I Like Me If You Like Me: On the Interpersonal Modulation and Regulation of Preadolescents’ State Self‐Esteem

Abstract

This experiment tested whether peer approval and disapproval experiences can cause immediate change in children's state self-esteem. Children's narcissistic traits and evaluator perceived popularity were examined as potential moderators. A total of 333 preadolescents (M = 10.8 years) completed personal profiles on the Internet that were ostensibly judged by a jury consisting of popular and unpopular peers. Participants randomly received negative, neutral, or positive feedback from the jury. Next, they could examine the feedback that each individual judge gave them. As expected, peer disapproval decreased self-esteem, especially in children high in narcissism. In contrast, peer approval increased self-esteem. Moreover, disapproved children's self-esteem recovery was dependent on the extent to which they subsequently viewed positive feedback from popular judges. These findings support sociometer theory.

Adolescents’ comments in social media: Why do adolescents receive negative feedback and who is most at risk?

“…In addition, social media are typically designed to stimulate positive feedback on one another's selves, in particular through comments and likes on messages and photos. It is, therefore, not surprising that most adolescents receive mainly positive feedback on their online profiles (Valkenburg, Peter, & Schouten, 2006), and that this positive feedback stimulates their self-concept and self-esteem (Thomaes et al, 2010;Valkenburg et al, 2006).…”

“…In this period, adolescents can be extremely preoccupied with how their peers perceive them. As a consequence, they are highly sensitive to feedback from their peers, and especially to negative peer feedback (Thomaes et al, 2010).…”

Low and decreasing self-esteem during adolescence predict adult depression two decades later.

“…Indeed, research supports the assumption that peer popularity is related to higher self-esteem (e.g., Litwack, Aikins, Cillessen, 2012; Thomaes et al, 2010). As peers play an increasingly important role in adolescence, we included peer-rated popularity as a time-varying covariate (at all measurement occasions in adolescence) in our analyses to test for peer influences on global selfesteem (see Figure 1).…”

An experimental test of the effects of online and face-to-face feedback on self-esteem

“…This contradictory result may be due to differences in the operationalization of feedback. Earlier studies investigated feedback on adolescents' social network site profiles, which included feedback from several peers (Thomaes et al, 2010;Valkenburg et al, 2006), or a more general measure of the frequency of positive and negative comments on adolescents' profiles (Thomaes et al, 2010). In contrast, the current study looked at the effect of single feedback messages.…”