Unconscious unease and self-handicapping: Behavioral consequences of individual differences in implicit and explicit self-esteem

In contrast to measure of explicit self-esteem, which assess introspectively 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 individual 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 self-esteem than for participants high self-esteem implicit self-esteem did not predict anxiety when the interview was self-irrelevant. Explicit self-esteem did not predict apparent anxiety in either interview, but did not predict participants' explicit self-judgements of anxiety. Self handicapping about interview performance was greater for participants low in both explicit and implicit self-esteem than for those high in these measures. The experiment provides direct evidence that effects of implicit and explicit self-esteem may be dissociated.