Influence of collective self-esteem on individual and collective self-referential processing: An ERP study

Abstract

Previous studies have demonstrated that self-relevant information is processed more quickly and deeply than other information, and that self-esteem could modulate the self-reference effect. Individuals with low self-esteem were shown to be more sensitive to self-related information than other information that were individuals with high self-esteem. However, these studies mainly focused on self-esteem and self at the individual level, ignoring them at the collective level. The present study aimed to determine whether collective self-esteem could modulate individual and collective self-referential processing. Collective self-esteem is associated with one’s evaluation of the group he belongs to, and it emphasizes social relationships and collective value. We hypothesized that, similar to individual self-esteem, collective self-esteem may also influence self-referential processing, especially concerning the collective. More specifically, individuals with low collective self-esteem may be more sensitive to collective self-referential processing than individuals with high collective self-esteem. In order to explore the time course of self-referential processing, event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded while participants performed a self-reference task in which they were presented with positive and negative personality trait adjectives and required to make judgements on themselves or a famous person, either Chinese or American. Participants’ own names were selected as the individual self-relevant stimuli, while Andy Lau, a famous Chinese superstar, was chosen as the individual non-self-relevant stimulus. It was considered that collective self emphasized the identity as a member of a social group. Thus, “中国人(Chinese person)” and “美国人(American person)”, were chosen as the collective self-relevant and non-self-relevant stimuli. Results showed an obvious modulation effect of collective self-esteem on the N1, P2 and P3 components in collective self-referential processing. For the early N1 component, larger N1 amplitudes were elicited by collective self-referential than collective non-self-referential processing in individuals with high collective self-esteem, whereas no such difference was observed in individuals with low collective self-esteem. For the later P2 and P3 components, larger P2 and P3 amplitudes were elicited by collective self-referential than collective non-self-referential processing in individuals with low collective self-esteem, whereas no such difference was observed in individuals with high collective self-esteem. Although an obvious individual self-referential effect was also observed in both low and high collective self-esteem individuals, the strength of the individual self-reference effect, indicated by the difference between individual self-referential and individual non-self-referential conditions, showed no significant difference between these two groups. Consistent with previous studies, the individual self was the core of self-concept and the individual self-reference effect was robust. Moreover, individual and collective self-esteem, two different aspects of self-esteem, cannot be equated. In conclusion, the present study indicated that collective self-esteem could modulate collective rather than individual self-referential processing.