Jennifer Crocker
Biographic Data
| ID | 140794 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Jennifer Crocker |
| GIVEN NAMES | Jennifer |
| FAMILY NAME | Crocker |
| SIGNATURE | CROCKER J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Michigan |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6590-4647 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 84 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 1981 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 84 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1979 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 18 |
Interpersonal Goal Contagion Through Social Media Posts
This research examined the contagion of interpersonal goals through mock social media posts among Facebook users recruited from Prolific. Two pilot studies were conducted to create Facebook posts that reflected different combinations of self-image and compassionate goals. Then, in the main experiment, 775 participants were randomly assigned to view one of four posts in a 2 (self-image content) × 2 (compassionate content) between-subjects design. …
To respond or not to respond: The effects of interpersonal goals on responsive Facebook behaviours
Past research indicates that compassionate interpersonal goals are associated with greater responsiveness to others. However, whether this extends to casual friends on social networking sites (SNSs) is unclear. The current research examined the effects of interpersonal goals on the likelihood of responding with one-click reactions, comments, and private messages to mock Facebook posts by casual friends. We also examined responding differences dep…
Associations between weight stigma and mental well-being among people in romantic relationships: An actor-partner interdependence model investigation
Weight stigma is negatively associated with individual mental well-being as well as the mental well-being of romantic partners. Future research is needed to replicate and expand these findings and examine internalized and anticipated weight stigma as potential mechanisms through which experienced weight stigma may affect mental well-being among people in romantic relationships and their partners
How Relationships Foster Growth: Compassionate Goals Predict Growth-Seeking Through Perceived Available Support Independent of Relationship Security
Growth-seeking refers to a general tendency to pursue growth when facing challenges. The current studies examined whether and how benevolent intentions to support others and not harm them (i.e., compassionate goals in relationships) predict growth-seeking and whether this association is independent of relationship security, which may also predict growth-seeking. Two cross-sectional studies (Studies 1a and 1b, N = 1,032) and two longitudinal studi…
Lay theories of diversity initiatives: Theory and measurement of zero-sum and win-win beliefs
Three studies introduce a novel individual-difference construct to explain majority group members’ responses to organizational diversity efforts: lay theories of diversity initiatives. Zero-sum beliefs (ZSBs) presume that efforts to advance diversity come at the expense of majority group members. Win-win beliefs (WWBs) posit that diversity initiatives can benefit all racial groups. Study 1 created and validated measures of ZSBs and WWBs. Study 2 …
Self‐disclosure of concealable stigmatized identities: A dyadic longitudinal investigation guided by the contact hypothesis
Stigma reduction research finds that brief interactions with a person with mental illness can reduce prejudiced attitudes. We examined whether this finding extends to real relationships over an extended period of time. First‐year college roommate dyads, one of whom reported a mental illness diagnosis participated in a longitudinal study ( N = 166 dyads across three American universities). Based on contact theory, we tested whether mental illness …
Social Media Use and Its Link to Physical Health Indicators
Social media use has become an integral part of many young adults' daily lives. Although much research has examined how social media use relates to psychological well-being, little is known about how it relates to physical health. To address this knowledge gap, the present research investigated how the amount of social media people use relates to various indices of physical health. Young adults provided a blood sample that was analyzed for C-reac…
Schematic Bases of Social Information Processing
The term, schema, appears to have been first used by Bartlett in 1932 in his work on recall of perceptual experience. A minimal theory is not, however, necessarily a good theory, and so one may want to inquire of the schema’s literature not only if the minimum criterion of a theory has been met, but if it is a good theory. When a stimulus configuration is encountered in the environment, it is matched against a schema, and the ordering and relatio…
Understanding Whites’ perceptions of multicultural policies: A (non)zero-sum framework
1,998) supported these conclusions and found they did not depend on need to belong, ethnic identification, political ideology, or the imagined presence of an outgroup coworker. These findings indicate that non-Hispanic White Americans generally conceptualize multicultural policies in nonzero-sum terms and suggest that (non)zero-sum beliefs may be key to understanding when diversity efforts are likely to elicit backlash from majority group members…
Motivational underpinnings of successful support giving: Compassionate goals promote matching support provision
What enables people to give support that effectively addresses others' needs? Four studies examined the role of prosocial motivation, namely, compassionate goals, in providing support that addresses recipients' needs (‘matching’ support). Because people with compassionate goals are motivated to promote others' well‐being, this study hypothesizes that they would be more likely to engage in perspective taking, which should help them identify and gi…
Romantic relationships in the ecosystem: Compassionate goals, nonzero-sum beliefs, and change in relationship quality
According to the egosystem-ecosystem theory of social motivation, people with ecosystem motivation believe their interpersonal relationships work in nonzero-sum ways. A longitudinal study of individuals in romantic relationships and a study of romantic couples who had a conflict discussion in the laboratory both showed that compassionate goals predict increased nonzero-sum beliefs through increased responsiveness and perceptions of partner's resp…
The association between compassionate goals and relational-interdependent self-construal
Although research has examined the consequences of relational self-construal, little is known about what psychological factors predict it. Four studies examined the association between compassionate goals and relational self-construal. Study 1 showed that compassionate goals are positively associated with relational self-construal in college students. Study 2 replicated this association among adults in romantic relationships. Studies 3 and 4 show…
Bloody Satisfied
Compassionate and Self-Image Goals in the United States and Japan
In American samples, compassionate goals to support others enhance relationships, whereas self-image goals to construct and defend desired self-images undermine relationships. But do these goals exist as separate factors, and do they predict similar outcome variables in Japan? How much do compassionate goals overlap with having an interdependent self-construal? We examined the factor structure of compassionate and self-image goals scale among Ame…
Two Types of Value-Affirmation: Implications for Self-Control Following Social Exclusion
The authors tested the hypothesis that affirming self-transcendent values attenuates negative consequences of self-threat better than affirming self-enhancement values. If value-affirmation buffers against threat because it bolsters the self, then affirming either a self-transcendent or self-enhancement value should similarly prevent typical decreased self-control after exclusion. However, if value-affirmations buffer the effects of threat becaus…
Investigating the Link Between Liking Versus Wanting Self‐Esteem and Depression in a Nationally Representative Sample of A merican Adults
The self‐esteem movement has been around since the 1970s, and may have influenced how much value people place on self‐esteem. We predicted a negative relationship between age and the amount of value placed on self‐esteem boosts. We also investigated the correlates of liking versus wanting self‐esteem boosts (and other pleasant rewards) on depression. A nationally representative sample of American adults ( N = 867) indicated how much they liked an…
Predicting change in relationship insecurity: The roles of compassionate and self‐image goals
It was hypothesized that self‐image goals to construct, defend, and maintain desired images of the self enhance relationship insecurity, whereas compassionate goals to support others diminish relationship insecurity. Study 1 followed 115 new college roommates for 3 weeks; Study 2 followed 230 new college roommates across a semester. Both studies assessed self‐image and compassionate goals for and anxiety and avoidance in the roommate relationship…
Sweets, Sex, or Self-Esteem? Comparing the Value of Self-Esteem Boosts With Other Pleasant Rewards: Self-Esteem Trumps Other Pleasant Rewards
Many people ascribe great value to self-esteem, but how much value? Do people value self-esteem more than other pleasant activities, such as eating sweets and having sex? Two studies of college students (Study 1: N=130; Study 2: N=152) showed that people valued boosts to their self-esteem more than they valued eating a favorite food and engaging in a favorite sexual activity. Study 2 also showed that people valued self-esteem more than they value…
The Paradoxical Consequences of Interpersonal Goals: Relationships, Distress, and the Self
Interpersonal goals, others' regard for the self, and self‐esteem: The paradoxical consequences of self‐image and compassionate goals
People often adopt self‐image goals to increase others' regard for them and perhaps their own self‐esteem. But do these impression management goals achieve their intended result in close relationships? And do they endure over time? We suggest that self‐image goals predict decreased self‐esteem and close others' regard for the self through decreased responsiveness to others. In contrast, compassionate goals, which reflect a genuine concern for oth…
Relationship Contingency and Sexual Motivation in Women: Implications for Sexual Satisfaction
Stigmatized and Dominant Cultural Groups Differentially Interpret Positive Feedback
Members of stigmatized cultural groups may view positive feedback from a dominant group member more negatively than do dominant cultural group members. In this experiment, a White evaluator praised or did not praise either Black or White students for a good academic performance. The students then indicated their perceptions of the evaluator's politeness and performance expectations and their feelings about their performance. Praised Black student…
Sweets, Sex, or Self-Esteem? Comparing the Value of Self-Esteem Boosts with Other Pleasant Rewards: Self-Esteem Trumps Other Pleasant Rewards
Many people ascribe great value to self-esteem, but how much value? Do people value self-esteem more than other pleasant activities, such as eating sweets and having sex? Two studies of college students (Study 1: N=130; Study 2: N=152) showed that people valued boosts to their self-esteem more than they valued eating a favorite food and engaging in a favorite sexual activity. Study 2 also showed that people valued self-esteem more than they value…
Changing relationship growth belief: Intrapersonal and interpersonal consequences of compassionate goals
The belief that difficulties can lead to growth in relationships, or growth belief, has consequences for relationships (e.g., Knee, 1998). But what predicts change in this belief? We hypothesized that compassionate goals to support others (Crocker & Canevello, 2008) predict increased growth belief through increased need satisfaction. In Study 1, 199 college freshmen reported their friendship growth belief and goals. In Study 2, 65 roommate pairs …
Interpersonal goals and change in anxiety and dysphoria in first-semester college students
Two longitudinal studies examined the associations between interpersonal goals (i.e., self-image and compassionate goals) and anxiety and dysphoria (i.e., distress). In Study 1, 199 college freshmen (122 women, 77 men) completed 12 surveys over 12 weeks. Compassionate goals predicted decreased distress, and self-image goals predicted increased distress from pretest to posttest when distress was assessed as anxiety, dysphoria, or a composite, and …
Social stigma and self-esteem: The self-protective properties of stigma
Although several psychological theories predict that members of stigmatized groups should have low global self-esteem, empirical research typically does not support this prediction. It is proposed here that this discrepancy may be explained by considering the ways in which membership in a stigmatized group may protect the self-concept It is proposed that members of stigmatized groups may (a) attribute negative feedback to prejudice against their …
Cognitive processes in the revision of stereotypic beliefs
Northwestern University Stereotypes have often been assumed to be resistant to change, although some evidence indicates that they are responsive to new information. The present studies examine stereotype change using three models: the bookkeeping model, in which each instance of stereotype-relevant information is used to modify the stereotype gradually; the conversion model, in which stereotypes change radically in response to dramatic or salient…
Social stigma: The affective consequences of attributional ambiguity
Two experiments investigated the hypothesis that the stigmatized can protect their self-esteem by attributing negative feedback to prejudice. Fifty-nine women participated in the 1st experiment. Women who received negative feedback from a prejudiced evaluator attributed the feedback to his prejudice and reported less depressed affect than women who received negative feedback from a nonprejudiced evaluator. In the 2nd experiment, 38 Black and 45 W…
Collective self-esteem and ingroup bias
In addition to personal self-esteem, we propose that there is a second type of self-esteem, collective self-esteem. People who are high in trait collective self-esteem should be more likely to react to threats to collective self-esteem by derogating outgroups and enhanging the ingroup. In a study using the minimal intergroup paradigm, trait personal and collective self-esteem were measured, and subjects received information about the average perf…
The Costly Pursuit of Self-Esteem
Researchers have recently questioned the benefits associated with having high self-esteem. The authors propose that the importance of self-esteem lies more in how people strive for it rather than whether it is high or low. They argue that in domains in which their self-worth is invested, people adopt the goal to validate their abilities and qualities, and hence their self-worth. When people have self-validation goals, they react to threats in the…
Race and self-esteem: Meta-analyses comparing Whites, Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, and American Indians and comment on Gray-Little and Hafdahl (2000)
These meta-analyses examine race differences in self-esteem among 712 datapoints. Blacks scored higher than Whites on self-esteem measures (d = 0.19), but Whites scored higher than other racial minority groups, including Hispanics (d = -0.09), Asians (d = -0.30), and American Indians (d = -0.21). Most of these differences were smallest in childhood and grew larger with age. Blacks' self-esteem increased over time relative to Whites', with the Bla…
Contingencies of Self-Worth in College Students: Theory and Measurement
The Contingencies of Self-Worth Scale assesses 7 sources of self-esteem in college students: academics, appearance, approval from others, competition, family support, God's love, and virtue. In confirmatory factor analyses on data from 1,418 college students, a 7-factor model fit to the data acceptably well and significantly better than several plausible alternative models. The subscales all have high internal consistency, test-retest reliability…
Social Stigma and Self-Esteem: Situational Construction of Self-Worth
Downward comparison, prejudice, and evaluations of others: Effects of self-esteem and threat
In two studies, we explored the effects of trait self-esteem and threats to the self-concept on evaluations of others. In Study 1, subjects high, moderate, and low in self-esteem received either success, failure, or no feedback on a test and later evaluated three pairs of targets: in-groups and out-groups based on a minimal intergroup manipulation, those who scored above average and those who scored below average on the test, and themselves and t…
Creating and undermining social support in communal relationships: The role of compassionate and self-image goals
In 2 studies, the authors examined whether relationship goals predict change in social support and trust over time. In Study 1, a group of 199 college freshmen completed pretest and posttest measures of social support and interpersonal trust and completed 10 weekly reports of friendship goals and relationship experiences. Average compassionate goals predicted closeness, clear and connected feelings, and increased social support and trust over the…
The stigma of overweight: Affective consequences of attributional ambiguity
When ideology hurts: Effects of belief in the Protestant ethic and feeling overweight on the psychological well-being of women
The Effects of In-Group versus Out-Group Social Comparison on Self-Esteem in the Context of a Negative Stereotype
When Grades Determine Self-Worth: Consequences of Contingent Self-Worth for Male and Female Engineering and Psychology Majors
The impact of grades on daily self-esteem, affect, and identification with major was examined in a sample of 122 male and female students majoring in engineering and psychology. Self-esteem, affect, and identification with major increased on days students received good grades and decreased on days they received poor grades; basing self-esteem on academic competence moderated the effect of bad grades. Bad grades led to greater drops in self-esteem…
Judgment of covariation by social perceivers
Knowledge about relationships between events is a critical aspect of human knowledge. Knowing whether events are related, and how strongly they are related, enables individuals to explain the past, control the present, and predict the future. Consequently people's ability to judge covariations between events is of central importance to a number of psychological theories. In 1967 Peterson and Beach reviewed people's ability to use correlational co…
Creating good relationships: Responsiveness, relationship quality, and interpersonal goals
Perceived partner responsiveness is a core feature of close, satisfying relationships. But how does responsiveness originate? Can people create relationships characterized by high responsiveness and, consequently, higher quality relationships? The authors suggest that goals contribute to cycles of responsiveness between two people, improving relationship quality for both of them. The present studies examine (a) how interpersonal goals initiate re…
How Investment in Gender Ideals Affects Well-Being: The Role of External Contingencies of Self-Worth
The present study examined the relationship between investment in gender ideals and well-being and the role of external contingencies of self-worth in a longitudinal survey of 677 college freshmen. We propose a model of how investment in gender ideals affects external contingencies and the consequences for self-esteem, depression, and symptoms of disordered eating. Specifically, we find that the negative relationship between investment in gender …
Person memory and causal attributions
Reasons for disclosing depression matter: The consequences of having egosystem and ecosystem goals
The Costs of Seeking Self–Esteem
Americans are deeply engaged in the pursuit of self–esteem, attempting to satisfy contingencies or criteria for what makes a person worthwhile. In this article, I examine the costs of this pursuit of self–esteem for the self, in terms of competence, relatedness, and mental health, and for others. I hypothesize that external contingencies of self–worth require validation from others and are unreliable as a basis of self–esteem, and hence are assoc…
Creating hostility and conflict: Effects of entitlement and self-image goals
People who feel entitled to admiration and respect from others do not make good companions. This research shows one reason why. Entitled people adopt self-image goals (goals that aim to construct and defend a positive self-image), which then lead to interpersonal conflict and hostility. Studies 1A and 1B documented a unique relation between entitlement and self-image goals. Study 2 extended these results by showing, via a longitudinal design, tha…
Relationship Contingency and Sexual Motivation in Women: Implications for Sexual Satisfaction
Another look at sex stereotypes and social judgments: An analysis of the social perceiver's use of subjective probabilities
Locksley, Borgida, Brekke, and Hepburn (1980) assert that subjects fall prey to the base-rate fallacy when they make stereotype-related trait judgments. They found that subjects ignored their stereotypes when trait judgments were made in the presence of trait-related behavioral information. The present article reexamines those findings with respect to two issues: (a) the use of a normative criterion in comparison with subjects' judgments and (b) …
Depression, social comparison, and the false-consensus effect
In general, people perceive high consensus for their own attributes (i.e., the false-consensus effect). Depressed and nondepressed college students were asked about the extent to which depression-relevant and depression-irrelevant attributes were true of themselves and true of the "average college student." Subjects were also asked questions assessing the accuracy of their perceptions of others. Depressed subjects showed less false consensus than…
The generalizability of salience effects
The generalizability of salience effects
Judgment of covariation by social perceivers
Judgment of covariation by social perceivers
Knowledge about relationships between events is a critical aspect of human knowledge. Knowing whether events are related, and how strongly they are related, enables individuals to explain the past, control the present, and predict the future. Consequently people's ability to judge covariations between events is of central importance to a number of psychological theories. In 1967 Peterson and Beach reviewed people's ability to use correlational co…
Cognitive processes in the revision of stereotypic beliefs
Northwestern University Stereotypes have often been assumed to be resistant to change, although some evidence indicates that they are responsive to new information. The present studies examine stereotype change using three models: the bookkeeping model, in which each instance of stereotype-relevant information is used to modify the stereotype gradually; the conversion model, in which stereotypes change radically in response to dramatic or salient…
Person memory and causal attributions
Depression, social comparison, and the false-consensus effect
In general, people perceive high consensus for their own attributes (i.e., the false-consensus effect). Depressed and nondepressed college students were asked about the extent to which depression-relevant and depression-irrelevant attributes were true of themselves and true of the "average college student." Subjects were also asked questions assessing the accuracy of their perceptions of others. Depressed subjects showed less false consensus than…
Summary and Conclusions
What's Good for the Goose Is Not Good for the Gander: Solo Status as an Obstacle to Occupational Achievement for Males and Females
As women and minorities enter occupations traditionally closed to them, they are increasingly likely to occupy positions of solo status (i.e., to be either the only member or one of a small number of their sex or ethnic group in a work situation). In this article, we consider the consequences of having solo status. We report the results of an experiment that varied the sex composition of task-oriented groups. The consequences of having solo statu…
Comparing the self with others in depressed and nondepressed college students: Reply to McCauley
Another look at sex stereotypes and social judgments: An analysis of the social perceiver's use of subjective probabilities
Locksley, Borgida, Brekke, and Hepburn (1980) assert that subjects fall prey to the base-rate fallacy when they make stereotype-related trait judgments. They found that subjects ignored their stereotypes when trait judgments were made in the presence of trait-related behavioral information. The present article reexamines those findings with respect to two issues: (a) the use of a normative criterion in comparison with subjects' judgments and (b) …
Stigma and the Dynamics of Social Cognition
Downward comparison, prejudice, and evaluations of others: Effects of self-esteem and threat
In two studies, we explored the effects of trait self-esteem and threats to the self-concept on evaluations of others. In Study 1, subjects high, moderate, and low in self-esteem received either success, failure, or no feedback on a test and later evaluated three pairs of targets: in-groups and out-groups based on a minimal intergroup manipulation, those who scored above average and those who scored below average on the test, and themselves and t…
Attributional style, depression, and perceptions of consensus for events
This study examined differences between depressed and nondepressed individuals' implicit perceptions of consensus, which may contribute to differences in their attributional styles. Subjects rated the extent to which positive, negative, and neutral events happen to themselves and to the average college student and completed measures of depth of depression and attributional style. Perceptions of consensus were highly correlated with all components…
Social stigma and self-esteem: The self-protective properties of stigma
Although several psychological theories predict that members of stigmatized groups should have low global self-esteem, empirical research typically does not support this prediction. It is proposed here that this discrepancy may be explained by considering the ways in which membership in a stigmatized group may protect the self-concept It is proposed that members of stigmatized groups may (a) attribute negative feedback to prejudice against their …
Collective self-esteem and ingroup bias
In addition to personal self-esteem, we propose that there is a second type of self-esteem, collective self-esteem. People who are high in trait collective self-esteem should be more likely to react to threats to collective self-esteem by derogating outgroups and enhanging the ingroup. In a study using the minimal intergroup paradigm, trait personal and collective self-esteem were measured, and subjects received information about the average perf…
Social stigma: The affective consequences of attributional ambiguity
Two experiments investigated the hypothesis that the stigmatized can protect their self-esteem by attributing negative feedback to prejudice. Fifty-nine women participated in the 1st experiment. Women who received negative feedback from a prejudiced evaluator attributed the feedback to his prejudice and reported less depressed affect than women who received negative feedback from a nonprejudiced evaluator. In the 2nd experiment, 38 Black and 45 W…
A Collective Self-Esteem Scale: Self-Evaluation of One's Social Identity
Social identity theory as developed by Tajfel and Turner argues that there are two distinct aspects of the self-concept: personal identity and social identity (in American terminology, collective identity). Although many self-esteem measures are available in the literature, they allfocus on individuals'evaluation of their personal identity, whether in private or interpersonal domains. No scale currently exists that assesses the positivity of one'…
Self-Esteem and Self-Serving Biases in Reactions to Positive and Negative Events: An Integrative Review
Memory for Information about Others: Effects of Self-Esteem and Performance Feedback
The stigma of overweight: Affective consequences of attributional ambiguity
Collective Self-Esteem and Psychological Well-Being among White, Black, and Asian College Students
A total of 91 Black, 96 White, and 35 Asian college students completed the Collective Self-Esteem Scale (CSES), as well as measures of psychological well-being (personal self-esteem, life satisfaction, depression, and hopelessness). Correlations between the Public and Private subscales of the CSES were near zero for Blacks, moderate for Whites, and strong for Asians. The membership and private subscales of the general CSES were related to psychol…
Religiousness, Race, and Psychological Well-Being: Exploring Social Psychological Mediators
Research and theory combine to suggest that the relationship between religious belief and psychological well-being should be more positive among Black than among White individuals. Further, this relationship should be mediated by social psychological aspects of religion that have positive implications for well-being, such as self-enhancing religious attributions and a positive social identity associated with one's religious affiliation. These pre…
Coping with Negative Stereotypes about Intellectual Performance: The Role of Psychological Disengagement
Two experiments tested the hypothesis that members of negatively stereotyped groups psychologically disengage their self-esteem from feedback received in stereotype-relevant domains. In both experiments, African American and European American college students received performance feedback on a bogus intelligence test and completed measures of self-esteem. In Experiment 1, European American students had higher self-esteem after success than after …
Belief in U.S. Government Conspiracies Against Blacks among Black and White College Students: Powerlessness or System Blame?
Black Americans are far more likely than White Americans to endorse theories about conspiracies by the U.S. government against Blacks. The present study explored the predictors of these conspiracy beliefs for 91 Black and 96 White college students. Two explanations for belief in these conspiracies were considered, one focusing on political powerless and externality of attributions and the other focusing on system blame for Blacks’ disadvantaged s…
Introductory Comments
Psychology (82 works) · Social Psychology (77 works) · Developmental psychology (37 works) · Social and Intergroup Psychology (35 works) · Self-esteem (34 works) · Social Psychology (30 works) · Cultural Differences and Values (21 works) · Psychological Well-being and Life Satisfaction (20 works) · Behavioral Health and Interventions (17 works) · Clinical Psychology (17 works)