9\9
This project would not have been possible without the guidance of @nivreggev.bsky.social and Gideon Anholt, and the hard work of many research assistants over the last few years.

8\
The motivation to receive violating information that can facilitate self-learning and self-growth has not emerged in prior research using human evaluators. Perhaps taking the social threat out of the equation promotes the motivation to challenge the self and grow.
#Motivation

7/
Across 5 studies (N = 262), conducted at different times, in different contexts (Covid-19 outbreak, judicial reform, and war), online or in the lab, we found consistent evidence that people value interacting with self-violating evaluations from non-human sources.
#PsychScience

6/
Participants consistently chose the feedback from the algorithm, even when it meant they received less bonus money. Moreover, their mouse trajectories revealed that participants were much less conflicted when choosing to receive an "objectively accurate" feedback.

5/
To pit the motivation to self-verify against the motivation to learn from violating feedback, we conducted a third study (and a wartime replication) in which participants chose to receive self-verifying feedback or "objectively accurate" feedback from a trained algorithm.

4/
These robust findings could be interpreted in two ways (at least): either participants wanted to retake the violating questionnaires in order to receive more verifying feedback, or they were curious and wanted to learn from a questionnaire providing an unexpected evaluation.

3/
In two studies (and a wartime replication), we measured how much people value re-engaging with questionnaires providing self-evaluations. Participants forwent money to retake self-violating questionnaires (especially negatively-violating) and to avoid retaking self-verifying questionnaires.

2/
Prior research shows people tend to seek self-verifying or self-enhancing information. Yet when both options are available, whether it be two competing sources or one source that could be interpreted in either manner, people can only perceive one interpretation.
#SelfConcept

1/
📢 New #Preprint Alert!
With Gideon Anholt and @nivreggev.bsky.social, we asked whether people value self-verifying more than self-enhancing information. Unexpectedly, we found a 3rd motivation that emerged in the context of a non-human evaluator!

www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-7...