In three studies, participants were primed with words connoting interpersonal acceptance, interpersonal rejection, or other aversive outcomes. Study 1 revealed that participants low in self-esteem responded to rejection (compared to other) primes by appraising themselves less positively and more negatively, whereas those high in self-esteem showed the opposite tendency. Study 2 showed that implicit rejection caused participants low in self-esteem to give up sooner on a difficult (unsolvable) anagram task but led those high in self-esteem to persist longer. Study 3 revealed that primed rejection hampered performance among low-self-esteem participants but somewhat improved performance among high-self-esteem participants. Taken together, the findings indicated that people with low self-esteem automatically respond to interpersonal rejection with self-deprecation and withdrawal, whereas those with high self-esteem tend to react with affirmation and perseverance. People with low self-esteem appear to possess few resources for defending against rejection threat.
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