self-esteem

Question 1

politics of self-esteem

Answer 1

• “There is overwhelming evidence that the higher the level of self-esteem, the more likely one will be to treat others with respect, kindness, and generosity.”
• “I cannot think of a single psychological problem—from anxiety and depression, to fear of intimacy or of success, to spouse battery or child molestation—that is not traceable to the problem of low self-esteem.”
  
  • Nathaniel Branden
• California task force on self-esteem and personal and social responsibility:
  
  • Founded 1986 by Governor of California
  • Annual budget of $245,000
  • Raising self-esteem would “solve many of the state’s problems, including crime, teen pregnancy, drug abuse, school underachievement, and pollution”
• The social importance of self-esteem, edited by Mecca, Smelser and Vasconcellos (1989).
• Key quotation from Smelser’s introduction:
  
  • “Diminished self-esteem stands as a powerful independent variable (condition, cause, factor) in the genesis of major social problems. We all know this to be true, and it is really not necessary to create a special California task force on the subject to convince us. The real problem we must address […] is how we can determine that it is scientifically true” (p. 8)
• But is this dogma or science?
• How can we do effective research in an area with such entrenched common-sense “knowledge”?

Question 2

global self-esteem

Answer 2

• Self-esteem is defined as “a certain average tone of self-feeling which each one of us carries about with him, and which is independent of the objective reasons we may have for satisfaction and discontent” (James, 1890)

Question 3

self-esteem scale items

Answer 3

• On the whole, I am satisfied with myself.
• At times I think I am no good at all.
• I feel that I have a number of good qualities.
• I certainly feel useless at times.
• I take a positive view of myself.
• (selected items from Rosenberg, 1979)

Question 4

James’ formula for self-esteem

Answer 4

• “With no attempt there can be no failure; with no failure, no humiliation. So our self-feeling in this world depends entirely on what we back ourselves to be and do […]: thus,
  Success Self-esteem = —————— Pretensions
• Such a fraction may be increased as well by diminishing the denominator as by increasing the numerator.” (James, 1890)

Question 5

self-discrepancies - Higgins, 1987

Answer 5

• Domains of the self:
  
  • Actual self
  • Ideal self
  • Ought self
• “I am ____________ but I would like to be ____________.”

Question 6

domain-specific self-esteem

Answer 6

• I like my looks just the way they are
• I dislike my physique
• Most people would consider me good looking
• I am physically unattractive
• (selected items from the Multidimensional Body-self relations questionnaire: Brown, Cash, and Mikulka, 1990)

Question 7

state vs trait self-esteem

Answer 7

• This is a questionnaire designed to measure what you are thinking at this moment. […] The best answer is what you feel is true of yourself at this moment. […] Again, answer these questions as they are true for you RIGHT NOW
  
  • I feel good about myself
  • I feel displeased with myself
  • I feel confident about my abilities
  • I feel satisfied with the way my body looks right now
• (selected items from Heatherton and Polivy, 1991)

Question 8

implicit self-esteem

Answer 8

• People with higher implicit self-esteem MAY do some of the following:
  
  • Associate positive words with the self more quickly
  • Associate negative words with the self more slowly
  • Show a greater liking for letters of the alphabet that are included in their first name/full name/initials
  • Show a greater liking for the number of the day of the month they were born on
• BUT: measures show poor convergent validity
• (see Bosson, Swann, & Pennebaker, 2000)

Question 9

single item self-esteem scale

Answer 9

• I have high self-esteem
  
  • not very true of me 1 —- 2 —- 3 —- 4 —- 5 very true of me
• (Robins, Hendin and Trzesniewski, 2001)

Question 10

predictors of global self-esteem

Answer 10

• Based on James’ formula:
  
  • Average of domain-specific self-evaluations, weighted by importance
• Results from Harter (1993):
  
  • Self-evaluations in important domains correlate with global self-esteem at r = .70
    
    • Self-evaluations in unimportant domains correlate with global self-esteem at r = .30

Question 11

multiple domains/dimensions

Answer 11

• Range of correlations with global self-worth
  
  • athletic competence r=.23 to .42
  • behavioural conduct. R=.32 to .50
  • physical appearance. R=.52 to .80
  • scholastic competence. R=.33 to .54
  • social acceptance. R=.32 to .58
• (summarised by Harter, 1999)

Question 12

who decided what is important?

Answer 12

• Individual differences in importance of different domains do NOT moderate the importance of each domains for global self-esteem

Question 13

casual direction?

Answer 13

• Findings mostly correlational
• Two possibilities:
  
  • Domain-specifics - global self-esteem
  • Global self-esteem - domain-specifics
• A bit of both?
• Different for different people?
• Hoyle et al, 1999

Question 14

self-esteem is constructed

Answer 14

• Socially constructed:
  
  • Depends on social value of domains
  • Depends on social comparison standards
• Individually constructed:
  
  • Self-promotion and self-protection strategies.
  • Diverse, pervasive, subtle and strategic.
• But that’s not the whole story

Question 15

heritability of self-esteem

Answer 15

• Twin studies and adoption studies of global and domain-specific self-esteem
• Few studies, but (fairly) consistent results:
  
  • Genetic influences “substantial” (30-50%)
  • Shared environment “minimal” (mostly < 10%)
  • Non-shared environment “largest” (often > 50%)
• Reviewed by Neiss and Sedikides, 2001
• How can we explain genetic influences:
  
  • Twin/adoption studies not tell us the mechanism
  • But here are some thoughts:
• Genetic differences in ‘positive emotionally’?:
  
  • Implies global SE - domain specific evaluations
• Genetic dispositions in particular domains?:
  
  • Physical characteristics - appearance SE (40-80%)
  • Physical characteristics - athletic SE(40-50%)
    
    • Intelligence - scholastic SE (20-60%)

Question 16

protective benefits of self-esteem

Answer 16

• Lower self-esteem in adolescence predicts negative outcomes in adulthood:
  
  • Poorer mental and physical health
  • Worse job prospects
  • More criminal behaviour in adulthood
  • Trzesniewski, et al., 2006, Dev. Psych
• Lower self-esteem prospectively predicts depression, but not vice versa
• Orth, Robins, and Roberts, 2008, JPSP

Question 17

health benefits of self-esteem

Answer 17

• Strauman, Lemieux and Coe (1993)
• Three groups of participants:
  
  • Anxious
  • Dysphoric
  • Nondistressed
• Self-discrepancy priming manipulation:
  
  • Participants answered questions relating to their own self-guides or to those of another participant
• Emotional and physiological responses…
• Anxious participants:
  
  • Greater actual-ought discrepancies
  • Priming with self-discrepancies led to:
  • More anxious responses
  • Higher cortisol level (hormonal indication of stress) and lower natural killer cell activity (immune function).
• Dysphoric participants:
  
  • Greater actual-ideal discrepancies
  • Priming with self-discrepancies led to:
  • More dysphoric responses
    
    • Lower natural killer cell activity.

Question 18

self-esteem as an anxiety buffer

Answer 18

• Greenberg et al (1992) reported 3 experiments on self-esteem and anxiety (2x2 design).
• Manipulation of self-esteem:
  
  • Positive/neutral feedback on ‘personality’ test
  • Positive/no feedback on ‘verbal intelligence’ test
• Manipulation of threat:
  
  • Watching a video about threat
  • Threat of painful electric shocks
• Measures of anxiety:
  
  • Self-reported anxiety
  • Skin conductance (physiological arousal)
• Results:
  
  • In neutral/no feedback conditions, the threats were clearly associated with increased anxiety.
    
    • Among participants whose self-esteem had been boosted, anxiety was significantly reduced for the threat conditions, in some cases to normal levels.

Question 19

terror management theory

Answer 19

• Humans (uniquely?) aware of own mortality
• Anxiety buffer used to avoid paralysing terror:
  A) An individuals personalised version of the cultural worldview.
  
  • A set of benign concepts for understanding the world and ones place in it.
  • A set of standards through which one can attain a sense of personal value
    B) Self-esteem (or a sense of personal value)
  • Attained by believing that one is living up to the standards of value that are part of the cultural worldview.
• Psyszczynski, Greenberg and Solomon, 1997
• Further evidence for TMT view of self-esteem:
  
  • Reminders of personal mortality lead to increased self-esteem strivings and defence of one’s cultural worldview
  • High (or boosted) self-esteem reduces the effects of mortality reminders on cultural world-view defence.
  • High (or boosted) self-esteem reduces death-thought accessibility after mortality reminders
• Reviewed by Psyszcyniski, Greenberg, Solomon and Arndt, 2004

Question 20

self-esteem as a ‘sociometer’

Answer 20

• Belongingness hypothesis:
  
  • “Human beings have a pervasive desire to form and maintain […] lasting, positive, and significant interpersonal relationships” (Baumeister & Leary, 1995, p. 497)
• Sociometer hypothesis:
  
  • Self-esteem system functions as a “sociometer”
  • Monitors the quality of interpersonal relationships
    
    • Motivates behaviours that help the person to maintain a minimum level of acceptance by other people (Leary and Baumeister, 2000, p.9)

Question 21

evidence for sociometer theory

Answer 21

• State SE fluctuates with inclusion and exclusion
• Trait SE correlated with perceived appreciation or devaluation by others
• Primary dimensions of SE reflect attributes relevant to being valued as a relational partner
• Public events affect SE more than private ones
• Importance people place on dimensions of SE is interpersonally (and culturally) determined

Question 22

benefits of positive illusions?

Answer 22

• Controversial article by Taylor and Brown (1988)
• Reviews evidence that three “positive illusions” about the self are “characteristic of normal human thought”:
  
  • Unrealistically positive views of the self
  • Exaggerated perceptions of personal control
  • Unrealistic optimism
• All of these illusions are weaker, or absent, in people with depression or low self-esteem.
• According to Taylor and Brown, positive illusions promote:
• Happiness and contentment - experimental research shows casual role of positive illusions in producing positive mood
• Ability to care for others - perhaps through influence of positive mood
• Capacity for creative and productive work:
  
  • Facilitation of intellectually creative functioning
    
    • Enhance motivation, persistence and performance

Question 23

Colvin and Block’s (1994) critique

Answer 23

• Are these illusions really so prevalent? - much of research is on university students in lab settings
• Are they really illusions?
  
  • How is ‘reality’ operationalised?
  • Defined by the experimenter - perhaps inappropriately
  • Typically group-level, not individual-level realities
• Are they really associated with better mental health?:
  
  • People with psychosis do not seem to lack these illusions.
  • Perhaps depression linked to negativity, not accuracy
    
    • Remaining evidence focused on short-term benefits only.

Question 24

Colvin, Block and Funder (1995)

Answer 24

• Two studies on characteristics of self-enhancers:
  
  • Participants rated their personality characteristics
  • Also rated by trained examiners or friends
  • Ratings compared to ‘favourability prototype’
  • Complex longitudinal design - see paper for details
• Self-enhancement as discrepancy between favourability of own and others’ ratings.
  
  • i.e., ‘illusion’ = disagreement with ‘social reality’
• “Friends and assessors hold relatively negative impressions of people who self-enhance”
  
  • But possible circularity in method?
  • Negative impressions (at a different time, by different individuals) were part of the measure of self-enhancement
• Self-enhancement correlated negatively with measure of ‘ego resilience’ (vs. ‘ego brittleness’): r=-.40
  - Also based on personality ratings, so still might be circular.

Question 25

some points of ‘clarification’

Answer 25

• Taylor & Brown (1994) clarified their position
  
  • Accuracy is not necessary for mental health
  • Illusions foster happiness, caring, creativity, growth
• This does NOT mean …
  
  • … that more illusion is better
  • … that all illusions are good
  • … that illusions are necessary for mental health
  • … that illusions can cure people of physical illness
    
    • … that the human mind is not tuned to detect reality

Question 26

remaining problems

Answer 26

• Measuring positive illusions
  
  • What is reality and what is an illusion?
  • Statistical problems with discrepancy scores (Zuckerman & Knee, 1996)
  • Best to use multiple definitions of ‘reality’
• Defining mental health benefits
  
  • Is there an optimal margin of illusion?
    
    • Short-term benefits vs. long-term costs?

Question 27

self-esteem and aggression

Answer 27

• Conventional wisdom suggests that people who are violent, aggressive or hostile are often suffering from low self-esteem
• An alternative view is that aggression may be characteristic of people with high self-esteem, especially where self-esteem is threatened
• (Baumeister, Smart & Boden, 1996)
• Baumeister, Smart & Boden (1996) reviewed evidence suggesting high or low self-esteem among perpetrators of
  
  • Murder and assault
  • Rape
  • Domestic violence
  • Violent youth gangs and juvenile delinquency
  • Political terror
  • Prejudice, oppression and genocide
• Little direct psychological evidence using measures of self-esteem, thus conclusions are based on qualitative review of literature
• Considerable convergence in findings
  
  • Virtually no evidence for ‘low self-esteem’ hypothesis
  • Violent people have favourable views of themselves
  • Violence is often explicitly intended to demonstrate superiority of the perpetrator to the victim
  • Violence often follows threats to self-esteem
• Kernis, Granneman and Barclay (1989) studied self-reported anger and hostility as a function of both level and stability of self-esteem
  
  • No relation between level of self-esteem and hostility until stability of self-esteem was taken into account
  • Highest level of hostility was found among those with high, unstable self-esteem
    
    • Lowest level of hostility was found among those with high, stable self-esteem

Question 28

high self-esteem vs narcissism

Answer 28

• Distinguishing ‘secure’ forms of high self-esteem from ‘inflated’ views of the self, or narcissism.
• Conceptualisations of narcissism:
  
  • Extreme or ‘ultra-high’ levels of self-esteem.
  • Unstable high self-esteem
  • Strong motive for self-aggrandisement
  • Disregard for others.
    
    • Increased sensitivity to ego-threats.

Question 29

narcissism scale items

Answer 29

• If I ruled the world, it would be a much better place.
• I am going to be a great person.
• I am more capable than other people.
• Raskin and Terry, 1988

Question 30

narcissism and aggression

Answer 30

• Bushman and Baumeister (1998) conducted two studies with undergraduate participants.
  
  • Measures of self-esteem and narcissism
  • Participants wrote pro-choice or pro-life essays
  • Essay ‘evaluated’ positively or negatively (manipulation of ego-threat)
  • Opportunity to aggress with ‘blasts of noise’ in competitive task against evaluator (or third party).
• Self-esteem level did not predict aggression.
• More aggression was observed from:
  
  • Male rather than female participants
  • Participants with higher narcissism scores
  • Participants who had received ego-threat
• Interaction of narcissism and ego-threat:
  - Narcissistic participants aggressed significantly more against source of threat, but not against source of praise or third party (i.e., targeted aggression).

Question 31

is ‘narcissism’ the answer?

Answer 31

• Focus on narcissism seems to resolve the self-esteem and aggression debate
• Correlates with many outcomes
  
  • E.g., sexual coercion, prejudice, belief in the paranormal, behaviour in intimate relationships
  • Narcissists are chronic self-enhancers
• But is this just a ‘relabelling’ exercise?:
  - Do we really understand what narcissism is?

Question 32

rethinking self-esteem (Heppner and Kernis, 2011)

Answer 32

• Not just high or low - is it secure?
• Markers of fragile/insecure high self-esteem
  
  • Instability
  • Contingency
  • Discrepant explicit and implicit self esteem
• All associated with greater defensiveness.
• Optimal self-esteem = stable, “true”, congruent

Question 33

name calling and compliance

Answer 33

• Women in Salt Lake City contacted by phone:
  
  • Name calling condition: ‘it was pretty much common knowledge that, as members of their community, they were uncooperative with community projects’.
  • Positive name condition: common knowledge community was cooperative in community projects
  • Irrelevant negative name condition: experimenter criticized community’s lack of concern for careful/safe driving.
• Two days later a separate experimenter sought help with developing a community food co-operative
  
  • Arduous task: list all items in food cupboard
• Steele, 1975

Question 34

self-affirmation theory

Answer 34

• Concerned with how people are motivated to reaffirm a sense of personal integrity* when their integrity is threatened.
• • “…a phenomenal experience of the self – self-conceptions and images – as adaptively and morally adequate, that is, as competent, good, coherent, unitary, stable, capable of free choice, capable of controlling important outcomes, and so on” (Steele, 1988, p. 262)

Question 35

key claims and predictions

Answer 35

• People are motivated to maintain a sense of self-integrity, of positive self-regard
  
  • Threats to self-integrity may promote defensiveness
  • “self-affirming thoughts might make it easier to be objective about other, self-threatening information” (Steele, 1988, p. 290).
    
    • Central predictions: Self-affirmation manipulations promote more systematic processing of information, greater information acceptance, and changes in attitudes, intentions and behaviour

Question 36

‘values’ affirmation method

Answer 36

• Altruism - Spontaneity - Forgiveness - Loyalty - Honesty - Goodness - Religiousness - Tolerance - Creativity - Sincerity - Fairness - Resourcefulness
• Please select the value from the list above that is most important to you personally, and write it in the space provided below. If more than one value is equally important to you then please select just one to write about.
• The most important value to me is: ……………………………..
• In the space below please write a short statement (around 2-3 sentences) about why this value is important to you. Take a couple of minutes to think about this value and how this value has influenced things that you have done. Please write about how you use this value in your everyday life.
• Harris and Napper, 2005
• Control condition:
• Altruism - Spontaneity - Forgiveness - Loyalty - Honesty - Goodness - Religiousness - Tolerance - Creativity - Sincerity - Fairness - Resourcefulness
• Please select the value from the list above that is least important to you personally, and write it in the space provided.
• The least important value to me is: …………………………….
• Etc.

Question 37

self-affirmation and prejudice (Fein and Spencer, 1997)

Answer 37

Study 1
- Values affirmation manipulation
- Evaluation of female job candidate
- Application form
- 8-minute videotape of interview
- Manipulated minor details to suggest ethnicity
- Jewish (target of negative stereotyping)
- Italian
- Participants completed a questionnaire, indicating positive and negative traits (and suitability for the post)
- Self-affirmation: F(1,50) = 1.8, p > .15
- Ethnicity of target: F(1,50) = 4.9, p < .05
- Interaction: F(1,50) = 8.5, p < .01

Question 38

caffeine consumption (Reed and Aspinwal, 1998)

Answer 38

• “Self-affirmation reduces biased processing of health-risk information”
• 66 female Introductory Psychology class students
• Information about link between caffeine consumption and fibrocystic breast disease.
• Affirmation manipulation (affirmation vs. no affirmation)
• Access to risk-confirming information, risk-disconfirming information, and neutral information
• Dependent measures
  
  • e.g., beliefs, ratings of argument strength, recall of information, perceived control, intentions
• Self-affirmed / high caffeine participants rated risk-confirming information as more convincing (relative to risk-disconfirming information) than did non-affirmed/ high caffeine participants
• But …

Question 39

more findings

Answer 39

Effects of self-affirmation manipulations:
- Openness to contrary views (Cohen, Aronson, & Steele, 2000)
- Increased fruit & veg consumption (Epton & Harris, 2008)
- Sun-screen use (Jessop, Simmonds, & Sparks, 2009)
- Recycling intentions (Sparks, Jessop, Chapman & Holmes, 2010)
- Reducing food waste (Graham-Rowe, Jessop, & Sparks, 2019)
- Reducing ethnic and socioeconomic differences in school achievement (Cohen et al., 2009; Hadden et al., 2020)
Emerging research into spontaneous self-affirmation:
- Distinct from self-esteem (Harris et al., 2019)
- Predicts wellbeing, openness, health behaviours …

Question 40

remianing issues

Answer 40

• Mediating mechanisms still unclear
  
  • Not a self-esteem boost
  • Meaning of self-integrity is quite vague
  • Why are there sometimes backfire effects?
• How to translate into real-world settings
  
  • Comparing effects of different manipulations
  • More research with behavioural outcomes
    
    • Avoiding backfire effects

Question 41

conclusions

Answer 41

• What is self-esteem?
  
  • Favourable evaluation of oneself
  • Complex and multifaceted construct
• Where does self-esteem come from?
  
  • Domain-specific self-evaluations
  • Self-enhancement processes
  • Genetics as well as environment!
• Some benefits of self-esteem
  
  • Buffering anxiety
  • Monitoring social acceptance
  • Psychosocial outcomes and physical health
• But there is a ‘dark side’ to high SE:
  
  • Self-enhancement at best a ‘mixed blessing’
  • Hostility linked to unstable high self-esteem
• Optimal self-esteem
  
  • Stable, not contingent, consistent
  • Secure rather than defensive
• Should we try to ‘boost’ self-esteem?
  
  • Self-affirmation can reduce defensiveness
  • What kind of self-esteem are we boosting?
    
    • How to boost optimal self-esteem?