Calibrating the sociometer: the relational contingencies of self-esteem

A longitudinal daily diary study examined how chronic perceptions of a partner's regard for oneself might affect the day-to-day relational contingencies of self-esteem. Married partners each completed a diary for 21 days, and completed measures of satisfaction twice over the year. Multilevel analyses revealed that people who chronically felt more positively regarded compensated for one day's acute self-doubts by perceiving greater acceptance and love from their partner on subsequent days. In contrast, people who chronically felt less positively regarded by their partner internalized acute experiences of rejection, feeling worse about themselves on days after they feared their partner's disaffection. Over the year, such self-esteem sensitivity to rejection predicted declines in the partner's satisfaction.     

Putting the partner within reach: a dyadic perspective on felt security in close relationships

The authors argue that felt insecurity in a partner's positive regard and caring stems from a specifically dyadic perception--the perception that a partner is out of one's league. A cross-sectional sample of dating couples revealed that people with low self-esteem feel inferior to their partner and that such feelings of relative inferiority undermine felt security in the partner's regard. Three experiments examined the consequences of reducing such perceived discrepancies by pointing to either strengths in the self or flaws in the partner. Low, but not high, self-esteem participants reacted to new strengths in the self or faults in the partner by reporting greater felt security in their specific partner's positive regard and commitment and more positive, general feelings about their own interpersonal worth. Thus, putting the partner more within the psychological grasp of low self-esteem people may effectively increase felt security in the partner's regard.     

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.     

For better or worse? Self-esteem and the contingencies of acceptance in marriage

A longitudinal daily diary study examined the origins and consequences of perceiving a partner's acceptance and love as contingent on professional success. Both members of 154 couples completed a diary for 21 days. Multilevel analyses revealed that low self-esteem men and women felt more accepted and loved by their partner on days when their professional lives were marked by success, and low self-esteem women felt less accepted and loved on days when their professional lives were marked by failure. No such spillover effects between people's professional and relationship lives emerged for people high in chronic selfesteem. A 1-year longitudinal follow-up revealed that people who initially felt less accepted across days reported decreased satisfaction. Men also became especially distressed when their wives felt less accepted initially and (incorrectly) perceived their husbands' regard as contingent.     

Drinking to regulate negative romantic relationship interactions: The moderating role of self-esteem

A 30-day diary study examined the relations among trait self-esteem, negative romantic relationship interactions, and alcohol consumption. Multilevel analyses revealed that people with low trait self-esteem (compared with people with high trait self-esteem) drank more on days when they experienced more negative relationship interactions with their romantic partners. In addition, daily increases in state self-esteem buffered people with low trait self-esteem from the desire to drink in response to negative romantic relationship interactions. In contrast, participants with high and low self-esteem both decreased their drinking in response to negative non-romantic relationship events, but people with low self-esteem decreased their drinking less. These findings suggest that people with low trait self-esteem may drink as a way to regulate unfulfilled needs for acceptance.     

Working models of attachment and attribution processes in intimate relationships

Two studies examined the link between working models of attachment and social construal processes in romantic relationships. In Study 1, individuals high in attachment-related anxiety responded to hypothetical partner transgressions by endorsing relationship-threatening attributions, experiencing emotional distress, and endorsing behavioral intentions that were likely to result in conflict. These effects emerged after controlling for pessimistic explanatory style, depressed mood, and self-esteem. In addition, the association between anxiety and emotional distress was mediated by attributions and attachment-related needs. In Study 2, anxious individuals endorsed relationship-threatening attributions for their partner's transgressions but less so for their partner's positive behaviors, and these effects occurred primarily among those in unhappy relationships. In contrast, avoidant individuals endorsed pessimistic attributions for their partner's positive behavior but less so for their partner's transgressions, and these effects occurred regardless of their level of relationship satisfaction.     

Fixated on rejection: Attentional blindness following socially rejecting faces in people with defensive self-esteem

People with defensive self-esteem (high explicit and low implicit self-esteem) respond more negatively to ego threat than do those with secure (high explicit and implicit) self-esteem. We examined whether they would also be more attentive to a cue indicating the presence of such threat–namely, a face signaling social rejection. In a rapid serial visual presentation task, participants with defensive self-esteem made more errors than those with secure self-esteem following a picture of a rejecting face than following either an accepting face or a negative control image. Our findings suggest a possible relationship between defensive self-esteem and rejection sensitivity. Potential negative ramifications of this sensitivity to rejection cues are discussed.     

Optimizing assurance: the risk regulation system in relationships

A model of risk regulation is proposed to explain how people balance the goal of seeking closeness to a romantic partner against the opposing goal of minimizing the likelihood and pain of rejection. The central premise is that confidence in a partner's positive regard and caring allows people to risk seeking dependence and connectedness. The risk regulation system consists of 3 interconnected "if--then" contingency rules, 1 cognitive, 1 affective, and 1 behavioral. The authors describe how general perceptions of a partner's regard structure the sensitivity of these 3 "if--then" rules in risky relationship situations. The authors then describe the consequences of such situated "if--then" rules for relationship well-being and conclude by integrating other theoretical perspectives and outlining future research directions.     

Once hurt,twice hurtful: how perceived regard regulates daily marital interactions

A daily diary study examined how chronic perceptions of a partner's regard affect how intimates interpret and respond to daily relationship stresses. Spouses each completed a diary for 21 days. Multilevel analyses revealed that people who felt less positively regarded read more into stressful events than did people who felt highly regarded, feeling more hurt on days after acute threats, such as those posed by a moody or ill-behaved partner. Intimates who felt less valued responded to feeling hurt by behaving badly toward their partner on subsequent days. In contrast, intimates who felt more valued responded to feeling hurt by drawing closer to their partner. Ironically, chronically activated needs for belongingness might lead people who are trying to find acceptance to undermine their marriage.     

Self-esteem and the Dual Processing of Interpersonal Contingencies

Social cognitive research has shown that individuals with low self-esteem exhibit contingency expectations involving interpersonal acceptance and rejection (e.g., If I fail, then I will be rejected). We examined whether the processing differences between low and high self-esteem individuals would be evident in their most spontaneous reactions, or only in relatively deliberate responses. A lexical decision task measured people's reaction times to positive or negative interpersonal words, following success or failure primes. The stimulus onset asynchrony was manipulated to allow spontaneous or deliberate processing. Individuals with low self-esteem exhibited contingencies at the spontaneous level. These contingencies were not evident in individuals with high self-esteem. The findings support interpersonal models of self-esteem, and confirm that controlled, deliberate thought is not required for the activation of relational expectations.     

Close Encounters of the Initial Kind: Implicit Self-Esteem,Name-Letter Similarity,and Social Distance

This study examined the impact of implicit egotism on social distance. Sixty-one participants with high or low implicit self-esteem were assigned to conditions where they believed they would be working with someone with the same initials as their own or someone with different initials. Participants with high implicit self-esteem sat closer to a partner who shared their initials and further from a partner with different initials. Participants with low implicit self-esteem did the opposite. No differences were observed for explicit evaluations. These results extend previous studies that have shown that implicit self-esteem influences evaluations of similar and dissimilar others.     

Rocking to the beat: effects of music and partner's movements on spontaneous interpersonal coordination

People move to music and coordinate their movements with others spontaneously. Does music enhance spontaneous coordination? We compared the influence of visual information (seeing or not seeing another person) and auditory information (hearing movement or music or hearing no sound) on spontaneous coordination. Pairs of participants were seated side by side in rocking chairs, told a cover story, and asked to rock at a comfortable rate. Both seeing and hearing the other person rock elicited spontaneous coordination, and effects of hearing amplified those of seeing. Coupling with the music was weaker than with the partner, and the music competed with the partner's influence, reducing coordination. Music did, however, function as a kind of social glue: participants who synchronized more with the music felt more connected.     

Self-esteem and organization of valenced information about others: the "Jekyll and Hyde"-ing of relationship partners

The authors theorize that individuals with high self-esteem functionally integrate positive and negative partner information in memory, whereas those low in self-esteem segregate such information. The authors obtained support for this view in 7 studies. In a first set, participants judged whether positive and negative traits presented in an alternating or nonalternating order applied to a partner. Low but not high self-esteem individuals were slowed by the alternating order when judging relationship partners (but not inanimate objects). In a 2nd set, participants answered questions tapping integrated thinking, self-esteem, and other attributes. Higher self-esteem was associated with more integrated thinking when other attributes were controlled. In a final study, anxiously attached individuals were more labile in rating their spouse over a 5-day period.     

The effect of a shared humorous experience on closeness in initial encounters

Randomly paired same‐sex strangers (N = 96) participated in a series of structured interactions systematically manipulated to either create or not create a shared humorous experience. They then completed measures of feelings of closeness to their interaction partner. Consistent with hypotheses derived from personal relationships and humor theories, there was a significant effect of humor on closeness. This effect was significantly partially mediated by self‐expansion and distraction from the discomfort of the first encounter, but not by self‐disclosure/acceptance. The effect was significantly moderated by trait sense of humor and marginally moderated by anxious attachment style (such that the effect was greater for those high in trait sense of humor and high in anxious attachment). A predicted moderation by avoidant attachment was not significant.     

When partner caring leads to sharing: Partner responsiveness increases expressivity, but only for individuals with low self-esteem

Two studies examined whether perceiving a partner as responsive leads people to be more expressive with that partner, and whether the effects of perceived partner responsiveness on expressivity are moderated by self-esteem. In Study 1, female undergraduates with high or low self-esteem disclosed to a fictitious partner about a sad event. Participants either received an understanding, caring, and validating written response from their ostensible partner or did not receive a response. In Study 2, participants wrote an email, supposedly to another participant, about a sad event and received either a highly responsive or a non-responsive email response. In both studies, partner responsiveness increased expressivity among individuals with low self-esteem but not among individuals with high self-esteem. These results provide the first experimental evidence for Reis and Shaver's (1988) theorizing about responsiveness and self-disclosure.     

Neural Responses to Partner Rejection Cues

ABSTRACT— Little is known about neural responses in the early automatic-stage processing of rejection cues from a partner. Event-related potentials (ERPs) offer a window to study processes that may be difficult to detect via behavioral methods. We focused on the N400 ERP component, which reflects the amount of semantic processing prompted by a target. When participants were primed by attachment-related contexts ("If I need help from my partner, my partner will be …"), rejection-related words (e.g., dismissing ) elicited greater N400 amplitudes than acceptance-related words (e.g., supporting ). Analyses of results for nonattachment primes suggest that these findings were not simply caused by target valence; the brain responds differentially to cues of partner rejection (vs. acceptance) in under 300 ms. Moreover, these early-stage neurophysiological responses were heightened or dampened as a function of individuals' adult attachment; women characterized by high anxiety and low avoidance showed the greatest N400 responses to cues of partner rejection (vs. acceptance).     

Attachment style and subjective motivations for sex

The relation of attachment style to subjective motivations for sex was investigated in an Internet survey of 1999 respondents. The relations of attachment anxiety and avoidance to overall sexual motivation and to the specific motives for emotional closeness, reassurance, self-esteem enhancement, stress reduction, partner manipulation, protection from partner's negative affect and behavior, power exertion, physical pleasure, nurturing one's partner, and procreation were explored. As predicted, attachment anxiety was positively related to overall sexual motivation and to all specific motives for sex, with the exception of physical pleasure. Avoidance was negatively related to emotional closeness and reassurance as goals of sex and positively related to manipulative use of sex but minimally related to most other motives. Sexual passion was positively related to attachment anxiety and negatively related to avoidance, and anxiety was related to the maintenance of passion over time, whereas avoidance was related to loss of passion over time.     

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.     

Perceived regard explains self- esteem differences in expressivity

Baumeister, Tice, and Hutton proposed that individuals with low self-esteem (LSEs) adopt a more cautious, self-protective self-presentational style than individuals with high self-esteem (HSEs). The authors predicted that LSEs' self-protectiveness leads them to be less expressive-less revealing of their thoughts and feelings-with others than HSEs, and that this self-esteem difference is mediated by their perceptions of the interaction partner's regard for them. Two correlational studies supported these predictions (Studies 1 and 2). Moreover, LSEs became more expressive when their perceived regard was experimentally heightened-when they imagined speaking to someone who was unconditionally accepting rather than judgmental (Study 3) and when their perceptions of regard were increased through Marigold, Holmes, and Ross's compliment-reframing task (Study 4). These findings suggest that LSEs' expressiveness can be heightened through interventions that reduce their concerns about social acceptance.     

The company you keep: Fear of rejection in intergroup interaction

People use many cues to infer the likelihood of acceptance or rejection in intergroup interactions. Nearly all prior research has focused on personal cues directly given off by the potential interaction partner (e.g., eye contact and smiling). However, we argue that in the context of intergroup interactions, individuals may be especially sensitive to broader social cues, such as an interaction partner's social network. Across three experiments we explored differences in White participants' evaluations of a smiling Black man presented with a Black or White friend. When this Black man was featured with a Black friend, White participants reported greater rejection concerns and a greater inclination to reject this Black man compared to when he was featured with a White friend (Experiments 1-3) or featured alone (Experiment 2). Furthermore, when participants received a simple intervention designed to buffer against social rejection, the race of the Black man's friend no longer influenced participants' interests in befriending the Black man (Experiment 3). This research demonstrates the power of friendships in interracial interactions and provides evidence for a simple intervention to reduce the weight of rejection concerns in interracial interactions.