Self-esteem (SE) is the overall value that one places on oneself as a person. Few topics have received more attention in psychology than SE, and indeed, a search of the PsyclNFO database in 2005 identified more than 25,000 articles with self-esteem as a keyword. There are several reasons for the enduring interest in SE. First and foremost, most people are inherently curious about SE because it encompasses important information about the self, such as how worthy, competent, and well-liked one is. In that sense, possessing self-knowledge necessitates understanding ones’ SE, and few can be indifferent to this kind of information. Second, researchers and practitioners alike have assumed that high SE has many positive outcomes, and in fact, much of the research on SE has been focused on exploring what enhances SE. Third, SE has been shown to be related to many important variables of interest, such as subjective well-being, job satisfaction, performance, competition, causal attribution, achievement, and helping. Therefore, understanding SE appears to enhance knowledge in many other areas of psychology. Because SE seems to have such major importance to researchers, practitioners, and people in general, it is not surprising that more than 150 articles are published every month on SE. Despite this proliferation of studies and decades of empirical research, the topic is not free of controversies, and there is no universal agreement about some aspects of the validity of the construct and its effects.
理论和测量问题
从定义上讲,SE涉及对一个人的价值评估,所以看来具有高SE的人应该具有积极的自我攻击,而SE较低的人应该具有负面的自我攻击。但是,尽管具有高SE的人确实具有对自我的积极,定义明确的观点,但低SE的人并不一定会对自己持消极看法。取而代之的是,低区别的人倾向于中立评估自己,并且他们的自我观察往往因情况而异。
自我评估中的这种中立性和可变性提出了几个重要的理论,方法论和实际问题,这些问题在SE文献中尚未清楚地回答。例如,目前尚不清楚为什么SE低的人对自己的看法可变。几种不兼容的理论解释可能解释了这一现象。一方面,低SE的人可能缺乏对自己的身份的明确观念,因此他们以非委员会的中间术语来描述自己。的确,SE低的人表现出较少的自我评估稳定性,并且往往会对问题提出不一致的回答,要求他们描述自己(与SE高的人相比)。因此,根据自我概念的清晰度解释,低层的个体对自己的身份感到困惑和矛盾,因此在自我观看中往往是可变和不兼容的。
另一方面,低SE的人在自我评估中实际上可能比高分子个体更准确。从这个意义上讲,与低SE相关的自我评估的中立性和不一致实际上代表了对自我的更准确的看法,这种看法在各种情况和环境中真正改变了自我。因为我们有时是值得且有能力的个人,有时不这样做,所以SE低的人的自我刻画可能是正确的,并且那些具有较高SE的人可能会积极偏见,甚至脱离现实。确实,有一些证据表明,高se的人一贯夸大自己对自我的积极看法。例如,几项研究表明,高SE的人过分评估了其他人喜欢他们的人,甚至一些研究人员甚至声称,高层人士的人际交往仅存在于自己的思想中。实际上,高SE经常等同于自恋。
SE的这两个理论解释具有相反的实际意义。实际上,如果SE低的人因为对自己的身份缺乏明确的概念而具有可变和中立的自我观察,那么从业者的目标应该是增强SE。但是,如果那些较低的SE的人实际上更准确,而SE高的人则是自恋的自我嘲笑,那么增强SE可能会适得其反。这两个理论解释也引起了一些方法论上的困难:如果SE代表缺乏自我概念的清晰度(在低端)或自恋和自我欺骗(在高端),那么SE与这些结构有何不同,以及这些结构有何不同它作为一个概念的独特贡献是什么?这是一个统一的概念吗?关于SE的文献在这一点上尚不清楚。因此,将SE解释为自我报告的描述符的理论在解释概念及其独特性方面存在一些困难。
Perhaps a better approach is to look at the behavioral patterns of people with high and low SE and explain the psychological processes that underlie these behavioral patterns. The SE literature clearly shows that people with high SE are much less plastic in their behavior than people with low SE. For example, people with low SE are more reactive to external social cues and therefore more susceptible to negative feedback and more accepting of it than high-SE individuals. Low-SE individuals are also more susceptible to attempts to influence, more sensitive to anxiety-causing stimuli, and prone to be influenced by self-focus and expectancy manipulations. This tendency to be “behaviorally plastic” may be especially important in performance situations—performance has been shown to be influenced by expectancies and self rather than task-focused manipulations.
Two underlying psychological motives may explain the behavioral plasticity pattern of low-SE individuals. On one hand, individuals want to feel good about themselves and feel that they are worthy, capable, and likable; therefore, one motive that drives people is self-enhancement. On the other hand, people also desire to be self-consistent and protect their self-conceptions from change. In other words, people are driven by the desire to predict and control important life experiences and to tell themselves a consistent story about who they are. For those with positive SE, self-consistency and self-enhancement operate in concert, but for people with negative self-views, these two drives operate in opposite directions. Low-SE people want to maintain their negative self-view in order to maintain self-consistency, but at the same time, they want to think better of themselves. Because they have contradictory motives, they look outside for cues to who they are and rely on social information to determine their future actions. For example, when people with high SE encounter negative information about themselves in the form of failure or negative feedback, they tend to reject it and do not let the information affect their expectancies or behaviors. In contrast, those with low SE often accept the information and let it influence their behaviors.
Methodologically, SE presents other difficulties. A recent analysis of the relationship between SE, neuroticism, locus of control, and generalized self-efficacy found very strong correlations among all of these constructs, which are essentially representing the same underlying construct. The discriminant validity of SE as a unique construct is therefore open to debate.
贡献
尽管存在这些问题,但对SE的研究取得了一些重大贡献。首先,SE的度量彼此高度相关,并且通常显示出很高的可靠性。特别是罗森伯格
自尊Scale, named for Morris Rosenberg, seems to be content- and face-valid, and it is reliable and unitary and therefore can be used with confidence.
其次,荟萃分析研究表明,在工业和组织心理学中,SE和重要变量之间的一些关系非常重要。例如,SE已被证明是工作满意度的重要预测指标(r = .26)。具有高SE的人实际上会获得更具挑战性的工作,即使在不是特别复杂的工作中,他们也会看到更多的挑战,因此对自己的工作更加兴奋。SE高的人也具有更高的主观幸福感(r = .47),并且在压力大的情况下更好地应对。自尊与工作绩效显着相关(r = .26),并且这种关系实际上比认真度和绩效之间的通常关系更牢固,这被认为是工作绩效的最强人格预测指标。组织文献中的另一个主要兴趣变量是领导力 - 实际上,一些研究表明,SE是领导行为和功效的良好预测指标。此外,最近的一项大规模研究表明,高SE的人在组织中表现出更多的“语音行为”,因此不太容易受到集体思考的影响。总体而言,尽管有理论和方法论上的争议,但SE已被证明是工业和组织心理学中有价值的变量。
参考:
- Baumeister, R. F., Campbell, J. D., Kruger, J. I., & Vohs, K. D. (2003). Does self-esteem cause better performance, interpersonal success, happiness, or healthier lifestyle? Psychological Science in the PublicInterest, 4,1-44.
- Brockner,J。(1988)。自尊工作:研究,理论和实践。马萨诸塞州列克星敦:列克星敦书籍。
- Campbell,J。D.和Lavallee,L。F.(1993)。我是谁?自我概念混乱在理解自尊心低的人的行为中的作用。在R. F. Baumeister(ed。)中,自尊:低自我的难题(第3-20页)。纽约:全体出版社。
- 法官,T。A。和Bono,J.E。(2001)。核心自我评估特征的关系 - 自尊,普遍的自我效能,控制源和情绪稳定 - 工作满意度和工作绩效:荟萃分析。应用心理学杂志,86,80-92。
- 法官T. A.,Erez,A.,Bono,J.E。,&Thoresen,C。J.(2002)。自尊,神经质,控制源以及通用的自我效能指标的衡量标准是公共核心构造的?人格与社会心理学杂志,83,693-710。
- La Ronde,C。和Swann,W。B.(1993)。陷入交火:自尊心低的人中的积极性和自我验证。在R. F. Baumeister(ed。)中,自尊:低自我的难题(第147-166页)。纽约:全体出版社。