The effects of self-esteem, success–failure, and self-consciousness on task performance.

Abstract

Previous research has demonstrated that the task performance of low selfesteem individuals (low SEs) suffers in the presence of self-focusing stimuli (e.g., a mirror). The present study was designed to determine if such stimuli must inevitably have adverse effects on low SEs. It was reasoned that if low SEs were provided with success feedback from a previous task, then the nature of their self-consciousness would be altered on a subsequent task. Specifically, low SEs should attend more to positive and less anxiety-provoking aspects of themselves than would low SEs who received failure feedback from the previous task. Under the former condition, the low SEs' subsequent task performance was expected to improve. For high self-esteem individuals (high SEs), who typically perform well, previous success-failure feedback was expected to have little effect on subsequent performance. In a three-factor design, subjects high and low in chronic self-esteem received false success or failure feedback from a previous task and completed a concept formation task in either the presence or the absence of a mirror. Whereas high SEs performed equally well following success or failure, low SEs in the success condition performed significantly better than low SEs in the failure condition (and just as well as high self-esteem-success participants). This Self-Esteem X Prior Feedback interaction was significant in the presence of the mirror, but not in its absence. In the absence of the mirror, however, this interaction was observed for subjects who were high in dispositional self-consciousness, but not for those who were low. Practical and theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.