Predicting Self–Confident Behaviour with Implicit and Explicit Self–Esteem Measures

Abstract

The present research compared the validity of popular direct and indirect measures of self-esteem in predicting self-confident behaviour in different social situations. In line with behavioural dual-process models, both implicit and explicit self-esteem were hypothesized to be related to appearing self-confident to unacquainted others. A total of 127 participants responded to the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, the Multidimensional Self-Esteem Scale, and an adjective scale for measuring explicit self-esteem (ESE). Participants' implicit self-esteem (ISE) was assessed with four indirect measures: the Implicit Association Test (IAT), the name-letter task (NLT), and two variants of an affective priming task, the reaction-time affective priming task (RT-APT) and the error-based affective priming task (EB-APT). Self-confident behaviour was observed in four different social situations: (i) self-introduction to a group; (ii) an ostracism experience; (iii) an interview about the ostracism experience; and (iv) an interview about one's personal life. In general, appearing self-confident to unknown others was independently predicted by ESE and ISE. The indirect measures of self-esteem were, as expected, not correlated, and only the self-esteem APTs-but not the self-esteem IAT or the NLT-predicted self-confident behaviours. It is important to note that in particular the predictive power of the self-esteem EB-APT pertained to all four criteria and was incremental to the ESE measures.

The Development of Implicit Self-Esteem During Emerging Adulthood

“…Past research has linked implicit self-esteem to various important psychological outcomes. For instance, implicit self-esteem predicted various behaviors (e.g., self-confident behavior, Krause et al, 2016), affect (Conner & Barrett, 2005; Spalding & Hardin, 1999), and buffered against any harmful influence from negative life experiences such as failure feedback, unsatisfactory interpersonal interactions, and self-related threats (DeHart et al, 2009; Dijksterhuis, 2004; Haeffel et al, 2007; Jones et al, 2002).…”

“…We still know little about the development of implicit self-esteem. Implicit self-esteem can predict many daily behaviors (Krause, Back, Egloff, & Schmukle, 2016), serve as a buffer against threat (DeHart, Tennen, Armeli, Todd, & Mohr, 2009; Dijksterhuis, 2004; Greenwald & Farnham, 2000; Haeffel et al, 2007; Jones, Pelham, Mirenberg, & Hetts, 2002), as well as moderate a defensive response (Jordan, Spencer, Zanna, Hoshino-Browne, & Correll, 2003). Temporally, implicit self-esteem is more variable than its counterpart of explicit self-esteem (Gawronski, Morrison, Phills, & Galdi, 2017).…”

How Can People Express Their Trait Self-Esteem Through Their Faces in 3D Space?

“…While state self-esteem is influenced by social evaluation ( Leary et al, 2003 ), trait self-esteem is influenced by social evaluation and in turn affects social behavior ( Greenwald and Banaji, 1995 ), social decision-making ( Anthony et al, 2007 ), and ultimately, individual well-being ( Baumeister et al, 2003 ). Individuals with higher trait self-esteem usually appear self-confident to others ( Krause et al, 2016 ). They give people a more positive first impression ( Back et al, 2011 ), are more likely to be admitted during interviews ( Imada and Hakel, 1977 ), and have higher sales performance at work ( Miner, 1962 ).…”

Development of Short and Ultra-Short Forms of the Multidimensional Self-Esteem Scale: Relations to the Big Five, Narcissism, and Academic Achievement in Adults and Adolescents

“…The MSES is an adaptation of the Multidimensional Self-Concept Scale (Fleming & Courtney, 1984), which has been developed based on the model by Shavelson et al (1976) and on the Feelings of Inadequacy Scale (Janis & Field, 1959). The MSES has been validated for adults and adolescents (Rentzsch et al, 2016) and is widely used for research purposes (e.g., Bluemke, & Friese, 2012;Krause et al, 2016;Rentzsch & Schröder-Abé, 2018) and in applied settings such as the clinical context (e.g., Hoffmeister et al, 2010;Roepke et al, 2011;Vierhaus et al, 2012).…”