Papers from the International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology Conferences
Publication Date
2009
Abstract
Self-esteem is conceptualized in terms of self-feelings that are evoked by self-evaluation of self-concept and that motivate self-enhancing or self-protective responses. Since (sub)cultural conventions and the self-esteem motive frequently invalidate self-report measures, it is argued that self-esteem should be measured as the confluence of self-evaluative statements and measures of subjective distress. In support of this, findings are presented from a longitudinal multigeneration study that demonstrate variation in the association between self-evaluative statements and reports of emotional distress between groups differentiated according to race/ethnicity, age, gender, social class, and generation. The results clearly indicate that prevalent self-report measures, whether considering total scores or component items, have differential emotional significance depending on groupings.1
ScholarWorks Citation
Kaplan, H. B., Kaplan, R. E., & Kaplan, D. S. (2009). Subcultural influences on self-attitudes: The expression of low self-esteem in race/ethnicity-, age-, gender-, social class-, and generation-differentiated subgroups. In G. Aikaterini & K. Mylonas (Eds.), Quod Erat Demonstrandum: From Herodotus’ ethnographic journeys to cross-cultural research: Proceedings from the 18th International Congress of the International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology. https://doi.org/10.4087/NBCH9934
