Self-Enhancement

Self-Enhancement is the possible way human beings handle their failures, faults, and how they see their future. This is one explanation to the question of how people deal with themselves and the world; it is associated with social psychologist Shelly Taylor.

Self-enhancement is an adaptive trait and basically about how we want to feel better about ourselves no matter.

In western culture people tend to have high self-esteems and in general think better of themselves than what is realistic. As people we have positive allusions; unrealistic positive beliefs about ourselves. For instance we are more likely to see our positive traits as being more accurate descriptions of who we are, view our individual future as being brighter than others (being happier/ more successful), see ourselves or at least evaluate ourselves higher than we see or evaluate others (better than average), and even evaluate ourselves higher than what other people evaluate us (Dunning et al. 2004; Sedikides & Greg. 2008; Taylor, 1989). 

General Example: 

The positive traits of a person’s personality are going to be more important to that person and also the traits the person might use describe themselves.   

An individual might be a hardworking and honest, as well as a rather loud and obnoxious person. All those traits might fit the individual perfectly, but for a healthy self-esteem they might honestly see themselves as just a hardworking or honest person or think that those two traits describe them better than the traits of being loud and obnoxious.

Another thing to look at is the fact that this is my example. I personally view being a hard worker and honest as good traits; because being honest and a hard worker are two things that are important to me. 

I would also describe myself as being a hard worker and honest person, rather than someone who is loud and obnoxious, though those two traits could describe me as well.

We as people  have self-serving cognitions. In simple terms we are going to take credit for our successes, but not for our failures. This is not just an arrogant western trait; as taking the credit, but not the blame is seen across different cultures (Mezulis et al. 2004; Schlenker et al.,1990). Interesting enough at the same time people are subjectively taking the credit, but not the blame, they are honestly seeing themselves as being objective and not biased (Pronin, Gilovich, & Ross 2004).

Example:
Jenny (fake-name) did badly on her chemistry test, when she was telling me about the test she states that the teacher “made impossible tests” and demands “impossible answers for her questions that have to be right to the very last word”. This may or not be accurate of the teacher; I have never met the teacher nor taken chemistry at SU. 

Interesting enough; Jenny never mentioned the fact that she was on the phone with her boyfriend, watching scrubs, or the fact she didn’t study for the exam until two days before as possible reasons she did badly. Jenny blamed the test itself and the teacher for her bad grade; not herself.

On the other side of the coin; if Jenny had somehow managed to do well on her test or passed; she wouldn’t have been thanking the teacher for the grade, as she was the one who was smart enough to get the grade. Jenny blamed another for her failure and refused any fault to herself, but she would have taken the credit herself if she passed. Jenny is a normal human being; who has a healthy high-self-esteem and good adaptive skills. 

In summary positive allusions are unrealistic positive beliefs about ourselves; that are crucial to our overall self-esteem. 

We see ourselves better than average.

Traits that are important to us (Schematic) or positive are more likely to be chosen as a description of us.

The individual futures that we predict for ourselves are bright and rosy.

We take the credit for our successes, but not the blame for our failures. 

References

Dunning, D., Health, C., & Suls, J. M. (2004). Flawed self-assessment: Implication for health,
                education, and the workplace. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 5, 69-106.

Kassin, S., Fein, S., & Markus, H. F. (2011). The social self: Mechanisms of self-enhancement.
                Social Psychology, 8, 81-83.

Mezulis, A. H., Abramson, L. Y., Hyde. J. S., & Hankin, B. L. (2004). Is there a universal positivity
               bias in attributions? A meta-analytic review of individual, developmental, and cultural
               different in the self-serving attributional bias. Psychological Bulletin, 130, 711-747

Pronin, E., Gilovich, T., & Ross, L. (2004). Objectivity in the eye of the beholder: Divergent
               perceptions of bias in self versus of others. Psychological Review, 111, 781-799.

Schlenker, B. R. Weigold, M. F., & Hallam, J. R. (1990). Self-serving attributions in social context:
               Effects of self-esteem and social pressure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,
               58, 855-863.

Sedikides, C., & Gregg, A. P. (2008). Self-enhancement: Food for thought. Perspectives on
               Psychological Science, 3, 102-116.

Taylor, S. E. (1989). Positive illusions: Creative self-deceptions and the healthy mind. New York:
               Basic Books.