When an individual’s sense of self or self-esteem comes under threat from internal or external sources, the mechanisms of self-enhancements are what they use to make them feel good about themselves or raise their self-esteem. Self-enhancement is an instinctive preference for positive over negative self-image. The five mechanisms for self-enhancement are better than average, self-handicapping, basking in reflected glory, downward social comparison, and implicit egotism ( Sedikides & Alicke, 2019).
Implicit Egotism
Implicit egotism is an individual’s subconscious gravitation towards things they think to associate with themselves. An individual’s name is strongly tied to their sense of identity, and when they are driven by the desire to feel good about themselves, people will automatically show preference to things they associate with their names, such as the letters that make up their names. However, not everyone starts out feeling good about themselves. It stands to reason that when these low self-esteem individuals want to feel good about themselves, they will turn the other way, thus avoiding concepts they subconsciously feel to be associated with themselves.
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Downward Social Comparison
When an individual compares themselves to another or a group, they perceive to be lower than themselves in some dimension, such as intelligence or outward appearance and ends up feeling good about themselves, that person is said to be using downward social comparison. Depending on the self-enhancement goals, the individual will rarely make comparisons with people they think are peers or superiors (Smallets et al., 2016). Such people are subconsciously avoided at all costs because they are a threat to one’s self-esteem.
Better than Average
To feel good about one’s abilities, skills, and qualities, better than average creates a cognitive bias where the individual will overestimate their abilities and skills and downplay those of others when making comparisons. The outcome is an illusory superiority where one thinks they are better than others in one dimension or another (Pelham et al., 2020).
Self-handicapping
Unlike other mechanisms of self-enhancement, an individual using self-handicapping is deeply concerned about keeping the status quo or preserving their self-esteem. In their pursuit of protecting themselves from perceived threats, the individual will create obstacles or avoid effort or investment due to the possibility of failing. A student, for instance, will involve in self-handicapping when they put little effort into studying to avoid feeling bad come exam time, and then perform poorly.
Basking in Reflected Glory
Perhaps the most self-serving cognition in self-enhancement is basking in reflected glory where all one has to do to feel good about themselves, or a situation is associate themselves in another’s a success. It does not matter if the individual contributed, directly or indirectly to the success, just associate personally with success. Basking in reflected glory happens in different situations in society on a daily basis. When you wear your football or basketball team’s jersey to boast a win, say, Red Sox, you are basking in reflected glory. If you are a parent with a bumper sticker that says, “My child is an honor student” or a Christian with a bumper that reads “Born again and proud of it,” you are basking in reflected glory. Situations, where people bask in reflected glory, are ubiquitous in society and might not be unique to individuals but groups too.
Situations where Basking in Reflected Glory (BIRG) is Used
Of all the mechanisms of self-enhancement, basking in reflected glory is perhaps the most used, even outside the context of making oneself feel better. Sometimes basking in reflected glory is done to ease the achievement of other objectives or raise their social status. Such a situation can happen when someone drops the name of a big person in ordinary interactions. Another situation where basking in reflected glory is when the name of a celebrity or influential politician or company. Such people will BIRG to get things done or influence others to actions when they do not have the power, authority, or ability.
Another situation where BIRGing is common is in social media sites where people always post photos of themselves and celebrities or people with authority. These displays are telling all that are present that they know important people. Additionally, when someone frames a certificate from a recognized institution, like an Ivy League school or professional certificates that associate them with an elite group, and displays it in public, they are BIRGing with the purpose of enhancing their self-esteem.
References
Pelham, B. W., Harding, M., & Hardin, C. (2020). Illusions of Introspection and Free Will. Scientific Challenges to Common Sense Philosophy .
Sedikides, C., & Alicke, M. D. (2019). The five pillars of self-enhancement and self-protection. The Oxford handbook of human motivation , 2 , 307-319.
Smallets, S., Streamer, L., Kondrak, C. L., & Seery, M. D. (2016). Bringing you down versus bringing me up: Discrepant versus congruent high explicit self-esteem differentially predict malicious and benign envy. Personality and Individual Differences , 94 , 173-179.
