'I wouldn't belong to any club that would have me as a member,"said
Groucho Marx--just as people with a poor self-image, it seems, don't
believe a compliment if they're the ones giving it. That was the finding
of researchers at the University of Texas at Austin, who discovered that
while people with high self-esteem can pat themselves on the back for a
good performance, those with lower opinions of themselves need to hear
the praise from someone else.
Robert Josephs, Ph.D., and Chris Jacobs gave one group of subjects
a set of problems rigged to become progressively easier, allowing them to
feel that their performance had improved. Other participants worked on a
set that remained difficult, and were then praised by experimenters for
their excellent showing.
People with favorable self-images felt good about themselves after
either episode, indicating that they were able to provide their own
positive reinforcement. Those with low self-esteem, on the other hand,
only believed that they had done well when told so by a second party.
Says Jacobs, "People with high self-esteem think that they're very
credible sources of feedback. If they think they're doing well, it's hard
to convince them otherwise. People with low self-esteem don't consider
themselves that credible. If they see themselves doing better, they don't
believe it."
Jacobs says the study's results cast doubt on the value of
self-affirmations, a self-esteem building technique found in many
self-help books and programs. For people with a poor self-image, it
seems, repeating the phrase "I am credible" won't make it so.
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