The Impact of Conjoint Threats to Social- and Self-Esteem on Evaluation Apprehension

An experiment was conducted to examine the impact of simultaneous threats to socialand self-esteem on evaluation apprehension. Subjects were told they would take a potentially ego-threatening test and that only they, only another individual, both they and the other individual, or no one would see their test scores. Prior to the test, evaluation apprehension was assessed. Results showed that potential threats to selfand social-esteem both increased apprehension, but only in the absence of the other type of ego threat. Further, the presence of both sources of threat did not produce greater apprehension than either threat alone. Also, subjects who scored low versus high on a measure of self-esteem differed in their reactions to socialand self-esteem threats. Results suggest that the effects of conjoint threats to socialand self-esteem are not cumulative.

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