Page 256 - The Social Animal

238 The Social Animal

whatever they won. In the course of the game, they were presented
with a few opportunities to cheat in a situation where it seemed im-
possible to be detected. The situation was arranged so that if a stu-
dent decided not to cheat, she would certainly lose, whereas if she
decided to cheat, she would be certain to win a sizable sum of money.
The results clearly showed that those students who had previ-
ously received information designed to lower their self-esteem
cheated to a far greater extent than those who had received the high
self-esteem information. The control group—those receiving no in-
formation—fell exactly in between. These findings suggest that it
would be well worth the effort of parents and teachers to alert them-
selves to the potentially far-reaching consequences of their own be-
havior as it affects the self-esteem of their children and students.
Specifically, if high self-esteem can serve as a buffer against dishon-
est behavior, then it might seem reasonable to do everything possi-
ble to help individuals learn to respect and love themselves. A recent
field experiment lends support to such an idea, demonstrating the
potential benefits of bolstering the self-concept for academic
achievement. In this experiment, Geoffrey Cohen and his associ-
ates 67 found that African American children received significantly
higher grades if, at the beginning of the school year, their feelings of
self worth was bolstered by classroom assignments that focused them
on personal strengths and values.
We must be cautious in generalizing from these results. Bolster-
ing self-esteem is unlikely to produce positive effects if it is done in
an artificial or superficial way. If a person’s self-esteem is not
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grounded in reality or if it is narcissistic—based on a false sense of
superiority to others—this can produce a plethora of negative effects.
For example, in a series of experiments, Roy Baumeister, Brad Bush-
man and Keith Campbell found that when a person’s narcissistic
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self-esteem is threatened by criticism, the person will aggress against
his critic in an attempt to get even and restore his threatened self
image. In one experiment, they asked participants to write an essay.
This essay was subsequently criticized by their partner. After receiv-
ing the criticism, the participants were given the opportunity to ex-
press hostility against their partners by blasting them with an
unpleasant noise. The participants were in control of the decibel
level.The people who turned the noise-maker up to the highest deci-
bel levels turned out to be those who had scored high on measures