Self-Esteem (II)

Here’s my first post about the book. I was disappointed by some of the chapters in the second half of the book and I think a few of them were quite poor. I have been wondering what to cover from the second half, in part because some of the authors seem to proceed as if e.g. the work of these authors does not exist (key quote: Our findings do not support continued widespread efforts to boost self-esteem in the hope that it will by itself foster improved outcomes) – I was thinking this about the authors of the last chapter, on ‘Changing self-esteem through competence and worthiness training’, in particular; their basic argument seems to be that since CWT (Competence and Worthiness Training) has been shown to improve self-esteem, ‘good things will follow’ people who make use of such programs. Never mind the fact that causal pathways between self-esteem and life outcomes are incredibly unclear, never mind that self-esteem is not the relevant outcome measure (and studies with good outcome measures do not exist), and never mind that effect persistence over time is unknown, to take but three of many problems with the research. They argue/conclude in the chapter that CWT is ’empirically validated’, an observation which almost made me laugh. I’m in a way slightly puzzled that whereas doctors contributing to Springer publications and similar are always supposed to disclose conflicts of interest in the publications, no similar demands are made in the context of the psychological literature; these people obviously make money off of these things, and yet they’re the ones evaluating the few poor studies that have been done, often by themselves, while pretending to be unbiased observers with no financial interests in whether the methods are ‘validated’ or not. Oh well.

Although some chapters are poor (‘data-poor and theory rich’, might not be a bad way to describe them – note that the ‘data poor’ part relates both to low amounts of data and the use of data of questionable quality; I’m thinking specifically about the use of measures of ‘implicit self-esteem’ in chapter 6 – the authors seem confused about the pattern of results and seem to have a hard time making sense of them (they seem to keep having to make up new ad-hoc explanations for why ‘this makes sense in context’), but I don’t think the results are necessarily that confusing; the variables probably aren’t measuring what they think they’re measuring, not even close, and the two different types of measures probably aren’t remotely measuring anything similar (I have a really hard time figuring out why anyone would ever think that they do), so it makes good sense that findings are all over the place..), chapter 8, on ‘Self-esteem as an interpersonal signal, was however really great and I thought I should share some observations from that chapter here – I have done this below. Interestingly, people who read the first post about the book would in light of the stuff included in that chapter do well to forget my personal comments in the first post about me having low self-esteem; interpersonal outcomes seem to be likely to be better if you think the people with whom you interact have high self-esteem (there are exceptions, but none of them seem relevant in this context), whether or not that’s actually true. Of course the level of ‘interaction’ going on here on the blog is very low, but even so… (I may be making a similar type of mistake the authors make in the last chapter here, by making unwarranted assumptions, but anyway…).

Before moving on, I should perhaps point out that I just finished the short Springer publication Appointment Planning in Outpatient Clinics and Diagnostic Facilities. I’m not going to blog this book separately as there frankly isn’t enough stuff in there for it to make sense to devote an entire blog post to it, but I thought I might as well add a few remarks here before moving on. The book contains a good introduction to some basic queueing theory, and quite a few important concepts are covered which people working with those kinds of things ought to know about (also, if you’ve ever had discussions about waiting lists and how ‘it’s terrible that people have to wait so long’ and ‘something has to be done‘, the discussion would have had a higher quality if you’d read this book first). Some chapters of the book are quite technical – here are a few illustrative/relevant links dealing with stuff covered in the book: Pollaczek–Khinchine formula, Little’s Law, the Erlang C formula, the Erlang B formula, Laplace–Stieltjes transform. The main thing I took away from this book was that this stuff is a lot more complicated that I’d thought. I’m not sure how much the average nurse would get out of this book, but I’m also not sure how much influence the average nurse has on planning decisions such as those described in this book  – little, I hope. Sometimes a book contains a few really important observations and you sort of want to recommend the book based simply on these observations, because a lot of people would benefit from knowing exactly those things; this book is like that, as planners on many different decision-making levels would benefit from knowing the ‘golden rules’ included in section 7.1. When things go wrong due to mismanagement and very long waiting lists develop, it’s obvious that however you look at it, if people had paid more attention to those aspects, this would probably not have happened. An observation which is critical to include in the coverage of a book like this is that it may be quite difficult for an outside observer (e.g. a person visiting a health clinic) to evaluate the optimality of scheduling procedures except in very obvious cases of inefficiently long queues. Especially in the case of excess capacity most outsiders do not know enough to evaluate these systems fairly; what may look like excess capacity to the outsider may well be a necessary buffer included in the planning schedule to keep waiting times from exploding at other points in time, and it’s really hard to tell those apart if you don’t have access to relevant data. Even if you do, things can be, complicated (see the links above).

Okay, back to the self-esteem text – some observations from the second half of the book below…

…

“low self-esteem is listed as either a diagnostic criterion or associated feature of at least 24 mental disorders in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV- TR). Low self-esteem and an insufficient ability to experience self-relevant positive emotions such as pride is particularly strongly linked to depression, to such a degree that some even suggest conceptualizing self-esteem and depression as opposing end points of a bipolar continuum […] The phenomenology of low self-esteem – feeling incompetent and unworthy, unfit for life – inevitably translates into experiencing existence as frightening and futile. This turns life for the person lacking in self-esteem into a chronic emergency: that person is psychologically in a constant state of danger, surrounded by a feeling of impending disaster and a sense of helplessness. Suffering from low self-esteem thus involves having one’s consciousness ruled by fear, which sabotages clarity and efficiency (Branden, 1985). The main goal for such a person is to keep the anxieties, insecurities, and self-doubts at bay, at whatever cost that may come. On the other hand, a person with a satisfying degree of self-respect, whose central motivation is not fear, can afford to rejoice in being alive, and view existence as a more exciting than threatening affair.” [from chapter 7, on ‘Existential perspective on self-esteem’ – I didn’t particularly like that chapter and I’m not sure to which extent I agree with the observations included, but I thought I should add the above to illustrate which kind of stuff is also included in the book.]

“Although past research has emphasized how social environments are internalized to shape self-views, researchers are increasingly interested in how self-views are externalized to shape one’s social environment. From the externalized perspective, people will use information about another’s self-esteem as a gauge of that person’s worth […] self-esteem serves a “status-signaling” function that complements the status-tracking function […] From this perspective, self-esteem influences one’s self-presentational behavior, which in turn influences how others view the self. This status-signaling system in humans should work much like the status-signaling models developed in non-human animals [Aureli et al. and Kappeler et al. are examples of places to go if you’re interested in knowing more about this stuff] […] Ultimately, these status signals have important evolutionary outcomes, such as access to mates and consequent reproductive success. In essence, self-esteem signals important status-related information to others in one’s social world. […] the basic notion here is that conveying high (or low) self-esteem provides social information to others.”

“In an effort to understand their social world, people form lay theories about the world around them. These lay theories consist of information about how characteristics covary within individuals […] Research on the status-signaling function of self-esteem […] and on self-esteem stereotypes […] report a consistent positive bias in the impressions formed about high self-esteem individuals and a consistent negative bias about those with low self-esteem. In several studies conducted by Cameron and her colleagues […], when Canadian and American participants were asked to rate how the average person would describe a high self-esteem individual, they universally reported that higher self-esteem people were attractive, intelligent, warm, competent, emotionally stable, extraverted, open to experience, conscientious, and agreeable. Basically, on all characteristics in the rating list, high self-esteem people were described as superior. […] Whereas people sing the praises of high self-esteem, low self-esteem is viewed as a “fatal flaw.” In the same set of studies, Cameron and her colleagues […] found that participants attributed negative characteristics to low self-esteem individuals. Across all of the characteristics assessed, low self-esteem people were seen as inferior. They were described as less attractive, less intelligent, less warm, less competent, less sociable, and so forth. The only time that the stereotypes of low self-esteem individuals were rated as “more” than the group of high self-esteem individuals was on negative characteristics, such as experiencing more negative moods and possessing more interpersonally disadvantageous characteristics (e.g., jealousy). […] low self-esteem individuals were seen just as negatively as welfare recipients and mentally ill people on most characteristics […] All cultures do not view self-esteem in the same way. […] There is some evidence to suggest that East Asian cultures link high self-esteem with more negative qualities”

“Zeigler-Hill and his colleagues […] presented participants with a single target, identified as low self-esteem or high self-esteem, and asked for their evaluations of the target. Whether the target was identified as low self-esteem by an explicit label (Study 3), a self-deprecating slogan on a T-shirt (Study 4), or their email address (Study 5, e.g., sadeyes@), participants rated an opposite-sex low self-esteem target as less romantically desirable than a high self-esteem target […]. However, ascribing negative characteristics to low self-esteem individuals is not just limited to decisions about an opposite-sex target. Zeigler-Hill and colleagues demonstrated that, regardless of match or mismatch of perceiver-target gender, when people thought a target had lower self-esteem they were more likely to ascribe negative traits to him or her, such as being lower in conscientiousness […] Overall, people are apt to assume that people with low self-esteem possess negative characteristics, whereas those with high self-esteem possess positive characteristics. Such assumptions are made at the group level […] and at the individual level […] According to Cameron and colleagues […], fewer than 1% of the sample ascribed any positive characteristics to people with low self-esteem when asked to give open-ended descriptions. Furthermore, on the overwhelming majority of characteristics assessed, low self-esteem individuals were rated more negatively than high self-esteem individuals”

“Although for the most part it is low self-esteem that people associate with negative qualities, there is a dark side to being labeled as having high self-esteem. People who are believed to have high self-esteem are seen as more narcissistic […], self-absorbed, and egotistical […] than those believed to possess low self-esteem. Moreover, the benefits of being seen as high self-esteem may be moderated by gender. When rating an opposite-sex target, men were often more positive toward female targets with moderate self-esteem than those with high self-esteem”

“Not only might perceptions of others’ self-esteem influence interactions among relative strangers, but they may also be particularly important in close relationships. Ample evidence demonstrates that a friend or partner’s self-esteem can have actual relational consequences […]. Relationships involving low self-esteem people tend to be less satisfying and less committed […], due at least in part to low self-esteem people’s tendency to engage in defensive, self-protective behavior and their enhanced expectations of rejection […]. Mounting evidence suggests that people can intuit these disadvantages, and thus use self-esteem as an interpersonal signal. […] Research by MacGregor and Holmes (2007) suggests that people expect to be less satisfied in a romantic relationship with a low self-esteem partner than a high self-esteem partner, directly blaming low self-esteem individuals for relationship mishaps […] it appears that people use self-esteem as a signal to indicate desirability as a mate: People report themselves as less likely to date or have sex with those explicitly labeled as having “low self-esteem” compared to those labeled as having “high self-esteem” […] Even when considering friendships, low self-esteem individuals are rated less socially appealing […] In general, it appears that low self-esteem individuals are viewed as less-than-ideal relationship partners.”

“Despite people’s explicit aversion to forming social bonds with low self-esteem individuals, those with low self-esteem do form close relationships. Nevertheless, even these established relationships may suffer when one person detects another’s low self-esteem. For example, people believe that interactions with low self-esteem friends or family members are more exhausting and require more work than interactions with high self-esteem friends and family […]. In the context of romantic relationships, Lemay and Dudley’s (2011) findings confirm the notion that relationships with low self-esteem individuals require extra relationship maintenance (or “work”) as people attempt to “regulate” their romantic partner’s insecurities. Specifically, participants who detected their partner’s low self-esteem tended to exaggerate affection for their partner and conceal negative sentiments, likely in an effort to maintain harmony in their relationship. Unfortunately, this inauthenticity was actually associated with decreased relationship satisfaction for the regulating partner over time. […] MacGregor and colleagues […] have explored a different type of communication in close relationships. Their focus was on capitalization, which is the disclosure of positive personal experiences to others […]. In two experiments […], participants who were led to believe that their close other had low self-esteem capitalized less positively (i.e., enthusiastically) compared to control participants. […] Moreover, in a study involving friend dyads, participants reported capitalizing less frequently with their friend to the extent they perceived him or her as having low self-esteem […] low self-esteem individuals are actually no less responsive to others’ capitalization attempts than are high self-esteem partners. Despite this fact, MacGregor and Holmes (2011) found that people are reluctant to capitalize with low self-esteem individuals precisely because they expect them to be less responsive than high self-esteem partners. Thus people appear to be holding back from low self-esteem individuals unnecessarily. Nevertheless, the consequences may be very real given that capitalization is a process associated with personal and interpersonal benefits”

“Cameron (2010) asked participants to indicate how much they tried to conceal or reveal their self-feelings and insecurities with significant others (best friends, romantic partners, and parents). Those with lower self-esteem reported attempting to conceal their insecurities and self-doubts to a greater degree than those with higher self-esteem. Thus, even in close relationships, low self-esteem individuals appear to see the benefit of hiding their self-esteem. Cameron, Hole, and Cornelius (2012) further investigated whether concealing self-esteem was linked with relational benefits for those with low self-esteem. In several studies, participants were asked to report their own self-esteem and then to provide their “self-esteem image”, or what level of self-esteem they thought they had conveyed to their significant others. Participants then indicated their relationship quality (e.g., satisfaction, commitment, trust). Across all studies and across all relationship types studied (friends, romantic partners, and parents), people reporting a higher self-esteem image, regardless of their own self-esteem level, reported greater relationship quality. […] both low and high self-esteem individuals benefit from believing that a high self-esteem image has been conveyed, though this experience may feel “inauthentic” for low self-esteem people. […] both low and high self-esteem individuals may hope to been seen as they truly are by their close others. […] In a recent meta-analysis, Kwang and Swann (2010) proposed that individuals desire verification unless there is a high risk for rejection. Thus, those with negative self-views may desire to be viewed positively, but only if being seen negatively jeopardizes their relationship. From this perspective, romantic partners should signal high self-esteem during courtship, job applicants should signal high self-esteem to potential bosses, and politicians should signal high self-esteem to their voters. Once the relationship has been cemented (and the potential for rejection has been reduced), however, people should desire to be seen as they are. Importantly, the results of the meta-analysis supported this proposal. While this boundary condition has shed some light on this debate, more research is needed to understand fully under what contexts people are motivated to communicate either positive or negative self-views.”

“it appears that people’s judgments of others’ self-esteem are partly well informed, yet also based on inaccurate stereotypes about characteristics not actually linked to self-esteem. […] Traits that do not readily manifest in behavior, or are low in observability, should be more difficult to detect accurately (see Funder & Dobroth, 1987). Self-esteem is one of these “low-observability” traits […] Although the operationalization of accuracy is tricky […], it does appear that people are somewhat accurate in their impressions of self-esteem […] research from various laboratories indicates that both friends […] and romantic partners […] are fairly accurate in judging each other’s self-esteem. […] However, people may also use information that has nothing to do with the appearances or behaviors of target. Instead, people may make judgements about another’s personality traits based on how they perceive their own traits […] people tend to project their own characteristics onto others […] People’s ratings of others’ self-esteem tend to be correlated with their own, be it for friends or romantic partners”