Self-esteem and self-enhancement Flashcards
What is self-esteem?
James (1980) coined the term - general feeling of feeling good about yourself. Idea of global self-esteem captured by Rosenberg self-esteem scale.
What is the Rosenberg self-esteem scale?
Idea of feeling positive about self. Most widely used measure of self-esteem. Consists of 10 items - 5 positive and 5 negative. Examples of items on the scale: “on the whole, I am satisfied with myself”, “I certainly feel useless at times”, “I take a positive view of myself”, “at times I think I am no good at all”.
What is James’ formula for self-esteem?
Self-esteem = success/pretensions (our aspirations, what we want to be). Can increase our self-esteem either by achieving success or lowering our pretensions.
What are self-discrepancies?
Higgins (1987). Suggested can think of the self in terms of 3 selves - actual self (who you actually are), ideal self (who you want o be) and ought self (who you think you should be). Can ask to rate discrepancies (how easily you think it can be changed).
What is implicit self-esteem?
Maybe in some way we don’t know how positively we feel about ourselves. When answering the Rosenberg scale you’re answering based on how you think you feel about yourself - maybe on another level have more negative feelings about yourself.
People with higher implicit self-esteem may associate + words with the self more quickly, negative words with the self more slowly, greater liking for letters associated with selves. Look at reaction times - if faster at positive or negative words, shows which one they more implicitly relate themselves to.
What are features of high self-esteem?
Traditional view - positive view of self: worthwhile and valuable. Liking oneself (and accepting weaknesses), feeling secure about self.
Alternative view - promoting self as ‘better than others’, denying threats to positive self-image.
What are features of low self-esteem?
Traditional view - negative view of self (worthless), self-loathing & insecurity, psychological and behavioural problems.
Alternative view - neutral self-evaluation, cautious self-presentation, uncertainty about self.
What are predictors of global self-esteem?
From James’ formula: global self-esteem would be predicted by specific-self esteem. Results from Harter (1993) - self-evaluations in important domains correlate with global self-esteem (correlation .70).
How is social support a mediator?
Found that peer support partially mediated the relationship between physical appearance, athletic competence and social acceptance. Parental support mediated relationship with scholastic competence and behavioural conduct. Raises the question of who decides what is important in self-esteem?
What are self-enhancement strategies?
Strategies people have for defending their self-esteem. ‘Better-than-avergae’ effect. Basing-in-reflected-glory effect. Prejudice - theories of why people are prejudice are about making their own group better by comparison.
Self-protection function - tend to happen more when self-esteem is threatened.
All strategies are subject to plausibility constraints – can get away with it to the extent where we will not be viewed as arrogant – happen subtly.
What is indirect self-enhancement?
Muramoto (2003) studied attributions for success and failure among 118 Japanese undergrads. Tended to make self-effacing attributions. Blamed themselves for their failures and gave external credit for their successes. Also asked what attributions other people would make about their successes. Expected others would make self-serving attributions for them. Self-serving bias is more collaborative in a Japanese culture.
What is modesty in Chinese culture?
China and US compared. In both cultures showed that more rate themsleves as modest, the least likely they are to rate themselves highly on self-esteem. In China seeing self as modest meant for an increase in implicit self-esteem.
How does self-esteem differ across cultures?
Culture moderates self-esteem - affects what is positively valued, and prescribes appropriate ways of maintaining and enhancing self-esteem.
What are protective benefits of self-esteem?
Lower self-esteem in adolescence predicts negative outcomes in adulthood: poorer mental and physical health, worse job prospects, more criminal behaviour in adulthood. Suggests high self-esteem protects against these things.
Lower self-esteem predicts depression, but not vice versa (Orth et al.).
What is the link between self-esteem and physical health?
Strauman et al. Recruited participants who suffered from anxiety, depression, and control participants. Looked at peoples self-discrepancies across different domains. Aim was to activate self-discrepancies. Predicted would lead to negative affect, and would lead to an alteration in the immune system as a result. Thoughts of self-discrepencies = negative effect on the immune system.