My relationship makes me very happy). An additional three items ( .88) assessed participants commitment to their romantic partners (Rusbult et al., 1998). Participants feelings of closeness to their partners were assessed with the two-item ( .79) Subjective Closeness Inventory (Berscheid, Snyder, & Omoto, 1989). As well, participants optimism about the future of their romantic relationship was assessed with a seven-item scale in which they were asked to evaluate the likelihood that they and their partner would be together across six different times ranging from 2 months to a lifetime (T. K. MacDonald & Ross, 1999). These six items were aggregated ( .94), with higher scores indicating more optimistic predictions about relationship longevity. Approach strength. To assess the strength of participants approach motivation, we used a measure originally developed by Lockwood, Jordan, and Kunda (2002) to assess promotionoriented goal pursuit (Higgins, 1997). Prior research has demonstrated that this measure indexes the strength of participants approach motivation (i.e., their focus on obtaining rewards; Cavallo et al., 2009; Summerville & Roese, 2008). Participants indicated their endorsement of nine statements (e.g., In general, I am focused on achieving positive outcomes in my life) using a 1 (not at all true of me) to 9 (very true of me) scale, and responses were averaged across all items ( .78). Risky decision making. We also assessed participants focus on positive outcomes indirectly by presenting participants with two hypothetical scenarios in which they had to indicate the extent to which they would endorse a risky but relatively rewarding course of action (e.g., accepting a high-paying job offer with
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uncertain job security) over a safer but less appealing alternative (e.g., a lower paying but more secure offer). Following Cavallo et al. (2009), participants indicated how likely they would be to engage in the risky alternative in each scenario on a 1 (not at all likely) to 7 (extremely likely) scale. Reliability for these two items was low (r .45), but the pattern of responding was similar for both, so we averaged across the two items.
Table 2 Predicted Scores for the Condition Self-Esteem Interactions in Study 1

Low self-esteem Dependent measure Connectedness Approach strength Risky decision making Low load 0.60 6.65 4.86 High load 0.01 7.63 5.68 High self-esteem Low load 0.53 7.81 6.06 High load 0.01 7.79 5.49
Results
To test our hypothesis that self-esteem would moderate responses to relationship threat when participants had full executive resources but would fail to do so when participants were under cognitive load, we first created a composite measures of connectedness (satisfaction, closeness, commitment, and optimism, each transformed to a z score and averaged; .86). We submitted all dependent variables to a hierarchical regression analysis. Following Aiken and West (1991), the dummy-coded main effect of cognitive load (0 low load, 1 high load) and centered self-esteem scores were entered on the first step, while the twoway interaction was entered on the second step. Simple effects were calculated at one standard deviation above and below the mean. For clarity, regression coefficients are presented in Table 1, and we discuss only the simple effects involving the hypothesized interaction below. Predicted values are reported in Table 2. Recall of threat passage. To ensure that participants fully understood the threat passage and that the introduction of our cognitive load manipulation did not reduce the salience of the threat, we assessed how accurate participants were in recalling details from the passage (e.g., on what day did the couple attend the movie?). Results suggest that participants understood the passage well, inasmuch as they answered 83.64% of questions correctly (SD 10.99). Importantly, the load manipulation did not significantly detract from participants recall of the passage, F(1, 53) 1.26, p .27, indicating that participants under high load remembered the details of the manipulation as well as did those who were under low load. Connectedness. Examination of participants relationship connectedness scores revealed a pattern of results that supported our hypothesis. As we predicted, the interaction between cognitive load and self-esteem was significant. When participants had full use of their executive resources (i.e., low-load condition), HSEs reported being significantly closer to their partners than did LSEs ( .68), t(51) 3.47, p .001. However, HSEs and LSEs ratings of closeness did not differ when they were under high Table 1 Summary of Regression Analyses in Study 1
Cognitive load condition (low vs. high)a Dependent measure Connectedness Approach strength Risky decision making
a
Note. Low and high self-esteem refer to participants one standard deviation below and above the mean, respectively.
cognitive load ( .002), t(51) 0.01, p .99. Further, HSEs who had full use of executive resources (i.e., low-load condition) reported marginally greater connectedness to their partners than did HSEs in the high-load condition ( .32), t(51) 1.82, p .08. Conversely, LSE participants in the low-load condition reported less connectedness relative to those who were in the high-load condition ( .36), t(51) 1.98, p .05. Approach strength. Examination of participants approach strength again revealed the hypothesized interaction. Though this effect was marginally significant (see Table 1), examination of the simple slopes revealed that as expected, HSEs reported significantly greater approach strength than did LSEs in the low-load condition ( .56), t(51) 2.86, p .01, and this difference was again eliminated in the high-load condition ( .08), t(51) 0.45, p .65. HSEs self-reported approach motivation was relatively unaffected by the cognitive load manipulation ( .02), t(51) 0.73, p .47. However, as predicted, LSEs reported significantly weaker approach motivation in the low-load condition than in the high-load condition ( .65), t(51) 2.54, p .01. Risky decision making. Analysis of participants risk-taking scores revealed a similar pattern. As predicted, the two-way interaction was significant. When they had sufficient executive resources, HSEs reported significantly greater willingness to partake in the risky options than did LSEs ( .59), t(51) 2.97, p .01. In contrast, as predicted, this self-esteem difference was not observed when participants were placed under cognitive load ( .10), t(51) 0.57, p .57. Examination of the simple effects revealed that as we hypothesized, HSEs in the low-load condition were riskier than were HSEs in the high-load condition ( .53),
Self-esteema .28 .28 .19

b
Cognitive load Self-esteemb .52 .37 .53 t 2.65 1.86 2.63
.01 .23 .06
t 0.09 1.78 0.44
t 2.11 2.13 1.41
Error terms are based on 52 degrees of freedom. p .10. p .01.
Error terms are based on 51 degrees of freedom.
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t(51) 2.05, p .046, whereas cognitive load made LSEs significantly less risky ( .66), t(51) 2.52, p .02.
Discussion
The results of Study 1 provide the first experimental demonstration that HSEs and LSEs differential regulatory responses to risk require executive resources. When they had ample executive resources (i.e., low load), HSEs prioritized approach-directed goals. They bolstered their relationship appraisals, reported heightened global approach motivation, and made riskier decisions relative to cognitively taxed HSEs. In contrast, LSEs who had ample executive resources responded to a risky relationship situation by decreasing the priority of these goals relative to cognitively taxed LSEs. They downplayed their relationship appraisals, inhibited general approach motivation, and ultimately were more attentive to risk in their decision making. As anticipated, HSEs were more willing to approach positive outcomes than LSEs were when participants were under low cognitive load. However, high cognitive load eliminated this self-esteem difference, suggesting that cognitive busyness disrupted HSEs and LSEs ability to align situational goal pursuit with their chronic regulatory agendas. In addition to replicating prior research (Murray et al., 2002) showing shifts in relationship evaluations as a function of selfesteem among participants in the low-load condition, the present study also demonstrated that underlying motivational shifts can affect self-regulation outside of that domain in which risk is activated. While the risky decision-making measure used in this study involved hypothetical scenarios, prior research has suggested that the divergent self-regulatory patterns of HSEs and LSEs are also likely to shape decisions that have real and meaningful consequences (Cavallo, Fitzsimons, & Holmes, 2009, Study 4). We suggest that when regulatory resources are depleted, self-esteem would again have little bearing on these decisions, as people are unable to implement their preferred self-regulatory strategy. The results of the first study challenge the way that self-esteem is traditionally represented in the literature. Many commentaries on regulatory differences between HSEs and LSEs have tacitly or overtly speculated that such differences arise relatively automatically from ingrained beliefs about self-worth (e.g., Baumeister, Heatherton, & Tice, 1993; Brown & Smart, 1991; Heatherton & Vohs, 2000; J. V. Wood, Giordano-Beech, & Ducharme, 1999). LSEs, in particular, exhibit many potentially destructive patterns of thought and behavior that have often been characterized as habitual (e.g., Blaine & Crocker, 1993; Murray, Holmes, MacDonald, & Ellsworth, 1998; Sommer & Baumeister, 2002). However, the implementation of such strategies may be more dependent on executive resources than was previously realized, particularly when situations offer the possibility for both gain and loss. HSEs and LSEs may be equally capable of responding similarly to risk but usually implement different regulatory strategies that lead to divergent outcomes. In many previous investigations of self-esteems role in shaping cognition and behavior, the conditions may have been such that people had ample executive resources, and thus self-esteems impact was unfettered. However, this study suggests that selfesteem may be less influential when such resources are diminished. Because daily life often involves situations in which executive resources are taxed, the extent to which these resources allow
self-esteem to shape various outcomes has important implications for understanding of how self-esteem truly functions. Given these implications, and because our claim that executive resources are critical in determining HSEs and LSEs responses to risk runs counter to conventional thinking about the nature of self-esteem differences, we felt that it was important to demonstrate that the findings of Study 1 were robust by replicating them in Study 2. One limitation of Study 1 was that it lacked a no-threat comparison group. All participants in this study were exposed to interpersonal risk, and as a result, the findings are subject to alternative interpretations. For example, it may be that cognitive load impaired participants ability to properly comprehend and consider the dependent measures. Self-esteems lack of influence in the high-load condition may not have resulted from a disruption of regulatory processes but instead from this methodological artifact. We sought to rule out this explanation in Study 2 by demonstrating that burdening executive resources influences responses only in the presence of risk and not when it is absent.
Study 2
In Study 2, we employed a design similar to that in the previous study but added a control group in which participants were not threatened. In this study, we chose to focus exclusively on participants relationship-specific appraisals. Constructs such as relationship satisfaction and commitment are typically seen as difficult to shift in experimental designs due to their relative stability (cf. Finkel, Rusbult, Kumashiro, & Hannon, 2002). In hopes of replicating the shifts in these evaluations that we observed in Study 1, we again assessed these relationship-specific responses in Study 2. Additionally, we also assessed how accepted participants felt by their partners. Perceived acceptance serves a primary role in the risk regulation system by influencing risk appraisal. HSEs respond to risk by embellishing the extent to which their partner accepts them, thus facilitating pursuit of preferred connectedness goals. LSEs, in contrast, exaggerate their partners lack of affection when facing risk, thereby enabling them to pursue their self-protection goals (Murray et al., 2006, 2002). Given this, we expected that the effects of our experimental manipulations would extend beyond participants own relationship appraisals as observed in Study 1 and shape feelings of acceptance, a metaperspective on the partners relationship appraisals, in Study 2. In this study, we expected to find a three-way Self-Esteem Threat Cognitive Load interaction. We further expected the two-way Self-Esteem Threat interaction to be significant under conditions of low, but not high, cognitive load. We also expected to observe simple effects of both self-esteem and threat when participants were not under cognitive load. Specifically, when participants had full use of their executive resources, we expected threatened HSEs to make more positive relationship appraisals than would threatened LSEs. When participants were not threatened, and thus there was no goal conflict for self-esteem to arbitrate, we expected to observe small or no differences between HSEs and LSEs (Murray et al., 2006). Put in terms of the simple effects of threat, we expected nonbusy HSEs to report morepositive relationship evaluations in the threat condition than in the control condition. In contrast, we expected nonbusy LSEs to report less-positive relationship evaluations in the threat condition than in the control condition. When executive resources were taxed, we
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did not expect threat to predict different regulatory responses as a function of self-esteem. Indeed, the inability for threatened HSEs and LSEs to resolve goal tension in their preferred direction would result in them taking no directed action toward a specific goal and thus would lead them to respond in a way similar to that of participants who were not threatened.
Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988) using a 7-point scale. To ensure that participants had attended to the written passage and to the cognitive load instructions, they were asked to recall the alphanumeric string and details about the passage three times throughout the session. When participants had completed the study, they were debriefed and thanked for their participation.
Method
Participants. One hundred twenty-one undergraduates (90 female, 31 male; Mage 20.13 years, SD 1.83) from the University of Waterloo who were currently in dating relationships (Mlength 22.32 months, SD 16.54) participated in exchange for course credit. Procedure. The procedure was similar to that used in Study 1. After completing the Rosenberg (1965) self-esteem scale ( .73), participants were presented with a written passage and instructed to read it carefully. Participants were assigned randomly to threat and no-threat conditions. Those in the threat condition were given the same passage used in Study 1. Those in the no-threat condition were given a control version (Cavallo et al., 2009). In this control vignette, the fictitious research findings suggested that people generally underestimate their relationship quality and that the interpretations of the couples behaviors identified how seemingly mundane events can be reflective of mutual caring. In contrast to the threat passage, this passage was not designed to activate interpersonal risk. When participants had finished reading the passage, the experimenter directed them to a computer that guided them through the remainder of the session. Again, participants who were assigned to the high-cognitive-load condition were instructed to learn and rehearse a nine-digit alphanumeric string, whereas those assigned to the low-load condition were told to rehearse a three-digit string. Following this, participants completed the same measures of relationship satisfaction ( .90), commitment ( .78), closeness ( .71), and optimism ( .93) as in Study 1. Additionally, participants completed a five-item measure ( .70) that captured participants beliefs about their partners acceptance and continued responsiveness (e.g., I am confident that my partner accepts and loves me). They responded to each item on a scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). To assess positive ( .82) and negative ( .89) affect, participants completed the state measure of the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS;
Results
To test our hypothesis that self-esteem would moderate the influence of relationship threat on relationship appraisals when participants had full use of executive resources but would fail to do so when these resources were taxed by cognitive load, we submitted the dependent measures to hierarchical regression analyses in which the dummy-coded main effects of threat (0 no threat, 1 threat) and cognitive load (0 low load, 1 high load), as well as centered self-esteem scores, were entered on the first step. All two-way interactions were entered on the second step, while the three-way interaction was entered on the final step. Simple effects were calculated at one standard deviation above and below the mean. For clarity, regression coefficients are presented in Table 3, and we discuss only the simple slopes and simple effects involving the hypothesized interaction below. Predicted values are reported in Table 4. Recall of threat passage. As in Study 1, participants were generally accurate in the recall of correct details from the passage (M 88.22%, SD 11.78). Cognitive load had no impact on accuracy, F(1, 119) 1.62, p .21, nor did recall vary between the threat and no-threat passages, F(1, 119) 1.05, p .31. Mood. Analysis of participants mood ratings revealed no differences in positive, F(1, 119) 1, or negative, F(1, 119) 1, affect as a result of the threat manipulation. Importantly, the cognitive load manipulation also did not significantly affect participants mood (all Fs 1), suggesting that their responses cannot be attributed to unintended shifts in affect caused by our experimental design. Connectedness. We again created a composite measure of connectedness ( .86) from participants relational evaluations. As anticipated, a significant three-way interaction emerged on this measure (see Figure 1). When participants were under low cognitive load, there was a significant two-way interaction between self-esteem and threat ( .52), t(113) 3.47, p .001. As we predicted, however, self-esteem did not interact with threat when
Table 3 Summary of Regression Analyses in Study 2

Relationship threat condition (no threat vs. threat)a .01 .02 t 0.17 0.28
b
Cognitive load condition (low vs. high)a Dependent measure Connectedness Perceived acceptance .02 .02 t 0.17 0.22
Self-esteema .43 .43 t 5.18 5.18
Cognitive load Relationship threatb .23 .19 t 1.77 1.43
Cognitive load Self-esteemb .41 .41 t 3.73 3.61

c
Relationship threat Selfesteemb .25 .23 t 2.20 2.03
Cognitive load Relationship threat Selfesteemc .36 .36 t 2.65 2.65
a Error terms are based on 117 degrees of freedom. freedom. p .10. p .05. p .01.
Error terms are based on 113 degrees of
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Table 4 Predicted Scores for High and Low Self-Esteem Participants in Each Condition in Study 2
Low self-esteem Dependent measure Connectedness Perceived acceptance Note. No threat/low load 0.11 6.13 No threat/high load 0.21 6.02 Threat/low load 0.94 5.45 Threat/high load 0.12 6.27 No threat/low load 0.33 6.51 High self-esteem No threat/high load 0.05 6.20 Threat/low load 0.76 6.89 Threat/high load 0.18 6.31
Low and high self-esteem refer to participants one standard deviation below and above the mean, respectively.
participants were under high cognitive load ( .05), t(113) 0.30, p .77. We then decomposed the significant two-way Threat SelfEsteem interaction for people not under cognitive load and examined the simple effects of both self-esteem and threat. The simple effects for self-esteem and threat were consistent with our expectations. As in Study 1, HSEs reported greater connectedness than did LSEs when under threat ( 1.02), t(113) 7.79, p .001. However, HSEs and LSEs did not differ significantly in the absence of threat ( .26), t(113) 1.52, p .13. HSEs under threat tended to feel more connected to their partners than did HSEs who were not threatened ( .26), t(113) 1.80, p .08. In contrast and as anticipated, LSEs under threat reported being less close to their partners than did nonthreatened LSEs ( .50), t(113) 3.21, p .002. None of the simple effects of threat or self-esteem were significant for participants under cognitive load (all ps .20). Perceived acceptance. A similar pattern of results emerged for participants perceptions of their partners acceptance. The three-way interaction was again significant, as was the two-way interaction between self-esteem and threat when participants were under low cognitive load ( .53), t(113) 3.34, p .001, but not when participants were under high cognitive load. Decomposing the significant Self-Esteem Threat interaction for low-load participants revealed the predicted simple effects of self-esteem and threat. Threatened HSEs reported feeling more accepted by their partners than did threatened LSEs ( 1.00), t(113) 7.61, p .001, whereas HSEs and LSEs did not differ
significantly when not faced with relationship threat ( .27), t(113) 1.54, p .13. Moreover, HSEs tended to feel that their partners accepted them more when threatened than when not threatened ( .26), t(113) 1.80, p .08. LSEs, in contrast, felt less accepted when threatened ( .47), t(113) 3.03, p .003. None of the simple effects of self-esteem or threat were significant for participants under high cognitive load (all ps .27).
Discussion
The results of Study 2 replicated those of Study 1 and provided additional support for our hypothesis. When participants were under relationship threat and had full executive resources, selfesteem moderated their responses to interpersonal risk: HSEs and LSEs diverged drastically in their evaluations of their relationships. In comparison to participants in the control condition, HSEs tended to exhibit greater positivity, suggesting that they actively bolstered relationship appraisals to counteract feelings of vulnerability. In contrast, threatened LSEs seemed to devalue their relationships. This active derogation of their relationships is indicative of a self-protective response commonly observed in risk regulation research, whereby people reduce the psychological stakes from potential rejection by distancing themselves from partners (Murray et al., 2002, 2006). As we predicted, this pattern did not emerge when participants were under high cognitive load. HSEs and LSEs made equally positive relationship appraisals regardless of relationship threat when their executive resources were taxed. Moreover, people in the threat condition resembled those in the no-threat condition, suggesting that cognitive load disrupted risk regulation processes. Studies 1 and 2 provided initial experimental support for our hypothesis that self-esteem and executive resources are critical in resolving goal conflict. Buoyed by these results, we sought to examine whether this phenomenon would generalize beyond a laboratory context in Study 3.
Study 3
Do self-esteem and executive resources operate this same way in real-life situations of interpersonal riskin the daily negotiations of closeness versus self-protection among married couples? And would our results replicate with new operationalizations of approach/avoidance of risk, of executive resources, and of individuals resolution of the goal conflict? In this study, we examined responses to interpersonal risk among a sample of newly married couples. We indexed interpersonal risk via participants own selfreported marital conflict. We theorized that newlyweds who re-
Figure 1. Relationship connectedness as a function of condition and self-esteem in Study 2.
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ported more frequent and intense conflict with their partners would more consistently face the kinds of conflict-of-interest situations that put connectedness and self-protection goals in conflict (cf. Murray, Bellavia, Rose, & Griffin, 2003). Rather than placing participants under cognitive load as we did in Studies 1 and 2, we operationalized executive resources as chronic working memory capacity. Individual differences in working memory capacity (WMC) are a key determinant of peoples ability to control selfregulatory behavior and override automatic determinants of goal pursuit (Hofmann, Gschwendner, Friese, Wiers, & Schmitt, 2008). As in the previous studies, we measured participants relationship appraisals to gauge reconciliation of this situated goal conflict. Rather than focus on participants perceptions of their own satisfaction and commitment, we assessed how they viewed their partners valuation of the relationship. The results of Study 2 were consistent with prior research demonstrating that in the face of interpersonal risk, HSEs and LSEs perceptions of their partners relational appraisals tend to mirror their own. That is, HSEs respond to threat by bolstering their partners dedication to the relationship, whereas LSEs tend to perceive their partners as less invested in the relationship (Murray et al., 2002). We sought to replicate this effect in Study 3, as these perceptions play a critical role in determining the extent to which one feels positively regarded by his/her partner and thus are essential to relationship functioning (Murray et al., 2006). We predicted that among participants with sufficient executive resources (i.e., those with high chronic working memory capacity), self-esteem would interact with self-reported conflict to determine perceptions of a partners connectedness. We predicted that among participants who reported greater relationship conflict, self-esteem would predict relationship appraisals such that HSEs would report greater perceived connectedness than would LSEs. Among participants who reported little relationship conflict, meaning that the goal tension between approach and avoidance is relatively absent, we anticipated that self-esteem would not be predictive of perceived connectedness. For people with high working memory capacity, we also anticipated a simple effect of threat such that HSEs who reported greater conflict would feel their partners were more connected to the relationship than would HSEs who reported less conflict. Conversely, we expected that LSEs who reported greater conflict would feel their partners were less connected to them than would LSEs who reported less conflict. When executive resources were diminished (i.e., among participants with low chronic working memory capacity), we again did not expect self-esteem to interact with self-reported conflict. We anticipated that when such resources are unavailable to facilitate high-conflict HSEs and LSEs engagement in preferred regulatory strategies, their evaluations of their partners connectedness would be similar.
Procedure. As part of a larger study, participants first completed the measure of working memory capacity and the same measure of self-esteem used in Studies 1 and 2 ( .88). They then completed measures of conflict, perceived partner commitment, and perceived partner closeness (described below). Measures. Working memory capacity. Following Hofmann et al. (2008), we assessed working memory capacity ( .76) with a task that presented participants with a set of four to eight equations involving a mixture of addition and subtraction (e.g., 3 5 8, 11 7 5). These were presented sequentially on a computer screen for 3 s, followed by a 1-s interstimulus interval. Participants were asked to complete two tasks simultaneously. During the initial presentation, they had to indicate whether each equation was true or false, and they were tasked with remembering the result of each equation and entering them in the correct sequence (e.g., 8, 5) at the end of the set. Thus, participants had to memorize the sequence of results, while being engaged in a distracting secondary task. Participants completed two practice and 10 test trials. WMC was computed by adding the number of correctly entered sequences weighted by the number of equations in each set. Conflict. To assess the extent to which couples regularly faced relationship threat, we assessed the frequency and intensity of relational conflict using five items (e.g., How often do you and your partner have arguments or disagreements? In general, how serious are your arguments and disagreements?). Participants responded to these items on 7-point scales, and responses were averaged such that higher numbers indicated greater conflict ( .91). Perceived partner commitment. We assessed participants agreement with three items tapping the degree to which they felt partners were committed to them (e.g., My partner is deeply committed to maintaining our marriage; My partner wants to spend the rest of his/her life with me). Participants responded to each item on a scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree), and responses were averaged ( .95). Perceived partner closeness. Participants reports of their partners closeness were assessed with four items (e.g., My partner is very much in love with me; My partner is closer to me than any other person in his/her life). Participants indicated their agreement with these statements on a 7-point scale ranging from 1 (strongly agree) to 7 (strongly agree), and responses were indexed across all four items ( .93).
Results
Because both perceived commitment and perceived closeness tap the partners perceived connection to the relationship, we created a composite measure of perceived connectedness by standardizing and averaging responses to these measures ( .92). As in Study 2, we expected to observe a three-way interaction between WMC, self-esteem, and threat (operationalized as relationship conflict). Specifically, when people were high in WMC and living in a high conflict (i.e., high threat) relationship, we expected people who were high in self-esteem to perceive their partner as more close and committed. However, we did not expect such regulatory responses among people high in WMC to emerge in the absence of risk. In contrast, when people were low in WMC, we did not expect self-esteem to predict perceptions of the partners
Method
Participants. One hundred fifty-nine married couples who had previously completed a larger longitudinal study of newlyweds (see Murray, Aloni, et al., 2009; Murray, Holmes, et al., 2009) participated for $150. Marriages averaged 48.96 months in length (SD 10.06).
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closeness and commitment in either high-conflict or low-conflict relationships. Given the dependent nature of our data, we used structural equation modeling to test our hypotheses because it allows both actor and partner effects and estimates pooled effects across gender (Kenny, 1996; Kenny & Cook, 1999; Kenny, Kashy, & Cook, 2006). We examined participants perceived connectedness with the predictors of self-esteem, working memory capacity, and reported conflict, as well as all two- and three-way interactions. We estimated the intercepts and correlations among exogenous variables and the correlations between the residuals. Table 5 lists coefficients that are pooled across gender because model tests that compared unconstrained and constrained paths revealed no significant differences. As we predicted, we found a significant three-way interaction between self-esteem, WMC, and conflict predicting self-reported perceived connectedness ( .07, z 2.17, p .03). Decomposing this interaction revealed a two-way interaction between self-esteem and conflict (i.e., threat level) among those high in chronic WMC ( .17, z 2.59, p .01). Self-esteem and conflict did not significantly interact among participants who were low in working memory capacity ( .01, z .22, p .82). We then decomposed the significant Self-Esteem Conflict interaction into both the simple effects of self-esteem and the simple effects of conflict. For people high in WMC, self-esteem predicted feelings of perceived connectedness among people who experienced high chronic conflict, with HSEs reporting greater partner connectedness than did LSEs ( .31, z 3.63, p .001). When chronic conflict was low, HSEs and LSEs with high WMC felt their partners were equally connected ( .03, z .27, p .79). This again suggests that self-esteem is less influential in determining self-regulatory outcomes when motivational conflict is absent. Decomposing the interaction into the simple effects of conflict on perceived connectedness among high WMC participants revealed that high-conflict LSEs felt their partners were less connected than did low-conflict LSEs ( .53, z 5.52, p .001). In contrast, HSEs who reported higher levels of conflict did not significantly differ in perceived connectedness from HSEs who reported lower levels of conflict ( .17, z 1.50, p .13).
Discussion
The results of Study 3 provided a conceptual replication of the experimental findings in Studies 1 and 2 and again demonstrated that executive resources play a critical role in moderating the influence of self-esteem on responses to goal conflict. Among newlywed couples, those who have frequent and intense conflict regularly face tension between their goals to deepen intimacy with their new spouse and to protect themselves from feelings of hurt or rejection at the hands of this person. When respondents had high working memory capacity and thus had a wealth of regulatory resources at their disposal, HSEs reported higher levels of perceived connectedness than did LSEs. This finding is highly consistent with past research on interpersonal risk regulation, which has shown that peoples relationship appraisals shift in response to relationship threats. HSEs respond to risk by making more positive relationship evaluations and attributing more positive evaluations to their partners (Murray et al., 2002), suggesting they are motivated to seek connection when risk is salient. In contrast, LSEs respond to risk by derogating their relationships and their partners (Murray et al., 2002), suggesting that they are oriented toward minimizing the importance of the relationship when faced with risk. However, this pattern of results did not occur among participants who had low working memory capacity. Additionally, it did not occur when participants reported little conflict. This finding supports our hypothesis that self-esteem is influential primarily in situations of risk. When risk is minimal and there is little tension between approach and avoidance goals that requires resolution, HSEs and LSEs have no impetus to prioritize one goal over the other, and thus they perceive their relationships similarly. Taken together, the results of Studies 1, 2, and 3 indicate that executive resources are fundamental in governing how selfesteem influences responses to risky situations. These results have important implications for understanding interpersonal risk regulation processes. When executive resources were minimal, HSEs and LSEs responses to threat were indistinguishable from those of participants who were not under threat, providing the strongest evidence thus far that risk regulation is an executive-based system. These findings imply that for HSEs, executive resources allow them to prioritize approach-directed connectedness goals adaptively. By recruiting compensatory, positive beliefs about their relationships, HSEs protect their interpersonal relationships from threat. In contrast, for LSEs, executive resources enable them to reinforce chronic selfprotection goals. When such resources are impaired, LSEs appear to be better off; they feel as committed and as satisfied as HSEs even in higher conflict relationships. Because LSEs generally have more unwarranted insecurities and probably experience motivational conflict more regularly than do HSEs (Murray, Holmes, Griffin, Bellavia, & Rose, 2001), it is likely that having sufficient ability to exert executive resources undermines LSEs relationship quality (see also Murray, Aloni, et al., 2009; Murray et al., 2008). We discuss the implications of this finding further in the General Discussion section. Together the three studies described thus far suggest that selfesteem is essential to regulatory functioning when responding to interpersonal risk and that executive resources play a critical role in allowing it to do so. We hypothesize that this regulatory process is not limited to interpersonal contexts but also guides behavior
Table 5 Results of Structural Equation Modeling Analysis in Study 3 Showing Perceived Connectedness
Predictor Working memory capacity (WMC) Self-esteem (SE) Conflict WMC SE WMC Conflict SE Conflict WMC SE Conflict b .009 .089 .364 .005 .008 .069 .006 z 2.43 1.86 9.11 1.23 2.64 1.82 2.17
Note. Comparative fit index 1.00; root-mean-square error of approximation .000. 2(14, N 152) 13.39, p .50. p .10. p .05. p .01.
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outside of these contexts as well; that is, we suggest that selfesteem will require executive resources to shape responses to other kinds of risks. The results of Study 1 support this hypothesis, in that interpersonal risk spurred regulatory behavior in noninterpersonal domains (i.e., on self-reported goals and on risky decision making). However, if these processes are truly global, nonrelational risks should also trigger them. We tested this idea in Study 4 by examining the effects of self-esteem on reactions to a threat to academic competence.
Study 4
Evidence from prior research has suggested that self-esteem plays a critical role in regulating responses to risk in domains other than interpersonal ones. That is, when situational contexts offer opportunities for reward that are coupled with risk, HSEs tend to set aside risk in pursuit of positive outcomes, whereas LSEs forgo potential rewards and protect themselves from negative outcomes (Cavallo et al., 2009). Research examining how self-esteem influences social comparison processes following a failure experience (J. V. Wood, Giordano-Beech, Taylor, Michela, & Gaus, 1994) illustrates this pattern. After experiencing a personal failure, comparing ones own performance to others can be inherently risky. On the one hand, such comparisons might serve a beneficial self-regulatory function. They might allow people to assess why they failed and thereby suggest means of improvement (Festinger, 1954; Gibbons & Buunk, 1999; Taylor & Lobel, 1989). On the other hand, doing so is perilous because comparing oneself to others can highlight ones shortcomings and have a detrimental impact on mood and self-worth (Brickman & Bulman, 1977; Tesser, Millar, & Moore, 1988). Thus, social comparisons in the face of failure are likely useful for ultimate goal success (Carver & Scheier, 1998) but potentially costly in terms of protecting a positive sense of self. When presented with such a conflict between goals to improve in an important domain and goals to protect the ego, HSEs and LSEs tend to show differential preference for risky social comparison information (Baumeister, Tice, & Hutton, 1989; J. V. Wood et al., 1994) that we believe corresponds to their responses to interpersonal risk observed in Studies 13. When they fail, HSEs show a greater willingness to make social comparisons than do LSEs, at least in contexts in which such comparisons could inform further action (J. V. Wood et al., 1994). Though making comparisons after failure carries the risk that such comparisons may be unflattering, HSEs are inclined to set aside these concerns when the information gleaned from them will be beneficial (J. V. Wood et al., 1994). In contrast, LSEs often avoid making such comparisons and thereby protect themselves from further blows to their selfevaluation while forgoing potential rewards (Baumeister et al., 1989; J. V. Wood & Lockwood, 1999). We hypothesized that this self-esteem difference in social comparison following threat also results from executive-based regulatory processes. That is, when people face conflict between the goal to protect their self-esteem and the goal to obtain diagnostic information that fosters improvement, we theorize that HSEs require executive resources to set aside risks and pursue potential rewards. In contrast, LSEs relinquish opportunities for improvement and instead use executive resources to pursue goals that will guard them from
risk. Thus, we theorize that when such resources are depleted or disrupted, people will be unable to prioritize their preferred goal and as such, self-esteem will have little bearing on responses to failure. In Study 4, we tested this hypothesis by having participants complete a test that ostensibly assessed a skill that was central to academic success. This test also served as a manipulation of executive resources. In service of conceptual replication, in place of the cognitive load manipulation from Studies 1 and 2, the task instructions required participants to engage in an easy or difficult act of self-control. Such acts require exertion of executive strength and thereby deplete resources available for subsequent tasks (Muraven & Baumeister, 2000). Although such processes are theoretically distinct from cognitive load and working memory capacity, we anticipated that taxing regulatory ability this way would have similar implications for HSEs and LSEs regulatory responses to situated goal conflict. Half of the participants received (false) negative feedback about their performance after taking the test. We then provided all participants with an opportunity to make social comparisons. To provide a context that would elicit an approach/avoidance conflict offering both risk and reward our social comparison context differed from those in most previous comparison studies. Specifically, participants believed they would perform two tasks, and their opportunity to make social comparisons fell between the two tasks. That is, participants were told that the second task would allow them the opportunity to use any social comparison information they had garnered from the first task (cf. J. V. Wood et al., 1994, 1999). In addition, the social comparison information available to participants was more informative than that available through most social comparison measures (J. V. Wood, 1996); rather than learning merely others scores, participants could ostensibly learn others strategies for earning such scores. We predicted that HSEs and LSEs would differ in their willingness to make social comparisons following failure only when the test did not deplete executive resources. In this condition, we predicted that HSEs would be more likely to compare themselves to others after receiving failure feedback than LSEs would be. In contrast, we predicted that receiving neutral feedback would be unlikely to create situated goal conflict, and thus self-esteem would not influence social comparison in this condition. We also predicted that HSEs would be more willing to make social comparisons following failure relative to control participants, whereas LSEs would be less willing to engage in these risky comparisons following failure. Moreover, we anticipated that these differences would be exacerbated by the relative degree of risk posed by high- and low-performance social comparison targets. That is, we anticipated that relative to control participants, HSEs who experienced failure would be particularly willing to compare themselves to targets that performed poorly, as this context would afford greater opportunity to pursue self-improvement with minimal risk. Similarly, we anticipated that LSEs who experienced failure (relative to control LSEs) would be especially likely to avoid social comparisons with high-performance targets. Comparing themselves to these targets would entail heightened risk of experiencing further decrements in their self-worth and thus afford LSEs greater opportunity to pursue preferred self-protection goals. However, when participants resources were depleted, we did not expect self-esteem to interact
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with failure feedback, as such resources are necessary for HSEs and LSEs to implement the divergent regulatory strategies that shape their social comparison behavior.
Method
Participants. One hundred fifty-four undergraduate participants participated in the study in exchange for course credit. The data from six participants who failed to complete the writing task were eliminated automatically by our server, and two participants denied us permission to use their data after being debriefed about the deception used in the study, leaving 146 participants (103 female, 43 male; Mage 20.10, SD 1.57). Procedure. Participants who volunteered for an online study on cognitive performance were sent a web link that directed them to the study. After first completing the Rosenberg (1965) selfesteem scale ( .92), participants were presented with a task that ostensibly measured verbal integration. In the introductory text (adapted from Di Paula & Campbell, 2002), participants were told that this construct was highly important for university students. They read that those who score highly on the test tend to have higher averages, are more likely to be successful in admission to graduate school and in the job market and are generally successful in academic and career endeavors. Participants were informed that they would have 5 min to write a short story and that their writing sample would be immediately transmitted to a secure database and scored electronically on several metrics. They were told that these metrics would then be standardized and presented to them as a score ranging from 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating greater verbal integration ability. After reading these instructions, participants proceeded to this task, which actually served as the manipulation of executive resource depletion. Participants in both conditions were given 6 min to write a story about a recent trip they had taken. They were told that the story may be fictional or based on true events but must be written from the first-person perspective. In the depletion condition, participants were instructed not to use the letters a or n anywhere in their story. This restriction required participants in this condition to regulate their writing, thereby consuming their executive resources. In the no-depletion condition, participants were instructed not to use the letters q or z in their story, a task that required less self-regulation and thus was less taxing of their executive ability (Schmeichel, 2007; Schmeichel & Vohs, 2009). After this writing task, participants were presented with their verbal integration feedback, which was ostensibly derived from an electronic analysis of their writing. In the failure-feedback condition, participants were presented with a score of 55 out of a possible 100 points and were told this score reflected poor performance on the integration task. Those in the no-feedback condition were told that their score had been successfully computed but would not be presented due to a computer error on the remote server. As a manipulation check, participants were asked to indicate how well they thought they had done on the verbal integration task on a scale ranging from 1 (very poor) to 7 (excellent). After viewing this feedback, participants were informed that they would be able to take another verbal integration test later in the session. They were told that to assist them in the subsequent task, they would be given the opportunity to view strategies for
completing the task that were provided by prior participants. Participants read that the researchers had identified four specific prior participants whose feedback would be particularly useful. These four prior participants served as targets of social comparison. Targets were mixed in terms of their own performance, with two targets presented as having high scores (i.e., 85 and 88 out of 100) and two presented as having relatively low scores (i.e., 27 and 32 out of 100). After participants viewed summary information, they were shown each targets strategies individually in a counterbalanced order. Each of the four pages displayed the targets verbal integration score followed by a short paragraph describing the targets advice for improvement. The strategies were of roughly equal length for each target and were intentionally broad. For example, one of the high-performance targets suggested that participants watch the timer to make sure you dont run out of time, and one of the low-performance targets suggested that participants pay close attention to the instructions so that they did not inadvertently use the prohibited letters. Instructions atop each page informed participants they could skip over any strategies they were not interested in seeing. The computer recorded the amount of time (in seconds) that participants spent viewing each strategy, and this served as our behavioral dependent measure of social comparison. We theorized that devoting time to reading and interpreting each strategy would reflect a desire to use this information to improve their verbal integration ability (for similar logic see Butler, 1992). This measure can be classified as a looking measure of social comparison, which is underutilized in social comparison research (J. V. Wood, 1996). In this instance, this measure offers to participants not only a choice of comparison target (high performance vs. low performance) but whether to seek comparisons or avoid them altogether. Thus, participants choices provide a behavioral reflection of self-regulation in this approach/avoidance conflict. Participants completed the same measures of positive ( .91) and negative ( .91) affect used in Study 2 and were then asked to complete the verbal integration task again, this time writing about a value that was important to them and having no restrictions placed on the letters they were able to use. This task served not only as a means to maintain the cover story but also as a selfaffirmation task that would offset any negative effects stemming from our earlier feedback manipulation or from resource depletion (Fein & Spencer, 1997; Schmeichel & Vohs, 2009). Participants were then thanked and fully debriefed.
Results
To test our hypothesis that HSEs and LSEs would differ in their desire to compare themselves to others after failure feedback, but not after neutral feedback, and that these differences would emerge only when executive resources were available, we used a data analysis strategy similar to that employed in Study 2. The dependent measures were regressed onto the dummy-coded main effects of test feedback (0 neutral feedback, 1 failure feedback), resource depletion (0 not depleted, 1 depleted), and centered self-esteem scores on the first step of a hierarchical regression analysis. All two-way interactions were entered on the second step, and the three-way interaction was entered on the third step. Again, all simple effects were calculated at one standard deviation above and below the mean of participants self-esteem scores.
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Manipulation check. Analysis of participants perceived performance on the verbal integration task revealed that the manipulations were effective. Results revealed a main effect of feedback such that, as intended, participants in the failure feedback condition (M 3.29) believed they performed more poorly than did those in the neutral feedback condition (M 3.99; .19), t(142) 2.46, p .02. There was also a main effect of depletion such that those in the depletion condition (M 2.98) believed they performed more poorly than did those in the no-depletion condition (M 4.30; .36), t(142) 4.70, p .001. This result is indicative of the greater difficulty of the depleting task, which required more response inhibition. Finally, there was a marginal main effect of self-esteem ( .14), t(142) 1.91, p .06, indicating that HSE participants were more assured of their verbal integration ability than were LSEs. Importantly, there were no significant interactions among these variables (all ps .50), indicating that self-esteem did not moderate the effectiveness of the experimental manipulations. Mood. As in Study 2, one-way analyses of variance revealed no significant differences in positive or negative affect as a function of resource depletion or of failure feedback, all Fs(1, 145) 1, suggesting that mood was not a factor in this experiment. Social comparison. Analysis of the mean time participants spent viewing each target revealed that participants generally spent more time examining the strategies of the high-performance targets (M 37.85, SD 21.37) than they did the strategies of the low-performance targets (M 27.54, SD 48.59), F(1, 145) 6.02, p .02. However, this difference was not affected by either of the experimental manipulations or by self-esteem (all ps .13).2 Low-performance targets. We first examined if our experimental manipulations and self-esteem influenced the time participants spent examining low-performance targets. The coefficients for the full regression model are presented in Table 6, and only the relevant simple effects are discussed here. The predicted values from this analysis are displayed in Table 7. The three-way interaction was marginally significant, yet examination of the simple effects revealed support for our predictions. Similar to the case in Studies 2 and 3, the Test Feedback Self-Esteem interaction was significant among participants who were not cognitively depleted ( .42), t(139) 2.46, p .02, but did not emerge among depleted participants ( p .90), nor were any of the simple effects significant in the depletion condition (all ps .68). We decomposed the significant two-way interaction into both the simple effects of self-esteem and the simple effects of threat. As predicted, nondepleted HSEs who received failure feedback spent more time viewing low-performance social comparison targets than did nondepleted LSEs who received this feedback ( .57), t(138) 3.52, p .001. However, nondepleted HSEs and LSEs spent equal time viewing the targets when they received neutral feedback ( .02), t(138) 0.11, p .92. Nondepleted HSEs who received failure feedback spent more time viewing the targets relative to nondepleted HSEs who received neutral feedback ( .41), t(138) 2.49, p .01. In contrast, nondepleted LSEs who received failure feedback spent less time viewing the targets than did nondepleted LSEs who received neutral feedback ( .18), t(138) 1.07, p .29, although this effect was not significant.
High-performance targets. Our examination of the time participants spent viewing information about high-performance targets again revealed a marginally significant three-way interaction. As with the low-performance targets, exploration of the simple effects revealed a significant Test Feedback Self-Esteem two-way interaction among nondepleted participants ( .43), t(139) 2.44, p .02. However, neither this interaction nor any of the simple effects were significant for depleted participants (all ps .46). Decomposition of the significant two-way interaction revealed that when participants were not depleted and received failure feedback, HSEs devoted more time to making social comparisons than did LSEs ( .44), t(138) 2.70, p .01, as we hypothesized. However, this self-esteem difference did not emerge when nondepleted participants received neutral feedback ( .15), t(138) 0.83, p .41. As we expected, HSEs who were not depleted spent more time examining targets after receiving failure feedback than after receiving neutral feedback, although this effect did not reach significance ( .17), t(138) 1.01, p .32. In contrast, LSEs who were not depleted spent less time comparing themselves to high-performance targets following failure than they did when they received neutral feedback ( .42), t(138) 2.50, p .01. All targets. Given the similar pattern of results observed among both low- and high-performance targets, we analyzed participants general inclination to seek social comparison by collapsing across all targets. As in Studies 2 and 3, the hypothesized three-way interaction was significant. As predicted and as displayed in Figure 2, test feedback and self-esteem interacted among participants who were not cognitively depleted ( .54), t(139) 3.17, p .002. However, the Test Feedback Self-Esteem interaction was not significant for depleted participants, nor were any of the simple effects (all ps .50). Examination of the simple effects revealed that when they received failure feedback, nondepleted HSEs spent more time viewing the social comparison targets than did nondepleted LSEs ( .67), t(138) 4.22, p .001. However, nondepleted HSEs and LSEs did not differ when they received neutral feedback ( .07), t(138) 0.42, p .67. Nondepleted HSEs who received failure feedback again devoted more time to viewing the targets relative to nondepleted HSEs who received neutral feedback ( .42), t(138) 2.62, p .01. However, nondepleted LSEs who received failure feedback spent less time viewing the targets than did nondepleted LSEs who received neutral feedback ( .32), t(138) 1.94, p .05.
Although we offered participants both high- and low-performance targets, we did not make any predictions about the relative preference for these targets. Participants were told that both types of targets would be useful for facilitating self-improvement, and indeed, existing research has suggested that both upward and downward social comparisons are valuable following failure (Carver & Scheier, 1998; Lockwood, 2002). One might have expected a main effect of feedback such that participants who received failure feedback would spend more time scrutinizing the low-performance target in an attempt to boost mood and self-worth (Wills, 1991). We suggest that this did not occur because the experimental context emphasized self-improvement, a point we develop further in the Discussion of Study 4.
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Table 6 Summary of Regression Analysis in Study 4

Feedback condition (neutral vs. failure)a Time spent on targets Low-performance targets High-performance targets All targets
a
Resource depletion condition (not depleted vs. depleted)a .10 .07 .06 t 1.20 0.89 0.71
b
Selfesteema .12 .03 .12 t 1.46 0.32 1.40
Feedback Resource depletionb .06 .21 .03 t 0.40 1.42 0.20
Feedback Self-esteemb .21 .19 .26 t 1.77 1.60 2.19

c
Resource depletion Selfesteemb .23 .20 .29 t 2.00 1.62 2.41
Feedback Resource depletion Self-esteemc .29 .32 .38 t 1.71 1.84 2.25
.08 .01 .07
t 1.01 0.10 0.85
Error terms are based on 142 degrees of freedom. freedom. p .10. p .01.
Error terms are based on 138 degrees of
Discussion
The results of Study 4 provided additional support for our hypothesis that the availability of executive resources is a critical determinant of the influence of self-esteem on regulatory responses to goal conflict. When participants believed they had performed poorly on a task assessing an important self-domain, self-esteem moderated risky social comparison only when executive resources were not depleted. When executive resources were high, HSE participants responded to failure by spending more time examining social comparison targets than did LSEs. This difference in response to failure did not emerge when executive resources were diminished. This pattern of results is similar to that obtained in Studies 2 and 3 and provides evidence that self-esteem governs risk management not only in interpersonal domains but in nonrelational domains as well. As in the previous studies, HSEs and LSEs differed in their willingness to pursue rewards when those rewards were coupled with risk, but only when they had sufficient executive resources. Following a threatening failure experience, participants had the opportunity to risk viewing social comparison information that might exacerbate the negativity of that experience in order to glean insight that may have improved subsequent performance. When this initial task was not depleting, HSE participants prioritized and pursued self-improvement goals. LSEs, in contrast, appeared to pursue more self-protective goals by spending little time on social comparison relative to those who received neutral feedback. However, when the initial task depleted executive resources, HSEs and LSEs did not differ on the extent to which they compared themselves with others, regardless of whether they received failure or neutral feedback. Together, these data indicate that self-esteems influence on self-regulation in the face of risk is more dependent on executive resources than was previously theorized. Interestingly, HSEs and LSEs who were not depleted appeared to pursue their self-regulatory objectives most strongly when the situation provided greater affordance for the expression of those goals. That is, when facing relatively safe low-performance targets, HSEs who failed (relative to those who received neutral feedback) spent a great deal of time comparing themselves to these people, reflecting engagement in their preferred approach-directed goal. However, this effect was less evident when HSEs viewed comparatively risky high-performance targets, perhaps reflecting
an attempt to attend to the greater degree of risk inherent in this context. Similarly, when confronted with the risk of comparing themselves to high-performance targets, LSEs who received failure feedback readily employed their preferred self-regulatory strategy. They protected themselves by spending less time viewing these targets relative to those who received neutral feedback. When LSEs who had failed were presented with low-performance targets, this effect was less pronounced. These results suggest that while HSEs and LSEs still seek to employ their preferred regulatory aims when goal conflict arises, and they have sufficient executive resources, the extent to which situations facilitate or hinder expression of those goals may also influence their behavior. We return to this point in the General Discussion section. It should be noted that although we have suggested that nondepleted HSEs heightened social comparison following failure was driven by self-improvement goals, these results are open to an alternative motivational interpretation. Prior research (J. V. Wood et al., 1994, 1999) has demonstrated that HSEs are motivated to compare themselves with others in the face of threat partly in hopes of finding ways to emerge as superior themselves. Indeed, J. V. Wood et al. (1999) argued that such compensatory goals supersede self-improvement goals when HSEs make postfailure social comparisons. Is it possible that HSEs spent more time viewing social comparison information not because they sought to improve their performance but instead because they wanted to find ways to discredit, derogate, or outperform the targets? The idea that HSEs compensate for failure by deliberately comparing themselves to others is consistent with our hypothesis in that such efforts also entail substantial risk (J. V. Wood et al., 1999). HSEs may succeed in finding other aspects of the self or other dimensions in which they compare favorably to their target, but they also run the large risk that they may be unsuccessful, which would exacerbate an already negative experience. Approaching the positive rewards inherent in compensatory social comparison requires HSEs to set aside risk and, as such, likely results from the same executive-based regulatory processes that we propose underlie the current findings. Although such an explanation is possible, we nevertheless contend that a self-improvement explanation better suits the data of the present study. That is, we argue self-improvement goals were given heightened importance within this specific study, as the
MANAGING MOTIVATIONAL CONFLICT Failure feedback/ depleted
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Failure feedback/ not depleted Neutral feedback/ depleted
High self-esteem
17.59 34.87 26.23
66.32 43.60 54.96
24.08 39.16 31.62
Figure 2. Time spent on social comparison with all targets as a function of condition and self-esteem in Study 4.
Neutral feedback/ not depleted
Table 7 Predicted Scores for High and Low Self-Esteem Participants in Each Condition in Study 4
Low and high self-esteem refer to participants one standard deviation below and above the mean, respectively.
Neutral feedback/ depleted
method emphasized the significance of the verbal integration construct and stressed its impact in determining future outcomes. Accordingly, participants likely placed greater priority on improvement goals than they may have otherwise. Recall that participants (both HSEs and LSEs) preferred to view high-performance targets more than low-performance targets. This finding contrasts with work suggesting that threat leads to downward comparisons, presumably due to self-enhancement goals (J. V. Wood, 1989). That participants were primarily interested in upward comparisons suggests that self-improvement goals were active, though this motivation was tempered among LSEs by their general aversion to social comparison. Moreover, in previous studies in which HSEs seemed to seek social comparisons not for self-improvement but in hopes of outperforming the upward target, the comparison dimensions differed from those on which participants had received failure feedback (J. V. Wood et al., 1994, 1999). Hence, HSEs had more reason to be optimistic that they could outperform the other than they did in the present study, in which participants believed they had to perform the same task again. Thus, it is likely that HSEs in the present study were more motivated to glean information from the social comparisons in order to improve their performance on the second task than they were to compensate for an earlier failure experience.
Failure feedback/ depleted Failure feedback/ not depleted Low self-esteem
22.52 38.89 30.70
11.28 24.82 18.06
26.22 43.98 35.10
26.7 36.48 31.59
General Discussion
The goal of the present research was to expand theorizing on the regulatory nature of self-esteem and highlight the critical role it plays in regulating goal conflict. The results of four studies demonstrated this function and the moderating role of executive resources. As we hypothesized, self-esteem influenced regulatory responses to conflict when participants had full executive resources but not when these resources were taxed. With sufficient resources, HSEs prioritized approach-directed goals and were willing to take risks when the opportunity for reward was present. LSEs were more conservative in their goal pursuit as they prioritized avoidance-directed goals, forgoing reward in service of protecting themselves from negative outcomes. This pattern was evident when goal conflict was naturally occurring (Study 3) and when it was experimentally manipulated (Studies 1, 2, and 4), and
Neutral feedback/ not depleted Time spent on targets
Low-performance targets High-performance targets All targets
28.49 42.74 35.62
Note.
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when executive resources were diminished by cognitive load (Studies 1 and 2), chronically low working memory capacity (Study 3), or a demanding exercise that depleted self-control (Study 4). Importantly, regulatory effects were evident on selfreported goals (Study 1), cognitive appraisals (Studies 1, 2, and 3), and behavioral self-regulation (Study 4). Together, these studies provide support for our hypothesis that self-esteem serves a broad executive-based regulatory function that allows people to navigate conflicting goals. These results not only enhance current understanding of interpersonal risk regulation but also inform knowledge of self-esteem and self-regulation generally.
The Resource-Dependent Nature of Self-Regulation by Self-Esteem

In all four of the present studies, self-esteem did not predict self-regulation when executive resources were taxed. Given the frequency with which HSEs and LSEs likely engage in these regulatory processes, one might expect them to become automated and to manifest themselves even when executive resources are diminished (Bargh & Chartrand, 1999; Bargh & Ferguson, 2000; W. Wood & Neal, 2007). One possible reason why executive resources were needed may be that the risk participants experienced in these studies was particularly impactful or provided a relatively novel experience for participants, such that contextspecific responses were not as practiced as they would have been had the experiences been encountered previously. For example, newlywed couples such as those in Study 3 may require executive resources to navigate goal conflict early in their marriage and may rely on executive resources less as they gain self-regulatory experience. However, we believe that the mild failure experience and relational doubts used as risk features in the current studies seem quite commonplace and representative of categories of relatively everyday experiences. Although we certainly believe that some rudimentary goal conflicts might be resolved more automatically as they become habit-driven (W. Wood & Neal, 2007), there is reason to believe that executive resources are often required. Without such control, for example, situational cues could haphazardly activate goals that are a poor regulatory fit (Higgins, 2005) with the chronic agenda of HSEs and LSEs. As we have argued, it is largely in cases of serious goal conflict that we believe the regulatory functions of self-esteem become activated. More broadly, there are a number of theoretical reasons why responses to goal conflict may not be as automatic as one might anticipate. As Bargh and Chartrand (1999) pointed out, automatization requires frequent and consistent use of the same mental processes in response to the same contextual stimuli. Although the present data suggest that HSEs and LSEs undertake their preferred self-regulatory strategies frequently, they may not do so consistently. That is, the goals afforded by various risky situations differ in the relative incentives and costs of pursuing them. To resolve this conflict, both HSEs and LSEs must appraise situations to estimate the risk and the reward of pursuing the various goals that are afforded by the context. If HSEs were to automatically prioritize and pursue approach goals when goal conflict is aroused, it may lead them to pursue rewards foolishly when the costs are great, such as when immediate temptations conflict with long-term goals. Similarly, if LSEs were to automatically prioritize and pursue avoidance goals, they may universally miss out on positive
outcomes when presented with the mildest risks. Because such behaviors would be maladaptive, there is likely a functional advantage for having the appraisal of and response to situated risk subject to influence from executive resources. Such sensitivity to costs and rewards was somewhat evident in the responses of HSEs in the present studies. That is, although HSEs who had full use of executive resources tended to prioritize approach-directed goals when facing threat (relative to control participants), this finding did not always emerge. This may be because HSEs are less willing to employ their preferred regulatory strategy if the inherent risk of the situation undermines the potential rewards. For example, heightened risk stemming from frequent and intense relationship conflict among newlywed HSEs in Study 3 may have been sufficient to deter them from seeking to draw their partner closer. Similarly, the presence of high-performance targets in Study 4 may have somewhat tempered HSEs willingness to compare themselves to these people because those comparisons were more likely to be unflattering. Although HSEs did not appear to be self-protective in these contexts (as LSEs were), their engagement in their preferred regulatory strategy of seeking reward was attenuated by greater risk. Conversely, one might expect that LSEs would be less likely to employ their preferred regulatory strategy of behaving self-protectively if a risky situation posed an opportunity for reward that outweighed the potential risks. Though more research is necessary to explore this possibility, it does appear that LSEs are capable of curbing self-protective goals in such situations, for example when deciding to join a social group in which their acceptance is virtually guaranteed (Anthony, Wood, & Holmes, 2007). Thus, HSEs and LSEs preferred self-regulatory strategies may resist automatization because the nature of goal conflict is inherently inconsistent. Although approach/avoid conflict similar to that theorized to occur in the present studies is common in daily life, real-world situations may be sufficiently diverse in the nature and magnitude of goal conflict to prevent HSEs and LSEs from engaging in their preferred behavioral responses with enough regularity that such behaviors become automatic. Indeed, additional support for this idea can be observed in prior research demonstrating that variations in the immediacy or severity of risk can lead to similar patterns of self-regulation among those who normally diverge. For example, one investigation of relationship risk regulation processes found that when people faced an immediate risk to their relationship by being reminded of an unforgiven transgression committed against them by their partner, even HSEs exhibited evidence of heightened activation of self-protection goals (Murray et al., 2008). That is, when the situated threat was powerful enough that it made the costs of connection too great, HSEs set aside their chronic desire to approach. Conversely, relatively mild threats such as those that come from outside the relationship can lead insecure people to have more accessible representations of attachment figures (Mikulincer, Gillath, & Shaver, 2002). This desire to use partners as a safe haven in times of need suggests that when the reward of connection is sufficiently strong, even those who would normally self-protect are inclined to seek it. Such findings are notable for two reasons. First, they demonstrate that people do not always enact preferred regulatory responses to threat and thus that such preferred responses are typically not automatic. Second, this evidence has usually been accumulated using nonconscious measures. Taken together, these
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data suggest that the real-world diversity of risk may produce enough variance in HSEs and LSEs behavior to preclude their preferred responses from becoming automatic and also that these preferred strategies are most likely to be observed when participants have use of cognitive resources and thus can align incompatible situational goals with more chronic motivational concerns. When executive resources are available, they may be broadly applied to both appraisals and regulatory functions, highlighting their essential role in this regulatory process. The present studies also pose another question. If self-esteem does not guide responses to risk at the automatic level, what does guide such responses? One possibility suggested by recent research is that conditioned attitudes toward objects may strongly influence automatic self-regulation. In a series of studies, Murray et al. (2011) revealed that people who held positive evaluative implicit associations to their romantic partner displayed weaker self-protective motivations and less self-protective behavior in the face of rejection concerns. This result held true when these associations were measured via an implicit association test or were experimentally manipulated using a nonconscious priming procedure. This finding was particularly evident when participants working memory capacity was low, suggesting that in the absence of executive resources, evaluative associations serve a critical role in risky self-regulation. However, it is likely that differences in self-esteem shape the development of such implicit associations. Murray, Holmes, and Pinkus (2010) found evidence for a smart unconscious that nonconsciously tracks behavioral experiences early in new marriages. Newlyweds who reported greater tendencies to approach partners when faced with relationship risk evinced stronger positive associations to their partner 4 years later, whereas those who reported more self-protective behavior in risky situations showed weaker positive associations. This finding, when considered in relation to the present results, suggests that self-esteem not only may affect self-regulation directly when executive resources are high but, over time, may indirectly contribute to the formation of associations that guide self-regulation when such resources are diminished. That is, because HSEs respond to risk by prioritizing approach goals, it is likely these behavioral responses are encoded nonconsciously and facilitate development of more positive implicit associations toward ones partner. Conversely, because LSEs respond to risk by prioritizing avoidance, it is likely that this pattern of self-regulation impairs the formation of positive implicit associations. Through this process, the self-regulatory responses to risk that are enacted when executive resources are available may come to shape responses to risk that are carried out when such resources are taxed.3
Theoretical Implications
The present studies have several theoretical implications for risk regulation and self-esteem. That executive resources play a critical role in the operation of self-esteems regulatory function suggests that the availability of such resources may have differential effects on the personal outcomes of HSEs and LSEs. For example, LSEs tend to have less satisfying relationships than do HSEs (Leary & MacDonald, 2003; J. V. Wood, Hogle, & McClellan, 2009) and generally experience negative health implications as a result (Stinson et al., 2008). These different outcomes seem likely to stem
from LSEs tendency to self-protect in the face of risk (Murray, Griffin, Rose, & Bellavia, 2003). The present data suggest that these destructive responses to risk are not necessarily automatic but instead driven by more executive resource-dependent regulatory processes. When executive resources are usurped, LSEs appear to be less likely to engage in such responses and thus may be more likely to experience positive events, such as heightened closeness and intimacy with relationship partners (Murray et al., 2008). Conversely, for HSEs, it is often assumed that they have at their disposal constructive responses to risk that are relatively automatic, or that favorable views of the self simply provide a buffer against relationship threat. We suggest, in contrast, that the availability of executive resources allows HSEs to set aside risks and pursue positive outcomes that would otherwise be unobtainable. HSEs may utilize their executive resources to self-regulate in ways that construct positive realities for themselves (Fischer, Greitemeyer, & Frey, 2007), thereby creating their own favorable outcomes through the promotive way that they self-regulate risk. The notion that executive resources can foster different outcomes for HSEs and LSEs has interesting implications for the study of willpower. Many scholars have conceptualized selfcontrol as being highly beneficial to self-regulation, and empirical studies have borne out this conceptualization (Mischel, Shoda, & Peake, 1988; Shoda, Mischel, & Peake, 1990; Tangney, Baumeister, & Boone, 2004). Self-control is critical to achieving many positive outcomes and to inhibiting behaviors, such as prejudice (Richeson & Shelton, 2003) and aggression (Dewall, Baumeister, Stillman, & Gailliot, 2007), that can detrimentally affect personal and interpersonal outcomes. For HSEs, this appears largely to be the case. The finding that LSEs tend to heed risk to a greater degree when they have ample executive resources contributes to an emerging body of research suggesting that in certain contexts, self-control may undermine peoples ability to achieve positive outcomes. For example, recent research has demonstrated that attempts by White participants to facilitate smooth interracial interactions with Black participants often lead them to consciously regulate their behavior to not appear prejudiced (Richeson & Trawalter, 2005). However, such efforts not only undermine White participants enjoyment of the interaction but also lead them to act in ways that Black people perceive to be more prejudiced (Apfelbaum & Sommers, 2009). When executive resources are diminished and behavior inhibition impaired, more positive interracial interactions result (cf. Shelton, Richeson, Salvatore, & Trawalter, 2005). Thus, while self-control is important to achieving many outcomes, it can also facilitate the use of maladaptive regulatory strategies that hinder goal achievement. This may be particularly true for LSEs and warrants further research. The present studies also add to growing evidence indicating that the regulatory function of self-esteem is broader than has been
It should be noted that these positive associations are affected not only by ones own behavioral response to risk but also by experiences in nonrisk situations and the behavior of ones partner (e.g., responsive or unresponsive) in these contexts. As such, such associations may sometimes be orthogonal to high and low self-esteem, which governs more deliberative responses.
3
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previously theorized. That is, the influence of self-esteem on responses to risk often extends beyond the initial context in which risk is aroused. For example, Ford and Collins (2010) recently demonstrated that self-esteem serves to regulate physiological response to interpersonal rejection. When participants were led to believe that a potential interaction partner had rejected them, HSEs demonstrated less cortisol reactivity than did LSEs. As well, HSEs were less likely to derogate the person who had rejected them than were LSEs, mirroring the effects found in the high executive resources conditions of Studies 13 and by Cavallo et al. (2009). Ford and Collins results suggest that self-esteem plays a central role in determining biological regulatory responses for coping with risk. Similarly, Stinson et al. (2010) recently demonstrated that self-esteem is critical to the regulation of responses to social feedback. When social feedback is positive (vs. negative), both high and low self-esteem people feel more positively about themselves, yet LSEs exhibit more uncertainty about their self-concept than do HSEs. This epistemic confusion prompts regulatory efforts to reduce this uncertainty and align situational feedback with chronically held views about ones social value. This finding that LSEs expend cognitive effort to reconcile situational cues with chronic self-views suggests that such cognitive processes may sustain the divergent goal prioritization that HSEs and LSEs engage in when facing risk. When situational risk presents the possibility of either approach or avoidance, executive strength may allow people to generate cognitive support for goals that are chronically accessible. As a result, HSEs may employ cognitive effort to sustain chronic approach goals. For example, when faced with rejection concerns, HSEs may bolster appraisals of relationship quality; when faced with adversity, they may resist temptation to quit (Di Paula & Campbell, 2002). These types of cognitive efforts may allow HSEs to become bolder and approach their partner when it is seemingly least prudent to do so. Similarly, LSEs may cognitively buttress chronic avoidance goals when risk is salient, such as by derogating their relationships and by minimizing the importance of a given task when it goes poorly. HSEs and LSEs divergent regulatory approaches may derive in part from cognitive support for situational goals that fit their chronic goal orientations (Higgins, 2005). Although more research is needed to determine the precise mechanism underlying the strengthening and inhibition of approach goals by HSEs and LSEs, respectively, the current data suggest several avenues for exploration. The findings of Study 4 are particularly important, as they highlight the pervasive regulatory influence of self-esteem. Though much of the current research on the impact of self-esteem on responses to risk has examined goal pursuit in interpersonal contexts, the findings of this final study suggest that people may apply regulatory strategies similar to those they use in interpersonal risk regulation to self-regulatory efforts in a variety of domains. This finding is consistent with previous work demonstrating that HSEs react to threatening situations more defensively than do LSEs and engage in riskier strategies to counteract such threats (Baumeister et al., 1993). For example, after a threat to academic competence, HSEs attempt to restore their sense of worth by engaging in a variety of self-enhancing behaviors (Blaine & Crocker, 1993), even if those behaviors lead to negative appraisals by others (Heatherton & Vohs, 2000). Similarly, a study by McGregor and Marigold (2003) demonstrated that HSEs re-
acted to personal uncertainty by bolstering conviction in their beliefs about polarizing and contentious issues (e.g., capital punishment). In these risky situations, HSEs seem to disregard risks and aggressively pursue outcomes that allow them to restore the domain that has been threatened. LSEs, on the other hand, do not react in such a way. Thus, consistent differences between HSEs and LSEs self-regulatory responses to risk suggest that differential shifts in underlying motivational orientationsthat is, a prioritization of approach or avoidance motivationsmay ultimately underlie these effects. Further research may help to elucidate the extent to which shifts in these broader motivational states truly drive these varied phenomena, but self-esteem clearly exerts a wide regulatory influence.
Conclusion
Prior research has demonstrated that people with high and low self-esteem exhibit drastically different responses to risk (particularly interpersonal risk), but research has only recently begun to explore the self-regulatory processes underlying these effects. The present studies highlight that self-esteem serves to resolve goal tension between approach and avoidance goals that situational risk affords and that this regulatory function requires sufficient executive resources to enact. This work provides support for the idea that feelings of self-worth underlie the most basic regulatory processes and gives an impetus for future research demonstrating the influence of self-esteem on self-regulation processes.
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Received May 3, 2011 Revision received December 5, 2011 Accepted March 15, 2012
Retraction of Ruys and Stapel (2008)

The following article from the May 2008 issue is being retracted: Ruys, K. I., & Stapel, D. A. (2008). How to heat up from the cold: Examining the preconditions for (unconscious) mood effects. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 94, 777791. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.94.5.777 This retraction follows the results of an investigation into the work of Diederik A. Stapel (further information on the investigation can be found here: https://www.commissielevelt.nl/). The Levelt Committee has determined data supplied by Diederik A. Stapel to be fraudulent. His co-author was unaware of his actions and was not involved in the collection of the fraudulent data.
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INTERPERSONAL RELATIONS AND GROUP PROCESSES

Gra inne M. Fitzsimons

MANAGING MOTIVATIONAL CONFLICT

Regulating Situated Goal Conflict

Self-Esteem and Risk Regulation

CAVALLO, HOLMES, FITZSIMONS, MURRAY, AND WOOD

Self-Esteem as an Executive-Based Regulatory System

MANAGING MOTIVATIONAL CONFLICT

when it is aroused by nonrelationship situations as well as relationship ones.

Overview of the Present Studies

CAVALLO, HOLMES, FITZSIMONS, MURRAY, AND WOOD

MANAGING MOTIVATIONAL CONFLICT

Table 2 Predicted Scores for the Condition Self-Esteem Interactions in Study 1

Self-esteema .28 .28 .19

Cognitive load Self-esteemb .52 .37 .53 t 2.65 1.86 2.63

.01 .23 .06

t 0.09 1.78 0.44

t 2.11 2.13 1.41

Error terms are based on 52 degrees of freedom. p .10. p .01.

Error terms are based on 51 degrees of freedom.

CAVALLO, HOLMES, FITZSIMONS, MURRAY, AND WOOD

MANAGING MOTIVATIONAL CONFLICT

Table 3 Summary of Regression Analyses in Study 2

Self-esteema .43 .43 t 5.18 5.18

Cognitive load Relationship threatb .23 .19 t 1.77 1.43

Cognitive load Self-esteemb .41 .41 t 3.73 3.61

Relationship threat Selfesteemb .25 .23 t 2.20 2.03

Cognitive load Relationship threat Selfesteemc .36 .36 t 2.65 2.65

Error terms are based on 114 degrees of freedom.

Error terms are based on 113 degrees of

CAVALLO, HOLMES, FITZSIMONS, MURRAY, AND WOOD

Figure 1. Relationship connectedness as a function of condition and self-esteem in Study 2.

MANAGING MOTIVATIONAL CONFLICT

CAVALLO, HOLMES, FITZSIMONS, MURRAY, AND WOOD

MANAGING MOTIVATIONAL CONFLICT

CAVALLO, HOLMES, FITZSIMONS, MURRAY, AND WOOD

MANAGING MOTIVATIONAL CONFLICT

CAVALLO, HOLMES, FITZSIMONS, MURRAY, AND WOOD

Table 6 Summary of Regression Analysis in Study 4

Selfesteema .12 .03 .12 t 1.46 0.32 1.40

Feedback Resource depletionb .06 .21 .03 t 0.40 1.42 0.20

Feedback Self-esteemb .21 .19 .26 t 1.77 1.60 2.19

Resource depletion Selfesteemb .23 .20 .29 t 2.00 1.62 2.41

.08 .01 .07

t 1.01 0.10 0.85

Error terms are based on 139 degrees of freedom.

Error terms are based on 138 degrees of

MANAGING MOTIVATIONAL CONFLICT Failure feedback/ depleted

Failure feedback/ not depleted Neutral feedback/ depleted

17.59 34.87 26.23

66.32 43.60 54.96

24.08 39.16 31.62

Neutral feedback/ not depleted

Neutral feedback/ depleted

Failure feedback/ depleted Failure feedback/ not depleted Low self-esteem

22.52 38.89 30.70

11.28 24.82 18.06

26.22 43.98 35.10

26.7 36.48 31.59

Neutral feedback/ not depleted Time spent on targets

Low-performance targets High-performance targets All targets

28.49 42.74 35.62