Self Esteem Flashcards
Self Esteem Craze: High SE correlated with?
- Happiness
- Productivity
- Success
- The State Budget
Self Esteem Craze: Low SE correlated with?
- Crime
- Teen pregnancy
- Pollution
Measuring Self-Esteem Fraction
Self-esteem = Success / Pretensions.
- Such a fraction may be increased as well by diminishing the denominator as by increasing the numerator.
State vs Trait SE
State self-esteem: current feelings about the self
Trait self-esteem: typical level of self-esteem across situations
Global vs Specific
Global self-esteem: how the individual values the self
Specific self-esteem: self-evaluation in specific areas of life
Implicit vs Explicit
Implicit self-esteem: unconscious evaluations of the self
Explicit self-esteem: conscious evaluations of the self
High Trait Self-Esteem - What does this look like?
- Use confidence-building strategies
- Strive to stand out in social situations
Low Trait Self-Esteem - What does this look like?
- Use protective self-presentation
- Seek to fit in
- High on rejection-sensitivity
Why do some people have high vs low SE?
Little differences in SE before the age of 8
* Following adolescence, SE gradually rises and peaks around 60 before declining around 70
Developmental factors - what is an important factor?
Quality of home environment is important
- Quality of parenting, cognitive stimulation, physical home environment
Self-Verification Theory
Functions to confirm whether we are aligning with how we see ourselves
Dominance Theory
Functions to signal dominance and status in a social group
Terror Management Theory
Acts as an existential buffer to death and suffering
Sociometer Theory
Fundamental desire is to be accepted and belong to groups
SE is a measure of our
relational value
SE is not a need but rather
the output of a system that monitors and responds to events through acceptance/rejection
Testing sociometer theory: Acceptance vs Rejection
* Does acceptance and rejection impact state self-esteem? RESULTS
Yes, not being chosen for the group significantly lowered state self-esteem, whereas being excluded for a random reason had no effect.
* Rejection resulted in lower self-esteem
Does trait self-esteem also reflects people’s perceived relational value?
Yes, trait self-esteem correlates highly with people’s perceptions of the degree to which they are valued, accepted, and supported by others
Claim: High SE makes people physically attractive
Is this TRUE OR FALSE?
no significant correlation between ratings of attractiveness and self-esteem
BUT self-reported physical attractiveness was strongly related to self-esteem
Claim: High SE leads to improved academic performance
Is this TRUE OR FALSE?
Doing well in school one year led to higher self- esteem the next year, whereas high self-esteem did not lead to performing well in
school
(High global self-esteem in grade 6 predicted lower academic achievement in grade 7)
Claim: High SE improves job performance
Is this TRUE OR FALSE?
Weak positive correlations between job performance and self-esteem.
*If High SE consistently improved performance in lab tasks, this would be easy to demonstrate
Claim: High SE results in social success
TRUE OR FALSE?
superior social skills and interpersonal successes of people with high self-esteem exist mainly in their own minds.
People with high self- esteem claim to be more popular and socially skilled than others, but objective measures generally fail to confirm this and in some cases point in the opposite direction
Claim: High SE results in social success - What is the EXCEPTION?
Social initiative: the tendency to initiate interpersonal contact
High SE predicts speaking up and taking social initiative.
Aggression and High Self-Esteem: Criminals
Strong relationship between assaults and
ego-threats
* High (but unstable) SE reliably predicts violent offenses
