47
Self-Esteem and Rejection Sensitivity in Close Relationships
Both trait self-esteem and fluctuations in self-esteem are associated with aspects of relationship dynamics: for example, the extent to which members of a couple feel satisfied with the relationship, give one another the “benefit of the doubt” in ambiguous situations, or show various affective reactions, such as depression and anger (e.g., Kernis, Cornell, Sun, Berry, & Harlow, 1993; Murray, Holmes, & Griffin, 2000). Yet, despite its volume, the literature on self-esteem has many fundamental inconsistencies, and there remains little consensus about just how self-esteem relates to various psychological and interpersonal phenomena (Tangney & Leary, 2003). In this paper we aim to elucidate the processes linking self-esteem with relationship dynamics, drawing upon research on the processes predicted by rejection sensitivity as a point of comparison.
The construct of self-esteem (SE) involves individual differences in global valuation of the self, studied both as a stable characteristic and as a temporary state. People differ substantially in what they believe is important to their SE. Whereas some may largely base SE on being accepted by a particular person, by a group of people, or by people in general, others may base SE on more “autonomous” qualities, such as personal values, abilities, or faith. An interpersonal experience can only have an impact on SE to the extent that the person believes that it means something about their worth, therefore, people with interpersonal self-worth contingency beliefs are at heightened risk for fluctuations in their mood and SE on the basis of others’ feedback (Crocker, Luhtanen, Cooper, & Bouvrette, 2003). People whose self esteem is characteristically low or frequently plunges in relationship contexts, therefore learn to prepare themselves for such interpersonal threats, through readily activated cognitive/affective processes. In this sense, their interpersonal patterns appear similar to those individuals who are high in rejection sensitivity (RS), a construct rooted in attachment theory and interpersonal psychodynamic theories, defined by the tendency to anxiously expect rejection (see Levy, Ayduk, & Downey, 2001).
Both low SE and high RS are associated with increased readiness to perceive and react to cues for potential rejection in others’ behavior; furthermore, both dispositions are maintained, in part, by self-fulfilling prophecies, in that they promote negative interpersonal behaviors that undermine relationships. Studies have consistently shown a moderately strong inverse correlation between the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale and the Rejection Sensitivity Questionnaire (e.g., r = –.33, Downey & Feldman, 1996). Nevertheless, research has typically found that outcomes of theoretical interest are predicted by RS even after SE has been controlled (Downey & Feldman, 1996; Mendoza-Denton, Downey, Davis, & Pietrzak, 2002). We propose that beyond their similarities, SE and RS involve distinct insecurities and motivations that would predict distinct processing dynamics when evoked by the potential for rejection in a close relationship.
Insecurity and Attention to Expected Interpersonal Threat
Our conceptualization of the links between SE, RS, and relationship dynamics begins with motivated monitoring of interpersonal situations on dimensions of acceptance/rejection, as do other theoretical models of SE (e.g., Baldwin & Keelan, 1999; Leary, Haupt, Strausser, & Chokel, 1998; Leary, Tambor, Terdal, & Downs, 1995). The process of attending to, interpreting, and responding to interpersonal cues is influenced by expectations developed over the course of one’s cognitive-social learning history, and triggered by relevant features of new relationship situations. When the evoked expectations are negative, concern with the potential for threat increases attention to threat-relevant cues, and in turn, increases the likelihood that threat will be perceived. As predicted by this model, a history of painful rejection experiences has been associated with both low SE (Harter, 1999) and with high RS (Feldman & Downey, 1994). Moreover, consistent with their negative expectations, people with low SE are more likely than others to perceive their romantic partners in a negative, critical light (Murray, Rose, Bellavia, Holmes, & Kusche, 2002), and similar patterns are shown among people with high RS (Downey & Feldman, 1996).
The tendency to vigorously monitor dimensions of acceptance/rejection can be understood as having developed to minimize risks for harm. Yet, potential rejection may be threatening to people in different ways, and for different reasons. SE that is generally low or frequently plunges promotes concern about rejection because of the message it communicates about self-worth, competence, or social status. When evoked in a close relationship, potential threats to SE primarily motivate people to protect the self—avoiding rejection becomes important so as to not be found lacking by someone whose evaluation matters. On the other hand, RS promotes concern about rejection because of the message that it conveys about the availability of others’ care in times of need. Although some high RS people may try to avoid activating their concerns about rejection by avoiding relationships, when involved in a close relationship they are motivated not to be abandoned or neglected by the person they have trusted with their vulnerability, and thus readily prioritize the prevention of potential rejections at a cost to the self. Therefore, even though the basic process of monitoring threat predicted by low SE and high RS is the same, the nature of the threats and primary motivations for monitoring them are distinct. Furthermore, these two dispositions should have distinct implications for relationship dynamics when the potential for rejection by an important other arises.
Strategies for facing the prospect of an expected rejection in an interpersonal situation are likely to depend on how much control a person believes he or she can have over the ultimate outcome—e.g., appraisal of the likelihood that efforts to prevent the rejection could be successful, and the certainty with which social cues are perceived as conveying definitive rejection. Low SE is associated with low self-efficacy, and cognitive biases that would make rejection seem inevitable (“depressive certainty”). When faced with rejection cues, people with low SE are less likely than high SE individuals to actively engage in rejection-prevention strategies (Sommer & Baumeister, 2002). Helplessness, defeatism, bitterness, and decreases in interpersonal investment are therefore expected to centrally characterize the reactions to rejection cues associated with low SE. It is as though low SE reduces the threshold for interpreting interpersonal cues as definitive rejections about which nothing can be done but to assign blame, and to give up on the relationship as a potential context for acceptance. By contrast, the relationship processing promoted by RS should centrally involve defensively motivated proactive strategies for maintaining connection to the significant other, involving vigilant attention to early signals for potential rejection and effort to prevent its realization.
Rejection Sensitivity and Defensively Motivated Proactive Strategies
Drawing on research on the neurobiology of emotion (Cacioppo & Gardner, 1999; Lang, Bradley, & Cuthbert, 1990; LeDoux, 1996; Ohman, 2000), RS is proposed to operate as part of a Defensive Motivational System that when activated, mobilizes arousal, attention, and behavior in the service of self-protection (Downey & Ayduk, 2004). Because remaining close to the significant other who is the source of the potential threat is typically a central motivation of high RS individuals, the fight-or-flight responses usually associated with activation of a Defensive Motivational System would not be initially preferred. Instead, automatic responses to the earliest warning signs for potential rejection involve attempts to prevent realization of the threat by anticipating and accommodating the partner’s wishes, even at the expense of other personal goals. In this defensively motivated state, high levels of affective arousal and a threat-oriented attentional focus are thus accompanied by inhibitory tactics such as freezing, trying to be inconspicuous, or trying to please (see also Gray, 1987, 2000). Experimental evidence demonstrates that under conditions involving likely, but not yet definite, rejection, high RS predicts increased efforts to gain acceptance (e.g., self-silencing or ingratiating behavior) relative to conditions involving acceptance cues or more definitive rejection cues, whereas low SE does not. In fact, under conditions of likely rejection, low SE predicts decreased ingratiating behavior (Romero-Canyas, Downey, Cavanaugh, & Pelayo, 2006). Of course, when used too often or indiscriminately, rejection-preventive efforts can contribute to interpersonal dysfunction. For example, RS predicts young women’s self-reported willingness to do things they believe to be wrong or that make them uncomfortable to maintain a relationship (Downey & Ayduk, 2004; Purdie & Downey, 2000).
Expecting and attending to rejection cues increases readiness to perceive them, and once a rejection is perceived to have occurred, RS predicts hostile reactions (Ayduk, Downey, Testa, Yen, & Shoda, 1999; Downey, Feldman, & Ayduk, 2000), depressive symptoms (Ayduk, Downey, & Kim, 2001), and negative reactions from others (Downey, Freitas, Michaelis, & Khouri, 1998). These aspects of the relationship dynamics associated with RS people bear similarity to those associated with low SE (e.g., Murray et al., 2002), yet further distinctions between them can also be expected. Relative to low SE, high RS should predict more intense affective and behavioral reactions to perceived rejection as a result of the prolonged physiological arousal involved in Defensive Motivational System activation. The reactions to rejection associated with RS are also likely to appear more erratic because they would often follow a period of rejection-prevention efforts in which negative responses to the partner are suppressed. For example, sudden shifts from solicitousness to hostility, or from anxious hopefulness about a relationship to despair, that are characteristic of high RS individuals with Borderline Personality Disorder are an extreme illustration of this dynamic. By contrast, low SE predicts skipping straight past the phase of anxious rejection-prevention efforts (Romero-Canyas & Downey, 2005). Because interpreting a cue as a definitive rejection short-circuits activation of the Defensive Motivational System, co-occurring low SE may often have a dampening effect on the rejection-preventive efforts and intense, erratic reactions to rejection predicted by high RS alone.
Evaluating the Meaning of Rejection Experiences
Even when an interpersonal cue is interpreted as a definitive indicator of rejection, the relationship dynamics that ensue and subsequent implications for social learning about the self and others depend in part on whether the rejection is blamed on the self or on the other. Blaming others can protect SE from rejections perpetrated by people who are not deeply significant to the self. For example, work on sensitivity to race-based rejection (Mendoza-Denton, Downey, Purdie, Davis, & Pietrzak, 2002), suggests that African-American students who are sensitive to rejection based on their race do not experience low SE because they tend to attribute rejection to the racism of the perpetrating group (see also Crocker & Major, 1989). To the extent that a relationship is particularly close, intimate, or otherwise an important basis for self-definition, however, cognitive interpretations that undermine positive regard for the partner or the stability of the relationship are less likely to be effective for protecting the self. In fact, there is some evidence that the tendency to derogate a romantic partner is more typical of people with low, rather than high SE (Murray et al., 2002). Derogating others is also a central component of the faulty interpersonal self-regulation that narcissists employ to maintain their unrealistically inflated and readily threatened self-views, at a cost to their relationships and well-being (Morf & Rhodewalt, 2002). Over time, the interpersonal consequences of blaming important others for perceived rejection can be expected to perpetuate concerns about rejection and also to increase associated negative outcomes. For example, the tendency of high RS processing dynamics to undermine relationships increases exposure to negative social feedback and in turn, takes a toll on SE (Ayduk, Mendoza-Denton, Mischel, Downey, Peake, & Rodriguez, 2000).
The extent to which a person believes that their self-worth and interpersonal acceptance are contingent upon one another adds a further dimension to the interpretation of threat cues, and further elucidates the association between SE and RS concerns. That is, when self-worth is defined as interpersonally contingent, attending to signs that others may not provide needed nurturance can be predicted to evoke concerns about the adequacy of the self. Likewise, when others’ acceptance is believed to be contingent upon unstable personal qualities (e.g., high achievement, physical beauty, or selfless behavior), and when the potential loss of this acceptance would be of great concern, attending to indicators of the self’s inadequacy can be predicted to prime anxious expectations for rejection. Thus, the tendency for concerns about self-worth and interpersonal acceptance to be evoked in tandem is addressed in our model, yet because we define SE and RS concerns as distinct, we do not predict that they will necessarily occur together in the absence of relevant contingency beliefs. Of course, negative feedback about the self or an important relationship typically evokes negative mood, and may do so even when the feedback is not believed to have broader negative implications for self worth (Crocker et al., 2003). Accounting for shared negative mood effects seems particularly important if future research is to untangle the relationship processing dynamics associated with SE and RS.
Concluding Comments
We have attempted to elucidate the processes that we believe link SE with relationship dynamics by comparing and contrasting them with the processes predicted by RS, an associated disposition. As indicated, both SE and RS concerns promote increased attention to rejection cues, and a readiness to perceive and respond to them that has negative consequences for relationships. Moreover, believing that self-worth and interpersonal acceptance are contingent upon one another may lead the activation of concerns about SE and RS to readily co-occur. Beyond such links between low SE and high RS, however, we have proposed that these dispositions involve distinct sets of insecurities and motivations, and predict distinct processing dynamics when evoked by the threat of rejection in a close relationship. Specifically, RS predicts vigorous, often exaggerated efforts to prevent potential rejection threats from being realized, patterns that we expect would add an intense and erratic quality to depressed and angry reactions when rejection is ultimately perceived to have occurred. Low SE, by contrast, predicts the prioritization of self-protection over interpersonal bonds in interpreting and reacting to rejections that are assumed to be inevitable. In other words, we propose that whereas RS operates as part of a Defensive Motivational System functioning to prevent the loss of nurturing relationships, SE primarily influences relationship processing of an evaluative nature.
References
Ayduk, O., Downey, G., & Kim, M. (2001). Rejection sensitivity and depressive symptoms in women. Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin, 27, 868–877.
Ayduk, O., Downey, G., Testa, A., Yen, Y., & Shoda, Y. (1999). Does rejection elicit hostility in rejection sensitive women? Social Cognition, 17, 245–271.
Ayduk, O., Mendoza-Denton, R., Mischel, W., Downey, G., Peake, P. K., & Rodriguez, M. (2000). Regulating the interpersonal self: Strategic self-regulation for coping with rejection sensitivity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79, 776–792.
Baldwin, M. W., & Keelan, J. P. R. (1999). Interpersonal expectations as a function of self esteem and sex. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 60, 241–253.
Cacioppo, J. T., & Gardner, W. L. (1999). Emotions. Annual Review of Psychology, 50, 191–214.
Crocker, J., Luhtanen, R. K., Cooper, M. L., & Bouvrette, A. (2003). Contingencies of self-worth in college students: Theory and measurement. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85, 894–908.
Crocker, J., & Major, B. (1989). Social stigma and self-esteem: The self-protective properties of stigma. Psychological Review, 96, 608–630.
Downey, G., & Ayduk, O. (2004). Correlates of rejection sensitivity in college students. Unpublished Data. Columbia University.
Downey, G., & Feldman, S. (1996). Implications of rejection sensitivity for intimate relationships. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 70, 1327–1343.
Downey, G., Feldman, S., & Ayduk, O. (2000). Rejection sensitivity and male violence in romantic relationships. Personal Relationships, 7, 45–61.
Downey, G., Freitas, A., Michaelis, B., & Khouri, H. (1998). The self-fulfilling prophecy in close relationships: Rejection sensitivity and rejection by romantic partners. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 75, 545–560.
Feldman, S., & Downey, G. (1994). Rejection sensitivity as a mediator of the impact of childhood exposure to family violence on adult attachment behavior. Development and Psychopathology, 6, 231–247.
Gray, J. A. (1987). The psychology of fear and stress (2nd ed.). New York: Me Graw-Hill.
Gray, J. A. (2000). Three fundamental emotional systems. In P. E. R. j. Davidson (Ed.), The nature of emotion (pp. 243–247). New York: Oxford University Press.
Harter, S. (1999). The construction of the self: A developmental perspective. New York: Guilford.
Kernis, M. H., Cornell, D. P., Sun, C., Berry, A., & Harlow, T. (1993). There’s more to self-esteem than whether it’s high or low: The importance of stability of self-esteem. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65, 1190–1204.
Kernis, M. H., & Goldman, B. M. (2003). Stability and variability in self-concept and self esteem. In Leary, M. R. & Tangney, J. P. (eds.), Handbook of self and identity (pp. 106–127). New York: Guilford.
Lang, P., Bradley, M., & Cuthbert, B. (1990). Emotion, attention, and the startle reflex. Psychological Review, 97(3), 377–395.
Leary, M. R., Haupt, A. L., Strausser, K. S., & Chokel, J. T. (1998). Calibrating the sociometer: The relationship between interpersonal appraisals and the state self-esteem. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 74, 1290–1299.
Leary, M. R., Tambor, E. S., Terdal, S. K., & Downs, D. L. (1995). Self-esteem as an interpersonal monitor: The sociometer hypothesis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 68, 518–530.
LeDoux, J. (1996). The emotional brain. New York: Touchstone.
Levy, S., Ayduk, O., & Downey, G. (2001). The role of rejection sensitivity in people’s relationships with significant others and valued social groups. In M. Leary (Ed.), Interpersonal rejection (pp. 251–289). New York: Oxford University Press.
Mendoza-Denton, R., Downey, G., Purdie, V., Davis, A., & Pietrzak, J. (2002). Sensitivity to status-based rejection: Implications for African American students’ college experience. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 83, 896–918.
Morf, C., & Rhodewalt, F. (2001). Unraveling the paradoxes of narcissism: A dynamic self-regulatory processing model. Psychological Inquiry, 12, 177–196.
Murray, S. L., Holmes, J. G., & Griffin, D. W. (2000). Self-esteem and the quest for felt security: How perceived regard regulates attachment processes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78, 478–498.
Murray, S. L., Rose, P., Bellavia, G. M., Holmes, J. G., & Kusche, A. G. (2002). When rejection stings: How self-esteem constrains relationship-enhancement processes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 83, 556–573.
Ohman, A. (2000). Evolutionary, cognitive, and clinical perspectives. In M. L. J. M. Haviland-Jones (Ed.), Handbook of emotions (pp. 573–593). New York: Guilford.
Purdie, V., & Downey, G. (2000). Rejection sensitivity and adolescent girls’ vulnerability to relationship-centered difficulties. Child Maltreatment, 5, 338–349.
Romero-Canyas, R., & Downey, G. (2005). Rejection sensitivity as a predictor of affective and behavioral responses to interpersonal stress: A defensive motivational system. In K. D. Williams, J. P. Forgas, & W. von Hippel (Eds.), The social outcast: Ostracism, social exclusion, rejection, and bullying. New York: Psychology Press.
Romero-Canyas, R., Downey, G., Cavanaugh, T., & Pelayo, R. (2006). Paying to belong: Who tries excessively to gain acceptance following rejection? The link between rejection sensitivity and ingratiation after rejection. Manuscript under review, Columbia University.
Sommer, K. L., & Baumeister, R. F. (2002). Self-evaluation, persistence, and performance following implicit rejection: The role of trait self-esteem. Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin, 28, 926–938.
Tangney, J. P., & Leary, M. R. (2003). The next generation of self research. In Leary, M. R. & Tangney, J. P. (eds.), Handbook of self and identity (pp. 667–675). New York: Guilford.