The robust self-esteem proxy: Impressions of self-esteem inform judgments of personality and social value

Self-esteem's impacts on intimacy-building: Pathways through self-disclosure and responsiveness

Building intimate relationships is rewarding but entails risking rejection. Trait self-esteem-a person's overall self-evaluation-has important implications for how people behave in socially risky situations. Integrating established models of responsiveness and intimacy with theory and research on self-esteem, we present a model that highlights the ways in which self-esteem impacts intimacy-building. A review of relevant research reveals that compared to people with high self-esteem, people with low self-esteem exhibit interpersonal perceptions and behaviors that can hinder intimacy development-for example, disclosing less openly, and eliciting and perceiving less responsiveness from others. We identify important directions for future research and consider methods for encouraging intimacy-promoting processes among people with low self-esteem.

Muscle Talk Online and Impression Formation Based on Body Type: Comparisons Between Asian American and Caucasian American Males

This study aimed to investigate how individuals form impressions about the self-esteem and life satisfaction of a male who engages in muscle talk on Facebook. The study examined (a) how a target's body build and peer-generated comments influence observers' impression of him, and (b) how such influences might be moderated by the cultural backgrounds of observers (Asian Americans and European Americans). A mock-up Facebook profile page was created in which two factors were manipulated: the target's body build (muscular, average, and overweight) and peer-generated messages (muscle encouraging and muscle discouraging), creating six different conditions. Male college students ( N = 508) were randomly assigned to one of the conditions. After viewing a mock-up Facebook page online, participants completed an online questionnaire assessing their impressions of the target's self-esteem and life satisfaction. Results showed that a muscular target was perceived as possessing higher levels of self-esteem and life satisfaction. Observers rated the target as having higher self-esteem when the target received muscle-encouraging messages than when the target received muscle-discouraging messages. No cultural differences were identified. Findings suggest the existence of weight bias when forming psychological impressions of others online. Findings also confirmed the important role of peer-generated messages in the impression formation process online.

Does Self-Esteem Have an Interpersonal Imprint Beyond Self-Reports? A Meta-Analysis of Self-Esteem and Objective Interpersonal Indicators

Self-esteem promises to serve as the nexus of social experiences ranging from social acceptance, interpersonal traits, interpersonal behavior, relationship quality, and relationship stability. Yet previous researchers have questioned the utility of self-esteem for understanding relational outcomes. To examine the importance of self-esteem for understanding interpersonal experiences, we conducted systematic meta-analyses on the association between trait self-esteem and five types of interpersonal indicators. To ensure our results were not due to self-esteem biases in perception, we focused our meta-analyses to 196 samples totaling 121,300 participants wherein researchers assessed interpersonal indicators via outsider reports. Results revealed that the association between self-esteem and the majority of objective interpersonal indicators was small to moderate, lowest for specific and distal outcomes, and moderated by social risk. Importantly, a subset of longitudinal studies suggests that self-esteem predicts later interpersonal experience. Our results should encourage researchers to further explore the link between self-esteem and one's interpersonal world.

Accuracy of Self-Esteem Judgments at Zero Acquaintance

OBJECTIVE

Perceptions of strangers' self-esteem can have wide-ranging interpersonal consequences. Aiming to reconcile inconsistent results from previous research that had predominantly suggested that self-esteem is a trait that can hardly be accurately judged at zero acquaintance, we examined unaquainted others' accuracy in inferring individuals' actual self-esteem.

METHOD

Ninety-nine target participants (77 female; M_age  = 23.5 years) were videotaped in a self-introductory situation, and self-esteem self-reports and reports by well-known informants were obtained as separate accuracy criteria. Forty unacquainted observers judged targets' self-esteem on the basis of these short video sequences (M = 23s, SD = 7.7).

RESULTS

Results showed that both self-reported (r = .31, p = .002) and informant-reported self-esteem (r = .21, p = .040) of targets could be inferred by strangers. The degree of accuracy in self-esteem judgments could be explained with lens model analyses: Self- and informant-reported self-esteem predicted nonverbal and vocal friendliness, both of which predicted self-esteem judgments by observers. In addition, observers' accuracy in inferring informant-reported self-esteem was mediated by the utilization of targets' physical attractiveness. Besides using valid behavioral information to infer strangers' self-esteem, observers inappropriately relied on invalid behavioral information reflecting nonverbal, vocal, and verbal self-assuredness.

CONCLUSIONS

Our findings show that strangers can quite accurately detect individuals' self-reported and informant-reported self-esteem when targets are observed in a public self-presentational situation.