Trait Self-esteem Moderates Decreases in Self-control Following Rejection: An Information-processing Account

Abstract

In the current paper, the authors posit that trait self-esteem moderates the relationship between social rejection and decrements in self-control, propose an information-processing account of trait self-esteem's moderating influence and discuss three tests of this theory. The authors measured trait self-esteem, experimentally manipulated social rejection and assessed subsequent self-control in Studies 1 and 2. Additionally, Study 3 framed a self-control task as diagnostic of social skills to examine motivational influences. Together, the results reveal that rejection impairs self-control, but only among low self-esteem individuals. Moreover, this decrement in self-control only emerged when the task had no social implications-suggesting that low self-esteem individuals exert effort on tasks of social value and are otherwise preoccupied with belonging needs when completing nonsocial tasks.

Figure 1

Interactive effects of experimental condition (rejection or control) and trait self-esteemin predicting willingness to engage in delay of gratification (Study 1).

Figure 2

Interactive effects of experimental condition (rejection or control) and trait self-esteem in predicting time (in seconds) to successfully complete a series of tasks on the game of Operation (Study 2).

Figure 3

Interactive effects of task difficulty and trait self-esteem in predicting effort on the N-back task (Study 3).