Self-Esteem

ALBERS, Lucas Wilhelmus Antonius, 2010. Double You?: Function and Form of Implicit and Explicit Self-esteem. PhD Thesis. Kurt Lewin Instituut. page pdf [Accessed 5 February 2024]. r.W.Albers

In this dissertation I examine function and form of implicit self-esteem, which reflects the relatively less accessible part of self-esteem. Specifically, this dissertation is about the additional value implicit self-esteem has in understanding self-esteem, one of the most researched concepts in Psychology. I will argue that in order to place the concept of implicit selfesteem within the realms on current research on self-esteem, understanding of both measuring implicit self-esteem and its relation with explicit self-esteem is necessary.

Though several measures exist to capture implicit self-esteem, in this dissertation I will focus on optimizing and addressing one of the most widely used measures, the Name Letter Test (Kitayama & Karasawa, 1997). The name letter test consists of judging the different letters of the alphabet on their attractiveness. A name letter effect is then calculated based on attractiveness ratings of someone’s name letters while correcting for specific and general letter liking, in order to avoid confounds. This name letter effect is subsequently used as a measure of implicit self-esteem based on the assumption that by assessing someone’s evaluation of well established attributes of the self (e.g., such as someone’s initial letters) in an unobtrusive way (e.g., under the guise of simply evaluating all alphabet letters), someone’s implicit evaluation of the self is measured.

In Chapter 1, I will give an overview of the existing literature on the relation between implicit and explicit self-esteem and then integrate the findings from the research presented in the chapters 2, 3, and 4 of this dissertation. Therefore, I did not include a general conclusion as a last chapter in my dissertation. It should also be noted that because all chapters were written separately, they can be read on their own.

In Chapter 2, I will focus on optimizing the current calculation method of the name letter test in order to improve its validity as a measure of implicit self-esteem. I will argue that the traditional calculation method results in a name letter score that is confounded, because it cannot separate the influence of name letter liking from overall letter liking. In three experiments I will show that this (theoretical) confound of overall letter liking indeed is problematic in empirical findings when using the traditional name letter score. I will propose an alternative calculation method for the name letter score to remedy these issues and to arrive at a more valid measure for implicit selfesteem.

In Chapter 3, I will discuss function and form of implicit self-esteem in relation to affect-regulation processes. More specifically I will first show that implicit self-esteem relates over and above explicit self-esteem and across time to the personality dimensions Emotional Stability and Neuroticism, the two personality dimensions that are most strongly related to affective regulation. In a second and third experiment I will further show that implicit self-esteem can differentiate between the kinds of affect regulation required: It is of special importance in regulating affect when the self is threatened. On the other hand, our explicit measures of self-esteem did not relate to selfregulation and rather seems to predict a more general state of affect.

In Chapter 4, I will, in search for “the real self”, further dig into the relation between implicit and explicit self-esteem. I will propose, based on both theoretical and empirical evidence, that though measures of implicit self-esteem may not be without problems, in essence implicit self-esteem is closer to “the real self” than explicit self-esteem. In an additional experiment I further substantiate this proposition by showing that explicit self-esteem more resembles implicit self-esteem when an automatic goal to be honest is activated.