title: Passion, self-esteem, and the role of comparative performance evaluation.
abstract: Two studies were conducted to investigate the paradoxical behavior of obsessively passionate individuals: they tend to continue involvement in their passion activity despite reporting the activity as a source of ill-being. We suggested that elevated self-esteem in activity engagement could be one such persistence-promoting factor. In Study 1, we found that obsessively passionate individuals reported lower levels of global self-esteem compared with harmoniously passionate individuals, whereas they reported similar levels of activity-related self-esteem. We suggest that this indicates that obsessively passionate individuals try to compensate for low global self-esteem by utilizing self-esteem contingencies in their passion activity. Study 2 showed that activity-related self-esteem among obsessively passionate individuals was found to be strongly related to comparative performance evaluations, whereas no such relationship was found among harmoniously passionate individuals. We suggest that self-esteem contingencies related to comparative performance criteria represent a persistence-promoting factor among obsessively passionate individuals.
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Surveillance and Prevention, Division of Mental Health, National Institute of Public Health, Oslo, Norway.
authors.forename: Frode
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Stenseng
authors.forename: Lina Harvold
authors.initials: LH
authors.lastname: Dalskau
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007899:Leisure Activities / Q000523:psychology*; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation; D009770:Obsessive Behavior / Q000523:psychology; D011597:Psychomotor Performance; D011788:Quality of Life / Q000523:psychology; D012649:Self Concept