A post by Eva Bleckmann
How individuals feel and think about themselves is strongly shaped by the people around them. Imagine three people, Harry, Ron, and Hermione, meeting at a party and striking up a conversation. They talk for hours, and Harry has the feeling that the others like him: He feels socially included, which makes him feel good and boosts his momentary self-esteem. While this mechanism seems to operate within all human beings, people also vary in how strongly their self-esteem responds to perceptions of social inclusion. Uncovering these individual differences in self-esteem and its reactivity is important for understanding how self-esteem develops and changes, especially during the formative period of adolescence. Adolescents are particularly sensitive to their social surroundings – how others think of them becomes more important, and they use the social feedback they receive from others to form a clear picture of themselves. With this in mind, the goal of our paper was to investigate the link between social inclusion and momentary self-esteem in social interactions of adolescents.
To start with, let’s consider two important aspects. First, since the experience of social inclusion can only come about through interacting with other people, the question arises: Whose perception of social inclusion is important for self-esteem? Is it Harry’s self-perception (e.g., he enjoys interacting with Ron and Hermione) that boosts his self-esteem? Or rather, is it what he believes others think of him, the so-called metaperception (e.g., Harry thinks that Ron and Hermione like him)? Finally, could Ron’s and Hermione’s actual perceptions, the so called ‘other-perception’, also impact Harry’s self-esteem by conveying social feedback through their behaviours towards him? In sum, social inclusion can be assessed through various interpersonal perceptions (self-, meta-, or other-perceptions) that may be differentially related to a person’s momentary self-esteem.
Second, social experiences can not only be viewed from different perspectives; they are also shaped by a person's unique patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviours – their personality. Suppose Harry is a very self-conscious person who scores high on the trait neuroticism; this could affect how strongly his self-esteem reacts to different perceptions of social inclusion. For example, if Harry believes that Ron and Hermione don’t like him, this may be particularly devastating to his self-esteem. Similarly, extraversion and agreeableness, which show positive relations to various social and relational outcomes, could function as moderators of the link between perceptions of social inclusion and self-esteem and strengthen it.
To investigate the role of different perceptions of social inclusion and an individual’s unique personality traits for momentary self-esteem, we took a look at different social interactions of adolescents. In the first study, we focused on 101 adolescents in a group interaction with unknown peers in the laboratory. On three occasions during the interaction, participants indicated their metaperceptions of social inclusion (e.g., how much they believed the others liked them), received other-perceived ratings of their social inclusion from other group members, and reported on their momentary self-esteem. In a second study, we moved out of the lab and turned to the daily lives of adolescents. In an experience sampling study, 218 adolescents (ages 15-18 years) reported their daily social interactions via their smartphones five times a day for seven days. For each social encounter, participants reported their self- and metaperceptions of social inclusion, as well as their momentary self-esteem. To capture other-perceptions of social inclusion, we asked participants to hand over their smartphone to their interaction partner each time they reported an interaction. Additionally, all adolescents in the first and second study completed a separate set of personality questionnaires.
What did we find across the two studies? First, interpersonal perceptions were differentially related to momentary self-esteem. In lab-group interactions, adolescents with more positive metaperceptions of social inclusion also reported higher momentary self-esteem. In contrast, actual other-perceptions did not consistently relate to their momentary self-esteem. Moving to daily social interactions, we further disentangled the associations between self- and metaperceptions of social inclusion: Adolescents’ positive self-perceptions of social inclusion went hand in hand with higher momentary self-esteem, whereas meta- and other-perceptions could not explain any additional variance in self-esteem. Thus, perceptions formed by the individual (self- and metaperceptions) seemed to be more relevant for momentary self-esteem than the actual other-perceptions of social inclusion across the different social settings that we explored.
As a second finding, our results suggested that personality traits did not consistently shape the associations between different perceptions of social inclusion and their momentary self-esteem. In lab-group interactions, neuroticism seemed to dampen the link between perceptions of social inclusion and self-esteem: Adolescents with high levels of neuroticism reported lower momentary self-esteem, even when their metaperceptions and the actual perceptions of others were quite positive. In contrast, we did not find any moderating effects of neuroticism in daily social interactions. Instead, the relationship between self-perceptions of social inclusion and self-esteem seemed more pronounced for individuals reporting higher levels of agreeableness. Taken together, our findings paint an intriguing picture, suggesting that personality may impact the association between perceptions of social inclusion and self-esteem differently across social contexts.
What do we gain from these results? Together, our findings suggest that the role of interpersonal perceptions and personality traits for momentary self-esteem depends, at least in part, on situational characteristics: Harry’s level of neuroticism may affect the link between his beliefs of how others see him and his self-esteem only in specific contexts (e.g., in group interactions with strangers). To this end, much remains to be discovered when considering the perceptual processes within social interactions and linking them to specific personality characteristics. By addressing the complexity of social interactions, we can improve our understanding of the dynamic interplay of personality and social experiences. In this sense, our study is the first to investigate the link between social inclusion and self-esteem from different interpersonal perspectives. By focusing on different social contexts, we have gained first insights into the complex microprocesses within social interactions that underlie adolescents’ momentary self-evaluations.