Lr. Spalding et Cd. Hardin, Unconscious unease and self-handicapping: Behavioral consequences of individual differences in implicit and explicit self-esteem, PSYCHOL SCI, 10(6), 1999, pp. 535-539
In contrast to measure of explicit self-esteem, which assess introspectivel
y accessible self-evaluations, measures of implicit self-esteem assess the
valence of unconscious, introspectively inaccessible a associations to the
self. This experiment is the first to document a relationship between indiv
idual differences in implicit self-esteem and social behavior. Participants
completed either a self-relevant or a self-irrelevant interview, and were
then rated by the interviewer on their anxiety. When the interview was self
-relevant, apparent anxiety was greater for participants low in implicit se
lf-esteem than for participants high self-esteem implicit self-esteem did n
ot predict anxiety when the interview was self-irrelevant. Explicit self-es
teem did not predict apparent anxiety in either interview, but did not pred
ict participants' explicit self-judgements of anxiety. Self handicapping ab
out interview performance was greater for participants low in both explicit
and implicit self-esteem than for those high in these measures. The experi
ment provides direct evidence that effects of implicit and explicit self-es
teem may be dissociated.