1999/11/01 by Leah R. Spalding, Curtis D. Hardin · 4 citations
Social Sciences · Psychology · #Social and Intergroup Psychology #Personality Traits and Psychology #Cultural Differences and Values #Psychology #Self-esteem #Unconscious mind #Implicit attitude #Anxiety #Valence (chemistry) #Implicit-association test #Self-concept #Developmental psychology #Self #Social psychology
paper · doi:10.1111/1467-9280.00202
openalex publication_date 1999/11/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/14
In contrast to measures of explicit self-esteem, which assess introspectively accessible self-evaluations, measures of implicit self-esteem assess the valence of unconscious, introspectively inaccessible associations to the self. This experiment is the first to document a relationship between individual differences in implicit self-esteem and social behavior: Participants completed either a self-relevant or a self-irrelevant interview, and were then rated by the interviewer on their anxiety. When the interview was self-relevant, apparent anxiety was greater for participants low in implicit self-esteem than for participants high in self-esteem; implicit self-esteem did not predict anxiety when the interview was self-irrelevant. Explicit self-esteem did not predict apparent anxiety in either interview, but did predict participants' explicit self-judgments of anxiety. Self-handicapping about interview performance was greater for participants low in both explicit and implicit self-esteem than for those high in these measures. The experiment provides direct evidence that effects of implicit and explicit self-esteem may be dissociated.