Page 398 - The Social Animal

380 The Social Animal

approached by a rather smooth, good-looking, well-dressed young
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man who was, in fact, an accomplice of the experimenter. He struck
up a conversation with each student, indicated he liked her, and pro-
ceeded to make a date. At this point, the experimenter entered and
led the student into an office to inform her of the results of her tests.
Half of the students received highly positive descriptions designed
expressly to raise their self-esteem temporarily. The others received
somewhat negative descriptions designed to lower their self-esteem
temporarily. Finally, the students were asked to rate how much they
liked an assorted list of people—a teacher, a friend, “and since we
have one space left, why don’t you rate that fellow you were waiting
with?” The students who received unfavorable information about
themselves from the personality test showed far more liking for their
male admirer than did those who received favorable information
about themselves. In short, we like to be liked—and the more inse-
cure we feel, the more we like someone who likes us.
One of the implications of this experiment is that people who
are secure about themselves are less “needy”—that is, they are less
likely to accept overtures from just any person who comes along. Just
as a starving person will accept almost any kind of food and a well-
fed person can afford to turn down an offer of a soggy cheese sand-
wich, an insecure person will accept almost anyone who expresses
interest, while a secure person will be more selective. Moreover, a
person who feels insecure may even seek out a less attractive person
to diminish the possibility of being rejected. This implication was
tested in an interesting experiment by Sara Kiesler and Roberta
Baral, who led male college students to believe they had done either
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very well or very poorly on a test of intellectual achievement. They
then took a break, and the experimenter joined the student for a cup
of coffee. As they entered the coffee shop, the experimenter “recog-
nized” a female student seated alone at a table, joined her, and intro-
duced the male participant to her. Of course, the female student was
a confederate, intentionally planted there. Half the time, the confed-
erate was made up to look attractive; the other half of the time, she
was made to look quite plain. The investigators observed the degree
of romantic interest displayed by the male participants—whether
they asked to see her again, offered to pay for her coffee, asked for
her phone number, or tried to get her to stay longer. Those who felt
secure about themselves (i.e., who had been led to believe they had