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. 2015 May 27;10(5):e0124609.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0124609. eCollection 2015.

Having a lot of a good thing: multiple important group memberships as a source of self-esteem

Jolanda Jetten  1 , Nyla R Branscombe  2 , S Alexander Haslam  1 , Catherine Haslam  1 , Tegan Cruwys  1 , Janelle M Jones  3 , Lijuan Cui  4 , Genevieve Dingle  1 , James Liu  5 , Sean C Murphy, Anh Thai  1 , Zoe Walter  1 , Airong Zhang  6
Affiliations

Having a lot of a good thing: multiple important group memberships as a source of self-esteem

Jolanda Jetten et al. PLoS One. .

Erratum in

Abstract

Membership in important social groups can promote a positive identity. We propose and test an identity resource model in which personal self-esteem is boosted by membership in additional important social groups. Belonging to multiple important group memberships predicts personal self-esteem in children (Study 1a), older adults (Study 1b), and former residents of a homeless shelter (Study 1c). Study 2 shows that the effects of multiple important group memberships on personal self-esteem are not reducible to number of interpersonal ties. Studies 3a and 3b provide longitudinal evidence that multiple important group memberships predict personal self-esteem over time. Studies 4 and 5 show that collective self-esteem mediates this effect, suggesting that membership in multiple important groups boosts personal self-esteem because people take pride in, and derive meaning from, important group memberships. Discussion focuses on when and why important group memberships act as a social resource that fuels personal self-esteem.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Study 2: Network representing out-degree (i.e., the number of friends a participant claimed) for Year 11 participants at a boys’ school in Australia.
Note. Every participant is represented as a node and the size of the node represents the number of friends that were listed by participants. Connections between nodes indicate interpersonal ties. N = 161.
Fig 2
Fig 2. Study 4: The indirect effect of collective self-esteem on the relationship between multiple group memberships and personal self-esteem for University students in the US.
Note. **p < .001. Correlations were based on a sample of N = 302. Beta within parentheses represents the direct effect.
Fig 3
Fig 3. Study 5: the indirect effect of collective self-esteem on the relationship between multiple group memberships and personal self-esteem for University students in the US.
Note. *p < .05, **p < .01. Correlations were based on a sample of N = 148. Beta within parentheses represents the direct effect.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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