The current literature describes a number of mechanisms by which self-esteem is affected and regulated. Using exemplars from three different families of such mechanisms—cognitive consistency, social comparison, and value expression—the three studies reported here (in addition to others in the literature) indicate that these qualitatively different mechanisms are not independent of one another. The evidence is interpreted as showing the unitary nature of self-esteem regulation and that individuals tend to be satisficers rather than maximizers regarding self-esteem.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Abelson, R. P. , Aronson, E., McGuire, W. J., Newcomb, T. M., Rosenberg, M. J., & Tannenbaum, P. H. (Eds.). (1968). Theories of cognitive consistency: A source book. Chicago: Rand McNally.
2.
Achee, J. , Tesser, A., & Pilkington, C. (1994). Social perception: A test of the role of arousal in self-evaluation maintenance processes. European Journal of Social Psychology, 24, 147-159.
3.
Allport, G. W. , Vernon, P. E., & Lindzey, G. (1960). Study of values (3rd ed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
4.
Aronson, E. (1969). The theory of cognitive dissonance: A current perspective. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 4, pp. 2-34). New York: Academic Press.
5.
Aronson, E. (1992). The return of the repressed: Dissonance theory makes a comeback. Psychological Inquiry, 3, 303-311.
6.
Aspinwall, L. G. (1998). Rethinking positive affect and self-regulation. Motivation and Emotion, 22, 1-32.
7.
Aspinwall, L. G. , & Taylor, S. E. (1997). A stitch in time: Self-regulation and proactive coping. Psychological Bulletin, 99, 229-246.
8.
Bakan, D. (1966). The duality of human existence: An essay on psychology and religion. Chicago: Rand McNally.
9.
Banaji, M. R. , & Prentice, D. A. (1994). The self in social contexts. Annual Review of Psychology, 45, 297-332.
10.
Bargh, J. A. (1992). Why subliminality might not matter to social psychology: Awareness of the stimulus vs. awareness of its influence. In R. F. Bornstein & T. S. Pittman (Eds.), Perception without awareness (pp. 236-255). New York: Guilford.
11.
Beauregard, K. S. , & Dunning, D. (1998). Turning up the contrast: Self-enhancement motives prompt egocentric contrast effects in social judgements. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 3, 606-621.
12.
Biernat, M. , & Billings, L. S. (in press). Standards, expectancies, and social comparison. In A. Tesser & N. Schwarz (Eds.), Blackwell handbook of social psychology: Vol. 1. Intrapersonal processes. London: Blackwell.
13.
Bless, H. (in press). The consequences of mood on the processing of social information. In A. Tesser & N. Schwarz (Eds.), Blackwell handbook of social psychology: Vol. 1. Intrapersonal processes. London: Blackwell.
14.
Cialdini, R. B. , Borden, R. J., Thorne, A., Walker, M. R., Freeman, S., & Sloan, L. R. (1976). Basking in reflected glory: Three (football) field studies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 34, 366-375.
15.
Clore, G. L. (1992). Cognitive phenomenology: Feelings and the construction of judgement. In L. L. Martin & A. Tesser (Eds.), The construction of social judgments (pp. 133-164). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
16.
Cooper, J. , & Fazio, R. H. (1984). A new look at dissonance theory. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 17, pp. 229-267). New York: Academic Press.
17.
Crocker, J. , & Wolfe, C. (1998). Contingencies of worth. Unpublished manuscript, University of Michigan.
18.
Fazio, R. , & Cooper, R. (1983). Arousal in the dissonance process. In J. T. Cacioppo & R. E. Petty (Eds.), Social psychophysiology: A sourcebook (pp. 122-152). New York: Guilford.
19.
Fein, S. , & Spencer, S. J. (1997). Prejudice as self image maintenance: Affirming the self through negative evaluations of others. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73, 31-44.
20.
Festinger, L. (1957). A theory of cognitive dissonance. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
21.
Greenberg, J. , Pyszczynski, T., Solomon, S., Rosenblatt, A., Veeder, M., Kirkland, S., & Lyon, S. (1990). Evidence for terror management theory II: The effects of mortality salience on reactions to those who threaten or bolster the cultural worldview. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 58, 308-318.
22.
Greenberg, J. , Solomon, S., Pyszczynski, T., Rosenblatt, A., Burling, J., Lyon, D., Simon, L., & Pinel, E. (1992). Why do people need self-esteem? Converging evidence that self-esteem serves an anxiety buffering function. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63, 913-922.
23.
Greenwald, A. G. , & Ronis, D. L. (1978). Twenty years of cognitive dissonance: Case study of the evolution of a theory. Psychological Review, 85, 53-57.
24.
Harmon-Jones, E. (in press). The role of the self in cognitive processes. In A. Tesser, J. Suls, & R. Felson (Eds.), Psychological perspectives on self and identity. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
25.
Heider, F. (1958). The psychology of interpersonal relations. New York: John Wiley.
26.
Higgins, E. T. , Rhodewalt, F., & Zanna, M. P. (1979). Dissonance motivation: Its nature persistence and reinstatement. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 15, 16-34.
27.
Hobfall, S. E. F. (1989). Conservation of resources: A new attempt at conceptualizing stress. American Psychologist, 44, 513-524.
28.
Katz, D. (1960). The functional approach to the study of attitudes. Public Opinion Quarterly, 24, 163-204.
29.
Koole, S. L. , Smeets, K., van Knippenberg, A., & Dijksterhuis, A. (1999). The cessation of rumination through self-affirmation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77, 111-125.
30.
Lewin, K. (1935). A dynamic theory of personality: Selected papers (D. E. Adams & K. E. Zener, Trans.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
31.
Liu, T. J. , & Steele, C. M. (1986). Attributional analysis as self-affirmation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51, 531-540.
32.
Losch, M. E. , & Cacioppo, J. T. (1990). Cognitive dissonance may enhance sympathetic tonus, but attitudes are changed to reduce negative affect rather than arousal. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 26, 289-304.
33.
Mahler, M. S. (1968). On human symbiosis and the vicissitudes of individuation: Vol. 1. Infantile psychosis. New York: International Universities Press.
34.
Mandler, G. (1975). Mind and emotion. New York: John Wiley.
35.
Marsh, H. W. , & Yeung, A. S. (1998). Top-down, bottom-up, and horizontal models: The direction of causality in multidimensional, hierarchical self-concept models. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75, 509-527.
36.
Martin, L. L. , & Achee, J. W. (1992). Beyond accessibility: The role of processing objectives in judgment. In L. L. Martin & A. Tesser (Eds.), The construction of social judgments (pp. 195-216). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
37.
Morse, S. , & Gergen, K. J. (1970). Social comparison, self-consistency, and the concept of self. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 16, 148-156.
38.
Murphy, S. T. , Monahan, J. L., & Zajonc, R. B. (1995). Additivity of nonconscious affect: Combined effects of priming and exposure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69, 589-602.
39.
Murphy, S. T. , & Zajonc, R. B. (1993). Affect, cognition, and awareness: Affective priming with optimal and suboptimal stimulus exposures. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64, 723-739.
40.
Ovsiankina, M. (1928). Die Wiederaufnahme unterbrochener Handlungen [The completion of interrupted acts]. Pyschologische Forschung, 11, 302-379.
41.
Paulhus, D. L. , & John, O. P. (1998). Egoistic and moralistic bias in self-perceptions: The interplay of self deceptive mechanisms with basic traits and motives. Journal of Personality, 66, 1025-1060.
42.
Pleban, R. , & Tesser, A. (1981). The effects of relevance and quality of another’s performance on interpersonal closeness. Social Psychology Quarterly, 44, 278-285.
43.
Rokeach, M. (1967). Value survey. Sunnyvale, CA: Halgren Tests.
44.
Rokeach, M. (1973). The nature of human values. New York: Free Press.
45.
Rokeach, M. (1985). Inducing change and stability in belief systems and personality structures. Journal of Social Issues, 41, 153-171.
46.
Rosenthal, R. (1995). Methodology. In A. Tesser (Ed.), Advanced social psychology (pp. 17-49). New York: McGraw-Hill.
47.
Schachter, S. (1964). The interaction of cognitive and physiological determinants of emotional state. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 1, pp. 49-79). New York: Academic Press.
48.
Schwarz, N. (1990). Feelings as information: Informational and motivational functions of affective states. In E. T. Higgins & R. Sorrentino (Eds.), Handbook of motivation and cognition: Foundations of social behavior (Vol. 2, pp. 527-561). New York: Guilford.
49.
Simon, H. (1953). Models of man. New York: John Wiley.
50.
Simon, L. , Greenberg, J., & Brehm, J. (1995). Trivialization: The forgotten mode of dissonance reduction. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 68, 247-260.
51.
Smith, M. B. , Bruner, J. S., & White, R. W. (1956). Opinions and personality. New York: John Wiley.
52.
Steele, C. M. (1988). The psychology of self-affirmation: Sustaining the integrity of the self. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 21, pp. 261-302). New York: Academic Press.
53.
Steele, C. M. , & Liu, T. J. (1983). Dissonance processes as self-affirmation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45, 5-19.
54.
Steele, C. M. , Spencer, S. J., & Lynch, M. (1994). Self-image resilience and dissonance: The role of affirmational resources. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64, 885-896.
55.
Stone, J. , Wiegand, A. W., Cooper, J., & Aronson, E. (1997). When exemplification fails: Hypocrisy: and the motive for self-integrity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 72, 54-63.
56.
Swann, W. B. , Stein-Seroussi, A., & Geisler, R. B. (1992). Why people self verify. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 62, 392-401.
57.
Taylor, S. E. , & Lobel, M. (1989). Social comparison activity under threat: Downward evaluation and upward contacts. Psychological Review, 96, 569-575.
58.
Tesser, A. (1984). Self-evaluation maintenance processes: Implications for relationships and development. In J. C. Masters & K. L. Yarkin (Eds.), Boundary areas in psychology: Social and developmental psychology (pp. 271-299). New York: Academic Press.
59.
Tesser, A. (1988). Toward a self-evaluation maintenance model of social behavior. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 21, pp. 181-227). New York: Academic Press.
60.
Tesser, A. (in press). Self-esteem. In A. Tesser & N. Schwarz (Eds.), Blackwell international handbook of social psychology: Intraindividual processes. London: Blackwell.
61.
Tesser, A. , & Campbell, J. (1980). Self-definition: The impact of the relative performance and similarity of others. Social Psychology Quarterly, 43, 341-347.
62.
Tesser, A. , & Cornell, D. P. (1991). On the confluence of self-processes. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 27, 501-526.
63.
Tesser, A. , & Martin, L. (1996). The psychology of evaluation. In E. T. Higgins & A. W. Kruglanski (Eds.), Social psychology: Handbook of basic principles (pp. 400-432). New York: Guilford.
64.
Tesser, A. , Martin, L., & Cornell, D. (1996). On the substitutability of self-protective mechanisms. In P. M. Gollwitzer & J. A. Bargh (Eds.), The psychology of action: Linking motivation and cognition to behavior (pp. 48-68). New York: Guilford.
65.
Tesser, A. , Millar, M., & Moore, J. (1988). Some affective consequences of social comparison and reflection processes: The pain and pleasure of being close. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 49-61.
66.
Tesser, A. , & Paulhus, D. (1983). The definition of self: Private and public self-evaluation maintenance strategies. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 44, 672-682.
67.
Tesser, A. , Pilkington, C., & McIntosch, W. (1989). Self-evaluation maintenance and the mediational role of emotion: The perception of friends and strangers. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57, 442-456.
68.
Tesser, A. , & Smith, J. (1980). Some effects of friendship and task relevance on helping: You don’t always help the one you like. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 16, 582-590.
69.
Trope, Y. , & Pomerantz, R. E. (1998). Resolving conflicts among self evaluative motives: Positive experiences as a resource for overcoming defensiveness. Motivation and Emotion, 22, 53-72.
70.
Wills, T. A. (1981). Downward comparison principals in social psychology. Psychological Bulletin, 90, 245-271.
71.
Wills, T. A. (1991). Similarity and self-esteem in downward comparison. In J. M. Suls & T. A. Wills (Eds.), Social comparison: Contemporary theory and research (pp. 51-78). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
72.
Wood, J. V. (1989). Theory and research concerning social comparisons of personal attributes. Psychological Bulletin, 106, 231-248.
73.
Zillmann, D. (1983). Transfer of excitation in emotional behavior. In J. T. Cacioppo & R. E. Petty (Eds.), Social psychophysiology: A sourcebook (pp. 215-240). New York: Guilford.
