Self-Esteem and Beyond

Neil J. MacKinnon

• Verlag: Palgrave Pivot
• Jahr: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781137542304
• Thema: Psychologie
• Thema: Persönlichkeit in der Psychologie

Self-esteem is a concept which everybody experiences but there is conceptual confusion between self-feelings and self-conceptions. This book addresses the issue by replicating past studies with analysis of original data and proposing a three-factor theory of self-sentiments consisting of self-esteem, self-efficacy and self activation.

1

Introduction

Abstract: Following an outline of this book, Chapter 1 addresses two issues: first, challenges to the construct of self and self-referent concepts stemming from postmodernism/poststructuralism ideas, a radical social structural approach in sociology, and an extreme hermeneutic approach to ethnography and epistemological relativism in anthropology; second, criticisms of self-esteem research based upon reviews of the research literature challenging the measurement and explanatory utility of the concept.

Keywords: criticisms of self-esteem research

MacKinnon, Neil J. Self-Esteem and Beyond. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. DOI: 10.1057/9781137542304.0004.

The construct of self has become a cornerstone of social psychology since the seminal works of Mead (1934), Cooley (1902/1964), Thomas (1951), and James (1890/1950), and research on self-referent concepts, especially self-esteem, has produced a voluminous literature. For example, a decade after Wylie published the second of two groundbreaking volumes (1974, 1979), she observed that “the flood of research directed toward phenomenological or conscious self-conceptions has continued, and self-esteem in particular has been considered by both laypersons and professionals to be of great importance in accounting for human behavior and to be a function of a very wide array of variables” (1989:1–2). Substantiating her claim, she retrieved 16,951 entries for the self-referent terms, self-acceptance, self-concept, and self-esteem in a computer-assisted search of the literature for the period 1978–1986. Focusing only on self-esteem, early 2000 searches of the PsychINFO database by other authors have retrieved about 15,000 to over 22,000 publications (Baumeister, Campbell, Krueger, and Vohs 2003; Mruk 2006; Scheff and Feardon 2004; Scheff 2011), with more than 200 different scales that purport to measure the construct (Scheff 2011). “This amount of effort,” Scheff and Feardon (2004:74) opine, “probably represents the largest body of research on a single topic in the history of all of the social sciences.” Self-referent concepts have also become part of the broader culture. While writing this book, for example, a Google search retrieved about 150,000,000 references for self-concept and about 82,800,000 for self-esteem.

Despite the overwhelming accumulation of research involving self-referent concepts, there remains a substantial amount of conceptual ambiguity, the major source of which stems from the failure to distinguish clearly between the cognitive and affective components of self – self-concept versus self-sentiment. This is exemplified by definitions of these concepts that are too inclusive, making it impossible to entertain or test hypotheses about the relations between self-conceptions and self-sentiments because both are contained in the same construct. Conceptual ambiguity is also reflected in measures of global and specific self-esteem that confound self-feelings with self-conceptions. In addition to conceptual ambiguity, there are a number of unresolved issues in the study of self-referent constructs. One concerns the dimensionality of self-esteem; another, the relative effects of global and specific levels of self-esteem on behavioral outcomes. Other unresolved issues stem from the failure of researchers (e.g., Hoge and McCarthy 1984; Marsh 1986) to replicate important aspects of Rosenberg’s (1965/1989) seminal research on self-concept and self-esteem.

This book is devoted to clarifying self-referent concepts and addressing unresolved issues in the study of self-esteem and other components of self-sentiment. In view of recent as well as long-standing challenges to the social psychological concept of self and self-referent concepts, it is more important than ever to do so. Before proceeding with this task, however, it is necessary to make an important conceptual point. Although many of the discussions in this book refer to self-esteem because this has generally been the most popular term for referring to self-feelings, it is imperative to recognize that self-esteem is not the only kind of self-sentiment. In fact, it has become widely accepted that self-esteem itself consists of two kinds of self-feelings, which have been construed as valenced factors of self-worth and self-derogation (e.g., Kohn and Schooler 1969, 1983; Owens 1993) or as nonvalenced factors of self-worth and self-competence (e.g., Gecas 1971, 1982; Tafarodi and Swann 1995). Moreover, the affect control theory of self (ACT-Self) (MacKinnon and Heise 2010), which will be introduced in Chapter 2, identifies self-activation as a third dimension of self-sentiment. Therefore, it makes more sense to speak of self-sentiment rather than self-esteem and to consider self-esteem (self-worth), self-competence, and self-activation as dimensions or components of this more global construct. And although many of the discussions in this book refer exclusively to self-esteem, the outcomes of these discussions generalize to all three components of self-sentiment. Finally, I will often refer to these three components in the plural as self-sentiments throughout this book to distinguish them from the overall self-sentiment.

Plan of this book

The remainder of this chapter discusses two topics: first, challenges to the construct of self and self-referent concepts; second, criticisms of self-esteem research. Challenges to self and self-referent constructs include the attack on human subjectivity by Continental European philosophers of the late twentieth century and the influence of their ideas on sociologists (e.g., Denzin 1988) and anthropologists subscribing to a hermeneutic approach to ethnography and epistemological relativism (see Spiro 1986). A more recent challenge comes from Kemper (2011), who dismisses the construct of self from a sociological rather than a postmodernist perspective. Criticisms of self-esteem research, which has implications for the study of self-sentiments in general, include the critical reviews by Baumeister et al. (2003) and Scheff and Feardon (2004).

Chapter 2 deals with the distinction between cognitive and affective aspects of the self. Extensive discussions of self-concept, self-sentiment, and motivation set the stage for introducing ACT-Self (MacKinnon and Heise 2010). The dynamic side of the theory, elaborated in MacKinnon and Heise (2010), consists of a cybernetic model of the self-process, according to which people maintain a sense of authenticity of self by optimizing consistency between established and situational self- sentiments. The structural side of this theory, to which this book is devoted, consists of a three-dimensional model of self-sentiment based on the EPA (evaluation, potency, and activity) dimensions of the semantic differential (Osgood, 1962, 1969; Osgood, Suci, and Tannenbaum 1957; Osgood, May, and Miron 1975).

Chapter 3 deals with two unresolved issues in self-esteem theory and research that have implications for the study of self-sentiments in general: first, the dimensionality of global self-esteem; and second, the distinction between global and domain-specific levels of self-esteem and their differential effects on behavior. The first issue concerns whether self-esteem is a unidimensional construct, as Rosenberg argued, or if multidimensional, the number and nature of the underlying dimensions. I will argue for a three-factor model of self-sentiments consisting of self-esteem (proper), self-efficacy, and self-activation proposed by ACT-Self. The second issue concerns the fundamental question of whether self- esteem can be meaningfully conceptualized as a global construct and, if so, whether global and specific levels of self-esteem have similar behavioral consequences and predictive power. I will argue that domain-specific approaches to self-esteem have not really measured specific self-esteem at all but rather self-conceptions. Although articulated in terms of self-esteem, my argument generalizes to self-efficacy and self-activation, the other two components of self-sentiment.

Chapter 4 compares the semantic differential scales employed by ACT-Self to measure self-esteem, self-efficacy, and self-activation with Likert scale measures of the same constructs. To assess the relation between semantic differential and Likert measures of self-sentiments, I use a multitrait-multimethod matrix analysis in conjunction with exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. Following a discussion of why these two methods of measurement fail to converge, the chapter concludes with an extensive discussion of the relative advantages of semantic differential over Likert scales as measures of self-sentiments. Among the advantages identified in this discussion, the semantic differential approach to measuring self-sentiments is more consistent with the bipolar nature of affect (Russell and Carroll 1999), avoids the linguistic and cognitive complexity of Likert scales, and enters readily into mathematical models of the self-process.

The next three chapters address unresolved issues stemming from two major hypotheses advanced by Rosenberg (1965/1989, 1979). The interactive hypothesis proposes that the psychological centrality or importance of self-conceptions moderates their effect on self-esteem; the selectivity hypothesis, that people select as psychologically important self-conceptions those characteristics on which they excel and discount those on which they do not. Although these chapters focus almost exclusively on self-esteem, their findings and discussions generalize to the self-sentiments of self-efficacy and self-activation.

Chapter 5 introduces Rosenberg’s interactive hypothesis, reports a replication of his cross-tabulation analysis with data from an Ontario study, and extends this replication to more refined analysis employing correlations.

This sets the stage for Chapter 6, which reviews the attempts by later researchers (Hoge and McCarthy 1984; Marsh 1986) to confirm Rosenberg’s interactive hypothesis using correlation and regression methods. This chapter also reports a replication of Marsh’s analyses with the same data used to replicate Rosenberg’s analyses in Chapter 5.

Chapter 7 introduces Rosenberg’s selectivity hypothesis and shows how an inherent contradiction between the mechanisms of selectivity and interaction explains the failure of later researchers to confirm Rosenberg’s interactive hypothesis. This leads into a discussion and replication of Pelham and Swann’s (1989) study, which supports the interactive hypothesis by employing a measure of the differential importance of self-conceptions; and Hoelter’s (1985) study, which finds evidence for the interactive hypothesis by employing a measure of the comparative importance of identities. Chapter 7 concludes by demonstrating the use of semantic differential scales in predicting self-sentiments from identity sentiments, where identities are weighted by the extent to which they are used as self-conceptions.

Chapter 8, the concluding chapter of this book, summarizes its contributions to clarifying self-referent concepts and resolving contentious issues in research on self-sentiments discussed in this introductory chapter. Following a list of recommendations and exhortations, the chapter identifies limitations of this book and suggests how future research might address these limitations.

Challenges to the construct of self

Continental European philosophers of the late twentieth century (e.g., Foucault, Derrida, Leotard, and Baudrillard) advanced a view of human subjectivity that challenged the essentialist idea of a core and stable self that had dominated Western thought since at least the Enlightenment. Foucault (1984, 1985, 1988) proposed that the self (the subject) is a product of discourse and representational systems in specific historical contexts, and that ideas such as an autonomous, unified, and rational subject are simply the outcomes of subjection.¹ For Jacques Derrida (1976, 1981) there is no deeper or authentic self to be discovered; only subject-referent texts to be deconstructed, nullifying the possibility of a stable self because the interpretations of subject-referent texts are constantly in flux in an infinite regress of a “play of differences” between alternative interpretations. For Jean-Francois Lyotard (1984), the “incredulity towards meta-narratives” (1984:xxiv) in the postmodern era and their disintegration into innumerable and conflicting language games result in the fragmentation and “decentering” of the subject.² And, according to Jean Baudrillard (1981, 1985), modern consumer society has transformed the subject into a sign of itself, a representation without an external referent, forcing people to construct their subjectivities out of the symbolic value of consumer objects.

Thus, by the end of the twentieth century, the concept of self had become “a mere shadow of what it used to be” (Holstein and Gubrium 2000:3), threatening to turn social psychology into “a discipline without a subject” (Dowd 1991). And, indeed, the more radical postmodernists³ dismissed the subject altogether, proposing the postmodern individual as an alternative. In contrast to the social psychological concept of a core and stable self, the postmodern individual has only “the disintegrating patch-work of a persona, with a disparate personality and a potentially confused identity” (Rosenau 1992, p. 55).

Exemplifying the impact of postmodern/poststructuralist ideas on sociological thought, Denzin (1988) dismissed the symbolic interactionist theory of self as the “fallacy of the self as the center of interaction” (1988:67).⁴ For Denzin, the self refers merely to the phenomenological flow of lived experience as opposed to an internal, invariant structure of a person. The self is “a ‘gloss’ for the biographical subjectivity of the person. Pivotal, key meanings of the person are poured into the container called self” (1988:69). Mead’s (1934) “I” and “me” are mere pronouns with no basis in substantive reality. The “I,” Denzin argues, “stands for nothing more than a subject who thinks thoughts that he thinks he determines, when in fact language determines the thoughts that are thought and the words that are spoken.” And the “me” refers to an “inauthentic self,” one that “has assumed its selfhood in the terms given to it by others” (1988:68). Despite the fact that a person claims ownership of his or her experience through possessive pronominal forms of self (my, mine), the subject remains an imaginary extension of social reality. It is not a supposed self that directs the experience of an individual, but simply the individual’s presence in the situation in conjunction with the structures of discourse. From a methodological point of view, there are no subjects “out there” who can reveal themselves to social scientists or be revealed by them; there are only self-referent texts to be deconstructed. For Dawson and Prus (1993:157), “this is the real radical edge of the postmodernist challenge to traditional interactionist ethnography, with its assumption not only of intersubjectivity (i.e., the successful communication of subjects) but, of course, the autonomous existence and accessibility of subjects.”

The challenge to ethnographic research from postmodernist views on social reality and human intersubjectivity has also played out in the field of anthropology (Spiro 1986), where radical forms of cultural determinism and cultural diversity have given rise to the same kind of epistemological relativism proposed by Denzin. Adherents of this perspective argue that since there are no cultural universals, anthropology should not attempt to explain cultures but rather to interpret them in all their particularities. This transforms anthropology from an explanatory (scientific) discipline to an interpretative (hermeneutic) one. And by implication, there are no social or even psychological universals either. Like anthropology, sociology and psychology become ethnosciences.

Spiro (1986) criticizes this kind of epistemological relativism on two grounds. First, he argues for the existence of cultural, social, and psychological universals rooted in biological evolution (e.g., that some form of defense mechanisms exists in all cultures to avoid the shame resulting from the violation of internalized cultural norms and values). Second, he argues that epistemological relativism is self-contradictory in its hermeneutic view of anthropology and ethnography: “if cultures are incommensurable and if the characteristics of human nature and the human mind are predominantly culturally determined, how is it at all possible for an ethnographer to understand a group that is different from his or her own” (1986:268)? Under these conditions, an ethnographer woul...

Inhaltsverzeichnis

• Cover
• Title
• 1  Introduction
• 2  Self-Concept, Self-Sentiment, and Motivation
• 3  The Dimensionality and Levels of Self-Sentiment
• 4  Measuring Self-Sentiments
• 5  Psychological Centrality and Rosenbergs Interactive Hypothesis
• 6  The Failure to Confirm Rosenbergs Interactive Hypothesis
• 7  Rosenbergs Selectivity Hypothesis
• 8  Summary and Conclusion
• References
• Author Index
• Subject Index