Self-Protection Motivation and Its Psychological Construction: A Process Model Distinguishing Two Unique Motivational Orientations

Academic Abstract This article introduces the Modern Constructivist Model of Motivated Self-Protection ( MCM-MSP ), an integrative and novel theoretical account of two distinguishable forms of self-protection motivation that are underlain by diverging patterns in psychophysiological processes: (1) defensive arousal , which opposes self-threats and their implied conceptual representations to prevent self-concept instability and related consequences and (2) intrapsychic conflict , which compels restoration of self-concept stability and self-evaluative equanimity after one accepts the personal implications of a self-threat. The MCM-MSP locates each motivational orientation within a process model that describes when, how, and to what effect it uniquely compels one to strategically prevent self-concept instability or resolve it. This new explanation of self-protection motivation provides generative avenues for future research, including new ways to synthesize research examining defensive responses, new experimental approaches to testing self-protection strategies’ total causal effect, and a stronger description of self-protection motivation’s psychological construction using mixed-methods research and large language models. Public Abstract This article introduces the Modern Constructivist Model of Motivated Self-Protection ( MCM-MSP ), a new approach to examining the emotional and motivational components involved in how people respond to events and information that undermine how they think and feel about themselves. When these self-threatening events occur, people use different strategies to navigate the threat: some strategies might prevent the threat from changing how they think and feel about themselves; other strategies might help make things better if they ultimately accept the threat. Psychologists have long theorized that these strategies are motivated, suggesting that some force from within compels people to enact defensive or ameliorative strategies. However, there is very little consensus or clarity regarding the nature of this motivational force. What exactly is self-protection motivation ? The MCM-MSP answers this question by proposing two distinct motivational orientations that underlie self-protection motivation and then locating them within a framework that describes when, how, and to what effect each mechanism compels threatened people.