Associative Self-Anchoring Interacts with Obtainability of Chosen Objects

Abstract

While there is evidence that implicit self-esteem transfers to chosen objects (associative self-anchoring), it is still unknown whether this phenomenon extends to explicit self-esteem. Moreover, whether the knowledge that these objects might belong to the self in the future or not affects the evaluation of these objects has received little attention. Here, we demonstrate that evaluations of chosen objects are further enhanced when they are obtainable as compared to when they are not in participants with high explicit self-esteem, whereas participants with low explicit self-esteem exhibit the opposite pattern. These findings extend previous results and shed new light on the role of self-esteem in altering preferences for chosen objects depending on their obtainability.

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