Thematic Drive Expression and Self-Esteem

The responses of 91 undergraduate students to the TAT and the Tennessee Self Concept Scale were investigated using a psychoanalytically oriented system for rating the manifest drive content of the TAT stories. Five hypotheses were made relating self-esteem to TAT drive content. Results suggested that positive self-esteem is related to higher amounts of thematic drive content, higher levels of drive integration, higher proportions of socialized drive content and lower proportions of unsocialized drive material. Results were interpreted as pointing toward a functional relationship between the phenomenological self-representations and the more dynamic ego control operations.