The Influence Of Collective Self-Esteem On Self-Conceptual Representation

Self-concept is a cognition of the self or a descriptive component of the self.Self-categorization theory divides self-conceptual characterization into individual self and collective self.Self-esteem is an emotional component of self.Crocker and Luhtanen divide self-esteem into individual self-esteem and collective self-esteem according to individual identity and collective identity in self-concept.Collective self-esteem mainly refers to the individual's feelings and evaluations of his own group and of being a member of the group.This study explored the impact of collective self-esteem on self-conceptual representation through event-related potential techniques(ERP).The paradigm of Experiment 1 is the oddball paradigm.We set the big circle as the standard stimulus,the small circle as the target stimulus,the subject's own name(individual self condition),the celebrity's name(the non-self condition relative to the self),Chinese people(collective self condition)and American(the non-collective self condition relative to the collective self)as the new stimulus.The task of the subject was to press the button to react when they saw the target stimulus.During the entire experiment 1,the subject's EEG response to all stimuli was recorded.It is found that collective self-esteem regulates the processing of collective self-related information,and this regulation is reflected in the early and late stages of cognitive processing,and there is no regulation on the processing of individual self-related information.Specifically,in the processing of collective self-related stimuli,the P2 amplitude and P3 amplitude of the high collective self-esteem group are significantly higher than the low collective self-esteem group;and there is no significant difference between the high collective self-esteem group and the low collective self-esteem group in the processing of non-collective self-related stimuli.In the second experiment,the word evaluation paradigm was adopted.In the experiment,the subject is presented with a name word,including: the subject's own name(individual self-condition),the name of the celebrity(the non-self condition relative to the individual's self),Chinese people(Collective self-conditions)and American(the non-collective self conditions relative to the collective self).Then an adjective(positive or negative)is presented,asking the subject to judge according to their own cognition,whether the adjective presented is appropriate with the name word,and the judgment is reflected by the button.During the entire experiment 2,the subject's EEG response to all stimuli was recorded.It is found that collective self-esteem has a regulating effect on the emotional evaluation of the collective self-related stimulation(in the early and late stages of cognitive processing),but does not have a regulating effect on the emotional evaluation of individual self-related stimulation.For low collective self-esteem individuals,the P2 amplitude and LPC amplitude induced by collective self-related stimulation were significantly greater than those induced by non-collective self-related stimulation;and there is no significant difference between collective self-related stimuli and non-collective self-related stimuli for high collective self-esteem individuals.The results of both experiments show that collective self-esteem has a regulating effect on the collective self-processing in the early and late stages of cognitive processing,but there is no regulation on the related processing of individual self.This shows that the influence of collective self-esteem on the representation of self-concept has a rooted difference.