The Tell-Tale Heart: Self-Esteem and Physiological Responses to Social Risk

• Main Author: Huang, Eric
• Other Authors: Stinson, Danu
• Language: English; en
• Published: 2013
• Subjects: rewards; costs; social pain; challenge; threat; behavior; activation; inhibition; heart rate; reactivity; sociometer; acceptance; rejection; belonging; motivation; self-regulation
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1828/4898

Risky social situations afford the chance to obtain social rewards like acceptance and belonging but also afford the chance of suffering social costs like rejection and social pain. Extant research indicates that social risk triggers approach motivations in higher self-esteem individuals (HSEs) but produces avoidance motivations in lower self-esteem individuals (LSEs; e.g., Stinson et al., 2010). However, no research has investigated the mechanisms that explain this effect: Why does social risk polarize HSEs’ and LSEs’ social motivations? I propose that self-esteem and social risk interact to activate two primal regulatory systems: the challenge-threat evaluation system and the Behavioral Activation-Inhibition Systems. I test this hypothesis by examining whether self-esteem and social risk interact to predict physiological responses consistent with these primal regulatory systems. Participants experienced either a low or high risk social situation, and heart rate reactivity was measured throughout the studies. Across two experiments, for HSEs (i.e., participants scoring one standard deviation above the sample mean), higher social risk increased heart rate reactivity, suggesting activation of challenge appraisals and the behavior activation system. For LSEs (i.e., participants scoring one standard deviation below the sample mean), higher social risk decreased heart rate reactivity, suggesting activation of threat appraisals and the behavior inhibition system. My research provides evidence that the social regulatory function of self-esteem may have developed from more primal regulatory systems, an observation that increases the comprehensiveness of current self-esteem theories. === Graduate === 0451 === 0989 === 0621 === [e-mail]