believe feedback confirming their negative self-image than information that
violates their expectations. Another way to look at this is to say that the neg-ative feedback reminds low self-esteem people of the low evaluations they
have of themselves (Dutton & Brown, 1997; Tafarodi & Vu, 1997). The
feedback triggers associations with related negative thoughts, reminding low
self-esteem people of other faults and weaknesses. This interpretation helps
us understand why low self-esteem people perform more poorly on a task
even when they have just imagined what it would be like to fail.
But we can also turn this question around. What is it about high self-
esteem people that prevents them from becoming discouraged after failure?Why don ’t they give up when they fail a test or do poorly at work? The an-
swer appears to be that high self-esteem people develop personal strategies
for blunting the effects of negative feedback (Heimpel, Wood, Marshall, &
Brown, 2002). Included in this arsenal is a tendency to respond to failure byfocusing attention on their good qualities rather than on what they have done
wrong. Whereas negative feedback causes people low in self-esteem to think
about their faults and failures, this same feedback leads high self-esteem peo-ple to think about their abilities and achievements.
The high self-esteem strategy for blunting the effects of failure has been
demonstrated in several investigations (Brown & Gallagher, 1992; Dodgson &Wood, 1998; Greve & Wentura, 2003; Schlenker, Weigold, & Hallam, 1990).
Participants in one study received feedback indicating they had performed
either well or poorly on an achievement test (Brown & Smart, 1991).
Participants were then asked how well a series of adjectives described them.
Some adjectives were related to achievement situations (for example, compe-
tent, intelligent ), and others were relevant for social situations (for example,
sincere, kind ). As shown in Figure 12.4, low self-esteem participants rated
5.05.56.06.5Rating of Social Attributes
High
Self-EsteemFailureSuccess
Low
Self-Esteem
FIGURE 12.4 Ratings of Social Attributes Following Success and Failure
Source: Adapted from Brown and Smart (1991).Self-Esteem 327