Sources of self-esteem and the person X situation controversy

Revisiting the Power to Forgive: A Dyadic Approach for Determining the Relations Between Power, Self-Esteem, and Forgiveness in Romantic Relationships

Power pervades interpersonal relationships and can impact relationship-related outcomes (e.g., forgiveness). Here, we expected a positive association between power and forgiveness in two studies involving German and Israeli couples ( N = 149/174 couples). Actor–partner interdependence mediator models showed the expected positive associations of actor’s power with both actor’s forgiveness and partner’s forgiveness. Independent self-esteem partially mediated and interdependent self-esteem completely mediated the power–forgiveness link for actors. Also, high experienced power was associated with high self-esteem, which in turn was positively related to benevolence motivation and negatively related to revenge and avoidance motivation. The implications of these findings are relevant for couple’s therapy and advance our understanding of associations between power and relationship variables. Future research may distinguish between authentic and instrumental forgiveness and use experimental settings.

Attachment-Style Differences in Attitudes toward and Reactions to Feedback from Romantic Partners: An Exploration of the Relational Bases of Self-Esteem

The authors examined attachment-style differences in reliance on partner feedback to maintain self-esteem. First, they argue that those people who value relational sources of self-esteem are more open to and affected by partner feedback than those people who derive self-esteem from competence-based sources; these differences correspond to working models of self and others. Results revealed that individuals with negative other-models are relatively averse to partner feedback, and individuals with negative self-models are distressed by feedback. Second, the authors propose that, for some, partner feedback serves as a mechanism for maintaining global self-esteem; for others, feedback is irrelevant to self-esteem. Results confirmed that the association of attachment with self-esteem is fully mediated by sources of self-esteem and partially mediated by attitudes about and reactions to partner feedback. The authors discuss their results in terms of their implications for understanding relational bases of self esteem as well as working models.