I like myself but I don't know why: enhancing implicit self-esteem by subliminal evaluative conditioning.
On the basis of a conceptualization of implicit self-esteem as the implicit attitude toward the self, it was predicted that implicit self-esteem could be enhanced by subliminal evaluative conditioning. In 5 experiments, participants were repeatedly presented with trials in which the word I was paired with positive trait terms. Relative to control conditions, this procedure enhanced implicit self-esteem. The effects generalized across 3 measures of implicit self-esteem (Experiments 1-3). Furthermore, evaluative conditioning enhanced implicit self-esteem among people with low-temporal implicit self-esteem and among people with high-temporal implicit self-esteem (Experiment 4). In addition, it was shown that conditioning enhanced self-esteem to such an extent that it made participants insensitive to negative intelligence feedback (Experiments 5a and 5b). Various implications are discussed.
Dijksterhuis
Ap
A
University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands. a.j.dijksterhuis@uva.nl
D000328:Adult; D000339:Affect; D001290:Attitude; D003213:Conditioning, Psychological; D005246:Feedback; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D012649:Self Concept; D013359:Sublimation, Psychological