%A YANG Baoyan, CHEN Shasha, SU Shaoqing, CHEN Fangli %T Outwardly strong but inwardly weak, pretensions to wealth? Exploring the impact of heterogeneous high self-esteem on materialism in a self-threat situation %0 Journal Article %D 2021 %J Acta Psychologica Sinica %R 10.3724/SP.J.1041.2021.00667 %P 667-680 %V 53 %N 6 %U {https://journal.psych.ac.cn/acps/CN/abstract/article_4887.shtml} %8 2021-06-25 %X

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.