تایید اجتماعی و خصیصه عزت نفس

Interpersonal theories of self-esteem that tie self-esteem to perceptions of one’s acceptability to other people suggest that self-evaluations should predict global self-esteem to the degree to which an individual believes that a particular attribute is important for social approval. In the present study, participants completed a measure of global self-esteem, rated themselves in five domains, and indicated how important those domains were for approval or disapproval. The results showed that, in four of five domains, the interaction between self-evaluations and the perceived approval-value of that domain aided in the prediction of global self-esteem. Generally, for participants who rated themselves positively in a domain, those who believed that the domain was important in affecting social approval or disapproval had higher self-esteem than those who did not believe it would influence acceptability.

Theories of self-esteem have been based on one of two fundamentally different assumptions about the essential nature of self-esteem. Traditionally, intrapersonal theorists have conceptualized self-esteem as a person’s private self-evaluation. For example, James (1890) characterized self-esteem as the ratio of one’s successes to one’s pretensions, a personal assessment of how well one is doing in areas that the individual regards as important. Humanistic approaches that dominated thinking about self-esteem in the middle of the 20th century likewise viewed self-esteem as a personal evaluation of one’s goodness or worth. For example, Rogers (1959) proposed that self-esteem arises when people live congruently with their personal, “organismic” values. This view was echoed more recently by Deci and Ryan (1995) who argued that true self-esteem (as distinguished from contingent self-esteem) results when people behave autonomously in ways that are consistent with their intrinsic or core self. Bednar, Wells, and Peterson (1989) offered an alternative intrapersonal perspective suggesting that true self-esteem arises when people recognize that they are coping effectively with psychological threats. Although intrapersonal perspectives are based on the notion that individuals’ own self-evaluations are at the root of self-esteem, they do acknowledge that others’ evaluations of the individual may also play a role. However, they diminish the importance of such interpersonal influences in one of two ways. Some theorists, including James, view interpersonal evaluations simply as one of many sources of information from which people derive their personal self-evaluations. Others suggest that interpersonal effects on self-esteem reflect a maladaptive reliance on the approval of other people, arguing that healthy self-esteem ought not to be influenced by what other people think of the individual but rather should emerge from personal judgments of one’s own worth. As May (1983) remarked, “…if your self-esteem must rest in the long run on social validation, you have not self-esteem, but a more sophisticated form of social conformity” (p. 102). In contrast to these intrapersonal perspectives, other theorists have conceptualized self-esteem explicitly in interpersonal terms. These theorists echo the symbolic interactionists’ claim that the self is an inherently social construction that arises in the context of interpersonal relations ( Cooley, 1902; Mead, 1932). Interpersonal theorists conclude that people’s feelings about themselves are—and ought to be—related to how they believe others evaluate them because subjective feelings of self-esteem provide information regarding one’s standing in the eyes of other people or society at large. Three such interpersonal theories promote this theme: Dominance theory ( Barkow, 1975) suggests that self-esteem reflects one’s relative dominance in social groups, sociometer theory ( Leary & Downs, 1995) proposes that self-esteem monitors relational evaluation (i.e., the degree to which one is valued as a relational partner by others), and terror management theory ( Solomon, Greenberg, & Pyszczynski, 1991) argues that self-esteem reflects the degree to which the individual meets cultural standards for being a good and worthwhile person. These interpersonal theories propose that self-esteem is, by its nature, highly responsive to social feedback, at least within limits. From this perspective, such responsivity is by no means a sign of dependency or dysfunction. To the contrary, self-esteem serves its evolved function, according to each of these theories, only if it is sensitive to feedback from other people. Although differing in specifics, interpersonal theories suggest that a person’s level of self-esteem is a function of two factors. First and most obviously, self-esteem reflects a person’s beliefs about his or her personal characteristics. Believing that you possess positive attributes ought to be related to higher self-esteem than believing that you do not possess positive attributes or, worse, that you possess negative ones. But, what makes some attributes positive and others negative? The interpersonal perspectives suggest that believing one possesses certain attributes predicts self-esteem only to the extent that the individual believes that other people regard those attributes as important or valuable. Only by being responsive to social validation will self-esteem help to promote dominance (Barkow, 1975), foster acceptance (Leary & Downs, 1995), or lower existential terror (Solomon et al., 1991). Believing that one is an excellent hunter should not enhance self-esteem if one’s reference group abhors hunting and believes that hunters are evil people. Thus, a person’s self-beliefs regarding the degree to which he or she possesses a particular attribute should interact with his or her beliefs regarding whether others generally react approvingly or disapprovingly toward people who possess that characteristic. Put simply, high self-esteem should emerge to the extent that people believe that they possess characteristics that other people value. Several lines of research support this argument. First, people respond to self-relevant stimuli consistently with the standards of whatever audience is salient in their minds at the time. People who are led to visualize others who are significant to them, or who are primed with subliminal images of such individuals, subsequently evaluate themselves in terms of those individuals’ standards (Baldwin, Carrell, & Lopez, 1990; Baldwin & Holmes, 1987). For example, graduate students evaluated themselves less positively when primed with the scowling face of their department chair, and Catholic students evaluated themselves less positively when primed with the face of the Pope (Baldwin et al., 1990). As Baldwin and Holmes (1987) observed, “individuals process self-relevant information according to patterns established in the context of significant relationships” (p. 1096). These findings suggest that how people feel about themselves is influenced by their self-assessment on attributes that they assume are important to significant others. Second, Harter and Marold (1991) reported that adolescents’ feelings of self-worth are strongly related to their perceived competence in domains that they believe are important to their parents. This finding suggests that it is not just one’s own judgment of the importance of particular characteristics that contributes to self-esteem but also one’s assumptions regarding the importance that others place on them. Third, an experiment by Jones, Brenner, and Knight (1990) revealed that successfully accomplishing certain goals may lower self-esteem when success results in disapproving reactions from other people. Conversely, failures may enhance self-esteem if other people react positively to the failure. Clearly, then, the reactions of observing audiences may override one’s own self-evaluations of success and failure in affecting self-esteem. Although suggestive, previous research has not explicitly addressed the relationship between people’s beliefs about the degree to which others value certain attributes and their own trait self-esteem. There is ample evidence supporting the importance of acceptance and rejection for feelings of state self-esteem (Leary & Baumeister, 2000), but less is known about the role of acceptance in individual differences in trait self-esteem. In one relevant study, trait self-esteem correlated strongly with people’s beliefs regarding the degree to which they were generally accepted by other people (Leary, Tambor, Terdal, & Downs, 1995). In the present study, participants rated themselves on personal characteristics and indicated the degree to which they believe that other people approve of those who possess these attributes and disapprove of those who do not. The characteristics chosen for examination—competence, physical attractiveness, material wealth, sociability, and morality—were meant to reflect potentially important determinants of personal and social esteem. Further, because we were interested in predictors of global self-esteem, the domains reflected broad categories that would seem to be important across many social situations and in many kinds of social groups. We hypothesized that, among people who believe that a certain attribute is highly valued by others, more positive self-evaluations on the relevant attribute would be related to higher self-esteem. However, among people who believe that a certain attribute is less valued by others, self-ratings should be relatively unrelated to self-esteem. Such a pattern would be consistent with interpersonal models that tie self-esteem to other peoples’ appraisals but less congruent with intrapersonal models that view self-esteem purely as a reflection of one’s private self-evaluations.

3. Results Analyses were conducted using hierarchical multiple regression, with global trait self-esteem as the criterion variable. Self-ratings and approval-value were zero-centered, and gender was dummy-coded before analysis. For each of the five domains, the main effects of self-rating in that domain, beliefs about the approval-value of that domain, and gender were entered in step 1 of the regression equation. In step 2, all two-variable interaction terms (the products of a participant’s score on each pair of predictors) were entered, and in step 3 the three-variable interaction term (the products of a participant’s score on all three predictors) was entered. To test the moderating role of disapproval beliefs, this procedure was repeated for each domain, substituting the measure of disapproval beliefs for approval beliefs. As the three-variable interaction was not significant for any of the analyses, results reported here collapse across gender.2 3.1. Competence 3.1.1. Approval beliefs In the domain of competence, the main effect for approval beliefs was not significant (t<1). A significant main effect of self-rated competence was found, t(175)=5.82, p<.05, such that higher self-ratings of competence were related to higher global self-esteem. However, this effect was qualified by a significant interaction of self-evaluations by approval-value, t(172)=2.40, p<.05 (see Table 2 for effect sizes). To examine the pattern of this interaction, conditional regression equations were calculated separately for participants whose beliefs about the approval value of competence fell −1 and +1 standard deviations from the mean. As can be seen in Fig. 1, for participants who believed that competence was very important for social approval, higher self-evaluations of competence were strongly related to higher self-esteem. However, for those who believed that competence was less important for approval, competence was less strongly associated with global self-esteem, p<.05. Thus, self-evaluations predicted global self-esteem much more strongly for participants who believed that competence increases approval from other people. The simple slopes for the low approval value, t(172)=3.37, p<.05, and the high approval-value, t(172)=5.60, p<.05, regression lines are both significantly different from zero. Table 2. Effect sizes (R2-change) for approval by self-rating and disapproval by self-rating interactions Approval Disapproval Competence .025 .012 Physical attractiveness .018 .004 Material possessions .021 <.001 Sociability .002 .016 Morals <.001 .004 Table options Full-size image (4 K) Fig. 1. Global self-esteem as a function of self-evaluations of competence and the belief that competence leads to approval. Figure options 3.1.2. Disapproval beliefs The main effect of disapproval beliefs was not significant (t<1). 3 The interaction between competence and disapproval beliefs was also not significant (t<1.7). 3.2. Physical attractiveness 3.2.1. Approval beliefs In the domain of physical attractiveness, the main effect for approval beliefs was not significant (t<1). A significant main effect of attractiveness was found, t(175)=6.36, p<.05, such that participants who rated themselves as more physically attractive had higher global self-esteem. However, this effect was also qualified by a significant self-evaluation by approval-value interaction, t(172)=2.03, p<.05. As the conditional regression lines in Fig. 2 show, self-ratings of attractiveness were more strongly related to self-esteem for participants who believed that attractiveness is important for social approval than for participants who rated the approval-value of attractiveness lower. The simple slopes for the low approval-value, t(172)=2.43, p<.05, and the high approval-value, t(172)=4.92, p<.05, regression lines are both significantly different from zero. Full-size image (4 K) Fig. 2. Global self-esteem as a function of self-evaluations of attractiveness and the belief that attractiveness leads to approval. Figure options 3.2.2. Disapproval beliefs The main effect of disapproval beliefs, and the interaction between competence and disapproval beliefs, were not significant (both ts<1). 3.3. Material wealth 3.3.1. Approval beliefs In the domain of material wealth, the main effect for approval beliefs was not significant (t<1). A significant main effect of wealth was found, t(175)=4.92, p<.05, such that participants who rated themselves as more wealthy had higher global self-esteem. However, this effect was also qualified by a significant self-evaluation by approval-value interaction, t(172)=2.11, p<.05. As the conditional regression lines in Fig. 3 show, self-ratings of wealth were more strongly related to self-esteem for participants who believed that wealth is important for social approval than for participants who rated the approval-value of wealth lower. The simple slope for the low approval-value regression line was not significantly different from zero, t(172)=1.65, ns. The slope for the high approval-value regression line was significantly different from zero, t(172)=4.31, p<.05. Full-size image (4 K) Fig. 3. Global self-esteem as a function of self-evaluations of wealth and the belief that wealth leads to approval. Figure options 3.3.2. Disapproval beliefs The main effect of disapproval beliefs, and the interaction between wealth and disapproval beliefs, were not significant (both ts<1).