Self-esteem and the need for social approval

Self-esteem and the need for social approval* CHARLES KIMBLE and ROBERT HELMREICH The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Tex. 78712 This experiment attempted to show that high and low self-esteem persons have a greater need for approval from others than do moderate self-esteem people. Ss from the three self-esteem groups evaluated a fictitious "other S," either anonymously or believing that the other would see the evaluation and would meet the S after the evaluation. A significant interaction between self-esteem and the experimental manipulation was obtained on personaliiking. The hypothesis was supported. Additional explanations are proposed to account for the reactions of the low self-esteem Ss. Cohen (1959) proposed a theoretical view of self-esteem that others have used as a basis for research. He approached the difference between high and low self-esteem individuals in terms of degree of openness to change and negative self-evaluation. He stated that high self-esteem persons use avoidance defenses in coping with their environment. Low individuals use expressive defenses. High self-esteem persons respond so as to maximize their regard for their performance, while low self-esteem individuals behave in a way that denigrates their performance. The moderate self-esteem group was seen as least inclined to use defenses and as the best adjusted socially of the three groups. Leventhal & Perloe's (1962) study on self-esteem and persuasibility supported Cohen's ideas about the types of defenses high and low self-esteem people use. High self-esteem persons were influenced more by optimistic communications and low self-esteem Ss by pessimistic messages. They did not use a moderate self-esteem group. Silverman (19 64a, b) investigated the effects" of success and failure experiences on different self-esteem groups. One interesting finding of Silverman's (1964a) study was that the relationship between self-esteem and persuasibility under the no-success no-failure control condition was essentially U-shaped. That is, the high and low groups were more persuasible than the moderate group. In another experiment, Silverman (1964b), working from Cohen's framework, predicted that high self-esteem Ss would be mare responsive to success experiences and lows would respond more to failure experiences. This expectation was confirmed. He also noted that the difference between the *This research was funded by the Organizational Effectiveness Research Programs. Psychological Sciences Division. Office of Naval Research. under Contract No. N 00014-67 A-0126-0001. Contract Authority Identification No. NRl71-804. Robert Helmreich was principal investigator. Psychon. Sei., 1972, Vol. 26 (6) suecess and failure conditions was smallest for the moderate self-esteem group. Hendrick & Page (1970) suggested that high and low self-esteem Ss are mare similar to each other in various response dispositions such as attraction and persuasibility than they are to moderates. Their experiment indicated that moderates were less rejecting of dissimilar others than were the high and low groups. Other recent research has also indicated that self-esteem does not always operate in an additive or linear fashion. Helmreich, Aronson, & LeFan (1970) replicated an experiment by Aronson, Willerman, & Floyd (1965) using three different self-esteem groups. The other variables were competence of the person judged and whether he committed a pratfall. In the high-competent condition, they found that moderate self-esteem Ss responded like the undifferentiated groups in the previous experiment. They Iiked the compotent person who commi tted a pratfall better than one who didn't. However, committing a pratfall decreased the liking of the high and low self-esteem groups for the competent person. These fmdings lead the' present au"thors to contend that high and low self-esteem persons differ from moderates in responding to some social situations. Specifically, high and low self-esteem persons are more sensitive to evaluational feedback !rom other people and are more dependent on this feedback in forming their own self-evaluation. This sensitivity caused their aversive reaction to the blunder by the person in an evaluation situation, with whom they empathized, in the Helmreich et al study. This sensitivity should he manifested in a greater need for social approval. Buss (1966) contends that a person's self-esteem is basically determined by whether he receives love conditionally or unconditionally from his parents as a child. Ir love is given only contingent on the performance of eertain behaviors, the child will not develop an appreciation for his worth. Rogers (1959) has used the eoncepts of conditional and unconditional regard in a sirnilar fashion. The present authors assurne that if a person has little initial appreciation for his worth, he will be more sensitive to others' evaluations in evaluating himself. The unconditionally regarded person has high appreeiation for his worth and is, therefore,less vulnerable to evaluational inputs !rom his environment. High and low self-esteem individuals evaluate themselves more according to how others have viewed them lf they have generally heen evaluated highly by others in the past, these persons who are sensitive to evaluation !rom others will be high self-esteem individuals. lf they have been evaluated negatively, they will be of low self-esteem However, those wh 0 ha ve been consistently well-regarded regardless of their be h a v i 0 r in t h ei r c r i t i c al developmental stages have no differential reinforcement history by which they can evaluate themselves. But, being sure of their self-worth because of their consistent good treatment, they assume that they are normal or average and do not look to others for evaluation. Gergen (1971) states that some persons may develop intemalized standards of comparison and are not susceptible to the appraisal of others. The present authors contend that most of these people have moderate levels of measured self-esteem. This experiment tests the hypothesis that high and low self-esteem groups have a greater need for social approval than the moderate group. A crucial assumption was made in operationalizing the need for approval. It was assumed that most people believe that other persons will like them more if they indicate to these other persons that they like theDL This assumption is consistent with the way most people view interpersonal relations; for example, Jones, Gergen, & Davis (1962) found that people like people who have evaluated them highly. Therefore, if a person wanted to endear himself to a stranger , he would tell that stranger that he liked him. It was assumed that the difference in evaluation of a stranger between a condition in which the stranger would not see the evaluation and one in which he would was a valid index of a S's need for approval. It was originally thought that all groups would rate the stranger higher in the (...truncated)