592 vI. SELF‑ AND S OCIAL P ROCESSES
Intrapsychic Mechanisms That Help 
Sustain  Identities
Accompanying identity negotiation pro -
cesses are a host of intrapsychic processes 
that shape how individuals interpret and 
react to the outputs of their identity negotia -
tions. For the most part, these intrapsychic 
mechanisms enable people to maintain a 
sense of personal continuity even in the face 
of identity-  discrepant feedback from others. 
Thus, both within a given negotiation and 
across different negotiations, people tend to 
perceive stability and regularity in their own 
identities and those of others. In this section, 
we identify seven intrapsychic mechanisms 
that foster identity continuity and regularity 
in the process of identity negotiation.
Selective  Attention
In general, people pay more attention to 
interpersonal feedback when they expect it 
to confirm as opposed to disconfirm their 
identity (Swann & Read, 1981). As such, 
targets may fail to notice feedback that is 
inconsistent with their identity and relation -
ship goals. Moreover, when targets are con -
fronted with identity-  threatening feedback 
that cannot be ignored, they may respond by 
focusing more attention on their firmly held 
self-views (e.g., Dodgson & Wood, 1998). 
This tendency may serve to reinforce identi -
ties that have been challenged during identi -
ty negotiations, thus reducing the likelihood 
of identity change.
Discounting and  Augmenting
When confronted with feedback that is in -
consistent with their self-views, people tend 
to discount both the validity of the feedback 
(Korman, 1968; Markus, 1977) and the 
credibility of the evaluators who offer it to 
them (Shrauger & Lund, 1975; Swann, Grif -
fin, Predmore, & Gaines, 1987). In some 
cases, such discounting might allow targets 
to remain untroubled by inconsistent feed -
back. In other cases, discounting may mo -
tivate targets to break off relations with the 
source of the identity-  discrepant feedback, 
as when a perceiver who repeatedly misper -
ceives the target ultimately loses all cred -
ibility as a relationship partner. On the flip side, people tend to augment the credibility 
of perceivers who agree with them about 
their identities (Chun, Ames, Uribe, & Hig -
gins, 2017). Evaluators who view targets in 
an identity-  consistent manner are seen as es -
pecially good judges of character.
Biased  Interpretation
Targets’ need for coherence and regularity 
may compel them to “see” more identity- 
consistent feedback than they actually re -
ceive during identity negotiations. Indeed, 
humans possess a powerful ability to inter -
pret incoming information in a manner that 
is consistent with their prior knowledge. In -
terestingly, some propose that a particular 
region of the brain is responsible for such 
activity. Gazzaniga (1998), for example, 
suggests that a “left-  hemisphere interpreter” 
compels people to impose coherence and 
continuity on their conscious experiences.
Anxiety as  Information
For interpersonal evaluations to be internal -
ized, they must fall within the individual’s 
latitude of acceptance (Jones, Rhodewalt, 
Berglas, & Skelton, 1981). Information that 
falls outside the latitude of acceptance gar -
ners extra scrutiny. If identity-  discrepant in -
formation pertains to a highly certain and 
central self-view or comes from a highly cred -
ible source, it may produce anxious arousal 
(Ayduk, Gyurak, Akinola, & Mendes, 2013; 
Vandello, Bosson, Cohen, Burnaford, & 
Weaver, 2008; Wood, Heimpel, Newby-
Clark, & Ross, 2005), which motivates 
behaviors designed to neutralize the threat 
(Burke, 1991; Swann, 2012). Anxiety can 
thus alert targets that particular perceivers 
pose a threat to their enduring beliefs about 
themselves, which may motivate amplified 
efforts to receive identity-  confirming feed -
back (Vázquez, Gómez, & Swann, 2018) or, 
conversely, disengagement from the relation -
ship.
Biased  Recall
In general, targets show better recall for 
identity-  consistent feedback than they do for 
inconsistent feedback (Crary, 1966; Swann 
& Read, 1981), and they tend to recall past 