Question 3

Does a Nonconscious Component to Self-Esteem Exist?
If so, how should it be Conceptualized and Measured?
What role(s) does it Play in Psychological Functioning?
3a: How should the Self-Esteem Components of Contingent Self-Esteem and Stability of Self-Esteem be Conceptualized and Measured?

This next set of essays considers the issue of whether other self-esteem components exist besides level of self-esteem. Contributors to Question 3 were asked only to focus on whether a nonconscious self-esteem component exists and how best to conceptualize it. In response to a reviewers suggestion, Brian Goldman and I contributed an essay on Question 3a after all other essays were completed.

All contributors to Question 3 suggest that a nonconscious self-esteem component does indeed exist, though they differ in specifics regarding how best to conceptualize and operationalize it.

Bosson presents a sophisticated analysis of what we “should” mean by nonconscious self-esteem. In her view, “…when discussing the nonconscious aspects of self-esteem, it seems that what is hidden from awareness is not the feeling evoked in response to the self, but the fact that the self served as the stimulus that elicited the feeling.” In her view, nonconscious self-esteem can be conceptualized “…as a subjectively experienced, affective orientation toward the self that is elicited automatically by self-primes, and in the absence of conscious control, regulation, or interference by higher-order cognitive processes (such as rational decisionmaking, hypothesis-testing, logic, etc.).” Bosson discusses some important implications this conceptualization has for psychological functioning.

Jordan, Logel, Spencer, and Zanna suggest that people do possess highly efficient, automatic self-evaluations of which they are largely unaware. Jordan and colleagues suggest that these automatic self-evaluations (implicit self-esteem) are “preconscious” rather than unconscious. “Although people may be generally unaware of their implicit self-views, their implicit self-esteem may enter awareness in some situations, perhaps in the form of vague feelings associated with the self.” The authors review evidence suggesting that whereas the combination of high explicit and low implicit self-esteem reflects heightened defensiveness (relative to “high-high”), the combination of low explicit and high implicit self-esteem (relative to “low-low”) may reflect a “glimmer of hope” that buffers against psychological distress.

Epstein also focuses on the existence of preconscious self-esteem, as informed by cognitive experiential self-theory. Whereas self-esteem at the experiential (preconscious) level is “automatically derived from lived experience” and “manifested by a persons feelings and behavior,” self-esteem at the rational (conscious) level is “derived from conscious inference” and “indicated by what a person consciously believes and can be assessed by what a person reports.” Epstein also discusses the implications for psychological health and functioning of self-esteem as a “need” or “belief”within the rational and experiential systems, and he touches on ways to measure implicit or experiential self-esteem.

Kernis and Goldman describe methods by which researchers can assess stability of self-esteem and contingent self-esteem. In the most common method to assess self-esteem stability, respondents complete multiple assessments of current self-esteem (i.e., how they feel about themselves at that moment). At least two measures exist to assess contingent self-esteem. Whereas one measure focuses on overall differences in the degree of contingent self-esteem (Kernis & Paradise, 2002), the other measure focuses on specific domains on which self-esteem is contingent (Crocker, Luhtanen, Cooper, & Bouvrette, 2003).