The authors examined whether stability and level of self-esteem interact with daily hassles in predicting severity of depressive symptoms. As predicted, Time 2 depression scores (with Time 1 scores controlled) were highest among individuals with unstable self-esteem who reported considerable daily hassles. By contrast, self-esteem level did not interact with daily hassles to predict Time 2 depressive symptoms. These findings held even after negative self-concept items were eliminated from the depressive symptom inventories. Additional analyses revealed that self-esteem stability accounted for variance independent of the tendency to over generalize following failure or negative event attributional style. These findings support the contention that unstable self-esteem reflects fragile feelings of self-worth that exacerbate depressive symptoms under certain circumstances.

Unstable self-esteem is thought to reflect fragile and vulnerable feelings of self-worth that are affected by specific positive and negative events. Direct evidence for this contention is lacking, however. To redress this situation, we examined the extent to which level and stability of self-esteem predicted the impact that everyday positive and negative events had on individuals' feelings about themselves. Participants recorded the most positive and most negative event that occurred each day Monday through Thursday for a period of 2 weeks. They then indicated the extent to which each event made them feel better or worse about themselves. As anticipated, negative and positive events had a greater impact on the self-feelings of individuals with unstable as opposed to stable self-esteem (although the effect for positive events was marginal). Additional findings indicated that event qualities (i.e., self-esteem relevance and concerns about social acceptance/rejection) could account for the unstable self-esteem/greater reactivity link for negative events, but not for positive events. Negative, but not positive, events had a greater impact on the self-feelings of individuals with low as compared to high levels of self-esteem. Theoretical implications are discussed.

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T\vo experiments investigated whether people overconsume nonpartitioned physical, spatial, and temporal resources; whether this overconsumption reflects intended or unintended processes; and whether these processes have adverse inferential and behavioral consequences. In Experiment 1, members of large groups overconsumed nonpartitioned resources of all types, especially nonpartitioned temporal resources. Moreover, these overconsumptions stemmed from both intentional motives as well as from an unintentional perceptual bias. Even when allocated their equal share of a nonpartitioned resource in Experiment 2, members of large groups judged it to be less than their equal share, a perceptual bias that produced pejorative trait inferences and retaliatory overconsumption choices. Theoretical and practical implications for resource management are discussed.