Ethnic Status and Adolescent Self-Evaluations: An Extension of Research on Minority Self-Esteem

Abstract

This paper extends the study of ethnic status and self-esteem, traditionally restricted to blacks, to encompass Chicanos, and re-examines arguments about the impact of racial consonance and dissonance on perceived racial mistreatment and self-esteem. The results support the conclusion that ethnic minorities in the United States do not suffer from low self-esteem relative to whites, despite the fact that they do experience insults based on their status. Moreover, racial consonance or dissonance has no consistent impact on the self-esteem of whites or blacks. In contrast, dissonance does affect perceived racial mistreatment, and whites actually appear more sensitive to dissonant status than do blacks. We conclude that the effect of dissonance on self-esteem observed in other research may be limited to a comparison of extremes or may be contingent on the history of dissonant experiences. Blacks may appear higher in self-esteem than whites because of use of white comparison groups with unusually low self-esteem.