Michael H. Kernis

Efficacy, Agency, and Self-Esteem

A perusal of the self-esteem literature will reveal an abundance of research that focuses on the differences between low and high self-esteem individuals with respect to their perceptions of and reactions to positive and negative events. Questions that have received considerable attention over the years include these: Do high self-esteem persons self-enhance in response to positive events and self-protect in response to threatening events more than do low self-esteem persons? Are there self-esteem differences in the tendency to seek out positive vs. negative self-relevant information or to embrace positive or negative self-aspects? Such questions are important and deserving of the attention that they have received. Unfortunately, however, the emphasis on them has left some gaps in our understanding of self-esteem processes. It is hoped that the diversity of issues addressed in this volume will foster an expansion of the types of questions focused on by people who are interested in self-esteem. Though time will tell how successful this endeavor has been, my experience editing this book has convinced me more than ever that such expansion is both necessary and viable.

A Multicomponent Conceptualization of Authenticity: Theory and Research

And if by chance I wake at night and I ask you who I am, oh take me to the slaughterhouse I will wait there with the lamb. —Leonard Cohen Whatever satisfies the soul is truth. —Walt Whitman I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence. —Frederick Douglass In this chapter, we present research and theory pertaining to our multicomponent perspective on authentic functioning. We begin with a historical account of various philosophical perspectives on authentic functioning and briefly review several past and contemporary psychological perspectives on authenticity. We then define and discuss our multicomponent conceptualization of authenticity and describe each of its components and their relationships to other constructs in the psychology literature. Next, we present an individual differences measure we have developed to assess dispositional authenticity and each of its components, and we report findings attesting to the adequacy of its psychometric properties. In addition, we present findings from a variety of studies we have conducted to examine how authenticity relates to diverse aspects of healthy psychological and interpersonal functioning. These studies pertain to a wide range of phenomena, including the following: verbal defensiveness, mindfulness, coping styles, self‐concept structure, social‐role functioning, goal pursuits, general well‐being, romantic relationships, parenting styles, and self‐esteem. Following this, we discuss potential downsides or costs for authentic functioning and describe some future directions for research on authenticity.

Master of One’s Psychological Domain? Not Likely if One’s Self-Esteem is Unstable

The authors examined the extent to which self-esteem (SE) stability relates to self-regulatory styles, self-concept clarity (SCC), and goal-related affect. The results supported the notion that individuals with unstable SE are not likely to possess a strong sense of self. Specifically, unstable as compared to stable SE was associated with (a) self-regulatory styles reflecting lower levels of self-determination, (b) lower SCC, and (c) goal-related affect characterized by greater tenseness and less interest. Theoretical implications are discussed.

Stability of self-esteem as a moderator of the relation between level of self-esteem and depression.

The hypothesis that stability of self-esteem would moderate the predictive relationship between level of self-esteem and depression was tested. Specifically, level of self-esteem was hypothesized to relate more strongly to subsequent depression for individuals with stable self-esteem than for individuals with unstable self-esteem. Results strongly supported this hypothesis. Implications for the relation between level of self-esteem and depression, and for the moderator variable approach to personality and prediction, are discussed.

Mindfulness as a Means of Reducing Aggressive Behavior: Dispositional and Situational Evidence

Recent research and theory suggest that mindfulness, or enhanced attention and awareness in the present moment [Brown and Ryan, 2003], may be linked to lower levels of ego-involvement and, as a result, may have implications for lowering hostility and aggressive behavior. Accordingly, we conducted two studies to examine the potential aggression-mitigating role of mindfulness. In Study 1, we found that dispositional mindfulness correlated negatively with self-reported aggressiveness and hostile attribution bias. In Study 2, participants made mindful before receiving social rejection feedback displayed less-aggressive behavior than did rejected participants not made mindful. Discussion centers on potential mechanisms by which mindfulness operates to reduce aggressive behavior.

The Interactive Roles Of Stability And Level Of Self-Esteem: Research and Theory

Publisher Summary This chapter demonstrates the ways in which consideration of both level and stability of self-esteem can provide a vehicle for reconciling these differing views. The chapter provides a framework and review evidence that suggests that a full understanding of self-esteem processes requires a consideration of both self-esteem components. It discusses the meaning of stability of self-esteem and the way it can be—and has been—measured and examines the reason for people varying in the extent to which their self-esteem is unstable, focusing on both contemporaneous and early childhood influences. A preliminary model of the way stability and level of self-esteem jointly relate to the use of self-protection and self-enhancement strategy is presented. The chapter describes important differences that emerge between and within high and low self-esteem individuals (SEs) as a function of stability of self-esteem. The different views of low and high self-esteem and the relevance of self-esteem instability for reconciling them have been discussed.

Multiple Facets of Self-Esteem and their Relations to Depressive Symptoms

The authors examined whether stability and level of self-esteem interact with daily hassles in predicting severity of depressive symptoms. As predicted, Time 2 depression scores (with Time 1 scores controlled) were highest among individuals with unstable self-esteem who reported considerable daily hassles. By contrast, self-esteem level did not interact with daily hassles to predict Time 2 depressive symptoms. These findings held even after negative self-concept items were eliminated from the depressive symptom inventories. Additional analyses revealed that self-esteem stability accounted for variance independent of the tendency to over generalize following failure or negative event attributional style. These findings support the contention that unstable self-esteem reflects fragile feelings of self-worth that exacerbate depressive symptoms under certain circumstances.

Do Narcissists Dislike Themselves “Deep Down Inside”?:

Narcissism is a personality trait associated with an inflated, grandiose self-concept and a lack of intimacy in interpersonal relationships. A popular assumption is that narcissists’ positive explicit (conscious) self-views mask implicit (nonconscious) self-loathing. This belief is typically traced to psychodynamic theory, especially that of Kohut (1966; Morrison, 1983). Empirically, this view predicts that narcissists will reveal negative self-views when these are measured with unobtrusive instruments—such as the Implicit Association Test (IAT; Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998)—that record people’s automatic, uncontrolled responses. Using the IAT, however, researchers found no simple relation between narcissism and implicit selfesteem (rs 5 .13 and .03; Jordan, Spencer, Zanna, HoshinoBrowne, & Correll, 2003; Zeigler-Hill, 2006). According to another line of thought, narcissists’ explicit selfviews are not uniformly positive; rather, narcissism is associated with positive self-views in agentic domains (e.g., status, intelligence), but not in communal domains (e.g., kindness, morality). Evidence for this idea comes from both explicit trait ratings, which show an association between narcissism and positive selfviews only on agentic traits (Campbell, Rudich, & Sedikides, 2002), and from analyses showing that narcissism is particularly strongly associated with self-esteem measures that capture dominance (Brown & Zeigler-Hill, 2004). Bradlee and Emmons (1992) and Paulhus and Williams (2002) have also reported personality data supporting this distinction. As narcissists do not evaluate themselves uniformly positively across all dimensions—and the self-esteem IAT measures the strength of cognitive associations between the self and an evaluative dimension—the lack of correlation between narcissism and implicit self-esteem might reflect the words used in the IAT. Specifically, IATs employing more agentic words may correlate positively with narcissism, whereas those using more communal words may correlate negatively or not at all with narcissism. Indeed, this pattern is seen in narcissists’ implicit responses on the Thematic Apperception Test. On this test, narcissism correlates positively with nPower and negatively with nIntimacy and nAffiliation (Carroll, 1987). Researchers often use IAT words that activate respondents’ communal self-views more than their agentic ones. For example, the IAT words used by Jordan et al. (2003; friend, gift, happy, holiday, joy, love, party, smile, sunshine, warmth, agony, cockroach, death, disaster, disease, evil, garbage, pain, stink, and vomit) and by Zeigler-Hill (2006; happy, joy, paradise, pleasure, smile, sunshine, agony, death, grief, pain, sickness, and tragedy) include several communal terms and few agentic terms. Twentyfour pilot respondents rated both word lists along agentic and communal dimensions. Both lists conveyed significantly more communion than agency, t(23)s > 4.50, preps > .997, which might explain the weak associations these researchers observed between narcissism and IAT scores. We tested our logic that narcissism correlates positively with implicit agency and negatively or not at all with implicit communion in two studies. Using the IAT words from Jordan et al. (2003), we tested the link between narcissism and implicit selfesteem in a sample of undergraduates. Next, we created separate IATs to measure agentic and communal implicit self-views and tested their associations with narcissism.

The Roles of Stability and Level of Self-Esteem in Psychological Functioning

During the past 30 years, a considerable amount of research has been conducted to examine the role of self-esteem in individuals’ thoughts, feelings, and actions. For the most part, this research has been directed toward the examination of level of self-esteem as the critical aspect of self-esteem. Some researchers, however, have begun to focus on such other aspects as certainty and stability of self-esteem (e.g., Baumgardner, 1990; Harris & Snyder, 1985; Maracek & Mettee, 1972; Rosenberg, 1986; Savin-Williams & Demo, 1983). In this chapter, I summarize the recent efforts of myself and colleagues to understand the role of stability of self- esteem (in combination with its level) in psychological functioning. I will begin by describing briefly the nature of stability of self-esteem and its assessment. Then I present a theoretical framework for understanding the joint influences of stability and level of self-esteem on people’s reactions to evaluative events. Following this, research that bears on this framework will be described. As will be shown, important individual differences would have been obscured if both stability and level of self-esteem had not been taken into consideration. I conclude by focusing on some issues of validity related to the assessment and conceptualization of stability of self-esteem.

Level and Stability of Self-Esteem as Predictors of Children's Intrinsic Motivation and Reasons for Anger

The authors examined the extent to which level and stability of fifth-grade childrens self-esteem predicted intrinsic motivation and related achievement behaviors, and reasons for anger. The findings indicated that the more unstable the childrens self-esteem, the lower their scores on measures of curiosity/interest and preference for challenge. In addition, the lower the childrens self-esteem, the lower their preference for challenge. Additional analyses indicated that (a) self-evaluations of scholastic competence mediated the effects of both stability and level of self-esteem and (b) day-to-day variability in self-evaluations of scholastic competence was so intertwined with stability of self-esteem that neither uniquely predicted either curiosity/interest or preference for challenge. Finally, the more unstable the childrens self-esteem, the greater the likelihood that they reported that they would become angry because of the self-esteem-threatening aspects of aversive interpersonal events. Theoretical implications are discussed.