Self-esteem research, arguably the largest field of research in the history of social science, has devoted much of its efforts to the idea that self-esteem causes a broad range of behavioral and social problems, but has failed to produce strong, consistent evidence for most claims. However, this research has conceptual and methodological problems, including a limited understanding of the role of culture, and the assumption that global levels of self-esteem are the main causal mechanism of interest. This paper argues that self-esteem motivated behavior may be better understood as socio-culturally contextualized pursuits of valued identities, which are difficult to understand without considering their social and cultural conditions. Self-esteem therefore lies at the intersection of culture and cognition, and it is argued that an interdisciplinary approach to self-esteem pursuits could be beneficial. A way to reconcile constructionist views of identity with a cognitive self is then suggested and discussed. It is possible, by drawing on models of neurocognition, to think of a cognitive self as performed, context-dependent, and emergent rather than fixed, internal, and expressed. Finally, the paper discusses the social contingencies and consequences of self-esteem pursuits in relation to research issues such as aggression, stratification, crime, masculinity, and political attitudes.

The expanding gaming industry now includes a large group of consumers who watch others play games. On Twitch.tvthe leading platform for gameplay streaminginfluencers livestream themselves playing games while viewers watch and interact with them. Previous research suggests that social interaction may be critical for a successful stream but has not studied gameplay streams as Interaction Rituals, a model describing how interaction lead to social motivation. Analysis of four gameplay streams shows how the streamer, through inclusion strategies and active viewer participation, promote viewer engagement in a way that resembles the mechanisms of offline Interaction Rituals. The model, therefore, appears to be useful for understanding how successful gameplay streams draw a returning audience through producing positive social emotions and parasocial attachment to the group.

Individualization remains the most prominent theoretical explanation for the shifts in European demographic trends since the 1960s, including decreasing marriage and fertility rates and increasing divorce rates. Demographic theorists suggest that a shift from traditional to individualized values, such as autonomy and self-realization, has been driving these trends. However, conceptualizing individualization as a set of values cannot account for why Swedish marriage rates have increased since 1998, despite highly individualized values. This article suggests re-thinking individualization as a form of internally referring attributions in causal and moral reasoning about human behavior, emphasizing agency and internal causes over structure or context. As such, individualization shapes peoples’ perceptions and understandings of the world, including their expectations of marriage and close relationships. Data from focus groups support this conceptualization and show how participants individualize risks, while perceiving marriage itself as inconsequential. In line with previous research, individualized reasoning obfuscated assumptions that were less individualized and implicit.

Self-esteem research has been in ''crisis'' during the last decade, due to the lack of strong, consistent correlations between self-esteem and behavioral outcomes. Some researchers have interpreted this as indicating that self-esteem is inconsequential in many important areas of life. However, the model of direct causality used in correlational research, between a general self-esteem trait and specific behaviors, may be unrealistic. In contrast, this paper develops a model of self-esteem-motivated behaviour as originating from past, current or future (desired) self-concepts. This model shows how an interaction of catalytic factors determines how self-esteem influences behaviour. That is, what ''self-esteem'' actually ''does.'' By clarifying the different ways in which selfesteem affects behavior, the model shows that construing self-esteem as a passive variable with direct causal influence on behavior is inadequate and misleading and that previous contradictory results are a consequence of this misconceptualization and subsequent reification of self-esteem. Because self-esteem and the self-concept are inseparable (one is an attitude towards the other) self-esteem-motivated behavior is always about self-construction, and thus performative. Future self-esteem research and theory should therefore focus on how people seek to enact, maintain, or defend a desired identity through performative actions.

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