Outwardly strong but inwardly weak, pretensions to wealth? Exploring the impact of heterogeneous high self-esteem on materialism in a self-threat situation

doi:10.3724/SP.J.1041.2021.00667

Abstract

Abstract:

Three studies were conducted to explore the relationship between heterogeneous high self-esteem and materialism, and whether the relationship between heterogeneous high self-esteem and materialism would change under the self-threatening situation. In Study 1, the relationship between heterogeneous high self-esteem and materialism was investigated by questionnaires. The results showed that the secure high self-esteem participants had significantly lower materialism than the fragile high self-esteem participants. Study 2 manipulated self-threat by asking participants with different levels of high self-esteem to compare themselves to those with high/low attractiveness, and then measured explicit materialism, finding that the explicit materialism of the secure high self-esteem participants was significantly lower than that of the fragile high self-esteem participants. Study 3 manipulated self-threat with the virtual rank feedback on intelligence tests and then measured implicit materialism. The results showed that the implicit materialism of the secure high self-esteem group was significantly lower than that of the fragile high self-esteem group. It can be concluded that heterogeneous high self-esteem is not only the breakthrough point to resolve the contradiction between high self-esteem and materialism, but also the breakthrough to break the positive relationship between self-threat and materialism.

Key words: heterogeneous high self-esteem, materialism, self-threats

YANG Baoyan, CHEN Shasha, SU Shaoqing, CHEN Fangli. (2021). Outwardly strong but inwardly weak, pretensions to wealth? Exploring the impact of heterogeneous high self-esteem on materialism in a self-threat situation. Acta Psychologica Sinica, 53(6), 667-680.

Figures/Tables 3

Figure 1. The moderating effect of attractiveness threat between heterogeneity of high self-esteem and explicit materialism (95% confidence interval, p < 0.001).

Table 1 The response time of compatible and incompatible classification tasks (N = 109)

Fractions	Categorizing task	M	SD
Original fraction (ms)	Compatible classification	908.51	251.75
Original fraction (ms)	Incompatible classification	997.97	399.86

Figure 2. The moderating effect of intelligence threat between heterogeneous high self-esteem and implicit materialism (95% confidence interval, p < 0.01).

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