A comparison of self-esteem lability and low trait self-esteem as vulnerability factors for depression.

Self-esteem lability (SEL), defined as daily event-related variability in state self-esteem, and low trait self-esteem (TSE) were assessed among 205 male and female undergraduates who were currently depressed, previously depressed (PD), and never depressed (ND). SEL scores were derived for the effect of positive, negative, and combined events on state self-esteem over 30 days. Consistent with psychodynamic and cognitive theories, SEL was found to be a better index of depression proneness than TSE. PD Ss showed higher lability on all SEL scores than ND controls but did not differ from controls on TSE. Ss were reassessed 5 mo later, and new cases showed higher premorbid SEL than ND controls but did not differ from controls on premorbid TSE. SEL at Time 1 was found to increase risk for depression at Time 2 among Ss reporting high life stress at Time 2. Theoretical and methodological implications are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mania and low self-esteem.

Tested the theory that although bipolar patients do not report low self-esteem, they do possess a cognitive schema of low self-esteem. 16 remitted bipolars (mean age 47.4 yrs), 16 remitted depressives (mean age 42.1 yrs), and 16 normals (mean age 43.4 yrs) completed a self-report battery consisting of the Self-Report Inventory, the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale, and a measure of self-deception. Ss also completed a task designed to assess whether self-esteem influenced inferences about the causes of imagined events. Results show that remitted bipolars scored the same as normals and higher than remitted depressives on self-esteem, and they scored higher than the other groups on both social desirability and self-deception. Remitted bipolars' inferences about the causes of failures resembled those of a depressive, suggesting the presence of a low self-worth schema. Data are consistent with the view that bipolar patients have negative feelings of self that are not revealed on usual self-report inventories. Because remitted depressives showed a depressive attributional style on the inference task, issues concerning the mood dependence of depressive cognitions are discussed. (36 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-serving attributions in social context: Effects of self-esteem and social pressure.

Examined attributions (ATs) of Ss high (HSEs) and low (LSEs) in self-esteem in contests where (a) they were low or high in the motivation to make a positive impression on an audience, (b) the audience was perceived as supportive or critical, (c) Ss' accounts were public or private, and (d) Ss had succeeded or failed on a previous task. HSEs were most egotistical when evaluative pressures were greatest (i.e., they were motivated to make a good impression and had the opportunity to account publicly), whereas LSEs were least egotistical under these conditions. HSEs tended to internalize success by raising self-ratings, whereas LSEs tended to internalize failure by lowering self-ratings. A critical audience seemed to activate concerns about the defensibility of ATs, producing more caution and less explicit boastfulness. Factor analysis of Ss' responses suggested that they conceptualized the situation in terms of its implications for evaluating identity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Why and how people engage in social comparison while learning social skills in groups.

This study was conducted among 269 medical students who participated in educational training groups. Self-evaluation was the most important motive to engage in social comparison with other group members, followed by, respectively, self-enhancement and self-improvement. Upward comparisons (i.e., with better-performing group members), were motivated by self-improvement, particularly when they involved identification. Upward comparisons were also motivated by self-evaluation, particularly when they involved contrast. Downward comparisons (i.e., with worse-performing group members) were mainly motivated by self-enhancement, particularly when they involved contrast. Performance stress was higher the more participants identified downward, the less they identified upward, and the more they contrasted themselves upward. It is concluded that educators should pay attention to the potentially maladaptive role that social comparisons might play in training groups. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Satisfaction with social support during crisis: Intimacy and self-esteem as critical determinants.

Satisfaction with social support was studied longitudinally in 113 17–40 yr old Israeli women following the outcome of both normal and medically complicated pregnancies (delivery by cesarean section, delivery of an infant weighing under 2 kg, or spontaneous abortion before the 3rd trimester). Ss were interviewed concerning the size of their social networks, the number of friends and family members in their networks, perceived intimacy with spouse, and perceived intimacy with at least 1 friend and 1 family member. Included in the interviews were measures of self-esteem, intimacy, social network structure, and satisfaction with support. Findings show that greater intimacy with spouse and with friends was related to greater satisfaction with support received during the crisis period. Intimate ties contributed to satisfaction with support independent of self-esteem, social network parameters, and type of pregnancy outcome. Social network parameters and pregnancy outcome were not related to satisfaction with support. Among Ss low in self-esteem, greater intimacy with family was related to lower satisfaction with support if the Ss lacked intimate ties with spouse or a friend. Clinical and social psychological theories regarding reaction to aid are discussed. (37 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Antecedents of self-esteem in deaf people: A meta-analytic review.

Presents a meta-analysis of 42 empirical studies that assessed the effect of 6 constructs on self-esteem (SE): hearing status, parents' hearing status, type of school attended, communication mode used at home and in school, and group identification. Differences in SE between deaf and hearing people varied based on the SE measure and its format, and the communication mode in which tests were administered. People whose parents were deaf compared favorably to those whose parents were hearing, as did people whose parents used sign language at home compared to those who used oral communication. School setting and classroom communication were unrelated to SE. Finally, group identification was positively related to SE. Recommendations for guiding hearing parents in fostering SE in their deaf children are provided. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Implicit social cognition: Attitudes, self-esteem, and stereotypes.

Social behavior is ordinarily treated as being under conscious (if not always thoughtful) control. However, considerable evidence now supports the view that social behavior often operates in an implicit or unconscious fashion. The identifying feature of implicit cognition is that past experience influences judgment in a fashion not introspectively known by the actor. The present conclusion--that attitudes, self-esteem, and stereotypes have important implicit modes of operation--extends both the construct validity and predictive usefulness of these major theoretical constructs of social psychology. Methodologically, this review calls for increased use of indirect measures--which are imperative in studies of implicit cognition. The theorized ordinariness of implicit stereotyping is consistent with recent findings of discrimination by people who explicitly disavow prejudice. The finding that implicit cognitive effects are often reduced by focusing judges' attention on their judgment task provides a basis for evaluating applications (such as affirmative action) aimed at reducing such unintended discrimination. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Explaining the relations among children's actual and perceived performances and self-esteem: A comparison of several causal models.

Used structural equation methods to compare various causal models of the relation between children's performances and self-esteem. Analysis was based on cross-sectional data collected from 415 children from 6th–8th grades. Ss' GPA, athletic performance, self-esteem, perceptions of academic ability, perceptions of sociometric status, and lists of peers they liked were analyzed. Models in which self-esteem affected perceptions of popularity fit the data better than models in which the reverse or reciprocal effects were posited. It appears that for ambiguous attributes, such as popularity, a self-consistency bias operates whereby children's self-esteem affects how popular they think they are. For more verifiable attributes (i.e., academic and athletic achievement), perceptions of achievement are more strongly related to actual achievement, and they are more likely to affect self-esteem rather than the reverse. (45 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sex differences in sources of social self-esteem.

Administered R. Ziller's social self-esteem measure, the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability scale, and a scale rating self, mother, and father to 40 female and 37 male undergraduates. As predicted, the relationship of need for approval, grades, and family sibling structure to social self-esteem was different for each sex. Ss high in social self-esteem were: males with high need for approval; females with low need for approval; males with grades of A and B; females with grades of C; and male firstborns when the 2nd-born sibling was female. No relationship with perceived parental identification was found. Results support the hypothesis that males must succeed in culturally masculine roles to maintain self-esteem. (16 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A comparison of general self-efficacy with self-esteem

The amounts and types of nutrients in the environment influence the development and final bacterial and chemical composition of biofilms. In oligotrophic environments, organisms respond to nutrient stress by alterations in their cell morphology and cell surfaces, which enhance adherence. Little is known of the responses to stress by bacteria in the animal oral cavity. The environment in the oral cavity is less extreme, and saliva provides a constant source of nutrients. Catabolic cooperation among oral bacteria allow carbon and nitrogen from salivary glycoproteins to be utilized. Modification of growth environments of oral bacteria can influence their cell surfaces and adhesion. Studies in experimental animals have shown that feeding either glucose or sucrose diets or fasting has little effect on the initial stages of development of oral biofilms. However, diet can influence the proportions of different bacterial species later in biofilm development. Studies of competition among populations in communities of oral bacteria in vitro and in vivo have shown the significance of carbon limitation and excess and changes in environmental pH. Relatively few studies have been made of the role of a nitrogen metabolism in bacterial competition in biofilms. In keeping with biofilms in nature, oral biofilms provide a sequestered habitat, where organisms are protected from removal by saliva and where interactions among cells generate a biofilm environment, distinct from that of saliva. Oral biofilms are an essential component in the etiologies of caries and periodontal disease, and understanding the biology of oral biofilms has aided and will continue to aid in the prevention and treatment of these diseases.     

Downward comparison in everyday life: Reconciling self-enhancement models with the mood–cognition priming model.

Two models concerning downward comparison are motivational; they predict that when people are unhappy, they make downward comparisons to self-enhance (e.g., Wills, 1981). In contrast, the affect-cognition priming model (Wheeler & Miyake, 1992) predicts that unhappy people make upward comparisons because negative affect makes mood-congruent comparisons more accessible. The authors propose that both motivational and accessibility factors influence social comparisons. A study of undergraduates' self-recorded everyday comparisons supported this view. In addition, results (a) pointed to motivational influences other than self-enhancement and an accessibility influence other than mood-congruent priming, (b) suggested that motivated and unintended comparisons may differ somewhat in their susceptibility to motivational and accessibility influences, and (c) identified challenges to both self-enhancement and priming models. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Hopefulness, self-esteem, and perceived social support among pregnant and nonpregnant adolescents

In recent years, Israel has absorbed hundreds of thousands of people from the former USSR. For most of them the migration constituted a situation of weighty pressure arising from the changes and shocks encountered in all areas of life: on the emotional, family, social and employment levels. One of the most prominent among the new immigrants is the single-parent segment, which constitutes 13.6% (17,750 single-parent family units) of the immigrant population, headed in the great majority of cases by mothers. The employment situation is particularly severe in the segment, owing to their special family circumstances, which make it difficult for them to find suitable employment. The economic implications of this state of affairs are grave and frequently lead to poverty. This article describes a project for the integration into work of unemployed female immigrants by means of two parallel programmes: (1) workshop for job-seeking skills; (2) establishment and operation of a self-help group. Both of these programmes are backed by a social support network that took shape during the course of the project. The components of the programmes are described and the findings consequent to their operation are presented.     

Hedonic consequences of social comparison: a contrast of happy and unhappy people

Two studies tested the hypothesis that self-rated unhappy individuals would be more sensitive to social comparison information than would happy ones. Study 1 showed that whereas unhappy students' affect and self-assessments were heavily affected by a peer who solved anagrams either faster or slower, happy students' responses were affected by the presence of a slower peer only. These between-group differences proved to be largely independent of 2 factors associated with happiness, i.e., self-esteem and optimism. Study 2 showed that whereas the unhappy group's responses to feedback about their own teaching performance were heavily influenced by a peer who performed even better or even worse, happy students' responses again were moderated only by information about inferior peer performance. Implications for our appreciation of the link between cognitive processes and "hedonic" consequences are discussed.     

Do people with low self-esteem really want to feel better? Self-esteem differences in motivation to repair negative moods.

This research examined the hypothesis that people with low self-esteem (LSE) are less motivated than people with high self-esteem (HSE) to repair their negative moods. In Study 1, participants completed diaries in response to either a success or a failure in their everyday lives. Participants described what they intended to do next and the reasons behind those plans. After failure, fewer LSE than HSE participants expressed a goal to improve their mood. A follow-up investigation (Study 2) suggested that this difference was not due to a self-esteem difference in knowledge of mood repair strategies. In Study 3, after undergoing a negative mood induction, fewer LSE than HSE participants chose to watch a comedy video, even though both groups believed the comedy video would make them happy. Studies 4 and 5 explored possible reasons why LSE people are less motivated than HSE people to repair their negative moods. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of social comparison direction, threat, and self-esteem on affect, self-evaluation, and expected success.

Two studies explored the conditions under which social comparisons are used to manage negative affect and naturalistic threats. Study 1 examined induced mood and dispositional self-esteem as determinants of affective responses to upward and downward comparisons. Consistent with a mood repair prediction, only low-self-esteem Ss in whom a negative mood had been induced reported improved mood after exposure to downward comparison information. Study 2 examined the impact of naturalistic threats on responses to comparison information. Relative to a no-comparison baseline, low-self-esteem Ss who had experienced a recent academic setback reported more favorable self-evaluations and greater expectations of future success in college after exposure to downward comparison information. These results remained significant after controlling statistically for general distress. Implications for downward comparison theory are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The relationship between social connectedness and anxiety, self-esteem, and social identity.

Social connectedness and its relationship with anxiety, self-esteem, and social identity was explored in the lives of women. Social connectedness was negatively related to trait anxiety and made a larger unique contribution to trait anxiety than social support or collective self-esteem. Women with high connectedness also reported greater social identification in high, as compared with low, cohesion conditions. Women with low connectedness exhibited no difference in either condition. Social connectedness was also positively related to state self-esteem across both conditions but did not have an effect on state anxiety. Future research in gender and cultural differences, self-evaluation process, and intervention strategies are discussed in light of the findings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Paradoxical self-esteem and selectivity in the processing of social information.

Paradoxical self-esteem is defined as contrasting levels of self-liking and self-competence. Consideration of the social and motivational implications of this uncommon form of self-esteem suggests that heightened selectivity in the processing of social information may be behind its persistence. Two experiments were conducted to confirm the prediction of heightened selectivity in paradoxicals. As expected, those paradoxically low in self-liking were more negatively biased in their memory for personality feedback (Study 1) and interpretation of valuatively ambiguous phrases (Study 2) than were their counterparts who shared the same low self-liking but were also low in self-competence. Symmetrical with this result, those paradoxically high in self-liking exhibited a heightened positive bias relative to those who were high in both self-liking and self-competence. The findings are discussed in relation to attitudes and motivation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Deconfounding the effects of dominance and social acceptance on self-esteem.

Three studies examined the independent effects of social acceptance and dominance on self-esteem. In Studies 1 and 2, participants received false feedback regarding their relative acceptance and dominance in a laboratory group, and state self-esteem was assessed. Results indicated that acceptance and dominance feedback had independent effects on self-esteem. Study 2 showed that these effects were not moderated by individual differences in participants' self-reported responsivity to being accepted versus dominant. In Study 3, participants completed multiple measures of perceived dominance, perceived acceptance, and trait self-esteem. Results showed that both perceived dominance and perceived acceptance accounted for unique variance in trait self-esteem, but that perceived acceptance consistently accounted for substantially more variance than perceived dominance. Also, trait self-esteem was related to the degree to which participants felt accepted by specific people in their lives, but not to the degree to which participants thought those individuals perceived them as dominant. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The social usefulness of self-esteem: a skeptical view

To form contingents of pulmonary tuberculosis patients with isolated drug-resistant Mycobacteria tuberculosis (MBT) strains, chronic patients having the disease for more than 3 years (50.3%) head the list, new cases (36.9%) detected in the past 3 years (1994-1996) rank second, next are those with relapsing tuberculosis (12.8%) identified in 1994-1996. The ratio of the above group of patients with isolated drug-sensitive MBT species is 23.3, 68.8, and 7.9%, respectively.     

Effects of social identity and threat on self-esteem and group attributions.

Two studies were conducted to examine reactions and coping responses to a threatened group identity. In both studies, participants were asked to read a (fictitious) report that varied whether their group received a good or bad evaluation. In Study 2, the report also gave an internal or external reason for the rating. Study 1 showed that participants made more positive affirmations about an important group membership when their group had been threatened. They also made an equal number of internal and external attributions when they identified strongly with their group. Study 2 showed that participants who were given a group-serving attribution when their group had been threatened had higher self-esteem than those not given a group-serving attribution, especially if they identified strongly with their group. These results are discussed in the context of social identity theory and biased information processing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)