Shut your eyes and think of something else: self-esteem and avoidance when dealing with counter-attitudinal information

Two studies investigated the hypothesis that people with low self-esteem are more inclined to avoid information that is incongruent with value-relevant attitudes than people with higher levels of self-esteem. In Study 1 participants had the opportunity to postpone and potentially avoid reading a counter-attitudinal article. Results confirmed our prediction. Results of Study 2 indicated that low self-esteem participants performed better than high self-esteem participants on a distracting task when confronted with the prospect to receive counter-attitudinal information. These findings show that low self-esteem individuals tend to avoid information that is incongruent with an attitude that is strongly linked to their self-concept.