From Threat to Sweat: The Role of Physiological Arousal in the Motivation to Maintain Self-Esteem

Discusses the maintenance of self-esteem. The authors address 2 issues, the functions of self-esteem and why and how it is associated with arousal. Following terror management theory, the authors argue that people need self-esteem because it provides a vital buffer against anxiety; it follows that arousal would be heavily involved in self-esteem maintenance processes. The authors review research from a variety of domains to support this argument. It is concluded that self processes have clear biological correlates, and those correlates are, predictably, reflected in the physiology of emotio