The dark side of ambiguous discrimination: how state self-esteem moderates emotional and behavioural responses to ambiguous and unambiguous discrimination.
Two experiments examine how experimentally induced differences in state self-esteem moderate emotional and behavioural responses to ambiguous and unambiguous discrimination. Study 1 (N=108) showed that participants who were exposed to ambiguous discrimination report more negative self-directed emotions when they have low compared to high self-esteem. These differences did not emerge when participants were exposed to unambiguous discrimination. Study 2 (N=118) additionally revealed that self-esteem moderated the effect of ambiguous discrimination on self-concern, task performance, and self-stereotyping. Results show that ambiguous discrimination caused participants with low self-esteem to report more negative self-directed emotions, more self-concern, an inferior task performance, and more self-stereotyping, compared to participants in the high self-esteem condition. Emotional and behavioural responses to unambiguous discrimination did not depend on the induced level of self-esteem in these studies.
Leiden University Institute for Psychological Research, Leiden, The Netherlands. cihangir@fsw.leidenuniv.nl
Sezgin
S
Cihangir
Manuela
M
Barreto
Naomi
N
Ellemers
D004192:Discrimination, Psychological; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007389:Internal-External Control; D011581:Psychological Tests; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D012649:Self Concept; D013240:Stereotyping; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D055815:Young Adult