DANDENEAU AND BALDWININHIBITION OF SOCIALLY REJECTING INFORMATION THE INHIBITION OF SOCIALLY REJECTING INFORMATION AMONG PEOPLE WITH HIGH VERSUS LOW SELF-ESTEEM: THE ROLE OF ATTENTIONAL BIAS AND THE EFFECTS OF BIAS REDUCTION TRAINING

In two studies, we examined the inhibition of rejection information. In Study 1, we developed a Rejection Stroop task with the purpose of measuring an attentional bias to rejection words hypothesized to characterize individuals with low self-es-teem. Results indicated that people with low self-esteem experienced significantly more interference on rejection words than on acceptance words, whereas for peo-ple with high self-esteem there was no such difference. In Study 2, we developed a task to train the response of inhibiting rejection information by repeatedly identify-ing the smiling/accepting face in a 4 × 4 matrix of frowning faces. Results showed that after this inhibition training, people with chronic low self-esteem experienced significantly less interference on rejection words on the Rejection Stroop than their counterparts in the control condition. People with high self-esteem, on the other hand, did not exhibit different amounts of interference on rejection or acceptance words between conditions. The present findings suggest that it is possible to mea-sure people’s attentional bias to rejection and teach people skills that help them deal with negative social information. Research into the cognitive processes characterizing people with low and high self-esteem has shown reliable differences in how they respond t