Implicit Self-Esteem: Nature, Assessment and Role in Psychopathologies

Abstract

The dual-process models explaining cognitive functioning paved the way for handling explicit and implicit dimensions of self-evaluations. In this direction, the focus has been on implicit self-esteem, which is one important element of unconscious self-evaluations. Many methods have been developed in which self-related stimuli are presented to measure implicit self-esteem. Thus, a new variable that can play a critical role in contexts such as personality, interpersonal relationships, and psychopathology has been defined in the literature on self-esteem, which is generally based on findings measured by self-reporting. The present review aims to shed light on the characteristics of implicit self-esteem, its role in psychopathologies, and traditional and second-generation measurement methods in this field. In this context, a review of studies focusing on the role of implicit self-assessment in different areas such as depression, anxiety, psychosis, and personality disorders is presented. Furthermore, the strengths and limitations of measurement methods are discussed. As a result, it has been observed that implicit self-esteem can play a central role in psychopathologies both in terms of its relation to explicit self-esteem and independently from it, however, studies on the subject have revealed inconsistent findings in some areas. Besides, it was determined that measurement methods are not strong enough in terms of psychometric properties and further studies are needed in this regard.

Keywords

• dual-process models
• explicit self-esteem
• implicit self-esteem
• implicit cognition
• psychopathology