A Experimental Study Of The Effects Of Self-Esteem On Social Interaction Behavior Under Different Evaluations

Self-verification theory (Swarm, 1983, 1987, 1990, 1999, 2002a) assumes that people seek self-verification to define their existence, organize experience, predict future events and guide social interaction, and stable self-views provide the basis of self-verification.Empirical research in social interaction (Swann, 1989, 1990, 2000, 2002b) confirmed that people preferred self-verifying evaluations and interaction partners, even if their self-views happen to be negative. However, their research focused on how specific self-view(specific self-esteem) guided social interaction, failing in probing into the effect of global self-view (global self-esteem). The relation between global self-esteem and social interaction were found in other research outside self-verification theory. Generally, these researches failed to define global self-esteem and specific self-esteem clearly, and the lack of comprehensive study was an obstacle to an overall understanding of the respective effects of global self-esteem and specific self-esteem on interaction behavior. In addition, neglecting the operation of real interaction situation, the experiment paradigm created the artificial assessment of social interaction behavior, as a result, the external validity of the experiment was questioned.Combining psychometric with experimental approaches, the present study included two personality variables (global self-esteem and specific self-esteem), and operated both the quality of evaluation (positive/negative) and attitude of the evaluator (accepting/rejecting) to the interaction with participants, with a view to a comprehensive understanding of the relationship between self-esteem, evaluation and social interaction.The present study consisted of two parts, the first was a preliminary one which aimed to develop the College Student's Global Self-Esteem Scale and College Student's Talk Self-Esteem Scale, construct the concepts of global self-esteem and talk self-esteem, furthermore, select the needed participants of varying self-esteem levels on the basis of their scores of the two scales; the second was a formal one which aimed to explore how self-esteem influenced college student's interaction behavior under the condition of different evaluations provided by four experiments and get an overall understanding of the respective effects of global self-esteem and specific self-esteem on interaction behavior. It concluded as follows:1 .Talk self-esteem guided cognitive judgement of the external evaluation whereas global self-esteem showed no effect.2.When the need for belonging involving the maintenance of global self-esteem could besatisfied, the need for self-consistency involving the maintenance of talk self-esteem guided individual's choosing interaction partners.3.When the need for belonging involving the maintenance of global self-esteem could not be satisfied, the need for self-consistency involving the maintenance of talk self-esteem guided individual's choosing interaction partners.4.When the needs for both belonging and self-consistency could be satisfied, that is, both global self-esteem and specific self-esteem were maintained, the needs for belonging and self-consistency guided individual's choosing interaction partners together.5.When the needs for both belonging and self-consistency couldn't be satisfied, that is, both of the two needs weren't maintained, high global self-esteem individuals chose interaction partners on the basis of the need for self-consistency and low global self-esteem individuals chose interaction partners on the basis of the need for belonging.