Effect of Self-Awareness 1 Running head: SELF-AWARENESS AND DISCREPANT LOW SELF …tlc10/bio/TLC_articles/... · 2009-04-20 · Effect of Self-Awareness 2 Abstract Past research suggests

Effect of Self-Awareness 1

Running head: SELF-AWARENESS AND DISCREPANT LOW SELF-ESTEEM

Effect of Self-Awareness on Negative Affect among Individuals with Discrepant Low Self-

Esteem

Clara Michelle Cheng

American University

Olesya Govorun

TNS

Tanya L. Chartrand

Duke University

Keywords: self-esteem; implicit self-esteem; self-awareness; negative affect

Correspondence should be addressed to: Clara Cheng Department of Psychology American University 4400 Massachusetts Ave NW Washington, DC 20016 Phone: (202)885-1711 Fax: (202)885-1023 Email: [email protected]


Abstract

Past research suggests that individuals with discrepant low self-esteem (low explicit and high

implicit self-esteem) may hold themselves against higher standards and judge themselves more

critically when they fall short of those standards (V. Zeigler-Hill & C. Terry, 2007). We

postulated that for discrepant low self-esteem individuals, self-awareness would activate their

stringent standards and the fact that they have failed to meet those standards, thereby inducing

negative affect. In this study, 145 participants completed implicit and explicit self-esteem

measures, and half were then made to be self-aware by completing a task with a mirror in front

of them for 3 min. We found that self-awareness increased negative affect among discrepant low

self-esteem participants.


Effect of Self-Awareness on Negative Affect among Individuals with Discrepant Low Self-

Esteem

For many years, research findings have supported the conventional wisdom that high

self-esteem is associated with positive outcomes, such as happiness and life-satisfaction (Diener

& Diener, 1995), persistence following failure (McFarlin, Baumeister, & Blascovich, 1984), and

better academic performance (Hansford & Hattie, 1982). Traditionally, self-esteem had been

conceptualized as one’s conscious or explicit evaluations of oneself, and is commonly measured

using self-report questionnaires such as the Rosenberg self-esteem scale (Rosenberg, 1965).

More recently, with the advent of implicit measures in social cognition, researchers have begun

to show that it is also useful to take into account people’s implicit self-esteem, defined as ‘‘the

introspectively unidentified…effect of the self-attitude on evaluation of self-associated and self-

dissociated objects” (Greenwald & Banaji, 1995, p. 11). Implicit measures of self-esteem

typically do not require overt self-evaluation, but rather, assess how quickly one can associate

positive stimuli with the self or the degree to which one evaluates objects related to the self, such

as one’s name letters (see Bosson, Swann, & Pennebaker, 2000, for a review). Interestingly,

while both explicit and implicit self-esteem are forms of self-evaluation, measures of the two

constructs are not highly correlated (Bosson et al., 2000). Indeed, many theorists have postulated

that explicit and implicit self-esteem are distinct but related constructs, with explicit self-esteem

arising from conscious beliefs of the self, and implicit self-esteem stemming from intuitive,

automatic, and less conscious evaluative associations of the self (Koole & DeHart, 2007; Koole,

Dijksterhuis, & van Knippenberg, 2001; but see Olson, Fazio, & Hermann, 2007; Sherman et al.,

2008, for alternative views).


The notion that explicit and implicit self-esteem are based in different processes suggests

that it is possible for some individuals to possess a mismatch between their level of explicit self-

esteem and their level of implicit self-esteem. Indeed, recent research has begun to examine

such discrepant forms of self-esteem. Individuals with high explicit and low implicit self-esteem

– also known as defensive, fragile high, or discrepant high self-esteem in the literature – are

believed to regard themselves highly at the conscious level, but to feel insecure “underneath the

surface.” Converging evidence suggests that people with discrepant high self-esteem experience

less stable self-esteem, and are more likely to act defensively and engage in self-enhancement

strategies, especially when threatened (Bosson, Brown, Zeigler-Hill, & Swann, 2003; Jordan,

Spencer, Zanna, Hoshino-Browne, & Correll, 2003; Zeigler-Hill, 2006; Kernis, Lakey, &

Heppner, 2008; Kernis et al., 2005). Furthermore, discrepant high self-esteem individuals are

less willing to forgive those who have transgressed against them (Eaton, Struthers, Shomrony, &

Santelli, 2007). Such findings suggest that there is a “dark side” to high self-esteem, when it is

paired with low implicit self-esteem.

Relatively little research thus far has focused on the other form of discrepant self-esteem

– discrepant low self-esteem – which consists of low explicit but high implicit self-esteem.

Spencer and his colleagues (Spencer, Jordan, Logel, & Zanna, 2005) suggested that discrepant

low self-esteem individuals may approach future tasks with a “glimmer of hope” that buffers

them against defensiveness, citing evidence that these individuals are more optimistic, more

likely to persevere on a previously failed task, and less likely to self-handicap. Based on this

idea, Zeigler-Hill and Terry (2007) hypothesized that the optimism that discrepant low self-

esteem individuals possess may lead them to adopt higher standards for themselves, and to judge

themselves more critically when those standards are not met. In line with this reasoning,


Zeigler-Hill and Terry found that discrepant low self-esteem is correlated with both adaptive and

maladaptive forms of perfectionism – the latter of which have been linked to a whole host of

symptoms of maladjustment, including depression, anxiety, and obsessive-compulsiveness

(Hewitt & Flett, 1991). Thus, while discrepant low self-esteem may be associated with such

positive traits as optimism, the high self-standards adopted by discrepant low self-esteem

individuals may also result in negative psychological outcomes. It is therefore important to

understand the conditions under which individuals with discrepant low self-esteem might be

susceptible to such negative outcomes.

In this research, we examined negative affect as one such undesirable consequence.

Specifically, our investigation focused on whether self-awareness triggers negative affect among

individuals with discrepant low self-esteem. According to the objective self-awareness theory

(Duval & Wicklund, 1972), self-focused attention leads people to compare their current state to

their standards or ideals. When one’s current state falls short of one’s ideals, negative affect

ensues. It has been suggested that implicit measures of self-esteem tap our “ideal self-schemas”

while explicit measures tap our “actual self-schemas” (Franck, De Raedt, & De Houwer, 2007).

Thus, for individuals with discrepant low self-esteem, the high implicit self-esteem portion

indicates that they hold themselves to higher standards and lofty ideals, and the low explicit self-

esteem portion indicates that they feel their current state fails to match those ideals. Self-

awareness should therefore activate this discrepancy, resulting in negative affect.

In this study, we measured implicit and explicit self-esteem and exposed half of the

participants to a self-awareness manipulation. We then assessed negative affect as our dependent

variable.

Method


Participants

Participants were 145 undergraduate students (119 females) who participated in the study

in exchange for extra credit in a psychology course.

Materials

Rosenberg self-esteem scale. The Rosenberg self-esteem scale (Rosenberg, 1965) was

used to measure explicit self-esteem. Participants responded to 10 statements using a response

scale that ranged from 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree). Sample items include “I feel

that I am a person of worth, at least on an equal basis with others” and “All in all, I am inclined

to feel that I am a failure” (reverse scored). Participants’ responses on the 10 items were

averaged to form an explicit self-esteem score (ESE).

Self-esteem Implicit Associations Test (IAT). Our measure of implicit self-esteem was the

Self-esteem IAT (Greenwald & Farnham, 2000), which has been found to have some of the

highest reliability and validity indicators among existing implicit self-esteem measures (Bosson

et al., 2000). The Self-esteem IAT assesses the ease of associating the self with pleasant and

unpleasant stimuli. Participants were instructed to categorize various words into self/other

(“target”) categories or pleasant/unpleasant (“attribute”) categories. The word stimuli included

self- and other-related pronouns (e.g., I, me, they, theirs), and pleasant and unpleasant words

(e.g., good, palace, poor, war). Participants first categorized the stimuli into the attribute

categories (Block 1; 20 trials) and into target categories (Block 2; 20 trials). The attribute and

target categories were then paired, and participants were to categorize the stimuli as belonging to

either of the combined categories (Block 3; 20 practice and 40 critical trials). In Block 4 the

target categories were reversed, and participants completed 20 practice trials to familiarize

themselves with the new order. In Block 5, the reversed categories were paired with the attribute


categories from Block 1. Participants completed 20 practice and 40 critical trials in this block.

Blocks 3 and 5 were congruent if the “self” and “pleasant” shared a response key, and were

incongruent if the “self” and “unpleasant” shared a response key. Half of the participants

completed the congruent block first followed by the incongruent block; the remaining

participants completed the blocks in the reverse order. The order of the congruent versus

incongruent blocks did not interact with any of the other factors in our analyses and will not be

further discussed.

The implicit self-esteem score (ISE) comprised of the D index computed according to the

new IAT scoring algorithm (Greenwald, Nosek, & Banaji, 2003)1. Essentially, this value

represents the difference in reaction time between congruent trials and incongruent trials, divided

by the standard deviation. Higher values of D indicate a greater ease of associating self-related

pronouns with pleasant words and thus higher ISE.

Self-awareness manipulation. The self-awareness manipulation was posed as a

memorization task in which participants were given 3 mins to memorize nine small objects (e.g.,

a glue stick, a pack of crayons) attached to a 22” x 28” poster board. Participants in the self-

awareness condition were exposed to a poster board containing a small mirror in the center of the

board. Participants were instructed to hold the board on their laps. This was to ensure that the

mirror would be leveled with participants’ faces, causing them to see their own reflection while

they completed the memorization task, though they were not explicitly told to focus on the

mirror or on themselves in any way. Participants in the control condition were instead exposed to

an envelope in the center of the board.

Affect measure. We used a disguised affect measure adapted from previous research

(Hass, Katz, Rizzo, Bailey, & Moore, 1992; Koole, Smeets, van Knippenberg, & Dijksterhuis,


1999). The task was described to participants as a test of subliminal perception. Participants

were shown a series of flashes on the computer, which were ostensibly words presented beyond

conscious recognition. In reality, participants were shown subliminal nonsense words for 15 ms,

backmasked by a string of # signs for 100 ms. After each flash, participants were given four

alternatives, one of which was said to correspond to the subliminally presented word.

Participants were asked to rely on their “gut feeling” in deciding which of the four words was the

one they saw in the flash. Ten of the trials consisted of a negatively valenced word (e.g., down,

depressed) as one of the four response alternatives, and 10 other trials consisted of a positively

valenced word (e.g., happy, joyful). There were also 5 filler trials containing emotionally neutral

words. All 25 trials were presented to participants in a random order, and the measure was given

twice, once pre-manipulation and once post-manipulation, with different stimulus words each

time. Negative and positive affect scores were calculated by adding the number of times

participants chose negative and positive items as their responses, respectively, and a change

score was computed by subtracting the pre-manipulation negative and positive affect scores from

the post-manipulation negative and positive affect scores. Thus, a higher score indicates a

negative or positive affect change, respectively. Even though this task yields both positive and

negative affect scores, our hypothesis is specific to the negative affect component because self-

awareness has not been consistently linked with positive affect (Mor & Winquist, 2002). Our

data analyses will therefore be focused on the negative affect score.

The disguised affect measure is based on the notion that our affect can be misattributed to

a neutral source (Murphy & Zajonc, 1993; Payne, Cheng, Govorun, & Stewart, 2005) – in this

case, to the perception of purportedly subliminal words. Similar misattribution-based measures

of affect have been shown to correlate with self-reported affect and trait measures of positivity


and negativity (Quirin, Kazén, & Kuhl, in press), and to serve as a better predictor of endocrine

stress responses than self-reported affect (Quirin, Kazén, Rohrmann, & Kuhl, 2009). Because

our self-awareness manipulation is rather subtle, we felt that a disguised measure of affect would

be a better tool than a self-report measure for capturing the automatic activation of affect. In

addition, a disguised affect measure would serve to avoid the biases on self-reported affect that

may result from conscious reflection or self-presentational concerns (see Quirin et al., in press;

Robinson & Clore, 2002, for further discussion on biases in self-reports of affect). Nevertheless,

in this task participants were specifically instructed to use their “gut feelings” to guide their

subliminal perception. We thus believe that responses on this measure arise from participants’

(misattributed) affect rather than purely cognitive associations.

Procedure. Up to three participants took part in each experimental session. Participants

were led to the laboratory and seated at individual computer workstations separated by solid

panels and equipped with the MediaLab and DirectRT software. Participants were told that the

study examined the relationship between different personality and cognitive tasks. Participants

completed the pre-manipulation affect measure, the Self-esteem IAT, and the Rosenberg self-

esteem scale. Then, participants were given a 10-min filler task in which they were asked to read

the profiles of six cities from various parts of the world (e.g., Hong Kong, China; Winnipeg,

Canada) and remember the information. The purpose of the filler task was to diminish any self-

awareness or self-related affect that may have been activated as a result of having just completed

the self-esteem measures. Following the filler task, participants were each given a poster board

for the memorization task, which was in fact the self-awareness manipulation. Half of the

sessions were randomly assigned to the self-awareness condition while the other half were in the

control condition. Participants in the same session were assigned to the same condition to avoid


any suspicion if participants were to accidentally catch a glimpse of another participants’ poster

board. Following the self-awareness manipulation, participants completed the post-manipulation

affect measure and were thoroughly debriefed, thanked, and dismissed.

Results

Negative affect. As in previous research, participants’ ESE and ISE scores did not

correlate with one another, r(145) = .09, p = .30. A hierarchical multiple regression analysis

based on recommendations by Aiken and West (1991) was conducted with negative affect

change score as the dependent variable. We entered participants’ ESE scores (centered on the

mean), ISE scores (centered on the mean), and self-awareness condition in the first step of the

regression, the two-way interaction terms in the second step, and the three-way interaction term

in the third step. This analysis found no significant overall main effects or two-way interactions,

but a significant three-way interaction emerged, β = -.22, t(137) = -2.17, p =.03. As can be seen

in Figure 1, there was a ESE x ISE two-way interaction in the self-awareness condition, β = -.71,

t(137) = -2.31, p =.02, but not in the control condition, β = -.07, t(137) = -.84, p =.40.

Decomposing this interaction at 1 SD above and below the mean of the two continuous

variables revealed that in the self-awareness condition, participants low in ESE and high in ISE

showed a greater change in negative affect than participants with low ESE and low ISE, β = .58,

t(137) = 2.29, p =.02. They also scored marginally higher than participants with high ESE and

high ISE, β = .40, t(137) = 1.92, p =.06. In addition, among low ESE/high ISE participants,

those in the self-awareness condition showed higher negative affect change compared to those in

the control condition, β = -.43, t(137) = -2.03, p =.04. These results confirmed our hypothesis

that self-awareness increases negative affect among participants with discrepant low self-esteem.


Somewhat unexpectedly, it was also found that participants with low ESE and low ISE

showed a significant reduction of negative affect in the self-awareness condition compared to the

control condition, β = .36, t(137) = 2.06, p =.04.

For the control condition, we found no main effects or ISE x ESE interaction, ps > .39.

Positive affect. A separate hierarchical multiple regression analysis on the positive affect

scores yielded no significant main effects or interactions.

Discussion

Individuals with discrepant low self-esteem – or the combination of high implicit self-

esteem and low explicit self-esteem – have been shown in previous literature to exhibit greater

perfectionism (Zeigler-Hill & Terry, 2007). In this study, we sought to examine whether a self-

awareness induction would increase negative affect for discrepant low self-esteem individuals.

The rationale for this hypothesis was that self-awareness activates a comparison between the

current self and the ideal self (Duval & Wicklund, 1972); for discrepant low self-esteem

individuals – who have high, perfectionistic standards for themselves (Zeigler-Hill & Terry,

2007) yet believe that they have failed to achieve those standards – the unfavorable comparison

brought on by self-awareness should increase negative affect. Our hypothesis was confirmed:

Discrepant low self-esteem participants showed greater increases in negative affect following

self-awareness compared to participants with congruent high or low self-esteem, as well as

participants in the control condition who were not exposed to the self-awareness manipulation.

Unexpectedly, participants with congruent low self-esteem (low in both explicit and

implicit self-esteem) in the self-awareness condition showed a significant reduction in negative

affect following the self-awareness induction. Previous research has found that people are

motivated to seek out information that confirms their existing self-views, even if those self-views


are negative (Swann, Rentfrow, & Guinn, 2002). Thus, it is possible that self-awareness may

have activated ideal self-schemas among the low ESE/low ISE participants that are consistent

with what they already believe, thereby reducing negative affect relative to the control condition.

We did not find the same drop in negative affect among participants with congruent high self-

esteem in the self-awareness condition, however. Because high self-esteem is associated with

more emotional stability (Judge, Erez, Bono, & Thoresen, 2002), it is possible that congruent

high self-esteem individuals were simply less susceptible to changes in affect that may have been

invoked by self-verification.

The findings of the current research contribute a greater understanding of the discrepant

low self-esteem phenomenon. In general, the findings of this study suggest that high implicit

self-esteem is not necessarily linked to positive outcomes. Indeed, our data lend support to

previous work showing that high implicit self-esteem predicts depressive symptomatology

(Franck et al., 2007), as well as research linking discrepant low self-esteem to greater anger

suppression, depressed attributional style, nervousness, and lower mental health (Schröder-Abé,

Rudolph, & Schütz, 2007). Our findings also provide one possible explanation for the link

between discrepant low self-esteem and poorer mental health: that self-awareness may be one

chronic source of negative affect for discrepant low self-esteem individuals, as there are many

opportunities in our daily lives for self-awareness to be provoked (such as looking at oneself in

the mirror every morning). Indeed, our research shows that even a subtle form of self-awareness

can activate negative affect among discrepant low self-esteem individuals.

One limitation of the current study is that we did not explicitly ask participants to report

on their mood. Thus, while we were able to detect automatically activated negative affect among

discrepant low self-esteem individuals after a self-awareness induction, it is unclear whether


these participants consciously experienced a lowered mood. And if participants are not explicitly

aware of their negative affect, is it truly a harmful consequence? We argue that it is. First, while

a single self-awareness episode may not cause dramatic changes in overall affect, repeated

instances of self-awareness may have an accumulative effect (Chartrand, van Baaren, & Bargh,

2006). Thus, over time, subtle activations of negative affect may amass into much stronger

negative emotions, which can eventually lead to depressive symptoms. Secondly, studies have

shown that affect that is not consciously felt can nonetheless exert an influence on our behavior

(Winkielman, Berridge, & Wilbarger, 2005), social judgments (Ric, 2004), and psychosomatic

symptoms (Lane, 2008), suggesting that negative affect can have a potentially adverse impact on

our well-being, regardless of our conscious awareness of the affect.

One potential direction for future research would be to examine the downstream

consequences of self-awareness-induced negative affect among individuals with discrepant low

self-esteem. One such downstream consequence may be stereotyping and prejudice, which can

be a result of implicit self-threat (Cheng, 2009). As research in the domain of discrepant low

self-esteem is only in its infancy, more studies will help us better understand the implications of

discrepant low self-esteem for psychological functioning.


References

Aiken, L. S., & West, S. G. (1991). Multiple regression: Testing and interpreting interactions.

Newbury Park, CA: SAGE Publications.

Bosson, J. K., Brown, R. P., Zeigler-Hill, V., & Swann, W. B., Jr. (2003). Self-enhancement

tendencies among people with high explicit self-esteem: The moderating role of implicit

self-esteem. Self and Identity, 2, 169-187.

Bosson, J. K., Swann, W. B., Jr., & Pennebaker, J. W. (2000). Stalking the perfect measure of

implicit self-esteem: The blind men and the elephant revisited? Journal of Personality

and Social Psychology, 79, 631-643.

Chartrand, T. L., van Baaren, R. B., & Bargh, J. A. (2006). Linking automatic evaluation to

mood and information processing style: Consequences for experienced affect, impression

formation, and stereotyping. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 135(1), 70-

77.

Cheng, C. M. (2009). Effects of subliminal affective cues on stereotyping and outgroup

derogation: The role of the self. Manuscript submitted for publication.

Diener, E., & Diener, M. (1995). Cross-cultural correlates of life satisfaction and self-esteem.

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 68, 653-663.

Duval, T. S., & Wicklund, R. A. (1972). A theory of objective self awareness. Academic Press,

New York.

Eaton, J., Struthers, C. W., Shomrony, A., & Santelli, A. G. (2007). When apologies fail: The

moderating effect of implicit and explicit self-esteem on apology and forgiveness. Self

and Identity, 6, 209-222.

Franck, E., De Raedt, R., & De Houwer, J. (2007). Implicit but not explicit self-esteem predicts


future depressive symtomatology. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 45, 2448-2455.

Greenwald, A. G., & Banaji, M. R. (1995). Implicit social cognition: Attitudes, self-esteem, and

stereotypes. Psychological Review, 102, 4-27.

Greenwald, A. G., & Farnham, S. D. (2000). Using the Implicit Association Test to measure self-

esteem and self-concept. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79, 1022-1038.

Greenwald, A. G., Nosek, B. A., & Banaji, M. R. (2003). Understanding and using the Implicit

Association Test: I. An improved scoring algorithm. Journal of Personality and Social

Psychology, 85(2), 197-216.

Hansford, B. C., & Hattie, J. A. (1982). The relationship between self and

achievement/performance measures. Review of Educational Research, 52, 123-142.

Hass, R. G., Katz, I., Rizzo, N., Bailey, J., & Moore, L. (1992). When racial ambivalence evokes

negative affect, using a disguised measure of mood. Personality and Social Psychology

Bulletin, 18, 786-797.

Hewitt, P. L., & Flett, G. L. (1991). Perfectionism in the self and social contexts:

Conceptualization, assessment, and association with psychopathology. Journal of

Personality and Social Psychology, 60(3), 456-470.

Jordan, C. H., Spencer, S. J., Zanna, M. P., Hoshino-Browne, E., & Correll, J. (2003). Secure and

defensive high self-esteem. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85(5), 969-

978.

Judge, T. A., Erez, A., Bono, J. E., & Thoresen, C. J. (2002). Are measures of self-esteem,

neuroticism, locus of control, and generalized self-efficacy indicators of a common core

construct? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83, 693-710.

Kernis, M. H., Abend, T. A., Goldman, B. M., Shrira, I., Paradise, A. N., & Hampton, C. (2005).


Self-serving responses arising from discrepancies between explicit and implicit self-

esteem. Self and Identity, 4, 311-330.

Kernis, M. H., Lakey, C. E., & Heppner, W. L. (2008). Secure versus fragile high self-esteem as

a predictor of verbal defensiveness: Converging findings across three different markers.

Journal of Personality, 76(3), 477-512.

Koole, S., & DeHart, T. (2007). Self-affection without self-reflection: Origins, models, and

consequences of implicit self-esteem. In C. Sedikides & S. J. Spencer (Eds.), The self in

social psychology (pp. 36-86). New York: Psychology Press.

Koole, S., Dijksterhuis, A., & van Knippenberg, A. (2001). What's in a name: Implicit self-

esteem and the automatic self. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80, 669-

685.

Koole, S., Smeets, K., van Knippenberg, A., & Dijksterhuis, A. (1999). The cessation of

rumination through self-affirmation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77,

111-125.

Lane, R. (2008). Neural substrates of implicit and explicit emotional processes: A unifying

framework for psychosomatic medicine. Psychosomatic Medicine, 70(2), 214-231.

McFarlin, D. B., Baumeister, R. F., & Blascovich, J. (1984). On knowing when to quit: Task

failure, self-esteem, advice, and nonproductive persistence. Journal of Personality, 52,

138-155.

Mor, N., & Winquist, J. (2002). Self-focused attention and negative affect: A meta-analysis.

Psychological Bulletin, 128(4), 638-662.

Murphy, S., & Zajonc, R. (1993). Affect, cognition, and awareness: Affective priming with

optimal and suboptimal stimulus exposures. JPSP, 64, 723-739.


Olson, M. A., Fazio, R. H., & Hermann, A. D. (2007). Reporting tendencies underlie

discrepancies between implicit and explicit measures of self-esteem. Psychological

Science, 18(4), 287-291.

Payne, B. K., Cheng, C. M., Govorun, O., & Stewart, B. D. (2005). An inkblot for attitudes:

Affect misattribution as implicit measurement. Journal of Personality and Social

Psychology, 89, 277-293.

Quirin, M., Kazén, M., & Kuhl, J. (in press). When nonsense sounds happy or helpless: The

Implicit Positive and Negative Affect Test (IPANAT). Journal of Personality and Social

Psychology.

Quirin, M., Kazén, M., Rohrmann, S., & Kuhl, J. (2009). Implicit but not explicit affectivity

predicts circadian and reactive cortisol: Using the implicit positive and negative affect

test. Journal of Personality, 77, 1-25.

Ric, F. (2004). Effects of the activation of affective information on stereotyping: When sadness

increases stereotype use. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30(10), 1310.

Robinson, M. D., & Clore, G. L. (2002). Belief and feeling: Evidence for an accessibility model

of emotional self-report. Psychological Bulletin, 128, 934-960.

Rosenberg, M. (1965). Society and the adolescent self-image. Princeton, NJ: Princeton

University Press.

Schröder-Abé, M., Rudolph, A., & Schütz, A. (2007). High implicit self-esteem is not

necessarily advantageous: Discrepancies between explicit and implicit self-esteem and

their relationship with anger expression and psychological health. European Journal of

Personality, 21, 319–339.

Sherman, J. W., Gawronski, B., Gonsalkorale, K., Hugenberg, K., Allen, T. J., & Groom, C. J.


(2008). The self-regulation of automatic associations and behavioral impulses.

Psychological Review, 115, 314-335.

Spencer, S. J., Jordan, C. H., Logel, C. E. R., & Zanna, M. P. (2005). Nagging doubts and a

glimmer of hope: The role of implicit self-esteem in self-image maintenance. In A.

Tesser, J. V. Wood, & D. A. Stapel (Eds.), On building, defending, and regulating the

self: A psychological perspective (pp. 153-170). New York: Psychology Press.

Swann, Jr., W. B., Rentfrow, P. J., & Guinn, J. S. (2002). Self-verification: The search for

coherence. (M. R. Leary, G. MacDonald, & J. P. Tangney, Eds.)Handbook of self and

identity, 367–383.

Winkielman, P., Berridge, K., & Wilbarger, J. (2005). Unconscious affective reactions to masked

happy versus angry faces influence consumption behavior and judgments of value.

Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 31, 121-135.

Zeigler-Hill, V. (2006). Discrepancies between implicit and explicit self-esteem: Implications for

narcissism and self-esteem instability. Journal of Personality, 74(1), 119-144.

Zeigler-Hill, V., & Terry, C. (2007). Perfectionism and explicit self-esteem: The moderating role

of implicit self-esteem. Self and Identity, 6(2), 137-153.


Author Note

Clara Michelle Cheng, Department of Psychology, American University; Olesya

Govorun, TNS; Tanya L. Chartrand, The Fuqua School of Business, Duke University.

We would like to thank Jane Ledbetter, Lisa McQuighan, and Gigi Petito for their able

assistance with data collection.

Correspondence should be addressed to Clara Michelle Cheng, Department of

Psychology, American University, 4400 Massachusetts Ave NW, Washington, DC 20016;

Email: [email protected].


Footnotes

1Due to an oversight on our part, we had used an older version of the Self-esteem IAT

that was programmed before the publication of the new scoring algorithm (Greenwald et al.,

2003). As a result, data from the practice blocks of the IAT were not recorded and were thus not

used in calculating participants’ IAT scores. We otherwise followed all steps of the new scoring

algorithm.


Figure Caption

Figure 1. Effect of self-awareness manipulation on negative affect change as a function of

implicit self-esteem and explicit self-esteem levels. Both implicit and explicit self-esteem are

plotted at 1 SD above and below the mean. Higher values on the y-axis indicate greater levels of

post-manipulation negative affect compared to pre-manipulation negative affect.


Documents

Effect of Self-Awareness 1 Running head: SELF-AWARENESS AND DISCREPANT LOW SELF …tlc10/bio/TLC_articles/... · 2009-04-20 · Effect of Self-Awareness 2 Abstract Past research suggests