A diary study of implicit self-esteem, interpersonal interactions and alcohol consumption in college students

A 30-day daily diary study examined the relations among implicit self-esteem, interpersonal interactions, and alcohol consumption in college students. Multilevel analyses revealed that students with low implicit self-esteem drank more on days when they experienced more negative interpersonal interactions. In contrast, students with high implicit self-esteem drank more on days when they experienced more positive interpersonal interactions. Spending time with people who were drinking mediated both the low implicit self-esteem by negative interpersonal events interaction and the high implicit self-esteem by positive interpersonal events interaction. These findings suggest that people with low implicit self-esteem may unintentionally drink as a way to regulate unfulfilled needs for acceptance. On the other hand, people with high implicit self-esteem may drink as a way to enhance positive interpersonal experiences.     

Acceptance and need for approval as moderators of self-esteem and satisfaction with a romantic relationship or closest friendship

According to predictions of self-esteem theorists, the association between self-esteem and satisfaction with a relationship will be negative under perceptions of high acceptance and positive under perceptions of low acceptance; consistency theorists make the opposite prediction. The author primarily sought to test those predictions. By completing 4 measures, 88 female and 62 male students described their main current romantic relationship (defined as being in love and physically intimate), and 54 female and 32 male students described their relationship with their closest friend. Results supported only the self-esteem predictions for the romantic relationship. Contrary to this perspective, need for approval did not mediate this effect. In addition, self-esteem was significantly and positively correlated with satisfaction with the romantic relationship under high but not low need for approval.     

Fluctuations in state implicit self-esteem in response to daily negative events

A repeated assessment study examined changes in state implicit self-esteem after negative events. Multilevel analyses revealed that trait explicit self-esteem and self-concept clarity moderated the within-person association between daily negative events and state implicit self-esteem. People with low trait explicit self-esteem or low self-concept clarity experienced decreases in state implicit self-esteem when they experienced negative life events. In contrast, for people with high trait explicit self-esteem or high self-concept clarity, state implicit self-esteem remained stable after negative events. In addition, changes in state implicit self-esteem remained significant after controlling for state explicit self-esteem and daily negative affect. This study is the first to study changes in implicit self-esteem in the context of daily life events.     

自尊对基于面孔吸引力人格特质推断的影响

自尊影响面孔吸引力刻板印象,然而由于能动性特质自我评价能够预测自尊,高自尊的个体拥有更高的能动性自我评价,因此自尊对面孔吸引力刻板印象的影响是否只体现在能动性特质维度上还未可知。60名女被试分别评价高、低吸引力女性目标在能动性和社群性人格特质维度上的符合程度。结果发现：能动性维度上,高自尊被试对高吸引力目标在积极特质形容词的符合程度评价显著高于低自尊被试,低自尊被试对低吸引力目标在积极特质形容词的符合程度评价显著高于高自尊被试;社群性维度上,高、低自尊被试均认为高吸引力目标与积极特质形容词更符合。研究结果表明,自尊对面孔吸引力刻板印象的影响主要体现在能动性评价上;在社群性评价上,高、低自尊被试都表现出面孔吸引力刻板印象。     

Becoming irreplaceable: How comparisons to the partner’s alternatives differentially affect low and high self-esteem people

It is proposed that people are motivated to feel hard to replace in romantic relationships because feeling irreplaceable fosters trust in a partner’s continued responsiveness. By contrast, feeling replaceable motivates compensatory behavior aimed at strengthening the partner’s commitment to the relationship. A correlational study of dating couples and two experiments examined how satiating/thwarting the goal of feeling irreplaceable differentially affects relationship perception and behavior for low and high self-esteem people. The results revealed that satiating the goal of feeling irreplaceable increases trust for people low in self-esteem. In contrast, thwarting the goal of feeling irreplaceable increases compensatory behaviors meant to prove one’s indispensability for people high in self-esteem.     

Defining Self-Worth: Trait Self-Esteem Moderates the Use of Self-Serving Trait Definitions in Social Judgment

People possess self-serving definitions of social traits and categories. When a trait is positive, people emphasize their own attributes in their definition of the trait. When the trait is negative, they de-emphasize self-attributes. Across three studies, we discovered that this tendency is moderated by dispositional self-esteem. High self-esteem individuals articulate more self-serving trait definitions than their low esteem counterparts. This was revealed in explicit reports of trait definitions, reaction times used to report trait definitions, as well as in judgments of other people. Although more muted, the trait definitions of low self-esteem participants tended to be self-serving in one study and more even-handed in two others. Implications of these findings for understanding the relation of self to social judgment are discussed.     

Self-Esteem, Mood, and Intentions to Use Condoms: When Does Low Self-Esteem Lead to Risky Health Behaviors?

The authors assessed the interactive effects of self-esteem and mood on intentions to engage in unprotected sexual intercourse. Prior research has shown that people with low self-esteem tend to evaluate themselves unfavorably when in a negative mood state, whereas people with high self-esteem are less susceptible to changes in self-evaluation following a negative mood induction. The authors hypothesized that people who engage in negative self-evaluations may be more likely to report intentions to engage in unprotected sexual intercourse. Undergraduate females were randomly assigned to a positive or negative mood induction condition. Consistent with their hypotheses, the authors found that among participants who were in a negative mood state, those with low self-esteem were more likely to report intentions to have sexual intercourse without a condom than were those with high self-esteem. In contrast, among participants in a positive mood, there were no differences between those who were low and high in self-esteem.     

Self-esteem, self-affirmation, and schadenfreude

In two studies we demonstrated that self-esteem has a negative relationship with schadenfreude toward a high achiever and that this relationship was mediated by the self-threat evoked by this high achiever. Moreover, we showed that this indirect relationship was contingent on an opportunity to affirm the self. When no self-affirmation opportunity was available, low self-esteem participants experienced a stronger self-threat when confronted with a high achiever, and this self-threat increased their schadenfreude, whereas this response was attenuated when they were given an opportunity to self-affirm. These findings indicate that the misfortunes of others can evoke schadenfreude because they provide people with an opportunity to protect or enhance their self-views.     

The regulation of dependency in parent-child relationships

We propose that the insecurities about a close other’s regard that make it difficult for low self-esteem people to form satisfying romantic relationships also create difficulties in family relationships. Our study revealed that low self-esteem mothers and children felt less loved by one another than did high self-esteem mothers and children. These feelings of not being loved partially accounted for the tendency of low self-esteem children and mothers to be dissatisfied with their relationships. Ironically, however, low self-esteem children’s insecurities about how much their mothers loved them were not warranted by the strength of their mother’s love. Taken together, these findings suggest that the processes that regulate attachment to significant others extend to familial as well as romantic relationships.     

Affective Traits, Responses to Conflict, and Satisfaction in Romantic Relationships

Participants described their current and past romantic relationships on a variety of measures, as well as their typical behavioral responses to conflict in intimate relationships. Consistent with studies of initial social encounters, participants who were high in trait positive affect (PA) described their current relationships as being of higher quality than did low PA individuals. Participants who were high in PA were also more likely to currently be in a relationship than were other people. Negative affect emerged as a predictor of the amount of conflict that characterized people's past romantic relationships. Analyses further revealed that the link between PA and relationship quality was mediated by high PA individuals' reluctance to engage in active destructive responses and propensity to engage in active, constructive responses to conflict with their partner.     

Balancing connectedness and self-protection goals in close relationships: a levels-of-processing perspective on risk regulation

A model of risk regulation is proposed to explain how low and high self-esteem people balance the tension between self-protection and connectedness goals in romantic relationships. This model assumes that interpersonal risk automatically activates connectedness and self-protection goals. The activation of these competing goals then triggers an executive control system that resolves this goal conflict. One correlational study and 8 experiments manipulating risk, goal strength, and executive strength and then measuring implicit and explicit goal activation and execution strongly supported the model. For people high in self-esteem, risk triggers a control system that directs them toward the situations of dependence within their relationship that can fulfill connectedness goals. For people low in self-esteem, however, the activation of connectedness goals triggers a control system that prioritizes self-protection goals and directs them away from situations where they need to trust or depend on their partner.     

More than words: reframing compliments from romantic partners fosters security in low self-esteem individuals

Although people with low self-esteem (LSEs) doubt their value to their romantic partners, they tend to resist positive feedback from their partners. This resistance undermines their relationships and has been difficult to overcome in past research. The authors investigated whether LSEs could be induced to take their partners' kind words to heart by manipulating how abstractly they described a recent compliment. In 3 studies, LSEs felt more positively about the compliments, about themselves, and about their relationships--as positively as people with high self-esteem (HSEs) felt--when they were encouraged to describe the meaning and significance of the compliments. The effects of this abstract meaning manipulation were still evident 2 weeks later. Thus, when prompted, LSEs can reframe affirmations from their partners to be as meaningful as HSEs generally believe them to be and, consequently, can feel just as secure and satisfied with their romantic relationships.     

Cognitions as mediators in the relationship between self-compassion and affect

Previous studies suggest that self-compassion is related to numerous facets of mental health, but the role of cognitions in this relationship remains unknown. To examine the mediating role of cognitions in the relationship between self-compassion and anxiety, depression, and life satisfaction when controlling for self-esteem in Japanese people, we conducted two studies. Study 1 (N = 231) examined the relationship between self-compassion and affect by modeling negative automatic thoughts as a mediator; Study 2 (N = 233) tested whether positive and negative automatic thoughts meditate this relationship. Results suggested that both self-compassion and self-esteem increased positive automatic thoughts and decreased trait anxiety, whereas only self-esteem increased life satisfaction and decreased depression directly. Positive automatic thoughts increased life satisfaction and decreased depression and trait anxiety, and positive automatic thoughts mediated the relationship between self-compassion and negative affect. These findings suggest that both positive and negative automatic thoughts mediate the relationship between self-compassion and affect in Japanese people.     

How sweet it is to be loved by you: the role of perceived regard in the terror management of close relationships

Drawing from terror management theory, the present research examined whether people turn to close relationships to manage the awareness of mortality because they serve as a source of perceived regard. Studies 1 and 2 demonstrated that mortality salience (MS) leads people to exaggerate how positively their romantic partners see them and demonstrated that people are more committed to their partners to the extent that their romantic partners serve as a source of perceived regard after MS (Study 3). Study 4 revealed that activating thoughts of perceived regard from a partner in response to MS reduced death-thought accessibility. Studies 5 and 6 demonstrated that MS led high relationship contingent self-esteem individuals to exaggerate perceived regard from a partner, and this heightened regard led to greater commitment to one's partner. Study 7 examined attachment style differences and found that after MS, anxious individuals exaggerated how positively their parents see them, whereas secure individuals exaggerated how positively their romantic partners see them. Together, the present results suggest that perceptions of regard play an important role in why people pursue close relationships in the face of existential concerns.     

The Contingencies of Interpersonal Acceptance: When Romantic Relationships Function as a Self-Affirmational Resource

Existing research suggests that people with high, but not low, self-esteem use their dating partners' love and acceptance as a resource for self-affirmation when faced with personal shortcomings. The present research examines the role that perceived contingencies of acceptance play in mediating these effects. In Experiment 1, we activated either conditional or unconditional working models and then gave experimental participants failure feedback on an intelligence test. In Experiment 2, we activated thoughts of rejection (or control thoughts) and then gave experimental participants feedback suggesting that their romantic partners would discover their secret sides. Experiment 1 revealed that low and high self-esteem women both embellished their partners' love and acceptance to compensate for self-doubt when the unconditional audience was primed. When rejection was primed in Experiment 2, however, high self-esteem men reacted to the self-threat by doubting their partners' love. These findings suggest that people with low self-esteem may not typically use their relationships to self-affirm because contingencies linking failure to rejection and acceptance to success are chronically accessible in their interpersonal schemas.     

Seeking self-evaluative feedback: the interactive role of global self-esteem and specific self-views

People who verify a negative self-view expose themselves to criticism and rejection. Because people with low global self-esteem are hurt more by negative feedback than are people with high global self-esteem, the authors predicted that they would be less apt to verify a negative self-view in a more specific domain. Three investigations found support for this hypothesis. In all 3 investigations, high self-esteem participants sought (or tended to seek) self-verifying feedback, even if it was negative, but low self-esteem participants sought (or tended to seek) positive feedback, even if it was nonself-verifying. These findings show that low self-esteem people are especially concerned with self-protection and that global self-esteem and specific self-views interact to guide people's responses to self-evaluative feedback.     

Attachment styles and other predictors of relationship satisfaction in dating couples

A sample of 186 dating couples completed questionnaires in order to examine the relevance of attachment styles, romantic beliefs, self-esteem, and gender roles to relationship satisfaction. The aim was to assess whether male and female anxiety over abandonment and comfort with closeness, and interactions among them, predicted satisfaction beyond the contribution of the other variables. Using multiple-regression analysis, it was found that attachment styles successfully predicted satisfaction, after controlling for romantic beliers, self-esteem, and gender roles. Both partners were particularly dissatisfied when either partner suffered high anxiety over abandonment or low comfort with closeness. Implications for gender roles, relationship satisfaction, and attachment styles are discussed.     

Narcissus Reflects: Memory Distortion in Response to Ego-Relevant Feedback among High- and Low-Narcissistic Men

Memory distortion in response to ego-enhancing or ego-threatening feedback was investigated in 67 men selected for their responses on the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) (Raskin & Hall, 1979). Participants underwent a telephone interview with a woman confederate posing as a potential dating partner. Immediately after the interview, participants reported their perceptions of the interview and recalled their histories of romantic relationships. One week later, participants learned that the woman had selected or rejected them as a partner. Participants again recalled the interview and reported their dating histories. Both high- and low-NPI men displayed significant outcome-congruent distortions in recall of the interview. Low-NPI men recalled more negative romantic histories in response to rejection and more positive romantic histories in response to selection. By contrast, high-NPI men recalled more positive romantic histories in response to rejection and more humble histories in response to selection. Mediation analyses indicated that self-aggrandizing memory distortions in response to rejection buffered self-esteem from the effects of rejection in narcissistic men. Discussion focuses on narcissism and the role of memory distortion as an automatic self-esteem regulation strategy.     

Delineating potential mechanisms of implicit alcohol cognitions: drinking restraint, negative affect, and their relationship with approach alcohol associations

Problem drinkers may use alcohol to avoid negative mood states and may develop implicit cognitive associations between negative emotional states and reinforcing properties of drinking. It is paradoxical that attempts to control drinking, such as among those high in drinking restraint, may inadvertently increase desire to drink and subsequent alcohol consumption, and this may be exaggerated under times of emotional distress when urges to drink are high. We examined whether individuals who are high on drinking restraint would demonstrate stronger alcohol-related thoughts elicited by stimuli that represent the desire to use alcohol, in response to stronger versus weaker negative mood arousal. Seventy hazardous drinkers completed measurements of drinking restraint, alcohol consumption, and consequences of use. After being randomized to view negative or positive pictures sets, participants completed an Implicit Association Task (IAT) to test differences in the strength of the association between desire to approach or avoid alcohol or water cues, and then a measurement of subjective craving following the IAT. Regression analyses showed that trait restriction not temptation was positively related to IAT scores, after controlling for relevant covariates and explained 7% of the total variance. Trait temptation not IAT predicted subjective craving. Negative affect was unrelated to IAT scores, singly or in conjunction with measures of drinking restraint, contrary to predictions. In sum, implicit alcohol cognitions are related to attempts to restrict drinking not temptation to drink and are less strongly influenced by mood state.