PS2030 - L8 - Lecture notes 8 PDF

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Lecture 8: Self-EsteemWhat is self-esteem? - Self-esteem is an attitude regarding oneself. It refers to an evaluation of the self, and his or her personal worth or value. - The term was coined by William James in 1890, and it refers to someone’s evaluation of themselves. It may refer to the extent t...

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Lecture 8: Self-Esteem What is self-esteem? - Self-esteem is an attitude regarding oneself. It refers to an evaluation of the self, and his or her personal worth or value. - The term was coined by William James in 1890, and it refers to someone’s evaluation of themselves. It may refer to the extent to which they feel that they are worth or have personal value and thus, in the spectrum of PS2030, we can consider self-esteem to be a type of attitude. Self-Esteem is part of the ‘self’ “trio”: self-concept, self-efficacy, and self-esteem. Between these three there is a level of interrelationship that create an individual. For example, we often tend to describe ourselves (so our self-concept) with terms that will increase our self-esteem. Similarly, having high levels of self-efficacy can often lead to a higher sense of self-esteem Self-esteem and psychological equanimity - Self-esteem has been shown to be a strong predictor of depression and anxiety. o Self-esteem is linked to positive psychological adjustment o Essentially, high self-esteem has a negative correlation with depression and anxiety: • Depression (r = -.20 to - .70) • Anxiety (r = -.10 to -.70) • Happiness (r = .30 to .60) The table below depicts the difference between high self-esteem and low self-esteem and the effect that this has on other dimensions. It shows how self-esteem if important for psychological adjustment Low self-esteem

High self-esteem Self-conception Less clear self-conceptions Clear sense of self Ø They tend to struggle more with a Ø They are aware of who they are and clear sense of self-concept. They who they aren’t are less aware of who they are Goal Setting Set unrealistic goals/shy away from goals Set appropriate goals Self-reflection Remember past more negatively/wallow in Savour past experiences/think positively Ø Tend to reflect on past experiences negative moods that were positive for them Ø Tend to remember and reflect negative experiences Pessimistic Ø They tend to view the world with a pessimistic mind

Optimistic Ø They tend to view the world with an optimistic mind

Historical perspectives on self-esteem The self-esteem movement in the 1970s and 1980s - Between the 70s and 80s a lot of literature was published which focused on selfesteem and its value in psychology. Specifically, it suggested that self-esteem was linked with any societal outcome that could be considered, specifically negative outcomes. - There were studies suggesting that it was linked with drug use as well as negative grades in school; and essentially there was a strong movement viewing self-esteem as the cause of any problem in somebody’s life. California Task Force • The California governor passed a bill to a task force to see how levels of self-esteem could be raised.

Evidence of self-esteem and its relationship to social problems (Baumeister et al., 2003) Baumeister et al. in 2003 examined the relationship between self-esteem and various social problems. This is following the claim that self-esteem could be considered as the cause of life’s issues and thus high self-esteem could be the solution for them. Some of the social problems analyzed included: o School performance o Job/task performance o Anti-social behavior o Unhealthy behaviors Results showed that the evidence that self-esteem is related to any of the problems analyzed was rather weak. There was some correlation evidence, however this relationship was very small (correlations such as .2, .3). Additionally, the study also analyzed the fact that the claim is based on causality while this would not work. In fact, although correlations were seen in the Californian hospitals due to the task force, self-esteem cannot be considered as a cause for either good or bad things. It is likely that self-esteem is influence by the outcomes (do well in school = high self-esteem, do bad in school = low self-esteem) however, there is no cause and effect. What is self-esteem? - Self-esteem is considered as a state and a trait o Self-esteem as a trait = typical average evaluation of the self across time o Self-esteem as a state = moment-to-moment fluctuation in self evaluation How can self-esteem by measured? Self-esteem can be measured using the Rosenberg self-esteem scale (1965) - This includes 10 items, that discuss global evaluations of the self

Analyzing Threatened Self-esteem: Heatherton and Polivy (1991) They conducted a study on self-esteem and its fluctuation, based on the idea of states and traits. - They asked students to complete several measures of self-esteem in different time frames, so at different times: o At baseline (T1) o When they were told they would face a difficult exam (T2) o Immediately after receiving grades back (T3) - Results showed that self-esteem was lower in T2 in comparison to T1 > so when they were told they would have to complete a difficult exam there was a fluctuation in self-esteem state - Results also showed that self-esteem fluctuated at T3 o Those who got low grades had a negative fluctuation in self-esteem o Those who got high grades had a positive fluctuation in self-esteem

Manipulating threatened self-esteem Heatherton and Polivy’s (1991) study were a naturalistic study with not laboratory manipulation present, however it is often helpful to try and manipulate people’s self-esteem in a laboratory setting. There are different ways this can be done: - Manipulating the difficulty of the task given: § If participants believe that the study will focus on academic achievement or student ability, and randomize the tests given. This means someone will get the hard test while others will get the easy test. o Remotes associates test (RAT) > this is one way that self-esteem can be manipulated. It works by showing the participant three words and asking them to find a fourth that relates to the given ones. - False feedback on tests o This entails giving all participants the same tests but then giving different results, some of the results being false o Give participants IQ tests, get them all the answer them and then given them the results and the comparisons to other participants. § This also entails social comparison Greenberg et al., (1982) conducted a test based on this concept: § Participants took part in a test and were told that it would reveal their abilities and give them a score § A series of dependent measures were taken regarding attributions for test outcome, test importance, and perception of test

§ §

Results showed that in regard to ability and effort, whenever people succeeded, they internalized it being due to themselves, while when people failed, they externalized this. In fact, this externalization was seen by the luck factor, as failure showed a significant increase in this factor. • They are trying to protect their self-esteem, as it is being threatened by the bad grade they got. They are therefore externalizing the failure and blaming it on other factors rather than themselves.

Meta-analysis of responses to threatened self-esteem vanDellen et al. (2011) conducted a metanalysis which looks at the complex findings of selfesteem literature and summarized it. They concluded that people with high self-esteem, whenever they are being threatened, they tend to compensate for the threat. For example, they: - Externally attribute failure o ‘it was a bad day’ - Present positive self-evaluations - Downward social comparisons o Social comparisons are when we evaluate ourselves in relation to somebody else. We can make downward and upward social comparison. § Downward social comparison is whenever we look at someone that did worse than us. § Upward is whenever we look at an individual that did better than us. o Downward social comparison allows for a positive evaluation of themselves as the individual can still say ‘I’ve done better than him’ - Negative evaluations of evaluators - Increased persistence/motivation They concluded that people with low self-esteem, whenever they are being threatened, they tend to exhibit breaking responses. They internally attribute failure and do so: - Negative self-evaluations - Global failure o These individuals tend to not limit the issue to the one assignment for example, but most likely say that the overall topic is undoable or that they are not make for the subject and so on. o This idea of global failure is not only set to the individual assessment and course but moreover their entire mindset. - Upward social comparisons - Positive evaluations of evaluators o As a consequence of internally attributing the failure and blaming themselves they positively evaluate the markers - Decreased persistence/motivation

Anticipating Failure People do not just respond when self-esteem is threatened, but also in situations where we feel there is the potential for threat This idea was explored by Pysczynski and Greenberg (1983) - They provided participants with false information regarding test’s predictive validity – weak (no threat) v strong (threat) o In one condition the participants were told that it was just a test while in another condition they were told that the test was a validated highly reliable indicator of how well a student was doing in their degree. - Researchers manipulated sample questions to be very easy (success likely) or hard (failure likely) o Self-handicapping (selfreport) What is self-esteem? Self-esteem can refer to different things: - Global evaluations of the self > Rosenberg’s self-esteem scale - Domain-specific evaluations of the self o The domains can be appearance, academic competence, athletic ability and so on - Contingent self-esteem (Crocker, 2002) o This is the sense that we stake our self-esteem in particular domains. So essentially when we stake our self-worth in particular domains, our selfesteem can become contingent upon successes and failures we experience § Essentially this is just how do you evaluate yourself, but not necessarily do those evaluations matter. - Contingent regard the result of socialisation? o Parents, teachers, and other significant figures invest on specific outcomes à inadvertently convey belief that self-worth is contingent upon specific outcomes

Contingent Self-esteem Crocker et al. (2003) found seven contingent domains of self-esteem: approval of others, appearance, competition, academic competence, family support, virtue, god’s love, competition. Results also showed that, by asking people various questions regarding their everyday activities, predicting self-report activities was possible. In fact domains in which people staked their self-esteem predicted self-report activities of what they did that year at college: - Academic contingent self-esteem spent more time studying - Appearance contingent self- esteem spent more time partying, socialising, shopping, and grooming themselves

Crocker et al., (2002) found that self-esteem is affected in domain that we believe as important to ourselves. The study had students applying to graduate school take their self-esteem at baseline levels and then self-esteem on the day they received their letter. People whom did not have academic contingent self-esteem did not vary in self-esteem levels whether they got in or not; while for contingent self-esteem individuals the self-esteem levels showed a significant difference Crocker et al. (2006) showed that contingent self-esteem is more sensitive to the potential of threat in domains that are important to us This study used self-handicapping (behavioural) as a behavioral measure to look at how students might respond to a difficult test in comparison to the previous one. - They were given a set of questions and were told that they could practice how many of them they liked and for as long as they liked. The researchers then measured how many questions students practiced in that session. o Self-handicapping would reflect if you only practiced one or two questions prior to the test Results showed that for people who didn’t have their self-worth predicated on their academic contingencies, when failure was likely they prepared a lot (to have the best chance of passing). While individuals who had high academic contingencies engaged in self handicapping strategies by withdrawing effort and practicing less. They engaged in a selfpreventative measure, so in a protective way into inoculate themselves from self-esteem, threats. How does self-esteem function? Self-verification model (Swann, 1987) This model is based of principles of consistency, it is essentially based on the idea that humans like consistency in life and therefore prefer information that confirms our self-views. So, the way this can be seen is that: - High trait self-esteem individuals tend to seek out positive information that confirms their views of themselves – seek out positive information - Low trait self-esteem individuals often seek out negative information, which confirms their views – seek out negative information o This idea can be considered as why low self-esteem and its link to well-being can often be cyclical > that is individuals with low self-esteem and depression is very hard to raise the self-esteem as people are seeking to find information that confirms and corroborates the way that they see things. A study conducted by Swann et al. (1992) told participants to interact with another partner and to select the partner they wanted to interact with. They could choose the partner based on information that had been provided previously. They were given two different potential people they could speak to, one was evaluated positively, while the other was evaluated negatively.

Results showed that people with high levels of self-esteem and had positive self-views wanted to speak to a person that was favorable towards them, while people with negative self-views and low self-esteem generally wanted to speak to the person that had unfavorable views of them. To further investigate this idea Swann et al. interviewed the participants and asked why they had chosen the partner. They found that there were two main reasons for why they wanted to pick them: epistemic (confirmatory) and pragmatic (suitable expectation) in nature.

Self-enhancement model (Kunda, 1990) This is the idea that humans are driven towards generally high levels of self-esteem and seek to maintain high levels of self-esteem. They are guided towards favourable information that confirm positive self-views and can revise negative self-views. - High trait self-esteem individuals are more likely to search out for information that confirms their positive self-view and also try and find ways to revise their negative ones – direct self-enhancement o They engage in self enhancement strategies (trying to raise their levels of selfesteem in comparison because) - Low trait self-esteem individuals, as they generally hold negative evaluations and opinions of themselves find self-enhancement to be more difficult. They will still take part of self-enhancement however will do so indirectly. They may surround themselves with out people who might be seen as worth or successful – indirect self-enhancement Self-affirmation theory (Steele, 1988) This is related to self-enhancement model. This is the idea that people are driven towards high self-esteem and the idea that we try to protect our self-esteem and maintain high levels. We do so by affirming their sense of self in different domain. Additionally, it is how individuals cope with threats by affirming their self-worth in unrelated aspects. Self-affirmation: compensatory response Self-affirming one’s self-worth in an alternative domain can alleviate self-esteem threat (e.g., Brown & Smart, 1991) Participants (low v high self-esteem) provided false feedback on their intelligence (failure v success). They were then asked to rate themselves on various traits; half related to the task (achievement traits), half unrelated to the task (social traits). Results showed that people with high self-esteem, after failure they bolstered their level of evaluation themselves in different domains. They essentially inflate their evaluation in another way.

Self-affirmation: reducing defensiveness Self-affirming one’s self-worth in an alternative domain can reduce defensiveness to threat (e.g., Sherman et al., 2000) Participants were exposed to types of health threat messages, and half the participants were given the opportunity to self-affirm an important characteristic. Results showed that those who had self-affirmed were more willing to accept article conclusions and report higher behavioral intentions to change Self-esteem across Cultures Is the need for self-esteem universal? There is an ongoing debate regarding whether self-esteem is universal or not. Heine et al., (1999) argue that the need for self-esteem is a preoccupation with Western culture and thus is not universal. They state that because westernized culture is individualistic and self-individual focused, the need for self-esteem is only present in Western culture. Evidence to support this claim is given by Deiner and Deiner (1995). They conducted a large-scale cross-national survey of 31 nations. They surveyed a total of 13.118 students across 31 nations. Results showed that there is a stronger correlation between self-esteem and life satisfaction in individualistic cultures in comparison to collectivistic cultures. The study concluded that self-esteem is essentially a westernized specific need and that in westernized cultures individuals are socialized to attend to internal attributes and this needs that this leads to, therefore, our sense that we need self-esteem and therefore self-esteem has a major impact on our well-being. On the other hand, there is an argument that self-esteem is a universal motive. However, this idea is linked with the idea that it is how we think about self-esteem that differs across Westerns and Eastern cultures. In fact, there is a bias in self-esteem measures towards individualistic conceptions of selfworth, for example Rosenberg’s self-esteem measures use terms as ‘I am’, so individualistic ideas. While it can be argued that in collectivistic cultures, the strive for self-esteem can be derived from living up to a sense that you can contribute to the greater good by enhancing their collective value (Kashima et al., 2004). Another thing that can be expected is the differences between individualistic and collectivistic cultures may differ in the way that self-esteem manifests. Essentially, this explores the idea that westernized culture is generally more accepting of people boasting their own individual qualities, while collectivistic cultures the idea of boasting may be frowned upon. Studies such as Kityaama and Karasawa (1997) showed that Japanese student significantly showed implicit self-esteem; while Ross et al., (2002) showed that bicultural Chinese participants completing survey in Chinese or English showed difference in how their self-esteem was presented. The role of culture in self-esteem Many theories suggest that self-esteem is derive from what we think our culture described to be a person of value, and the idea of a person of value differs across cultures. This is seen in western vs. eastern culture but also in subcultures. In fact culture is socially constructed, and consensually validated, set of norms, beliefs, assumptions and values.

The costly pursuit of self-esteem Self-esteem can be costly not only on a psychological level but also in other needs in life. In fact, the pursuit of self-esteem can have destructive consequences, and can be costly to the pursuit of other needs and goals 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 Self-esteem can sacrifice autonomy, in fact people may not be doing something for their own sake, but more for the approval of others or to experience positive emotions. Additionally, there are differences between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. In fact, contingent self-esteem leads towards extrinsic motivation: people feel like the need to do these things because of the need to succeed or because of this person says it...