self-verification strivings are not limited to people with globally negative self-views; even people with high self-esteem seek negative evaluations about their flaws. Finally, even people with positive self-views appear to be uncomfortable with overly positive evaluations. For example, people with moderately positive self-views withdraw from spouses who evaluate them in an exceptionally positive manner. Other critics have suggested that when people with negative self-views seek unfavorable evaluations, they do so as a means of avoiding truly negative evaluations or for purposes of self-improvement, with the idea being that this will enable them to obtain positive evaluations down the road. Tests of this idea have failed to support it. For example, just as people with negative self-views choose self-verifying, negative evaluators even when the alternative is being in another experiment, they choose to be in another experiment rather than interact with someone who evaluates them positively. Also, people with negative self-views are most intimate with spouses who evaluate them negatively, despite the fact that these spouses are relatively unlikely to enable them to improve themselves. Finally, in a study of people's thought processes as they chose interaction partners, people with negative self-views indicated that they chose negative evaluators because such partners seemed likely to confirm their self-views (an epistemic consideration) and interact smoothly with them (a pragmatic consideration); self-improvement was rarely mentioned. See also Identity negotiation Self Notes References Berlyne, D. (1971). Psychobiology and Aesthetics. New York: Appleton-Century Crofts. Brockner, J. (1985). The relation of trait self-esteem and positive inequity to productivity. Journal of Personality, 53: 517-529. Cast, A. D. & Burke, P. J. (2002). A Theory of Self-Esteem. Social Forces, 80, 1041-1068. Chen, S., Chen, K. Y., & Shaw, L. (2004). Self-verification motives at the collective level of self-definition. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 86, 77-94. Low- Cooley, C. S. (1902). Human nature and the social order. New York: Scribner's. Giesler, R. B., Josephs, R. A., & Swann, W. B., Jr. (1996). Self-verification in clinical depression. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 105, 358-368. Jones, S. C. (1973). Self and interpersonal evaluations: Esteem theories versus consistency theories. Psychological Bulletin, 79, 185-199. Kwang, T. & Swann, W. B., Jr. (2010). "Do People Embrace Praise Even When They Feel Unworthy? A Review of Critical Tests of Self-Enhancement Versus Self-Verification". Personality and Social Psychology Review 14 (3): 263–280. . ISSN 1088-8683. Lemay, E. P. & Ashmore, R. D. (2004). Reactions to perceived categorization by