Self-esteem

Question 1

What is self-esteem?

Answer 1

· Self-esteem is an attitude regarding oneself. It refers to an evaluation of the self, and his or her personal worth or value.
Attitude about yourself

Question 2

Self-esteem vs self-concept?

Answer 2

· Self-concept – how you define and view yourself e.g., (I am an academic, I am a procrastinator)
Self-esteem – evaluative component to yourself. How you feel about yourself (I like being an academic, I hate being a procrastinator)

Question 3

Self-esteem and psychological equanimity?

Answer 3

· Self-esteem is linked to positive psychological adjustment (Baumeister et al., 2003; Sowislo & Orth, 2013)
· Depression (r = -.20 to - .70)
· Anxiety (r = -.10 to -.70)
Happiness (r = .30 to .60)

Question 4

What is high self-esteem?

Answer 4

· Clear sense of self
· Set appropriate goals
· Savour past experiences/think positively
Optimistic

Question 5

What is low self-esteem?

Answer 5

· Less clear self-conceptions
· Set unrealistic goals/shy away from goals
· Remember past more negatively/wallow in negative moods
Pessimistic

Question 6

Historical perspectives on self-esteem?

Answer 6

· Self-esteem correlated with a lot of things, e.g. pregnancy, delinquency, job performance, etc
· The self-esteem movement (1970/80s)
· California Task Force to Promote Self-Esteem and Personal and Social Responsibility (1986)
· Low self-esteem is the cause of individual and societal dysfunction, therefore high self-esteem is the cure to many societal problems
No evidence for an epidemic of low self-esteem in Western culture (Baumeister et al., 2003)

Question 7

Evidence of self-esteem and its relationship to social problems (Baumeister et al, 2003)?

Answer 7

· The relationship between self-esteem and various social problems (Baumeister et al., 2003)
· Viewed that if you could see the link, you can change behaviour to change the outcome
· School performance, job/task performance, anti- social behaviour, unhealthy behaviours
· The preponderance of literature does not suggest self-esteem is associated with these outcomes, and when it is identified the link is weak
Studies that do show a link are marred by issues of causality

Question 8

Self-esteem is a state and a trait?

Answer 8

· Trait self-esteem = typical, average evaluation of the self across time – like a personality trait, people differ In whether they’re high or low in self-esteem
State self-esteem = moment-to-moment fluctuations in self evaluation

Question 9

Stable vs unstable self-esteem?

Answer 9

· Individual self-esteem can differ in terms of stability (Kernis, 1993)
· Magnitude of fluctuations around general levels of self-esteem
Going into task and situations where their self-esteem/worth is unstable

Question 10

Global evaluations and domain specific evaluations

Answer 10

· Global evaluations of the self – e.g., Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (Rosenberg, 1965) “I feel that I have a number of good qualities”
Domain-specific evaluations of the self – e.g., appearance, academic competence, athletic ability “I generally think that I am good at my degree”

Question 11

Bottom-up approach to self-esteem?

Answer 11

· Evaluative feedback in your life about yourself, that then feeds into how you think about yourself in that area
· Global self-worth is created by these individual domains
Depends on how you feel about that domain and how much worth it holds (e.g. I don’t care about how good I am at sports)

Question 12

Top-down approach to self-esteem?

Answer 12

· Global self-esteem is set through our interactions

Builds up the sense of how we feel about ourselves

Question 13

Contingent and non-contingent self-esteem?

Answer 13

· Self-esteem can be contingent or non-contingent (Crocker, 2002)
· When we stake our self-worth in particular domains, our self-esteem can become contingent upon successes and failures we experience
· Contingent regard the result of socialisation?
Parents, teachers, and other significant figures invest on specific outcomes –> inadvertently convey belief that self-worth is contingent upon specific outcomes

Question 14

What is contingent self-worth?

Answer 14

· Survey with 1,418 college students (Crocker et al., 2003)
· Most people will show high levels of contingent self-worth in at least one domain
· Seven contingent domains of self-esteem: approval of others, appearance, competition, academic competence, family support, virtue, god’s love
· Domains in which people staked their self-worth predicted self-report activities of what they did that year at college e.g.,
· Academic contingent self-worth spent more time studying
Appearance contingent self-worth spent more time partying, socialising, shopping, and grooming themselves

Question 15

How can self-esteem be threatened?

Answer 15

· Because feelings of self-esteem are important, we often react when experiencing threats to our self- esteem
· Studies exploring responses to threatened self-esteem often include tests that provide false feedback on how well they did e.g.,
Remotes Associates Test (RAT): You will be shown three words, and you have to find the fourth word that relates to the other three – e.g. car, swimming, cue, (pool)

Question 16

How can you test threatened self-esteem?

Answer 16

· Provided false feedback on a test
· Series of dependent measures taken regarding attributions for test outcome, test importance, and perception of test
· Greenberg et al (1982)
Found: people who failed rated the attributions lower, and said it was luck which was responsible for their outcome. Would also say it wasn’t fair, instructions weren’t clear, wasn’t related to them. Externalise failure

· Meta-analysis of responses to threatened self-esteem (vanDellen et al., 2011)
Depends on whether high v low in trait self-esteem

Question 17

High self-esteem – compensatory responses?

Answer 17

· Externally attribute failure 
· Positive self-evaluations 
· Downward social comparisons 
· Negative evaluations of evaluators 
Increased persistence/motivation

Question 18

Low self-esteem – breaking responses?

Answer 18

· Internally attribute failure 
· Negative self-evaluations
· Upward social comparisons 
· Positive evaluations of evaluators 
Decreased persistence/motivation

Question 19

How does self-esteem function?

Answer 19

· Self-verification model (Swann, 1987) – prefer information that confirms their self-views
· Principles of consistency
· High trait self-esteem – seek out positive information
Low trait self-esteem – seek out negative information

Question 20

Self-verification?

Answer 20

· Can seek social contexts that provide self-verification information for one’s self-view (e.g., Swann et al., 1992)
· Participants pre-tested for whether they had either positive vs negative self-view
· Participants read two evaluations (favourable vs. unfavourable) of themselves written by two potential interaction partners
· Asked to select who they would like to interact with and provide reasons for this judgment
· Reasons for selecting this interaction were epistemic (e.g., confirmatory) and pragmatic (e.g., suitable expectation) in nature – the way people see me confirms the way I feel about myself
TABLE

Question 21

How does self-esteem function?

Answer 21

· Self-verification model (Swann, 1987) – prefer information that confirms their self-views
· High trait self-esteem – seek out positive information
· Low trait self-esteem – seek out negative information
· Self-enhancement model (Kunda, 1990) – guided towards favourable information that confirm positive self-views, and can revise negative self-views
· High trait self-esteem – direct self-enhancement
▪ Low trait self-esteem – indirect self-enhancement
Self-affirmation (Steele, 1988) - cope with threats by affirming our self-worth in unrelated aspects

Question 22

Self-affirmation: compensatory responses?

Answer 22

· Self-affirming one’s self-worth in an alternative
· Social trait ratings domain can alleviate self-esteem threat (e.g., Brown & Smart, 1991)
· Participants (low v high self-esteem) provided success)
· false feedback on their intelligence (failure v success)
· Subsequently rate themselves on various traits – half related to task (e.g., achievement traits), half unrelated to task (e.g., social traits)
· High self-esteem – Low self-esteem – Inverse, rated themselves lower

Question 23

Self-affirmation: reducing defensiveness?

Answer 23

· Self-affirming one’s self-worth in an alternative 6 domain can reduce defensiveness to threat (e.g., Sherman et al, 2000)
· Exposure to health threat messages (e.g., AIDS, breast cancer)
· Half participants first given opportunity to self- affirm an important characteristic (v control)
· Participants who had self-affirmed – more willing to accept article conclusions, and report higher behavioural intentions to change
· Affirmation: more positive about the article, more likely to change their behaviour
Shows you can reduce sense of defensiveness

Question 24

What is anticipated failure?

Answer 24

· Are not just affected when self-esteem is threatened, but in situations when we feel there is the potential for threat
· Provide false information regarding test’s predictive validity – weak (no threat) v strong (threat)
· Manipulate sample questions to be very easy (success likely) or hard (failure likely)
· Self-handicapping (self-report) – whether people withdraw effort
· When people saw failure as high, they withdrew effort. We want to feel better about ourselves
Pyszczynski & Greenberg (1983)

Question 25

Does importance of success/failure matter?

Answer 25

· Whether success/failure matters to us depends on the areas in which we stake our self-esteem
· Manipulate sample questions to be very easy (success likely) or hard (failure likely)
· Self-handicapping (behavioural)
· Academic self-worth as not important, they were more likely to fail as they withdrew effort
Crocker et al (2006)

Question 26

What is collective self-esteem?

Answer 26

· Self-esteem may not just refer to a personal evaluation of our self, but also about groups we belong to
· Collective self-esteem – proud to be part of a certain group
· High collective (but not personal) self-esteem predicts reactions to group success/failure (Crocker & Luhtanen, 1990)
Basking in reflected glory (BIRGing) and Cutting off reflected failure (CORFing) – Cialdini et al., 1976

Question 27

Self-esteem does differ across cultures?

Answer 27

· Is the need for self-esteem universal? A lot of research is conducted in Western cultures
· No, the need for self-esteem is a preoccupation with Western culture (Heine et al., 1999) – it isn’t universal
· Survey of 13, 118 students across 31 nations (Diener & Diener, 1995)
· Correlation between self-esteem and life satisfaction stronger in individualistic cultures – strength is stronger in individualistic cultures
Socialised to attend to internal attributes?

Question 28

Self-esteem doesn’t differ across cultures?

Answer 28

· Is the need for self-esteem universal?
· Yes, but what self-worth means and how it is attained can differ
· Self-esteem measures biased towards individualistic conceptions of self-worth – e.g., “I am..”
· Individuals in collectivistic cultures strive for self-esteem by enhancing their collective value (Kashima et al., 2004)
· Japanese students – implicit self-esteem (Kityama & Karasawa, 1997) In collectivist cultures standing out from the crowd is a taboo
· Bicultural Chinese participants completing survey in Chinese or English (Ross et al., 2002). Depending on the language, can effect self-esteem
Lower self-esteem and more collective self-statements in Chinese survey

Question 29

The role of culture in self-esteem?

Answer 29

· Culture is what tells us what it means to be a person of value
· Culture = socially constructed, and consensually validated, set of norms, beliefs, assumptions and values. Culture is all around us, tells us how to be a person of value
Provide social roles with associated standards of conduct that if we live up to can make us feel

Question 30

The costly pursuit of self-esteem

Answer 30

· “Self-esteem is the greatest sickness known to man or woman” Albert Ellis
Our pursuit of self-esteem can have destructive consequences, and can be costly to the pursuit of other needs and goals

Question 31

How does autonomy affect self-esteem?

Answer 31

· Pursuit of self-esteem can impede other needs for competence, relatedness, autonomy, and good physical health (Crocker & Park, 2004; Crocker et al., 2006).
· Autonomy – feeling that one is the origin of their own behaviour. Short term there can be benefits, but long term there are costs.
· Self-esteem can sacrifice autonomy – not doing for it our own sake, but for the approval of others/experience positive emotions
· Report feeling more pressured and struggle to make decisions
Experiencing failure leads to lower levels of intrinsic motivation – low levels of autonomy, the reason for doing things are external, not because they want to do it themselves

Question 32

How does competence affect self-esteem?

Answer 32

· Competence – ability and willingness to learn and grow from experiences
· Self-esteem can sacrifice competence – mistakes, failure, criticism become threats rather opportunities for improvement
· Set easy, self-validating, goals – don’t set goals to improve themselves, they set goals which are easy to attain to make them feel better. Not improving your performance or ability
· Externalise failure – don’t like to attribute failure to themselves, wasn’t to do with ability it was to do with other things
· Withdraw effort/self-handicap
Show little persistence with tasks – if it is important to who you are, you will spend more time doing it. When people fail, they give up. Participants were told they passed or failed a task, then asked if they would like to re-do it, those with high attribution wanted to re do it.

Question 33

How does relatedness affect self-esteem?

Answer 33

· Relatedness – feelings of closeness, and mutual, supportive relationships. Pulls us away from others, become self-absorbed
· Self-esteem can sacrifice good relatedness – become self-absorbed
· Experiencing self-esteem threat can lead to defensive reactions that result in isolation or disconnection from others, become more hostile
· Perceived to be less caring, supportive and pre- occupied with self
After experiencing failure, people tend to become self-absorbed and do not care about other people’s problems. Participants took a test and either passed or failed, person A told person B a problem about themselves. Those who had high contingence self-worth (cared about failing), were not as interested in listening to the problem, very preoccupied about failing (Crocker).

Question 34

How does good physical health affect self-esteem?

Answer 34

· Good physical health – low levels of stress, anxiety, and engagement in healthy behaviours. Can strive for self-esteem by adopting bad habits, e.g. smoking
· Self-esteem can sacrifice good physical health
· Can engage in smoking, excessive drinking, drug use etc. in pursuit of self-esteem
· Can experience high levels of stress in areas we invest self-worth in – stress is shown to directly impact physical health
Those who have high self-esteem did not care about the risks of smoking, same with drinking and drug use.

Question 35

Why do we need self-esteem?

Answer 35

· Widely accepted that people have a need for self-esteem but why do we need it?
1. Self-esteem for its own sake (James, 1890; Steele, 1988)
2. Manage existential-based concerns (Greenberg et al., 1986)
Manage our inclusiveness (Leary & Baumeister, 2000)

Question 36

1.Self-esteem for its own sake?

Answer 36

· There is no other reason why we need self-esteem. It exists, and we strive for it, for its own sake – what’s engrained within us
· Fails to explain why the motive should exist at all.
Does not adequately the properties of self-esteem – e.g., why are some events threatening, and not others?

Question 37

2.Managing existential-based concerned?

Answer 37

· Terror Management Theory (Greenberg et al., 1986) – awareness of the inevitability of death provides potential for existential terror, took notions from Darwin, self-esteem is beneficial for survival. Human beings can experience awe (awareness and reflecting of your own being) but we can also experience dread (at some point we have to die)
· Managed by cultural worldviews that provide standards of conduct that if lived up to can promote a sense of self-esteem, everyone follows different cultures which have different ideas of self-esteem
· Elevated self-esteem reduces anxiety in the face of death- related stimuli (Greenberg et al., 1992) – given false feedback on a personality test, then watched death stimuli. Those had higher self-esteem about the death stimuli after being told they had a good personality.
· Reminders of death increase self-esteem striving in various domains (Pyszczynski et al., 2004). People strive for self-esteem, e.g. appearance, drinking, the need to feel worthy and minimise anxiety. E.g. killing someone in the name of religion, self-esteem increases
· Can explain variations in the pursuit of self-esteem, and the potentially destructive nature of this pursuit
Highly contentious – dispute the possibility of a ‘death’ motive and have proposed alternative explanations to TMT findings

Question 38

3.Managing our inclusiveness?

Answer 38

· Sociometer Theory (Leary & Baumeister, 2000) – self-esteem as an interpersonal monitor. Argues that it is an interpersonal monitor
· As inclusivity increases chances of survival, self-esteem evolved as a monitor for our relational value to others. Humans are not very good at surviving, feel good when we are included. Threatened self-esteem when we are excluded
· Social exclusion affects state self-esteem (Leary et al., 1995)
· Provides a good explanation for the need for self-esteem, but may not provide a sufficient explanation for the need for self- esteem
· Not all responses to threatened self-esteem appear to reflect a desire to increase inclusionary status
Our quest for self-esteem often appears to drive us beyond mere inclusionary status

Question 39

Can we abandon our need for self-esteem or find healthier pursuits of self-esteem?

Answer 39

· Instil in children unconditional self-worth (Rogers, 1959). We should make them realise that they are valuable for who they are
· Develop implicit, intrinsic, non-contingent bases of self-worth
· Implicit ‘genuine’ self-esteem (Greenwald & Banaji, 1995), far less defensive, heathier self-esteem, opposite for low implicit self-esteem
· Optimal self-esteem (Kernis, 2003)
· Self-esteem cannot be abandoned or wholly unconditional. It must be based on meeting consensually validated, standards of conduct (Greenberg, 2008)
· Bases of self-worth should be realistic, flexible and widely attainable. Culture needs to provide more realistic about self-esteem, e.g. celebrities using photoshop provides an unrealistic standards for appearance
Abandon dysfunctional contingencies (Crocker & Park, 2004)