Self-Esteem Relates to Expecting Others to See Us How We See Ourselves

Antonio L. Freitas,Ashley M. Araiza

doi:10.32872/spb.v14i3.36957

Abstract

We examined whether self-esteem relates to coherence between self-evaluations and anticipated evaluations by others. In two studies (total N = 279), participants twice completed a measure of their personal attributes, once from their own standpoints and once from the perspective of someone they anticipated meeting, separated by a 25-minute distractor task. Supporting our preregistered predictions, the within-person association between self- and other-ratings was stronger as a function of between-person increases in self-esteem. These effects remained after statistically controlling for self-concept clarity and for fear of negative evaluation, both of which related meaningfully to self-esteem. Together, these findings indicate that persons high in self-esteem anticipate that others will evaluate them consistently with how they evaluate themselves.

Highlights

We examined whether self-esteem relates to coherence between self-evaluations and anticipated evaluations by others
The consistency people expect between self-evaluations and evaluations by others may color how people construe opportunities for social interactions, previous research has not examined the role of self-esteem in this process
Results of Model 1, examining self-ratings, self-esteem, and their interaction as predictors of other-ratings, supported our directional hypothesis that the relation between self- and other-ratings would be increasingly positive as a func‐ tion of increasing self-esteem; the self-esteem by self-ratings interaction was positive in sign and was statistically significant, b = 0.16, SE = .03, t(1105) = 5.45, p

Summary

Introduction

We examined whether self-esteem relates to coherence between self-evaluations and anticipated evaluations by others. Supporting our preregistered predictions, the within-person association between self- and other-ratings was stronger as a function of between-person increases in self-esteem These effects remained after statistically controlling for self-concept clarity and for fear of negative evaluation, both of which related meaningfully to self-esteem. Together, these findings indicate that persons high in selfesteem anticipate that others will evaluate them consistently with how they evaluate themselves. Extensive work has examined how con‐ cerns with negative evaluation may involve self-esteem, the degree to which a person views oneself positively and of equal worth as others (Carleton, Collimore, & Asmundson, 2007; Rosenberg, 1965). The consistency people expect between self-evaluations and evaluations by others may color how people construe opportunities for social interactions, previous research has not examined the role of self-esteem in this process

Methods

Results

Conclusion