Cognitive and emotional reactions to daily events: the effects of self-esteem and self-complexity.
In this article we examine the effects of self-esteem and self-complexity on cognitive appraisals of daily events and emotional lability. Subjects (n = 67) participated in a 2-week diary study; each day they made five mood ratings, described the most positive and negative events of the day, and rated these two events on six appraisal measures. Neither self-esteem nor self-complexity was related to an extremity measure of mood variability. Both traits were negatively related to measures assessing the frequency of mood change, although the effect of self-complexity dissipated when self-esteem was taken into account. Self-esteem (but not self-complexity) was also related to event appraisals: Subjects with low self-esteem rated their daily events as less positive and as having more impact on their moods. Subjects with high self-esteem made more internal, stable, global attributions for positive events than for negative events, whereas subjects low in self-esteem made similar attributions for both types of events and viewed their negative events as being more personally important than did subjects high in self-esteem. Despite these self-esteem differences in subjects' views of their daily events, naive judges (n = 63) who read the event descriptions and role-played their appraisals of them generally did not distinguish between the events that had been experienced by low self-esteem versus high self-esteem diary subjects.
Campbell
J D
JD
Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.
Chew
B
B
Scratchley
L S
LS
D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000328:Adult; D001290:Attitude; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007206:Individuality; D007389:Internal-External Control; D008016:Life Change Events; D008297:Male; D010555:Personality Inventory; D011340:Problem Solving; D012381:Role Playing; D012649:Self Concept