The relationship of global self-esteem to the self-enhancement and self-consistency motives

Typescript (photocopy).This study was designed to demonstrate that global self-esteem moderates reactions to violations of self-expectancies. Aronson & Carlsmith (1962) found that subjects whose low performance expectancies were disconfirmed by positive performance feedback, responded by performing worse on a subsequent identical task. This has been, termed a strong consistency effect. Further, subjects whose low performance expectancies were confirmed by low performance feedback failed to improve their performance when given the opportunity on a subsequent identical task. This has been termed a modest consistency effect. These findings support self-consistency theory but run counter to the predictions of self-enhancement theory. To the extent that global self-esteem moderates the need for self-enhancement, the strong consistency effect and the modest consistency effect should be found only for subjects with low global self-esteem. Subjects identified as high or low on Rosenberg's (1965) Self-Esteem Scale participated on a replication of Aronson and Carlsmith's study. Results showed that subjects with low self-esteem always responded in a self-enhancing fashion while a modest consistency effect was found for subjects with high self-esteem