Self-esteem Buffering Effect Of The Adverse Emotional Reactions After A Failed Study

This study adopted a 2(self-esteem: high/low)×3(measuring-time: before failure/after failure/after strategy-operation)×2(strategy-operation: free self-evaluation/positive self-evaluation) three-factor mixed design in which the 2nd factor was a within-subject one (At the same time, this study was also a 2(self-esteem)×2(strategy-operation) two-factor between-subject design) using 117 undergraduates in Grade Two as subjects, investigating the buffering effect of self-esteem on the negative emotional reactions such as depressive state, state anxiety and feelings of self-worth to induced failure. In this design, the dependent variable was the score of each kind of negative emotional reaction (in the 2×2 design, the dependent variable was the score-difference of the negative emotional reaction between before and after an experimental operation). It had been found:(1) The failure-procedure successfully induced the negative emotional reactions to failure.(2) Self-esteem didn't buffer the negative reactions to induced failure immediately and directly. That is, the buffering effects of self-esteem on the negative emotional reactions after induced failure had no significant differences between the group with high self-esteem and that with low self-esteem.(3) After strategy-operation, self-esteem buffered significantly the three kinds of negative emotional reactions respectively and wholly, but this buffering effect was different between the two strategy-operations. Speak specifically, the buffering effect of high self-esteem on the depressive state or the state anxiety had no obvious difference between the two groups with different operations while the buffering effects of low self-esteem on the two kinds of negative emotional reactions after the positive self-evaluation were higher significantly than those after the free self-evaluation. Under the condition of free self-evaluation, the buffering effect of high self-esteem on the depressive state or the state anxiety was higher obviously than that of low self-esteem; under the condition of positive self-evaluation, there were no obvious differences between the two groups with different self-esteem. For the feelings of self-worth, however, the different results were found: only under the condition of positive self-evaluation, was the buffering effect of high self-esteem higher significantly than that of low self-esteem.(4) The group with high self-esteem had more positive strategies than that with low self-esteem under the condition of free self-evaluation while there was no significant difference between the two groups under the condition of positive self-evaluation.(5) Whenever the negative emotional reactions were measured, there was obvious differences in the total amount (rather than the buffered amount) of each emotional reaction between the group with high self-esteem and that with low self-esteem: the total amount of former was aways less than that of latter.