top of page

 Self-esteem hypothesis

The first theory ,the self-esteem hypothesis , is that when people have an appropriate education and higher self-esteem,their prejudices will go away.Some researchers , including Michael Hogg and Dominic Abrams,thus propose a fairly direct relationship between positive social identity and self-esteem.In what has become known as "self-esteem hypothesis",self-esteem is predicted to relate to in-group bias in two ways. Firstly, successful intergroup discrimination elevates self-esteem. Secondly, depressed or threatened self-esteem promotes intergroup discrimination.

 

Some social identity theorists, including John Turner, consider the self-esteem hypothesis as not canonical to social identity theory. In fact, the self-esteem hypothesis is argued to be conflictual with the tenets of the theory.It is argued that the self-esteem hypothesis misunderstands the distinction between a social identity and a personal identity.

 

Distinctions are made between global and specific, personal and social, and trait and state self-esteem, and these are used to structure a review of over 40 studies concerning social identity theory's hypothesis that (a) intergroup discrimination elevates self-esteem and (b) low self-esteem motivates discrimination. It is observed that researchers have tended to employ measures of global personal trait self-esteem in their investigations of this self-esteem hypothesis, and it is argued that measures of specific social state self-esteem are more consistent with social identity theory's assumptions. Although no convincing evidence is found for the self-esteem hypothesis in its full and unqualified form, it is argued that this is due to a lack of specificity in its formulation and it is suggested that a more qualified and specific version of the hypothesis may be more appropriate.

Sources:https://www.cliffsnotes.com/study-guides/sociology/race-and-ethnicity/prejudice-and-discrimination

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_identity_theory

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s15327957pspr0201_3?journalCode=psra

bottom of page