反思自我评价对自信的影响：关系型自我构念的调节作用

Reflected Self-Appraisals and Self-confidence: The Moderating Effects of Relational-Interdependent Self-Construal

本研究通过两个实验考察了反思自我评价对自信的影响,并探讨了关系型自我构念的调节作用。结果表明:反思自我评价能够预测自信。反思自我评价对自信的影响受到关系型自我构念的调节,当个体的关系型自我构念水平高时,反思自我评价越积极,个体越自信;当个体的关系型自我构念水平低时,反思自我评价对自信的影响不显著。

The present study aims to investigate the moderating effects of relational - interdependent self - construal between reflected self - appraisals and self - confidence. Self - confidence has been an issue of great interest in psychology, and for a long time researchers have tried to explore how people＇s self - confidence forms and develops. One common view is that through introspection and observing one＇s own behavior, people can get their self - concept. Besides, people also use reflected self - appraisals （ perceived evaluations by their close others） to know themselves. In the process of reflected self - appraisals, one＇s mind is on how his close others view him, thus it can activate his relational- interdependent self- construal （the tendency people have to perceive and evaluate themselves through others）. People with high relational - interdependent self - construal prefer to view themselves through relationships, while others with low relational - interdependent self - construal prefer an independent perspective for self - evaluation. Prvious work showed that people with different relational - interdependent self - construals could experience different levels of self - confidence when imagining his close others. Therefore, we hypothesize that relational - interdependent self - construal works as a moderating variable in the relation-ship between reflected self- appraisals and self- confidence. Two experiments demonstrated our hypothesis respectively from the perspective of relational - interdependent self - construal and primed relational -interdependent self- construal. In Experiment 1, 119 undergraduates filled the Relational- interdependent Self- construal Scale （the Chinese version） first, and then they were asked to answer to what extent 90 valence balanced trait words accorded with the appraisals from their closest friends so as to activate their reflected self - appraisals. Subsequently all the participants completed the questionnaire of self- confidence. In order to make sure that relational - interdependent self - construal, not other factors, influ- enced the relationship between reflected self- appraisals and self - confidence, we manipulated the level of relational - interdependent self - construal in Experiment 2. The procedure of Experiment 2 was the same as Experiment 1 except for the relational - interdependent self - construal task; 82 participants were asked to make sentences beginning with the word ＂I＂ or ＂we＂ in order to activate their low or high relational - interdependent self - construal. The results from Experiment 1 showed that： reflected self - appraisals can well predict self - confidence, t = 2. 91, p 〈. 01. For people with high relational - interdependent self - construal, the positive reflected self - appraisals could lead to high self - confidence, B = 2. 39, t = 3.76, p 〈. 001. For people with low relational - interdependent self - construal, reflected self - appraisals could not lead to significantly changed self- confidence, B = . 36, t = . 64, p 〉 . 05. Experiment 2 obtained the consistent results ： reflected self- appraisals had a significant main effect, F（ 1,78） = 16. 62, p 〈 . 001,η2 = . 18. Positive reflected self- appraisals could bring higher self - confidence to those who have been activated with high relational - interdependent self - construal. For people with low state relational - interdependent self - construal, neither positive nor negative reflected self - appraisals could influence their self - confi- dence, F（ 1,78） = . 59, p 〉 . 05, η2 = . 01. These results indicate that holding high or low relational - interdependent self - con- strual is important to one＇s self - confidence experienced at the very moment when one is thinking how others appraise oneself. Thus appropriately activating one＇s relational - interdependent self - construal is a reasonable way to develop his self- confidence.