Four studies examined the construct validity of two global self-esteem measures. In Studies 1 through 3, the Single-Item Self-Esteem Scale (SISE) and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale (RSE) showed strong convergent validity for men and women, for different ethnic groups, and for both college students and community members. The SISE and the RSE had nearly identical correlations with a wide range of criterion measures, including domain-specific self-evaluations, self-evaluative biases, social desirability, personality, psychological and physical health, peer ratings of group behavior, academic outcomes, and demographic variables. Study 4 showed that the SISE had only moderate convergent validity in a sample of children. Overall, the findings support the reliability and validity of the SISE and suggest it can provide a practical alternative to the RSE in adult samples. More generally, the findings contribute to the research literature by further elaborating the nomological network of global self-esteem.

Self -conscious emotions (e.g., shame, pride) are fundamentally important to a wide range of psychological processes, yet they have received relatively little attention compared to other, more "basic" emotions (e.g., sadness, joy) . This article outlines the unique features that distinguish self-conscious from basic emotions and then explains why generally accepted models of basic emotions do not adequately capture the self-conscious emotion process. The authors present a new model of self-conscious emotions, specify a set of predictions derived from the model, and apply the model to narcissistic self-esteem regulation. Finally, the authors discuss the model's broader implications for future research on self and emotion.Willy Loman, the protagonist of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, experiences such profound shame from failing to achieve the American dream that he commits suicide by the final act of the play. In William Shakespeare's Macbeth, Lady Macbeth is so overwhelmed by guilt after murdering her king, she hallucinates spots of blood on her hands and takes her own life. Oedipus, the tragic hero of Sophocles' Oedipus Rex, is plunged into epic shame when he realizes that he killed his father and married his mother. Oedipus refrains from suicide but stabs out his eyes so he will never have to look himself, or others, in the face again. And in Ovid's Metamorphoses, the infamous Narcissus is so consumed by pride that he chooses eternal self-reflection over the possibility of a meaningful romantic relationship.As these four stories illustrate, self-conscious emotions, such as shame, guilt, and pride, play a central role in motivating and regulating people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors (Campos, 1995;. Self-conscious emotions drive people to work hard in achievement and task domains (Stipek, 1995;Weiner, 1985), and to behave in moral, socially appropriate ways in their social interactions and intimate relationships (Baumeister, Stillwell, & Heatherton, 1994;Leith & Baumeister, 1998;Retzinger, 1987). Most people spend a great deal of time avoiding social approbation, a strong elicitor of shame and embarrassment. We worry about losing social status in the eyes of others and, as Goffman (1955) noted, our every social act is influenced by even the slight chance of public shame or loss of face. In fact, according to the Cooley-Scheff Conjecture, we are "virtually always in a state of either pride or shame" (Scheff, 1988, p. 399).Researchers have linked self-conscious emotions to a wide variety of outcomes. Guilt, for example, has been found to be centrally involved in reparative and prosocial behaviors such as empathy, altruism, and caregiving (e.g., Batson, 1987;Baumeister et al., 1994;Tangney & Dearing, 2002). Shame has been shown to mediate the negative emotional and physical health consequences of social stigma; victims of physical abuse (Feiring, Taska, & Lewis, 2002) and HIV-positive men (Kemeny, 2002) suffer poorer emotional and physical health if they feel ashamed of their stigma. Shame is also assoc...

To provide support for the theoretical distinction between 2 facets of pride, authentic and hubristic (J. L. Tracy & R. W. Robins, 2004a), the authors conducted 7 studies. Studies 1-4 demonstrate that the 2 facets (a) emerge in analyses of the semantic meaning of pride-related words, the dispositional tendency to experience pride, and reports of actual pride experiences; (b) have divergent personality correlates and distinct antecedent causal attributions; and (c) do not simply reflect positively and negatively valenced, high- and low-activation, or state versus trait forms of pride. In Studies 5-7, the authors develop and demonstrate the reliability and validity of brief, 7-item scales that can be used to assess the facets of pride in future research.

The Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) is a widely used measure of narcissism. However, debates persist about its exact factor structure with researchers proposing solutions ranging from two to seven factors. The present research aimed to clarify the factor structure of the NPI and further illuminate its nomological network. Four studies provided support for a three-factor model consisting of the dimensions of Leadership/Authority, Grandiose Exhibitionism, and Entitlement/Exploitativeness. The Leadership/Authority dimension was generally linked to adaptive outcomes whereas the other two dimensions, particularly Entitlement/Exploitativeness, were generally linked to maladaptive outcomes. These results suggest that researchers interested in the psychological and behavioral outcomes associated with the NPI should examine correlates at the facet level. In light of the findings, we propose a hierarchical model for the structure of the NPI and provide researchers with a scoring scheme for this commonly used instrument.

The present research explored the controversial link between global self-esteem and externalizing problems such as aggression, antisocial behavior, and delinquency. In three studies, we found a robust relation between low self-esteem and externalizing problems. This relation held for measures of self-esteem and externalizing problems based on self-report, teachers' ratings, and parents' ratings, and for participants from different nationalities (United States and New Zealand) and age groups (adolescents and college students). Moreover, this relation held both cross-sectionally and longitudinally and after controlling for potential confounding variables such as supportive parenting, parent-child and peer relationships, achievement-test scores, socioeconomic status, and IQ. In addition, the effect of self-esteem on aggression was independent of narcissism, an important finding given recent claims that individuals who are narcissistic, not low in self-esteem, are aggressive. Discussion focuses on clarifying the relations among self-esteem, narcissism, and externalizing problems.