THE VALUE OF UNIQUENESS - SELF-EVALUATION AND THE PERCEIVED PREVALENCE OF VALENCED CHARACTERISTICS

Past theory and research have provided conflicting evidence regarding whether perceived uniqueness is associated with positive or negative s elf-evaluation. Based on recent research on the role of scarcity perce ptions in evaluative judgments, it was predicted that whether perceive d uniqueness was associated with positive or negative self-evaluation would depend on whether uniqueness was perceived with regard to a desi rable or an undesirable aspect of the self. Subjects completed measure s of self-esteem and depression, listed the characteristics they liked most, least, and neither liked nor disliked about themselves, and est imated the prevalence of these characteristics in college students of their gender. As predicted, subjects with high self-esteem perceived t heir most-liked characteristic to be less common than did low self-est eem subjects. In contrast, high self-esteem subjects perceived their l east-liked characteristic to be somewhat more common than did low self -esteem subjects. The identical pattern was found when self-evaluation was defined by level of depression. The most negative self-evaluation s were found among individuals who perceived their most-liked characte ristic as relatively common and their least-liked characteristic as re latively rare. The implications of these findings for current theory a nd research on the relation between perceived uniqueness and global se lf-evaluation are discussed