Implicit self-esteem
Running head: Implicit self-esteem
Are Implicit Self-Esteem Measures Valid for Assessing Individual and Cultural Differences?
Carl F. Falk
University of California, Los Angeles
Steven J. Heine
University of British Columbia
Kosuke Takemura
Kyoto University
Cathy X. J. Zhang & Chih-Wei Hsu
University of British Columbia
All correspondence should be directed to:
Carl F. Falk
University of California, Los Angeles
Graduate School of Education & Information Studies
Los Angeles, CA 90095
Email:cffalk@gmail.com
Phone: 562-221-7538
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Implicit self-esteem
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Abstract
Objective. Our research utilized two popular theoretical conceptualizations of implicit selfesteem: 1) implicit self-esteem as a global automatic reaction to the self; and 2) implicit selfesteem as a context/domain specific construct. Under this framework, we present an extensive
search for implicit self-esteem measure validity among different cultural groups (Study 1) and
under several experimental manipulations (Study 2).
Method. In Study 1, Euro-Canadians (N=107), Asian-Canadians (N=187), and Japanese
(N=112) completed a battery of implicit self-esteem, explicit self-esteem, and criterion measures.
Included implicit self-esteem measures were either popular or provided methodological
improvements upon older methods. Criterion measures were sampled from previous research on
implicit self-esteem and included self-report and independent ratings. In Study 2, Americans
(N=582) completed a shorter battery of these same types of measures under either a control
condition, an explicit prime meant to activate the self-concept in a particular context, or prime
meant to activate self-competence related implicit attitudes.
Results. Across both studies, explicit self-esteem measures far outperformed implicit selfesteem measures in all cultural groups and under all experimental manipulations.
Conclusion. Implicit self-esteem measures are not valid for individual or cross-cultural
comparisons. We speculate that individuals may not form implicit associations with the self as an
attitudinal object.
Keywords: Implicit Attitudes; Self-Esteem; Cross-Cultural Psychology; Personality.
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With the recent advent of measures that assess implicit processes, much research has
targeted people’s nonconscious and automatic attitudes. In the past decade or so, there have been
hundreds of published studies conducted with just one of these measures: the Implicit
Association Test (IAT; Greenwald, Poehlman, Uhlmann, & Banaji, 2009). Simultaneously, selfesteem stands as one of the most popular research topics in psychology (Scheff & Fearon, 2004).
At the intersection of these two influential research topics lies implicit self-esteem (ISE), which
may be defined as “a global self-evaluation that people are unable or unwilling to report”
(Buhrmester, Blanton, & Swann, 2011, p. 366). Researchers have developed a variety of ways to
measure ISE, and such measures are thought to circumvent any explicit attempts for impression
management. These measures have offered the promise that scientists can peel away the layers of
self-presentation motives to discover one’s “true” self feelings as they appear in the raw.
Most implicit attitude measures show respectable evidence of validity. For example, the
IAT correlates with various outcomes .27 on average across over 100 studies and often predicts
outcomes above and beyond self-report (Greenwald et al., 2009), and other implicit attitude
measures perform similarly well (Rooke, Hine, & Thorsteinsson, 2008). The IAT tends to
correlate stronger with self-reported outcomes than observer-ratings (Greenwald et al., 2009) and
most research (about two-thirds) has used self-reported outcomes rather than observer-ratings
(about one-third). However, despite the evidence for implicit measures in general, the evidence
for the validity of ISE measures has been strikingly limited.
Bosson, Swann, and Pennebaker (2000) found that 4 self-report measures of explicit selfesteem (ESE) far outperformed 7 different ISE measures in terms of convergent validity and
criterion validity. Despite this poor performance, the IAT self-esteem measure and the nameletter test (NLT; Bosson et al., 2000) emerged as widely used indices of ISE. Two meta-analyses
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have shown that the IAT self-esteem and NLT have the lowest implicit-explicit correlations
among any kind of implicit attitude (Hofmann, Gawronski, Gschwendner, Le, & Schmitt, 2005;
Krizan & Suls, 2008). More recently, Buhrmester and colleagues’ (2011) review and metaanalysis of these measures concluded that the IAT self-esteem and NLT lacked construct
validity. More specifically, these measures displayed poor convergent and predictive validity
across a wide range of phenomena and empirical studies, and did not exhibit properties thought
to be characteristic of ISE (e.g., stability over time and under manipulations). Many research
findings establishing the “validity” of these measures are isolated or rarely replicated. In general,
these measures were widely outperformed by ESE measures. Given the widespread popularity of
the IAT and NLT together with the penchant of journals for publishing significant findings, we
would expect that the validity evidence for these measures may even be worse due to a filedrawer effect. In sum, the existing validity evidence for ISE, at least with the methods that have
been explored in these meta-analyses, is surprisingly lacking for such a widely used construct.
What Could be Wrong with a Measurement Procedure?
A single measurement procedure does not work well for all psychological constructs. For
example, although self-report measures constitute the most widely used method for assessing
personality, individuals are unaware of or are unwilling to report about some aspects of their
personality. In these cases, we cannot directly ask participants about the construct of interest.
Similarly, implicit attitude measures may not work well for all types of implicit constructs. For
example, Karpinski (2004) noted that because many implicit attitude measures require a
reference category by which to compare oneself (e.g., “self” versus “other”), individuals could
earn a high implicit attitude score by having either strong self-positive associations or strong
other-negative associations. It has also been argued that fast reaction times – a feature of most
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implicit measures – limit the amount of time available for self-reflection and evaluating one’s
self-esteem (Buhrmester et al., 2011). In addition, there have been numerous critiques regarding
the sources of method variance of implicit attitude measures (e.g., De Houwer, TeigeMocigemba, Spruyt, & Moors, 2009). Since implicit attitude measures are relatively new, other
kinds of unknown methodological artifacts may obscure the measurement of ISE.
Furthermore, there may be limitations with the very notion that the global self-concept
can be evaluated implicitly. Two conceivable reasons why self-esteem might be particularly
resistant to an implicit representation are that 1) the self is a highly multifaceted construct
(Markus & Wurf, 1987), and thus people might not hold an implicit global evaluation of the self,
and 2) given that implicit associations develop slowly over time through evaluative conditioning
(e.g., Gawronski & Bodenhausen, 2006), and that people are more frequently experiencing their
selves in the role of the subject, as opposed to an object (Duval & Wicklund, 1972), they may
rarely form implicit associations of the self as an attitudinal object.
Against this backdrop of a lack of validity evidence for ISE measures, the primary goal of
our research was to find a valid measure of ISE. A secondary goal was to conduct this search
among individuals from multiple cultural backgrounds. Although there is much converging
evidence that individuals from East Asian cultures self-enhance far less than Westerners (e.g.,
Heine & Hamamura, 2007; but see Sedikides, Gaertner, & Vevea, 2007), it is sometimes claimed
that self-presentational biases are responsible for this cultural difference (e.g., East Asians being
modest) and that cultural variability in ISE does not exist (Kobayashi & Greenwald, 2003;
Yamaguchi et al., 2007; but see Falk, Heine, Yuki, & Takemura, 2009). Yet, there are few tests
of ISE measure validity among East Asian populations. In Study 1 we tested the validity and
cultural variability of the newest and most popular ISE measures among three cultural groups. In
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Study 2, we sought to improve the validity of ISE measures via two experimental manipulations.
Study 1
A plethora of implicit attitude measures have recently emerged, each with potential
methodological improvements over previously existing ones. The go/no-go association test
(Nosek & Banaji, 2001) and the single-category IAT (Karpinski & Steinman, 2006) can assess
associations between the self and positive/negative concepts, without the need for comparative
reference categories. The affect misattribution procedure does not require fast reaction times
(Payne, Cheng, Govorun, & Stewart, 2005) and the single-block IAT reduces some method
variance associated with the IAT (Teige-Mocigemba et al., 2008). However, since Bosson et al.’s
study (2000), there has not been a systematic comparison of the convergent and criterion validity
of new ISE measures versus ESE measures. Rudolph and colleagues (2008) assessed several new
ISE measures and found poor convergent validity, but did not assess criterion validity.
In Study 1 we compared ISE and ESE measures, together with criterion variables, among
Euro-Canadians, Asian-Canadians, and Japanese. ISE measures were chosen based on their
previous popularity, potential methodological improvements, and portability across cultures
(e.g., the NLT was omitted to avoid comparing cultures that use different alphabets). We
sampled criterion measures from a range of possible options in an attempt to replicate previous
research findings (for a review, see Buhrmester et al., 2011).
Method
Participants
A total of 107 Euro-Canadian (77.57% female; M age = 21.66; SD = 4.67) and 187
Asian-Canadian students (74.33% female; M age = 19.98; SD = 1.89) from the University of
British Columbia (UBC) participated for extra course credit or monetary compensation. An
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additional 112 Japanese students (32.14% female; M age = 20.96; SD = 2.30) from Kyoto
University participated for monetary compensation. The Japanese data collection was interrupted
by the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami; 30 participants were collected before this date,
and the remaining were collected after April 28, 2011. See the online supplementary materials
for additional sample demographic information.
Design and Procedure
On average participants spent 63 minutes completing the study via the Internet (SD =
22.89); 95% of participants took 94 minutes or less (not including 2 scheduled breaks of 5
minutes each). Whereas UBC students participated in English, Japanese completed the study in
Japanese. All study materials were translated into Japanese by a Japanese researcher involved in
the study and were independently checked for accuracy by two bilingual research assistants.
Participants first completed demographic questions about age, gender, cultural
background, and idiographic information later used as stimuli for some ISE tasks: their first and
last names, a place they identify with (e.g., hometown), birthdate (month and day), and the same
information for their best friend. Participants provided contact information for a friend who
could provide an independent rating of them. Next, participants completed a battery of measures:
1) explicit self-esteem, 2) implicit self-esteem, and 3) criteria. To reduce the possibility that
fatigue could explain the relative performance of the measures, the order of ISE and ESE
measures were counterbalanced and the set of criteria measures always appeared last. Concise
descriptions of each measure appear below. Readers interested in more detailed descriptions,
scoring procedures, and psychometric properties may see the supplementary online materials.
Explicit Self-Esteem
Self-report measures of self-esteem included the Rosenberg self-esteem scale (RSES;
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Rosenberg, 1965), self-liking (SL) and self-competence (SC) scales (Tafarodi & Swann, 2001),
feeling differentials (FD; e.g., Kobayashi & Greenwald, 2003), a feeling thermometer (FT; e.g.,
Kobayashi & Greenwald, 2003), the self-attributes questionnaire (SAQ; Pelham & Swann, 1989)
and a measure of self via a false uniqueness effect (FU; e.g., Heine & Lehman, 1997).
Implicit Self-Esteem
Categorization tasks. Three measures derived from the IAT were included in this study.
The self-esteem version of the IAT (Greenwald & Farnham, 2000) is a categorization task that
requires words from two pairs of categories. To test the validity of IAT variants previously used
to explore cross-cultural differences, we used "Self" versus "Best Friend" and "Unpleasant" and
"Pleasant" as the categories (Yamaguchi et al., 2007). The idiographic stimuli (i.e., self and best
friend name, hometown, and birthdate) served as words for the first pair of categories, and the
pleasant and unpleasant words were the same as those used by Kobayashi and Greenwald (2003).
Conceptually, IAT scores compare response latencies from a "compatible" block in which
"pleasant" and "self" (and "unpleasant" and "best friend") share the same response keys to an
"incompatible" block in which "unpleasant" and "self" (and "pleasant" and "best friend") share
the same response keys. Resulting scores are typically interpreted as an implicit preference for
the self (vs. the best friend). Two IAT variants using the same categories and stimuli were
included in our study: The single-block IAT (SB-IAT; Teige-Mocigemba et al., 2008), in which
compatible and incompatible trials can occur in the same block and are determined by the
position of the target word on the screen; The single-category IAT (SC-IAT; Karpinski &
Steinman, 2006) assesses the relationship between "self" and valence attributes.
The go/no-go association test (GNAT; Nosek & Banaji, 2001) is a word identification
task that assess pairs of associations by analyzing response errors using signal detection theory.
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The GNAT consisted of 4 blocks, each of which featured 2 target categories (Self-pleasant, selfunpleasant, best friend-pleasant, and best friend-unpleasant). We examined scores for the
implicit self-pleasant (GNAT-SP) and self-unpleasant (GNAT-SU) relationships.
Priming methods. We included 2 methods that rely on the influence of self-primes. In the
affect misattribution procedure (AMP; Payne et al., 2005), participants were primed with self or
best-friend idiographic stimuli or a neutral (blank) prime and then rated the pleasantness of an
ambiguous target. Since we anticipated many of our participants would be familiar with the
Chinese ideographs used by Payne et al. (2005), we used a set of 48 Tibetan characters as the
targets. Conceptually, those with high ISE should report higher liking of the target after receiving
a self-relevant prime. In the affective priming task (APT; Hetts, Sakuma, & Pelhman, 1999),
participants identified the words "good" or "bad" after being primed. Conceptually, fast
identification of "good" (versus “bad”) after a self-prime is thought to be indicative of high ISE.
Indirect methods. Two methods using a less explicit approach to ISE measurement were
included. In the birthday number task (BNT; e.g., Bosson et al., 2000), participants rated their
liking of the numbers 1 through 40 and their responses were compared to their actual birthday
and birth month. More liking of one’s own birth month and day is thought to indicate higher ISE.
This task was chosen in lieu of the NLT as the different writing systems between Japanese and
English make cross-cultural comparisons of the NLT problematic. Participants also completed a
self-evaluation under load task (SEL) in which they rated 30 personality traits as characteristic of
“me” or “not me” while remembering an 8-digit number (Falk et al., 2009). At the end of the
study, participants rated the social desirability of each trait. A tendency to claim to possess
highly desirable traits while under cognitive load is thought to be indicative of high ISE.
Predictive Criteria
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Peer Ratings. Peers rated the participants on rephrased versions of the Rosenberg selfesteem scale (FR-RSES), self-competence scale (FR-SC), and self-liking scale (FR-SL). An
example is: "My friend feels that s/he is a person of worth, at least on an equal basis with
others." Peers simply answered these questions, and were not instructed to answer how they
thought their friend would answer. To the extent that peers would know how participants tend to
behave and feel, we expected this measure to positively correlate with ISE. Some evidence
suggests that independent raters can pick up on non-verbal behavior indicative of ISE (Spalding
& Hardin, 1999). Perhaps due to the interruption in data collection, response rates were higher
for Euro-Canadians (71.96%) and Asian-Canadians (62.57%) than for Japanese (34.82%).
Self-report measures. Participants also completed several self-report measures, including
the ambiguous statements task (AST; Tafarodi, 1998), the parental bonding instrument (Parker,
Tupling, & Brown, 1979) assessing retrospective reports of mother’s caring (PBI-MC), mother's
over-protectiveness (PBI-MO), father's caring (PBI-FC), and father's over-protectiveness (PBIFO), the positive and negative affect scales (PA and NA; Watson, Clark & Tellegen, 1988),
authentic and hubristic pride (PRIDE-A and PRIDE-H; Tracy, Cheng, Robins, & Trzesniewski,
2009), and the narcissistic personality inventory (NPI; Raskin & Terry, 1988). The AST was the
only measure flagged for difficulty in translation to Japanese.
Each of these measures has been linked to ISE in previous research. To the extent that it
acts as a filter for ambiguous information, we would expect ISE to positively correlate with the
AST (Bosson et al., 2000). DeHart, Pelham, and Tennen (2006) found that retrospective reports
of parental "nurturance" were positively related to university students' implicit self-esteem,
whereas those of parental over-protectiveness were negatively related. If ISE reflects an affective
reaction towards the self, we might expect that participants with high ISE would typically feel
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more PA than NA (Koole & DeHart, 2007). Tracy and colleagues (2009) have argued that ISE is
positively related to PRIDE-A and negatively related to PRIDE-H. Finally, previous research
suggests that narcissism is either negatively related to ISE or is characterized by the combination
of high ESE and low ISE (e.g., Bosson et al., 2008).
Results
Overview and Data Analysis Strategy
Results are divided into 2 sections concerning: 1) the validity of each type of measure,
and 2) mean differences across cultures. Due to the large number of statistical tests we adopted
an  = .01 level in interpreting statistical significance and focus on overall patterns in the data.1
We report exact p-values where possible so that readers may also draw their own conclusions. In
addition to the aforementioned incomplete data on peer-ratings, some participants had missing
partial data on at least one other measure (9.34% of Euro-Canadians, 8.56% of Asian-Canadians,
and 7.14% of Japanese). Since retaining only cases with complete data would mean discarding a
substantial proportion of our sample, we used a combination of the Expectation-Maximization
algorithm and bootstrapping for point estimates and inferences (e.g., Little & Rubin, 2002).
Validity of Explicit Versus Implicit Self-Esteem Measures
Convergent Validity. All ESE measures positively correlated with each other among
Euro-Canadians (Mean r = .49, p < .001; range: .21 to .82), Asian-Canadians (Mean r = .50, p <
.001; range: .27 to .72), and Japanese (Mean r = .41, p < .001; range: .13 to .77), with most
correlations reaching statistical significance. A visual interpretation of the data can be obtained
from Figure 1: Positive correlations are blue whereas negative correlations are red.
To ease interpretability for ISE convergent validity, the sign for the GNAT-SU was
reversed such that high scores indicate a low self-unpleasant relationship. Convergent validity is
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indicated by positive (blue) correlations in Figure 2. There was a striking lack of positive
relationships among ISE measures for Euro-Canadians (Mean r = .005, p = .80; range: -.85 to
.29), Asian-Canadians (Mean r = .002, p = .87; range: -.85 to .23), and Japanese (Mean r = -.02,
p = .23; range: -.79 to .29). The GNAT-SP and GNAT-SU (reversed) had a strong relationship in
the opposite direction than was expected. Relationships among measures other than the GNATSU were close to 0 and tended to be positive, but also contained many negative correlations.
Assuming that the default explicit response is in agreement with one’s implicit feelings
towards the self, we expected small positive correlations between ISE and ESE (Dijksterhuis,
Albers, & Bongers, 2009; Gawronski & Bodenhausen, 2006). For example, Epstein (2006)
argues that "most people's experientially and rationally determined beliefs are mainly congruent,
or else they would be in a continuous state of conflict and stress" (p. 71). We briefly note,
however, that some theoretical positions state that ISE and ESE ought to be independent (e.g.,
Hetts & Pelham, 2001). ISE correlations with ESE hovered near 0 for Euro-Canadians (Mean r =
.03, p = .01; range: -.22 to .27), Asian-Canadians (Mean r = -.003, p = .12; range: -.22 to .32),
and Japanese (Mean r = .08, p < .001; range: -.24 to .61), with a few exceptions (see
supplementary online materials). The SEL tended to have moderate correlations with ESE
measures among Japanese (Mean r = .47, p < .001; range: .21 to .61) and Asian-Canadians
(Mean r = .23, p < .001; range: .10 to .32). Finally, the BNT (Mean r = -.15, p < .01; range: -.22
to -.09) tended to have negative correlations with ESE among Asian-Canadians.
Criterion Validity. Scales theoretically negatively related to ESE (NA, PBI-MO, and PBIFO) or ISE (NPI, PRIDE-H, NA, PBI-MO, and PBI-FO) and were reverse-scored when
examining criterion validity. Thus, criterion validity is indicated by positive (blue) correlations in
Figures 3 and 4. To formally compare the predictive power of ESE and ISE measures, we also
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computed average correlations between each self-esteem measure and the set of criterion
measures, and the set of all ESE or ISE measures across the set of criterion measures. That is, a
single index reflected the criterion validity of each ISE and ESE measure (see the supplementary
online materials for individual values) and a single index reflected the predictive validity of all
ISE or ESE measures within each cultural group.
Overall, ESE measures moderately predicted the criterion measures for Euro-Canadians
(Mean r = .26, p < .001; range: -.10 to .62), Asian-Canadians (Mean r = .29, p < .001; range: .06
to .58), and Japanese (Mean r = .20, p < .001; range: -.16 to .54) and demonstrated mostly
positive correlations within each cultural group. With few exceptions (the FU for EuroCanadians and the FT for Japanese), all ESE measures were significant predictors of the set of
criteria with average correlations ranging from .04 to .35 (see supplementary materials).
Overall, ISE measures weakly predicted the criterion measures for Euro-Canadians
(Mean r = .04, p < .01; range: -.22 to .27), Asian-Canadians (Mean r = .02, p = .14; range: -.21 to
.30), and Japanese (Mean r = .04, p < .01; range: -.63 to .63). Many correlations between ISE
measures and criteria were either negative or near zero. Turning to individual ISE measures, only
the SC-IAT was significant among Euro-Canadians (Mean r = .13, p < .001; range: -.09 to .26).
The IAT may have reached significance if a more liberal significance level were used (Mean r =
.08, p = .05; range: -.15 to .27). Only the SEL was significant for Asian-Canadians (Mean r =
.13, p < .001; range: -.15 to .30) and Japanese (Mean r = .19, p < .001; range: -.38 to .42).
ISE by ESE Interactions. The final test of validity of the ISE measures involved the
disjunction between ESE and ISE in predicting narcissism (e.g., Bosson et al., 2008). For each
ISE measure and within each cultural group, we regressed narcissism on ESE, ISE, and their
interaction. Due to its popularity, the RSES was chosen as the explicit measure in these analyses.
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Not a single interaction term approached significance and the average standardized regression
coefficients were .03 for Euro-Canadians, -.03 for Asian Canadians, and .01 for Japanese.2
Cultural Variability in Self-Esteem
Comparisons of self-esteem reveal that Euro-Canadians tended to have higher ESE than
both Asian-Canadians and Japanese, and Asian-Canadians tended to have higher ESE than
Japanese (see supplementary online materials), replicating past research. The majority of the
cultural differences in ESE constituted non-trivial effect sizes (e.g., the effect size for EuroCanadians vs. Japanese ranged from d = .55 to 1.48, all with p < .001, and the average effect
size was d = 1.10). In contrast, the pattern of cultural variability in ISE was inconsistent (e.g., the
effect size for Euro-Canadians vs. Japanese ranged from d = -.38 to 1.70 with only 3 measures
with p < .001, and the average effect size was d = .25; see supplementary online materials).
Discussion
In Study 1 we found that ESE measures outperformed ISE measures. Nearly all ESE
measures correlated positively with each other and with each criterion, and cultural variability in
ESE was consistent with previous research (Heine & Hamamura, 2007). In contrast, the
convergent and criterion validity of ISE measures was nearly non-existent. This result is unlikely
to be due to fatigue (since ISE and ESE were counterbalanced) and converges with findings from
previous research (Bosson et al., 2000; Buhrmester et al., 2011; Rudolph et al., 2008). No single
ISE measure stood out across all cultural groups and consistent cultural variability in ISE
measures was not evident. Why did ISE measures display such poor validity evidence? Given
that measures such as the IAT show good predictive validity in other domains and some new
measurement procedures examined have provided methodological improvements, it seems
implausible that none of the measurement procedures we examined are good candidates for
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assessing ISE. Instead, we now turn to how ISE is often conceptualized and operationalized.
Conceptualizing and Measuring Implicit Self-Esteem
Many agree that the implicit processing system is associative (Bosson, 2006; Epstein,
2006; Gawronski & Bodenhausen, 2006; Greenwald et al., 2002). For example, the self may be
associated with multiple other valenced concepts, and possibly exists as a network of
associations or a schema in memory (e.g., Epstein, 2006; Gawronski & Bodenhausen, 2006).
Consistent with these ideas, Greenwald and colleagues (2002) have defined ISE as: “… the
association of the concept of self with a valence attribute” (p. 5). It is clear from this definition
and from how many ISE measures are implemented (with the self-concept typically primed with
self-related pronouns or ideographically-generated items; e.g., Yamaguchi et al., 2007), that ISE
is viewed as a high-level global construct, rather than something specific or multifaceted.
Furthermore, the positive and negative stimuli used often do not form a well-defined positive or
negative concept (e.g., warm, ugly, happy, filthy, etc.).
Self-concepts may be multidimensional, and individuals may have multiple different selfrepresentations (Markus & Wurf, 1987). ISE may be similarly multidimensional or highly
complex (see Bosson, 2006; Epstein, 2006). For example, Koole and DeHart (2007) argue that
implicit representations of the self possibly encompass "the totality of the person's needs,
motives, and autobiographical experiences" (p. 25). Just as global ESE may be hierarchically
structured and encompassing of self-worth, self-liking, self-competence, and feelings that the self
is moral, strong, valued, and accepted by others, so might ISE (Epstein, 2006). Measures of ISE
that encompass the multidimensionality of the self might thus evince greater criterion validity.
Alternatively, we may have implicit attitudes towards ourselves for different social contexts. For
example, Bosson (2006) argues that different facets of ISE may correspond to different domains
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such as the “social self” or “academic or intellectual self” (p. 55). The predictive validity of ISE
may thus be enhanced by targeting the self in different contexts.
Study 2
The above review suggests that there are two prominent alternative ways of
conceptualizing ISE that are currently not reflected in typical measurement instruments: 1) ISE
as a multifaceted construct (e.g., self-competence, self-liking, etc.), and 2) ISE as a domainspecific construct (e.g., implicit feelings towards one’s academic self, social self, etc.). In Study
2, we aspired to increase the validity of some ISE measures by using two manipulations meant to
tap these alternative conceptualizations. To allow for some diversity in criterion measures, we
included some new criteria as well as kept some of the same ones from Study 1. Since one
critique of ESE measures is their contamination with response biases, we included measures of
self-deception, impression management, and modesty. Finally, to reduce possible fatigue, the
total number of measures to complete was greatly reduced.
Method
Participants
We recruited 623 individuals via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk for $.50. A single question
was used to screen participants: “Answer six for this question so that we know you are paying
attention.” A total of 582 people correctly answered this question (65.12% female; M age =
32.25; SD = 11.93; see supplementary online materials for additional demographic information).
Design and Procedure
After completing a demographics form, participants were randomly assigned to one of 3
conditions: 1) Control, 2) Explicit Prime, or 3) Task Prime. All participants completed ISE, ESE,
and criterion measures, in the exact order as presented below. Analogous to Study 1, participants
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in the control condition did not receive any prime before or during completion of these measures.
Before completing these measures, participants in the Explicit Prime condition wrote for
5 minutes about the following prompt: “Please think for a moment about how you feel about
yourself when at work or school. Do you feel good about yourself or bad about yourself? Do you
often do a good job at work/school? Or do you perform poorly compared to others? Do you get
along with others? Or do you have a hard time making friends at work/school?” The purpose of
this task was to tap ISE as a domain specific construct by focusing participants’ attention to a
context that typically takes up a large proportion of individuals’ lives (i.e., work/school) and to
focus on one of two domains (i.e., competence in work performance or relationships). Given the
diversity of our sample, a limited degree of choice in the exact topic was necessary as no single
life activity would be equally important for all.
Participants in the Task Prime condition completed ISE measures with stimuli intended to
tap implicit self-competence, which may be considered as one major facet of self-esteem
(Tafarodi & Swann, 2001). Specifically, pleasant and unpleasant category and stimuli words for
the IAT and SC-IAT were replaced with words corresponding to competent (competent, capable,
skilled, qualified, smart, and intelligent) and incompetent (incompetent, incapable, clumsy,
unqualified, stupid, dumb). Participants in the other conditions saw the same stimuli words for
the pleasant and unpleasant categories as in Study 1.
Implicit Self-Esteem. Since the sample was primarily of a Western cultural background,
we included ISE measures that were the most promising in the Euro-Canadian sample from
Study 1, namely the IAT and SC-IAT. For self and best friend related stimuli, participants saw
pronouns (e.g., I, me, mine, friend, bud, companion). In addition, the name letter test (NLT;
Bosson et al., 2000) was included to make up for its absence from Study 1. Analogous to the
Implicit self-esteem
18
BNT, participants who tend to like the initials of their own name are thought to have high ISE.
Explicit Self-Esteem. Since many ESE measures performed similarly in Study 1, the
Rosenberg (1965) self-esteem scale (RSES) was included in Study 2 due to its high popularity.
Criteria. As in Study 1, participants completed the authentic pride (PRIDE-A), hubristic
pride (PRIDE-H), and positive and negative affect scales (PA and NA; Tracy et al., 2009;
Watson et al., 1988). These measures were retained to assess whether any ISE measures could
predict self-reported affect. Several self-report measures new to Study 2 were the habit index of
negative thinking (HINT; Verplanken et al., 2007), self-deception and impression management
(SD and IM; Paulhus, 1991), modesty (MOD; Whetstone et al., 1992), and the feedback-seeking
questionnaire (FSQ; Swann et al., 1992). The HINT is intended to measure the tendency for
individuals to automatically have negative self-thoughts and is theoretically negatively related to
ISE. SD, IM, and MOD were measured to test whether such response tendencies would be
unrelated to ISE measures, but entangled with ESE measures. Finally, the FSQ asks participants
to determine from a list of questions, which questions they would like their friend to answer.
Available questions are designed to elicit either favorable or unfavorable information about the
participant. Participants with high ISE are expected to seek more positive feedback to reinforce
their pre-existing schemas. This measure was chosen as an alternative to the AST as a measure
meant to tap participants’ tendencies regarding the seeking and interpretation of information. In
addition, analogous to Bosson et al (2000), 2 research assistants rated participant essays from the
explicit prime condition, including the essay writer’s self-competence (ES-SC), self-liking (ESSL), and global self-esteem (ES-GL). We also used the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count
program (LIWC; Pennebaker, Booth, & Francis, 2007) to calculate the percentage of positive
emotion (ES-PA) and negative emotion (ES-NA) words that participants used.
Implicit self-esteem
19
Results
Although we had hoped that our experimental manipulations would boost the validity of
ISE measures, in general this was not the case. Regardless, results are presented for each
experimental condition separately (Control, Task Prime, and Explicit Prime). Due to the
presence of missing data, we again used the same analytic techniques as in Study 1.
Convergent and Divergent Validity
The RSES did not strongly correlate with any ISE measure, ranging from r = -.05 to r =
.17, all p’s > .01 (see online supplementary materials). Average intercorrelations among ISE
measures were r = .04, p = .36 (explicit prime), r = .04, p = .31 (task prime), and r = .10, p = .02
(control). This latter finding was primarily driven by tendency for a positive IAT and SC-IAT
relationship (range: .28 to .33); this effect could be due to shared method variance as these
measures did not tend to correlate with the NLT (range: -.16 to .01).
The RSES demonstrated small to large positive correlations with IM (range: .12 to .51)
and moderate negative correlations with MOD (range: -.22 to -.47). Weaker relationships were
present between the RSES and SD (range: -.01 to .28). In contrast, ISE measures did not display
a consistent pattern of correlations with any measure of response bias or modesty (range: -.08 to
.15; all p’s > .01; see online supplementary materials). These results suggest that ISE measures
are unrelated to response biases, whereas ESE measures may be contaminated with them.
Criterion Validity
As was found in Study 1, all ISE measures exhibited poor criterion validity. To enhance
interpretability for Figure 5 (left panel), several criteria were reverse coded, including NA,
PRIDE-H, HINT, and ES-NA. There were weak correlations in the direction consistent with
criterion validity; however, these correlations were small and inconsistent across experimental
Implicit self-esteem
20
condition. Many correlations were in the opposite direction than expected. We again computed
average correlations between criteria and each ISE measure (see the supplementary materials).
Results indicated that only the SC-IAT among control participants (Mean r = .10, p < .01)
significantly predicted the criterion measures at the α = .01 level, although the IAT in the control
condition (Mean r = .07, p = .04) and the NLT in the task prime condition (Mean r = .11, p =
.03) came close. Note also that across all correlations in the left panel of Figure 5, none met the p
< .01 threshold, even for relatively large sample sizes in each cell (n’s > 190).
As shown in Figure 5 (right panel), the RSES displayed good criterion validity.
Correlations ranged from .20 to .77 (all p < .01) across all measures and conditions. Average
correlations between the RSES and criteria ranged from .49 to .53 (all p < .001) across all
conditions (see the supplementary materials). Controlling for response styles, ESE still had much
better criterion validity than ISE (see partial correlations in supplementary materials).
Discussion
Study 2 provided an initial test of whether ISE is a unidimensional, global construct or a
more refined conceptualization. The manipulations implemented in Study 2 – using selfcompetence based stimuli (instead of general positive-negative stimuli) for the IAT and SC-IAT,
or asking participants to explicitly write a self-esteem related essay before completing ISE
measures – were both unsuccessful at boosting the criterion validity of ISE measures. Overall,
the RSES again outperformed ISE measures. One possible explanation for this pattern of results
is that the manipulations we implemented were ineffective or too vague. However, even a weak
manipulation should have yielded at least a trend of the effect in such a large sample (N = 582).
The data we have presented thus suggest that an increase in self-reflection and depth of
processing about the self does not lead to an increase in the validity of ISE measures.
Implicit self-esteem
21
General Discussion
Our two studies constitute an extensive search for ISE measure validity. In all cases, ESE
measures outperformed ISE measures, and we found scant evidence that ISE measures assessed
anything related to self-esteem. One possible rebuttal to our findings is that the criteria we used
could be seen as unrelated to ISE, yet this is implausible as we covered a wide range of
phenomena thought to be linked to ISE – such as affective experiences (Conner & Barrett, 2005),
parents’ care and over-protectiveness (DeHart et al., 2006), seeking and interpreting information
about the self (Hetts & Pelham, 2001), and automatic negative self-thoughts (Verplanken et al.,
2007). Although it is commonly thought that ISE predicts behaviors, or LIWC coded essays
(Peterson & DeHart, 2013; Rudolph et al., 2010; Spalding & Hardin, 1999), the ISE measures in
our studies did poorly at predicting peer-ratings of self-esteem (Study 1) and ratings of
participants’ essays (Study 2; using LIWC and independent raters) whereas ESE predicted these
criteria. To the extent that any of these 3 criteria could pick up on such unconsciously driven
behavior, we should have seen at least some evidence for ISE validity, however, previous
research is inconsistent as to whether ISE should have a unique effect (Rudolph et al., 2010;
Spalding & Hardin, 1999) or interacts with other variables (Peterson & DeHart, 2013).
Moreover, the notion that implicit measures ought to correlate better with independent ratings
(versus self-reports) is not supported by a recent meta-analysis (Greenwald et al., 2009).
Our studies are consistent with previous findings, but also included advanced implicit
attitude measurement procedures not available to Bosson et al (2000) and not reviewed by
Buhrmester et al (2011). Despite the methodological advances over the past decade, we saw no
improvement in the validity of these new measures. Although some have suggested alternative
measurement procedures based on in-depth interviews and coding schemes that avoid the
Implicit self-esteem
22
quick/intuitive judgments required of most ISE measures in our studies (Buhrmester et al., 2011),
such measures have not yet been developed and so at this time cannot be evaluated. Based on
existing measures thus far and the available evidence, our research indicates a replication
problem. To highlight this problem, consider that the inclusion of unpublished data leads one of
the most “replicated” ISE effects to vanish or become very weak (Bosson et al., 2008), and that
many IAT and NLT findings have few or no replications (Buhrmester et al., 2011). Thus, we
suggest that the weight of the validity evidence in support of ISE is weak, and the burden of
proof now lies with those who wish to consider ISE as a viable construct.
In conclusion, one plausible remaining explanation for a lack of ISE validity is that there
may be problems with the way ISE is conceptualized. We speculate that individuals may not
form implicit associations with the self as an attitudinal object (cf., Duval & Wicklund, 1972), as
our attention is typically directed at objects that are separate from the self, and thus we would be
more likely to form such implicit associations with the objects themselves. This possibility
remains to be addressed in future research along with other possible measurement procedures for
ISE (e.g., Buhrmester et al., 2011). Elsewhere we elaborate on this explanation and the utility of
considering ISE as a process whereby individuals project their self-feelings onto self-associated
objects (Falk & Heine, 2013; see also Greenwald & Banaji, 1995). For instance, people may
unknowingly apply their self-feelings to various extensions of the self: the objects they own, the
groups they belong to, the decisions they make, etc. This alternative conceptualization could
allow for indirect measurement of self-feelings through these self-associated objects. As
conceptualizing ISE as a domain specific construct failed to improve ISE validity, we suggest
this position as an alternative to the idea that there may be too many implicit associations with
the self to be reliably activated and measured by current procedures.
Implicit self-esteem
23
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Footnotes
1
Since we wish to err on the side of high power for the benefit of ISE measures, this
alpha level was somewhat arbitrarily chosen as a compromise between no Type I error control
and conducting Bonferroni corrections adjusting for all tests – the latter of which may be overly
conservative. For example, Bonferroni corrections on just the 117 ISE-criteria correlations for a
single cultural group would yield a threshold of p = .0004 for significance. Incidentally, a .01
threshold corresponds roughly to what would be used had we implemented the BenjaminiHochberg procedure for controlling the false discovery rate, which has been recommended as a
high power replacement for the Bonferroni procedure (see Thissen, Steinberg, & Kuang, 2002).
For instance, if we were to implement this procedure on all correlations among ESE, ISE and
criterion measures for Euro-Canadians in Study 1, this procedure would result in the p-value for
the relationship between PBI-MO and SCIAT being adjusted from .011 to .049.
2
Comparable results are obtained regardless of the choice of ESE measure and are
reported in the supplementary materials; a negative coefficient is the expected direction.
Implicit self-esteem
30
Author Note
This research is based in part on the first author’s PhD dissertation and was supported by
a Standard Research Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC)
of Canada to Heine and an SSHRC post-doctoral fellowship to Falk. Correspondence should be
addressed to Carl F. Falk, University of California, Los Angeles, Graduate School of Education
& Information Studies, Los Angeles, CA 90095; email: cffalk@gmail.com.
Implicit self-esteem
Figure 1. Explicit self-esteem convergent validity for Study 1.
Note. FU = False Uniqueness; SAQ = Self Attributes Questionnaire; FT = Feeling Thermometer; FD = Feeling
Differentials; SL = Self-Liking; SC = Self-Competence; RSES = Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale.
31
Implicit self-esteem
Figure 2. Implicit self-esteem convergent validity for Study 1.
Note. APT = Affective Priming Task; SEL = Self-Evaluation under Load; GNAT-SU = Go/No-go Association
Test (Self-Unpleasant); GNAT-SP = Go/No-go Association Test (Self-Pleasant); SC-IAT = Single Category
IAT; SB-IAT = Single Block IAT; IAT = Implicit Association Test; AMP = Affect Misattribution Procedure;
BNT = Birthday Number Test.
32
Implicit self-esteem
Figure 3. Criterion validity of explicit self-esteem measures in Study 1.
Note. FU = False Uniqueness; SAQ = Self Attributes Questionnaire; FT = Feeling Thermometer; FD = Feeling
Differentials; SL = Self-Liking; SC = Self-Competence; RSES = Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale. AST =
Ambiguous Statements Task; PBI-MC = Parental Bonding Instrument (Mother’s Care); PBI-FC = Parental
Bonding Instrument (Father’s Care); PBI-MO = Parental Bonding Instrument (Mother’s Overprotection); PBIFO = Parental Bonding Instrument (Father’s Overprotection); PA = Positive Affect; NA = Negative Affect;
PRIDE-A = Authentic Pride; PRIDE-H = Hubristic Pride; NPI = Narcissistic Personality Inventory; FR-RSES =
Friend Rating of Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale; FR-SC = Friend Rating of Self-Competence; FR-SL = Friend
Rating of Self-Liking.
33
Implicit self-esteem
Figure 4. Criterion validity of implicit self-esteem measures in Study 1.
Note. APT = Affective Priming Task; SEL = Self-Evaluation under Load; GNAT-SU = Go/No-go Association
Test (Self-Unpleasant); GNAT-SP = Go/No-go Association Test (Self-Pleasant); SC-IAT = Single Category
IAT; SB-IAT = Single Block IAT; IAT = Implicit Association Test; AMP = Affect Misattribution Procedure;
BNT = Birthday Number Test; AST = Ambiguous Statements Task; PBI-MC = Parental Bonding Instrument
(Mother’s Care); PBI-FC = Parental Bonding Instrument (Father’s Care); PBI-MO = Parental Bonding
Instrument (Mother’s Overprotection); PBI-FO = Parental Bonding Instrument (Father’s Overprotection); PA =
Positive Affect; NA = Negative Affect; PRIDE-A = Authentic Pride; PRIDE-H = Hubristic Pride; NPI =
Narcissistic Personality Inventory; FR-RSES = Friend Rating of Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale; FR-SC = Friend
Rating of Self-Competence; FR-SL = Friend Rating of Self-Liking.
34
35
Figure 5. Left Panel: Implicit self-esteem – criteria relationships Study 2. Right Panel: Explicit
self-esteem – criteria relationships for Study 2
Note. NLT = Name Letter Test; SC-IAT = Single Category IAT; IAT = Implicit Association Test; RSES = Rosenberg Self-Estee
Affect; NA = Negative Affect; PRIDE-A = Authentic Pride. PRIDE-H = Hubristic Pride; HINT = Habit Index of Negative Think
Seeking Questionnaire; ES-SC = Essay rating of Self-Competence (independently rated); ES-SL = Essay rating of Self-Liking (i
ES-G = Essay rating of Global self-esteem (independently rated); ES-PA = Positive Affect words used in participants’ Essays as
NA = Negative Affect words used in participants’ Essays as coded by LIWC.
36
Supplementary materials for:
Falk, C.F., Heine, S.J., Takemura, K., Zhang, C.X.J., & Hsu, C.-W. Are implicit self-esteem
measures valid for assessing individual and cultural differences?
Demographic information for the samples in Study 1 and 2 and supplementary
descriptions of the measures used appears on the following pages. These measures were
administered to participants via the Internet using Inquisit software (2009). Unless noted
otherwise, the order of measures within each type of measurement (implicit self-esteem; ISE;
explicit self-esteem; ESE; and criterion) reflects the order of appearance of those measures
within the study. For clarity, some of these descriptions overlap with those present in the
manuscript.
Following that, supplementary tables and figures of results for Studies 1 (Tables 1
through 16; Figure 1) and 2 (Tables 17 through 20; Figures 2 and 3) appear.
For Study 1, this includes correlations between ISE and ESE measures (Figure 1),
correlations for ISE measures, averaging across all ESE measures (i.e., convergent validity;
Table 1), average criterion validity for ESE and ISE measures (Tables 2 and 3), ESE by ISE
interactions in predicting narcissism (Tables 4 through 10), and descriptive statistics and cultural
differences for each ESE, ISE and criterion measure (Tables 11 through 16).
For Study 2, this includes correlations between ISE, ESE, and response bias measures
(Figure 2), average criterion validity for ESE and ISE measures in each experimental condition
(Table 17), criterion validity while controlling for response biases (Figure 3 and Table 18), and
37
descriptive statistics for all ESE and ISE measures (Table 19) and all criteria and response bias
measures (Table 20).
Demographic Information
Study 1
All Euro-Canadians had parents of Western ethnic background and were born in a
Western country (i.e., USA, Canada, and Europe). All Asian-Canadians had parents with an East
Asian ethnic background (e.g., Japan, China, Korea, Thailand); 37.97% were born in a Western
country, and 62.03% were born in East Asia. All were of Japanese ancestry except for 4
individuals born in China.
Study 2
The vast majority of participants were born in the USA (93.1%). Participants were
predominantly of White/European ethnic descent (79.9%) followed by mixed ethnicities
(7.96%), Black (4.84%), East Asian / Pacific Islander (4.15%), Hispanic (1.45%), MiddleEastern (0.35%), South Asian (0.17%), and other (1.04%).
Measures first appearing in Study 1
Explicit Self-Esteem
Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSES). Participants completed the 10-item Rosenberg
(1965) self-esteem scale on a 4-point Likert scale from 0 (Strongly Disagree) to 3 (Strongly
Agree). The RSES assesses global self-worth and pronounced cultural differences on the RSES
are consistently found (average d = .94; Heine & Hamamura, 2007).
Self-Liking and Competence. Tafarodi & Swann's (2001) scale measures both global selfliking (SL) and self-competence (SC) using eight items for each subscale. SL and SC was
assessed on a 5-point Likert scale from 0 (Strongly Agree) to 4 (Strongly Disagree).
38
Feeling Differentials. The feeling differential (FD) measure asked participants to rate
themselves on a 7-point scale (1 to 7) for a number of attributes that had opposite
positive/negative connotations (e.g., Warm-Cold, Happy-Sad, Proud-Shameful; Kobayashi &
Greenwald, 2003).
Feeling Thermometer (FT). A single item asked participants to give themselves a number
from 0-100 indicating how cold (0) or warm (100) they feel about themselves (e.g., Kobayashi &
Greenwald, 2003).
Self-Attributes Questionnaire (SAQ). Pelham and Swann's (1989) SAQ asked participants
to rank themselves, relative to other university students of the same age, on ten different positive
dimensions (e.g., intellectual/academic ability, social skills/social competence), using a 10-point
scale from 1 (Bottom 5%) to 10 (Top 5%).
False Uniqueness (FU). Items measuring self-enhancement via a false uniqueness effect
asked participants to estimate "the percentage of students from your university, the same sex as
you, who you think you are better than" on ten positive dimensions (e.g., cooperative, creative,
dependable; Heine & Lehman, 1997).
Implicit Self-Esteem
Birthday Number Task (BNT). In the BNT (e.g., Bosson et al., 2000), participants rated
their liking on a 1 (Dislike very much) to 9 (Like very much) scale of the numbers 1 through 40,
appearing in a random order. Their liking of these numbers was compared to their actual birthday
and birth month using an adapted version of LeBel and Gawronski's (2009) I-algorithm.
Affect Misattribution Procedure (AMP). In each of the 48 trials of the AMP (Payne,
Cheng, Govorun, & Stewart, 2005), modified to assess ISE, participants saw a self or best-friend
idiographic stimulus or a neutral (blank) prime for 75ms, followed by a blank screen for 125ms,
39
a target for 100ms, and finally a mask. The participant then rated whether the target was
"unpleasant" or "pleasant" (scored 0 or 1, respectively). Since we anticipated many of our
participants would be familiar with the Chinese ideographs used by Payne et al. (2005), we used
a set of 48 Tibetan characters as the targets. An ISE score was computed by taking the average of
the 16 trials that included self-relevant primes.
Implicit Association Test (IAT). To test the validity of IAT variants previously used to
explore cross-cultural differences, we used "Self" versus "Best Friend" and "Unpleasant" and
"Pleasant" as the categories (Yamaguchi et al., 2007). The idiographic stimuli (i.e., self and best
friend name, hometown, and birthdate) served as words for the first pair of categories, and the
pleasant and unpleasant words were the same as those used by Kobayashi and Greenwald (2003).
The order of appearance of compatible and incompatible blocks was counterbalanced across
participants. Practice blocks consisted of 20 trials and test blocks consisted of 40 trials. The IAT
score was computed using the latest scoring algorithm (Greenwald, Nosek, & Banaji, 2003).
Single-Block IAT (SB-IAT). The SB-IAT (Teige-Mocigemba et al., 2008) is a variant of
the IAT designed to reduce method variance and used the same categories and stimuli as the
traditional IAT. Participants completed 5 blocks of 72 critical trials for the SB-IAT.
Single-Category IAT (SC-IAT). The SC-IAT (Karpinski & Steinman, 2006) is a variant of
the IAT designed to assess the relationship between "self" and valence attributes without
requiring a reference category such as “other” or "best friend". We again used the same relevant
stimuli as used for IAT. Whether “self” was paired with “unpleasant” or “pleasant” first was
counterbalanced across participants. Critical trial blocks consisted of 72 trials.
Go/No-Go Association Test (GNAT). The GNAT (Nosek & Banaji, 2001) is a word
identification task designed to assess pairs of associations. The GNAT was comprised of four
40
blocks, each of which featured two target categories (Self-pleasant, self-unpleasant, best friendpleasant, and best friend-unpleasant). Participants were to press the space bar when a word
presented matched the target categories and not to press it when presented with a distracter word.
Two sets of four blocks were used (77 trials per block), with each set corresponding to a
response deadline of 1000ms and 833ms. The order of the blocks was randomized across
participants. A score for the implicit self-pleasant (GNAT-SP) and self-unpleasant (GNAT-SU)
relationships was computed using signal detection theory following Nosek and Banaji (2001).
Self-Evaluation under Load (SEL). Participants rated thirty personality traits as
characteristic of “me” or “not me” while remembering an 8-digit number (Falk, Heine, Yuki, &
Takemura, 2009). At the end of the study, participants rated the social desirability of each trait
on a 7-point Likert scale from 1 (Not desirable at all) to 7 (Very desirable). To simplify analyses
with this measure, a single desirability-trait endorsement coefficient was computed for each
person by performing the same multilevel modeling technique as in Falk et al. (2009) and
recording the empirical Bayes estimate for this slope for each person.
Affective Priming Task (APT). In the APT (Hetts, Sakuma, & Pelhman, 1999),
participants were subliminally primed with a self-related, friend-related, or neutral stimulus for
200ms, and were asked to correctly identify the words "good" or "bad" 100ms later. Scores for
the APT were computed in the same manner as Hetts et al (1999).
Predictive Criteria
Peer Ratings. In a separate online questionnaire, the participants were rated by their
friends on rephrased versions of the Rosenberg self-esteem scale (FR-RSES), self-competence
scale (FR-SC), and self-liking scale (FR-SL). An example is: "My friend feels that s/he is a
person of worth, at least on an equal basis with others." Peers simply answered these questions,
41
and were not instructed to answer how they thought their friend would answer. Perhaps due to
the interruption in data collection, response rates were slightly higher for the Euro-Canadian
(71.96%) and Asian-Canadian (62.57%) samples than for the Japanese sample (34.82%).
Ambiguous Statements Test (AST). In the AST (Tafarodi, 1998), participants imagined
that they were presented with 13 ambiguous, everyday phrases spoken by one of their friends.
Participants then indicated whether each phrase reflected a positive or negative feeling toward
them as well as the intensity of the feelings on a 7-point Likert scale from 1 (Very slightly
intense) to (Extremely intense). Scores were computed by taking the mean of the intensity ratings
with the sign (+/-) of each rating determined by whether the phrase was interpreted positively (+)
or negatively (-). This was the only measure flagged for difficulty in translation to Japanese.
Parental Bonding Instrument (PBI). The PBI (Parker, Tupling, & Brown, 1979) was
assessed using a 4-point Likert scale from 0 (Very unlike) to 3 (Very like). The PBI has four
subscales designed to assess mother's caring (PBI-MC), mother's over-protectiveness (PBI-MO),
father's caring (PBI-FC), and father's over-protectiveness (PBI-FO).
Positive and Negative Affect Scale (PANAS). We used the PANAS to assess how much
positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA) participants tended to feel on average (Watson,
Clark & Tellegen, 1988).
Pride. Authentic pride (PRIDE-A) and hubristic pride (PRIDE-H) were measured (Tracy,
Cheng, Robins, & Trzesniewski, 2009) by embedding the two subscales with the other PANAS
items.
Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI). Participants completed the 40-item NPI (Raskin
& Terry, 1988) on a 5-point Likert scale from 0 (Strongly disagree) to 4 (Strongly agree). A
single composite score was computed by taking the mean of all items.
42
Measures unique to Study 2
Implicit Self-Esteem
Name Letter Test. The popular Name Letter Test (NLT; Bosson et al., 2000; Jones et al.,
2002) was included to make up for its absence from Study 1. The NLT results in scores
analogous to the BNT. The I-algorithm was used for scoring the NLT (LeBel & Gawronski,
2009).
Predictive Criteria
The Habit Index of Negative Thinking Scale (HINT). The habit index of negative thinking
scale (Verplanken et al., 2007) contains 12 items rated on a Likert scale from 1 (Strongly
Disagree) to 7 (Strongly Agree).
Self-Deception and Impression Management. Self-deception (SD) and impression
management (IM) correspond to tendencies to unintentionally or deliberately respond to selfreport questionnaires in ways to make oneself appear better (Paulhus, 1991). These 20-item
scales are rated on a 7-point Likert scale and scored according to an algorithm described by
Paulhus (1991).
Modesty (MOD). Modesty was measured using a 20-item self-report scale that has been
used in previous research (Whetstone et al., 1992).
Feedback-Seeking Questionnaire (FSQ). The feedback-seeking questionnaire asks
participants to determine from a list of questions, which questions they would like their friend to
answer (Swann et al., 1992). Available questions are designed to elicit either favorable
information (coded +1 if chosen) or unfavorable information (coded -1 if chosen) about the
participant.
Essay Ratings. Analogous to Bosson et al (2000), two research assistants provided ratings
43
of participant essays from those in the explicit prime condition. Essays were rated on a 7-point
Likert scale in terms of the essay writer’s self-competence (ES-SC; 2 items; ICC = .55), selfliking (ES-SL; 2 items; ICC = .55), and global self-esteem (ES-GL; 2 items; ICC = .58). Items
for each type of outcome were averaged across both independent raters to form composite
scores. In addition, we used the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count program (LIWC;
Pennebaker, Booth, & Francis, 2007) to calculate the percentage of positive emotion (ES-PA)
and negative emotion (ES-NA) words that participants used in their essays.
44
Table 1. Convergent validity: Each ISE measure’s average correlation across all ESE measures
for each cultural group in Study 1.
Euro-Canadians
ISE Measure
Asian-Canadians
Japanese
Mean r
p
Mean r
p
Mean r
p
BNT
.07
.40
-.15
.01
.12
.15
AMP
.05
.43
.07
.24
.05
.44
IAT
.05
.51
-.01
.83
-.10
.10
SB-IAT
-.01
.91
-.13
.04
.09
.20
SC-IAT
.14
.06
.03
.56
.05
.44
GNAT-SP
-.04
.50
-.04
.41
.01
.90
GNAT-SU (R)
.06
.39
.03
.58
.04
.42
SEL
.08
.28
.23
<.001
.47
<.001
APT
-.11
.13
-.06
.24
-.04
.47
Note. BNT = Birthday Number Test; AMP = Affect Misattribution Procedure; IAT = Implicit
Association Test; SB-IAT = Single Block IAT; SC-IAT = Single Category IAT; GNAT-SP =
Go/No-go Association Test (Self-Pleasant); GNAT-SU = Go/No-go Association Test (SelfUnpleasant); SEL = Self-Evaluation under Load; APT = Affective Priming Task.
45
Table 2. Criterion validity: Average explicit self-esteem – criteria relationships for each cultural
group in Study 1.
Euro-Canadians
ESE Measure
Asian-Canadians
Japanese
Mean r
p
Mean r
p
Mean r
p
RSES
.33
<.001
.35
<.001
.25
<.001
SL
.33
<.001
.33
<.001
.23
<.001
SC
.28
<.001
.35
<.001
.21
.001
FD
.27
<.001
.24
<.001
.27
<.001
FT
.28
<.001
.29
<.001
.04
.52
SAQ
.23
<.001
.28
<.001
.22
<.001
FU
.10
.10
.16
<.001
.21
<.001
Note. RSES = Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale; SL = Self-Liking; SC = Self-Competence; FD =
Feeling Differentials; FT = Feeling Thermometer; SAQ = Self-Attributes Questionnaire; FU =
False Uniqueness.
46
Table 3. Criterion validity: Average implicit self-esteem – criteria relationships for each cultural
group in Study 1.
Euro-Canadians
ISE Measure
Asian-Canadians
Japanese
Mean r
p
Mean r
p
Mean r
p
BNT
.02
.65
-.01
.83
.08
.20
AMP
-.03
.45
.00
.94
.12
.09
IAT
.08
.05
-.01
.86
-.03
.76
SB-IAT
.05
.24
-.00
.97
.07
.15
SC-IAT
.13
<.001
.05
.23
-.02
.64
GNAT-SP
.05
.33
.05
.22
.01
.80
GNAT-SU (R)
.00
.87
-.05
.19
.05
.50
SEL
.07
.15
.13
<.001
.19
<.001
APT
-.01
.71
.00
.95
-.07
.20
Note. BNT = Birthday Number Test; AMP = Affect Misattribution Procedure; IAT = Implicit
Association Test; SB-IAT = Single Block IAT; SC-IAT = Single Category IAT; GNAT-SP =
Go/No-go Association Test (Self-Pleasant); GNAT-SU = Go/No-go Association Test (SelfUnpleasant); SEL = Self-Evaluation under Load; APT = Affective Priming Task.
47
Table 4. Implicit self-esteem by Rosenberg self-esteem interactions in predicting narcissism for
each cultural group in Study 1. Betas represent standardized regression coefficients.
Euro-Canadians
Asian-Canadians
Japanese

p

p

p
BNT X RSES
-.01
.93
-.03
.65
-.04
.48
AMP X RSES
.14
.13
-.08
.37
-.08
.39
IAT X RSES
.10
.30
-.08
.22
.09
.37
SB-IAT X RSES
.06
.65
.03
.60
.11
.21
SC-IAT X RSES
.00
.98
.02
.81
-.01
.92
GNAT-SP X RSES
-.06
.60
-.02
.78
05
.39
GNAT-SU (R) X RSES
.02
.88
-.02
.75
.00
.95
SEL X RSES
.07
.55
-.12
.09
.01
.90
Measure
APT X RSES
-.07
.48
.00
.95
-.04
.57
Note. BNT = Birthday Number Test; AMP = Affect Misattribution Procedure; IAT = Implicit
Association Test; SB-IAT = Single Block IAT; SC-IAT = Single Category IAT; GNAT-SP =
Go/No-go Association Test (Self-Pleasant); GNAT-SU = Go/No-go Association Test (SelfUnpleasant); SEL = Self-Evaluation under Load; APT = Affective Priming Task. RSES =
Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale.
48
Table 5. Implicit self-esteem by Self-Liking interactions in predicting narcissism for each
cultural group in Study 1. Betas represent standardized regression coefficients.
Euro-Canadians
Asian-Canadians
Japanese

p

p

p
BNT X SL
-.11
.30
-.09
.20
-.04
.59
AMP X SL
.18
.07
-.01
.90
-.14
.07
IAT X SL
.11
.26
-.05
.46
.06
.57
SB-IAT X SL
.02
.87
.05
.43
.13
.08
SC-IAT X SL
.02
.81
-.04
.63
-.06
.60
GNAT-SP X SL
-.03
.77
.01
.91
.09
.45
GNAT-SU (R) X SL
.11
.34
-.03
.64
-.05
.67
SEL X SL
-.11
.43
-.18
.01
-.02
.75
Measure
APT X SL
-.11
.22
.01
.88
-.00
.97
Note. BNT = Birthday Number Test; AMP = Affect Misattribution Procedure; IAT = Implicit
Association Test; SB-IAT = Single Block IAT; SC-IAT = Single Category IAT; GNAT-SP =
Go/No-go Association Test (Self-Pleasant); GNAT-SU = Go/No-go Association Test (SelfUnpleasant); SEL = Self-Evaluation under Load; APT = Affective Priming Task. SL = SelfLiking.
49
Table 6. Implicit self-esteem by Self-Competence interactions in predicting narcissism for each
cultural group in Study 1. Betas represent standardized regression coefficients.
Euro-Canadians
Asian-Canadians
Japanese

p

p

p
BNT X SC
-.07
.54
-.09
.10
-.15
.05
AMP X SC
.18
.11
.05
.50
-.12
.13
IAT X SC
.14
.16
-.08
.36
.02
.85
SB-IAT X SC
.04
.77
-.02
.71
.12
.22
SC-IAT X SC
-.00
.97
.03
.70
-.07
.46
GNAT-SP X SC
-.09
.34
.08
.29
.12
.39
GNAT-SU (R) X SC
.16
.12
-.12
.13
-.03
.84
SEL X SC
.13
.25
-.08
.23
-.03
.70
Measure
APT X SC
-.05
.49
-.00
.98
-.06
.49
Note. BNT = Birthday Number Test; AMP = Affect Misattribution Procedure; IAT = Implicit
Association Test; SB-IAT = Single Block IAT; SC-IAT = Single Category IAT; GNAT-SP =
Go/No-go Association Test (Self-Pleasant); GNAT-SU = Go/No-go Association Test (SelfUnpleasant); SEL = Self-Evaluation under Load; APT = Affective Priming Task. SC = SelfCompetence.
50
Table 7. Implicit self-esteem by Feeling Differentials interactions in predicting narcissism for
each cultural group in Study 1. Betas represent standardized regression coefficients.
Euro-Canadians
Asian-Canadians
Japanese

p

p

p
BNT X FD
-.03
.81
-.04
.65
-.02
.78
AMP X FD
.11
.26
.01
.85
-.16
.13
IAT X FD
-.03
.78
-.02
.82
.08
.48
SB-IAT X FD
-.01
.95
-.03
.65
.20
.04
SC-IAT X FD
.02
.82
.04
.58
.00
.95
GNAT-SP X FD
.02
.82
-.03
.67
.07
.47
GNAT-SU (R) X FD
-.05
.47
.01
.92
-.04
.70
SEL X FD
-.03
.74
-.16
.03
.00
.97
Measure
APT X FD
.05
.41
-.01
.85
-.17
.06
Note. BNT = Birthday Number Test; AMP = Affect Misattribution Procedure; IAT = Implicit
Association Test; SB-IAT = Single Block IAT; SC-IAT = Single Category IAT; GNAT-SP =
Go/No-go Association Test (Self-Pleasant); GNAT-SU = Go/No-go Association Test (SelfUnpleasant); SEL = Self-Evaluation under Load; APT = Affective Priming Task. FD = Feeling
Differentials.
51
Table 8. Implicit self-esteem by Feeling Thermometer interactions in predicting narcissism for
each cultural group in Study 1. Betas represent standardized regression coefficients.
Euro-Canadians
Asian-Canadians
Japanese

p

p

p
BNT X FT
.00
.98
-.22
.04
-.04
.64
AMP X FT
.06
.58
-.11
.28
-.20
.03
IAT X FT
.10
.36
.03
.79
.23
.06
SB-IAT X FT
-.01
.91
.15
.09
.05
.67
SC-IAT X FT
.08
.52
.02
.87
.09
.49
GNAT-SP X FT
.03
.72
.06
.64
.20
.04
GNAT-SU (R) X FT
-.08
.32
.01
.94
-.10
.30
SEL X FT
-.06
.57
-.21
.02
.05
.57
Measure
APT X FT
-.01
.85
.03
.77
.03
.77
Note. BNT = Birthday Number Test; AMP = Affect Misattribution Procedure; IAT = Implicit
Association Test; SB-IAT = Single Block IAT; SC-IAT = Single Category IAT; GNAT-SP =
Go/No-go Association Test (Self-Pleasant); GNAT-SU = Go/No-go Association Test (SelfUnpleasant); SEL = Self-Evaluation under Load; APT = Affective Priming Task. FT = Feeling
Thermometer.
52
Table 9. Implicit self-esteem by Self Attributes Questionnaire interactions in predicting
narcissism for each cultural group in Study 1. Betas represent standardized regression
coefficients.
Euro-Canadians
Asian-Canadians
Japanese

p

p

p
BNT X SAQ
-.05
.54
-.10
.15
-.06
.41
AMP X SAQ
.05
.55
.06
.27
-.07
.28
IAT X SAQ
.17
.03
-.13
.10
-.09
.23
SB-IAT X SAQ
.09
.30
-.02
.78
.13
.07
SC-IAT X SAQ
.06
.38
.07
.37
-.11
.18
GNAT-SP X SAQ
.04
.65
.02
.83
.07
.15
GNAT-SU (R) X SAQ
-.05
.51
-.06
.46
.00
.95
SEL X SAQ
.09
.34
-.08
.17
.08
.26
Measure
APT X SAQ
.11
.02
.00
.97
.03
.65
Note. BNT = Birthday Number Test; AMP = Affect Misattribution Procedure; IAT = Implicit
Association Test; SB-IAT = Single Block IAT; SC-IAT = Single Category IAT; GNAT-SP =
Go/No-go Association Test (Self-Pleasant); GNAT-SU = Go/No-go Association Test (SelfUnpleasant); SEL = Self-Evaluation under Load; APT = Affective Priming Task. SAQ = Self
Attributes Questionnaire.
53
Table 10. Implicit self-esteem by False Uniqueness interactions in predicting narcissism for each
cultural group in Study 1. Betas represent standardized regression coefficients.
Euro-Canadians
Asian-Canadians
Japanese

p

p

p
BNT X FU
.05
.68
-.05
.57
-.06
.51
AMP X FU
.18
.21
-.06
.34
.14
.14
IAT X FU
.07
.53
-.04
.65
-.04
.60
SB-IAT X FU
.07
.66
.02
.83
.12
.11
SC-IAT X FU
.06
.52
.10
.20
-.06
.62
GNAT-SP X FU
.10
.48
-.01
.89
-.10
.28
GNAT-SU (R) X FU
-.04
.80
-.01
.92
.03
.75
SEL X FU
.03
.83
-.13
.11
-.02
.75
Measure
APT X FU
.04
.70
-.03
.68
-.10
.21
Note. BNT = Birthday Number Test; AMP = Affect Misattribution Procedure; IAT = Implicit
Association Test; SB-IAT = Single Block IAT; SC-IAT = Single Category IAT; GNAT-SP =
Go/No-go Association Test (Self-Pleasant); GNAT-SU = Go/No-go Association Test (SelfUnpleasant); SEL = Self-Evaluation under Load; APT = Affective Priming Task. FU = False
Uniqueness.
54
Table 11. Means, standard deviations, and coefficient alpha for all explicit self-esteem measures for each cultural group in Study 1.
Euro-Canadians
Asian-Canadians
Japanese
M
SD
α
M
SD
α
M
SD
α
RSES
2.05
.49
.89
1.93
.46
.89
1.55
.45
.81
SL
2.39
.82
.91
2.42
.72
.90
1.61
.62
.78
SC
2.32
.62
.82
1.99
.58
.83
1.56
.51
.75
FD
5.17
.80
.86
5.04
.84
.89
4.75
.73
.80
FT
76.40
14.10
N/A
74.19
16.80
N/A
44.04
29.59
N/A
SAQ
7.02
.85
.68
6.66
.98
.76
5.99
1.03
.73
ESE Measure
FU
64.08
16.11
.90
60.38
13.94
.86
47.71
13.77
.79
Note. RSES = Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale; SL = Self-Liking; SC = Self-Competence; FD = Feeling Differentials; FT = Feeling
Thermometer; SAQ = Self-Attributes Questionnaire; FU = False Uniqueness.
55
Table 12. Cultural differences on all explicit self-esteem measures in Study 1.
Euro-Canadians vs.
Japanese
ESE Measure
Euro- vs. AsianCanadians
Asian-Canadians vs.
Japanese
d
p
d
p
d
p
RSES
1.07
<.001
.24
.06
.85
<.001
SL
1.08
<.001
-.04
.74
1.20
<.001
SC
1.34
<.001
.56
<.001
.78
<.001
FD
.55
<.001
.15
.21
.37
<.01
FT
1.48
<.001
.14
.46
1.30
<.001
SAQ
1.10
<.001
.40
<.01
.67
<.001
FU
1.10
<.001
.25
.06
.91
<.001
Note. RSES = Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale; SL = Self-Liking; SC = Self-Competence; FD =
Feeling Differentials; FT = Feeling Thermometer; SAQ = Self-Attributes Questionnaire; FU =
False Uniqueness.
56
Table 13. Means and standard deviations for all implicit self-esteem measures for each cultural
group in Study 1.
Euro-Canadians
ISE Measure
Asian-Canadians
Japanese
M
SD
M
SD
M
SD
BNT
.89
2.25
.89
2.12
.89
2.08
AMP
.64
.20
.61
.25
.59
.19
IAT
.39
.33
.38
.32
.33
.35
SB-IAT
2.52
6.74
1.49
6.45
2.76
6.75
SC-IAT
.26
.25
.31
.29
.28
.31
GNAT-SP
-.03
1.44
-.27
1.77
.47
1.17
GNAT-SU
-.15
1.50
-.31
1.58
.63
1.21
SEL
.85
.26
.79
.27
.32
.36
APT
-3.10
9.95
-1.52
8.69
-2.68
8.04
Note. BNT = Birthday Number Test; AMP = Affect Misattribution Procedure; IAT = Implicit
Association Test; SB-IAT = Single Block IAT; SC-IAT = Single Category IAT; GNAT-SP =
Go/No-go Association Test (Self-Pleasant); GNAT-SU = Go/No-go Association Test (SelfUnpleasant); SEL = Self-Evaluation under Load; APT = Affective Priming Task
57
Table 14. Cultural differences on all implicit self-esteem measures in Study 1.
Euro-Canadians vs.
Japanese
ISE Measure
Euro- vs. AsianCanadians
Asian-Canadians vs.
Japanese
d
p
d
p
d
p
BNT
.00
.99
.00
.99
.00
.99
AMP
.28
.07
.15
.23
.10
.83
IAT
.20
.11
.05
.66
.15
.60
SB-IAT
-.04
.77
.16
.20
-.19
<.001
SC-IAT
-.08
.55
-.18
.16
.09
.78
GNAT-SP
-.38
.01
.15
.20
-.50
<.001
GNAT-SU
.58
<.001
-.10
.40
.68
<.001
SEL
1.70
<.001
.22
.19
1.47
<.001
APT
-.05
.71
-.17
.14
.14
<.001
Note. BNT = Birthday Number Test; AMP = Affect Misattribution Procedure; IAT = Implicit
Association Test; SB-IAT = Single Block IAT; SC-IAT = Single Category IAT; GNAT-SP =
Go/No-go Association Test (Self-Pleasant); GNAT-SU = Go/No-go Association Test (SelfUnpleasant); SEL = Self-Evaluation under Load; APT = Affective Priming Task.
58
Table 15. Means, standard deviations, and coefficient alpha for all criteria for each cultural group in Study 1.
Euro-Canadians
Asian-Canadians
Japanese
M
SD
α
M
SD
α
M
SD
α
AST
-.25
1.87
.71
-.30
1.73
.64
.12
1.62
.61
PBI-MC
2.27
.60
.90
2.14
.58
.91
2.08
.54
.89
PBI-FC
1.83
.75
.93
1.83
.59
.89
1.75
.62
.92
PBI-MO
1.18
.62
.90
1.34
.51
.84
1.15
.52
.84
PBI-FO
.93
.56
.87
1.11
.53
.86
.89
.43
.81
PA
3.42
.58
.81
2.99
.64
.86
2.82
.58
.72
NA
2.07
.68
.88
2.10
.68
.88
2.46
.76
.86
PRIDE-A
2.76
.55
.75
2.57
.64
.81
2.53
.64
.71
PRIDE-H
2.03
.53
.77
2.13
.62
.81
2.33
.63
.70
NPI
2.12
.46
.91
2.03
.43
.91
1.83
.48
.91
FR-RSES
3.96
.76
.91
3.73
.63
.86
3.47
.72
.74
FR-SC
3.73
.84
.79
3.63
.71
.81
2.84
1.04
.62
Criterion Measure
FR-SL
3.67
.66
.89
3.21
.61
.88
2.96
.54
.72
Note. AST = Ambiguous Statements Task; PBI-MC = Parental Bonding Instrument (Mother’s Care); PBI-FC = Parental Bonding
Instrument (Father’s Care); PBI-MO = Parental Bonding Instrument (Mother’s Overprotection); PBI-FO = Parental Bonding
Instrument (Father’s Overprotection); PA = Positive Affect; NA = Negative Affect; PRIDE-A = Authentic Pride; PRIDE-H =
Hubristic Pride; NPI = Narcissistic Personality Inventory; FR-RSES = Friend Rating of Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale; FR-SC =
Friend Rating of Self-Competence; FR-SL = Friend Rating of Self-Liking
59
Table 16. Cultural differences on all criteria for Study 1.
Euro-Canadians vs.
Japanese
Criterion Measure
Euro- vs. AsianCanadians
Asian-Canadians vs.
Japanese
d
p
d
p
d
p
AST
-.21
.10
.02
.84
-.25
<.001
PBI-MC
.33
.01
.22
.06
.11
.53
PBI-FC
.12
.31
.00
.99
.14
.40
PBI-MO
.06
.60
-.27
.02
.37
.06
PBI-FO
.08
.57
-.33
<.01
.46
.03
PA
1.04
<.001
.71
<.001
.28
.09
NA
-.53
<.001
-.04
.76
-.49
<.001
PRIDE-A
.39
<.01
.32
.01
.06
.69
PRIDE-H
-.52
<.001
-.19
.15
-.31
.05
NPI
.61
<.001
.19
.12
.44
.04
FR-RSES
.66
<.001
.33
.03
.39
<.01
FR-SC
.95
<.001
.14
.38
.90
<.001
FR-SL
1.19
<.001
.73
<.001
.43
.01
Note. AST = Ambiguous Statements Task; PBI-MC = Parental Bonding Instrument (Mother’s
Care); PBI-FC = Parental Bonding Instrument (Father’s Care); PBI-MO = Parental Bonding
Instrument (Mother’s Overprotection); PBI-FO = Parental Bonding Instrument (Father’s
Overprotection); PA = Positive Affect; NA = Negative Affect; PRIDE-A = Authentic Pride;
PRIDE-H = Hubristic Pride; NPI = Narcissistic Personality Inventory; FR-RSES = Friend Rating
of Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale; FR-SC = Friend Rating of Self-Competence; FR-SL = Friend
Rating of Self-Liking.
60
Table 17. Criterion validity: Average self-esteem – criteria relationships for each condition in
Study 2.
Control
Measure
Task Prime
Explicit Prime
Mean r
p
Mean r
p
Mean r
p
RSES
.51
<.001
.53
<.001
.49
<.001
IAT
.07
.04
.05
.28
-.03
.48
SC-IAT
.10
<.01
.05
.22
.05
.23
NLT
.01
.85
.11
.03
-.03
.55
Note. RSES = Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale; IAT = Implicit Association Test; SC-IAT = Single
Category IAT; NLT = Name Letter Test.
61
Table 18. Self-esteem – criteria relationships for each condition, controlling for response biases.
Control
Measure
Task Prime
Explicit Prime
Mean r
p
Mean r
p
Mean r
p
RSES
.43
<.001
.41
<.001
.43
<.001
IAT
.08
.02
.03
.49
-.05
.23
SC-IAT
.08
.01
.01
.89
.05
.26
NLT
-.03
.44
.11
.02
-.03
.48
Note. RSES = Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale; IAT = Implicit Association Test; SC-IAT = Single
Category IAT; NLT = Name Letter Test.
62
Table 19. Means, standard deviations, and coefficient alpha for self-esteem measures for Study
2.
M
SD
α
RSES
1.99
.60
.91
IAT
.38
.43
N/A
SC-IAT
.28
.28
N/A
Measure
NLT
1.02
1.97
N/A
Note. RSES = Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale; IAT = Implicit Association Test; SC-IAT = Single
Category IAT; NLT = Name Letter Test.
63
Table 20. Means, standard deviations, and coefficient alpha for all criteria and response bias
measures for Study 2.
M
SD
α
PA
3.20
.73
.88
NA
2.04
.78
.91
PRIDE-A
2.58
.70
.81
PRIDE-H
1.92
.54
.71
HINT
3.77
1.63
.96
FSQ
.16
.18
.49
ES-SC
5.64
1.26
.79
ES-SL
5.54
1.24
.87
ES-G
5.65
1.14
.88
ES-PA
6.64
2.42
N/A
ES-NA
1.39
1.46
N/A
IM
.28
.18
.72
SD
.31
.20
.79
Measure
MOD
4.59
1.09
.93
Note. PA = Positive Affect; NA = Negative Affect; PRIDE-A = Authentic Pride. PRIDE-H =
Hubristic Pride; HINT = Habit Index of Negative Thinking; FSQ = Feedback Seeking
Questionnaire; ES-SC = Essay rating of Self-Competence (independently rated); ES-SL = Essay
rating of Self-Liking (independently rated); ES-G = Essay rating of Global self-esteem
(independently rated); ES-PA = Positive Affect words used in participants’ Essays as coded by
LIWC; ES-NA = Negative Affect words used in participants’ Essays as coded by LIWC.
64
Figure 1. Correlations between implicit and explicit self-esteem measures in Study 1.
Note. APT = Affective Priming Task; SEL = Self-Evaluation under Load; GNAT-SU = Go/No-go Association
Test (Self-Unpleasant); GNAT-SP = Go/No-go Association Test (Self-Pleasant); SC-IAT = Single Category
IAT; SB-IAT = Single Block IAT; IAT = Implicit Association Test; AMP = Affect Misattribution Procedure;
BNT = Birthday Number Test. FU = False Uniqueness; SAQ = Self Attributes Questionnaire; FT = Feeling
Thermometer; FD = Feeling Differentials; SL = Self-Liking; SC = Self-Competence; RSES = Rosenberg SelfEsteem Scale.
65
Figure 2. Left panel: Correlations between explicit and implicit self-esteem measures in Study 2.
Right Panel: Relationships among self-esteem measures and response bias measures in Study 2.
Note. NLT = Name Letter Test; SC-IAT = Single Category IAT; IAT = Implicit Association Test; RSES =
Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale; IM = Impression Management; SD = Self-Deception; MOD = Modesty.
66
Figure 3. Left Panel: Implicit self-esteem – criteria partial correlations for Study 2. Right Panel: Explicit self-esteem – criteria partial
correlations for Study2.
Note. Results displayed here are controlling for modesty, impression management, and self-deception. NLT = Name Letter Test; SC-IAT = Single
Category IAT; IAT = Implicit Association Test; RSES = Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale. PA = Positive Affect; NA = Negative Affect; PRIDE-A =
Authentic Pride. PRIDE-H = Hubristic Pride; HINT = Habit Index of Negative Thinking; FSQ = Feedback Seeking Questionnaire; ES-SC = Essay rating
of Self-Competence (independently rated); ES-SL = Essay rating of Self-Liking (independently rated); ES-G = Essay rating of Global self-esteem
(independently rated); ES-PA = Positive Affect words used in participants’ Essays as coded by LIWC; ES-NA = Negative Affect words used in
participants’ Essays as coded by LIWC.
Implicit self-esteem
67
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