Department of Psychology, University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.
J Pers Soc Psychol. 2010 Dec;99(6):993-1013. doi: 10.1037/a0020310.
The authors draw on sociometer theory (e.g., Leary, 2004) and self-verification theory (e.g., Swann, 1997) to propose an expanded model of the regulatory function of self-esteem. The model suggests that people not only possess an acceptance signaling system that indicates whether relational value is high or low but also possess an epistemic signaling system that indicates whether social feedback is consistent or inconsistent with chronic perceived relational value (i.e., global self-esteem). One correlational study and 5 experiments, with diverse operationalizations of social feedback, demonstrated that the epistemic signaling system responds to self-esteem consistent or inconsistent relational-value feedback with increases or deceases in epistemic certainty. Moreover, Studies 3-6 demonstrated that the acceptance and epistemic signaling systems respond uniquely to social feedback. Finally, Studies 5 and 6 provide evidence that the epistemic signaling system is part of a broader self-regulatory system: Self-esteem inconsistent feedback caused cognitive efforts to decrease the discrepancy between self-views and feedback and caused depleted self-regulatory capacity on a subsequent self-control task.
作者借鉴了社会计量理论（例如 Leary，2004）和自我验证理论（例如 Swann，1997），提出了一个扩展的自尊调节功能模型。该模型表明，人们不仅拥有一个接受信号系统，用于指示关系价值高低，还拥有一个认知信号系统，用于指示社会反馈是否与慢性感知关系价值（即整体自尊）一致。一项相关研究和 5 项实验，通过不同的社会反馈操作化，证明了认知信号系统会对与自尊一致或不一致的关系价值反馈做出增加或减少认知确定性的反应。此外，研究 3-6 表明，接受和认知信号系统对社会反馈有独特的反应。最后，研究 5 和 6 提供了证据表明，认知信号系统是更广泛的自我调节系统的一部分：不一致的自尊反馈导致认知努力减少自我看法和反馈之间的差异，并在随后的自我控制任务中消耗自我调节能力。
