The Dark Side of High Self-Esteem

What Is Self-Esteem?

The term is used in three ways

Trait self-esteem (aka, Global self-esteem)
Represents the way people generally feel about themselves Relatively enduring across time and situations Cognition vs. affect

State self-esteem
Moment-to-moment feelings of self-worth Is trait self-esteem just the average of state self-esteem over a prolonged period of time?

Self-evaluations (aka, Domain-specific self-esteem)

The way individuals evaluate their various abilities Ex. a girl who is good at sports may have high athletic selfesteem

Relations Among the Three Constructs

Cognitive (Bottom-Up) Model
State Self-Esteem Immediate effect Self-Evaluations Trait Self-Esteem If enduring

Evaluative Feedback

Relations Among the Three Constructs

Affective (Top-Down) Model
Trait Self-Esteem Trait Self-Esteem x Evaluative Feedback

Evaluative Feedback

Self-Evaluations

State Self-Esteem

James (1890) view of self-esteem

So our self-feeling in this world depends entirely on what we back ourselves to be and do. It is determined by the ratio of our actualities to our supposed potentialities; a fraction of which our pretensions are the denominator and the numerator our success: thus, Self-esteem = Successes Pretensions Such a fraction may be increased as well by diminishing the denominator as by increasing the numerator (James, 1890/1983, p. 296)

The Pursuit of Self-Esteem

The pursuit of self-esteem has become a central preoccupation in American culture

Hundreds of self-help books offer strategies for increasing self-esteem or raising kids who have high self-esteem Schools have implemented programs aimed at boosting self-esteem in the hopes of reducing problems such as high dropout rates, teenage pregnancy, and drug/alcohol abuse More than 20,000 journal articles on self-esteem have been published over the past 30 years

The Importance of Self-Esteem

Research has documented the many ways people seek to maintain, enhance, and protect their self-esteem (e.g., Baumeister, 1998) The desire to believe that one is worthy or valuable drives behavior and shapes how people think about themselves, other people, and events in their lives

The pursuit of self-esteem is so pervasive that many researchers have assumed it is a universal and fundamental human need

Example: the best predictor of satisfaction with positive events is their impact on self-esteem (Sheldon et al., 2001)

However, the role of self-esteem as a causal agent in a number of areas (e.g., high academic achievement, good job performance, improved leadership) has been questioned (Baumeister, Campbell, Krueger, & Vohs, 2003) but others have argued that self-esteem still has value as a construct (e.g., Swann, Chang-Schneider, & McClarty, 2007; Trzesniewski et al., 2006)

Focus on Level of Self-Esteem

The vast majority of the literature has focused exclusively on level of self-esteem (i.e., whether people typically have high or low self-regard)
High self-esteem is strongly related to the beliefs people hold about themselves (e.g., intelligence, attractiveness, acceptance) Individuals with high self-esteem believe they are superior to others in many domains (e.g., Campbell, 1986) and they expect their futures to be more positive than the futures of other individuals (Taylor & Brown, 1988)

The Paradox of High Self-Esteem

Initial research focused on the virtues of high selfesteem such as its connection with indicators of psychological adjustment (Diener, 1984; Kaplan, 1975; Robins, Hendin, & Trzesniewski, 2001; Tennen & Affleck, 1993) More recent research has revealed that high self-esteem also has a dark side
Prejudice (Crocker, Thompson, McGraw, & Ingerman, 1987; Verkuyten, 1996; Verkuyten & Masson, 1995) Aggression (Baumeister, Smart, & Boden, 1996; Papps & OCarroll, 1998) A variety of self-protective or self-enhancement strategies (Baumeister, Heatherton, & Tice, 1993; Baumeister, Tice, & Hutton, 1989; Blaine & Crocker, 1993; Fitch, 1970; Gibbons & McCoy, 1991; Miller & Ross, 1975; Tice, 1991).

Two Forms of High Self-Esteem

Contemporary theorists (e.g., Deci & Ryan, 1995; Kernis, 2003) have proposed that there are actually two forms of high self-esteem: secure high self-esteem and fragile high self-esteem. Secure high self-esteem reflects positive attitudes toward the self that are realistic, well-anchored, and resistant to threat
Able to recognize and acknowledge their weaknesses without feeling threatened The solid foundation for their feelings of self-worth protects these individuals from the normal adversities of day-to-day life

Fragile high self-esteem refers to feelings of self-worth that are vulnerable to challenge, require constant validation, and rely upon some degree of self-deception
Individuals with fragile high self-esteem are believed to frequently utilize self-protective and self-enhancing strategies in order to preserve their seemingly precious self-esteem resources

Secure vs. Fragile Self-Esteem

There are three primary models used to distinguish between secure and fragile high self-esteem
Contingent Self-Esteem Discrepancies Between Implicit and Explicit Self-Esteem Self-Esteem Instability

Contingent Self-Esteem

People differ in what they believe they must be or do to be a worthy and valuable person, and therefore in what types of events produce an increase or decrease in their selfesteem (Crocker & Wolfe, 2001; Deci & Ryan, 1995) Self-esteem reactions to acceptance/rejection letters from graduate school (Crocker, Sommers, & Luhtanen, 2002) Self-esteem reactions to good/bad grades (Crocker, Karpinski, Quinn, & Chase, 2003) Predict the time that college freshmen spend in various activities (e.g., studying, socializing, and grooming; Crocker, Luhtanen, et al., 2003) as well as the problems they encounter (e.g., academic and financial problems; Crocker & Luhtanen, 2003) Contingent self-esteem has also been linked to
Interpersonal style (Zeigler-Hill, 2006b) Narcissistic subtypes (Zeigler-Hill, Clark, & Pickard, 2008) Compartmentalized self-concept structure (Zeigler-Hill & Showers, in preparation)

Discrepant Self-Esteem

Discrepancies may form between an individuals level of implicit selfesteem and their level of explicit self-esteem (Bosson, Brown, Zeigler-Hill, & Swann, 2003; Jordan, Spencer, Zanna, Hoshino-Browne, & Correll, 2003) This notion that individuals with discrepant high self-esteem are relying upon overt grandiosity to conceal unacknowledged negative feelings about the self is consistent with classic views concerning narcissism (Kernberg, 1970; Kohut, 1971) and has recently received empirical support using different measures of implicit self-esteem (Jordan et al., 2003; Zeigler-Hill, 2006) A number of other findings may also support the idea that the positive self-views of individuals with discrepant high self-esteem are defensive and vulnerable to challenge
Temporal fluctuations in their state self-esteem (Zeigler-Hill, 2006) Display increased self-enhancement tendencies (Bosson et al., 2003) React to uncertainty-threats with strong compensatory conviction (McGregor & Marigold, 2003, Study 3) Use racial discrimination as a way of maintaining threatened self-images (Jordan, Spencer, & Zanna, 2005)

Unstable Self-Esteem

Self-esteem instability refers to temporal fluctuations in state self-esteem (Kernis, Grannemann, & Barclay, 1989; Rosenberg, 1986) Individuals with unstable high self-esteem behave as if their self-esteem is constantly at stake (Greenier et al., 1999; Kernis, Brown, & Brody, 2000; Kernis, Cornell, Sun, Berry, & Harlow, 1993; Kernis, Greenier, Herlocker, Whisenhunt, & Abend, 1997; Waschull & Kernis, 1996) Compared with individuals who possess stable high self-esteem, those with unstable high self-esteem are more likely to
Boast about a recent success to their friends (Kernis et al., 1997) Report higher levels of anger and hostility (Kernis et al., 1989) Engage in self-handicapping (Kernis et al., 1992; Newman & Wadas, 1997) Adopt a self-esteem protective orientation toward learning (Waschull & Kernis, 1996) Be highly selective in their acceptance of relevant feedback (Kernis, Cornell, Sun, Berry, & Harlow, 1993) Employ immature psychological defenses (Myers & Zeigler-Hill, 2008; ZeiglerHill, Chadha, & Osterman, 2008) Report more dominant/hostile interpersonal styles (Zeigler-Hill & Beckman, under revision) Often captured as the within-subject standard deviation of repeated measurements of state self-esteem

Is Self-Esteem Important?
The importance of self-esteem does not appear be tied only to whether it is high or low Rather, the motivational consequences of self-esteem may be related to other aspects of self-esteem