Implicit self-esteem refers to a person's disposition to evaluate themselves in a spontaneous, automatic, or unconscious manner. It contrasts with explicit self-esteem, which entails more conscious and reflective self-evaluation. Both explicit and implicit self-esteem are constituents of self-esteem.
Overview Implicit self-esteem has been specifically defined as "the introspectively unidentified (or inaccurately identified) effect of the self-attitude on evaluation of self-associated and self-dissociated objects". Because by definition implicit self-esteem may not be accessible to conscious introspection, measures of implicit self-esteem do not rely on direct self-reports, but rather infer the valence of associations with the self through other means. The vast majority of implicit self-esteem measures suggest that an individual's self-evaluation spills over to self-related objects. Also, these measures reveal that people, on average, have positive self-evaluations. The overestimation of one's traits and abilities is argued to be a spillover of positive affect from the self to objects associated with the self. This "spillover" is automatic and unconscious. Implicit self-esteem therefore offers an explanation of positivity bias for things related to the self. Associations are especially important; implicit self-esteem is made up of a series of associations between the self and a positive or negative evaluation of the self. This is especially shown in measures of the Implicit Association Test.
Influencing factors Several researchers have suggested that levels of implicit self-esteem can be affected by evaluative conditioning, through pairing of construct of the self with positive or negative stimuli, with the objective of altering attitude towards the self. In addition, social comparison, or more specifically the performance of people in one's close social circle, can also affect implicit self-esteem. This information suggests that expectancies of social inclusion is a factor in self-evaluation.
Evaluative conditioning The influence of evaluative conditioning on implicit self-esteem is analogous to the principles of classical conditioning on behavioral responses. Although the latter involves pairing an unconditioned stimulus with a neutral stimulus repeatedly until presence of the neutral stimulus evokes the consequence of the unconditioned stimulus, evaluative conditioning involves pairing positive and negative stimulus with an internal construct- the self- to manipulate levels of implicit self-esteem. The effectiveness of evaluative conditioning hinges on the understanding that implicit self-esteem is interpersonally associative in nature, and that there is a causal relationship between the self and positive/negative social feedback. Studies have shown that participants repeatedly exposed to pairings of self-relevant information with smiling faces showed enhanced implicit self-esteem. In addition, studies have also found that pairing the word 'I' with positive traits heightens implicit self-esteem regardless of the level of temporal self-esteem prior to the conditioning process. Subliminal presentation of the stimuli reflected that implicit self-esteem is altered in the absence of consciousness. Given that evaluative conditioning changes attitude at a fundamental level and the evaluation that is automatically activated on encountering the attitude object, implicit self-esteem could be assessed as attitude towards the self.
Social comparison The self-evaluation maintenance theory (SEM) suggests that the success of one's partner or "significant other" in areas that are self-relevant can cause people to feel threatened, allowing comparison of one's self to the self of another, impacting self-evaluation. Intimacy of relationships predicts likelihood of upward social comparison, which inevitably leads to lower implicit self-esteem. Given that the SEM is moderated by intimacy of relationship, its impact can be a prominent influential factor between romantic partners. Evidence shows that men tend to have lowered implicit self-esteem when their romantic partner succeeded than when they failed, automatically interpreting their romantic partner's success as their own failure. The underlying explanation might be that self-evaluation is driven by one's expectations around fulfillment of one's role as a man. Another explanation in line with the interpersonal nature of self-evaluation stems from the belief that women are attracted to men's success. Hence, the perception of failure in a man could trigger his fear associated with acceptance from his significant other, as well as abandonment issues. In general, studies of social comparison on implicit self-esteem has yielded the conclusion that comparisons with other individuals can impact one's self-esteem. In addition, these effects are greater when there is a close psychological identification with the partner with whom one is being compared.
Consequences and correlations An individual's level of implicit self-esteem affects him or her in various crucial domains that are relevant to social, emotional, and cognitive well-being. In some cases, discrepancies between the implicit and explicit self-esteem effects affective well-being and are highly associated with clinical symptoms. Implicit self-esteem also determines how individuals approach relational conflicts and social settings. While low levels of implicit self-esteem can be erroneous, boosts in implicit self-esteem through mechanisms involved in narcissism can also impair an individual's performance in cognitive tasks and external representation of competence in occupational settings.
Discrepancies between implicit and explicit self-esteem When explicit self-esteem is lower, it is called damaged self-esteem. When the implicit self-esteem is lower it is called defensive self-esteem. It has been found that individuals who tend to have a higher correspondence between implicit and explicit self-esteem, trust their intuition.
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